PF #152 Mythic Quest

[evelpod666]

For Context

[Brands]

2 rival companies... P pinged both @rockstargames and @buildarocketboy

[Brands]

There's a new episode coming tomorrow on the 23rd, called To Catch a Mouse

Mini Synopsis:Ian's and Poppy's clashing office preferences put them at odds. Jo and Brad team up to get rid of a pest in David's office.

[Brands]

Summary of the episode:
Opening on another splendid day at GrimPop, Ian stares at a Post-it note with the word “Haptics” written on it. Ian doesn’t need feedback vibration to conjure a response. He hates the yellow square and how it disrupts the fragile feng shui of the office. Poppy enters to brag about “seeing” her grand idea for “Playpen” and claims the Post-it part of her process that Ian must respect. With sharp elbows, she pushes Ian aside and messes with the lights and temperature, chipping away at his optimization and setting the thermostat to [gasp] celsius.

The “cold” open (no pun intended—this episode’s all heat) reveals something ironic about their characters. Ian’s a dreamer whose job is to “propel” GrimPop into the future. To get there, he agonizes over every detail that has nothing to do with the actual game. On the other hand, master builder Poppy believes a workspace should be messy with her tools, sticky from green soda, strewn about the table amid ranch dressing stains and candy wrappers. She can’t be bothered with smoothie-making because there’s work to be done.

However, when they do the other’s job, they get nowhere. Ian spends a lot of time optimizing the office, doing things for his climate control system that he would never do to “Playpen” or “Hera”: He programs a computer, creating a gentle breeze to help circulate the high temperatures that his partner now requires. These two don’t need an optimized office; they need an office manager, a David if you will.

David probably could help the situation. Unfortunately, he’s dealing with a delightfully dopey sitcom plot. There’s a rat in the “MQ” office, and to be clear, it’s an actual four-legged rat—not some covert operative that, ironically, requires a mole to suss out. Still licking their wounds from Christmas, Jo and Brad decide to play exterminator, a job they’re overqualified for but still can’t complete. Using Brad’s ability to slip into any crevice of the office with his custodial gear, they devise a foolproof plan to catch the rodent.

While Brad and Jo profile rats, Ian waits outside the bathroom for 25 minutes as Poppy finishes a marathon urination. Admittedly disinterested in retaining moisture or drinking water, Poppy gets all “the juice she needs from hard candy.” This woman’s kidneys must be in terrible shape. However, that’s not the main issue here (though it probably should be). Ian’s invented something to deal with his partner’s Post-it obsession: A cubicle. It’s common practice for today’s tech moguls to “invent” existing things (Elon inventing a tunnel is great and all, but my favorite is still the guys that invented the vending machine in 2018). However, Ian was not the son of an emerald mine owner in apartheid-era South Africa. Instead, he’s a lonely, insecure man with nothing but his success to comfort him. Poppy making fun of his latest masterwork is the last straw, and he storms off to get some air.

Poppy finds Ian atop the building getting fresh air for four hours. When she mocks his “efficiency pod,” he curtly responds, “Shut the fuck up.” Ian feels betrayed by Poppy because he’s supposed to be the ideas person, not her. But, as she rightly argues, he hasn’t been around much this season to do even that. As she toiled away at “Hera,” he was in the metaverse, doing ayahuasca at Burning Man or doing some world-class VR fencing.

The scene feels like a breaking point. Ian isn’t offering Poppy grand ideas for her game because it’s her game, and Poppy knows it. She just wants him to admit it. For the first time in a long time, he has to deliver someone else’s assignment and explore someone else’s solar system, and like the report on Saturn he never finished, he’s not interested. Ian isn’t dreaming or scheming. He’s distracting himself because he can’t handle not being the star of the show and searches for something that he can control. His value is in ideas. If Poppy’s doing that, too, he has nothing. Ian and Poppy are flawed individuals, but they balance each other out. If Ian isn’t willing to support Poppy in her endeavors, then that’s less of a collaboration. That’s one person taking advantage of the other.

When we return to GrimPop, Dana returns from her day at the sitcom B-plot factory. The “Hera” studio is silent; the cubicle has been taken down. Poppy is coding. “Get back to work,” Poppy tells Dana. “We’ve wasted enough time already.” Apple’s workplace comedy has never sounded more like a job, but it doesn’t seem like working harder will solve the problem.

[Brands]

Going from the summary:Could the rivalry of Ian not willing to work on Poppy's passion project be an analogy to the feud between the Houser brothers? Or could it be a Houser vs Benzie situation which caused Benzie to create his own company to make the EVERYWHEERE game because the Houser's and Rockstar weren't willing to work on it??