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S3 Ep230: Talkcast - October #2
74 Plays3 years ago
There are five Sundays in October, you can't make this stuff up. Join Dave and Jake as they talk about books, the legacy of the podcast, and replacing voice actors in this week's episode!
Intro:
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Intro:
- Vampire Survivors - Forest Night Fever
- Tower of Heaven - Farewell, Traveller
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Transcript
Introduction and Sleep Patterns
00:00:43
Speaker
How's it going, everyone? Welcome to another episode of Soapstone. My name is Jake, and I'm joined by my co-host as always, Dave. How's it going today, Dave? It's going so far so good. Nice. I slept in, apparently. That's rare for you. It is. I think it's because I woke up in the middle of the night and I was like kind of tossing, turning a little bit and kind of in that
00:01:07
Speaker
My body is functionally off, but my brain is awake, just kind of like laying in bed. I don't know how long for that was, but that was probably somewhere around 5am. Right. And then when I kind of like, rustled again in bed, I'm like, oh, let me check my phone. It's like 10 30. I was like, ah. Yeah. No, I, well, I hope that your, your sleeping habits get, you know, a little bit better. You're not, uh, not disturbed. You can sleep and.
00:01:35
Speaker
and rest and wake up early. I wouldn't personally wish waking up early on myself though, because that's not the way I live. So you also woke up after 1030? No, actually. You said it's a leading question knowing that that's not the case. I know. Yeah. No. So I have actually been waking up a little bit earlier.
Puppy Sitting and Sleep Adjustments
00:01:56
Speaker
Puppy sitting has a big impact on it. But usually, so this is the way it works, right? During the week,
00:02:04
Speaker
You obviously wake up relatively early because there's work, right? But traditionally I would stay up really late on Friday and then sleep in Saturday. Do the same thing for Sunday, right? But while puppy sitting, I still kind of can if I'm like, I will contribute nothing to morning walks. But if I want to like not be a scumbag and occasionally help out, then I need to be awake for it. So.
00:02:32
Speaker
Um, I do think that, uh, that Jenny, my wife takes more of the morning walks, um, pretty exclusively, but I want to be around to help out. And oftentimes just waking up also is, um,
00:02:45
Speaker
If you're woken up early at a certain point, you're like, all right, let's just start the day. So yeah, like, you know, there's not as much value getting back from going back into bed, getting back and then a whole swing of things versus just I'm awake and under the covers, but delaying the inevitable. Yeah. So it was nine 30 today because we knew the puppy was being dropped off, but it's been breaking news. I was going to have a three day.
00:03:10
Speaker
Uh, three days of puppy sitting and it has now been collapsed to 12 hours because the puppy was going to be dropped off yesterday. Uh, change of plans. We're like, we'll just drop the puppy off on the way through like cool, whatever. Um, and then like pretty much pretty, the last development was like, well, we're actually just not going to stay the night at the place. So they're going to come back, pick up the puppy. Um, and we're now at a 33.3 repeating, of course.
00:03:38
Speaker
percent puppy time from the original agreement. So I'm going to ask for a refund. I was going to say, do you feel bad about that? I mean, it's it's both. I like I like the puppy puppies adorable. But yes, I mean, sleeping is also kind of nice. So, you know.
Pets: Cat vs. Dog Debate
00:04:01
Speaker
So this begs the question, when are you going to get your own pet? When I say pet, I know you guys are leaning more towards a cat than a dog. Yeah. Nobody's going to come hang out at your place. That's fair. So many people have allergies weirdly. Yeah, I mean.
00:04:21
Speaker
If a friend of the show, Ian, actually had moved down to the area with multiple opportunities, then potentially that could have had more of an impact. We were looking at putting the pom pom pom pom sound here. I say multiple opportunities, but it's not like there was ever a house or an apartment or anything like that linked. It was more just like.
00:04:43
Speaker
Hey, you want to move down here? He's like, ah, no. Okay. Um, but, uh, that would probably have like slightly more of an impact. Who else is allergic to cats? Genero. Really? Armandamucia.
00:04:58
Speaker
I did not realize he's a cat allergic. Oh, yeah, it's almost like the one Halloween party down at Justin and Rachel's. I think he came for like an hour with like a mask and then left or like didn't come at all. Wow. Because, yeah, it's it's pretty bad for him, too. And I kind of have allergies, but like I can drug up and be there. Right. Right. Hmm. Interesting.
The Case for Hairless Cats
00:05:27
Speaker
Well, in either case, we're, we're, we're thinking about getting some sort of pet. Um, I wouldn't be opposed to a dog, but the property is not. It's not super great for like an outside dog, right? Like our front yard is on a hill with no fence. The backyard does not have grass. It's it's a, it's a hill. So like outside pretty well out of the picture. Um, and then.
00:05:55
Speaker
but probably gets, uh, uh, uh, animals is a little bit easier to take care of. I think then mandatory walks like, uh, like at the hour on the hour for, you know, morning and evening, but.
00:06:08
Speaker
I will say most pets are not usually that time schedule based. Like our dogs growing up, we're just happy to have the opportunity. Like if we reach into the least drawer, which they're like, that's the one I hear the noise. Um, they get very excited to be happy to go whenever, but they understood that that was up to like, I don't know if they had no sense of time. They were that dumb or they're just like, not until mom and dad say, um, whenever it happened, they're like, yeah.
00:06:38
Speaker
Right as they go out and sniff and we go along the bike trail and whatnot The other option we were considering at the at the apartment prior to getting a house was like Some sort of hairless cat which I still think would be great. I know you're gonna shake some for the listeners Dave's shaking his head, but This was my wife's idea Originally, I think like a hairless cat and a sweater with a little hat Maybe like one of those ski mask type things freaking amazing perfect
00:07:09
Speaker
I don't like the idea of something that has hair, having no hair, being replaced with fake hair. That's weird to me. Yeah. It also looks like just like a chicken. They do kind of look like chickens. Yeah. What am I thinking of? A Siamese cat? Something like that. Yeah.
00:07:31
Speaker
It's not like for clarity, for the listeners, um, it's not that like you take a cat that has hair and you remove all of the hair. There are just hairless breeds of cats that do not grow hair. And those are, uh, hypoallergenic. So people that are allergic to cat dander and things generally wouldn't be for them.
00:07:53
Speaker
Yeah, it's just it's all wrinkles. Mm hmm. It's all wrinkles. Yeah. There's plenty of indecent comparisons that could be made. But yeah, if you were to crinkle your forehead, there you go. That's what these cats look like. Testicles. There you go. That's the only one. I have a comb in my pocket. I didn't realize that. It's kind of funny. It's more funny because I'm wearing a bathrobe. Why would you have a comb in a bathrobe pocket?
00:08:22
Speaker
I mean, I was going to ask, but I just figured there's maybe chili downstairs and you're just vibing on the weekend. Bathrobes are very comfortable. When we picked up is, it's probably been a couple of years now, but, uh, we picked up a couple of bathrooms and it's just like around the house. Perfect. Like freaking great weekend. You just like throw on some, uh, a shirt and some shorts, bathrobe.
00:08:48
Speaker
balances it. You've got like the the option to like open or close the bathroom more depending on how warm you are. Hey, hey, whoa, hey. Again, wearing clothes in the bathroom. I'm not walking around nude. I'm not hoping that one person listens like oh, is Jake exploding so on the podcast? Atrium stuff. Yeah, that's the that's members only. Um,
Weekend Relaxation Rituals
00:09:15
Speaker
Or occasionally, if you are going to go out to get the mail, there's nothing better to receive, uh, you know, to, to get things from a mailbox than wearing a bathrobe. It's the most culturally appropriate thing to receive the mail with. So you go out, pick up the paper, super coffee, kind of gesture towards the neighbor. Exactly. Exactly. We're in slippers, unshaped legs, just the whole thing. It's just perfect.
00:09:46
Speaker
How often shave your legs? Well, I just wanted to clarify. Wearing clothes under the bathrobe, unshaved legs, like this is it's a very specific picture that's burned into. I don't know, like 70s through 90s. American father role, basically. But, yeah. And then I just say American father in a couple hours.
00:10:12
Speaker
I didn't say American father instead of American dad. Cause that's a specific thing. So we don't want to give Seth McFarland any promotion. He has enough TV shows and money. Speaking of Seth though, um, there's a couple of them.
Seth Green's Voice Acting Roles
00:10:28
Speaker
One of them is, uh, we were talking about mass effect over the last couple of days and like Seth green, uh, voiced Joker.
00:10:38
Speaker
It was like the ship pilot. Did you ever play Mass Effect? I think we've, we've talked about this specifically, this specific question, but every episode's a new episode. You're talking about Seth Green, who was in Awesome Powers, Seth Green. Hmm. Am I not thinking, is this not actually the guy's name? No, Seth Green, American actor.
00:10:59
Speaker
He's in a bunch of voice stuff. Uh, this guy. Yes. Austin Powers. Yeah. I didn't know. He also did the voice of Chris in a family guy, Seth green.
00:11:13
Speaker
Oh, it was an it 1990. Scooby Doo, two monsters. Buffy, the vampire slayer. OK, he's been a lot more than I realize, but multiple Austin Power movies. Yeah, that was he's the same. You're right. Yeah. Dr. Dr. your son. Yeah. Yeah. So that's been around. I didn't realize he was in video game voice acting, though. Yeah. Mm hmm. He's Joker in Mass Effect in all of them, actually.
00:11:43
Speaker
They brought him back for every single one of the entries, but that was also a game that kind of like, I don't know. I guess I would say Seth Green has more star power than, um, I can't remember her name, but, uh, she was an attack of the show in G4.
00:12:02
Speaker
Olivia Munn. Olivia Munn. Yes. Thank you. Apologies, Olivia. My pop culture stuff is weirdly nuanced. We're like, I can answer these questions. Then you ask me anything else. I'm like, I know. But like she was also a recurring character in that series
Mass Effect Controversies
00:12:18
Speaker
as a reporter who would be doing like there was interviews with Commander Shepard. Okay. The civilian side of things.
00:12:27
Speaker
Yes, but she would be asking hard hitting questions like from the human centric perspective like why are you working with aliens and all this stuff and The renegade the renegade option across the series was you could just get fed up with the interview and like backhand her Which I it sounds really bad from describing it like this, but it was a different time
00:12:48
Speaker
in video games If you're ever in conversation with somebody and you don't like what they're saying Hit them with your hand. Well, this is renegade Shepherd renegade Shepherd's not a good person necessarily And like by the final game if you had done all of this She still tries to interview you but she's taking like personal defense lessons and she'll actually like dodge the first swing But there's like a renegade button matchbox
00:13:14
Speaker
to follow up with like another hit. It sounds so bad now that I'm describing it. Make sure you hit Olivia Munn. So, yeah. Hmm. There's really no making that sound better now that I've said it. At the time, it was just like, haha, bad shepherd. But now it's kind of like, yeah. I don't know. It wasn't even that it wasn't even a different time, though, right? Like this is within the last 10 years.
00:13:44
Speaker
Bobby Kotick probably had some influence on that game these days. Yeah. And EA was the one with, uh, that's, that's the weird thing, right? He actually, I can't remember who the CEO of EA is, but he just calls up a rival CEO. And he's like, Hey, if you're putting Olivia Munnam this, like you have to have commander Shepard, like be a bad guy. Yeah.
00:14:07
Speaker
I mean, for what it's worth, it definitely makes the renegade option more of a renegade option. Like I'm playing the bad path of literally being a Dick, but yeah. Who is. Wait, Jessica Chobot. Is that her name? Actually, wait, am I confused? Oh my gosh. That's the person. See your screen. So I don't know.
00:14:35
Speaker
All right, I look this up. It was probably Jessica Chobot. Why did I think this was a Libya month? I believe that entirely. I mean, she's in some stuff. She's cool. Yeah, this is one of those. This is one of those like they look kind of similar, but not super similar. Hmm.
00:14:57
Speaker
Yeah, she still had the same background. I thought like she was with IGN and, um, some of these other groups, but I didn't realize, anyways, apologies to friend of the show, Jessica Chobot. Um, but yeah, Mass Effect was a game. I have no other, nothing else to say about it though. I still have not actually ever checked it out and I feel like I never will. It's one of those.
00:15:25
Speaker
It kind of like just passed me by and then I've heard enough tangentially, but I kind of get it, but I don't think it's for me type thing. Yeah. The first game is the least playable. And I think that they probably, I think they tried to make it a little bit more playable for like the anniversary edition or whatever, the collector's edition that has all of them. But it's still like, it was okay.
00:15:50
Speaker
You could kind of just, it's one of those games where watching a story recap and then playing the rest in the series is probably the better play.
00:16:00
Speaker
Yeah, I feel like you don't need to experience everything firsthand. You can just kind of let it live somewhere else and then watch it. Like I was recently, I watched the Let's Play channel Oni Plays, where it's a Chris O'Neill and friends doing just random video games sometimes. And they had a compilation of, hey, here's the series of a game called Harvester. Now, Harvester looks like a very old point and click where they seem to have some
00:16:27
Speaker
some quote unquote pixelated video footage of like if you remember like Mortal Kombat days types of video footage of like here's the people doing the actual animations. It's kind of like that for as far as detail, maybe a little bit better. Right. It's a very old and dated and I would never put myself through it. But the game seems so fucking weird and out there. And I'm like, oh, I would definitely watch a play through of this. Right. Yeah.
00:16:57
Speaker
Yeah, I know, um, not that long ago you linked me and I think I saw it. I think it, I don't get popups for a lot of YouTube combat content, but I do usually get like Mandalorian stuff. It fits into that kind of game, right? Like he plays a lot of games where I'm like, I am so glad that I've never played this. Um, right. Or if I have no interest in playing it now, you know, I would say.
Understanding Game Reviews
00:17:22
Speaker
Um, but you can still, it's almost like a spark notes for a book that's not good. Like you can make it entertaining in the spark notes, but that doesn't mean you should go back and like read the book if it's not good. Right. So.
00:17:37
Speaker
Right. Good reviews should have enough context in there for you to be able to understand and appreciate the jokes being made at its expense versus the ones that are specifically for, if you read the entire thing, here's this one thing. Okay. That's not why people are checking that out ever. It's a, Hey, this is relevance in my interest, but I don't want to sink the time. Otherwise I would just read the goddamn book and that's, that's not me.
00:18:04
Speaker
Have you read anything recently? Uh, the last thing I read was Terry Pratchett's color of magic, um, a month or two back. I'm always tempted to like pick up a Sanderson book cause I hear great things from everybody who I've ever talked to. Yeah. I just, I get so much FOMO or activity FOMO. I'm like, I'm sitting here and reading. I can't listen to music and watch something and play a game and cook something. Like it's how do you feel about audio books?
00:18:37
Speaker
I would do it if I was doing something else. If I had to drive somewhere for a bit, oh yeah, I could throw in an audio book, because we did that when I was growing up for longer trips. Or if I was doing some chores around the house, I'd definitely put in my headphones, be like, oh, I'm going to do some dishes. I'll clean up a bit. Meanwhile, having that audio backing. Yeah. If you're particularly interested in Sanderson, because I get it.
00:19:03
Speaker
Especially once an author becomes very prolific and Sanderson's been writing for a long time, but he also writes at like a ridiculous pace Like he publishes like three books a year usually not not in the same series, but like three novels and Maybe some novellas like in the same year like that's not actually even wrong. He writes like crazy when George RR Martin was actually like a
00:19:30
Speaker
When people were even still asking the question of whether Game of Thrones or Song of Ice and Fire would ever be finished, one of the names that was kind of like, you know, on the wind was like, oh, well, maybe Brandon Sanderson would take this over. And Brandon was just like, nah. He was like, I do not write like George. We have different themes and it just, it wouldn't work, basically.
00:19:59
Speaker
They're like, dang, that was the one chance. All right. So he's never going to finish it, right? But how do you feel about.
Continuing Media Legacies
00:20:12
Speaker
You're going to have to provide me the specifics of what the exact scenario was. But I thought there was somebody else who, and maybe this was Sanderson related, somebody else who had a book series, they passed away and somebody else continued their work and kind of finished it out. How do you feel about that as a concept? Like let's say one of us died or both of us died. The other person finishes the podcast.
00:20:37
Speaker
Or if like two other people just came in and they're like, Hey, we're going to be continuing on the soapstone podcast legacy. How do you feel about that transition of, I guess a legacy of art to some medium, which I would say writing is just being passed off to somebody else?
00:20:56
Speaker
Yeah. Um, I think the particular example you might be thinking of is, um, uh, Robert Jordan's wheel of time series. He died before he completed it. His wife did reach out and brought Brandon Sanderson and to finish I think the last two books. Um, but.
00:21:13
Speaker
It's, hmm. I think talking about it for anything that I do, I would instill a lot less reverence than, you know, like the most extreme case you could go to is like J.R.R. Tolkien, right? Like that guy lived and breathed his own world. Like he is basically the aluvitar or the god of
00:21:35
Speaker
Lord of the Rings as far as establishing canonicity in all of this. So the idea of like other people coming in and kind of like making some stuff up, you can literally see that we talked about the Ring of Power reviews.
00:21:51
Speaker
For people who wanted to like fit in like to make to tell their own stories or tell stories that are kind of like canon adjacent It's a whole big thing. I don't think that like anything I've done carries that weight, right? Even if we're talking about the podcast which we've done, you know for a couple years now Several actually a couple doesn't really say anymore It would be probably a little bit weird
00:22:17
Speaker
if other people came in and like took it over. But I think a lot of that comes from a perspective of like, I don't know what our mission statement is. We don't have one for sure. Exactly. So like, it's almost like
00:22:35
Speaker
OK, this is going to sound very derivative, I guess, but like someone's just doing a completely mindless thing and they can no longer do that completely mindless thing. So another group came in and we're like, we will do the mindless thing, right? Like it's not I don't know. I think I think that like it's beneficial for us if.
00:22:55
Speaker
This is from the perspective of our friends enjoy the podcast and the people who are listening now enjoy the podcast and others are like, hey, I want to keep making relatable content or things that, you know, they want to hear. Then I would feel pretty honored. You know, that would be like awesome.
00:23:16
Speaker
That would be my, if I, if I'm going to like lend us a little bit of credit and lend the listeners credit for listening for a reason, then yeah, I think continuing would be fine. I'd also be fine if it stopped. I come at it from the perspective of.
00:23:36
Speaker
Even though it is kind of like we don't have an overall goal, we don't have like an episode episode. I mean, we have like loose plans for stuff, but it's not a, hey, we got to get this done. We have to talk about this. We got to do X, Y, and Z. It's very off the cuff if the awkward pauses were never evidence enough. But I feel like anything we talk about and how we talk about it is very much us.
00:24:03
Speaker
If we replaced one of us, just one of us dynamic would be wildly fucking different. Oh yeah. Cause like I'm very slow and mild mannered comparatively and you're more.
00:24:20
Speaker
I'm friendly. I'm just kidding. Hey, Greg. You speak to things in more detail. You have more passion about certain things and you can like go off. And so there's like kind of like a balance in place to a degree. Right.
00:24:39
Speaker
And I feel like, especially if you've released both of us, I feel like I'm making case like, don't replace us. I feel like it would be a different thing. It could still be under the same name technically, but I don't think it would be the same thing at all. Yeah. So I feel like almost if you're ever going to transition something like that, it can still be in the same family to a degree, but it's never going to be the same. So I feel like in the case of like a written work,
00:25:09
Speaker
Unless like they were best friends the whole time and were always co-writing, I don't know how you could just pass it off to somebody else. Even if it was like, Hey, I figured out kind of roughly what their style is to kind of imitate that. I feel like it's, it's lost to a degree. So I'd almost rather just say, Hey, new thing.
00:25:27
Speaker
I think new thing is pretty much always safer. Like there's almost a negative public perception for people taking something over. Even think about like Doctor Who for a second, right? Like they've replaced the Doctor many times and it's always a big hubbub, right? It's a woman! Yes, right. But she's a great fucking actress. She kicks ass.
00:25:49
Speaker
Yeah. And that's kind of a very particular case. But it is definitely easier to say, whether you take on the same name, whether you take a new name, you say, we looked at the content that already existed. This is what it looked like they were trying to accomplish. So this is what goes back to preventing content for friends. And we want to continue in the spirit of that. As long as you capture that core, that's the important thing.
00:26:19
Speaker
Um, like it can be really difficult to continue something continuing like the literary example and going back to the, when you started with when Robert Jordan died, he had notes for the final books. And that was basically like set in stone. Um.
00:26:35
Speaker
gospel essentially for Brandon who came in to finish the series because he grew up reading Wheel of Time, right? So like changing this final vision would be unthinkable. But the complication was there wasn't justification or explanation for how all of these plot points would come together. And without spoiling anything, I'm not gonna spoil the end of like a 13 novel series.
00:27:00
Speaker
things get kind of really weird at the end. And there were some interviews and Brandon was like, you know, more or less like he wanted to be absolutely true to what was on the page and not change things to make it make more sense to him from that place of reverence.
00:27:20
Speaker
And I think that can almost be a double-edged sword, right? Because Brandon's actually a really good author. And I know that if he would have changed some of those things in that last page, it would have made more sense. For the reader, yeah. Exactly. So I think if someone ever took over our podcast or made a tribute podcast, which is, this is a pipe dream.
00:27:48
Speaker
they should put their own twist on it, right? I wouldn't want it to be just the necromancy of the soapstone, right? Yeah, there's always like a fine line between homage, shallow copies. Look in French. Amla du homage. I think that means I love you.
00:28:11
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's very weird to try and capture like the spirit of something because with any type of medium you're always inferring or assuming to a point what the person intended originally with that. Unless they come out and say specifically, hey, it's this.
00:28:30
Speaker
Because anytime you see like a work of art, you're like, oh, this is what the person was thinking about or based on what was going on in their life or what was historically recorded. Sure, maybe, but also could have been like, I want to do this for shits and gigs. You don't really know at the end of the day.
00:28:48
Speaker
So trying to emulate that is always difficult, unless you're really immersed in it. So it sounds like for Sanderson, growing up with Wheel of Time, or that guy's work, it helps. Similarly, if you've been following somebody's YouTube career for a very long time, you know their style. You could definitely at least carry it on in a similar direction. It just feels so weird to ever reanimate things.
00:29:18
Speaker
Yeah. Not in Diablo two though. Love necromancer class, but, or it was added to three. Technically it was added to three. I'll definitely play that one again. Yeah. More time in two. I would rather let things die though. Like there's a term for this. I'm not going to think of what it is.
00:29:43
Speaker
I guess it's the ephemeral nature of things to let them exist for a time.
00:29:50
Speaker
and then pass away instead of just recycling it constantly. It's cool that we had music from the 1930s that now exists today and has been brought back in different style with electro swing and really cool thing. I've even tried to do some new music versus just like, hey, we're updating this thing from 70 years ago. This is recorded in the 2000s, by the way. I don't know.
00:30:21
Speaker
It's like with people in general, right? If you know somebody, that's who they are. Their life, their accomplishments, their interactions, their failures. Let that be its own one thing. And then when they die, they die. Like you can remember them, but don't try and be them. Don't try and like resurrect them specifically. Is there their own unique thing, right? Right.
00:30:50
Speaker
I feel like I'm just figuring out my own philosophy on life. That's fair. I mean, well, no, I'm paying attention. Like the way you're describing it is funny because it sounds like a very direct critique over like
00:31:03
Speaker
Should there be a two pack hologram or should there be a, um, you know, Darth Vader, uh, AI generated voice line or, you know, like it's something that's started happening in movies really is like people's likenesses are actually used even after their passing. Um, Star Wars is very prominent for that. Yeah. Cause it was, um, one of the.
00:31:30
Speaker
I forget who it was, but I think it was Carrie Fisher movie. I think it was also Carrie Fisher. She might have had some scenes. I was thinking of one of like the chancellors in one of the more recent movies. That guy had definitely died because his character was old in the 1970s movie. Yeah. And they're like, oh, he's here. And it looked pretty goddamn similar, but I'm like, that is uncanny because I feel like they could have just cast somebody else and been like, listen, that guy's dead. Mm hmm.
00:31:58
Speaker
or just call in via radio, right? Like, all right, it could just be it could just be audio and then have somebody who sounds like him. I don't know. It seems weird likeness, I think, crosses a stranger threshold to me than like a sound alike or something like that. Right. Like we know that Mickey Mouse died at some point, but like when I see him back up there on the screen, I'm just like, that's not the original Mickey.
00:32:24
Speaker
This one's not racist. But I mean, like that is, at least in that context, it's a character. So you can technically change the backing person to a degree.
00:32:41
Speaker
And oftentimes, like growing up as a kid, I didn't notice when they would do that for certain characters. I know we've talked about a podcast before, um, adventures and Odyssey is like an old Christian based, I guess, radio show. Yeah. Radio show, which you could get like cassette tapes of and boy, boy, how did we have almost all of them? It was like a nice Christian book distributors. Yeah. CBD. I'm still, I still follow CBD to degree. Um,
00:33:12
Speaker
But it was a nice enough thing to follow and listen to the characters. But at some point, the voice of Mr. Whitaker, or wit, for sure. John Avery Whitaker. John Avery Whitaker passed away at some point. I don't remember exactly when.
00:33:29
Speaker
But if you go back and listen, you can probably find the cutoff of where it is two different people. Yeah. But it wasn't like a week to week thing. You had to like order these. So like for me as a kid, it was a seamless transition of, Oh, I had no idea until much later I looked into it. Yeah.
00:33:49
Speaker
It's got to be weird for those people, the person who died. Well, I mean, just to think about it, not, not like once they're dead, once they're dead, I assume that most of the complaints have been resolved, but like leading up to it, right? Particularly for people that inhabit a specific character or they become known for like one specific character and they embrace it. So I think about someone else stepping in and being that character.
00:34:18
Speaker
Cause that's almost like, well, I don't want to say it's more personal than someone taking over for an author. Cause to an author, that's probably very personal. Right. Um, but it's easier for me to comprehend. Cause it's almost like identity theft if thought about negatively. Right. I mean, I have a perfect example of first to talk about this. Sure.
00:34:39
Speaker
Metal Gear Solid, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Voices has been David Hader many years, many years. He's the classic one. Um, I still remember like the convention thing of like ego Raptor talking to him at a panel and trying to get him to say a thing and him just being elated in that interaction. But I think in five or a recent game, it was, it was five. I'm blanking on his name, but it's the guy from 24.
00:35:10
Speaker
I feel like I should know who that actor is. That's all right. We're looking it up to find Kiefer Sutherland. Yeah, you already found it. Yeah. That was just tucked away in the brain. You're like, what was my last name? Yes.
00:35:27
Speaker
But like he does a good enough job. Like it fits the character for me. But I'm sure there are some other examples I can't think of at the moment where I very much personally identify the character as the person who's voicing them and their personality and their spin and their take on it. Or if it was somebody else, I'd be like, yo, what the fuck?
00:35:48
Speaker
So we haven't done an episode on Phantom Pain, but I was reading about this actually recently. It's just kind of funny that you brought it up. And there's still like, there's still people filling comment threads on like the voice actor changed.
00:36:08
Speaker
and how it may or may not have been related to anything else going in the game. And it's like, I'm being very, very vague to avoid any potential even chance of spoilers, but like, it just, it's not that, right?
Voice Actors' Struggles for Fairness
00:36:27
Speaker
Like sometimes people just replace voice actors. And it's weird to think about,
00:36:35
Speaker
Because, you know, just like you as a kid, right, like you see the character, you see the video game character. So it's actually much easier to replace the voice behind the character as long as someone sounds close enough, which is one of the reasons that like voice actors have struggled to get in to like.
00:36:54
Speaker
into guilds and things like that to make sure that they have representation and that they're being compensated fairly and things like that because they don't get the same. At least traditionally, they don't get the same amount of coverage of protections that like full actors would get. I'm going to take like a two second soapbox. That's one hundred percent true. I mean, you can look up anything for voice actors. We can even talk about the fucking Charles Martin a shit for the upcoming Mario movie.
00:37:21
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Like they're like hey, let's get Chris Pratt cuz he's famous and then Charles Martin a who's been doing voice of Mario for fucking decades He's like he might be like a side voice in it type thing right? It's like what the fuck I hope he's been paid out the butt because his character that he essentially brought to life is
00:37:45
Speaker
That's that's been him the whole time. Right. Yeah. So he's mario stated fairly for that. But from a lot of what I hear regarding voice actors, that's not often the case. Yeah.
00:37:59
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it's really desperate out there. That's where Critical Role came from. They're like, hey, our best bet is to make a completely different product and it's just going to be us playing D&D. They didn't want to do that. That was forced. That was financial difficulties. He's like, listen, I'm voicing this McCree character as he's currently called. I'm not sure how much they're going to pay me for this. I got to find some other outlets and evidence.
00:38:23
Speaker
Uh-huh. Yeah, that's the thing you don't hear about. They actually switched voice actors when they renamed into Cassidy. It's just like, I'm just kidding. Before that actually escapes as an actual rumor. I'm just kidding. Um, but no, it happens very, very often. And, um, did you hear about the, uh, we're talking about random crap at this point, but like, did you hear about, um, Bayonetta? Bayonetta. Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to find the Bayonetta tweet covered for me.
00:38:52
Speaker
So for context, I think it's Helena Carter was the original voice of Bayonetta for games one and two. And then for Bayonetta three, they're currently contractually going to be bringing in. I forget the voice actress's name, but she is an Overwatch, as I think Symmetra or somebody else. But she's a very prolific voice actor as well, or voice actress.
00:39:18
Speaker
But this is all around some dispute as far as financial compensation for the role. Right. I've loosely followed it. Um, there seems to be some miscommunication or confusion around the first message that Helena Carter put out asking people to boycott the game because she was being offered unfair wages for her time.
00:39:45
Speaker
Yeah, there was, it's just that I just now realize there's multiple controversies on going for Bayonetta. But yeah, the one you're describing, I remember, I think they offered her something like $2,000 in total. And I think the popular consensus was
00:40:02
Speaker
They probably had an agreement where they had to allow her to reprise her role via contract. And this was the way out of it. They were just like, we're going to low ball you so possibly low that there's no way that you would accept this offer so that we can go with someone else.
00:40:20
Speaker
So that is the first part of what I heard. Um, but there was some follow-up and I'm just getting this loosely from voice critical who followed it more in depth than I did. And I'm just passing that through word of mouth. Um, but basically the rate that was offered apparently is a pretty decent for what it would have been as far as time. Mm-hmm.
00:40:46
Speaker
Um, I still think overall that they did want to get somebody else in. Um, but like the initial thing that she put out was not the most clear as far as, Oh, they're hard calving me at two or $4,000 type thing. Yeah.
00:41:05
Speaker
But that is kind of like when I open the initial question around the whole passing off onus of something or like this is my legacy, my character. I was thinking of Helena Carter and that whole thing going on in the back of my mind at the same time.
00:41:22
Speaker
Yeah, I'm going to try to. Sorry, go ahead. Imagine like putting your life's. I don't say life's work, but like you have like a very important job and a role and like people know you for that and you go to conventions like, hey, can you sign this as a character? Because I get like a little voice thing for if people call my voicemail as this character, like you are the character, you represent the character, you brought the character to life again, talking like Charles Martinet. And then someone's like, oh, but we're we got this person now.
00:41:52
Speaker
Oh, we got a Chris Pratt. Like I would be, I'd be sad personally if I was in that situation. Yeah. Yeah. The, uh, it's kind of a crappy situation.
00:42:07
Speaker
Um, I get why people, a lot of people at the company probably don't want it to all explode and become public and they would rather it just fade quietly into, into silence, but it doesn't always work that way. Right. Like the internet exists now. I don't think that's ever an option again. It doesn't happen as much.
00:42:24
Speaker
If you fart too loudly and your neighbor's here, there'll be a Twitter controversy about it. Yeah. So the other one, the other controversy I was originally thinking of, and I guess it didn't blow up as much as I thought it had, but I did see an article or two about it with someone tweeted Helena Taylor and was like, um, Oh, this is actually really old. Nevermind. I don't care. Um, and Jake's like, Oh, 2012.
00:42:50
Speaker
No, no. Well, 2019. Okay. So that was before all of this, I guess. But yeah, they basically, someone was like, hey, would you just say trans rights? Which is kind of like a weird thing to ask someone to say because it's not really proclaiming anything. That's just like two words, I guess. I feel like whatever it is will be used out of context.
00:43:13
Speaker
Yes, yeah, it's like the question was would be an NSA trans rights and the response from Helena Taylor was forgive me I believe in gentle female power not saber rattling gentle female power is Interesting words there I stand with anyone on the side of the angels be they rich or poor Jew or Muslim black or white a Trump supporter or a Sanders supporter Brexiteer or a remainer too much anger and division and Yeah That's not really a great response
00:43:44
Speaker
It's like, do you want, do you support this group? And it's like, why can't we all get along? Why can't we be gentle female persons? So do you remember the other day we were doing like some pre-wedding stuff, we were driving around the car and like this exact conversation came up as far as like coexist as a bumper sticker.
Tolerance vs. Intolerance
00:44:04
Speaker
It's great in theory as far as be tolerant to all, but at some point you need to be intolerant of people being shit. Yes. You do have to take a side somewhere in the stand. I think a lot of people just don't want to be public about it because it sucks to argue and disagree and have that contention and discomfort.
00:44:29
Speaker
But at the same time, like if you have like a really shitty viewpoint, I either want to A, discuss it with you and figure out why that is. And if we can maybe change your mind or maybe you can elucidate me as to why Jews are shit, right? Maybe I'll learn something, right? Learn something about yourself. I'm an asshole. I'm so sorry about everything I said. You're right, sir.
00:44:54
Speaker
Or like I need to like beat the shit out of you and cut you out of my life. Right. Probably just the second one. But yeah, we don't condone physical violence. People disagree with you. Unless are you thinking of the punch of fascist? Is that is that where this is going?
00:45:13
Speaker
Yeah, I'm trying to tie this back into mass effects somehow. Okay. Yeah. But yeah, sometimes like you can't get through to people with words. I'm not saying you should ever assault people who disagree with you. But if somebody was saying like some heinous shit, like
00:45:30
Speaker
like blatantly racist or sexist. I would start with words, but at a point, especially if I had not been entirely sober, I could see some hands being thrown to like get the point of cross like, hey, you cannot behave this way. Yeah, I think I think the line I would put on it is like, is someone else being attacked or harassed or something like that? Like, is this in defense of someone else?
00:45:53
Speaker
Um, but I, it's, it's very contentious where the line for physical altercation should come in. Uh, yeah, it should always be discussion of ideas a further down the line option. Yeah. Instead of like, what? And then just immediately go into it. Uh-huh.
00:46:10
Speaker
Right. I think the thing about this that stood out to me though, is like, it's really clear what like the correct response is. If someone on Twitter says like, would Bayonetta say trans rights? That's a really weird question, but you could just respond with like, I support rights for trans persons. Boom.
00:46:29
Speaker
done. But if you find yourself in a scenario where you're like, ah, this is going to take like eight paragraphs, maybe like your super articulated point is just a bunch of words solid because you don't support trans persons, right? Like if you think that like trans persons having rights, like people actually having rights is a bad thing,
00:46:53
Speaker
Um, the gentlest way, perhaps you could talk about it is to just say that that's saber rattling, right? You're like, ah, dang, rattle those sabers until you know, people are treated like human beings. I don't know. It's, it was really dumb. Uh, but I didn't realize that this, this tweet from Helena Taylor was from 2019. So.
00:47:16
Speaker
Hmm. Maybe she's not sure if I've been saying Helena Taylor or Helena Carter. If at any point I said Helena Carter, my brain conflated it with Helena bottom Carter. Hmm. I don't know these people. There's a lot of names. There's like seven, seven, seven trillion of them. It's hard to keep track. It's like eight trillion now, actually. We should get rid of some of the Helen. It's just too many. Yeah, too many hellas. Do I know specifically from like popular actress people? Yeah.
00:47:45
Speaker
popular name.
Gaming Preferences and Styles
00:47:49
Speaker
But yeah, Bayonetta. Looks like it's shaping up to be a good game. We'll see where it goes. I don't really have a segue off of that.
00:47:59
Speaker
I'm always interested in Bayonetta. Like it seems like a cool concept for a game, but I'm not ever a multi-hit combo type person. Similar to how I never really got into Devil May Cry. Still think it's interesting enough. Yeah, you played five though, didn't you? Briefly.
00:48:19
Speaker
I think you got me five. You're like, yeah, check it out. And then I was like, I had more fun with it than Metal Gear Rising Revengeance, but not much. That's pretty difficult. The game is very pretty. The game is very fun if you like the type of thing. But just for me, I did not have that investment.
00:48:38
Speaker
One of the characters rides in on a motorcycle that then splits in half into two chainsaw swords with tires that he then fights with. How can it not be a game of the year? It's right there. It's right there. See, for me, I'm like, oh, I'll watch a YouTube video of somebody playing that and do like a meme compilation. And I'm like, yes, good.
00:49:03
Speaker
I will say I didn't go back to the game after I beat it. I think it's, I think it's great. I think it's super fun, but I mean, like, yeah, it's also on that list of games that I didn't go back to. So, um, it was good for a single pass for me. Just one offs, you know, whether that be like relationships, meals, video games, and I was just like, that was okay. And then maybe not.
00:49:28
Speaker
Next serving, please. I will I will take my next entree. Like I've definitely tried some games or even played through and like that was a good one play through thing, but it doesn't have the replayability value. Oh, yeah. One shot is a bad example, but it does fall under that as well.
00:49:51
Speaker
I mean replayability value is something that I feel like benefits people who don't have access to a wide range of games. Then there's no not casting dispersions upon any of those people. There was a point in my life where I couldn't really play
00:50:08
Speaker
All the games that I wanted to be able to But there's just so many games and we've been gaming for literally decades at this point and I Think at this point we can try something for the novelty and see if it sticks or not But it actually is a pretty high bar to clear to join the list of games that people play frequently, right? I
00:50:35
Speaker
We critique it greatly, but it's hard to dethrone a game that overwatch, for instance. People are playing it. And maybe they're playing it in different ways. Maybe we're critiquing it in different ways. But it's what people are playing. And maybe it's what people are playing because it's what people are playing in a way. There's almost some self-perpetuation there.
00:50:59
Speaker
But it takes a high bar for me to be like, oh, I'm not going to play Destiny. I'm going to replay Cult of the Lamb, for instance. I think it was a great game. I really enjoyed it. I'm not going to spend some of my 24 hours per day putting more time into it. Right.
00:51:18
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, in that case, it doesn't have the same type of endgame that Destiny does. Where with Destiny, you can always grind out something. There's always more stuff to do. And Cult of the Lamb is like, hey, you've done this. At a point, you're kind of just done. So in the stick, you really love the active gameplay of it, which you could continue to play. You're not gaining anything out of it. You're not progressing in the game, so to speak.
00:51:46
Speaker
So, the story's already done, so it just comes down to, do you want to keep doing this same gameplay? And it's not novel enough, I would say, to say, oh, definitely. Whereas, like, Hades is designed around, every run is fresh. You can technically keep progressing into harder and harder bullshit to push yourself. The story part is done at a point.
00:52:11
Speaker
But like you still have the character interactions. It still feels like the world is alive in a sense. Every time you come back versus every time you relog and you just get the end credits, you're like, Oh, I'll just do another one quick. Yeah. Yeah. So I understand why people don't, uh, sometimes don't finish games. I was talking with, um,
00:52:36
Speaker
Nate who was a friend of the show and did come on for an episode at one point About games that he's been playing recently and he plays games entirely differently to the way I do He mentioned that he'll play games He'll play one game for like an hour and a half or maybe two hours and then be like oh I'm gonna try something else and then switch over to a different game for like an hour and a half or two hours or whatever and
00:53:00
Speaker
And that's how he consumes games throughout the evening. He doesn't sit down for a one block. Like, I'm just going to play Dota for five hours. He literally will switch between not even just multiplayer, single player games. And this is incomprehensible to me. Like, I don't understand how you can play some of Witcher 3 and then switch to, you know, a different single player game. Like, I don't get it.
00:53:24
Speaker
Yeah, that's some sociopathic behavior. I'm going to condemn the fuck out of that. It's like if I'm hopping on to do multiplayer stuff, I'm like, OK, I have enough social bandwidth. I'm going to be social and play this game with people. And usually for a bit, like at least two to three hours, I think.
00:53:44
Speaker
After a point, I'd be like, hey, it was fun. Might go off, do something else. Or if I want to do single player stuff, I'm like, oh, like Dark Souls or Elden Ring. I mean, I could play that around other people, because as a single player, I could just be online. But I want to be immersed to a degree. So I need to set aside some time. But I could not do it for just, oh, I'll just play for an hour, and then switch to multiplayer, and then switch back to that.
00:54:12
Speaker
No, that's insane. I need to block it out a little bit more because I want the immersion or the time invested in either case. Right. That's a Walmart demo while your parents are shopping. That's what that is. Yes. That's just crazy. There's also the context switching overhead.
Challenges of Game Controls
00:54:37
Speaker
Like if I switch between games, like I've been playing a lot of Destiny 2 and like, okay, point and click, point and click. And I switched to like Dota 2 or like Elden Ring. I'm like, ah, this is different. And it takes like a bit of like etch-a-sketching your brain, shake it clear. You got to redraw some of these lines. This is how this controls and operates, right?
00:55:01
Speaker
For me, it was Starcraft into Overwatch. I'd be playing like Starcraft co-op matches and it's like all the all the macro and the micro and all this stuff. And then you switch into a first person shooter and none of those synapses map properly. Nothing works. Right. Like the game is now 3D. You're not controlling multiple units. It's all timing and reflexes and something like I.
00:55:27
Speaker
I'm not here. But a lot of variety. So you can do whatever you want there. But yeah, I don't want to judge. I want to emphasize I'm not judging people who jump between games like that. It's just. I'm outside of that experience and I'm looking in and I don't understand it.
00:55:50
Speaker
And I will stay with the opinion, the comedic opinion of you're wrong and I do judge you. You should change your ways. That's why I like following fighters to a degree because like, oh, it makes sense as far as how things are mapped, usually controller based, left and right. It's easier for me to like play a series of fighters with people on like a given day.
00:56:21
Speaker
Yeah, I was talking with Dan not too long ago. He was streaming Guilty Gear in Discord. And like, that's the type of game that I can respect. And I respect people who can play traditional fighters.
00:56:37
Speaker
Um, and I know that you used to, and you don't anymore so that you get some like residual respect there, Dave. Um, but, uh, I absolutely freaking cannot. Like it's not even that I have tried and failed. It's more that like, there's such a, there's such a wall to like even starting for me that I don't know how one would begin. Right. Like.
00:57:08
Speaker
So you say that, but you've been playing so many years of Smash that I think you've built up this false wall for yourself. Right. And if we did play some, not like DBZ FighterZ, because, holy fuck, am I too old to process anything that's happening. But if we played Mortal Kombat, what, like 15, 16 billion at this point, if we played that semi-regularly, I think you'd be like, OK.
00:57:34
Speaker
Yeah, at least then maybe we could get some good netcode right instead of continuing to play Smash. Fucking Nintendo. Yeah, unfortunately, I don't think they've ever released Mortal Kombat for PlayStation, so nothing that can be done there.
00:57:53
Speaker
Yeah, hopefully they do someday. So now it's just stuck on the Switch, I guess. That Nintendo exclusive. They had Mario, they had Yoshi, they had Donkey Kong, and they had Sub-Zero. And those were really the core that the Nintendo fandom was based off of.
00:58:12
Speaker
They all have unique attacks. Yoshi goes for the egg or the spike. Mario has fireballs, DK punches and eats bananas, and Sub-Zero rips out people's spines. It's all very family-friendly and good.
00:58:27
Speaker
Would legitimately enjoy somebody's take on like a hey we took the smash characters and put them into a 2d fighter But made it as gritty as It's it's just smash bros, but it's like a death island it's just what was it death race or something like that one of those I Can't remember the one where it was an island
00:58:49
Speaker
I guess Hunger Games is... What was that? Mortal Kombat itself. That championship did happen on an island. Oh, OK. For what else? Mortal Kombat. We could find a comparison point. I just love the idea of like Mario coming up, walking to one side. He's like, my brother Luigi. DK comes up from the other side and just goes, bangs just going monkey noises. I can't do.
00:59:20
Speaker
No, it'd be good. I mean, I like the idea of now that I'm on the Hunger Games thing, that like there's the cornucopia in the middle and like Mario and Luigi immediately make a truce. Not an alliance. It's a truce until everybody else are dead. Then they'll turn on each other. Oh, but yeah. Tips down his hat. Silkenly. I knew it would come to this. Uh-huh. Uh-huh.
00:59:48
Speaker
But until then, Smash Bros is pretty good. We'll see if they ever make any more of them. I think we talked about it, but I'd be glad if they didn't, or not glad. I'd be happy, I think, still if Ultimate was the last one, because what else do I want? Oh, netcode, but I'm not going to get that.
01:00:07
Speaker
if they made an actual good successor still like in smash, I'd be open to it, but I don't feel like they need to. I feel like it's a good place where it's at even fucking melee, which I think is a trash game as far as how all interaction operates. It's, it's not for me. It's very old and weird. Um, still like it gets so much play and it has been forever. So I feel like it's good where it's at probably. Yeah.
01:00:34
Speaker
Yeah, I just don't think there's a short list of things that I would want them to actually change in a new smash. And none of the things that are on the list, they would actually do, right?
Community Feedback on Game Changes
01:00:47
Speaker
Like netcode is just up there at the top and it would never be done. No, Nintendo's like fixing their shit. Nope.
01:00:57
Speaker
But if you guys like fixing stuff, I might turn this into a topic. If you have suggestions about how you would change games that we've talked about or games that you've played recently, you're like, man, I sure do enjoy Crusader Kings, but there's just too much dang incest. You can be like, hey, let's suggest a change. We're not going to put that in the game anymore.
01:01:24
Speaker
That's a perfect example. Send that one in or your own ideas. Do soapstone podcast at gmail.com or you can join the discussion on Facebook where you probably should self-sensor some of those suggestions and not go with the one I just described for the good of the platform at facebook.com slash soapstone podcast. And as always, we'll see you in the next one. Have a good day.
01:01:50
Speaker
you