Evan and Gordon Talk: About Whatever, Because You’re Not Helping Us Out Topics-Wise

EVAN: Dearest audience, I don’t know what happened. There used to be a time when you offered us E&GT topics like it was nothing, and now it feels like something has come between us. Is it Gordon’s divisive posts about Christianity? Just let us know, we can’t take the silence any longer!

That being said, we’re basically just going to talk for 45 minutes about whatever we feel like.

So, Gordon, the two of us have been known to play D&D from time to time, and I’m going to pose it to you to come up with an original class idea. Keep in mind that I already have one and it is pretty good.

And I’m expecting something a little bit different from your usual high-damage through bladed weapons or dark magic with low health.

GORDON: Ah, we’re going right for the nerd crowd, eh? Okay, how about this:

The Jumper

You have your own character, but immediately upon entering battle, the soul leaps out of the body and takes possession of an enemy on the board. You get all the moves and stats of that enemy, and can jump from one to another, but you MUST keep your original body alive during combat.

EVAN: Gosh darn it, man, that’s actually fairly brilliant.

GORDON: Thank you.

EVAN: Okay, mine isn’t as wholly original as yours, but he’s got some fun moves.

The Tinker

It involves a lot of gadgets and things, obviously, but they’re all really low tech. There’s something I’m calling a Tension Grenade which you have to wind up before throwing it. It’s a fragile bundle of cords stretched to their limit, and upon impact they lash out [each covered in blades and weights] as well as unleashing shrapnel.

Another move requires spring-heeled boots which allow you to leap great distances, inspired by a folktale guy named Spring-Heeled Jack who apparently hopped around England disrobing ladies.

GORDON: The English are… a complicated people…

Alright, my turn.

Imagining your race isn’t going to be a barrier (a barrier here meaning “you will be enslaved/interned/lynched”) which time period would you like to go back in time to?

EVAN: Man, this is a path we have trodden a few times, isn’t it?

Hm, let me think . . .

Am I just a dude? Am I rich? Is this more just an exploration/experiential thing?

GORDON: Assume you’re decently well-off, and yeah, you’re a dude.

You ain’t livin’ there- think of it as an extensive vacation.

EVAN: I’ve been listening to this one podcast nonstop, War Rocket Ajax, and 

they interviewed this one comic writer Sam Humphries. I’m going to go with his answer, which was the Aztec civilization.

The dude wrote a six-issue series called Sacrifice about it, and his enthusiasm really hooked me.

GORDON: You’d really want to experience Aztec life in all it’s bloody, gutty, they-have-a-god-who-demands-living-flayed-sacrifice glory?

EVAN: Yeah. Sure.

GORDON: Okay then.

EVAN: And yourself?

GORDON: That’s a tough question, but what’s immediately springing to mind America in the wake of the Civil War.

Socialism (real socialism, none of that big-brother European crap) is still young, the West is still relatively wild, and immigrants are flooding in all over the place. I imagine it’d be really exciting to spend time in a place like that, rampant racism excluded.

EVAN: It’s always nice to exclude rampant racism.

This one is pretty straightforward. What kind of were-animal would you be?

GORDON: Ah, the temptation to say something truly terrifying here…

But as much as it’d be hilarious to see the townsfolk huddling in fear at the shadow of the dreaded were-aye-aye, I’m gonna have to go with a tiger.

EVAN: Dude, I would be a were-octopus. There are no downsides.

I have multiple limbs. I can stick to walls. I have natural camouflaging ability. It is a win-win-win.

GORDON: Besides you being hounded by certain, disreputable Japanese film studios to star in movies that shall remain unnamed? Fair enough. 

I’ve asked this question before, but I want to see if you’re answer has changed at all-

You can have any person on earth die, and bring any one person back from the icy grip of death. Who’s it gonna be?

EVAN: I very distinctly remember my answer from over a year ago, and I’m going to stick by it.

I would bring Martin Luther King Jr. back to life-

-and kill that mean bank lady from the college we graduated from.

GORDON: And for once, ladies and gentlemen, Evan gives a darker answer than I.

As for me, I’d probably have to stick with mine to- Nikola Tesla walks the earth once more, and Syrian dictator Bashar Al Asad is beneath it.

EVAN: Nikola Tesla was my close second.

Okay, how about we do just one more round, as we’re coming up on the end of our time-

In a world where the Greek gods actually exist, and you are a demigod, who do you choose as your divine parentage?

GORDON: Athena and Nike (life finds a way). You can’t really pick anyone else without a 90% chance that you owe your existence to something non-consensual and/or non-human. The Greek gods were *******s.

EVAN:

Athena really is the best answer, isn’t it?

I suppose I’d have to go with Hades, just to mix things up again. You know he’d give me all sorts of rad powers, just because he’d want me to one-up all of his nieces and nephews.

GORDON: Ooh- that’s a good answer. Plus you’d be freaking rich.

Come up with your very own apocalypse- how does it go down?

EVAN: As original as possible, I assume?

GORDON: Of course.

EVAN: Well obviously that means I go with zombies.

I kid, I kid.

I’m pretty into nature reacting in response to humanity’s generally awful treatment, so something along those lines, definitely-

Basically all of nature begins to revolt, but it starts out slowly. Plant life begins to grow more quickly, cracking sidewalks and reaching roots out past the pots the sit in. Barnacles and other aquatic life jams the propellers and whatnot of various sea vessels.

It’s all very eerie and unexplained, but slowly nature builds up its strength before unleashing hell on the human race. Farmers are stampeded by their cattle [and eaten by the pigs], birds throw themselves into airplane turbines, and deer emerge from the woods to terrorize small college towns.

This isn’t a scenario where almost anyone can survive seeing as how even the ants, who weigh as much as the planet, are out to get them.

GORDON: So Hitchcock’s The Birds could almost be seen as a prequel?

That’s actually kinda awesome.

EVAN: Thank you.

GORDON: I was thinking about something similar, but I settled on some science experiment aboard the ISS going wrong and touching off a reaction that tears apart the very fabric of time.

Prehistory, the future (what’s left of it), the present- they all get thrown together. Islands of time are smashing into each other. There are suddenly Roman gladiators in your living room, on it’s not your living room anymore, it’s a Native American lodge.

All these keeps looping as there’s this sudden feeling of falling and the sound of scissors snipping in the distance, coming ever closer.

EVAN: It sounds a lot like your modern company-wide crossover comic book event, but also pretty awesome. Very foreboding.

And with that cheerful topic, it’s time for us to wrap things up. Readers, please, we really would love to discuss whatever it is you want us to, so leave us a suggestion [or more than just one], if you please.

GORDON: Please.

Evan will get a tattoo of your suggestion if you write one in.

EVAN: Ignoring that blatant falsehood, we close things with Gordon’s opinion about the government shutdown:

GORDON: We still have too much. Down with the bourgeoisie and their besuited lapdogs.