Munna Is Jenn De La Vega’s Favorite Pokemon
Multimedia-multi-hyphenate Jenn De La Vega is recording WYFPATISSNAY in person to tell us about the cuter dream-eating pokemon. We talk the soft reboot in Gen V, what is the proper way to carry a Munna, and not making every single thing you do into content.
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Games and Feelings is an advice podcast about being human and loving all types of games: video games, tabletop games, party games, laser tag, escape rooms, game streams, and anything else that we play for fun. Join Question Keeper Eric Silver and a revolving cast of guests as they answer your questions at the intersection of fun and humanity, since, you know, you gotta play games with other people. Whether you need a game recommendation, need to sort out a dispute at the table, or decide whether an activity is good for a date, we’re your instruction manual. New episodes drop every other Friday.
Transcript
ERIC: Hello trainers, it's Poke time. This is "What's Your Favorite Pokémon, And Then I Say Something Nice About You” or #WYFPATISSNAY. You can just use the hashtag, you know how to spell it, it's #WYFPATISSNAY. It's a podcast, where we all think about Pokémon for a little while and nothing else. I'm Eric Silver, and I like my candies rare, but you got to do that reverse sear on it to get it right. If you don't do the reverse sear, if you do the regular sear, it just doesn't make any sense. Now I want to ask my guest, whether that's sear is proper, we have Jenn Dela Vega.
JENN: Hi!
ERIC: I am so excited, we're doing this in person.
JENN: Yeah, I— this is very thrilling. We have much, you know, three times the amount of energy in the morning because we're in person.
ERIC: I know. It is 10:30 in the morning, Jenn lives nearby, Jenn brought food.
JENN: Yeah.
ERIC: It's— Incredible, you're wearing a Pokémon hat.
JENN: Yeah.
ERIC: I don't think we've recorded any episodes of Games and Feelings other than the ones that where it's just Amanda and I as you know, everyone's favorite husband and wife team, we decided to make a podcast, obviously. We've never done anything in person, so this is thrilling.
JENN: I'm so honored—
ERIC: I know.
JENN: —to be the one to be recording in person.
ERIC: Look, I can almost touch you.
JENN: I can almost touch your fingers.
ERIC: We're so close at touching.
JENN: I— I'm not leaning hard at all.
ERIC: I know—I know.
JENN: But that's okay.
ERIC: I know, I’m not either! Jenn, I'm so happy you're here. I also didn't know you were such big a Pokémon fan.
JENN: I am an old-school Pokémon fan.
ERIC: Sure.
JENN: I— I cannot tell you anything about the new versions.
ERIC: Sure.
JENN: Except to that I know now there is a sandwich guy, and there are shiny Pokémon.
ERIC: Oooh, the sa—is, there's a sandwich Pokémon?
JENN: No, there's a guy I think—
ERIC: Oh, the guy making sandwiches.
JENN: —that make sandwiches. Yeah.
ERIC: Yeah.
JENN: They're like Jenn, there's someone in the game for you.
ERIC: In the—the so in the British one, Sword and Shield they did curries?
JENN: I heard about that.
ERIC: Which is this is like wild. And then in this one, the Spanish one like Spain and Portugal to the Iberian Peninsula.
JENN: Oh, I didn't know that.
ERIC: That was like sandwiches, but it's like, like layering Iberico ham on top of each other was that.
JENN: Yeah, tiny bites.
ERIC: I'll tell you, Jenn, there's way too much sandwich content in that game, and it's so unnecessary.
JENN: Way too much?
ERIC: Way too much.
JENN: Not enough.
ERIC: There is a main— sandwiches are a main plot point in the new game.
JENN: That makes me very happy and encouraged to go get it. Oh, ba— background.
ERIC: Yeah.
JENN: I'm a—I'm a chef, so that's why I am very obsessed with sandwiches. My username is Randwiches, random sandwiches, so.
ERIC: Oh, I actually never knew that that's why your username was that?
JENN: Oh yeah. Yeah, I'm obsessed with sandwiches. And I think to be honest, the whole Pokémon franchise is making up for the lack of food for the humans for the entire like series up until this point.
ERIC: Absolutely. I think that they had too many like food Pokémon?
JENN: Yes.
ERIC: It's like, am I supposed to eat them? I want to ask you this. Yes, Jenn, you are a person of incredible and many, many talents.
JENN: Uh-huh?
ERIC: You're the only person I know who's been near Guy Fieri.
JENN: Yes.
ERIC: As close to you who's hung out with him for an extended period of time?
JENN: I've hugged him, yes.
ERIC: Which is—I–we're just gonna have to come back to that later in this episode. What do you think about the current trend on Tiktok and Instagram, Instagram Reels, and just general content of people cooking Pokémon?
JENN: Oof.
ERIC: Have you seen that stuff, like Josh from Good Mythical Morning, the really incredibly high-key chef who was like six foot four?
JENN: Oh, sure.
ERIC: Who's always cooking Pokémon, or says how he's gonna cook Pokémon?
JENN: Oh my gosh, I didn't know this was a trend. But I also think it's an inevitability, but it's like, where do we draw the line of sentience? Like really? Because there are some they just say their names, but then others have like cognizance of feelings and emotion and you're like, oh, crap, where do— is it a pet? Or is it like a kettle?
ERIC: Yeah, that's a good point.
JENN: It's tough. I mean, where do we as humans draw the line too, you know?
ERIC: If a cow talk to you and said, I want you to free my brothers, would you still turn him into hamburger?
JENN: Tough. I don't know.
ERIC: It’s tough!
JENN: I'd have a hard time with that, with forming that connection with it.
ERIC: Radical jerky coming out this summer.
JENN: Ooof. But then again, I'm—you know, I'm not a person who will discount cultural practice from around the world, you know? There are—
ERIC: If someone around the world— if their tradition is eating Pokémon, you can do it.
JENN: You know, so like, I think there's this—there's this current argument in the food world about consuming horse?
ERIC: Sure.
JENN: Because I think in at least in the US, there is a snuck percentage, of horse—
ERIC: Right.
JENN: —meat in some lower quality mixes and fast food, oh boy. Google that one.
ERIC: Don't Google that one. Don't, please don't—
JENN: Don't Google that one.
ERIC: —don't do it.
JENN: But in other countries, there is a respectful practice of eating horse, you know? Because it's like—
ERIC: Sure.
JENN: It's an animal beasts of burden and you live in a Tundra, there's nothing—
ERIC: Yeah.
JENN: —really available. So there are—there are certain countries that do that, and it's like not something to get mad about.
ERIC: No, I understand that.
JENN: Yeah.
ERIC: It's not like we're doing great things with horses now.
JENN: No.
ERIC: Like, shout out to all the people who are like having their Black Beauty moment.
JENN: Oh yeah.
ERIC: But it's like, oh, you weren't—let's gonna make them run around a horse track. We love that. We love that we do that, and we pump them through of stu— full of stuff, and we gelled them. Don't Google what gelding is.
JENN: Don’t Google that at all.
ERIC: Don't Google what gelding is, and, yeah, it's not like we're doing anything better, we just don't put it in our mouths.
JENN: Yeah, yeah.
ERIC: Yeah, that's fair.
JENN: But you can eat Pokémon. If I were to eat a Pokémon.
ERIC: Yeah.
JENN: I don't know it—do you think Exeggcute would be spicy?
ERIC: Yeah. I mean, like, you know, the obvious ones, you know? It's like, I think you always take it a step further, is like when you're—you're kind of like butchering a Bulbasaur, or a Slowpoke, like, those are the two—
JENN: Yeah.
ERIC: —is like you see someone, it's like, the one I'm envisioning is like, cartoonish, and someone was like holding a butcher's knife, and like cuts off of the limbs of the Bulbasaur—
JENN: That’s sad.
ERIC: —and then like, snaps the bulb off, and then like, turns into a curry. And I'm like, this sucks. like, you're just doing this to make people upset.
JENN: Yeah.
ERIC: This is the Rugrats, Angelica is a traumatized child, and all the other kids are dead form of Tiktok.
JENN: Oh, God, I hadn't thought about that.
ERIC: Ohh, it’s—it—it’s Jenn, it's been on the internet for years.
JENN: Nooooo!
ERIC: It is like the foundations, the cement upon which Reddit is built.
JENN: Oh my gosh. But you know, it's— it's— it's easy to approach Bulbasaur from a culinary perspective, but would you approach Mr. Mime?
ERIC: Yeah.
JENN: See, no.
ERIC: No.
JENN: That's too you know, bipedal.
ERIC: See, the worry thing is, is that like, I've also seen the video of them butchering Mr. Mime, where it's like, hey, don't eat a Mr. Mime, but actually, the little red balls are fine if you boil them for a certain amount of time.
JENN: Heh!
ERIC: Someone's made this content. I feel like this just evolved into me reading things on a computer and reading it to you though.
JENN: Oh my.
ERIC: Which I guess is pod— which I guess is podcasting is about it. That's what it is. Okay, I really want to get to the actual episode.
JENN: Content.
ERIC: We can stop talking about butcher, the butchering of our lovely things that were for a podcast that we do monthly. We already have shot a little bit, your relationship to Pokémon? You've been playing Pokémon for—I think that we've had people on the show who are relatively younger.
JENN: Ahhhh.
ERIC: So I think—I think—have you been in—I feel like you were a fully formed human who made choices by when Red and Blue came out?
JENN: Yes. So I actually started with Yellow which was afterward.
ERIC: Oh, hell yeah. Yeah.
JENN: And I got into it from the show, like, I watched—
ERIC: Yeah.
JENN: I watched the anime and played the adventure that went along with the anime, so I knew it was gonna happen. But, you know, I— that's how I formed my early memories of Pokémon, yeah. And I didn't —I didn't play the— all of them.
ERIC: Okay.
JENN: So I sort of skipped around, and I actually just plugged it in recently. I have a Nintendo DSi.
ERIC: Oh, let's go.
JENN: And started playing Pokémon Black. I erased my previous game, and just started from scratch.
ERIC: Do you remember which ones you playing?
JENN: Yeah. Yellow, Pearl—
ERIC: Good choice.
JENN: Black.
ERIC: Nice.
JENN: And Pokémon Snap.
ERIC: Perfect. I mean that's the perfect ones. I think it's interesting because you— just like the very small micro generations in within this, like you own the 3DS, and I never own a 3DS. Because I hit that point in my life when I went to college, and I'm like, am I the kind of person who owns a 3DS? No, I play Halo with my bros, and I play like Mario 64 while drinking in my dorm when I'm 19 and I shouldn't be. And like I didn't know if I was the kind of person—you know, like, you need to ask yourself in college, do I still play video games? But then you come back to it in your—
JENN: I did.
ERIC: —middle tw—in your middle 20s and later, especially with the Switch for me. So it's like you had one because—and you ended up playing Black, which I know is an incredible, incredible game, which I've never played. I've never played Black.
JENN: Oh, my god!
ERIC: Black and White, I've never played X and Y.
JENN: There's a really crazy, it was like a kind of a prescient storyline.
ERIC: Yeah.
JENN: Like there's—there's a cult leader. And—
ERIC: Incredible.
JENN: —yeah, and there's this conversation about the treatment of Pokémon. You know, do we worship them? Do we keep them as pets? Are they the answer to all of our problems? And so—
ERIC: Hmm, good.
JENN: —there's a lot of like philosophy happening in a small pixelated game.
ERIC: Yeah.
JENN: But the Pokémon Black was probably the most magical version that I had played because you could get the full animation on the DSi.
ERIC: Oh sure.
JENN: It had like 3D when you cross like a giant bridge that was presumably going from Brooklyn to Manhattan?
ERIC: Right, because Unova which is the New York City of—
JENN: Yeah.
ERIC: —which is so funny, shout out to Trubbish, that's the fucking guy who shows up in Unova.
JENN: Oh my gosh, yeah, but umm I recently picked it back up and started remembering. Oh yeah, that's right. You find Munna as part of the main questline of—of going from town to town. And all these people are having like they don't remember their dreams.
ERIC: Yeah.
JENN: Yeah.
ERIC: And that is the Pokémon you brought here today is Munna.
JENN: Yeah, I brought Munna!
ERIC: What a Little guy!
JENN: Little guy. Though I will say my Pokémon, my favorite Pokémon have evolved haha.
ERIC: That's nice.
JENN: Evolved you know? I started with Pikachu and then went on to Psyduck, and then yeah, you know I have a very huge appreciation for Munna. I think I really liked the psychic Pokémon a lot.
ERIC: Oh, sure.
JENN: Yeah.
ERIC: First I want to ask you one question before we get into specifically your Pokémon. Ordinarily, when we do this over zoom, I asked people about the Pokémon merch the— if they have a piece of Pokémon merch within reach of them.
JENN: Yo.
ERIC: And you do!
JENN: I totally do.
ERIC: Which I was not prepared for.
JENN: I will—I will tweet a picture of this.
ERIC: Please.
JENN: I am wearing a Pikachu trucker hat.
ERIC: It's an absolutely incredible.
JENN: It is you know that opaque foamy yellow, it's got the big Pikachu face on the bill and then it has Pikachu ears sticking out of it.
ERIC: That's what I like about it. Like you know, if it didn't have the ears on it, it'd be like oh yeah, you're— you're gonna Von Dutch it up, just do like a trucker hat. But the ears really make it.
JENN: I mean, I would never really buy a trucker hat for myself.
ERIC: Fair, fair.
JENN: Yeah. I think I found this at a clothing swap like somebody was getting rid of this.
ERIC: I love it though. I think it really stands out with the actual ears.
JENN: Yeah.
ERIC: I think it's good because I can envision it without the ears. Like imagine—like someone who—well how much money did they save? Oh, I mean, I saved like 75 cents on production and not have the ears, but it actually makes it worth it.
JENN: Yeah.
ERIC: Incredible.
JENN: Love this hat.
ERIC: Alright, we are into our main segment of What's your Favorite Pokémon, And then I say something nice about you. We're talking about your favorite Pokémon, which is Munna. Jenn, because this is a audio medium, please describe what Munna looks like as best as you can.
JENN: Okay, Munna if you remember Tree Trunks from Adventure Time, Munna looks a lot like Tree Trunks, that tiny elephant from Adventure Time. Except Munna is pink.
ERIC: Yeah.
JENN: Doesn't really have a trunk like the—the descriptions on the internet say that Munna has a tiny snout, but it looks like just kind of like a hole.
ERIC: It looks like a hole—
JENN: Or a dot?
ERIC: –or a teapot, yeah.
JENN: Yeah, yeah like a spout.
ERIC: Yes.
JENN: And it has cute purple flowers on its—on its behind.
ERIC: Yeah, yeah it does.
JENN: And it floats. That's the most notable thing about Munna, is that it—it levitates.
ERIC: Oh, I didn't even know that.
JENN: Yeah, it does not walk on the ground.
ERIC: Incredible. Just a little floating elephant—
JENN: Yeah.
ERIC: —that's pink, that comes with its own patterning.
JENN: Yeah.
ERIC: I want to take a second and talk about Musharna, which is the evolution of Munna.
JENN: Oh yeah.
ERIC: Which is not— if you're thinking oh, the weird Pokémon with like a dream flag coming off of it. With like, it's snoozing drool coming off of it. That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about the little guy.
JENN: Hmm. Hmmm.
ERIC: I don't like that Musharna looks like an embryo.
JENN: Yeah, it looks very um, yeah fetal.
ERIC: We have Pokémon butchering, we have a fetal, fetal on here. This is a good episode so far. I love it, it comes with it’s own patterning. When you look at— when you look at the shiny, the shiny is bright yellow, so the—the flowers really pop. And it's the same color, the flowers are purple and pink.
JENN: Wow, I didn't know that.
ERIC: I know it's like little wallpaper. Little wallpaper. Okay, we talked about this a little bit. When did you decide Munna was your favorite?
JENN: Um it was sort of instant in the storyline of Pokémon Black because you know you're—you're exploring—there's this town of artists. Oh my gosh, it's Williamsburg it's so—
ERIC: Oh, it has to be.
JENN: It's so funny. It has to be Williamsburg.Tthere's artists, commune warehouses.
ERIC: I'm gonna look up when Black and White came out just to double-check that.
JENN: And everybody's having bad dreams or not bad dreams but the dreams are disappearing.
ERIC: Okay.
JENN: And the reason is that—
ERIC: Oh god they came out—they came out in 2011 it was 100% Williamsburg.
JENN: It was absolutely Williamsburg. Oh, my God.
ERIC: Oh, my God.
JENN: But yeah, Munna feeds on people's dreams, and you don't remember what your dreams are? Maybe that's why all of us don't remember our dreams because Munna has eaten our dreams. And it's harmless, and in the process of—of eating our dreams, it creates a dream mist which make— which makes people sleepy.
ERIC: So it's re— it's a reoccurring cycle?
JENN: Yeah.
ERIC: Is this like REM Sleep, is like it— Munna gets in there Rems you, and makes you sleep even deeper. And then you like come back, and then Munna gets a dream and puts you back in?
JENN: Yeah.
ERIC: It's like that's the REM cycle, it's Munna.
JENN: Yeah. And I think you know, Munna is a sleeper—a sleeper head. Cause—
ERIC: Yes, I was truly surprised she was Munna, I'll tell you.
JENN: Yeah because it's surprisingly powerful.
ERIC: Yeah.
JENN: You know as it evolves past level 17, you gain a lot of those familiar Mewtwo-level telekinetic powers.
ERIC: I just like yes, straight psychic type, Musharna is incredibly powerful, it's actually scary and dangerous.
JENN: Yeah.
ERIC: All psychic types, even like the ones— like the ones that I don't even know about but ended up showing up in— I don't know if you know anything about like professional, or like competitive Pokémon battling which I watch on YouTube when I'm— when I'm tired and I don't want to think about anything. Like they have like in DDD, which is just like a Pokémon, it looks like just a hey, draw creature, and then it's just standing on, it’s just like standing on little hooves.
JENN: Ohhh.
ERIC: And it's like, oh yeah, it's Psychic type I guess? Then it's mandatory for some versions of competitive Pokémon because it has Psychic moves as like Trick Room and the all those others like–
JENN: Trick Room, I remember that.
ERIC: Yeah, like all those other like support psychic moves. So psychic is—is incredible, especially when you're doing dou—double battles. Incredible. So wait, so I don't know anything about Black. So the plot is these artists in Williamsburg are having bad dreams?
JENN: Well, that is one of the towns.
ERIC: Okay.
JENN: So you know, as every other Pokémon game, you start in a tiny town, you have two friends and you have some nemesis that is unnamed or named—
ERIC: Butt.
JENN: —as you go.
ERIC: And Anus. Asshole or whatever you want to name it, yeah.
JENN: Whatever you want to name it. I— this one is called N I think.
ERIC: Okay.
JENN: And then you go to town to town, and it really culminates, and you start to interact with the main storyline of your cult—
ERIC: Sure. Right.
JENN: —in the artist's town. So there's an abandoned warehouse where there is a—you discover, oh, there's a Munna's eating everybody's dream.
ERIC: [laughs] it's a warehouse. Yeah, I've been to those parties in college.
JENN: Yeah, the warehouse.
ERIC: When I was in Williamsburg, yeah, it was a silent rave. It was also an art installation.
JENN: Yeah, I'll try not to spoil it but this is the first interaction with the cult.
ERIC: Okay.
JENN: So they try to kidnap Munna.
ERIC: Alright.
JENN: And so you go through the forest and try to get Munna back, and then people realize oh, wait, that's why our dreams are— I don't remember my dreams anymore.
ERIC: It's—they're— the Pokémon like this are so funny to me, like a running theme on with #WYFPATISSNAY, is how like, Game Freak just doesn't really care about like the world-building element of all Pokémon. So think wait, so there is this Pokémon that is written in the Pokedex, Munna likes to eat dreams, and it's very nice people know about it. It's ostensively everyone has access to Pokedex entries, and people like, what a Pokémon been's doing this to me?
JENN: Why are we surprised?
ERIC: Yeah. It's like oh, there's a Pokémon that can levitate, and this kind of— is a little elephant that floats in the air, I guess it does something. I haven't really noticed it, he's just kind of a Little guy.
JENN: Yeah, I love the—the evolution part of it too. You know Munna harnesses a lot of moon power.
ERIC: Sure.
JENN: There's a power—there's one move called Moonlight which heals itself.
ERIC: Oh, its— that's— you need a healing.
JENN: Yeah, super cute. But to evolve the Munna to Musharna, you need a moonstone.
ERIC: Hmm.
JENN: Yeah.
ERIC: And that's fine, those are so rare—are they still that rare in Black and White?
JENN: They were pretty rare and I always tried to keep my Munna as a Munna.
ERIC: Oh of course.
JENN: Love. Love my little— my little baby.
ERIC: Just a lethal—I like a little guy.
JENN: Yeah.
ERIC: You can just carry around. Munna is only 2 feet tall and weighs 50 pounds.
JENN: That—
ERIC: Really is like a big dog.
JENN: Yeah.
ERIC: It’s a big dog you grew up with.
JENN: One-hander or a two-hander, probably two-hander.
ERIC: I think it's two-hand—
JENN: Yeah, it’s a two hand job.
ERIC: —you can put it in a bag on the subway.
JENN: You could, I don't know if I could.
ERIC: I mean Unova subway? I'll go out there and put ‘em in. Hey, Jen, wha—do you want to know what inspired your Pokémon?
JENN: What inspired my Pokémon?
ERIC: Well, Munna appears to be straight up based on traditional Japanese incense burners called Coro.
JENN: Oh, I didn't know that.
ERIC: I know. They're using traditional tea ceremonies, but many styles of Coro have been developed to be used for insect repellent and can be used in the home.
JENN: Interesting because Bug Pokémon are very effective against Psychic
ERIC: Right, because if you —this isn't a way I remember it. If you have a phobia of it, it's super effective against psychic. So, it’s Bugs, Ghost, and the Dark.
JENN: That's so cute.
ERIC: Yeah. The insect repellent Coro, the ones that are used like not in important religious ceremonies. They're shaped like pigs and have patterns on them. So this is— just like the floral pattern on Munna. Literally, it's literally what it is.
JENN: I know, yeah, I was trying to think of the scientific explanation you know, in Pokémon, of why and a Pokémon would have a pattern body. A lot of the times in nature, you know, they have bright colors or patterns as aposematic coloration which is warning signs.
ERIC: You know so much stuff.
JENN: I—
ERIC: You know so much stuff.
JENN: —used to be a biologist. Yeah.
ERIC: So does it have the flower pattern too? I guess I'm looking at this in reverse.
JENN: Yeah to welcome, yeah.
ERIC: To welcome humans, to bring them into your home—
JENN: That's cute.
ERIC: So that they can feast on your dreams.
JENN: That's cute.
ERIC: I like that.
JENN: I love that. In later generations, Munna, the story becomes that Munna can eat bad dreams so that you don't have fitful sleep.
ERIC: Oh, I love that.
JENN: I like that.
ERIC: That's nice. The na—do you want to know about the name Munna?
JENN: Yes, please.
ERIC: So Munna is also the Japanese name, they didn't translate it for American audiences, shout out. Jenn, there are two real Pokémon that came out in the new generation. Smoliv and Lechonk.
JENN: Oh my gosh.
ERIC: The American translation team had a lot of fun with that.
JENN: Ohh, Smoliv.
ERIC: Smoliv. Jenn’s so “uhhhhh, I’m so old.” I know that's how they're selling it. But Munna seems to be a combination of the word Mu in Japanese which is dream and of course Luna for which is Latin for moon. It also could involve the word Munna like from heaven. Munna which is finished for egg, Hana which is Japanese for flour, or Munia-munia which is the onomatopoeia in Japanese for indistinct mumbling like when you're talking in your sleep.
JENN: Wait. Oh my god, I love.
ERIC: No—I love— I love so, so much the onomatopoeia's in Japanese.
JENN: I know.
ERIC: I think they're their— they feel like— I've ever heard like what rooster is sound like in different languages?
JENN: No.
ERIC: I think in Spanish I'm pretty sure it rooster goes Cuckoo Riku, which is very funny to me. But like I— Amer—in American onomatopoeia's, we just kind of like grab the shit and try to throw some English letters at them.
JENN: Yeah.
ERIC: But I feel like in other languages, they capture the feeling a little more.
JENN: Yeah, I learned a lot of that from One Piece.
ERIC: Oh, of course.
JENN: Yeah. You know “perori”, which is Lick. A lot of the characters have vocal tics where they say the thing that they're doing.
ERIC: Oh, of course. How are we supposed to remember the 5000 pirates that will show up?
JENN: Challenge me I can remember a lot of it.
ERIC: Yeah.
JENN: That's another show.
ERIC: No.
JENN: That's another show.
ERIC: Someone said on a podcast who was like an actor on the Harley Quinn—the new Harley Quinn cartoon, is like if you were gonna come in and be a new Batman villain, you need to have a different laugh than anyone who has ever come on.
JENN: Oh my gosh. Yeah.
ERIC: So each of the laughs have to be different. So it's like the same thing, but it's so much better in One Piece when you —you go up there and Frankie goes, “Super!”, so now I know.
JENN: “Super!” yeah.
ERIC: Now you know.
JENN: Love.
ERIC: Incredible.
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ERIC: Hey, it's Eric and I just picked up some snacks for Games and Feelings. I got the KFC double down which is back. And the bread of the sandwich or the chicken cutlets with like the–the mayo and the bacon in between. It is so chickeny, there's so much chicken. I think you should be a part of the Patreon at patreon.com/gamesandfeelings. Just like new patrons, Delphine and Meredith. Thank you for joining, I hope you continue to get us towards the goal of me going to the UK and bothering Jasper. And shout out to producer-level patrons Polly Burrage, Kelsey Duffy, and Meghan Moon, who bought the other color of the Pokémon game and will trade you their exclusive Pokémon, for your exclusive Pokémon. And they're always around when you need them, so you can just like hit him up on Discord and they'll just do it. If you want to be like these cool cats come and join patreon.com/games andfeelings. We are a part of the Multitude Podcasts Collective and we want to tell you more about what's going on there. We have refreshed the Multi-Crew tiers which our exclusive membership program for Multitude and we have great new benny's. At the Insider Tier for $10 a month get access to all things behind the scenes at Multitude, which includes a bonus monthly newsletter, access to our crew-only IG account, first dibs on any and all Multitude updates coming down the pike. Plus, all Insiders get 10% off all Multitude logo merch, which we have and I think you'd really like. At $20 a month at the Collectors Tier, you're part of the multitude Collectors Club. Each quarter Multi Crew Collectors will receive a specialty curated item from one of our hosts. These items are meant to inspire, entertain and spark conversation with your fellow Multi Crew members. Collectors are now eligible for live show guest tickets, for all digital and in-person events including VIP meet and greets when we are having them available. Plus you get Head Heart Gut, which is our weekly argument podcast which I think you really like, and much, much more. Check that out at multitude.productions/multicrew. We are sponsored for this episode by Shaker & Spoon, a cocktail subscription service that helps you learn how to make world-class cocktails right at home. Every box comes With enough ingredients to make three unique cocktail recipes developed by award-winning mixologists. All you need to do is buy one bottle of that month spirit, and you have all you need to make 10 drinks at home. This is a cost-effective way to enjoy craft cocktails and level up your home bartending skills. If you ever wondered how mixologist managed to create such incredible drinks, this is worth trying out. Order just one box or treat yourself to a monthly subscription. Take 20% off your first box at shakerandspoon.com/gamesandfeelings. That's $20 off shakerandspoon.com/gamesandfeelings. And now back to the games.
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ERIC: Hey Jenn, do you have a fun fact about Munna?
JENN: Do I have a fun fact about Munna? Well, my fun fact was that when you're having bad dreams, Munna can eat your bad dreams.
ERIC: I love that.
JENN: Yeah.
ERIC: I actually did a little bit of research on Munna. And when— Munna eats a good dream, it's actually pink mist.
JENN: Right.
ERIC: But when they have a bad dream—
JENN: It's dark mist.
ERIC: It's dark mist.
JENN: Yeah.
ERIC: Just like choosing a new pope.
JENN: Oh my god.
ERIC: They throw it in like the—the ceremonial on chimney, like the black comes out when they’ve chosen one.
JENN: I think that plays more off of the ori—the— the name origin.
ERIC: Sure.
JENN: With the incense.
ERIC: So like what would blac—what would dark smoke incense look like, if you put it in an incense burner?
JENN: Ohhh.
ERIC: Oh it's like are you're throwing like a spirit in there, and it's getting burnt out?
JENN: Yeah, maybe.
ERIC: That's cool.
JENN: Ohhh.
ERIC: That's tight as hell.
JENN: That's like doing that—that Wiccan tradition of trying— writing down something you want to say goodbye to you, and then burning it?
ERIC: Yeah.
JENN: Yeah.
ERIC: I—but then—and then you see the spirit comes out and then it burns green or something?
JENN: Yeah.
ERIC: Well, Jen, I would love to talk more about Black and White because that's actually my fun fact here is that I don't know if you knew about Black and white, but it was actually supposed to be—I don't know if they ever announced it, but it was a soft reboot of Gen One.
JENN: Oh, I didn't realize that.
ERIC: I think that they were trying to do it, like, you know, we're going from straight-up 2D sprites to 3D sprites on the 3DS.
JENN: I see.
ERIC: With Black and White, but I don't know if you notice, but there's no old Pokémon in the main game of Black and White.
JENN: There isn't, no.
ERIC: It's all only Gen five.
JENN: Yeah.
ERIC: Also now I'm going to call you Jenn five going forward.
JENN: I am Jenn five.
ERIC: And—therefore, there are a lot of Pokémon around in Gen five that seemed to be like reworkings of the original 151.
JENN: Yeah.
ERIC: For example, I mean I said Trubbish, but Trubbish and Gardevoir—Gardevoir are actually just like Grimmer and Muk, right?
JENN: Yes.
ERIC: Which is also interesting because Grimmer and Muk, when they were being developed before Gen 1 came out they were just going to be called NY and LA.
JENN: Oh my god!
ERIC: Or that was– it was going to be cof— that was going to be Koffing and Weezing, but still—
JENN: Still.
ERIC: Still, same thing.
JENN: Wow.
ERIC: Which I think is super interesting. So Munna and Musharna are actually directly related to Hypno and Drowzee.
JENN: That makes sense.
ERIC: And I like that Munna instead is a little guy, who you sit on— who eats your bad dreams. While Drowzee is straight up a fucking terrible yokai, who has no pants—
JENN: Yeah.
ERIC: –And yellow with weird snoot.
JENN: Terrifying.
ERIC: And eat—and dream eats you.
JENN: Yeah.
ERIC: Like same thing, but like Munna is your nice little dream catcher, while Drowzee like–
ERIC (as Drowzee): He-he, I’m gonna do, I’m gonna eat.
JENN: You would invite Munna into your home.
ERIC: Exactly.
JENN: Like Drowzee you'd be like, no.
ERIC: No, stay out there.
JENN: Yeah.
ERIC: Don't come in there, and then a Hypno shows up and uses it hypnotic ways and puts you to sleep.
JENN: This is more—yeah, malcontent from that angle. Yeah.
ERIC: Yeah. I feel like it was intentional to like teaching people what Hypnosis and Dream Eater were like the moves. Is like, oh, we need to have a dream eater. Like, I mean, the Drowzee straight up the dream eating yokai Yes, it's straight up the Baku where it's like, it looks like that, it looks like a little gremlin and eats your dreams and it's terrible. So it's like, oh, you got to put it to sleep, and then you have to use the dream meter and it actually hurts the Pokémon quite deeply. But it said Munna that's just like, no, I'm a little guy. I'm important for this plot, but don't worry. You probably have already played the game before, and if you didn't, I don't have to lean on it too hard.
JENN: Yeah.
ERIC: Which I thought that was really nice. A really funny thing though, they really love the idea of this. Because I mean in Japan, Pokémon are straight up just stuff from Japan.
JENN: Yeah.
ERIC: Whether we're talking about yokai it's straight up from Japanese Mythology or the things as we're talking about Munna's just a little incense. In Gen 1 and 3 and eventually, in Gen 7, the ones that are set in Kanto, there is a picnicker on Route 10, that mentioned she wishes there was a pink Pokémon with floral patterns which directly fits Munna.
JENN: Yeah, ohhh. That's so sweet.
ERIC: Yeah. Which again, I don't know if she's like–
ERIC (as NPC Carol): I wish there was incense next to me, that can help my dreams instead of a terrible yokai that wants to hurt me.
JENN: I mean, I also appreciate Munna, because I've— as an adult, really value sleep.
ERIC: Fair.
JENN: Really, really value sleep. You know, as opposed to when I was younger and we'd play Pokémon Yellow into the odd hours of the night.
ERIC: I mean you don't do that now?
JENN: No.
ERIC: No?
JENN: No.
ERIC: What do you—what do you do now into the odd hours of the night?
JENN: I sleep.
ERIC: Oh, you sleep. Good, you have very good work-life balance.
JENN: Yes, I try.
ERIC: Okay, game, life balance?
JENN: No, I don't have a good game, life balance like I—you'll catch me playing Skyrim on my lunch breaks for a little too long.
ERIC: Oh, of course. I am so tempted to buy Skyrim again and put it on my PC just to have.
JENN: The deluxe version, the anniversary version has all the DLCs plus fishing.
ERIC: Oh shit.
JENN: There is no fishing.
ERIC: Okay, now I—now I'm gonna go buy.
JENN: Yeah.
ERIC: It's like $10, I might as well just buy it. Oh my god. Alright, I have one final question for you in the first part of our interview today. Hey Jenn, if you and Munna were good buddies and lived in real life, what would you do together?
JENN: Oh my god. I would tie a little ribbon around Munna like you would a Junebug.
ERIC: Of course.
JENN: You know, that's it's like you know, leash but not a leash, ad just like carry it like a little balloon.
ERIC: With—I guess it does float. Okay wait—
JENN: Yeah.
ERIC: I don't have to carry it—
JENN: You don't have to carry it.
ERIC: —because it's floating.
JENN: Just have a little Velcro strap and like, like, come on little buddy, like a balloon.
ERIC: And Munna would just be like, eeeeh.
JENN: We go to the farmers market together.
ERIC: That's cute.
JENN: Get popsicles.
ERIC: How high off the ground does Munna float?
JENN: I don't actually know.
ERIC: Okay, do you think you can adjust it?
JENN: Probably?
ERIC: Because I li— I guess it's psychic type, it gives you whatever it wants.
JENN: I mean, but even if it were just half a foot off the floor, that's still cool.
ERIC: That's adorable.
JENN: Yeah.
ERIC: I wish all dogs in Brooklyn would just be like, a few inches off the ground. I feel like it would make everything so much more pleasant.
JENN: Yeah.
ERIC: Yeah.
JENN: You don't hear that scritchy scratchy?
ERIC: Jenn, I swear to God, right above us in the studio, there's just like some fucki— firstly, you're not allowed to have dogs in this building.
JENN: Ohhh.
ERIC: But here we are. There is someone down the hall who has terrible dogs and— but she—
JENN: Oh, no.
ERIC: —got in before there was the no dogs rule. I wonder if why there's no dogs rule. There is people above who have a dog, they bringing them in every once in a while, and I love dogs. I think dogs are neat.
JENN: Oh, yeah, I love dogs.
ERIC: I also dogs in the office. Cool. Great. I get to pet a dog. The number of misbehaving dogs that are in public places are insane.
JENN: Yes.
ERIC: So now every so often you just hear [scratching sound]
JENN: [scratching sound] scramble scramble, scramble womp.
ERIC: Yeah.
JENN: Scramble scramble womp.
ERIC: And like, it's always running around, and then it knocks its bowl—its water bowl over.
JENN: Oh, which is the very specific tinny sound like, wongwongwongwong.
ERIC: And the—the floor and the ceiling are the same here. So the water drips down and then splurts on me, and I'm like UGHHH, YOU DOG
JENN: Oh nooooo.
ERIC: The number of times I need to go up there and be like, Hey, please—
JENN: Noo.
ERIC: —stop. Don't do this.
JENN: Puppy.
ERIC: This is bad, and I don't—if only your dog would float a few inches above the ground that would be so much better.
JENN: Yeah.
ERIC: I love it so much. Okay, Jenn, we're here to the second portion of What's Your Favorite Pokémon, And then I say something nice about you. Which is the part where I say something nice about you, are you ready?
JENN: Yes.
ERIC: This is the first time I have to do this in person.
JENN: [laughs] you have to—you have to look me in the eye.
ERIC: I got to look you in the eye and say something nice about you.
JENN: So look me.
ERIC: I know. Can I put one of those hoods on you, like I'm giving you like a—um—
JENN: Yeah, I'm gonna pulled my hat over my eyes?
ERIC: No, it's fine. I—it's much better than me saying I'm going to execute you by gunfire.
JENN: Ohhhh.
ERIC: I give you a cigarette in the hood. No, I'm gonna say something nice about you instead. Jenn, you are so talented at so many things.
JENN: What?
ERIC: And it's absolutely wild.
JENN: What?!
ERIC: The first time that I met you, we were playing—I was GM-ing, Mothman.
JENN: Mothman
ERIC: Sitting on my couch and I need him to go away.
JENN: Uh-huh.
ERIC: And I just met you randomly, and then I'm like, “Oh my God, Jenn is a fun person.” And then you're like, “Oh, I'm actually like a professional chef.” And I'm like, “Oh, that's cool.” And you're like, “Oh, I'm working on cookbooks.” I'm like, “Oh, that's also cool.” “I'm working out this cool One Piece one”, and then I'm like, “Oh, I guess I need to watch One Piece.” And then you’re like, “Oh, I actually do catering.” And we're like, “Oh, that's great, you wanna do–”
JENN: “We're getting married!”
ERIC: “You wanna do you want to do our wedding?”, and you're like, “Yeah, sure that sounds great.” And then you just like you—and then you keep having more and more things that you're good at, and I find that incredibly admirable and fucking cool.
JENN: Thank you. I don't like to keep track.
ERIC: You just accrue it over the time?
JENN: Well, that way I don't really have to, you know be known for one thing or another.
ERIC: That's true. Then you're also—not only that, you've been on cooking competition shows.
JENN: Yes, it's true.
ERIC: Which is a Mike Single, definitely my— in my top five favorite things of all time. You've been on Triple G, you've been on Guys Grocery Games
JENN: Guys Grocery Games, yeah.
ERIC: Which is wild.
JENN: Season 10, Episode 5: The cheesy special.
ERIC: I don't—have we ever watched it? I don't think we've—Amanda and I never watching.
JENN: Oh my gosh.
ERIC: Because it's like this precious little thing, where it's like, I know Jenn's been on it. And I don't think I've ever had the guts to ask you what episode it is. I'm ready to get down—
JENN: Well now, now you know.
ERIC: —season 10, episode 5.
JENN: Yeah.
ERIC: It's also wild that you are on season 10, and it feels like that happened like 20 years ago.
JENN: It was 5 years ago—
ERIC: That's wild.
JENN: —few years ago. Yeah, they just religiously run the reruns—
ERIC: That's awesome.
JENN: On two network.
ERIC: Do you—how much do people hit you up when they see you accidentally ay Guys Grocery?
JENN: Well, I—
ERIC: And I know it's like one in like a kajillion episodes.
JENN: Yeah. So people do remember me and I got— I got followed in—it's especially when they run the rerun. So I'll—
ERIC: Sure.
JENN: —get a boost in social follows, but then I was at a Whole Foods in San Francisco shopping.
ERIC: Of course.
JENN: And—
ERIC: As you do.
JENN: —I was in sweats. I had my hair bundled on top of my head, I looked like crap. But a woman started following me and like, you know, peeking you know—
ERIC: Sure.
JENN: —around the corner and aisles and I was like, can I help you? And she was like, were you just on TV? and I was like, just on TV?
ERIC: [laughs] Were you jus—were you just on my television?
JENN: I was like, uh, I don't know, what do you mean? She was like, on Grocery Games? I was like, yes. I guess they just ran the rerun again, and yeah, this woman was like, can I have a selfie? And I was like, ahhhh.
ERIC: I look so bad. [laughs]
JENN: I look so bad, and I was like, sure. You know, with my like, very weak peace sign.
ERIC: I'm so tired and I'm in the city I don't live in. Hi, hello.
JENN: Yeah, with weak peace sign. You know how—how tired I am by how strong my peace sign is.
ERIC: The—fu—that's how you know your power level, that's why you need a moonlight.
JENN: Yeah. The moonlight.
ERIC: If you only had your Munna to—to bring moonlight down on you.
JENN: Need my Munna and my moonlight.
ERIC: Yeah, I— genuinely I don't know, I wasn't gonna say you'd be so much more interesting if you had a little floating Munna around with you. But the whole point of what I'm saying is, actually, you'd only be a little bit more interesting—
JENN: A tiny bit.
ERIC: Because you're in deep interesting.
JENN: Just a tiny bit.
ERIC: Jenn, what do you find to be the most like, I guess creatively fulfilling thing that you do? Would you say that it's like cookbook stuff and working on recipes? Would you say that it's like working on big events and weddings? Or would you say it's like—you know, I know you from your actual play stuff?
JENN: Yeah.
ERIC: Or is it something else? Are there various other creative things that you do?
JENN: Well, This is a recent thing that I've been interrogating about my life.
ERIC: Sure.
JENN: Like, do I need to change or have a tiny career revolution? Like do I need to change up what I'm doing? And I— every two years, I feel this way. But I—my friend Kate started almost like a writing group, but it's culinary.
ERIC: Oh, hell yeah.
JENN: So there's three or four of us that meet on a monthly basis and make something for each other, you know, with like a culinary challenge. We call it sort of this informal name of unscaling cooking.
ERIC: Sure.
JENN: And so we challenge each other to make Smorgastarta.
ERIC: Oh, hell yeah.
JENN: You know what that is? Thats—
ERIC: Yes, what is—what is that for our listeners?
JENN: It's a Swedish savory cake. So instead of cake and icing, you're using sandwich ingredients. So you bake your own bread.
ERIC: Yeah.
JENN: You make like egg salad, fish salad, and then ice it with like a cream cheese frosting, which has no sugar in it.
ERIC: I saw it on Bake Off, and I wanted it so badly, because I'm like, the British people are ruining this beautiful thing. But now hearing you here, I'm like I wa—the only thing I want—I want to go to Scandinavia to have it. It looks insane.
JENN: It's delicious. Yeah, it's a celebration sort of thing that you would have at tea time.
ERIC: Yeah.
JENN: And yeah, it's like our favorite bagels and lox.
ERIC: Yeah, truly.
JENN: You know, in a— in a sliced form, like a cake form.
ERIC: Yeah. And like making a— I can only imagine making a salmon salad for this savory cake. Is like, a little bit different, because then that will take away like the gushiness which I dislike about.
JENN: Hmm, hmm, yeah.
ERIC: I want it to be more dry and chunky like I want it so bad. That's awesome that you made that. See, again, you're just always doing stuff that I figure is fucking awesome.
JENN: Well, I—you know, I derive joy from A, cooking for other people, and B, like, I think what we're trying to get out with this little, you know, informal group is— is to not monetize.
ERIC: Sure.
JENN: You know, not hustle my hobbies.
ERIC: Yeah.
JENN: And so that's kind of where I'm—I'm happiest at this moment.
ERIC: Yeah. So it's like, it's a cooking writing group like a—
JENN: Kind of, yeah.
ERIC: It's a cooking quote, “writing group.”
JENN: Yeah.
ERIC: Oh, that's cool as hell though.
JENN: Yeah.
ERIC: Yeah. Do you feel like you need to put all of your creative outlets online? Whether its—
JENN: I'm trying like not to anymore.
ERIC: Okay.
JENN: Because, well, so this was a panic response from the pandemic.
ERIC: Right.
JENN: Because I was— I'm mostly a wedding caterer, I was trying to do that full time.
ERIC: And it was tight, Jenn's really good at it.
JENN: Uh, thank you.
ERIC: She's just—she's really good. She's really good at cooking, but also she's good at sourcing stuff.
JENN: Thank you.
ERIC: That's really great.
JENN: Thank you very much. But you know, in 2020, I had eight weddings, they all got canceled.
ERIC: Fuck.
JENN: And so that's when I started—I started working on Fun City. This is when I started Culinary Word of the Day, which is my other podcast, five minutes, learn a new culinary word.
ERIC: I'm gonna link so much stuff on the episode description today.
JENN: I'm so sorry, that the show notes are gonna be so long.
ERIC: It's worth it, this is gonna be like, here's all the stuff Jenn does.
JENN: Here's all the stuff, here’s my Link Tree, there you go.
ERIC: I'm going to link your massive One Piece Twitter thread as well.
JENN: Oh my gosh, yeah.
ERIC: Your greatest contribution, baby.
JENN: My greatest contribution to One Piece culture, yeah. Live tweeting One Piece, all the way through to the new episodes. Well, I did—I did stop when I got to Wano because I started watching at the regular pace that everyone was watching.
ERIC: Right. And then you're not, you're not fu— you're not like fun live tweeting.
JENN: No.
ERIC: You're just doing what everyone else is doing.
JENN: Yeah, not anymore. But my partner Chris wanted to start watching One Piece.
ERIC: Oh my god.
JENN: And so I'm on the second, I'm on my rewatch. I know it's absurd. I rewatched a thousand episodes of One Piece, and we're—we just ending the Big Mom Pirates, at Whole Cake Island.
ERIC: Hell yes.
JENN: I know.
ERIC: I don't even think I got that far, because I got really used to the English dub. And then like I hit— I think it was like Thanksgiving, 2021 or 2022, which is when the new ones were coming out. And then I'm like, wait, I'm gonna have to wait every single time that this comes out.
JENN: Yeah.
ERIC: And I think it was right before the mom stuff.
JENN: Yeah.
ERIC: And I never—and I just never got there. So I know—which is more than I think literally almost everyone else. Everyone's like, oh, yeah, I end at water seven. And I'm like, oh, yeah, no I know way more about what happens next.
JENN: You're more that tha—yeah, you don't want that. Yeah.
ERIC: Yeah. That's so funny. So oh, sorry, I totally interrupted you about posting all of the stuff that you do online, whether it's your actual play stuff, your cooking stuff, like, I don't know, do you see a relationship between like, needing to take photos and videos and reels of all of the cooking stuff you do? With like promoting and marketing, the digital stuff you do, whether to your streams or your podcast?
JENN: Yeah, there's an interesting relationship, at least when it comes to the cookbook stuff.
ERIC: Oh, sure.
JENN: Because I'm under an NDA, so I can't post those. But I take the photos for the function of the author knowing if their recipe turned out the way they wrote it.
ERIC: Right.
JENN: So I have a lot of use for those and I document a lot of stuff, just, you know, for posterity, for fact-checking. But then, you know, when the book does come out, one to two years later, I do have like an archive of things that I can reference. But you know, it—time has passed, and now I have like a zoomed-out perspective of the process, and I can pick and choose instead of feeling everyday pressure of like, I need to post something today. So there's like a little bit of editorialism—no, editorializing in that, but I can— I don't have to post everything anymore.
ERIC: Sure.
JENN: I feel. I don't know I'm trying to be less online.
ERIC: Yeah.
JENN: Tra— trying. Tra—trying.
ERIC: But being online is so good for your mental health and for all the stuff that you do. I don’t know what you’re talking about.
JENN: If I want to sleep on time, no.
ERIC: That's what you need your Munna.
JENN: I know.
ERIC: Right. This is the last question because I always love talking about this with you. I think that you are very zen about this whole actual play stuff. Because I'm super wrapped in—wrapped up in it. Because like, especially with everything that's going on with the OGL, Dungeon, and Dragons, and with Wizards of the Coast, and like the new movie, and everything. I'm just like, fuck these guys, this sucks. I can't believe this happened to a game I like. I play other games that I liked, Dungeon and Dragons, I like doing it. And you have never been like attached to D&D in this way.
JENN: No.
ERIC: You've never played a game of D&D on a microphone before, right?
JENN: I did like a one-shot.
ERIC: Sure, sure, sure.
JENN: But it's true. So I've had a lot of salty tweets about—
ERIC: Yeah, of course.
JENN: —about this. Because I've read like, I know what's happening with OGL, and I know, I saw the movie trailer, oyyy.
ERIC: It makes me—it makes me so mad.
JENN: It makes me so mad, but I don't have this intense response to it, because my first tabletop game was not D&D. And this is why I advocate for people to check out other games. Because there are so many out there, there are so many low commitment games like I would say for me, I am a low commitment tabletop player because we— I have like this dedicated series that I work on with Shadowrun. And while Shadowrun is known, you know innocent lamb, I literally heard there's just one guy in marketing.
ERIC: Yeah.
JENN: At Catalyst, and it doesn't have that same—I don't know, ire behind it. I mean, there are people get angry about Shadowrun like, Oh, you're not playing the rules, right? And I'm like, whatever, I'm having fun with it. So yeah, my—my reaction to a lot of the Dungeon and Dragons news and drama is very zen because I didn't form that childhood or earlier attachment to it.
ERIC: Yeah.
JENN: And I'm—I'm a late gamer.
ERIC: Yeah.
JENN: Late gamer. I didn't start playing tabletop until after I was 36.
ERIC: Oh, shit.
JENN: Yeah.
ERIC: Do you like—I mean do you—
JENN: Or 35, 35.
ERIC: It was— It must have been 30.
JENN: Yeah.
ERIC: You're like—what you're like 22, right?
JENN: Oh, that's so nice. Asian don’t raisin.
ERIC: That's a good one, I've never heard that one before.
JENN: It's just so amazing.
ERIC: That's a really good one. Yeah, I mean, you know, you can say this about anything. But it's just like being a well-rounded person is always helpful so that you're not just like stuck in one thing.
JENN: Yeah.
ERIC: And, yeah, no, I like hearing your perspective, it always kind of like recenters me, in this whole thing—this whole thing when I get really like, annoyed by some bullshit that's happening.
JENN: So nice.
ERIC: And Jenn’s like, “Look at this game I found, you play as a little animal.”
JENN: Yeah.
ERIC: And you build a society, it's fun.
JENN: Yeah.
ERIC: I mean really, I mean, but you're always on like the cutting edge. Like people are really loving Brindlewood Bay, which is something that like, I can't even wrap my head around because I'm— my head is so stuck in the— in the, in the sand and being a man about this stuff.
JENN: Yeah, that was a coincidence, like at Shannon O’Dell and I did a guest, one shot on the One Shot Podcast—
ERIC: Yeah.
JENN: —with Tim Platt. And Tracy, the other Tracy on Twitter introduced us to Brindlewood Bay. And when Mike told us that we might need to take a break from Fun City, he asked, who would be interested in GM-ing mini-series. And I was like, oh, I want to try, I've never done it before.
ERIC: Sure.
JENN: And I was like, why don't we try Brindlewood Bay? It's very easy entry, it's very troped—TV trophy.
ERIC: Yeah.
JENN: Really easy to get into. So that's what we're doing right now. Cozy City, Episode 3 is out now.
ERIC: Can you give a pitch for Brindlewood Bay, because like, I know the vibes around it, but I don't even know like what the game is?
JENN: Oh my gosh, Brindlewood Bay can be played as a one-shot, or as a continuous campaign over many sessions. But think of it as a cozy murder mysteries.
ERIC: Yeah.
JENN: Where everyone plays an older lady in a retirement community called Brindlewood Bay. And you all read these mystery novels, The Gold Crown Mysteries—
ERIC: Of course.
JENN: —by Amanda Delacorte. And that's the basis of your like little investigation group because murders happen left and right. And as that happens, there is also this underlying void mystery. Where there's a cult that tries to summon a child of Persephone like so, some underwater monster, some cathodic demon. So it's cool that there are two layers like there's a mystery or solving at hand. And then there's a mystery in the town that you uncover over the course of many other murders.
ERIC: I'm so glad that you describe this because I thought that like the old lady's murder part was something that people were putting on top of Brindlewood Bay. But now I understand everyone's just coming up with new settings to put their old ladies.
JENN: Yeah.
ERIC: That's awesome.
JENN: It's fun.
ERIC: I'm going to include this at the bottom of your big list link of stuff.
JENN: Yeah.
ERIC: But this game looks really really cool.
JENN: Yeah, it was written by Jason Cordova of The Gauntlet, which also has a few other wonderful games. But yeah, I've been really knee-deep in Brindlewood Bay.
ERIC: It's— it's really, really awesome. Uh, Jenn, thank you so much for coming, for being here in person. I also want to say you brought us food.
JENN: Yeah.
ERIC: When you came to the studio, which is another nice thing that you do, and I love that you always have leftovers of things that you give me because it's my—my favorite thing in life. And it's one of my top favorite things about you.
JENN: This is why we are friends.
ERIC: You know cooking stuff. You're like hey, do you want this thing? And also you always tempt me with the shit you're making on social media. And I'm like, yeah Jenn, I want whatever you're making, I just want it.
JENN: Yeah, am—am I a chef if I do not cook for other people?
ERIC: True, that's true. Am I a good guest, if I don't eat all of it, I'll tell you exactly what I like about it.
JENN: There you go, there you go.
ERIC: True. thank you so much for coming.
JENN: You’re so welcome.
ERIC: Where can people find you on the internet?
JENN: Um, uh, y'all can find me @randwiches on Twitter and Instagram and on— on Twitch @Jdellavegs, where I stream every Wednesday at 5 pm.
ERIC: Hell yeah.
JENN: And my talk show, Attack the Pantry which Eric has been on.
ERIC: I was— I was on so long ago. I was thinking about that I felt so stupid.
JENN: No.
ERIC: Like I was just like, I feel like I just came on and talked about Jewish sandwiches for like an hour.
JENN: It was illuminating when you talking about. And you also told me I was bathed in God's light because I was allergic to coconuts.
ERIC: Yeah. That’s something I would say. 100% I'm doubling down on that. God gave put it inside of you. She yes she's cause God is a woman, very important. She told you that you were better than the devil fruit which is coconut.
JENN: There you go.
ERIC: Because if she didn't want us to get into coconut, why would she have made the shell so hard?
JENN: That's what he said.
ERIC: The coconut is fucking disgusting.
JENN: Yes.
ERIC: Oh, Incredible. Yes. Let's add streaming to one of the many, many things that you do. Incredible. Alright. This is What's your favorite Pokémon, And then I say something nice about you here within Games and Feelings. Tell people about this. This is only our third new #WYFPATISSNAY in Games and Feelings. I hope that you're all enjoying it and just like recommend it to a friend, so I can keep doing it. I keep doing Games and Feelings weekly. Next week, Jasper is coming back. Jenn. you gotta come back for another episode.
JENN: I love Jasper.
ERIC: Jasper is the best. Jenn has been on a different episode of Games and Feelings all the way back when we were Bi-weekly. You gotta come back to hang out with Jasper, it will be wonderful.
JENN: I miss him.
ERIC: He's— he's always here. He's always around I ge— I'm like, wow, you're on the other side of the ocean, I get to just bother you with dumb questions. You can follow me on Twitter and on Instagram @El_Silvero. E L underscore S I L V E R O. My name if I was a lucha libre wrestler. And you can follow Games and Feelings on Twitter @gamesnfeelings like Linens 'n Things because that's what Elon Musk did. He said I wasn't allowed to do the whole and because he's allowed to do whatever the fuck he wants, which is stupid cause he sucks. That's all the time we have. Thank you so much, Jenn. I'm so happy we're here.
JENN: You're so welcome.
ERIC: And I choose you, friendship!
JENN: Friendship!
ERIC: Friendship, look we can we touch! I’m gonna lean!
JENN: Oh, we touched!
ERIC: We touched.
JENN: They touched fingers. We touched.
ERIC: And we did it.
[theme]
ERIC: Games and Feelings produced by Eric Silver and edited and mixed by Mischa Stanton. The theme music is returned to French toast Castle by Jeff Bryce and the art was created by Jessica Boyd. Find transcripts for This episode, and all episodes at our website, gamesandfeelings.com. Until next time, press X to enjoy the podcast.