Who Owns Culture: Fans, Corporations, Or The Algorithm?

We debate a small perk turned big headache at a pizza shop, then zoom out to fan parodies, fair use, and why some fan projects elevate art while others drain it. Along the way we share a library field trip, a tense late-night safety call, and tease the cozy weirdness of Christmas ghost stories.

• employee discount loopholes and solidarity vs rebellion
• how one abuse creates rules that bind everyone
• safety triage when a teen fears being followed
• Team Four Star’s craft, limits of monetization, creative value
• lazy clip reposts vs real parody and editing
• mods, Mario Maker constraints, and respecting original intent
• AI scraping, fair use asymmetry, and ownership ethics
• giving oxygen to original creators with real feedback
• archives, maps, Power Nine awe, and why fandom still inspires

Transcript

Cold Open And Backwards Bits

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hello! If you read it backwards but sort it correctly, you get the correct title of Present Carl and Richard, dragons in deep space. I'm Richard, the star, the main character, and the diva of the show.

SPEAKER_03 0:14

I mean, I really don't think like you uh you read that properly backwards. Uh but uh but I am Lorak. Also known as Carl if you're reading it forwards.

SPEAKER_01 0:25

No no no no. You can read the phonic symbols in their intens intentional pronunciation backwards, and it's more interesting.

SPEAKER_03 0:33

I don't know. Um I watched a show called Nine Ounce Mouse Mouse once, and someone walks up to someone and they say, uh, rules are the rules. C lore, aerosted, sea lore, and it turns out that C lore, aerosted, sea lore is rules are the rules, but backwards.

SPEAKER_01 0:49

Yeah, not sure if I have to pronounce it correctly or not, but rules like laws are just threats made by the dominant social economic power.

SPEAKER_02 1:01

Fair enough.

SPEAKER_01 1:04

Uh I regret asking this, but what's new with you? Also, I'm only giving you seven minutes.

SPEAKER_03 1:11

Oh my. I that that's a problem, cuz I got I got like three different things I want to talk about today.

SPEAKER_01 1:17

Well, you might have to pace them across the episode then, because if you're smart about it, you use one for seven minutes and just segue into another one in the middle to catch me off guard. I would never be able to stop you that way.

SPEAKER_03 1:28

Fair enough.

SPEAKER_01 1:29

Okay, okay, well, so uh Also, seven minutes doesn't cover your what's new with you three times. Like, wait, you have 21 minutes of new with you material? That is an entire For context, remember the episode where King Bradley fought the tank? Yeah, that fit in 21 minutes. Like, oh man. Goku versus Yakon and Spoff uh versus Yakon fit in 21 minutes. You can fit this in 21 minutes. You can fit this in seven. Come on.

The Employee Discount Dilemma

SPEAKER_03 1:59

Okay, well, so do you wanna hear uh what I'm calling capitalist dilemma? Uh do you want a uh pizza store anecdote? Or do you want uh holiday ghost stories?

SPEAKER_01 2:13

Oh man, you need to do it like this every week. This is a great method. Alright, I'm gonna go with Oh, can I hear number one again, please?

SPEAKER_03 2:22

Uh Capitalist Dilemma.

SPEAKER_01 2:24

I will take a capitalist dilemma for 500 Karlix.

SPEAKER_03 2:29

Okay, well you did you did choose the shortest one. It's it's pretty simple. Um my workplace uh offers an employee food discount. Uh but unlike most sensible restaurants, uh it's not a percentage, it's just that arbitrary pricing for each individual item.

SPEAKER_01 2:48

The computer's been invented, right? Anyway, please continue. Everyone does in fact have a calculator in their pocket. High school algebra was wrong.

SPEAKER_03 2:58

Uh but so, um the price for a medium pizza, for example, is$9 plus tax. So after taxes,$10 will get you a medium pizza to employ discount.

SPEAKER_01 3:08

Mini tangent. It's funny because I know we've doxxed it before, but it's so much funnier the idea that someone would look up the prices and then look up the prices of all the pizza there in places in West Canada to try and figure out which one you are.

SPEAKER_03 3:21

Uh but so so um with this arbitrary pricing though, uh, it's like any pizza for 10 bucks, any medium pizza. Um, one of our employees has discovered uh that this means that you can add extra everything uh and still only pay that 10 bucks.

SPEAKER_01 3:40

So I saw a stand-up bit about this recently where when you're younger, hitting extra toppings makes sense because you feel like you're getting more perceived value and therefore more cheese obviously is a better pizza. But the more refined your palate gets, you realize that messing with the ratio just results in a worse tasting pizza, because then you end up with socky crust and unproperly cooked toppings, and then the toppings slide off the pizza, the crisp bit ratio is wrong. I'm just saying ordering all toppings is fine. Ordering extra all toppings, you're ruining your food.

SPEAKER_03 4:14

Well, I mean he's not like ordering like every topping, but he orders you a pizza uh and adds extra everything that comes on that pizza, which still is probably not the correct way to order such a pizza, but you want one topping one of each type of topping in every one-inch bite.

SPEAKER_01 4:31

If you want full taste fixture. However, if you want there to be a variety in the toppings, you actually don't want every topping in every one-inch bite, so each bite tastes slightly different.

SPEAKER_03 4:42

So, um now, on the one hand, I think that my boss could afford uh so you probably even lower the prices of his employee food. I mean, you know, like I say, make it a more reasonable percentage off, so that way if someone uh does all this shenanigans, then they get charged appropriately.

SPEAKER_01 5:00

I mean, most retail places do spend more money on trash cans and garbage bags than an employee's salary, so probably.

SPEAKER_03 5:08

On the other hand, I fairly strongly believe that people who abuse the system often break the system for the people who use it as intended.

SPEAKER_01 5:18

That actually came up in a conversation I had with one of my professors yesterday.

SPEAKER_03 5:23

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:24

So we're talking about how we're only allowed in the staff uh the TA lounge between X hour and X hour, right? And people were like, so you trust us with grades, but you don't trust us with a room? I'm like, no, no, I guarantee this rule they put in that we're only allowed on the floor when an administrator is in is because someone abused it. I would bet any amount of money that one TA decided, oh, I'm just gonna sleep in the TA lounge, and then Professor Found them half dressed, or like a manager came by, or a dean or something, to a meeting and just saw a TA student with a blanket in the lounge half dressed. And that's why we're not allowed on past certain points. And the prop didn't say I was right, but his eyes told me I was a hundred percent correct with my theory that the reason we're only allowed on the floor between eight and five is because someone slept there and it made a bad impression on somebody else.

SPEAKER_03 6:15

Right, right, right. And so the dilemma is um, do I approach the employee and tell him to stop sticking it to the man? Uh do I approach my boss and tell him he's getting screwed? Or uh do I do uh just let the scene play out on its own, or is there some other fourth option that I'm not aware of, keeping in mind that this is a a capitalist dilemma, so there's no scenario in which my boss will just ignore this completely.

Rules, Abuse, And Workplace Boundaries

SPEAKER_01 6:43

So my first question for this debate, because this is a delightful topic, is are they the one making the food themselves?

SPEAKER_03 6:52

No, they they are not making the food themselves.

SPEAKER_01 6:54

So here's the approach I would get give. Rather than approaching him for food theft and blah blah blah, and the like, let's be honest, even after minusing$5 for the staff cost, looking at the cost of ingredients every staff meal, probably still breaks about even. Like, we live in capitalism, there's a good chance staff meals regularly still make your boss like a dollar. There's no way you calculate a staff meal pricing so you don't become slightly ahead by doing it. That would just be bad business. Like, literally, your staff meal pricing should literally be what is the least amount of money I can make off my employees, I'll charge that. So, in this situation, I would give them a hard time, not for ordering extra everything, but for making their emplo the other employees do more work to make their food fatter, because it's annoying to make, more annoying to cut, and is more annoying to read, looks bad on the system. Hey, the system says you ordered extra everything every time, why you being a dick? Cause like, as an employee, I would be pissed. Like, when I worked at redacted and redacted, where we had a clearer divide between front of house and back of stuff. Cause at your redacted location, most people do both, or they're just a driver. Mine had a pretty clear, like, we had waiters and we had cooks. If a waiter rings up this kind of annoying bullshit, the cooks just make their food worse. Right? Like, they're like, no, fuck you. Well, I'm not gonna put poach salmon on your pizza, screw off. So, I'm more annoyed from the lack of solidarity of hey, when you abuse the system, it risks it being a taken away for all of us. Right? You're sticking it to the man isn't sticking it to the man, it's sticking it to your co-workers in this situation. Because what's gonna happen is people's staff meals are gonna turn into percentage base and get less of a deal, because this one person wanted extra pepperoni every time, instead of just occasionally doing it where he'd get away with it forever. So yeah, I wouldn't talk approach him about eternal death, blah blah blah blah. I wouldn't approach your boss about it. I would go to your co-workers and be like, hey, you wanna go have a talk to him about this and make the coworker do it. Like the guy actually making the pizza being like, yo, you okay with making the extra everything every time? If we learn anything from politicians, you take your first group as constituents and you turn them against the second group so neither one realizes that the person blocking them for progress is screwing them over. Like you want to have your staff members fighting each other so they don't realize that, in fact, it's you they should be fighting for more money. Kinda like when people got mad when minimum rage went up at the keg and we're saying or at we're that kid, whatever. We're saying that, oh, the people now, because minimum wage went up, we make as much as the McDonald's across the street. This is bullshit. Minimum wage should go up. Like, you're idiots. What? Shouldn't you be saying, hey boss, we deserve a raise so we don't make the same as the people next door who admittedly work harder than us? But no, they're gonna get mad at the other restaurant paying their staff the same as them instead of mad at their boss or paying them the same. Because people are dumb and they keep doing this. The immigrant's not stealing your job, your boss just isn't promoting you, who is probably a 45-year-old white man.

SPEAKER_03 10:18

You know, I I really thought you'd be on the side of the of the employee.

SPEAKER_01 10:23

No, I'm on the side of the employees getting their shit together. If this was about, hey, my employees are filing out union cards, I'm on board. But this is one selfish asshole ruining things for everyone. This is a guy pouring nacho cheese in the breakthrough max box.

SPEAKER_00 10:37

Cause like, I deserve extra everything because of a technicality.

SPEAKER_01 10:41

That's not fighting the man. Going out and voting is fighting the man. Unionizing is fighting the man. This is just petty eternal theft for the sake of being making worse food. This is just giving yourself diabetes. Like, it's the same kind of person's like, huh, I'm gonna fill up the top lid of my slushy cup all the way to get extra slushy, then it leaks on your hands and your hands get sticky. I'm like, you're not fighting the man. Well, you could've done if you want to fight the man is drink your slurpee down some and fill it back up while they're not looking. This is bad rebellion. I hate capitalists, the the capitalist healthcape believing, sure. I hate incompetent freedom fighting so much more. Like, when people are just like, I believe that the war across the world is an awful atrocity, and I'm like, okay, why are you wearing Jordans? And they're like, well, I'm gonna boycott this restaurant. Like, they'll boycott a restaurant by posting on meta that they're boycotting a restaurant because the restaurant funds this thing. But they posted it on Meta.

SPEAKER_03 11:48

Ugh. Not fighting the system very effectively.

SPEAKER_01 11:52

No, actually have values. Formative values just drive me nuts. I'd rather someone just be awful than them look me in the eye and tell me they're a good person. Fair enough. At least if they're awful, I could just like sh- I don't know, hit them with a kendo stick.

SPEAKER_03 12:07

I I I guess I I don't know if he's actually trying to stick it to the man or if he just genuinely likes a super thick Berns Pizza style pizza, but No, what he's trying to do is get attention.

SPEAKER_01 12:20

Cause like you don't order extra everything on your food every day. Like, thoughtlessly. Like you're just ordering worse food. Like. I don't know. It's one of those things his act of rebellion against a man is just inconvenient the people at his level. It's ridiculous.

What To Do About “Extra Everything”

SPEAKER_03 12:42

So uh what's new with you there, Richard?

SPEAKER_01 12:45

Alright, so as you know, my semester's getting close to wrapping up, and I'm working on my two big papers. I have a conference to present at coming up. So yesterday was our last class in childhood culture, something, something, something, something. So we went on a field trip. And you're gonna be so jealous of this field trip. Like, this is gonna make you want to go back to school. So we start by going to what looks like a regular downtown Toronto library. This library has the largest and oldest collection of childhood literature in North America.

SPEAKER_05 13:20

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 13:21

Including like the tale of the three bears written on Vellum by hand. Okay. And like, uh, some of the things like the version of the three bears before they had Goldilocks where the bears just had a woman break into their house and then they impaled him on a ch her on a church table. They tried to burn her first. Like, you don't understand how funny these drawings were that accompany this brutality? Because the bears come in and their chairs broke and their meals food, and they're just like, they're like, no! And then they try to burn the person and it doesn't work. Then they try and drown her and it doesn't work, so they impale her on a church for breaking into their house and stealing their food. I'm like, yeah, right, bears, that's correct. You broke into a house that three bears live in, you deserve what you get.

SPEAKER_03 14:06

The fire was too hot, the water was too cold, the church was just right. Kinda.

SPEAKER_01 14:12

This like the story is very different and very good. And then, like, they had like some original prints from like Peter Rabbit and things. Okay, okay. So we go through this exhibit, which is sick. Then we go to the next exhibit, which is a collection of maps and old fantasy and science fiction books. Yeah. So it's just walls of maps, and I am in my happy place. Like, I'm sending photos to my mentor being like, You're jealous. I'm looking at a hundred plus fantasy maps from the 1800s right now. I mean, early 1900s right now. Then they had a Magic the Gathering exhibit. Oh. So they had a bunch of vintage magic cards on wall displays. And then after that was.

SPEAKER_03 14:59

Any that you immediately recognized or saw that were actually incredibly valuable?

SPEAKER_01 15:03

Uh, power nine in their frame. Yeah, okay. Alright. I'm like, wow, that is like I'm just looking at that, I'm just thinking to myself. I literally said to my friend sitting next to me, I'm like, those are fake, right? Like, they didn't just hang like nearly a million dollars in cardboard on this wall in front of us, right? Like, we could have just pay her to wish it off with this crime, right? And then after briefly considering pulling a lube jewelry heist for trading cards, and like part we were genuinely curious, like, does the museum know how much these they're actually worth? Or are these just neat trinkets that were deliver uh deposited next years ago? We then went to like Toronto's oldest comic book store, uh, indie comic book store.

SPEAKER_05 15:50

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 15:50

And they're talking about how instead of split it spreading into various forms of like merch, right? Like most comic book stores became toy stores effectively. Like, oh, we sell Spider-Man, so we sell more Spider-Man. Does the comic book store instead decide to like go diverse and go worldwide? So like they have all they sell are books and prints. But they had some interesting things, like Japanese volumes of Dragon Ball. They had like some picture frame cells from Sailor Moon. They have Oh, I'm trying to remember what it was. Like, their manga selection was incredible. Although one of their staff picks was Taco Taco P's Original Sin, and I'm like, no. Well-written book, don't read it. Unless you're in a very healthy mental place, don't do it. So, like, so then after the comic book store, I had to rush to my last lecture of the year and then head home, but like, it was a good three hours. It was fun. They had functional Lego pop pop-up books. Not really well, semi-related.

SPEAKER_03 16:57

Functional Lego pop-up books?

SPEAKER_01 16:58

Yeah, you open the book and a little damarama comes out made of Lego. And the book was made of Lego.

SPEAKER_03 17:04

So it just had like pages that were as thick as a piece of Lego?

SPEAKER_01 17:11

It was interesting. Yeah, I like how my Wesley with me was just yesterday. It's like, no, yesterday was good enough to be in the Wesley with me.

SPEAKER_03 17:26

Fair enough. That does sound like a pretty exciting and awesome day. I would have loved to go contour all those museums.

SPEAKER_01 17:31

Alright, so we're at 17 minutes approximately, so I can you can either tell story two or three.

SPEAKER_03 17:39

Well, I mean, do you want holiday ghost stories or do you want pizza store anecdote?

SPEAKER_01 17:43

Pizza store anecdote. Yeah. The vaccine to pizza.

SPEAKER_03 17:51

Anyways, um, so you know. There are a variety of reasons uh that someone might not have access to a cell phone at a given time.

SPEAKER_01 18:01

I haven't seen any. I would be so happy if my students didn't have access to cell phones at a given time.

SPEAKER_03 18:06

Well, you know, their phone might be dead. Uh maybe it only works on Wi-Fi. Uh maybe they just like sorry?

Library Field Trip And Archives

SPEAKER_01 18:15

In the new Digimon series, Digimon Beatbreak, the core concept is everyone has like this Digi egg-shaped smartphone chat GPT assistant thing, but when they go corrupt, they tur uh turn into Digimon and eat you? And then like I was watching a reviewer be like, what, your cell phone could just become sentient and eat you? You think people would stop buying the cell phones? Like, absolutely not, they raise their children for them. And like, I would be happy if people's cell phones just turned into Agumons and Walt them. That'd be great.

SPEAKER_03 18:43

So, I mean, yeah, like, you know, may maybe someone's out of cell phone minutes, so they they can't actually use their cell phone or whatever, but but you know what? If if you're at like a friend's house or you meet someone you know and you ask them to borrow their cell phone or their cell charger or whatever, it's like, you know, that's that's reasonable.

SPEAKER_01 18:59

Uh oh.

SPEAKER_03 18:59

Uh but but when you come into a pizza store after dark, especially, uh you request to use our phone for anything other than emergency services or a taxi. Uh no. Just no. Uh I'm not gonna let you a charger. I'm not gonna take your phone behind the counter and charge it for you. I'm not gonna let you talk to some random person on the phone for who knows how long, and then that person calls us back all angry because the person you're trying to contact isn't there anymore, or like no. Just emergency services or a taxi, and we will call them for you. Oh man. Right? Uh so uh when this uh young woman, uh I've had to guess your age.

SPEAKER_01 19:54

Oh, I do need a pause for a 30-second mini act though. So I did have a student come up to me recently be like, Do you have a phone charger? I'm like, are you asking me to charge a device you're gonna use to ignore me during tutorial? And they're like, uh, maybe.

SPEAKER_03 20:15

Um, if I had to guess her age, probably between like fourteen and sixteen. Um she comes in and she's she's crying because she thinks she's being followed and she's scared. Um and she wants to use our phone.

SPEAKER_01 20:29

That feels like an emergency. That feels legit.

SPEAKER_03 20:32

If if it had been me that it that uh interacted with this person, I would have been like, okay, uh, I'll try to call your your mother for you. I'm not gonna let you call because I don't want to let people behind the counter. Uh and if I can't get a hold of them, then I'm just gonna call the police and they will get you somewhere safe.

SPEAKER_01 20:53

I mean, because the Saskatchewan police are famous for bringing people back to their homes and not, I don't know, 30 minutes outside of the city and telling them to walk back. I I uh I mean that's I mean, if they don't want me to make fun of them for that, they probably shouldn't have did it.

SPEAKER_03 21:11

Maybe I have too much faith in the institutions.

SPEAKER_01 21:13

Uh but that I would I'm just being pedantic right now.

SPEAKER_03 21:21

Well, I and I mean like uh like she's relatively she's fairly young, um so it it's possible uh that if I called the police that child protective services would get involved and it'd be a whole big mess. But I would really rather have that happen than some girl being alone on the streets trying to get in contact with her guardians. Yeah. Um like obviously there's something wrong there too, like at least I think there's probably something wrong there. Um that probably should be looked at. Uh so that would have been my response. Um but unfortunately, um I happen to be in the washroom when this well not unfortunate, but I happen to be in the washroom when this girl comes in. Um and uh our uh faithful listeners may remember Captain Kirk uh from the episode where I described that the uh pizza store got robbed uh with with a shotgun. Um and he happened to be uh not paying that much attention, and when he looked up from what he was doing, there was a gun in his face, and at the time I mentioned that he was uh a pro at getting robbed, so he just complied and helped them helped them get the money. Anyways, Captain Kirk happens to have a daughter of his own, which who's probably around the same age as this girl. Um so he uh escorts her behind the counter and he lets her try and call her mother. Uh can't get a hold of her. Um ask her if she if he wants her if she wants him to call the police, and she says no. Um which is like oh okay. I mean I get that you're like scared and thought you're being followed, but like isn't like in my opinion, like say calling the police in that situation seems like the correct answer.

SPEAKER_01 23:10

Yes. Like a show I used to really enjoy. People there's a theme of an episode where things kept escalating, and then they literally wrap up the episode. It's like the moral of the story is just sometimes you gotta call the police.

SPEAKER_03 23:23

Yeah. Uh so then she like uh goes outside the front store. She's still on camera, but she's just like standing outside, I don't know, hyperventilating or something. She comes back in, she tries to call her mom again, still can't get a hold of them, or whoever she was trying to call. Um then this guy in Hyvis Vest comes in, and uh I still I haven't actually interacted with any of these people, uh, but he supposedly corroborates her story uh that she was being followed. Uh he doesn't have a car in the parking lot. Uh so I don't know what kind of interaction he was having with this girl or uh how exactly it was that you know was he walking in the same direction that like he said they did something to like flash a light to the at the guy that was supposedly following her. I'm a little bit curious whether this guy in the high viz vest um was like actually the one following her and like pulled out a high viz vest after he was, you know, after she went into the store, so it looked like he wasn't possibly the person who was following her.

Magic Cards, Comics, And Nostalgia

SPEAKER_01 24:24

I need to let you know something because of my mental imagery. So the first time you said high viz vest, my brain didn't think of the orange vest it was supposed to. I was picturing like this like weird, like this man was in a tuxedo in my brain, and then it got updated to them like pulling a construction vest out and putting it over their tuxedo. That is where my mind palace is at. Please continue.

SPEAKER_03 24:47

I mean, well, I don't know, maybe I'm being too suspicious and constructing some sort of story there, but I'm I don't really understand this guy's interaction with the story. Except that like she went outside again and he was like talking to her for a little bit, and she did come back inside, tried to call her someone again, uh, and ultimately, you know, she can't get a hold of anyone. Uh so we're just like, okay, whoever whichever driver is last um should probably just take this girl home, because like she needs to get like somewhere and she doesn't want to call the police. Um and uh so yeah, the the I mean the story is doesn't really have a uh riveting ending, it's just the delivery driver took her home and he paid the driver five bucks to do it. Um I asked I asked the uh um the driver afterwards if he had any more details about what happened, and it's like no, she just basically said she was thought she was being followed, and then when I dropped her off, she she got home safely, so or got into the house at least.

SPEAKER_01 25:51

So it's like huh, it's there's no amount of money on earth where I would get the student a car ride home. Like, I would absolutely call like security for the safe walk system and possibly call them an Uber, but no, no. Somehow that's sketchier than the person chasing them. Is being like you random pizza delivery driver. I hope you don't harvest organs as you give me a lift home.

SPEAKER_03 26:19

I am a little bit surprised that TXC accepted the offer of getting a ride home from the random pizza delivery driver.

SPEAKER_01 26:26

Rather, like that's so much more suspicious than thinking someone might be following you.

SPEAKER_03 26:31

Well, and then she didn't want us to call the police. Again, I suspect maybe because she was worried about child protective services. Like maybe this is something that's happened before that she was left alone and actually.

SPEAKER_01 26:41

Or maybe she owes a drug dealer money. Like there's like something. There's a like children can commit crimes. Well, exactly. Like, watch her just like robbed a store, had like six stolen iPhones in her pocket, and then made your pizzeria an accomplice.

SPEAKER_03 27:00

Well, I mean, I'm I'm hoping that the best outcome uh we avoided or helped prevent a potential kidnapping or assault.

SPEAKER_01 27:08

And I'm hoping it was a 35-year-old woman who just scams you guys into being a complicated to a crime.

SPEAKER_03 27:17

It is true, humans are notoriously bad uh at um I thought you're about to just say humans are notoriously bad and just leave it there, because you're not wrong.

SPEAKER_01 27:26

They're notoriously bad at guessing ages. Um yeah, like I get it like every day of my life, because I look like I'm 20. I get that concept. Like, how old are you? I'm like, I've lived through three apocalypses, do the math.

SPEAKER_03 27:40

Well, yeah, we all know that you're actually an immortal Eldritch being, so you don't even know how old you are.

SPEAKER_01 27:44

Well, that and like between 1990 and now there's been three legally distinct apocalypses. Legally distinct? Well, we had the Y2K that was gonna kill us all.

SPEAKER_03 27:56

Mm-hmm. We had the mind challenge. Interesting side note. Uh the Y2K, I I don't know if I mentioned this on the podcast before or not. Um, but it was actually a genuine uh programming issue that uh.

SPEAKER_02 28:11

But people have this.

SPEAKER_03 28:12

Yeah, because we outsourced all that work to India, uh, and that's why there's all these call centers in India now. It's because we outsourced all that work and for Y2K.

SPEAKER_01 28:24

Well, it's funny, it's like Y2K people be like, nothing happened. Like, no, no, no, people fixed it. You missed this part. It's like when people are like, well, the ozone layer fixed itself. I'm like, no, it didn't fix itself, we fixed it.

Pizza Store Phone Policy And Safety

SPEAKER_03 28:37

I d I just find it interesting, like at the time, yeah, I had no idea. I was just like, yeah, obviously this was nothing, but it actually significantly changed the global landscape.

SPEAKER_01 28:47

Well, it's funny to think about, like, this comes up so much during COVID in anti-masking and anti-vaxxers, like, well, what's proof the vaccine did nothing? The proof the vaccine worked is that you don't know that it did anything. That's the point. If you get a vaccine and you can't tell it did anything, exactly. Cause you're not dead. Like I was it's like that uh study where planes were coming back, so they reinforced the spots of the plane where they were shot, which is funny because it doesn't account for the ones that didn't come back because they died. So it's like, yeah, we don't need more armor here. Cause you don't have the data to prove it.

SPEAKER_03 29:24

Right, right. People just yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:28

When things go well, people think nothing happened at all, it's a problem.

SPEAKER_03 29:31

But so that then you had we had the the 2012, the Bayern Calendar. Oh yeah. 2012 was a terrible John Cusack movie.

SPEAKER_01 29:39

It was. And 2012 was the most nothing burger of nothings. Like it was disappointingly nothing. No one even had to fix anything. And then we had two Trump presidencies, which I was c t told the world would end. And people really made it sound like COVID was the end of g gonna be the end of mankind.

SPEAKER_04 30:00

Mm-mm.

SPEAKER_01 30:02

Now we're hit the point where it's like someone in my cohort tested positive and we're all like, damn it, and that's it. That's the entire extended reaction is damn it. Like I remember people would be like shoving Q-tips into their brainstem right now, but it's everyone just kind of let out a collective sigh and went like, yeah, that might as well happen.

SPEAKER_03 30:20

Well, so uh I don't remember how the person was related, but my boss the other day, he's like, Yeah, have you ever heard of long COVID? I'm like, uh, well, yeah, I mean it's COVID can cause permanent damage to your respiratory system.

SPEAKER_01 30:35

Oh, I'm not here to say COVID wasn't bad for the record. More like just people have stopped ap catastrophizing the catastrophe.

SPEAKER_03 30:42

Well, so my boss posted and he says this and he's like, yeah, like he's like, my aunt or someone just died of long COVID. I was like, you you can die of long COVID? I didn't didn't even know.

SPEAKER_00 30:53

Kinda.

SPEAKER_03 30:54

It's like I mean, I guess, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:56

Well, it's so most people die from heart failure of some kind, right? And it's like, it's hard to say they died of chicken nuggets or they died because they simply had that last hot dog, which took off the remaining day off their lifespan. So long COVID kind of falls in that category of you died and you had long COVID. Did you die of long COVID? Well, it didn't help you. So it's hard to like know what the statistics are, because like if you have long COVID and you die of heart failure, I don't think long COVID helped.

SPEAKER_03 31:28

No, definitely not.

SPEAKER_01 31:31

So that's the gray area. It's like they died of long COVID. I'm like, well, they died and they had long COVID. I don't know if they died of it, but they did not die of it. It's kind of like how when I die, it's not that I died of obesity, but being a fat batard is not helping my health. Fair. Really depends who's writing the survey at that point. Although it would be funny if it's like cause of death didn't put down the fork. No, I'm not fat shaming, I'm not Robococo.

SPEAKER_03 32:08

Uh, me and Robococo, which has outlived so many much better series.

SPEAKER_01 32:15

It's also outlived an occasional worst series, too, in his defense. I think. I don't know, I've never read it.

SPEAKER_03 32:22

I think it's approaching the number of chapters that Dr. Slump had.

SPEAKER_01 32:28

To be fair, I don't know if Dr. Slump's still good.

SPEAKER_03 32:32

In all fairness. Like, I like Dr. Slump, but it definitely had no actual plot to it.

SPEAKER_01 32:39

Dr. Slump, you know what actually had the most Dr. Slump energy was probably psychic detective Chosaro.

SPEAKER_03 32:46

Hmm. Yeah. Yeah, that was pretty Dr. Slump energy.

SPEAKER_01 32:52

But I believe we can move into our topic today, and then part way through the in uh this episode, you can then slice in your third story about ghosts. But onto our topic today. Fan parodies. So you know what I absolutely despise, and I'm just gonna give. You can start a timer and just go beep when I use up my minute. I'm only allowed one minute for this rant. You ready to say beep in one minute?

SPEAKER_03 33:13

Uh okay, you gotta let me get my timer here. I wasn't prepared with that. Be prepared. Alright. Uh you have one minute.

SPEAKER_01 33:22

Go. The worst thing in the internet is people taking clips from anime and putting the whoosh whoosh music behind it, and being like, look at this awesome anime moment, and it being worse than the music. I keep getting bleach videos in my feed that have him do his awesome return gets attention gets a shoho dodge you idiot scene, which is a six scene, and they put in generic crap filler music when Bleach's best aspect wasn't soundtrack. And I'm like, no, I'm not giving you a like for taking a clip from something I already liked and making it worse than doing the whoop woof womp thing of flashing the scenes back.

SPEAKER_00 33:59

No, that's not fan content. That is just that's not even recycling.

SPEAKER_01 34:04

It's just garbage. And so much of it is like, what if I take a clip of something cool and make it worse and put it up of a generic filler name? I'm like, who are these bots even trying to scam? What is the value gained here? Oh, I hate it. I hate it so much. God, it pisses me off.

SPEAKER_03 34:22

And time. Nailed it. That was pretty good. Anywho. Excellent one-minute speech. I hate those so much. Uh well, so I mean, those don't even really fall into the category of parody, though. Well, and that's just like someone who really likes the content, but I don't know why they feel they need to repost it, but they really don't really like the content, right?

SPEAKER_01 34:46

Because like, they're just trying to get click engagement. It's like when you'll see a video that like misquotes an anime to try and get someone to like rage click it or something. I don't really know what the goal is. But if you really like Bleach and you have the eat eyes and catches Ichigo scene, you wouldn't replace the music with No no no. You're just bad. You're going to hell. I will find you. Alright, alright. But on the topic of that is my example of the worst piece of fan expansion of a media. Cause like, I kind of talked about in the Westy with me that we went into a class about the idea that fans will like write fan fiction, do fan parodies, do fan project to like expand the IP past its original.

SPEAKER_03 35:29

Right, like uh like Wicked, which was a fan, like I didn't really like the second half because it didn't actually mesh that well with the source material, the Wizard of Oz. Um but it is a uh uh fan fiction um that does really greatly expand upon the the universe of the Wizard of Oz.

SPEAKER_01 35:48

Uh the dirtiest look I got all semester is when I called Dante's Infernal Bible fanfiction.

SPEAKER_02 35:56

He goes and meets his favorite authors and he sees all the heaven and the philosophers and goes on his adventure through the Bible, it's fanfic.

The Followed Teen And Tough Choices

SPEAKER_01 36:07

Only thing that like the only difference between that and current fanfiction is at some point in Dante's African, they edited out the scene where he makes that with his idols. Because it feels like it was there in the original.

SPEAKER_03 36:24

Uh shipping stories are one of the most prolific forms of fanfiction, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_01 36:31

Well, like my favorite piece of like fan culture. I d I just love the fun fact that the technically the most successful piece of fanfiction is Fifty Shades of Grey. That's just funny. Because it was just Twilight fanfiction, and they changed. Twilight fanfiction, that's what it was. Yeah, and then they sanded the names off of it and made three movies, got a three-movie deal. So think about it. Twilight got four movies, then three movies based on its fanfiction, and people are like, oh, worst movie ever. I'm like, are you sure? Because I I don't remember John Wick getting John Wick fanfiction getting three movies along with the quadrilogy.

SPEAKER_05 37:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:14

I don't recall Pulp Fiction getting a four-movie series. Uh I wouldn't be surprised though if some of these Marvel spin-offs were literally people looking on the internet for fanfiction and just stealing it. And then having AI rewrite it into Loki season two. Maybe. But for the topic that prompted us to go into fan parodies, Dragon Ball Z abridged. Because you made a comment the other day that I think I don't remember they made it into podcast or not. Where you No, no, not yet. Where you mentioned, I don't really care about it anymore because they're corporate successful, and I'm like, I don't think they are. YouTube doesn't pay that much. And their merch did okay, I guess, but none of their other projects really landed, so it's like, yeah. For a short period of time, or like actually, they had it running for like seven years or something. But once they like completed their main story arc, which bonus points for actually like reasonably getting to the end, because Dragon Ball Z should have ended in a cell saga anyway.

SPEAKER_05 38:18

Right, right.

SPEAKER_01 38:19

They were like successful enough to like still have their main source of income being voice acting and YouTube. But I wouldn't say that they became corporate rich by any means. Teenager Me would have, but Teenager Me was a dick.

SPEAKER_03 38:33

Uh I mean, I don't know, I don't know if they necessarily became like rich. Uh as like uh like you say, n none of their side projects during the time that they were doing During Ball Z Abridged uh really seemed to like actually land. And it seemed like they were doing like more of like the Let's Plays and and uh you know just like oh I'm gonna react as Vegeta uh and this stupid side content, uh which I guess was to feed the algorithm.

SPEAKER_01 39:07

Um maybe they enjoyed making the stupid side content.

SPEAKER_03 39:11

Well, I mean maybe they did.

SPEAKER_01 39:13

Because I mean we'd only make stupid side content.

SPEAKER_03 39:19

I mean that's true.

SPEAKER_01 39:20

Because like I did a little search when you brought that up, and so from their Patreon, because you can just kind of see the numbers because you get to know how many people are on the Patreon and how much they pay. Team 4 star from their Patreon makes between$2,000 and$6,000 a month.

SPEAKER_05 39:35

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 39:37

Splitting that across four people. Yeah. So like they're definitely not like corporate sellout by any means.

SPEAKER_04 39:46

Hmm.

SPEAKER_01 39:47

They're not critical role out here financing three Amazon Prime series, a video game, four seasons of DD, and Daggerheart in its entirety.

SPEAKER_03 40:00

Well, I mean, that's that's kind of the the limit to to fan-based parodies that unless you you strip it of its original identity, like 50 Shades of Grey, uh, I guess you can't really like it.

SPEAKER_01 40:14

Well, so I decided like to snoop on Team Forestar's nonsense, a Google search about like their YouTuber net worth is apparently their net worth is a hundred K.

SPEAKER_05 40:24

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 40:24

Yeah, but we split that over three people over ten years. Right. And then you have any costs at all. Right, right, right. I I wouldn't say that like they're doing much better than if they had gone and got a skill trade. Like, if all four of them went to school for plumbing, they'd probably be doing better.

SPEAKER_03 40:48

You're probably right. And like, I don't want to disparage their their talents because they they put a lot of uh time and effort into their series. The the quality of of what they produce is is quite amazing for something that they were just making in their spare time, at least when they began. Um it's kind of actually it's kind of funny. Um you know Team 4 Star has their Dragon Ball Z abridge stuff is definitely very high quality. Um and that kind of uh became like the the standard of what to expect for any sort of abridge series or for fan content. Uh to the point where this is uh it's not necessarily fan content, but I've been reading uh uh manual on WebTune. Uh I stopped reading it actually, but it was called uh We Are 101. Okay. Um and uh the story is just kind of okay. Um and the character designs are are neat. Um but the backgrounds are almost all blank. And I don't know why this it like bothers me so much, but this this it feels like a noticeable dip in artistic quality versus other content that I'm reading on Webtoon, and by extension, like looking at something like Team Four Star, where it's like, yeah, these guys were just like making this in their basement in their spare time, and and they made this like seamless high-quality.

SPEAKER_01 42:24

What's crazy about Team Four Star is they did go through their entire behind the scenes video where they did a like 20-minute behind the scene for each episode. And like, when you look at the editing they were actually doing, especially near the end of like manually copy-pasting half keyframes to move the mouth flaps to match their jokes. Mm-hmm. And it's like, no, they tried so much harder than actual localizations. I think they tried harder than Toei. I watched Dragon Ball Dima. I think Team 4 Star put more effort in than Toey did.

SPEAKER_03 42:58

They definitely did put in a huge amount of effort.

Pandemic Memory, Risk, And Stats

SPEAKER_01 43:01

And like they said, like, oh, we stopped doing it when they're like, oh, I feel like we're forcing it, running out of jokes, etc. etc. And they're like, people called them sellouts for stopping to do TBZ Abridged. We're like, no, no, no, we would have been sellouts if we kept doing it, knowing it was worse.

SPEAKER_03 43:18

Yeah, that makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 43:20

Because it's like Dragon Ball Z Abridged is one of my favorite shows. With the Christmas season coming up, I'm fully intending to rewatch their movies because they kind of like gave a Christmas sub-theme to all of their movies, and then they ended with an actual Christmas special.

SPEAKER_03 43:35

To all of their movies? I mean, there was a Christmas tree of might.

SPEAKER_01 43:38

So all of the movies, because the movies they so the main series has main series canon and the movies have movie canon. So the movies aren't canon to the main series, but they're canon to each other. Right. So Garlic Jr. wasn't really about Christmas. World Strongest makes a couple quips about being in the Arctic. And then Christmas Tree of Might, but then all the future ones will then reference Christmas Tree of Might and Santa. Like Lord Slug straight up goes like, Remember Christmas? And then like the Broly movie goes like, Remember Lord Slug, I sure do miss Christmas. And then they released their like uh The Nightmare Before Christmas one where they took like an old obscure Dragon Ball Z OVA and just straight up made the villain Santa.

SPEAKER_04 44:22

Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_01 44:23

And did a great job on that one. They just rewrote it completely. But it's like, it's entertaining content. Not as shocking as when, like, after a four-year break, Little Karibo will just put out a singular Yu-Gi-Oh Bridge episode out of nowhere.

SPEAKER_02 44:40

Right. Because that still happens once in a while.

SPEAKER_01 44:43

That still is technically going, just when he feels like it is fair.

SPEAKER_03 44:49

Well, you know, like, the thing about being a content creator on YouTube is like the style of content that we create where we're just we're attracting to each other and we're just doing this basically for for fun.

SPEAKER_01 45:01

We produce bad content. Let's let's not kill it ourselves here, Brent.

SPEAKER_03 45:06

But we're doing it just for fun. Like we're we're we're hoping that maybe someday someone will like our content, but it's just what's going on.

SPEAKER_01 45:12

I do it for the little ego dopamine boost. Like, I see that a single episode was downloaded in Norway and I'm like, yes! Because I have a deep hole in my soul, right? That's why I'm a writer, is I'm trying to fill that deep loathing with positive or negative attention.

SPEAKER_03 45:31

But at some point, especially if you want to actually make money off of YouTube or make it into a career, it it becomes a business where you're not actually doing it for fun anymore. Um, I disagree with that a bit.

SPEAKER_01 45:45

So you work a crappy job, so you're miserable. Where now that I'm starting to like work a job I like, you know people are like, oh, you just work a job, everyone hates their job. I'm like, no TA ing and grading and teaching classes and giving presentations, seminar. I objectively like my job. To the point where the biggest complaints in my life are petty bullshit at this point, because I'm like, yeah. Um I'm gonna whine about my commute, I'm gonna whine about this and that, and I'm gonna whine that the school blew a bunch of its budget renaming a train station instead of paying us a Christmas party. But like, I like the things I do for a living. So I don't like deliberately, I only went to school to do things I already like doing. So, like, I do think it's a bit disingenuous to be like every creator will eventually become a corrupt coin capitalist businessman.

SPEAKER_03 46:33

No, I'm I'm not not saying that every content creator will become a corrupt business businessman. Uh what I what I am saying is that I've seen a lot of I'm leaving YouTube videos, uh, where their main complaint is that uh their original joy and passion was making these videos, uh, and as the channel expanded and was forced to become more of a business because they had to hire editors, they had to hire other people to make thumbnails, they they started managing people to create their content as effectively as possible, um, and they ended up becoming less content creators and more business managers.

SPEAKER_01 47:13

That's interesting. Like, I had an interview with a YouTuber I really liked because I was doing some script freelance work for them for a little bit. And they went through their channel growing in a pivot towards Pokemon rather than being general gaming. But even though then he's hired some editors and things, he was going about like, no, I need to make sure I pay people who submit, pay people who do this, I have a team now. But he seems so excited about this fact. Like, he's like, I have a team now, people like me, this is awesome. So I do think there's a bit of a spectrum here.

SPEAKER_04 47:43

Hmm.

Setting The Stage: Fan Parodies

SPEAKER_01 47:45

Because it's like So we live in this like hustle culture. There's no denying that. Where a lot of people judge their success based on metrics. Like, the number of crypto bros I've talked to, I l oh, this is a fun one from yesterday. Part of what's new with me, but I broke mine to three sections as well. So I'm standing in line at Starbucks because the Tim Orton's line was too big and it went outside the building. And I'm making small talk because I tend to make small talk. I've my my fake extrovert impression has gotten really good. So I'm making small talk, and I'm like, oh yeah, I'm a TA, and they're like, I make I sell cryptocurrency, and I look them down in the eye and be like, oh. So you rip people off on a Ponzi scheme using a product that has no value to the world. And they're like, well, the thing about dealeralized currency, I'm like, the thing about it is it's literally the exact same as Pokemon Pack scalping. Like what you're doing is you're creating artificial scarcity to make a profit so people invest that you cash out. And like it's not bad that you're making your money by ripping people off, but are you happy with what you're doing with your life outside the ripping people off? Like you're go using that money to go to school, that's fine. Are you planning to go to school to add something of value to the world, or is this just the next step of your positive scheme lifestyle? Oh man, these statements must become so much harsher when I'm in my professor like suit outfit and look like an actual adult being like, yeah, do you add anything of value to the world? Because, you know, crypto's a scam, it just is.

SPEAKER_04 49:14

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 49:16

Like, yeah, there's no reason it needs to exist. People be like, well, what about international transactions? Like, we have pay services like PayPal, like. Which also is a bit of a scam, but that's only because the centralized bank system scammed us so hard that we'd rather trust Elon Musk with our financial transfers than RBC. Fair enough. But like, the reason I bring up CryptoMic Bro here is that when people believe the secret to happiness is to be the best at their thing, they're screwed. Do you remember when like Xbox Live was first becoming a thing and you could see leaderboards? Bagly. So I'm thinking like way back I was when I was a small boy, playing uh Geometry Wars, I think it was, and they started adding leaderboards. You look in the first ten pages were all max score.

SPEAKER_04 50:03

Right.

SPEAKER_01 50:04

And you still see that now where you look at these leaderboards and be like, these leaderboards are literally impossible. Because like a side effect of globalization is we've kind of spread ourselves so thin that it's like I'm gonna compare myself to every human on earth. And when you do that, it doesn't matter what you do, you become impossibly bad at that thing. Like, we got Elon Musk being dunked on because he's bad at Path to Exile. And he wouldn't have that problem if he just played with his actual friends, once he finishes 3D printing those. Well, it's like a lot of these YouTubers are like, I have to do this to get the views to clicks, and then I'm like, you don't have to do any of this. You don't, though. You don't have to be the best YouTuber. That should never be your objective. Idiots.

SPEAKER_03 50:54

Bringing this back around, uh, like, you know, it's it's too bad that little Karibo doesn't post content more frequently because uh Yu-Gi-Oh Abridged was a great abridged series.

SPEAKER_01 51:06

So good. Uh, screw the rules, I have money. That's just so so like so much of my dialogue I use in day-to-day life comes from Yu-Gi-Oh! Abridged.

SPEAKER_03 51:15

But I I do have to r respect him for uh you know continuing to do content that he actually genuinely enjoys.

SPEAKER_01 51:26

Um, uh, you know, in the most recent episode of Yu-Gi-Oh! Bridged, he does this bit, which is so funny because of the context. So a character starts explaining how link chaining works in Yu-Gi-Oh cards.

unknown 51:40

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 51:40

So two people are having a match, and a character Rebecca's like, well, it's what's like, why'd this card do this? It's like, well, it follows the chain link, and here's how like the trigger stack goes. And the character's like, I've never heard any of these words in my life. What are you talking about? This is not how Yu-Gi-Oh is played, and I'm laughing so hard because I'm like, oh man, you're 50 episodes into Yu-Gi-Oh abridged or like 60 something, and a character's explaining how the stack works. And that's just so funny to me conceptually. Because like the meta bit being that, oh, after 20 years, a character's like, here's how chain linking works, and I laugh so hard. Because that joke hits so much harder by it being this Yu-Gi-Oh abridge has been going for how many years? And no one at any point has cared how this game works.

SPEAKER_03 52:23

That's just pretty funny.

SPEAKER_01 52:25

Uh and then it's just like you're and then the retort to character is like, women don't know how to play card games, you're lying to me. Women have never won a card game in this show. Oh, that's kinda true. And the shenanigans is why I loved ping pong peril. But back to the topic of our actual topic of fan parodies. So, Dragon Ball Z Abridged, highest quality abridge series.

SPEAKER_03 53:01

Well, okay, like, so is it is it because of the quality of jokes, like uh when they added something like, say, Ghost Napa?

SPEAKER_01 53:08

So Ghost Napa failed. Like. Ghost Napa failed? In my opinion, Ghost Napa was not a good bit. It was not their best bit by any means. Their best bet was TN being the only serious character. That was quite hard to do.

Team Four Star, Money, And Merit

SPEAKER_03 53:24

You don't know what else failed? Uh, telling ghost stories to each other at Christmas time.

SPEAKER_01 53:29

Oh, good try, good try. No, I'm gonna make you do this next episode. Straight up denying your third story. Because it's gonna be like a 30-minute movie review. And if we're gonna do Christmas movies, that'll be our episode. We could do a Christmas carol next week.

SPEAKER_03 53:46

It's not about Christmas horror. And it's not about Charles Dickens a Christmas carol.

SPEAKER_01 53:51

But it could be. We could do it next week and do Dickens and Christmas Carols. And Muppets. Moving on from my complete interruptus of you, do you remember Escaflone Abridge? Since I think Abridge series is gonna be our topic here.

SPEAKER_03 54:13

Right. Well, I mean, I I I watched I don't I I the Dragon Ball Z Abridge uh was simply the the pinnacle of uh YouTube Abridge series. Like YouTube Abridge is probably in second place. Uh but anything else, it's like I I didn't really re-watch any of their their content. It's like I'd watch it once, I would laugh, and then I would move on. So it's like I I remember Escaflone Abridge vaguely.

SPEAKER_01 54:44

The only line I actually remember from that is no one would deny an old man a sandwich. Like the joke about Escaflone Abridged is original Escaflone was such like an esoteric show. I do think the Abridged series is why I understand what happened to the original.

SPEAKER_02 55:01

Because the original didn't tell you shit, so you're like, this is our wish plan. I'm like, I think they actually explained it. Because I don't think the original bothered at all.

SPEAKER_01 55:14

Another thing, like, on the topic of fan projects, though. So Capcom recently released, like, their new fan game code of conduct. Okay. That basically says if you don't make over a million dollars, I don't care, just don't put sex scenes with their characters.

SPEAKER_03 55:28

Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 55:29

And they like basically announced you're free to make fan-based stuff. That is fair game. If you're fun with it. Like So they're basically like, don't make a ton of money, you don't own our properties, and don't sue us, we won't sue you. And if you make a ton of money, yeah, you're gonna have to pay tithe and better than me.

SPEAKER_03 55:53

Uh you know who else doesn't own Capcom properties?

SPEAKER_01 55:57

Ghosts.

SPEAKER_03 56:00

No, Magic the Gathering with their monster hunter uh product that they they cancelled their secret lair because it just imploded. No one in the magic community liked the cards, and no one in the monster hunter community liked the cards, so they're just like, yep, it's doing so bad, we're just gonna cancel it.

SPEAKER_01 56:15

It's funny because like for magic crossovers, which are like the worst, I actually like intellectually that one kind of made sense to me. I'm like, okay, at least there's like enough mechanical overlap I could picture how this could work and not just break immersion. But yeah, the reason I gave the Capcom rant is I recently played a game where someone took Mega Man X8 and remade it in the Super Nintendo art style and rebuilt the entire game from ground up. Oh wow. They took the stages that were lame and added more stage to them, and like they kept all the like iconic things that were in X8 and removed all the bullshit, replaced the artwork, and then some stages that were just like a minigame or a gimmick, like Ride the Hoverbike, they added an actual stage to. Mega Man X8 D Make is actually the best version of that game by a very wide margin. Like unreasonably better than the original game was. Okay. Like, to the point where the boss rush at the end, instead of fighting one boss at a time for the boss rush, you fight two of a time of your choice. So you fight like two-on-one battles to keep the boss rush actually interesting. Yeah, it was just a sick game, and I'm like, fan projects, love me a fan project. Any weird fan projects, be them fan mods, fan dubbing, or fan things come to mind that you thought were sick. Other that time we were totally gonna duh uh abridge Ninja Turtles, and it would have been awesome.

SPEAKER_03 57:43

Well, yeah, you know, yeah, that would have been awesome. I actually like downloaded some of the episodes, started splicing episodes together. Uh, but uh yeah, it never never materialized. That's sad.

SPEAKER_01 57:53

Like most of our projects.

SPEAKER_03 57:56

I know who we are. Uh but no, I I uh I I don't know why, but I I almost almost avoid fan projects because I'm like, why would I why would I want a fan project when I like like Smart On, uh where that's a fan project, and then they started like making their own Pokemon. And it's like at that point, it's like why not just make your own game?

SPEAKER_01 58:25

Yeah, when you got to like when Pokemon Showdown got too far.

SPEAKER_03 58:29

Yeah. I might I assume it's still like going on, but it's like that's a huge fan project, and and it was an interesting thing to to try out. Uh but then it's just like with like Well it's funny.

SPEAKER_01 58:49

Where Smogon was like the resource site and Pokemon Showdown was the software.

SPEAKER_03 58:53

Yeah, that's true.

SPEAKER_01 58:54

But yeah, like now they're gonna be like, oh, we'll steal that. I don't know, like, fan projects are interesting to me. Like, in the TTRPG community, for example, you cannot have a homebrew for any fictional setting ever. But I remember one of my friends who I'm like, I could run an Avatar campaign or play the Avatar T T, you would just ruin Avatar. It's not you personally, anyone would just be worse at GMing Avatar than just watching Avatar, and you would ruin the setting. I took that for Lee at the time, but I think she's right.

SPEAKER_03 59:25

Well, uh, you know, when we look at our uh uh the critical role campaign that we tried to to play, uh, and then ended up really having almost nothing to do with critical role or the setting.

SPEAKER_01 59:40

Which is funny because it's like I had watched at that point like 800 hours of critical role. Which like is funny to me because I'm like no amount of critical role based education? Would actually help run that campaign to have the vibes. Cause it's like, unless I'm Matt Mercer, I'm not doing the NPC voices justice. But also, it's weird to run DD in fictional settings. I like love the idea of it, but I don't think I'd ever actually click that well. Cause then you're adding like weird artificial. You know how in like Star Wars properties they just always feel the need to have a Star Wars main character name-drop themselves?

SPEAKER_04 1:00:28

Yeah.

Quality, Effort, And Editing Craft

SPEAKER_01 1:00:29

It never goes well. Right, right. So it's like, say for example, I already used Daggerheart to run a One Piece campaign. I've been bored on the bus, I have all the rules I would need to make that happen. Right. I would just make a Devil Fruits, a transformation card. Describe all the spell casting as, oh, you're using objects and shell things, or you have to explain how you use your devil fruit to cast a spell. Like it's doable. Like it would not be that hard. A lot of dagger heart campaign frames are only like four pages. I could in four pages give you everything you need to make it one piece campaign. But I don't think I'd ever be better than if I just ran pirates and made it up. Fair enough. But what do you think about that? Like, if I were to like pick a fictional, like, let's go with the Dragon Ball Z tabletop RPG. That is the thing that people in our personal lives have just shown like the most interest in, oh, they would totally play a Dragon Ball Z game. Right. I don't think they would. I think they're bluffing. And I could absolutely run it too. Like, I have an encyclopedic knowledge of the setting.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:36

Yeah, no, uh like these the uh TTRPGs in particular, it's like DD has become the de facto. Um and people are actually kind of scared to try anything else.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:50

Well, not just try anything else, it's like the idea of this fanworks situation to kinda like stay on topic, when DD is like, here's some Magic the Gathering settings. I found those worked fine, but the branding didn't help. Like, for example, for when we were running Watersdeep, and I'm like, oh, this Watersdeep book doesn't tell me about anyone in the city of Water's Deep, I'ma just grab the Ravnica book and super glue it. That worked fine, it gave me all the NPCs I needed. But like Niv Visit wasn't special enough to make it matter. It just was a smart dragon that ran a guild.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:28

Although Yeah, that the I I definitely agree. The the Ravnica kinda helped build the city of Water Deep, uh, but it wasn't really wouldn't really be worth running a campaign of its own. Uh so it's kinda hard to create a for for tabletop RPGs, it kinda seems hard to create a fan-based content around around them.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:50

And there's always some fan-based combat uh content. Like I was kind of alluding to when I was giving my rant earlier about comparing yourself to the entire internet with everything you do. I love stage editors and character creators and custom costume making and things like that. To the point of making Fox McLeod a stormtrooper and Smash Bros. Brawl. However, and I'm here's your thoughts on this. When you start doing things like Mario Maker, I find that like it skews too far to like people's art pie over-elaborate art pieces or their impossible to play levels, like take up the entire storefront, and just a competently made level doesn't show up. Uh well s so yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:40

Um so that sort of fan-based content, uh the level creators and and editors and stuff, like now that you mention it, the Smash Bros. Brawl uh homebrew. Um Actually no, I didn't really I didn't really like the Smash Bros. Brawl homebrew. I I liked that you could reskin your your characters uh if you laid out your image in the correct pattern or whatever. Um that was hard. But uh changing the mechanics is like, well, again, like I guess you don't really have the means to make your own entire game, especially for the platform. Uh but I again it's most of the time when I see fan-based content like that, like Smash Bros. Brawl, minus, as it was called, I believe. Um I just I wonder why people don't just make their own game.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:36

Um Well, try to follow that one up and oh, go ahead first.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:42

Well look bringing that around to uh Mario Maker. Sorry. Um Mario Maker allows you to make the individual levels, but you're not really making the an entire game, like, and so the individual levels have like this limited appeal where you have to either go big with your art piece or go super hard with your impossible to do level, and this well-designed level in a vacuum is meaningless without you know the rest of the game.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:15

What's interesting too is they added like an overworld, but didn't allow you to have multiple exits, so the overworld was literally just a fancy menu. Because it's like you can't like branch it or anything. So it's like Mario Maker's interesting because the more you play it, like the more restrictions you have, where a lot of people still just hack Super Mario World because you can do more that way.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:34

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:35

But I do have a mini rant that I'm going to get to. So we've agreed legally that Dragon Ball Z abridge creator should not make money for dubbing over Dragon Ball Z content, right?

unknown 1:05:48

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:49

We agree that people should not make money for making a homebrew Mega Man game. Right?

SPEAKER_05 1:05:54

Okay. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:55

How come ChatGPT gets to do it and make money? How come they can just scrape all of Dragon Ball Z, put it in their Sora 2, and have you type in a prompt to make your own Dragon Ball Z scene, and that's not illegal? Because that's the same thing, right? Like all AI generated content is just bad fan content. Like, if you had ChatGPT elevate to the point where you can just say, make me a Mega Man game, it would just do the exact same thing these fan projects do of stealing the sprites and rescripting it and putting together their game. But we're not allowed to make money, but corporations can? What the hell is going on with that? Am I just high or something? Because I don't understand why it's illegal when a person does it but not a company.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:40

Uh well, I mean, do they make money off of it? Yeah!

SPEAKER_00 1:06:44

You buy it. And you can copyright what it makes.

Fan Projects Vs. Original Work

SPEAKER_01 1:06:50

You can copyright the videos it makes you and the text it makes you as your intellectual property. Yes. So they can feed my book into a machine literally take the word file to my book, put it in ChatGPT, and say, rewrite it less gay, output it, trademark it, and publish it. And I'm like, oh, because it's in a black box, I can't prove how much of your novel it stole.

unknown 1:07:11

What the fuck?

SPEAKER_01 1:07:13

How come it like how is that possibly fair use, but dubbing over clips isn't? Ridiculous. Truly absurd. But yeah, like, also, how does Mario Maker 3 not come out on launch of Switch 2 when they're one of their big features is their new Switch modes are uh work as a mouse? That blows my mind. They're like, hey, we have a mouse that works like Mario Paint, and we put Mario Paint on it. I'm like, you didn't put Mario Maker on this thing? Especially when they're like, hey, we're releasing enhanced Switch 2 enhanced things. I'm like, you just had to add like five new tiles.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:51

That is an interesting point. The Mario Maker probably would function just straight up better on the Switch 2.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:58

It's the only game I can think of where I'd want a mouse. Like the only reason I could think of that is like unit customization. Like, if I'm putting stickers on a mech or something. Although to be fair, Nintendo sucks right now. I'm mad at Nintendo. Because it's like the game awards are coming up, right? And they have Donkey Kong on the list of like contenders for game awards, because every year a Nintendo game is somehow on the top five, like deliberately. Okay. Nothing the Switch 2 has put out as Game of the Year material. People need to stop lying to me. Donkey Kong, I haven't heard about in months. It was shittier than Mario Odyssey and overall content. It just was.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:42

Hmm. Right, just just a shorter game based on the same engine with a few minor tweaks. Well, yeah, a few tweaks.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:50

Yeah, like I'll say like terrain destruction. I can understand how that's not a minor tweak, but it was less game, less exciting, less people care about it, worse plot somehow. So it's like, let's create like less variety in stages. Like there's a lot of things of like, hey, this is a new system, it's 10 years older. Why isn't this just better?

SPEAKER_03 1:09:15

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:16

I haven't seen Nintendo put out a clever new Oh, they talk about Metroid 4 being like, hey, it's open world looter grabber, and I'm like, fuck that, man. No. Don't make it the same slop as Destiny 2 or Assassin's Creed. Like, the slopification of open worlding everything is ridiculous. Like, even Sonic got an open world game, and I'm like, that's about running through courses. Why would you ever make that open world?

SPEAKER_03 1:09:42

Mario Kart world with the open world. Did nothing.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:46

Kerry has keep customization going where Nintendo's having to banhammer people making inappropriate cart every day of their life. Because that's the first thing people are gonna do.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:00

I guess uh inappropriate content is the most prolific form of fan content.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:05

Yeah, I'm pretty sure most mods are not PG-13. And like a friend of mine's big into modding their games, and I don't really do that. Like, I can, but I very, rarely see a mod that I'm like, this feels like it's worth it. Like a lot of people are ride or die, like there's mods out there for like Mega Man X3 and 5, for example, they're like, we fixed these objectively bad things about this game. I look at the mod, I'm like, you do, but do I really want to download a file to fix this? Like, is it yes you fixed it, but I don't think it's worth the energy to do such. Cause you're right that it's like, or you could just make your own thing, is a valid argument. But also, like, when it comes to fanfiction, I don't write a ton of it, but my brain loves to think in terms of fanfiction. Like, I know what your Zomb Octo would do, I know who would be on my hypothetical world trigger border squad, I know what triggers I would do. Like, my brain likes to play around in those spaces.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:03

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:04

So it's like if someone were to be, hey, I'm going to hire you to work on, I don't know, a world trigger MMO, I'd be there so fast I'd get whiplash. But like, that makes sense. If a bunch of people are like, oh, we're a bunch of fan modders, want to be part of our fan modding project to turn Smash Bros. melee into a Dragon Ball Z game. I'm like, oh, that seems like a lot of work for Minimo game. Like, that seems like entirely too much passion. And people are like, oh, Team 4 star gave Dragon Ball Z a second win in a resurgence, and you should be thanking them. I do actually agree with that. There are people who saw a bridge first.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:45

Yeah, well, see, I do think uh that uh a bridge series do add um some sort of value to a uh cultural art piece like that, where um they're they're making jokes, they're pointing out like logical inconsistencies or flaws with the original, uh, they're changing the pacing. Um and it's like it's this like I mean maybe I'd feel different about uh fan-made Mega Man games uh if I had played through more Mega Man games when I was younger.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:24

Uh well let's go like fan-made Pokemon games. That feels like a good example, because you've played a lot of Pokemon games.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:31

Yeah, but see, I I don't really care about fan-made Pokemon games either.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:35

Well, it's like the same YouTuber I was following releases like legacy versions of Pokemon games, which were fan mods that were like to preserve the intent of the original, but like clean up things like the experience curve and Pokemon distributions and move learning and stuff.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:48

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:49

And I'm like, that is a good mod, because it's like a lot of mods are like, oh, I added a 600 Pokemon and Mega Pokemon to Pokemon Red, and it's so awesome. And you're like, that's the guy putting too much toppings on the pizza. Adding extra everything to a dish ruins it. Right, right. Where this guy's more like, no, no, I replaced the pepperoni with Bruch with I don't know, I was gonna say like a fancier meat, but no, I replaced the pepperoni with spicy pepperoni, and like, ooh. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:20

Keeping the same general vibe, but but heating things up a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:24

Or oh no, I think the best example is yeah, the legacy series are like, so I did a pepperoni pizza and you're like, okay. But I put garlic butter on the crust and stuffed it with cheese, and you're like, okay, you got it. You nailed it. And they're like, oh, I also pulled out the cilantro. It's like, why was there cilantro on it originally? I don't know, but there was, so I removed it, because it should never have been there.

Mods, Mario Maker, And Design

SPEAKER_03 1:13:49

Yeah, I don't know. I do I think maybe that's more what it is, is like, um you like the cilantro? No, no, no. Uh when people try to change the content instead of preserving the intent of the original. I I think that's that's what I'm I'm just like, well and I don't understand mods in general because it's like the if you're adding something ridiculous like a minigun that shoots mini nukes to Fallout 4. And it's just like that's you're not preserving the intent of the original, you're just like adding something ridiculous and dumb.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:33

Adding mods like that to fill in a void that game devs when it becomes over corporate stopped doing. So, when we go back to Super Nintendo and Nintendo Nintendo 64 in particular, actually, weirdly enough, was one of the best systems for this. Devs were not very supervised and their teams were very small. So they would just put in random crap in your games for fun. Right. They'd be like, hey, here it's big head mode or DK mode. Or one of the Grand Theft Autos, if you push this button midair, you just ragdoll fall on the ground because it's funny.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:06

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:06

But the more corporate focus droopy things happen, the less random grab you can sneak into your game for the lulls. So the Fall Gun minigun makes me think of in Command Conquer 2, uh, Age of Empires 2, where there's a cheat code to put in uh the back to the future car with machine guns on it.

SPEAKER_05 1:15:21

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:22

And I will say some of these mods are because devs stopped putting random cheat codes. Like cheat codes stop being a thing.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:28

Hmm.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:28

Which angers me because we put in achievements, right? Right. And having achievements unlock cheat code stuff would be fun. And no one did it.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:39

Hmm. Yeah, that's true. Cause like Perfect Dark used to did that all the time, where it's like you would do a uh an achievement type thing. I'd be like, beat this mission on this difficulty in this amount of time, and then it would unlock something like infinite ammo or something like that.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:57

Yeah. And it's like I'm thinking like custom robo GameCube, for example, where like there's a side quest to go on, and if you talk to like a dude in the corner, he'd give you the crappy mech made of Ken Cans.

SPEAKER_05 1:16:10

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:10

Or like you could turn on a button to turn broken parts on, which were just stronger than regular parts. But it was like just doing things in that game got you custom roboparts. That was the reward for playing custom robo. But whenever a game just gives you a gamer score, that's not satisfying. Like Mega Man X, you can earn the Hodoken. Games don't do that anymore.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:31

Hmm. That's fair. Instead, they release that stuff as as DLC. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:38

Yeah, they do. If you want all your characters dressed up as characters from another game, you give us cash. So, when it comes to like the fanworks and fan projects, I'm definitely not the biggest, like, I ha I don't have like a collection of sick fan games or anything to show. As you mentioned, a lot of abridged series, like, even some of the newer ones, like I went through Goblin Slayer abridged. Mm-hmm. And it reeks of corporate profit bullshit that, like, and you can check out our new episodes on our Patreon, and here's our sponsor, and here's our Actually, I'm gonna dunk on a concept and a person in particular that I watched a fair number of their vids and they pissed me off recently. Oh? So, reaction videos where you watch someone reacting to an episode rather than watching the episode themselves are is a weird phenomenon. Yeah, okay. So it's already a worse version of abridging because you're just, oh, I'm watching a video watching a guy watching a video and telling me their feedback on it.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:32

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:33

I was watching those for some new animes that I couldn't be bothered to watch myself because like the reaction videos were a little shorter.

unknown 1:17:39

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:39

Or be like, oh, what did this person think of the Owl House, for example?

SPEAKER_05 1:17:43

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:44

But where they've completely lost me is they're talking about how they got copyright claimed and couldn't make money on their video because they got claimed for the songs and the clips they're showing. And I'm like, fuck you! Your day job is to watch someone else's media and talk about it. I don't care if your sponsorship gets lost or this is your jaw, and they'll bitch about how hard their job is. I'm like, fuck off. You're literally just playing clips and talking, and got lucky that people found you engaging or charming enough to keep doing it. You should be thanking God every goddamn day of your life you can pay your rent with this bullshit. Cause you, like cryptocurrency, add nothing of actual value to the world whatsoever. And I'm like, I was watching you and you're being light and breezy, but now that you're like upset that people aren't understanding your YouTuber struggles, fuck right off with that. The fact you have sponsors at all is insane.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:40

So people don't like watching privileged people complain about their privilege?

SPEAKER_01 1:18:44

It's crazy, because they don't see it. They don't see it, Carl! They don't see it. They don't understand that, like, if me and you were to change our podcast to me and you putting on an episode of a show and then talking about it live while it was playing? We should not be monetized for using their clips to fill half of our show. Even though ChatGPT can't do it somehow without any illegal problems. They should be more mad at that, honestly. They should be less mad that, like, oh, I got demonetized and more mad that so why is Stab Altman monetized for doing the same thing? That's what people should be missed about. But moving on from that, tell your third story.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:31

Oh no, you aren't actually gonna let me tell my third story. Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:35

Yeah, I just had a fuck with you a bit. Man, I've used too many F-bombs, we're gonna get demonetized. And I'm gonna be so upset.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:41

Because we were totally monetized in the first place.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:44

I do find it funny, like, we haven't got to like a copyright strike, but we've got to the couple of, do you own this background music? And I'm like, do we? No, not really. I didn't think anyone was that upset about I put in the credits that we're using the HD remastered but-but background music from Dragon Ball Super, but I guess I'm upset. Oh well.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:04

Um, okay, so uh no matter what time of year you're listening to our podcast, uh Christmas draws closer. Like the holidays of the first one.

AI, Fair Use, And Ownership

SPEAKER_01 1:20:13

Oh, I need to make a bit first. I need to make a bit. So I was talking with a relative of mine who will remain nameless for this, and they're giving the rants people love to give. There's Pride Month, there's Black History Month, there's this month. Where is Christian Pride Month? Where is Christ where is straight people month? It's called December. Cause it's been what? Um Yeah, negative three days into December, and I've seen four Carolers. I've seen Santa. I've heard music. We're not even in December yet. So if you're honestly believing that Christians have it rough because they don't get their own month, open your eyes and look outside. And yeah, as you said, at any time of year, if you'll open your eyes in a store, you will probably see a Christmas something or other.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:09

Well, I mean, that wasn't really really my point. My point was to tell me.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:13

That would be hilarious if that was your point. There's no way that was gonna be your point.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:20

My point was just to say that, you know, even if you're watching this in January, Christmas still draws closer. Uh but anyway. You know, that's just how time works.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:33

Nah, we're technically stuck in a third dimensional. Once you get to the fourth dimensional point of view, it really forms more of a loop-de-loop.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:43

So, uh, you know, uh, the closer you get to Christmas, the the more uh holiday festivities there are.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:50

And hatred. And don't forget hatred and suicide, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:21:55

I mean that's also true, but I like to, you know, focus on more positive things like uh the uh the enchanted forest.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:02

Or I like to complain about my privilege.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:06

The enchanted forest, which which is a uh light display uh that puts on like that's put on by the zoo foundation.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:16

It's not that the L'Reddle Forestry Farm.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:19

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:20

That one is beautiful. Shout out to Saskatchewan for having a gorgeous Christmas light display. And this is coming from me.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:27

Um or uh there's like the festival of trees, where they take the the Western Development Museum and they just like put up a whole bunch of trees that I don't know, apparently the trees are for sale and they come with like gift packages and stuff. They're kind of kind of fancy trees. Um but so you know uh my fiance and I went to the festival of trees and uh then we're like, yeah, you know, maybe we should like decorate our tree and and uh listen to Christmas music.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:53

I mean yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:54

And so So you know, we we decorate a tree, we're l listening to Christmas music, and uh the song It's the most wonderful time of the year comes on. Um and it's going through, and one of the lines is that there'll be ghost stories and tales of the glories of times long, long ago. Technically true. Um and I mean this isn't the first time that I've I've thought about this, so like I think it was actually last year when I thought about it, and I was like, why doesn't it say ghost stories? Like, what does that have to do with Christmas or the holidays or anything? And apparently, because Christmas is around the winter solstice, uh people used to believe that it was when the time when spirits are closest to the the earth. Um and so they would uh try and scare each other with ghost stories because there wasn't much else to do back in the day when you're sitting around the fire and you know spirits are close, so people get scared easily. Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:50

Um but this year, I was thinking it was like, well, um aside from a future episode.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:02

Aside from a Christmas carol. Um like there aren't I I don't know of any Christmas ghost stories. Oh, all of them. Santa is a ghost. Santa's a ghost. That would that would make sense.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:17

Especially the times that when you kill him, you become him. That's some poltergeist behavior.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:23

Yeah, yeah, that's that's true. That's that's some crazy supernatural stuff. Um but so I actually I managed to find a website that had uh 12 um ghost stories, Christmas ghost stories, they say. Um and I've all I've only read two of them so far. Uh so I'll I'm I'll have to read more. And maybe, who knows? Maybe that maybe part of that'll be part of a future episode talking about holiday ghost stories or holiday stories in general. Uh because I'm I am a little bit curious, probably in a future episode, I'll ask you, A, what makes a good ghost story, B, what makes a good Christmas story, then C, how do you combine those two things together?

SPEAKER_01 1:25:06

This is just gonna be our next episode, we do. This is a good episode, pitch, which is why I was gonna deny you.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:15

Well, I'll have to send you this website. Since you're on uh Christmas break, perhaps you'll actually have time to to read these stories. It's funny. But yeah, maybe But anyways, yeah, so I that that that was really the entire the entire thing is it's like, yeah, I actually found a website that has assumably you're supposed to read them for the twelve days of Christmas. Uh that's why there's twelve, I assume, but I guess I've been reading them already. Only read two. The first one wasn't really a Christmas story at all. It was just it happened to be in winter time, and these guys are like sitting in a tavern type place telling each other ghost stories. Uh and the one of them was like, Oh, I know a ghost story about this very tavern. And then tells a story about the guy that hung himself and uh tried to strangle his father as a ghost. Um then when the other guy's just like, ah, I bet I can scare you with that ghost story. Uh and then uh he starts pranking them with pretending to be this ghost, and uh one of his other friends just pulls out a gun and shoots him.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:24

Flawless.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:25

Flawless strategy.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:29

Uh the other one was a little bit more of a of a Christmas story, but also a little bit macabre. Uh a guy goes into a pawn shop on Christmas Day, uh, and the pawn shop owner's like, no, uh, we're closed, it's Christmas. And he's like, Yeah, but you like money, and I need Christmas gift for my girlfriend, so maybe we can come to an agreement. And the guy's like, Yeah, you're right, I do like money.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:54

So you're kind of right about this tangent.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:58

So he goes to uh the peruves his wares, and uh the uh customer, Markheim.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:09

Not to be mistaken for Loheim.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:12

So Markheim uh he just like stabs the the shop owner in the back and kills him.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:18

Um you know what's really funny? The stories you've told about pizza antidotes, I feel like like an AI would assume this was just happening at your workplace.

Nintendo, Sequels, And Slopification

SPEAKER_03 1:27:31

Uh but so so uh Markheim starts like looting the place, uh the the house the guy's house is connected to his business, so he grabs the guy's keys, gets into the house, and he's like trying to search you for money. Uh when the door opens behind him and he looks and it's an entity that kind of looks like him but kinda not. And it starts discussing with it, it's like, hey, you know, this guy's made is probably gonna come back soon. And uh you'll get the death penalty if she finds you. So, as a Christmas gift, I'll tell you where the money is so you can get out of here before uh before she shows up.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:10

Makes sense.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:11

And he's all like, I don't know if I want to do deals with devils. And the entity is like, who knows if I'm a devil? Uh I really exactly what a devil would say. I really uh would like it if uh if you were able to, you know, keep living and doing evil stuff. I don't really care about you, I just I just want you to keep doing evil stuff. Uh and he's all like, yeah, you know, I do need this money because I lost all of my money in day trading and I want to do some more day trading.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:46

Uh crypto bros really are my natural nemesis no matter what era.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:52

Uh but so you know they're having this back and forth about uh about whether or not he should just, you know, accept the help from the entity. Uh and then the maid shows up and he realizes that he doesn't want to be evil, so he just goes down to the front door and opens it, and he's like, Yeah, you should call the police because I killed your master, and that was the end of that story.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:13

It's so funny to be like, Tangent one, my life, tangent two, my life, tangent three, ghost stories I found on the internet about Christmas.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:22

Well, like I said, the first one wasn't really a Christmas story, it just happened to be set in wintertime.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:27

Which I mean I But it's such a I knew this would be a black hole topic though, because like obviously the follow-up is what makes a Christmas movie, and just before we know it, I'm given a full-on soliloquy about the Christmas values found within Die Hard. Like it was such a like slippery slope. I'm like, no, we're talking about fanworks and fanfiction. And what I learned from this is Carl doesn't read much fanfiction or believe in fan games or fanworks, which would have been useful knowledge before the episode topic was picked.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:02

You're like, I don't want to talk about fan fiction, I want to talk about ghost stories. You can put it in a text.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:10

No, I don't mind telling fan stories. I I enjoyed it. Talk about a fan story. Do it right out. Well, you know, I did, you know, Ghost Snapper. He was my favorite character.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:20

No, no, no. Do more. Go on. Go somewhere with this. Have a take. I'm throwing you on the spot now. And you did this yourself.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:27

Have a take of all the fanfiction.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:29

Well.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:31

I mean, like I say, you know, it fanfiction to me uh feels like in a lot of ways it's a a a shortcut to producing content that you really want. And if you're you know making it for yourself, that's fine, that's one thing. You know what? And if you want to publish it online and see if other people like your fan content, I mean that's that's a perfectly valid way to enjoy uh content and and hopefully add value. Um but I do think that these people with with this obsessive uh nature about the sort of fan fandom that they have, if they they could redirect their energy and just create something original, you know? Like maybe maybe it would be derivative though.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:16

So here's the thing about fanfiction that you're not quite grasping of why part of why people do it. And this is like somewhat paraphrased from academic uh and some part paraphrase my own experience. When you create a piece of fanwork, you have an automatic baseline of people who are interested in it, i.e. other fans. When you create original content, people are less invested. So as someone who's put out my own fantasy novels, what do you think people are gonna talk about me more with? With the Waltz of Blades or Naruto? So like realistically, had I taken my story and instead made a piece of Naruto fanfiction and released it every week, I take less emotional risk for my creativity because I'm leveraging this existing th authority and brand power, and people are less dicks to you about it. So, like, I've gotten so much of like your own original work makes me think that I don't care about fiction anymore, or oh, there's a typo on the third page. But if it's fanfiction, people don't treat it as seriously, and they're willing to give you more benefit because you're a fellow fan. Like, me and you have had many a conversation about every piece of media. Like, we've never wrote fanfiction. But my god, have we not had like, oh, here's why Aizen would technically lose in a fight to Emmy a Kitserugi converse ass conversations. Like, our fandom takes a lot of who would beat who, what would you do in what setting, what concept is interesting. But I've never had that experience happen from one of my intellectual properties I've given you. So you've never been like, oh, this is how I would use magicite in the Waltz of Blades, or oh, this is the course I would teach as an Esper professor. So it's like by having that fan basis, people seem more comfortable to discuss something because it's become less personal. So like, even though you've we've literally co-wrote a magical menagerie, we never talk about that. But if I were to send you a text being like, Alright, which Pokemon should I change from ground type to rock type, you'd have answers for me instantly. So like it's easier to answer.

SPEAKER_05 1:33:35

I can see your point.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:36

Yeah, like if I were to send you a message and be like, I'm making a Canada Pokedex, what would the Canadian regional variant of a Tauros be? Is easier to answer than, hey, I'm doing a wave of edits on Monster Menagerie, I need a new variation of Esper Squirrel.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:51

I I just I feel like the natural extension of that catering the the fan-based type thing is is how Hollywood has gotten to where it is with always making sequels and remakes because they're quote unquote safe.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:07

Oh yeah. Um and I'm saying that people are just as bad. It's a symptom, not a disease. Like, Hollywood remakes are a symptom of people being less willing to invest in other people's creativity and take a risk on backing something that isn't popular.

SPEAKER_03 1:34:25

Well, I don't know, maybe that's why I never actually finished any projects either.

Why Fans Make Fanworks

SPEAKER_01 1:34:30

Right? Like, it's funny to joke about, like, if I were writing fanfiction, the amount of fanfiction I would have written, because as you're aware, I have five unpublished books sitting on my shelf about to go into creative writing class where I have to write three chapters and three short stories, and I'm probably gonna use that to finish the arcana. Since now I can make another wave of professors read my book and give me feedback. Right, right. But like people would probably it's like if someone were to read the incarna in its entirety, I still think they would pivot the conversation to neuromancer. And we would end up talking about neuromancer instead. And note, I'm not gonna be out here and talk about neuromancer not being good. I'm not on mess. Like. Like, I had a lengthy conversation about the foundation yesterday. And I'm not about to write foundation fanfic, because my god, would that be hard. Like, you know how hard it would be to write something that fits into the foundation timeline well? Like, oh, I'm just gonna write I'm just gonna Yeah, I'm gonna write some Oh man. But yeah, that's my closing rant. But do you have thoughts now that I've monologued at you?

SPEAKER_03 1:35:47

No, my my thoughts are still kind of the same where I just I don't I don't know what the solution is, but I do wish that the people who have all of this creative energy and talent Oh, I do know the solution.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:02

I know this. It's really easy the solution, but no one ever does it. Okay. If you want to move people away from making fan derivatives and create original work, you know what you do? What? You talk to people about their original work.

SPEAKER_03 1:36:20

Fair enough.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:21

No one ever wants to do that. No one ever wants to like read something original and then write an email and be like, you're like, let's even take take it to a larger scale. Let's take like a movie you've seen recently that wasn't part of a franchise and wasn't original work.

SPEAKER_03 1:36:37

A movie I've seen recently that wasn't part of a franchise and wasn't original work. That you liked. Mmm, um, Heretic. Heretic was a really good movie.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:46

So what you do here is you either post an article about Heretic being a good movie, or write an email to some of the members of the Heretic team be like, this was a good movie, and I enjoyed it.

SPEAKER_03 1:36:56

Hmm, fair enough. That's it. There is not enough positive reinforcement on the internet, that's true.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:01

Like, all I do with my social media is positive reinforce people's writing and works. Especially in this AI age too, like it's so easy to make deri it's never been easier to make derivative crap.

SPEAKER_03 1:37:16

Fair enough.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:17

AI loves making fanfic.

SPEAKER_03 1:37:20

Well, the AI can't make anything without content to base it on.

unknown 1:37:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:25

Although I will say, like. Yet again, I've given my rants. I'm not that opposed to people using digital tools with their creativity. As long as they have something to say. The problem is people will have you ask you to read something an AI wrote that they themselves haven't even read or enjoyed. I'm like, if you're gonna make Carl read your book, you have to at least like the ideas in your book.

SPEAKER_03 1:37:47

Fair enough. But uh with that, maybe we should move on to our uh random question of the day.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:53

Alright, we got two of them in this week. Fortnite? So the first random question of the Fortnite Okay. What is your favorite one piece villain?

SPEAKER_03 1:38:04

My favorite one-piece villain.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:06

Um which is funny because you've had to do it by mo-osmosis.

SPEAKER_03 1:38:14

Well, so I mean how far have I gotten? Because crocodile, I think there's crocodile.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:22

Uh oh, have you heard the crocodile is Lucy's is Luffy's mom theory?

SPEAKER_03 1:38:29

Yeah, and then he got hit by the one prisoner guys.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:33

I cannot tell how woke Oda is, it's impossible. Because he's either the most or the least woke person. It it was like when I was earlier being like, ah, Chainsaw Man, I can't tell how well written this is, and I'm like, no, no, it's well written. One piece I'm like, I think Oda's like just sneaking progressive values through Show and Jump's conservative editors, one gay, gay punch at a time. Because I'm like, is it offensive to be like this is the island of gay people? Yes, but also he has more gay people in his series than the rest of Show and Jump put together, and not all of them are stereotypes, some are really cool.

SPEAKER_03 1:39:07

Um But you know what, I I have the respect uh for Bugsy. Um Buggy? Buggy, yeah, Buggy. Uh because he's like one of the the earliest villains. Um and unlike a lot of other series where a villain is just gone forever as soon as they're defeated, he's been put in the hustle in the background and has become one of the four emperors of the scene. Oh yeah. Like, he's mad respect for that guy.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:37

Buggy is like a goaded pick. Like, I think like if we were to actually pull the fan base for favorite villain, he'd probably top threes. Because he's basically evil Hercule. Like, he's just getting all the villain cred for saving the war for being the villa like, yeah, he's just if Hercule got the cred for being evil instead of good. Which is amazing. Like, literally, he's in a guild of crocodile and mihawk now. They're like, what do we do with him? It's like, well we could kill him, but might as well let him keep being taking strays. So uh I know I like to be different in a contrarian, but I actually just agree because that's also my favorite pick.

SPEAKER_03 1:40:14

Yeah, he's just such a Wong Kong uh character that's just been so active in the series for such a long time.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:22

Right? Like he's built upward in a beautiful way.

SPEAKER_03 1:40:25

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:26

So, like, I agree. I also, to be fair though, I prefer the Netflix one piece to the original. Which in the next piece in the Netflix one, they introduced Garp way earlier as an antagonist, and he's not a villain. He is an antagonist. But by like having the series jump between Luffy and the Marines back and forth, it makes the show so much better. That I'm like, yeah, if he counts as a villain, it's Garp, and if he doesn't, it's Buggy. Buggy V clown. Although One Piece is weird because like it's hard to like a lot of villains just end up being grayer in the middle because everyone Well, it has a dreams-based power system. Like, people are there to follow their dreams, and you become evil for not following your dreams, not for being evil. So if you're a sociopath but you're following your dreams, the show treats you like you're a good person. But when you give up on your dreams and become a sellout, you're the worst person.

SPEAKER_04 1:41:23

Right, right.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:25

And our second random question, I just need to pull it up here on this y old text file of random questions. Come on, brain, read faster. Oh, this is an interesting one. If you had a personal robot assistant in the style of Captain Laserhawk, where it's an incarcerated prisoner being used to VR pilot the robot, what is the first task you'd make it do? You do not know that a convict is piloting your robot.

SPEAKER_03 1:41:59

I do not know that a convict is piloting my robot.

Holiday Ghost Stories Seed

SPEAKER_01 1:42:02

So I don't know if you've seen Captain Laserhawk yet, but the idea is they put people in this prison in VR headsets to work off their like sentence. And it's a shock collar VR headset that they used to pilot a robot body, and that's how their robots work? Huh. Right? How c like, oh, that's such a good plot point. So they had someone like basically playing crazy taxi and would be tased when they didn't make good runtimes and that's how their Ubers self-driving cars worked. Anyway, what would you ask this robot, your robot assistant to do? And they can't talk to you or talk back, but it just feels uncanny, like you know that there's a tortured human out there, but you're not sure.

SPEAKER_03 1:42:40

Um, what would I ask a robot to do for me?

SPEAKER_01 1:42:44

I'm gonna be a basic bitch about it. Clean my room. Sorry, my room needs some cleaning. Clean my apartment, please, robot. I don't need it to do anything. Like, I do a lot of fun creative stuff. I don't need it for that. I need it to like fold my clothes and wash my bedding. It has work to do. Uh. Okay. I think. Oh, is it gonna be super sad and you're gonna have it play checkers with you because it's your first real friend? Oh, sorry. Star Trek 3D tri Star Trek 3D chess, let's be honest.

SPEAKER_03 1:43:24

I was gonna say, Leo, like, uh, it would be great to have a friend, I have a robot, buddy, to uh play test games with, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 1:43:33

Oh man. I'm coming along on a thing I've been like a game I've been working on between commutes.

SPEAKER_04 1:43:39

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 1:43:40

But like, yeah. Nah, I'm definitely using my robot for bitch work. Like, I'm I'm sorry for this incarcerated prisoner that I'm making clean my lo like do my laundry and scrub things, but my ADHD is makes me really bad at humaning. So hard tasks are easy for me, but easy tasks are brutal for me.

SPEAKER_03 1:44:00

I'm I'm I'm not sure if I'm that much better at humaning than you are, uh, but I do have a worry that if I get a robot to start sorting my things, uh, then I won't know where anything is. And if the robot becomes unavailable for some reason, then I won't be able to find anything.

SPEAKER_01 1:44:14

Where like looking at my desk with his three randomly scattered books and like container of jube jubes and Pokemon mug, I'm like, no no no, I'm sure it's sorting would be better than mine. Like I still can't find anything, but at least I know it was put somewhere with intent.

SPEAKER_04 1:44:31

Hmm mm.

SPEAKER_01 1:44:33

I have a fucking college branded USB coffee cup warmer that I got out, I think, just sitting on my desk.

SPEAKER_03 1:44:41

USB coffee mug warmer.

SPEAKER_01 1:44:43

Yeah, that's gonna burn down my house someday. There's no way to prevent this. It is impossible. No way at all. Absolutely impossible. Alright. And let's see, do we have one other question? Oh do we have another question? We have a third question. You get to make a new Pokemon. What does it look like? And what is its ability?

SPEAKER_03 1:45:08

What is its ability?

SPEAKER_01 1:45:10

It's just its ability.

SPEAKER_03 1:45:14

Um I looked at the first the first thing I saw in my room here, uh, is the uh the ball model kit, the Gundam Ball.

SPEAKER_04 1:45:30

Nice.

SPEAKER_03 1:45:30

Um uh and so that was like the first thing I thought of was like, oh yeah, ball Pokemon, that's original, until I realized that the original 151 had Voltorb and Electrode. I was like, ah.

SPEAKER_01 1:45:41

But they don't have the grabby arms.

SPEAKER_03 1:45:44

I mean that's true, they don't have the grabby arms.

SPEAKER_01 1:45:47

Um I'm gonna give a hot take here for mine first.

SPEAKER_05 1:45:53

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:45:54

So if I gotta make a new Pokemon, and I know we've been talking about fan content this episode.

SPEAKER_00 1:45:58

I think I'm actually.

SPEAKER_01 1:46:01

This is gonna be weird, but I was so frustrated with the aloe invariants that were just fat versions of them. I think I am making Elo in Persian. And but I'm making it look like a slick panther thing. Like I'm making it look like it a cool evolution of alone meow. And what its ability was is gonna do is it's crit it's gonna have like I don't have a name for it. But mechanically what it's gonna do is it's actually gonna bring back to Gen 1 mechanic, but the higher your speed is, the higher your crit rate is. So its ability is gonna be like crit hitter, where its crit rate goes up for based on your speed stat. Hmm. Because that way it's like both a callback to when Persian was really good, but as game-breaking because it's an ability. And then I fixed a low in Persian, which is just the biggest disappointment in my life.

SPEAKER_03 1:46:57

Okay. Uh I think um my favorite Pokemon is Togekiss.

SPEAKER_01 1:47:06

You know, I was gonna say Butterfree, but I know it's Togekiss.

SPEAKER_03 1:47:11

Butterfree is uh the probably my second favorite Pokemon. Then my third favorite is probably Doogong. Nice.

SPEAKER_01 1:47:18

This feels right. I feel like I know this about you.

SPEAKER_03 1:47:22

Uh but um I think that my my new Pokemon, the design, would be somewhat based on Togekiss. Um so it would look kind of like a Togekiss, uh, but it would be made of bubbles.

unknown 1:47:37

Ooh.

SPEAKER_03 1:47:38

Have like a cool like bull tail that comes out. Um and its ability would be something like uh slippery. Nice. Uh where uh have something to do with physical attacks um not not getting reflected, um but perhaps adding like random variants, I don't know if I'd want to put that in an ability, but like I guess you put critical hits in your ability, so I don't know, the higher power the physical attack, the more likely it is to miss when they when they're gonna be.

SPEAKER_01 1:48:15

Uh that's actually really fun though. Uh so I have an answer of an actual Pokemon now that I've stalled for time.

SPEAKER_05 1:48:21

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:48:22

So I want to make a fire water type that's like a flaming copabara, that's like a Cindabarra.

SPEAKER_05 1:48:28

A Cindabarra, okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:48:30

And what I want it to do is when it's hit by water, it switches into being a water poison type for a turn, and then reignites. So like you put it out, and then it's like poisonous ash, and then it lights back up.

SPEAKER_05 1:48:47

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:48:49

But yeah, uh, Cindabara, the fire captivaro Pokemon. With a little orange on its head. Actually, no, I'm gonna go with like a little fireball on its head, like the orange. Great. But thank you everybody for tuning into our Corporate Cello podcast. Our sponsor is Nobody. Nobody bringing your day, nothing, doo-doo.

SPEAKER_03 1:49:12

Yeah, you know, I mean, yeah, you gotta do all the self-care yourself. I mean, we're not gonna do it for you, we're not bringing that to you either. I kinda wish we could. It's a good idea to hydrate and stay exercise. You just, you know, we can't do that for you, sorry.

SPEAKER_01 1:49:25

You know, I kind of want to add a random question of the day myself, because I'm just curious.

SPEAKER_03 1:49:29

Oh?

SPEAKER_01 1:49:30

Who who would be your dream first sponsor?

SPEAKER_03 1:49:34

My dream first sponsor? Oh, wow. I mean, okay, actually, hmm. See, I would say Wizards of the Coast.

SPEAKER_01 1:49:47

That would I because of the irony alone, that would be so good.

SPEAKER_03 1:49:52

It would be pretty good. I mean, I I've come to the point where it's like I don't really believe in them as a company. So it would it's a good thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:49:59

But that's what makes our sponsorship so good though. Because we would say, we don't believe you as a company, but this has been sponsored by Wizards of the Coast.

SPEAKER_03 1:50:12

That would be pretty funny. Yeah, I'm thinking I think in Wizards of the Coast probably would be the my dream's first sponsor. Uh, but I don't think they would ever sponsor us because we have too much of a negative opinion about them.

SPEAKER_01 1:50:24

Yeah, but that would involve them listening to our previous episodes. They would never know.

SPEAKER_03 1:50:30

They're gonna find out.

SPEAKER_01 1:50:32

They'll never know. They'll have to listen to you start talking about ghost stories for no reason in the middle of the episode, like in something new with you. Is this actually an option? So I was looking up Canadian companies, right, to try and figure out like it'd be good sponsorship.

SPEAKER_00 1:50:51

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 1:50:53

And it's like, you know it'd be hilarious to be sponsored by the Raccoon Appreciation Society. I would have no problem at all giving out like I don't think they'd have to pay me. I think if the Raccoon Appreciation Society said, Hey, can you give us a shout-out? Done! Yeah, that'd be great.

SPEAKER_03 1:51:15

Shout out to the Raccoon Association Society. Thanks for existing.

SPEAKER_01 1:51:22

But like, more seriously, like, oh man. There's a few, like, uh, something overtly Canadian would be great. Like, I know I throw a lot of shades up, but Tim Hortons would actually be awesome.

SPEAKER_05 1:51:32

That would be a sick sponsorship. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:51:37

If we just got cards that gave us infinite Tim Hortons by promoing them, that'd be great. Like, as much as I love to hate them, I do have a Tim Hortons credit card attached to my Tim Hortons app, so.

SPEAKER_02 1:51:48

That's funny.

SPEAKER_01 1:51:51

Uh so yeah, I'm gonna say Raccoon Appreciation Society in first place. I'd also love to be sponsored by like the Toronto Public Library. I think that's my real answer, is the public library sponsoring us would be great.

SPEAKER_03 1:52:04

Or the Toronto Zoo. I mean, I'd say the Saskatoon zoo in Forestry Farm. Uh, but uh, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:52:12

We actually give the Forestry Farm a fair amount of shout-outs because they're objectively like there's such like a healthy way to set up a zoo, and like, oh no, we just put a fence around the animals that were there. And they're happy to be there because that's where they're from. And I'm like, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:52:28

The zoo might, the Saskatoon zoo might be getting polar bears soon, and I'm conflicted because stupid polar bears.

SPEAKER_01 1:52:39

Just stupid polar bears. Episode ends, flawless no-dotes, 10 out of 10. We're just gonna turn on the news tomorrow. It's gonna be like Carl redacted hates polar bears. It'll be a guy with the Carl tattoo, like full chess piece being like I used to believe in him.

SPEAKER_03 1:53:02

They let me down, those polar bears at the Toronto Zoo.

SPEAKER_01 1:53:06

Erin Breath noble. Uh bye. Bye. Uh man though, the Wizards of the Coast sponsorship would be so good. Wizards of the Coast, they don't send armed guards to your house, Wink!