Episode 62 starts where every serious AI podcast should: Adam Sandler movies, Bobby Boucher lore, and a suspicious black eye.Then things spiral fast.Drew Brucker and Rory Flynn catch up after the holidays and dive headfirst into what’s actually happening across Midjourney, Nano Banana Pro, system prompts, and the growing gap between “fun” image generation and production-ready work. They unpack why Midjourney V8 still hasn’t landed, what the Style Creator and personalization updates really mean, and why editing remains the most important missing piece.From there, they break down how system prompts, structured workflows, and layered instructions are quietly becoming the real unlock for visual AI. Expect deep talk on nodes, Claude, Gemini, Nano Banana Pro, mood boards, contact sheets, consistency at scale, and why most people are still underusing these tools.Then the existential dread kicks in.They explore Moltbook and autonomous AI agents talking to each other, forming communities, filing bug reports, questioning consciousness, and accidentally exposing their owners. It’s funny. It’s uncomfortable. It’s probably important.The episode closes with Google Genie, open-world AI environments, and the creeping sense that we’ve officially crossed into “things are getting weird” territory.Equal parts practical, hilarious, and mildly alarming. Just another normal week in AI.---⏱️ Fast Hour00:01 – Episode intro and the mystery black eye00:35 – Waterboy, Bobby Boucher, and Sandler nostalgia05:53 – Why mid-budget fun movies disappeared07:46 – Midjourney Office Hours and no v8 yet09:26 – Mood boards, Style Creator, and quality drop-offs10:39 – New Style Creator controls and SREF biasing11:40 – Why Midjourney is still fun to use13:35 – Corporate phrases as horror prompts16:26 – Midjourney UI vs other tools19:01 – What “higher quality” actually needs to mean22:18 – Consistency problems at scale23:06 – Personalization updates explained26:03 – Editing models and what’s missing28:18 – Nano Banana Pro vs Midjourney for client work30:00 – System prompts as visual infrastructure31:19 – Why most people misuse Nano Banana33:32 – Multi-step prompts and real workflows36:34 – Letting LLMs define style for you39:06 – Mood boards, Cosmos, and dataset curation44:49 – Building AI-ready style guides from images49:21 – Open-source Nano Banana prompt libraries56:07 – Claude organizing chaos at scale01:06:26 – Moltbook and autonomous AI agents01:09:30 – Bots forming communities and social behavior01:14:54 – Consciousness, validation, and AI identity01:21:45 – Google Genie and open-world AI01:26:19 – Wrap-up and listener call-outs

Episode 61 turns the Midjourney Fast Hours mic over to the audience.Drew Brucker and Rory Flynn go fully live for an AMA that exposes where visual AI actually stands right now. Not the hype decks, but the messy, useful, (occasionally) frustrating truth.They break down what Midjourney v8 really signals, why the long-awaited edit model has become table stakes, and how Nano Banana Pro quietly changed everyone’s workflow whether they admit it or not. They debate node-based canvases like Weavy and FreePik Spaces, talk through Kling vs Veo 3 vs Runway for motion, and unpack why so many tools feel powerful yet exhausting at the same time.Along the way, they tackle...creative paralysisnegative promptingresolution mythsvideo realismpricing chaostool fatigueand the uncomfortable reality that AI creativity is now limited more by decision-making than by capability.It’s candid and opinionated. And it’s exactly the conversation most AI creatives are already having in their heads.If you’re using Midjourney, Nano Banana Pro, Weavy, Kling, Veo 3, or just trying to stay sane in the visual AI arms race, this episode is required listening.--⏱️ Midjourney Fast Hour(s)00:00 – We’re live, welcome to Episode 6102:45 – What this AMA will really focus on04:14 – From LinkedIn Lives to a full podcast05:34 – Midjourney V8 expectations vs reality08:05 – MJ vs Nano Banana Pro workflows10:15 – Resolution, text, and why pixels matter13:26 – Seadream 4 vs 4.5 honest reactions15:15 – Runway 4.5 and the Nvidia signal17:59 – Grok as a sleeper visual AI platform19:42 – Is Midjourney falling behind?22:29 – Edit models as non-negotiable24:04 – Node-based tools and FreePik Spaces28:07 – Camera control and multi-angle tools31:27 – Tool overload and UX fatigue36:43 – Creative paralysis and decision overload41:33 – Gating content, growth tactics, and trust44:44 – X vs LinkedIn for AI discovery49:11 – Are LoRAs still relevant?54:40 – FreePik Variations first impressions56:08 – How much creators actually spend monthly01:02:49 – 3D workflows and what’s coming next01:10:10 – Strategy vs experimentation for teams01:15:03 – Transitioning from image to video01:20:21 – Motion capture, Kling, Veo 301:22:21 – Has AI killed the creative muse?01:28:13 – Was learning to prompt a waste of time?01:31:56 – Dance realism and motion problems01:34:21 – Where creative AI goes next01:36:00 – Biggest breakthroughs of 202501:39:11 – Negative prompting and visual defaults01:46:21 – Final thoughts and what’s next

In this final episode of 2025, Drew Brucker and Rory Flynn zoom out to dissect what actually mattered this year across Midjourney, Nano Banana Pro, ChatGPT Image 1.5, Weavy, video models, workflows, and the uncomfortable truth about how fast all of this is moving.They unpack the real inflection points no one labeled at the time. Why March quietly changed everything. Why Nano Banana Pro rewired image editing expectations. Why Veo 3 reset video. Why Midjourney still feels magicalWhy workflows (not models) are becoming the real creative advantage.Along the way, they spiral into mood boards, personalization hacks, node-based systems, AI video limitations, why Hollywood feels creatively bankrupt, how Grok quietly became a research weapon, and why Midjourney’s next move might determine whether it stays an artist’s playground or becomes a professional tool.It’s opinionated. It’s nerdy. It’s honest. It’s occasionally unhinged.And it’s the clearest snapshot of where AI creativity actually stands heading into 2026.If you’re trying to keep up, slow down, or figure out where to place your bets next year, this episode is your unfair advantage.---⏱️ Midjourney Fast Hour00:00 – Episode 60 kickoff and end-of-year reflections01:50 – From niche experiment to mainstream behavior04:00 – AI finally reaches non-technical families06:18 – Why working solo in AI can feel isolating09:03 – Music, creativity, and early signs of AI music adoption11:02 – How fast AI actually shipped in 202512:14 – 100+ major releases and why that number matters13:01 – The real start of image editing workflows14:46 – March 2025 was the quiet inflection point16:06 – Multi-modal chat changed prompting forever19:20 – Veo 3 and why video suddenly jumped ahead21:41 – Why Google quietly dominated 202523:00 – Why hype cycles now last 48 hours23:51 – Nano Banana Pro and precision image control26:02 – Grok as a real-time research engine27:49 – Why physics in AI video finally started working29:12 – Nodes, workflows, and why visualization matters30:26 – Why Nano Banana Pro felt like “AGI for images”31:26 – Will 2026 move even faster?32:25 – Release cadence, VC pressure, and reality checks34:03 – Images vs video: who’s actually ahead36:18 – Why Grok might be the sleeper winner38:36 – Data, platforms, and why distribution matters41:28 – Consolidation and acquisitions are coming44:14 – What Midjourney must do next45:23 – Image editing as the make-or-break feature48:43 – Workflow fatigue and creative burnout52:50 – Personalization, mood boards, and creative joy56:44 – Why mood boards drove the best work of 202559:12 – Personalization profiles vs mood boards01:00:43 – Why Midjourney still feels different01:02:27 – Scale, permutations, and professional use cases01:06:36 – Resolution, editing, and real production constraints01:10:22 – Why small failures still matter01:13:00 – Hollywood, creativity, and AI backlash01:17:17 – Why creators beat platforms01:22:25 – Audio and voice as the next bottleneck01:23:55 – Constraint-driven prompting in 202601:30:14 – Looking back at January vs now01:38:23 – Final predictions and advice for 202601:42:34 – Season two wrap and sign-off

Drew and Rory stumble back from the holiday chaos—one fresh off vacation, the other barely resurrected from a mystery NYC illness.

Between fever dreams and booger fingers, they somehow manage to tear into ChatGPT's Image 1.5 disappointment, expose why Nano Banana Pro is quietly dominating their workflows, and reveal the Weavy automation setup that's actually working (while FreePik continues its reign of mediocre terror).

The duo gets brutally honest about why OpenAI feels like it's slipping, why negative prompting might be more important than what you actually want to create, and how to build your own custom AI tools in Google AI Studio without selling your soul to another subscription.

Plus: vintage Kodak rally cars, the art of perfect thumbnails, coconut water in cocktails, and why their illness prevention protocols involve more vitamin C than common sense.

If you survived their holiday absence and made it through the mandatory 20-minute ramble tax, you'll be rewarded with legitimate workflow gold that actually ships.

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⏱️ Midjourney Fast Hour

00:01 A Mr. Sniffles cold open

05:18 Prompting while sick, then getting cooked on X

07:35 An “Am I an AI artist?” reality check

15:08 Moodboards, unsettling styles, and “what counts as art”

27:39 Blade, Pluribus, and movie still inspiration sites

31:42 Midjourney V8 quiet, Style Creator alpha changes

37:45 The pace of releases and tool fatigue

40:37 World models, Veo 3, and the next leap

43:28 ChatGPT Image 1.5 talk and why it’s still behind

46:12 Nano Banana Pro flex, Freepik waits, and why it matters

49:17 Weavy workflow walkthrough: from ref to shot list

55:26 Contact sheets, “mini LoRA” vibes, and system rules

59:14 Kling o1 keyframes: why 3–10 seconds is a cheat code

01:03:32 Real text and brand risks in outputs

01:06:52 Build your own Nano tool in Google AI Studio

01:08:01 Writing models: ChatGPT vs Gemini vs Claude

01:09:23 Negative prompting becomes the main event

01:11:25 Wrap, thumbnails, and holiday chaos

Rory and Drew celebrate crawling their way to 30k subs, then immediately prove they are barely qualified to handle it by turning a Stranger Things binge into a full-blown lecture on composition, lighting, and how to reverse-engineer blockbuster shots into Midjourney and Nano Banana Pro prompts. They talk like film school dropouts who discovered prompts instead of lenses.

From there, they unpack fresh Midjourney office hours: the upcoming UI/UX overhaul with continuous scrolling, better color control, a reworked style system, and the big one: parallel edit models that finally keep you inside Midjourney instead of forcing you into five other tools. They break down what “better text handling” could realistically mean for real-world client work, what to expect from Midjourney V8 training in January, and why business use cases will decide who actually wins this model war.

Then it’s a long, dangerous slide into Nano Banana Pro obsession. They show how they are using it for real campaigns: ingredient flat-lay diagrams with perfect labels, knolling that actually respects object counts, thumbnail iterations in minutes, hyper-real food tweaks (“make the cheese more brown and bubbly”) and product work where text on bottles and labels actually holds up. Think: turning moodboards into branded cars, movie-poster typography onto existing art, and multi-shot car sequences that are clean enough to use as video keyframes.

In the back half, they zoom out into systems: building custom Nano tools in Google AI Studio, using JSON prompts, if-then logic, and style libraries to create reusable pipelines for teams that are not prompt nerds. They rant about broken N8N workflows, fake Instagram “AI automation” grifts, and share where affiliate tools actually see conversions today across YouTube, X, and LinkedIn.

It is part Midjourney V8 rumor mill, part Nano Banana Pro clinic, part therapy session for creatives trying to stay sane in an algorithm that clearly prefers trolls and evolving Pokémon.

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⏱️ Midjourney Fast Hour

00:00 Midjourney Fast Hours hits 30k subs
01:28 Stranger Things S5, film craft & AI framing
05:39 Turning cinematic shots into AI prompts
07:33 Pop culture prompts, memes & brand tie-ins
08:38 Nano Banana branding tricks & model hype cycle
09:38 Midjourney swag, “non-sponsored sponsors”
10:12 Midjourney UI overhaul & scrolling-style feed
15:46 Midjourney edit models and in-app image editing
20:16 Midjourney V8 timing, text handling & business use
24:41 Midjourney vs other models for real client work
26:47 Free image tools, casual users & competition
30:57 Nano Banana Pro: real-world client use cases
36:31 Micro edits, product shots & text stress tests
42:33 Product versioning, depth tests & asset variants
44:25 Car branding, moodboards & Nano video keyframes
46:20 Polaroid race car branding & design details
50:09 Building custom Nano tools in Google AI Studio
55:21 Style libraries, handoff workflows & reverse prompts
59:17 If-then logic for prompts, GPTs & image systems
01:03:01 From tokens to full-blown image systems
01:04:21 Instagram grifts, empty funnels & manychat rage
01:05:15 Platforms that actually convert for AI tools
01:06:38 Algorithm chaos, Pokémon and death threats
01:06:58 Midjourney swag, the Faye cameo & water bottle talk
01:07:58 Future video model hype, skepticism & sign-off

Drew and Rory pull up to Episode 57 running on fumes and caffeine, only to get smacked in the face by one of the wildest AI weeks of the year.

Midjourney drops two new features back-to-back like it’s nothing, Google drops Nano Banana Pro into the world like a nuke, and both guys are out here pretending they’re emotionally prepared (they’re not).

They clown themselves for completely misusing Style Creator on day one, break down how user profiles actually work, and speculate on whether v8 is hiding the surgical editing tools everyone’s been begging for.

Then the Nano Banana Pro segment hits and things get unhinged: micro-edits that used to take an hour now take a second, text layouts that look like a designer touched them, coherence hacks, refraction tricks, split-stack continuity workflows, and some examples from the community that genuinely feel illegal.

If you’re trying to stay ahead in Midjourney, Gemini, or AI creative workflows in general, this episode is basically the “don’t-get-left-behind” starter pack.

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⏱️ Midjourney Fast Hour

00:00 – Cold open + Thanksgiving chaos

01:16 – Stream kickoff + why this week exploded

01:47 – Midjourney drops two features in two days

02:23 – First reactions to Style Creator

04:52 – How Style Creator confuses everyone at first

06:18 – Refining styles + the 5–15 refinement rule

07:40 – Style history, safety nets, and code tracking

08:36 – Eliminating style-drift anxiety

09:25 – What Style Creator still gets wrong

10:21 – Smart Search wish-list + missing features

11:29 – Does refinement actually improve downstream results?

12:15 – Style Creator verdict: fun, but who needs it?

13:26 – Ending sessions + saving yourself from randomness

14:38 – Style Creator wrap-up

15:08 – Midjourney user profiles deep dive

17:34 – Spotlight, archive, and profile curation

18:43 – Private vs stealth vs public image management

20:47 – Social linking + hopping across profiles

22:52 – Portfolio potential + what’s still missing

27:22 – The V8 conversation: what MJ still owes creators

29:50 – The editing limitations everyone wants fixed

30:24 – Nano Banana Pro enters the chat

31:57 – Google’s naming chaos (again)

32:53 – Nano Banana Pro’s first real test: auto-summarizing video

35:30 – Split-stacks, keyframes, micro-sequences

41:34 – Refraction, distortion, and text-on-glass tricks

45:35 – Micro-editing breakthrough examples

48:33 – Best platforms for running Nano Banana Pro

50:13 – Gemini Studio vs Weavy workflows

52:13 – Multi-step layouts: text + objects + composition

55:18 – Design briefs, ingestion, and real client examples

57:57 – Why every team now needs a Nano Pro person

01:01:02 – The “segment anything” Meta update + VFX workflow talk

01:03:00 – Minority Report future of editing

01:04:20 – Feeling behind while the internet shows off

01:05:40 – Lighting setup extraction examples

01:06:04 – Thanksgiving scheduling + next week’s plan

01:06:35 – The “full sprint” AI moment

01:07:19 – Outro

Drew and Rory start with eyeball horror, Stranger Things hype, and the idea of AI-powered contact lenses before stumbling straight into the real mind-melt: Midjourney, Grok Imagine, Mystic 3, and Flux all colliding in one episode.

They roast their own prompts, trigger an accidental NSF-DoubleU moment live inside Grok, argue about “flux face,” and still somehow manage to pull out real, practical tips for people trying to make better AI images without losing their minds.

Across an hour of chaos, they unpack Midjourney v8’s subtle shifts, hidden personalization signals, Style Explorer tricks, Smart Search shortcuts, Grok’s Sora-style infinite feed, Mystic 3’s scary-good skin detail, and why Midjourney still owns lo-fi, lived-in, “shot-on-a-phone” energy.

If you care about composition, cinematic ratios, editorial portraits, food realism, or just want to hear two people dunk on Flux and node editors while actually teaching you something, this one hits.

Listeners will come away knowing how to use stills archive for composition, when to skip upscales for more analog realism, how Grok Imagine’s image + video workflow really behaves, and where Mystic 3 can replace Midjourney in a serious portrait or product stack.

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⏱️ Midjourney Fast Hour

0:00 Intro, eyeballs, and a Friday brain check

2:05 Contact lens horror stories, Mission Impossible, Black Mirror eyes

3:07 Stranger Things Season 5 hype and binge vs weekly TV

4:51 Movies, biopics, sports docs, and couch season setting in

6:23 Cowboys documentary, sports pipelines, and TV as passive story feed

7:00 AI overload, nobody keeping up, and why this pod exists

8:30 Midjourney profiles, Style Creator, and new personalization talk

9:29 Like/dislike buttons as hidden training data and 7:3 aspect ratio love

10:35 Stills Archive, cinematic framing, and cleaner compositions

12:00 Style Explorer vs old-school SREF and what quietly vanished

13:16 Three under-the-radar Midjourney Smart Search + right-click + Option-upscale tweaks

15:35 V8, fewer wall-of-text prompts, and a move toward visual controls

18:12 First look at Grok Imagine’s interface and infinite scroll feel

19:35 Sora-style endless bottom feed, variants, and “make video” in Grok

22:51 Cinematic looks, color grading, and Grok as “idea and curate” engine

24:19 Live NSFW surprise inside Grok Imagine and instant rating change

25:23 Finding Grok history, stills, and video exports with sound

26:31 Who actually gets Grok video and Drew’s first real reaction to using it

27:38 Mystic 3 enters the chat and upscaling less for analog vibes

29:02 Why “too sharp” screams AI and how grain + smart detail saves realism

30:18 Outpainting, editing, and why Midjourney still wins surgical compositing

35:01 Mystic 3 V3 screen-share and first impressions

35:45 Editorial portraits, skin detail, eyelashes, and hands that finally look human

37:26 Mystic 3 model comparisons: Zen, State-of-the-Art, and weird description blur

39:16 Zooming all the way into pores, fingerprints, and micro skin texture

43:44 Cocktail and food prompts where Mystic falls behind Midjourney

50:05 Nano Banana 2 rumors, native 4K wishes, and how Midjourney might respond

50:58 Why Midjourney still rules lo-fi, disposable camera, and Polaroid-style shots

52:16 Grok Imagine vs Flux vs Midjourney for lived-in Y2K flash photos

53:39 Flux face, direct flash tests, and “go flux yourself” is born

55:30 Nodes, Grok workflows, and why scrolling is faster than wiring graphs

56:01 Why Midjourney is avoiding node-based interfaces on purpose

57:05 Final sendoff: go flux yourself and get out of here

Rory and Drew return from Halloween with coffee, chaos, and a nerdfest on node-based creation.

They speed-run Midjourney office hours, gripe about missing “make him smile” buttons, then crack open the new wave: nodes in Krea, Freepik Spaces, and Weavy...batching, branching, and wiring prompts like a patch bay.

Drew admits he’s been using v6 personalization inside v7 like a goblin. Rory shows how to spin one image into 20+ shots and auto-write video prompts, then turns pencil sketches into cinematic frames with structure-reference wizardry.

It’s equal parts workshop and roast of their past selves.

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⏱️ Midjourney Fast Hour

0:01 – "Tell your dog walker to subscribe”

1:08 – 55 episodes in: what Midjourney Fast Hours is really about

3:25 – Midjourney Office Hours recap: dev updates, bugs, and feature requests

5:02 – Multiple feature drops teased for next week

6:39 – v7 release timing + hopes for a true creative studio UI

9:02 – Wishlist: multi-character control, angles, expressions, and seed editing

12:29 – Prompting real facial expressions (test simple → build complexity)

15:13 – Pro tip: community rating = free Fast Hours learning

16:02 – Hack: using v6 personalization codes inside v7

17:12 – The Node Revolution begins — why nodes fix creative workflow pain

22:12 – Krea Nodes deep dive: blueprints, drag-to-wire, product-swap demo

31:39 – Image-to-video inside Krea: turning stills into motion

35:04 – Batch-generation magic: LLM → 10 prompts → parallel image runs

43:07 – Weavy “app view” — simplified node interface for creators

45:58 – Freepik Spaces walkthrough: collaborative canvas + node workflows

48:25 – Quick win: “4 on demand” + unlimited Nano runs in Freepik

49:18 – Rumor mill: Nano Banana 2 incoming

50:25 – Seedream vs Nano: angle agility vs object consistency

55:27 – Merch detour: Fast Hours T-shirt mockups built with nodes

59:26 – Sketch-to-cinema using Mystic (Magnific) for structure-reference

1:05:38 – Wrap-up: what’s next for nodes and upcoming Midjourney updates

1:07:08 – Tease: live AMA event coming in November