This week, we come in hot — starting with wuxia vibes, holiday chaos, and cursed Christmas remixes of “September” — before diving into music stats, Taskmaster binges, Eden’s Wuxia/Baihe adventures, and Peter’s latest reading spree (including Gödel, Escher, Bach). Eventually, we embark on the Most Important Cultural Work of Our Time: a fast-food and fast-casual tier list. Along the way, we crown unexpected champions, bury some long-held myths (looking directly at you, In-N-Out), and declare Waffle House the beating heart of American civilization. It’s unhinged, joyful, occasionally shameful, and fully definitive.

Opening Shenanigans

• Eden opens with an incredible wuxia monologue introducing Beauty’s Blade, the Baihe novel they’ve been reading.
• Peter tries (and fails) to match the energy.
• Thanksgiving recaps: delayed flights, Target wandering, and the absolute war crime that is “Do You Remember…the 21st Night of December” playing over store speakers.

Life Updates & Media

• End-of-year malaise, work overload, and winter dread.
• Apple Music Replay breakdowns:
  • Peter: another year, another Slow Forever domination.
  • Eden: a deeply chaotic top-albums list featuring Rebecca Black, Japanese jazz fusion, KPM library music, and Tron: Legacy.
• Taskmaster binges continue.
• Peter’s current reading includes Three-Body Problem and the 900-page Gödel, Escher, Bach.
• Eden is deep into Where Winds Meet (“What if Assassin’s Creed but Wuxia and optionally an MMO?”), and fully living in Jianghu.
• Manga corner: Kaiju Girl Caramelise is adorable and unhinged in equal measure.

🎖️

The Great Fast-Food Tier List

Certified THE BEST

• Domino’s – the undisputed king of delivery pizza.
• Five Guys – elite burgers, elite fries, elite price tag.
• Portillo’s – Italian beef nirvana.
• Schlotzky’s – elevated to divinity thanks to Peter and Alyssa’s first date.
• Taco Bell – delicious, shameful, transcendent.
• Waffle House – an American institution and FEMA-indexed miracle.

Strong Contenders (B-Tier)

• Dairy Queen – chicken strip baskets, Texas toast, and blizzards: a holy trinity.
• Long John Silver’s – Eden’s forbidden love.
• McDonald’s – the fries that define civilization.
• Panda Express – orange chicken supremacy.
• Skyline Chili – Eden-approved, Cassie-reviled.
• Wendy’s – consistently solid.
• White Castle – cheesy sliders hit just right.

Perfectly Fine (C-Tier)

Places we’d go to with zero enthusiasm and zero complaint:

A&W, Bojangles, Burger King, Carl’s Jr./Hardee’s, Firehouse Subs, Jersey Mike’s, Jimmy John’s (fast only), KFC, Little Caesars, Noodles & Co., Panera, Quiznos, Whataburger, Wienerschnitzel.

Ehhh (D-Tier)

Arby’s wet paper towel meat, Culver’s overrated custard, Del Taco’s value plays, Denny’s at 2am, Papa John’s overpriced cardboard, Pizza Hut nostalgia only, Popeye’s here-but-not-here, Qdoba mid-Mex, Sbarro mall sadness, Sonic for drinks only.

Absolutely Not (F-Tier)

• Chick-fil-A (for reasons both ethical and culinary)
• Chipotle (poop-from-a-butt energy)
• In-N-Out (the most overrated chain in America; fries taste like unwashed ass)
• IHOP (international house of poop)
• Stake & Shake (weird political tallow energy)
• Subway (fell from grace when they stopped cutting the V in the bread)
• Wingstop (wings overrated; nuggets forever)

Closing Thoughts

• We discover we are not fast-food people…except for when we are.

This week, we finally dive into the cultural behemoth that is K-Pop Demon Hunters—six months late and fully confused. We talk through how this extremely catchy, hyper-animated, wildly popular kids’ movie managed to conquer 2025, even though it’s… fine? We break down what works (the faces, the music, that glorious fat tiger), what doesn’t (the pacing, the unearned romance, the baffling reconciliation), and why we’re still not convinced it deserves the cultural chokehold it has. Plus, we catch up on everything we’ve been checking out lately—from doom metal to City Pop to WOJIA novels—and wonder how we went from Spider-Verse to this.

Episode Notes

• We kick things off with hard root beer, ingredient confusion, and the audacity of “beer, sugar, caramel color” as an ingredients list.
• Thanksgiving rant: we complain about Christmas invading everything earlier each year, praise gratitude as a practice, and call out the consumerist creep of “Black November.”
• Eden shares the saga of the family WhatsApp gratitude initiative and why performative gratefulness ain’t it.
• New Year’s resolutions? Terrible. A system designed to fail—except for gyms and planner companies.

What We’ve Been Up To

Eden

• Not much… exhaustion + scrolling + arguing with Reddit.
• Reading more Magical Revolution of the Reincarnated Princess and the Genius Young Lady.
• Secretly going full Wuxia-pilled but not ready to talk yet.
• Deep in digital accessibility at work (contrast ratios forever).
• Listening almost exclusively to City Pop to summon 80s vibes.

Peter

• Heavy music roundup:
  • Shores of Null / Convocation split.
  • A Sun of the Dying – Throne of Ashes.
  • The Reticent – Please (mental-illness-theme concept album).
  • 1914 – Viribus Unitis, a blackened death metal concept album about WWI.
  • Bell Witch & Aerial Ruin – Stygian Bough Vol. 2, the lightest album of the three (which says something).
• Finished all seven Murderbot books and reflects on the genuinely human core beneath the action.
• Game updates:
  • PowerWash Simulator 2 — massive improvements, more forgiving completion, soap freedom.
  • Ball Pit (Ball×Pit) — breakout + roguelike + city builder; surprisingly great, Devolver-approved.

🎤 Main Event: K-Pop Demon Hunters

Initial Reaction

• We both expected very little.
• It was… more fun than expected, but nowhere near deserving the cultural omnipresence it has.
• Every song starts, and we both go: “Oh shit, that’s from this movie?!”

What We Liked

• The animation: hyper-expressive faces, Sony flair, Spider-Verse DNA.
• The music: genuinely catchy, culturally unavoidable.
• The creatures: the fat tiger + the crow with the tiny hat = peak cinema.
• The fights: lively weapon-specific choreography.
• Bright, colorful aesthetic in a world obsessed with desaturated grimdark.

What Didn’t Work

• Pacing is viciously fast (95 minutes, no room to breathe).
• The Rumi–Ginu romance is unearned.
• The group breakup & reconciliation happens with whiplash speed.
• Entire subplots (Celine, Rumi’s origin) feel missing — likely sequel fodder.
• The climax ultimately hinges on the boy saving the girl, which undercuts the “girl group as heroes” core.

Why Is It So Popular?

We genuinely don’t know, but we explore possibilities:

• The Frozen effect: young girls finally seeing themselves as the heroes.
• K-pop’s massive global footprint and built-in fandom infrastructure.
• Ubiquitous, TikTok-optimized songs.
• A kids’ movie that’s actually watchable for adults (a miracle compared to Shimmer & Shine).
• The novelty of a musical-action hybrid that doesn’t completely suck.

Final Thoughts

• We’re glad we watched it—mostly to understand why our nieces and the entire world dressed as Rumi for Halloween.
• It’s fun, cute, fast, and catchy.
• But it’s also feather-light and will evaporate from our brains shortly after recording.
• Definitely not staying on the Plex server.

This week on The Middle of Culture, we close out our dive into Transformers with Transformers One, last year’s animated prequel that tells the origin story of Optimus and Megatron. We rave about how shockingly good it is—beautiful animation, heartfelt storytelling, and voice performances that actually make you care about robots punching each other. Along the way, we talk about Sanderson’s declining prose, the “YA-ification” of modern fiction, the decline of mass-market paperbacks, and why we’ll always have a soft spot for dumb robot movies done well.

Episode Notes

Opening Banter

• Peter returns from travel (Boise and Napa), happy to be home.
• Eden vents about a rough week and hostile engineers during digital accessibility training, complete with an on-campus shooting alert mid-meeting.
• Peter describes an incredible dinner at Bistro Jeanty in Napa (truffle deviled eggs, beef bourguignon, and chocolate croissant bread pudding).

Books & Reading

• Peter finishes Murder Your Employer by Rupert Holmes (yes, the “Piña Colada Song” guy)—a darkly funny and satisfying story about the McMaster’s School of Homicide.
• Reads Artificial Condition, the second Murderbot novella, and starts Write Your Novel from the Middle.
• Discussion on how story structure midpoints define theme and cohesion.
• Critique of Brandon Sanderson’s Wind and Truth: great worldbuilding, but noticeably weaker prose since losing his longtime editor.
• Eden speculates that the issue might extend to the whole fantasy industry—less editing, more aesthetic consumerism, and the death of the mass-market paperback.
• Broader talk on the “dumbing down” of fiction and the rise of YA and “New Adult” markets catering to comfort rather than challenge.

Music & Games Corner

• Peter dives into rediscovering Psychotic Waltz, Psychonaut, and Oramet—bands that balance progressive creativity with restraint.
• New release highlight: PowerWash Simulator 2.
• Eden tests two disappointing gacha games (Duet Night Abyss and Resonance Solstice) and finally uninstalls all HoyoVerse titles.
• Back to Final Fantasy XIV, excited about the new patch allowing full cross-class glamours.

Main Feature – Transformers One (2024)

• Both agree: it’s the best Transformers movie ever made—heartfelt, gorgeously animated, and genuinely emotional.
• Plot rundown: Orion Pax (Optimus) and D16 (Megatron) rise from the oppressed underclass of “Cogless” robots, uncover Sentinel Prime’s corruption, and witness the birth of Autobot vs. Decepticon ideology.
• Core theme: friendship, betrayal, and revolution—the tragedy of two friends who believe in justice but choose different paths.
• Voice acting highlights:
  • Brian Tyree Henry’s nuanced Megatron is phenomenal.
  • John Hamm nails the duplicitous Sentinel Prime.
  • Scarlett Johansson and Chris Hemsworth have real chemistry, even if Hemsworth is the weakest link.
  • Laurence Fishburne brings gravitas as Alpha Trion.
  • Keegan-Michael Key’s Bumblebee is purposefully annoying but fits the tone.
• Praise for the movie’s subtle callbacks to the 1986 film (“You don’t have the touch or the power”), strong emotional beats, and sense of earned tragedy.
• Both lament how poorly it performed at the box office—“we are part of the problem”—and hope it gets a sequel.
• Brief detour comparing the animated film’s depth to the shallow chaos of the Michael Bay series.

Closing Thoughts

• Transformers One feels like the first time the franchise truly understood its own heart.
• Recommendation: watch it—it’s smart, emotional, and fun as hell.

In this week’s Middle of Culture, we dive deep into our usual blend of media obsession and existential humor — from the strange delights of villainess light novels and the chaos of gacha games to Tron Ares, which Eden declares “not a good movie… but maybe the best Tron movie.” Peter shares his thoughts on new music from Conjurer and Author & Punisher, reviews Wind and Truth with mixed feelings, and outlines a possible new nonfiction project exploring the moral dehumanization of healthcare. We close by revisiting the bizarre early UK Transformers comics — where Optimus is kind of a jerk, Starscream becomes the original “catty traitor,” and Brawn looks like he escaped a Dollar Tree toy aisle.

Episode Notes:

Opening Banter:

• Eden introduces themselves as “so eeppy,” prompting Peter to admit defeat against internet slang.
• The two reflect on “functional depression,” aging, and surviving the current “hellscape.

Eden’s Media Fixation:

• Revisits I’m in Love with the Villainess and praises it as one of the best isekai series ever.
• Explains Prison Life is Easy for a Villainess, a meta comedy about a villainess treating dungeon time as a spa retreat.
• Attends a PowerPoint Party and presents “Villainess as Protagonist: A Meta-Analysis of Current Media Trends.”

Gacha Game Roundup:

• Stella Sora: “What if Hades was slower and shittier?” Deleted after 45 minutes.
• Chaos Zero Nightmare: Required two launchers — instant nope.
• Duet Night Abyss: Promising Warframe-style action without predatory gacha.

Tron Ares Review:

• Eden: “Not a good movie… but maybe the best Tron movie.”
• Praises its Nine Inch Nails soundtrack and stunning action; mocks Jared Leto’s acting.
• Peter admits he’d watch all three Tron films once they’re streaming.

Peter’s Media Corner:

• Music: Revisits Testament’s Parabellum, discovers Author & Punisher, and praises Conjurer’s Unself.
• Reading: Finishes Wind and Truth, critiques Sanderson’s editing, starts Murder Your Employer by Rupert Holmes, and begins Work Won’t Love You Back by Sarah Jaffe.
• Discusses a new nonfiction concept: “Connecting to Purpose: The Moral Dehumanization of Healthcare in America.”

Ideological Detour:

• Eden: “If you’re not the owner, you’re being exploited.”
• Peter admits he’s “becoming radicalized.”

Transformers (UK Comics):

• Recap of the lost “Man of Iron” episode and this week’s The Enemy Within.
• Discovery: This is possibly where “catty, traitorous Starscream” was born.
• Braun’s design roasted as “the Dollar Tree Transformer.”
• Optimus Prime called “a dick” for sending Brawn and Starscream into gladiator combat.
• Praise for Ravage and nostalgia for our childhood toys.

Closing:

• Eden confesses to spending $100 on the new Missing Link R.C. figure — “worth every penny.”
• Episode ends with a reminder to subscribe, share, and leave a review.

This week, we dive headfirst into emotional ruin — courtesy of Look Back, the devastatingly beautiful anime film by Chainsaw Man creator Tatsuki Fujimoto. Before we get our hearts ripped out, we unpack a flood of new music releases — including Testament’s Para Bellum and Fayle's haunting Heretics and Lullabies — rail against Microsoft’s Game Pass price hike, and talk streaming fatigue and piracy. Peter also shares his new plan to train like a writer-athlete with a three-month learning sprint, while Eden reviews Nine Inch Nails’ Tron: Ares soundtrack, gushes about Apothecary Diaries, and explains why a Regency “choose your own adventure” romance might be the most fun book they’ve read all month. It all ends with tears, cello music, and a haunting meditation on why we create art in the first place.

📝 Episode Notes

Intro

• The “lost” episode vanished into the ether — maybe because it was too powerful for the far right to handle.
• Both hosts are feeling post-busy-season burnout and existential malaise.

Music Corner

• 🚨 Rush Reunion Tour: With Neil Peart’s family’s blessing, Rush returns with drummer Anika Nilles.
  • Eden: “Neil was never the fastest.”
  • Peter: Debates whether to travel for the tour or keep his memories intact.
• 🎻 Raphael Weinroth-Browne – Lifeblood: Beautiful, emotive cello-driven prog from the Leprous collaborator.
• ⚡️ Testament – Parabellum: Experimental thrash with black, death, and groove elements.
• 🕯 Frayle – Heretics and Lullabies: October-perfect doom — haunting vocals and atmosphere. Peter’s album of the month.

Gaming & Streaming Rant

• Microsoft’s Game Pass price jump to $30/month = cancellation time.
• Broader discussion: streaming bloat, rising costs, and the rise of “ethical piracy.”
• Quote of the section: “You wouldn’t scrape all the art ever made to create an anime titty generator.”

Writing & Learning Sprint

• Peter’s “Three-Month Learning Sprint” inspired by Dave Perell’s athlete model of skill-building.
• October–December: studying the craft of novel writing before starting Book #4 in January.
• Reading Save the Cat! Writes a Novel (Jessica Brody) and joining Writing Mastery Academy.
• Reflections on learning structure, story beats, and wanting to finally write a novel he’d let others read.
• Eden debates joining NaNoWriMo again… maybe.

Eden’s Media & Reading Corner

• 🎬 Tron: Ares (2024): “No one’s seeing it — and for good reason.”
  • Weak Nine Inch Nails soundtrack, but still better than most.
• 📚 Apothecary Diaries — finished all 15 volumes.
• 🐀 Though I Am an Inept Villainess — courtly fantasy with body-swap hijinks and fried potatoes.
• ❤️ My Lady’s Choosing — a hilarious, Regency-era, choose-your-own-romance adventure.
• 🕹 Doll’s Nest — “What if Armored Core, Dark Souls, and Frame Arms Girls had a baby?”

Main Event — Look Back

• 58-minute emotional gut punch about art, friendship, and loss.
• Recap: child prodigies Fujino and Kyomoto become artistic partners, drift apart, tragedy strikes, and grief reignites creation.
• Themes: rivalry, purpose, creative identity, and the way art bridges life and death.
• Peter: “The moment that cello started playing, I knew this was going to fuck me up.”
• Discussion on Fujimoto’s tone shifts, showing vs. telling, and the balance of subtlety and brutality.
• Shared conclusion: gorgeous, devastating, and they’ll never watch it again.

Wrap-Up

• Look Back is available on Amazon Prime.
• Next episode in a couple of weeks.
• Sign-off reminder: leave a review and email feedback@themiddleofculture.com

Peter and Eden cover a whirlwind couple of weeks—family milestones, stressful schedules, and the search for meaning outside of work—before diving into media updates like Escaflone, In Mourning’s crushing new album, and the delightfully cursed Ice Cube–starring War of the Worlds (2025). From there, things spiral into chaos with a marathon of “Would You Rather?” questions that range from the silly to the philosophical, including fart announcements, glitter burps, pinky-finger super strength, and whether you’d rather have a South Park wedding or a Family Guy funeral. It’s the most chaotic fun you’ll have all week.

Episode Notes

Life updates:

• Peter’s son Alex returns from his mission and prepares for a wedding.
• The challenge of balancing work, family, and downtime.
• Reflections on identity outside of your career.

Media check-ins:

• Peter on Tiny Experiments and the joy of learning Final Cut Pro.
• New music: The Immortal by In Mourning, and “End of You” with Amy Lee, Poppy, and Courtney LaPlante.
• Eden’s anime binge: Azumanga Daioh (finished), Escaflone (technical mishaps + stationary bike viewing).
• Bad Movie Bros watch: War of the Worlds (2025) starring Ice Cube—possibly the worst movie ever made.
• Manga spotlight: Yoritama: From Third Wheel to Trifecta (romantic chaos).

Main Event: Would You Rather?

• Pajamas vs. tuxedos, freakishly big mouths vs. tiny noses.
• Public fart announcements vs. peeing your pants.
• Superpowers you don’t want: invisibility only when sneezing, pinky-only super strength, screaming flight.
• Food fiascos: pizza hands vs. donut feet, glitter burps vs. bubble hiccups.
• Social nightmares: every text to mom vs. marching band of lies.
• Philosophical turns: 20 years with no regrets vs. 100 with many.
• The ultimate cursed choice: South Park wedding or Family Guy funeral.

This week Eden and Peter dive into William Friedkin’s gritty 1977 thriller Sorcerer, a tense and sweat-soaked remake of The Wages of Fear. They talk through the film’s nihilistic worldview, Friedkin’s unrelenting direction, and Tangerine Dream’s eerie score that pushes the movie into fever-dream territory. Along the way, they share personal stories of how the film lingered in memory for decades, debate whether Sorcerer deserved its original flop status, and marvel at the sheer intensity of the bridge sequence. They also connect the film to broader cultural legacies—from the shadow of Star Wars to the way cult classics find redemption years later.

Show Notes
Opening catch-up

• Summer weather updates and life events.
• Peter finishes Donkey Kong Bonanza and shares thoughts on Taskmaster series 7 vs 8.
• Music chat: new Deftones (Private Music), Testament’s upcoming Parabellum, and the death of Mastodon’s Brett Hinds.

Work & reading tangents

• Eden’s deep dive into accessibility struggles with LaTeX, Pandoc, and PDFs (“the world’s worst file format”).
• Reading The Apothecary Diaries and Azumanga Daioh; comparisons with Nichijo and City.
• Listening to Tangerine Dream’s catalog and soundtrack prep for the film.

Imperfect Practice launch

• Peter introduces his new blog and YouTube channel, “Imperfect Practice,” focused on experiments with productivity, journaling, and workflows.

Main Event: Sorcerer

• Eden’s blind pick, Peter’s buried childhood memory of the Tangerine Dream LP, and initial impressions.
• Full plot breakdown with detailed discussion of:
  • The four opening vignettes.
  • Building the trucks and loading unstable dynamite.
  • The infamous 12-minute bridge sequence.
  • The brutal downer ending and themes of fate and nihilism.
• Discussion of the title Sorcerer (why it’s terrible, Friedkin’s explanation).
• Behind-the-scenes misery, budget overruns, and authenticity (actors did most of their own stunts).
• The soundtrack’s role in creating alienation and tension.
• Release woes: arriving weeks after Star Wars and being critically panned before decades-later reevaluation into cult-classic canon.

Wrap-up

• Reflections on its heavy but unforgettable impact.

Links
Imperfect Practice
Imperfect Practice on YouTube

What starts as a simple dive into media tracking apps quickly spirals into tangents about puzzles from hell, glamping with bison and mustangs, fistfights with Satan in Pittsburgh, and the glory days of scrobbling music. Along the way, Peter and Eden hash out their very different relationships with games, books, music, and movies—and why, at the end of the day, “the juice is not worth the squeeze” when it comes to tracking everything we consume.

Opening catch-up:

• Eden returns from travel and vents about the oppressive Midwestern humidity.
• Eden recounts a cursed puzzle vacation and a surreal HipCamp adventure that included glamping in a bus, staying at a mustang ranch, and hearing a wild coma story involving battling Satan.
• A detour into mobile gaming: Eden introduces the absurd yet addictive horse girl racing game Uma Musume.
• Peter shares his ongoing love for Taskmaster, Donkey Kong Bonanza on the Switch 2, and recent reading progress (Wind and Truth, Tiny Experiments).
• Music talk:
  • New releases from Carbomb, Abigail Williams, and Blackbraid.
  • Remembering Eric Wunder of Cobalt, with Peter realizing Slow Forever might be his true desert island album.

Main Topic: Media tracking apps and services.

• Video games: Eden dabbled with Backloggd but finds it too much work; Peter doesn’t see the appeal beyond Steam’s built-in history.
• Books: Eden logs reads in a notebook; Peter wrestles with StoryGraph, Hardcover, and Goodreads but finds the friction too high. Notion experiments fail; AI-summarized notes for nonfiction survive.
• Music: Nostalgia for scrobbling and Last.fm; frustrations with Spotify, Apple Music, and Plex setups. Peter praises Plexamp and Rune; Eden experiments with Cloud Beats and dreams of a NAS.
• Movies/TV: Eden dislikes fragmented platforms; Peter mentions using Sequel lightly but relies most on Call Sheet, an IMDb alternative. Eden uses League of Comic Geeks only to track physical comics in his collection.

Closing thoughts: both agree that while tracking can be tempting, talking to people and communities is a far more rewarding way to discover new media.