Ep 16: Dungeons and Dragons, Assless Chaps, and Accidental Pride with Mitch Grzegorek
Timestamps:
1. Meet Mitch — Cows of Chaos and the First Straight Guy Guest — 0:00
2. Fortnite, Sega, and Wendy the Noob Gamer — 3:57
3. Masking, Unmasking, and Being Audi H D — 5:33
4. Introductions and Bad Bitch Mitch — 10:40
5. Mitch's First Pride — Pho, Pregnancy, and a Parade — 16:11
6. Losing a Daughter and Reconnecting Through D&D — 24:09
7. Coming Out to Mitch Mid-Campaign — 26:55
8. How Mitch's View of Siren Changed (Or Didn't) — 40:31
9. Trader Joe's Discourse and the Cranky Cappin — 42:47
10. The Accidental Video Incident — 46:26
11. D&D as Queer Identity Playground — 59:57
12. Rose vs. Aubrey — Playing Yourself Before You Knew Yourself — 1:03:14
13. Wendy Considers a Male Character — 1:06:04
14. The West Hollywood Halloween Pride Story — 1:10:21
15. Real Allyship in a Complicated Political Moment — 1:14:19
16. Tongue First — Pancakes and the Dish Fairy — 1:21:14
Dungeons and Dragons, Assless Chaps, and Accidental Pride with Mitch Grzegorek
Some friendships start with a headset and a username. This one started with Cows of Chaos.
Mitch Grzegorek is Siren's friend of nearly twenty years, and he's officially the first straight man to ever guest on Tongue First. They met through Xbox Live back in the Halo days — Siren was fresh out of college, Mitch was a teenager brainstorming usernames with his brother, and neither of them had any idea the friendship would still be going strong two decades later.
From Gaming to D&D to Real Life
What started as late nights playing Halo evolved into years of Dungeons and Dragons campaigns, and somewhere in those years, Mitch and Siren built the kind of friendship that survives real life. Mitch was there in 2018 when Siren's family went through the loss of a daughter, and he was there again two years later, mid-campaign, when Siren told him she was transitioning.
Mitch tells that story from his own side of it — the panic before the call ("please don't let this be the end of our D&D campaign"), the relief when it wasn't, and the slow, genuine process of getting to know Aubrey as she actually is. It's one of the most tender conversations the show has featured, precisely because Mitch never tries to perform the "perfect ally" answer. He just tells the truth about what he understood, what he didn't, and how it all made sense eventually.
D&D as a Queer Playground
The conversation turns into something bigger: why Dungeons and Dragons has such deep queer roots. Character creation as identity experimentation. The ability to try on a different gender, a different sexuality, a different version of yourself, inside a space that's already built for pretending. Siren talks about her character Rose — created right after she transitioned, and for a long time, barely distinguishable from Aubrey herself. Mitch, as her DM, watched that character slowly become her own person.
Wendy gets curious about playing a male character for the first time, and the three of them talk about what that kind of experimentation can unlock for anyone, queer or not.
Mitch's Completely Accidental First Pride
And then there's the story Siren has been waiting an entire episode to hear in real time: Mitch's first Pride. Not planned. Not intentional. Just a pregnant wife, a serious craving for pho, and a subway ride that dropped him directly into the middle of a Pride parade with absolutely no warning. Assless chaps, dancing, kissing, a blocked crosswalk, and a man just trying to get soup.
It's one of the funniest stories the show has told all season.
The Rest of It
Because it's still Tongue First: Trader Joe's discourse, an accidental video mishap, a West Hollywood Halloween parade that makes Mitch's first accidental Pride look tame by comparison, and a real conversation about what allyship actually looks like — not the performative kind, the kind that shows up.
Twenty years of friendship, one dice roll at a time.
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Tongue First is a sapphic and queer podcast hosted by Aubrey "Siren" Jones and Wendy Reeves. New episodes every Monday. Find us at tonguefirstpodcast.com and support the show on Patreon at Tongue First: After Hours.
Follow the chaos on TikTok: @Sirenegade_440 @Wendy6181981
Until next time — stay curious, stay queer, and don't forget to lick responsibly.
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