"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)

"Are you living the human experience if you don't lose your mind a couple times?"

– Still Human

🧬🩻🌌

In this cosmic reality check, STILL HUMAN and EJAZZ (AKA The Alien AKA David), dissolve their Egos and overthink about staying human during inhuman times, and what it means to be one of the "crazy ones" that dream of a better world, for oneself and everyone else.

Dollops of enlightenment:

• What does it mean to be crazy? To be sane? To be enlightened?
• On "staying human" during inhuman times (what it means to hold onto one's humanity)
• Is the over-saturation of AI-generated art causing a resurgence of interest in human-made art?
• Seeking spiritual connection for inner peace: Ego death, Buddha-mind and finding God
• Reasons to feel hopeful in spite of all the propaganda, brainrot and doomerism

Credits for music featured in this episode:

• Blue Dot Sessions
• Ealot
• Christoffer Moe Ditlevsen
• Power Druid
• Maya Lourenco
• Ejazz & Bruno Gillick

Find Ejazz on Instagram, and find his music on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music, Tidal, and Soundcloud

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