Transcript
Speaker: Feels like a graphic design is my passion type logo.
Speaker: That's true.
Speaker: That's true.
Speaker: Oh, gosh.
Speaker: You know what else is true, though?
Speaker: What's that?
Speaker: Hey there, everybody.
Speaker: Welcome back to Pixlet.
Speaker: My name is Kevin.
Speaker: And with me, as always, is Phil.
Speaker: And today we have a special episode.
Speaker: It'll probably be a little bit of a short episode, but it's a very special episode because we interviewed S.D.
Speaker: Perry of the Resident Evil books.
Speaker: She also wrote Marvel Midnight Suns, which we just wrapped on reading.
Speaker: And we got her on the show, sort of.
Speaker: Sort of.
Speaker: Sort of.
Speaker: Phil, why don't you- Can you tell me about how this came about?
Speaker: Well...
Speaker: We started, for those of you who've been with us for a while, we started with an S.D.
Speaker: Perry book, the first of the Resident Evil series.
Speaker: And I reached out to her right away and said, we would love to have you on the show.
Speaker: At that point, we hadn't even released the show.
Speaker: We were not on iTunes or Spotify or anything.
Speaker: And she was really nice.
Speaker: And it had nothing to do with the fact that...
Speaker: She had no idea who we were and she had no evidence of our work.
Speaker: She just said, I don't really care for doing video interviews and that sort of thing, which fair enough.
Speaker: But I think I kind of in the back of my mind assumed that this was because she didn't know who we were or what we did.
Speaker: And she said, but if you send me some questions, maybe I'll answer them.
Speaker: And I said, cool, cool.
Speaker: And promptly forgot about it.
Speaker: And we've actually mentioned it basically every single time.
Speaker: We've said it a few times on the show.
Speaker: Every single time that we have done one of her books, we have mentioned that she offered that.
Speaker: And we just never got around to it.
Speaker: And this time around, when we were reading The Midnight Sun's book, I said, you know, hey, we've got a following.
Speaker: We've been around for a while.
Speaker: Maybe this will be the time.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And it has nothing to do with us at all.
Speaker: Leave it to me to make it about us.
Speaker: But she said, I really don't care for that kind of thing.
Speaker: But I will happily answer any of your questions.
Speaker: And so me and Kevin came up with a list of questions that we would have asked her if she were on the show, the same way we do with any of our other interviews.
Speaker: And she was good enough to write down some answers for us.
Speaker: But Kevin, you did something pretty great.
Speaker: You reached
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So, yeah, she said not a problem.
Speaker: And for those of you who have been around for a while, you'll remember that Kat was our first guest ever.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: On Pixel It.
Speaker: She was the first non-us person to be on the show.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: So I'm very, very happy that she was able to do it.
Speaker: And actually, I have a little intro from her.
Speaker: Let me play it right now.
Speaker: Oh, wonderful.
Speaker: Hey, Kevin and Phil, how you doing?
Speaker: Thanks for having me on the show again.
Speaker: This is very exciting that you got the actual author onto the show in a way.
Speaker: I'm happy to help in the process.
Speaker: Hopefully I do her justice.
Speaker: She sounds pretty cool.
Speaker: So that was that was Kat's little intro for it.
Speaker: What a sweetheart.
Speaker: That's fantastic.
Speaker: So the first question that we had for Miss Perry was, how did you get started in the right for hire game?
Speaker: And I will play her answer now.
Speaker: I got started in the write for hire business through my dad, who also writes for hire.
Speaker: I was in my late teens, early twenties, and had been writing for years, mostly poetry and short stories, and I needed money for college.
Speaker: My father offered to collaborate with me on one of his novelisations so that I could establish a name and make money, and I jumped at the chance.
Speaker: We did a couple of books together and I realized I'd rather write books than go to school.
Speaker: So I'm a nepotism baby for sure and know how incredibly lucky I am that I was given those early opportunities.
Speaker: Oh, that's fantastic.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I loved her answer here.
Speaker: I like the, you know, the acknowledgement that she had a foot in the door when she was young.
Speaker: She had a foot in the door.
Speaker: And who among us wouldn't take that opportunity?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: You know, who wouldn't?
Speaker: And it's funny because I do remember reading, I don't remember if it was the, maybe it was the first Alien vs. Predator book because I read it.
Speaker: her dad's work and I read her work when I was young.
Speaker: And I remember reading in the back that it was because it was written by the both of them.
Speaker: And basically it's saying that this was, uh,
Speaker: you know, a father-daughter team.
Speaker: And it left me wondering like, oh, is this like, how much of a collaboration is this?
Speaker: Is this like two adults collaborating or is this like somebody with their kid having fun with and that sort of thing?
Speaker: And it's good to know that it was more of an actual writerly collaboration.
Speaker: That's terrific.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And and and then in the second question, the specifically, what was it like writing with your dad?
Speaker: She breaks down kind of what that that relationship was was like.
Speaker: Writing with my dad was fun, really.
Speaker: Our collaborations were me writing the first draft and him editing.
Speaker: He told me to imitate his style, which I tried to do, and it taught me so much about how to write action, how to structure a chapter, how to give characters life.
Speaker: I didn't fully appreciate at the time what a great learning experience it was, though I do now.
Speaker: Yeah, that makes me think a lot about certain authors.
Speaker: Hunter Thompson comes to mind where he was obsessed with Hemingway.
Speaker: And in order to learn how to write better, he would literally transcribe Hemingway novels.
Speaker: He would type them out in a hope that he would kind of learn something about the structure and everything like that in the process.
Speaker: And it's so cool to have her dad coming forward and saying,
Speaker: Let's start with you doing the first draft, imitating my style.
Speaker: And I, although as a writer, that actually might have been, that's almost cheating.
Speaker: It's like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: You, you set down the groundwork and I'll edit.
Speaker: I'll edit.
Speaker: You write as if I am writing and then I'll edit it and then we'll go, go from there.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: That's not a bad way to collaborate though, because it's like,
Speaker: She can imitate him, but it's going to be it's still going to have her voice no matter what.
Speaker: Like even when somebody does a pitch perfect imitation, there's still, you know, that uncanny valley ness of it where it's not it's not exact.
Speaker: So I think that's a good way to to kind of do some collaboration if that's if that's your goal.
Speaker: Yeah, I think and writing is such a solitary art form that anytime I see that a book was written by more than one person, I am immediately thrown.
Speaker: How did you do that?
Speaker: What was your process?
Speaker: Did you write a chapter and they wrote a chapter?
Speaker: Did somebody did?
Speaker: Was it this kind of thing like Neil Gaiman and.
Speaker: Terry Pratchett writing good omens together to very strong voices, very strong authors.
Speaker: How do you collaborate?
Speaker: I have no idea.
Speaker: I've, I've heard some various different tales of how people coauthor things together.
Speaker: Sometimes it's, you know, it's literally just taking turns.
Speaker: Like,
Speaker: They sit down and they write a few pages and then, you know, they get tired and then I step in and sit down and write a few pages.
Speaker: And I'm like, that's oh, I think that that can work if you are.
Speaker: If you're stylistically sticking to the basics, you know what I mean?
Speaker: If you're very if you're both if you're both trained on like the strunken white style of writing.
Speaker: And are keeping very clean lines of like you're not imbuing a certain personality to it.
Speaker: Then, yeah, I think you can kind of bang out a book taking turns like that as long as you're working from a good outline.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: And you can't just I think you're absolutely right.
Speaker: It's going to be tough the more.
Speaker: character of your own that you're trying to put into it.
Speaker: So you can clash immediately.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I just can't imagine.
Speaker: Maybe Gaiman answered that somewhere, how him and Terry Pratchett wrote together.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I'm going to have to look into that because I can't even imagine.
Speaker: Not like how, as in philosophically, I'm talking about physically.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: How did you do it?
Speaker: What was the process?
Speaker: What was the physical process?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Were you actually in the same, were you even in the same town together?
Speaker: I mean, just.
Speaker: Did you fax each other?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: When was Good Omens written?
Speaker: Oh, 96.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Did you fax pages to each other constantly?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Is that how it worked?
Speaker: See, now I have to, now I have to look.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: When did it come out?
Speaker: They're making a second season of the, uh, of Good Ones.
Speaker: 1990.
Speaker: Oh my God.
Speaker: I didn't know it was that old.
Speaker: Yeah, still fax.
Speaker: Actually, more likely fax than email.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Or telex.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The precursor.
Speaker: Whatever the appropriate method of sending pages to other people.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It was an email.
Speaker: That's for sure.
Speaker: It wasn't it wasn't email.
Speaker: I mean, for some people in 1990, but not for most.
Speaker: Yeah, but not for not for most.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So question number three was, what's your writing method?
Speaker: Do you aim for a specific number per day, et cetera?
Speaker: And let's see what she said.
Speaker: By the way, S.T.
Speaker: Perry is not Australian as far as I know.
Speaker: That's a good note.
Speaker: Just making that clarification.
Speaker: Kat, our friend, is Australian.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And she has a lovely voice.
Speaker: That's why I asked her to do it.
Speaker: Estee Perry, though, is not... There's no... I don't even know if they're in the same ballpark.
Speaker: That doesn't matter.
Speaker: We have no basis for comparison here.
Speaker: No basis for comparison.
Speaker: Pretty sure that Estee Perry is not Australian.
Speaker: Pretty sure.
Speaker: Anyway, here's question number three.
Speaker: My writing methods have varied wildly through the years, mostly dependent on how close the deadline is.
Speaker: I used to obsess on word and page counts, but that led to me sitting at the computer long after my words had dried up for the day, which led to serious burnout.
Speaker: Lately, I find what works for me is to be aware of my own limitations for any given day and adjust accordingly.
Speaker: Like I can write for about six hours at a stretch where I'm focused and involved and grooving and then I need a fat break or to be done for the day.
Speaker: If the deadline is close, I'll do two six-ish hour stretches with a break in between.
Speaker: If I sit down to work and I can't get into it after an hour, I take the day off.
Speaker: It usually works out pretty well.
Speaker: For me, books always start slow and pick up steam after the midpoint.
Speaker: So my first chapters, I'm doing three to five pages a day, if that.
Speaker: In the last third of a book, I'll do 10 to 15 pages a day.
Speaker: It's not a goal.
Speaker: It's just how it goes.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I absolutely relate with that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I think I watched a documentary on Arthur Miller, and he talked about when he wrote Death of a Salesman, the first –
Speaker: act of death of a salesman took him i i don't know it might be exaggerating but like a month or something like that to write that and then the second act he wrote in in a week uh because the ball started rolling and i i absolutely get that because you're still kind of tentative and poking at things initially then you get excited and find a rhythm and
Speaker: Arthur Miller was the one that married Marilyn Monroe, right?
Speaker: He sure was.
Speaker: He sure was.
Speaker: Just making sure.
Speaker: Weird pairing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Couldn't agree more.
Speaker: Oh, boy.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: So question number four.
Speaker: What or who are some of your writing inspirations?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Inspirations.
Speaker: Not sure how to approach this question.
Speaker: Personally, I read a ton, always have, and am inspired by so many other writers.
Speaker: A good plot, a good character, writing that flows, a turn of phrase that I haven't heard, these are all inspirations.
Speaker: Professionally, I generally seek inspiration in the characters I'm asked to write for.
Speaker: I get interested in who they are, why people like or dislike them, what it is about the IP that attracts fans.
Speaker: I want to know their backstory.
Speaker: I want to get into their heads and think like them.
Speaker: That makes a lot of sense.
Speaker: Totally.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, you got to... I think I've kind of come around to that recently in that I think when people are starting out, they'll have their inspiration for getting started, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But then as they go through and they're just reading and reading and reading and reading more and more and more, I think it's like...
Speaker: It becomes less of a particular person and more of a, all right, well, I'm just absorbing from all these different angles.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And not just writing.
Speaker: Life in general, people, like you said.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I think it is, as writers are concerned, and I think this is probably true of any artist, you start out.
Speaker: And think something similar, but I can't help but think that the fact that in the past couple of years or so, I've started seeing some success as a writer comes from the fact that eventually I found my voice in what I'm doing.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And that's always going to be an amalgam of all the stuff that you absorb.
Speaker: You just hope that you absorb enough stuff that...
Speaker: People don't immediately notice that everything that you stole from.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's like if you only absorb one thing, it's going to be very obvious that you stole from that one thing.
Speaker: It's very obvious.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: But if you steal from a hundred things and blend them all together, then you got a stew going, baby.
Speaker: You know what?
Speaker: Honestly, 100% stew method.
Speaker: I really believe that's the key to being a good writer.
Speaker: You're not going to create.
Speaker: There's nothing new under the sun.
Speaker: That's a fact.
Speaker: But if you keep your shit, you know,
Speaker: Then no one's going to know that you stole this character from Robert Louis, Louis Stevenson, and this character from a video game you played last week.
Speaker: And this character from your mother-in-law, like no one's going to notice all that shit because you've been absorbing everything.
Speaker: And every single, every single inch of life is there for the taking.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: 100%.
Speaker: Everything is copy.
Speaker: That's a fact.
Speaker: So number five, what franchise have you had the most fun adapting?
Speaker: Every franchise is my favourite while I'm working on it.
Speaker: Seriously, I have personal favourites as a fan, but when I'm on a deadline and immersed in a universe, that universe is everything for those weeks or months that I'm there.
Speaker: I feel like that's a requirement of the job, to be fully respectful of the property by believing in it, getting it.
Speaker: That said, some IPs have been easier to get into than others, but I always try my best.
Speaker: What a diplomatic answer.
Speaker: I love that caveat at the end.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But I think that's, that's, that's how you probably have to look at it.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: You know, you have to completely absorb yourself in that world to get it right.
Speaker: You have to, you know, if you are hired to write a, a, a, my little pony book, you really have to get into the, the, the pony verse, you know?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You'd better, you'd better, better.
Speaker: Especially in this day and age, God forbid you go to a con and- God forbid you fuck up.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You get hired, work for hire for My Little Pony and you fuck up.
Speaker: You are-
Speaker: You fuck around in front of the nerds, you're screwed.
Speaker: Are the pony bros or bronies, are they still a thing?
Speaker: I'm sure they are.
Speaker: People probably just, it's like furries.
Speaker: They still exist, but people are just, it's not as much fun to make fun of them anymore.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: In certain circles.
Speaker: I was always, I always liked the furries, for example.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: No, I think people are just accepting.
Speaker: All right, that's fine.
Speaker: I hope so.
Speaker: I hope that's what it is.
Speaker: No, I,
Speaker: I think that's very true.
Speaker: I'm actually, uh, I don't want, I don't want to be vague, but I have to be vague, uh, cause I'm on a, an NDA, but I am currently in the process of, um, uh, adapting basically, uh, or taking direct inspiration for a work for hire thing that I'm in.
Speaker: And I am soaking up, uh, the inspirations, the, the, the head of the, uh,
Speaker: of the project said, here are all the things that are inspiring this.
Speaker: And I'm like, okay, I haven't heard of like half of this.
Speaker: I better go and watch some TV.
Speaker: Go absorb all those things.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And it's helping.
Speaker: It's helping a lot.
Speaker: So yeah, I think that's, I think that's probably the best way to go about it.
Speaker: Oh, that's, that's awesome.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Question number six.
Speaker: Are you a gamer?
Speaker: What are some games you've enjoyed?
Speaker: If you are, and if you aren't, how do you prepare an adaptation?
Speaker: Let's see what she said.
Speaker: And this is actually her longest answer, I think.
Speaker: I don't know what a gamer is anymore.
Speaker: I grew up playing video games, have always had a console or two in the house.
Speaker: I'm about to turn 53, so my first games were side-scroll Atari.
Speaker: As a young adult, I played Earthworm Jim, ToeJam & Earl, Sonic 2, Lemmings, you know,
Speaker: dorky early stuff that was a marvel of technology for someone who thought Pong was a big deal.
Speaker: I'm a horror nerd, so when Resident Evil came out I was psyched, but I sucked at it.
Speaker: I was still getting killed by the giant snake in the attic on the regular when an editor called from Pocket asking if I'd be interested in writing some Resident Evil novelizations.
Speaker: At that point I'd written maybe four books.
Speaker: I played all of the Resident Evil games that I wrote for multiple times and loved them.
Speaker: I also used the game guides extensively, but my next job was for Deep Space Nine and I had to binge the series, and after that it was a different franchise, and then I had kids.
Speaker: I stopped having time to play anything for hours.
Speaker: I made it through Silent Hill though, which I loved.
Speaker: When my kids were young, we played SSX games together, a Zelda game and some Lego stuff, which was all great.
Speaker: These days, I play dumb point and click games on my device while I half watch movies.
Speaker: So maybe I was a gamer, but I'm now in retirement.
Speaker: I picked up a controller a couple of years ago and tried to play the first Resident Evil, which I used to speed run in an hour and a half, and got killed by the dogs in the first hallway while I walked into walls.
Speaker: LAUGHTER
Speaker: You know, I think as a pair of aging gamers, that, that might be the most I can, most I can sympathize with anyone we've ever interviewed.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, no, that's, I, I, I loved that answer.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And, and,
Speaker: Kudos to Kat for really nailing the spirit in which was written.
Speaker: She's doing great.
Speaker: This is fantastic.
Speaker: Come on, you guys have to admit you would have been really bored with me and Kevin taking turns reading this out loud to each other.
Speaker: Just reading these answers out.
Speaker: You would have been totally bored.
Speaker: It wouldn't have had quite the same effect.
Speaker: I love, especially having read...
Speaker: the first Resident Evil book.
Speaker: I love her referencing the snake specifically because I remember the quote of holy shit, that's a snake in all caps from that book.
Speaker: That's a good one.
Speaker: Getting a little glimpse behind the curtain.
Speaker: It's fantastic.
Speaker: Oh, gosh.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Number seven.
Speaker: What's a franchise you've always wanted to work on that you haven't had a chance to yet?
Speaker: Honestly, anything scary.
Speaker: I do a lot of science fiction and action stuff, but horror is my true love.
Speaker: I mean, that makes sense.
Speaker: Totally understand that.
Speaker: I mean, I've read plenty of stuff from Phil that wasn't horror, and I can tell that Phil's true love is horror.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's a bumper sticker in my car.
Speaker: I'd rather be riding horror.
Speaker: I'd rather be riding a horror story.
Speaker: My other car is a hearse.
Speaker: My other car is the Dragula.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: I think it's great.
Speaker: I didn't know that that song was just about the Munster's car.
Speaker: Well, I think it was named after the Munster's car.
Speaker: I'm not sure if it was about it specifically.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: To Dracula.
Speaker: Yeah, that was the grandpa's car.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Hilarious.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: No, I'll tell you what, then.
Speaker: This is the only answer that even gave me a little bit of disappointment because I really wanted to know.
Speaker: And she did say that she liked Silent Hill earlier.
Speaker: Kevin, what would be a franchise that you would like to see S.D.
Speaker: Perry adapt?
Speaker: We've read several of her books at this point.
Speaker: Yeah, what would I like S.D.
Speaker: Perry to adapt?
Speaker: I'm trying to think of something that was somewhat disappointing that I feel like she would have a better, you know what?
Speaker: Perfect, the answer, the main answer is I would have liked to have seen S.D.
Speaker: Perry adapt Alien Isolation.
Speaker: That was my answer, that was my answer.
Speaker: Because she knows the Alien franchise.
Speaker: She knows the Alien franchise so much.
Speaker: She's written it.
Speaker: She's written it.
Speaker: Her dad has written it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's a big universe for her.
Speaker: She knows horror.
Speaker: And she knows video game adaptation.
Speaker: I mean, no disrespect to Keith R.A.D.
Speaker: Candido that it just kind of missed the mark on its structure.
Speaker: And I would have been interested to see how she could have...
Speaker: uh, tackled that, but.
Speaker: Oh, without a doubt.
Speaker: Without a doubt.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: With you a hundred percent.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's the winner.
Speaker: Um, maybe dark souls, but you know, I, I, I think, I think it's the sci-fi horror is kind of her.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Her bailiwick, you know?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: More, more futuristic, uh, horror fantasy.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Question number eight.
Speaker: We have been reading through your Resident Evil series once a year on the show, and it's always a good time.
Speaker: Do you ever wish you could return to the Resident Evil novelizations?
Speaker: Do you mean write more of them or rewrite the existing ones?
Speaker: I wish I could go in and fix some stuff in the ones I did.
Speaker: A clip is not the same thing as a magazine.
Speaker: I was young and writing fast.
Speaker: There was no canon to work from except the games themselves.
Speaker: Still, they were a fun ride.
Speaker: And I'm a paid hack.
Speaker: We'll write for money.
Speaker: If more are offered, I'd likely write more.
Speaker: Oh, please.
Speaker: Someone give this woman a contract to write more Resident Evil.
Speaker: Yeah, I think that's hilarious.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: And it's totally fair, too, because I didn't think about that.
Speaker: She was working with...
Speaker: So much less in terms of basically nothing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: There's not much in the original Resident Evil games that's like tried and true canon.
Speaker: You know, a lot of has been a lot has been filled out since.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: If you wanted to write an adaptation now.
Speaker: Oh, my God.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You have the games themselves, which are dense as hell.
Speaker: But then you also have the... There's the mainline games, there's the side games, and then there's the CG movies.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Which are... They put out to kind of bridge the gap between games.
Speaker: I think they just announced the next CG movie that's coming out is... It's actually the first time that Jill...
Speaker: And Leon will meet.
Speaker: Oh, nice.
Speaker: Did you watch that first one?
Speaker: I didn't watch the first one.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: I need to check that out.
Speaker: No, I have no idea.
Speaker: I need to check it out.
Speaker: I've heard differing opinions on it.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Which intrigues me.
Speaker: It came out when there was like a sudden glut of Resident Evil.
Speaker: There was like a new Resident Evil 1 movie, like a new read adaptation of the first Resident Evil game.
Speaker: There was the CG movie.
Speaker: There was the TV show that got canceled on Netflix.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Big waste of who is the who is the guy who played Wesker in that?
Speaker: He's a really good actor.
Speaker: Lance Reddick.
Speaker: Huge.
Speaker: Oh, OK.
Speaker: That is a massive waste of Lance Reddick.
Speaker: That's ridiculous.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's, it's a totally different ball game in terms of how to do all this shit now.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: A hundred percent.
Speaker: A hundred percent.
Speaker: But I bet she could pull it off.
Speaker: I bet she could pull it off.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Question number nine.
Speaker: We just read Marvel's Midnight Suns Infernal Rising and loved it.
Speaker: How much leeway did you have on the characters you got to use for the story?
Speaker: Were Satana and Zarathust chosen for you, or did you pick them out?
Speaker: So glad you liked the sons.
Speaker: That was also fun.
Speaker: The characters were great to write for.
Speaker: I came up with the basic plot and originally suggested different characters.
Speaker: The Marvel people asked me to pick others as they were already working with both of my choices on other projects.
Speaker: They threw out names.
Speaker: I suggested a couple.
Speaker: It was a collaborative effort.
Speaker: I was delighted with who we ended up with, especially Satana.
Speaker: Yeah, that shows.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: 100%.
Speaker: Oh, man.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I wish I knew what she originally pitched.
Speaker: Yeah, that actually, if I had a follow-up, I would have been very curious as to who she actually pitched for it.
Speaker: Oh, man.
Speaker: Because Zarathus and Satana are, I mean, they're great picks, but I'm just trying to think of who else could have filled similar roles.
Speaker: Right, right.
Speaker: You know, like...
Speaker: Mephisto, I mean, he ends up being in the game itself.
Speaker: It ties in so nicely, you know, because at that point you figure they already know Mephisto is going to be in there.
Speaker: So who are some natural, you know, tributaries that come off of that?
Speaker: Of that, you know, world of the demon verse in Marvel.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: The infernal verse.
Speaker: Man, I tell you, I'm...
Speaker: I just loved the way she wrote Satana.
Speaker: So her enthusiasm for writing her, it shows.
Speaker: It absolutely shows.
Speaker: Yeah, totally.
Speaker: Number 10, did you have to coordinate with anyone with Firaxis for it?
Speaker: For the Sons, I coordinated with the game developers, a rep from Marvel, and my editor at Titan.
Speaker: The game guys were a blast.
Speaker: They were so excited about their work.
Speaker: They were extremely generous with their time, gave me the game scripts and a ton of artwork and design to look at.
Speaker: I heard they dug the book, so I'm happy.
Speaker: That's great.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And as of this recording, we're just a few days out from Jake Solomon announcing that he's moving on from Firaxis.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Jake Solomon, who is the lead on Midnight Suns.
Speaker: So all the best to Jake Solomon.
Speaker: All the best, Jake.
Speaker: Really looking forward to whatever he's doing next.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But he was the guy who...
Speaker: He made XCOM happen again.
Speaker: He grew up playing XCOM, the old XCOM series in the 90s, and he convinced Sid Meier to let him bring it back, basically.
Speaker: That's insane.
Speaker: I'd be proud of myself if I influenced Sid Meier into having a grilled cheese sandwich for lunch, let alone resurrect one of the most difficult game franchises of all time.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's crazy.
Speaker: I gotta tell you though, you know, uh,
Speaker: Fuck the readers in this kind of situation.
Speaker: If you can make the game designers, if they liked what you wrote, that's probably the main audience you should be playing to.
Speaker: Yes, exactly.
Speaker: If the people making the game love your work, I think you're in pretty good shape.
Speaker: Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: And then question 11.
Speaker: Which character from Midnight Suns was the most fun to write?
Speaker: They were all fun, for real.
Speaker: I think Blade was maybe the coolest to write for with his senses tuned so high and how sharp he is.
Speaker: Satana was the easiest voice to find and probably the funniest.
Speaker: I loved that Robbie became a they when he was Ghost Rider.
Speaker: I was fascinated with how the spirit and he as a person worked together.
Speaker: Magic's trauma-informed detachment was intriguing, and Nico's insecurity, and Caretaker's history.
Speaker: Even Zarathos's single note was interesting.
Speaker: Just main character syndrome on high.
Speaker: I was lucky to get the job and happy at how the book turned out.
Speaker: That's such a great way of describing Zarathus.
Speaker: That's a perfect way to describe Zarathus.
Speaker: It's perfect.
Speaker: A single note, and he's just main character syndrome on high.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: That's exactly what he is.
Speaker: That's exactly what he is.
Speaker: There's no dynamic changes to Zarathus' character.
Speaker: No, no.
Speaker: Zarathus doesn't learn.
Speaker: Zarathos does not learn.
Speaker: He is Zarathos.
Speaker: Oh, man.
Speaker: Yeah, that's a good answer.
Speaker: And you can tell with all of the stuff here, this is stuff she really thought about.
Speaker: And I know that sounds obvious, but I think with some people, you can run into an issue with –
Speaker: treating these characters like just like, well, it's a comic book, so fuck it, you know?
Speaker: And, and, you know, just the, the level of pathos that she was able to install in them.
Speaker: Um, and the stuff, and it's nice because the stuff that we recognized in how she was treating these characters is directly talked about right here, you know?
Speaker: So she was thinking the same direction we were.
Speaker: I think that's great.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: And our last question for her was, any irons in the fire that we can know about?
Speaker: Any hints?
Speaker: Irons in the fire?
Speaker: Nope, nothing to report at the moment, sorry to say.
Speaker: I just had a thing fall through, which was a bummer, but that's the business.
Speaker: I'll go back to poking one of my original books into life and work on that till the next paying gig comes along, most likely.
Speaker: Yeah, fair enough.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And that's the end of our interview with S.D.
Speaker: Perry.
Speaker: How great is that?
Speaker: It's so cool.
Speaker: I'm always thrilled when these authors take the time to join us and that kind of thing.
Speaker: But I have to be honest, Kevin, S.D.
Speaker: Perry, this one particularly hits close to home.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Because I devoured that.
Speaker: books that she and her dad wrote when I was younger and so being able to pick her brain even long distance this way is such a thrill so this one hits very close to home I'm stoked
Speaker: Yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker: So, yeah, thank you.
Speaker: Thank you to S.D.
Speaker: Perry for taking the time to respond to our questions.
Speaker: We're looking forward to continuing our journey through your books, through the Resonable series.
Speaker: It might be that we'll be reading another one of her books before this year is out.
Speaker: It might be.
Speaker: It might be.
Speaker: Maybe.
Speaker: And a very, very special thank you to Kat from Pixel A Day.
Speaker: Go to her YouTube channel, YouTube dot com slash Pixel A Day.
Speaker: I think that's the URL.
Speaker: Better be.
Speaker: It better be.
Speaker: Pixel A Day.
Speaker: Double checking.
Speaker: Yeah, that's her.
Speaker: It's the one.
Speaker: YouTube dot com slash Pixel A Day.
Speaker: She's up to nearly 12,000 subscribers.
Speaker: Good for her.
Speaker: That's fantastic.
Speaker: She deserves it.
Speaker: The work she puts into those videos is insane.
Speaker: She's just the best.
Speaker: Yeah, she's terrific.
Speaker: So, yeah, go check out her work.
Speaker: She does a lot of very interesting videos on gaming where she...
Speaker: Talks about more of the esoteric and ephemeral aspects of video games.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: And all from a psychological point of view.
Speaker: She's very good at it.
Speaker: Go check her out.
Speaker: Go watch her videos.
Speaker: And now for the question that some of you have been waiting for, at least.
Speaker: For signage wise, that is true.
Speaker: Oh, that's good to know.
Speaker: I guess.
Speaker: I guess.
Speaker: I'm assuming.
Speaker: What are you playing?
Speaker: Oh, I gotta be honest.
Speaker: Today, it was all dedicated to Hi-Fi Rush.
Speaker: Hi-Fi Rush.
Speaker: I put everything that I've been playing on the back burner and, and got that good and downloaded and started playing.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: I'm having so much fun with it.
Speaker: It's I've not much of a spectacle fighter guy and I'm not a huge rhythm game guy either.
Speaker: And that's what both of that.
Speaker: That's, that's the two genres that this game is.
Speaker: encompasses the most, I think.
Speaker: And God, it's so satisfying.
Speaker: It's fun.
Speaker: It's bright.
Speaker: It's pure frosting.
Speaker: It's just frosting.
Speaker: It's just feel good endorphins.
Speaker: And you don't even need to have a terrific sense of rhythm to be able to do well in it.
Speaker: It just helps.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: They've done a wonderful job with this game and it came out of the clear blue sky and
Speaker: And I'm having a blast with it.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: I think it's fun.
Speaker: The music's great.
Speaker: The art's great.
Speaker: It just hums.
Speaker: It feels fantastic.
Speaker: It was like shadow dropped, I believe.
Speaker: Where basically there was one of the...
Speaker: You know, one of those things where they're showing off trailers or whatever last month and they just announced it and at the end of the trailer it's like, oh, it's available now and everybody's like, what?
Speaker: How wild is that?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's absolutely ridiculous.
Speaker: And this is Tango Gameworks, known for The Evil Within and Tokyo or Ghostwire Tokyo.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So they do some pretty big AAA horror action titles.
Speaker: And then suddenly they're dropping this super hyper colorful rhythm spectacle fighter.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: And it's just pure, like innocent fun.
Speaker: Like it's funny and goofy and silly and there's not a drop of blood in it.
Speaker: Wild.
Speaker: No, it's crazy.
Speaker: there's one scene and it's played for laughs, but you, you come into a room and, and it's not even a scene.
Speaker: It's just something that's happening in one of the levels.
Speaker: And there's this guy who was like a detective robot.
Speaker: Cause all the, all the bad guys are robots.
Speaker: And it's all of these robots that have clearly been killed and there's oil everywhere.
Speaker: And, and they play it for laughs, you know, and, and the detective's assistant says so much oil.
Speaker: And it's clearly traumatized.
Speaker: And,
Speaker: It was shocking.
Speaker: It was, it was shocking to me because I was like, Oh gosh, those, those, those robots are dead.
Speaker: You know, that's how, that's how wholesome this game is.
Speaker: It's super great.
Speaker: It's fantastic.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: As for what I'm playing, nothing really new since the last time we recorded because of our recording schedule is all is a little weird just because the timing when this episode is going to come out.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We've got a lot.
Speaker: We've got a lot of irons in the fire.
Speaker: Let's say we've got a lot of irons in the fire.
Speaker: This actually this actually this episode is being recorded after a series that we just finished, but it's coming out before that series airs.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: because we've thought everything through.
Speaker: We think everything through.
Speaker: So at the end of the King's Quest series, you will hear me talk about Dead Space.
Speaker: I am here to tell you that in the past future, I have finished the Dead Space remake.
Speaker: It was delightful.
Speaker: Oh, good.
Speaker: They did a lot of good things in making the characters more likable.
Speaker: Even like some of the characters who are like there's some twisty characters who are like.
Speaker: oh, I didn't know that they were that person.
Speaker: They were the bad guy or whatever.
Speaker: Even after the twists in the game, you're like, oh, no, they're actually still kind of a sympathetic character.
Speaker: Whereas back in 2008, all characters were written like,
Speaker: Like, fuck you.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: You know, there's like a... There were a lot of characters written as the incarnation of that one Daikatana ad.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: So even though that ad flopped, that was what, 2000 or something like that?
Speaker: Even though that ad flopped so hard and the content of the ad was John Romero's going to make you his bitch, I think was the...
Speaker: the the it seems like characters were just infested with that aggro dialogue because Isaac in the original Dead Space doesn't say anything he's a silent protagonist but the characters around him are kind of douchey um
Speaker: In Dead Space 2 and 3, Isaac is like, he's that prototypical hero who's kind of an asshole.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know, that was very popular at the turn of the aughts to the teens, to the tens.
Speaker: That's all it was.
Speaker: That's all there was with these characters.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Now Isaac actually talks in the Dead Space remake and he's very thoughtful and, you know, understanding and empathetic and all that stuff.
Speaker: He's, he's, but, and it's the same voice actor.
Speaker: That's the other thing is it's the same voice actor from Dead Space 2 and 3.
Speaker: Huh.
Speaker: voicing him in the remake, but it's a very different tone, so to speak.
Speaker: That's interesting.
Speaker: Yeah, wrapped up on Dead Space Remake, so I can really focus all my energy towards Pizza Tower.
Speaker: Ah, good, good.
Speaker: I was worried that you were losing the focus that you so badly needed.
Speaker: The real focus is guiding Pepino through the Pizza Tower.
Speaker: The most important thing here, yes.
Speaker: The most important thing here.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Don't worry, I will not be updating you on Pizza Tower too much in the next couple of episodes because those episodes happened in the past.
Speaker: I think I mentioned it at one point.
Speaker: But this is the freshest update on Pizza Tower.
Speaker: I've beaten one of the bosses and I'm on the second level.
Speaker: So there we go.
Speaker: There we go.
Speaker: Fresh, hot, ready to deliver pizza tower update for y'all.
Speaker: And I think I'm considering buying Returnal again on PC.
Speaker: Yes, you have been like, you're so horny for that game.
Speaker: It cracks me the fuck up.
Speaker: You love that game.
Speaker: And I guess just having it on the computer will give you an excuse to, what, rack up the achievements again or something?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, I just, I just want to get it on, on steam and have those steam achievers, you know,
Speaker: And also play it on my Steam Deck if it works on the Steam Deck.
Speaker: I don't know if it does.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We'll see about that.
Speaker: I wonder how it looks on the Steam Deck because that is a beautiful game.
Speaker: It is.
Speaker: It's a very, if you have the machine to run it, it is a gorgeous game.
Speaker: It was one of the first games to really come out for the PS5 that really pushed the PS5 into like, oh, this is a next gen game.
Speaker: You know what I mean?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So that is my Returnal mention for the day.
Speaker: I'm pretty sure I've talked about Returnal previously.
Speaker: Well, we weren't doing What Are You Playing earlier on in the show.
Speaker: No, I think you mentioned it, but I don't think we were doing What Are You Playing.
Speaker: I don't think we weren't doing What Are You Playing in the opening months.
Speaker: So this is totally fair game.
Speaker: This is totally fair game.
Speaker: This is fine.
Speaker: This is fine.
Speaker: This is fine.
Speaker: It's fine.
Speaker: It's fine.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: That'll do it for tonight's episode.
Speaker: It's a little bit short, but hey, it's free.
Speaker: Yeah, what do you want from us?
Speaker: It's a little bit short, but it was based on the length of S.D.
Speaker: Perry's answers.
Speaker: So go away.
Speaker: Back off, man.
Speaker: We're scientists.
Speaker: I'm a scientist.
Speaker: Anyway, if you really want to help Zach, go follow us on Twitter and Instagram at PixelitPod.
Speaker: Twitter, oh man, that's a fucking hellscape.
Speaker: I know, right?
Speaker: Twitter and Instagram at PixelitPod.
Speaker: You can go to our website, PixelitPod.com, where you can see our, you can go listen to the episodes on there, and if you sign up for the newsletter on the website, you can get episodes up to a couple days early if I'm
Speaker: feeling frisky with the edit and get it done early.
Speaker: From there, you can go click on a link, join our Discord, join the conversation.
Speaker: And I haven't pinged it in a little while, but go ahead on Steam and join our Steam community over there on Steam.
Speaker: Because we post the games that we talk about on What Are You Playing?
Speaker: We put little reviews up there.
Speaker: So go ahead and join and
Speaker: And have a good time following us.
Speaker: Damn good time.
Speaker: Because we're a great follow.
Speaker: We're just the most following-est, I don't know, podcast?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You could ever hope to follow.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Good night.
Speaker: Bye.
