SPEAKER_1: Hello, and welcome to Salt Cravings.
SPEAKER_1: This is, no, fuck that, I'm starting over.
SPEAKER_1: Nope, that was dirty, that was too dirty.
SPEAKER_2: Oh, that was a dirty one.
SPEAKER_1: It was a dirty take.
SPEAKER_1: We need a clean take, Brianna.
SPEAKER_1: I have to pronounce every single syllable.
SPEAKER_1: Hello, hello, and welcome to Salt Cravings.
SPEAKER_1: Perfect.
SPEAKER_1: This is a comedy podcast where we have our cravings and then we solve them.
SPEAKER_1: This is how I'm going to speak for the whole episode.
SPEAKER_1: And Brianna has decided to speak out.
SPEAKER_1: I'm excited that she is going to just be Sonic the Hedgehog, I fucking guess.
SPEAKER_2: Gotta go fast.
SPEAKER_2: I don't know what the problem is.
SPEAKER_1: Brianna, would you like to start us off with one of our cravings for this show?
SPEAKER_2: Sure, Clair, I'd love to start us off with our craving today.
SPEAKER_2: I would love to start us off today.
SPEAKER_2: Let's just jump right into it.
SPEAKER_2: I mean, I think, great intro, great.
SPEAKER_2: Let me just give you a round of applause for that one.
SPEAKER_1: Oh, are we gonna, do I get to clap next time at the end of yours, is that?
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, I think we should start doing that.
SPEAKER_2: I think we should start clapping for each other's intros.
SPEAKER_1: We gotta be more like supportive.
SPEAKER_1: That's what it's about.
SPEAKER_2: This is a positivity and support podcast.
SPEAKER_1: Any negativity is bad, only positivity.
SPEAKER_1: As we know, the idea of toxic positivity is actually a false dichotomy, and anyone who believes in false positivity is actually sad and deserves to be sent to the sadness camps.
SPEAKER_1: Don't ask where the sadness camps are.
SPEAKER_1: Brianna, what's your first craving?
SPEAKER_2: Let me try and frame this positively.
SPEAKER_1: Wouldn't want you to get sent to the sadness camps, Brianna.
SPEAKER_1: That would end the podcast.
SPEAKER_2: Wouldn't want that.
SPEAKER_2: How do I frame this positively?
SPEAKER_1: Maybe we can workshop it together into a more positive light.
SPEAKER_2: Let me start out with saying that I love a lot of indie games, right?
SPEAKER_2: I love a lot of indie games, especially like indie video games, but I'm talking about games in general.
SPEAKER_2: I think they're really good.
SPEAKER_2: And a thing that indie games are really, really good at doing for me is like making me like really feel things.
SPEAKER_2: And like really connect with the stuff that they're saying and like think really hard about the themes and like, you know, make me emotional.
SPEAKER_2: And that is something that, let me frame this positively.
SPEAKER_2: Big games, AAA games, stuff that's like big and has a huge budget behind it.
SPEAKER_2: They're still learning how to do that.
SPEAKER_2: Recently, the kind of big game has been The Last of Us II.
SPEAKER_1: I literally thought that died weeks ago.
SPEAKER_2: I think it has mostly died, but people are still playing it.
SPEAKER_2: I have been listening to the Waypoint Radio episodes on it.
SPEAKER_2: I've not played the game.
SPEAKER_2: So I can't say, you know, maybe it would hit me hard, but based on what I know about it, probably not.
SPEAKER_1: I know nothing about this game other than it seems to have some bad rep.
SPEAKER_2: So basically, here's the deal.
SPEAKER_2: So Zombie Apocalypse, this is the sequel.
SPEAKER_2: It basically, it's a revenge quest.
SPEAKER_2: It's a revenge quest in which a queer woman, I guess this is spoilers, spoilers for The Last of Us II, I'll put a thing description, Ellie wants revenge for the death of her adopted father who was killed for things that he did at the end of the last game in which he killed a whole lot of people.
SPEAKER_2: And she's very mad that he got killed for the thing that he did, which was killing a bunch of people to save her at the end of the last game.
SPEAKER_2: And then he gets killed by someone else, and then she goes on a revenge quest.
SPEAKER_2: And you play as both like her and the woman who she's on a revenge quest against.
SPEAKER_2: And who is also, by the way, also killed him because of her dad, who was one of the people that Ellie's dad killed.
SPEAKER_2: It's about women who are sad about their dads, and it's a zombie game.
SPEAKER_1: And it's a zombie game.
SPEAKER_2: And it's a zombie game, and it's like the most like straight people version of queerness, from my understanding.
SPEAKER_2: It's like, you know, like apparently there's genuinely good and interesting like moments, right?
SPEAKER_2: Like there's good moments, but structurally in this kind of whole way, it's very much like, ah yes, every queer relationship has a deadbeat dad and a good mom.
SPEAKER_2: And that is also how it works in queer relationships.
SPEAKER_2: Anyway, you know, we're not being negative here.
SPEAKER_2: So I'm saying that I don't think The Last of Us II is for me.
SPEAKER_2: And when I start to think about big games that have come out or that have big budgets, they don't tend to be for me, and they don't tend to offer interesting things in terms of a story, right?
SPEAKER_2: The reason why I'm specifically harping on The Last of Us II is because a lot of critics who like it have said it's like cinematic.
SPEAKER_2: It's like this very like the most like closest video games have gotten to art, which is not true.
SPEAKER_1: Oh, you mean cinematic, like the Metal Gear Solid 4 game that everybody really loves?
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, people love that one.
SPEAKER_1: That's I mean, that is historically one of the everyone's favorite Metal Gear Solid game.
SPEAKER_1: Also, the only Metal Gear Solid game I've even partially played.
SPEAKER_1: So I guess it's my favorite by default.
SPEAKER_1: And do you really need a sample size bigger than one?
SPEAKER_1: I'm a scientist and I say no.
SPEAKER_2: I guess my thing is most AAA games, if they even have a story, have a really kind of normative, boring story that handles issues poorly and can't get away from its own understandings of what a video game is supposed to be, right?
SPEAKER_2: You can't have a AAA video game without shooting, which is not true.
SPEAKER_1: But most of them do.
SPEAKER_1: Sorry, you've touched on one of my main gripes with video games.
SPEAKER_1: I shouldn't say gripes because it's quite a negative term.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, that's a really negative way of thinking about it.
SPEAKER_1: One of the things that I find that video games have room for growth is the way in which we interact with video games in general is actually ironically set up to support these first person shooter games over other play styles, even just subtle things, things that we don't even think about, like having quote-unquote trigger buttons on our controllers.
SPEAKER_1: These are the easiest games to program.
SPEAKER_1: From a perspective of programming, it is much easier to make a combat game than it is other types of games.
SPEAKER_1: There's a lot of resources for that.
SPEAKER_1: And so it's sort of a positive feedback loop, if you will, in terms of these games get very popular, and so they create more ways for more games to build on them, which inadvertently not steals the spotlight, but really shines in a monetary value that many corporations positively seek, if you know what I mean.
SPEAKER_2: Yes, exactly.
SPEAKER_2: And when I think about games that have hit hard for me in a real way, I think about ones that are interested in doing things differently on certain levels, that are invested in asking bigger questions about the state of games or in just having really interesting characters and game mechanics that make you care more about those characters or about that world.
SPEAKER_2: I think about Celeste, which has good characters and a cool way of linking the gameplay mechanics with the general arc of those characters.
SPEAKER_2: Or I think about Undertale, right?
SPEAKER_2: That's a game that has made me cry, right?
SPEAKER_2: I love that game because it is interested in at least questioning some of the ways that we play games in a way that gives you a choice as a player and makes you feel things as a character as a player and messes with the perception of the game.
SPEAKER_1: I love your two examples because they are two games explicitly, I don't want to say not about combat, but again, we see combat elements in both of them.
SPEAKER_1: We see even Celeste in terms of chase scenes, hitting things, jumping.
SPEAKER_1: These are mechanics that stem from the way that fighting games have been made.
SPEAKER_2: If you want to go deeper and think about these things, I think about visual novels, which are great, and which a lot of people don't consider to be games in the same way.
SPEAKER_2: Which is frustrating and shows the problem with these things, but visual novels have a way of telling a story that is interesting and engaging.
SPEAKER_1: I mean, it kind of sounds like The Last of Us II is a visual novel.
SPEAKER_2: It's a shooting game.
SPEAKER_1: A shooting novel.
SPEAKER_2: But that's the thing, right?
SPEAKER_2: You either have games that have combat elements or combat choices, or frames of combat, or you have games that people don't necessarily consider to be real games or that are very different than what we would typically be considering, what we typically think of when we call them in video games, right?
SPEAKER_2: You know, as much as we can say like, oh yeah, Undertale has combat elements, it's also talking about combat.
SPEAKER_2: It's also interested in like engaging with, well, why do we care about combat?
SPEAKER_2: What does combat mean for us?
SPEAKER_2: I guess what I'm saying is, where's my AAA game that is like, that is like genuinely going to make me actually feel things in a significant way?
SPEAKER_2: You know?
SPEAKER_2: Give me that.
SPEAKER_2: Give me that feeling because like, because it's not just about combat, right?
SPEAKER_2: It's also about like, I need these characters to feel real and relatable, and like I need to understand and care about them and have the themes be relatable to me and all of these sorts of things, you know?
SPEAKER_1: I have a solution, I think.
SPEAKER_1: Because we have already made the game, but what we need to do, like we've talked about, even the physical hardware causes this problem of sort of turning towards combat elements.
SPEAKER_1: Not a problem, it causes this sequence of events, tendencies towards combat elements.
SPEAKER_1: What we need to do is rethink the hardware.
SPEAKER_1: And I think one of the most important things is that this hardware needs to be linked to your feelings.
SPEAKER_1: You need to be able to control this game with your feelings.
SPEAKER_1: And if you do feel sadness, you are reported to the Video Game Overlords and you are sent to the sadness camps.
SPEAKER_1: But we don't think about that.
SPEAKER_2: Hang on, hang on, hang on.
SPEAKER_2: Now, let's back up for a second.
SPEAKER_2: You said we've already made the game.
SPEAKER_1: We made the Dinosaur Park AAA meteorite jumping platformer.
SPEAKER_1: It's about feelings game.
SPEAKER_2: First of all, we never said it was AAA.
SPEAKER_1: It's definitely AAA with a theme like that.
SPEAKER_1: How could you not get funding?
SPEAKER_1: Who doesn't want to see a dinosaur jump?
SPEAKER_2: Fair, I guess.
SPEAKER_2: I am curious about what other games we could make.
SPEAKER_2: If we are going to have this controller that's linked to feelings, what's a game that engages really well with that?
SPEAKER_2: How do you make a game about feelings?
SPEAKER_2: I mean, I think about how do we make the equivalent of...
SPEAKER_1: The trigger button?
SPEAKER_2: No, I was going to relate it back to tabletop games, in which there are games that exist where your stats are feelings or labels, labels and masks, feelings in the veil.
SPEAKER_2: There are games in which your way of relating to things is asking, how do I feel right now?
SPEAKER_2: What am I thinking about this?
SPEAKER_2: And video games could do that too.
SPEAKER_1: I think games would be a lot slower.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah.
SPEAKER_1: And I think Animal Crossing is maybe the closest we are going to get, not from a narrative perspective, but from a mechanics perspective of slowness in our video games that we don't generally think about.
SPEAKER_1: You know, this is part of the society we live in, and the productivity that is sort of ingrained in everyone as a positive thing, which, hey, don't want to not be positive about productivity because that would get sent anyway.
SPEAKER_1: To the sadness.
SPEAKER_1: Yeah, no, no.
SPEAKER_1: We all know.
SPEAKER_1: We all understand.
SPEAKER_2: What about if you could do an Animal Crossing style game in a different genre?
SPEAKER_1: Like a storytelling Animal Crossing, where it's not so much about the vast amount of characters, but the honing in on characters themselves, and sort of like just really getting to know somebody.
SPEAKER_2: Right, yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_2: And I'm thinking about like adventure type games.
SPEAKER_1: Have you heard of Coffee Talks?
SPEAKER_1: Coffee Talks, it's another indie game.
SPEAKER_2: I haven't played it.
SPEAKER_2: I haven't played it, but I've heard.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, I've heard of it.
SPEAKER_1: You make coffee for people.
SPEAKER_1: You're a barista, and you listen to conversations, and you engage in conversations.
SPEAKER_2: What if you could do cool shit?
SPEAKER_2: What if you could do cool shit and have feelings involved, you know?
SPEAKER_1: What is cool shit, Brianna?
SPEAKER_2: Adventures!
SPEAKER_1: So more combat.
SPEAKER_2: No, who says adventures have to have combat?
SPEAKER_1: What is the conflict in the adventure?
SPEAKER_2: I mean, there are many types of conflict.
SPEAKER_2: And, you know, like, I think that there's definitely ways of like...
SPEAKER_2: I think a lot of these games have framed things in terms of combat, but there's not really a necessity for it to be about combat.
SPEAKER_2: You could have a game in which you are going to different places.
SPEAKER_2: You're on some sort of journey.
SPEAKER_2: You have to do some sort of thing.
SPEAKER_2: You go to different places, not played it.
SPEAKER_1: That is a triple L.
SPEAKER_1: Well, I think it started as an indie game, actually, but it became very, very popular.
SPEAKER_1: And it is literally about the journey.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, but I just think about like interacting with people along the way, right?
SPEAKER_2: And like going, stopping in at different towns and being like, what's the situation here?
SPEAKER_2: Right?
SPEAKER_2: Like, this is a fairly typical way that games work.
SPEAKER_2: It's just that like, oh, yeah, welcome to our town.
SPEAKER_2: We have this issue that we need you to solve that involves hurting and killing.
SPEAKER_2: What if it's about conflict resolution?
SPEAKER_2: Or what if it's about de-escalation?
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, de-escalation or about helping people learn skills, right?
SPEAKER_2: Like, there's lots of different ways to relate to people that don't involve fighting.
SPEAKER_1: I mean, we do see a lot of these games in indie genres.
SPEAKER_2: But think about what if it had the budget of Breath of the Wild, right?
SPEAKER_1: An open-world game to explore your feelings.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_2: This is what I'm saying, right?
SPEAKER_2: Because something isn't necessarily more valid just because it has more money, but because it has more resources, it can do lots of different things and it can do really cool things.
SPEAKER_2: I don't know.
SPEAKER_2: I'm just saying.
SPEAKER_1: So you're just going on a journey, talking about your feelings?
SPEAKER_1: Is it just like the conflict is internal and you have to solve the problem, but there's this vast world where you could solve this problem in a number of ways, and who knows where your journey takes you?
SPEAKER_1: But wherever you decide to go, there might be an answer.
SPEAKER_1: And also, hey, maybe there isn't an answer, but there's things along the way anyways.
SPEAKER_2: One of the things that I think a AAA game could do that a lot of smaller indie games can't is presenting multiple different outcomes.
SPEAKER_2: Like really having big branching paths.
SPEAKER_2: And so being able to be like, what am I feeling towards these people at About This World?
SPEAKER_2: How do I want to resolve this?
SPEAKER_2: And then based on how you resolve it, you end up kind of in a different place.
SPEAKER_2: And I don't know, branching paths are cool.
SPEAKER_1: I mean, I'd love a game that literally centered around one problem.
SPEAKER_1: And it was just about all the vast different ways that you could solve this problem.
SPEAKER_1: Because I think we often get stuck in the rut of like, all right, I need to find the solution.
SPEAKER_1: There is a solution to this, which isn't necessarily always true.
SPEAKER_1: And so that's educational in and of itself.
SPEAKER_1: So what if we make Breath of the Feelings?
SPEAKER_1: Zelda's still in it.
SPEAKER_1: It's just Zelda.
SPEAKER_1: You're just playing as Zelda.
SPEAKER_2: You're just playing as Zelda.
SPEAKER_1: Zelda realizes she's a lesbian, and she actually doesn't know how to tell Link.
SPEAKER_2: It's a hard thing to tell.
SPEAKER_1: She wants to...
SPEAKER_1: Like, look, you fall in love with a twink, and it's like, okay, you're great, but, like, mm...
SPEAKER_2: Like, mm, kind of a dyke, though.
SPEAKER_2: And yeah, it's like this, like, I don't know, like, there is something interesting in the idea of someone going through a, like, internal kind of period of figuring things out and also having to deal with, like, external problems and having to be like, to link those two things up, right?
SPEAKER_2: Like, that's interesting.
SPEAKER_1: To link those two things up, you say?
SPEAKER_2: God, to link, yes, exactly, to link those two things up.
SPEAKER_2: Because we know that magic is already about feelings, right?
SPEAKER_2: So you have to be feeling it in order to do a certain type of magic.
SPEAKER_1: Ah, her magic isn't working, because her feelings are conflicted, so you can't have combat, even if you wanted to.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_1: And then you get your magic back, and the game ends, and it's like, aha, she's gonna go do combat, but that's not what the game's about.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, who cares?
SPEAKER_2: Who cares about the combat?
SPEAKER_2: Great game.
SPEAKER_2: This is a great game.
SPEAKER_2: So tell me, how does the feelings controller work?
SPEAKER_1: You hook it up to your, I guess, frontal lobe, and probably around your wrist.
SPEAKER_1: It checks your blood pressure, which is really good.
SPEAKER_1: It can also monitor, I guess, your activity, because video games keep trying to push that.
SPEAKER_1: This one just does it automatically.
SPEAKER_1: It also gives you little pep talks, and also just a random dosage of serotonin every once in a while.
SPEAKER_2: I'm not sure about this anymore.
SPEAKER_2: I don't know about this.
SPEAKER_2: I mean, not that I have criticisms, because that would be negative.
SPEAKER_1: I actually want to retcon something.
SPEAKER_1: It's not serotonin, it's dopamine, because we do need to emulate the real video game experience.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, you know what?
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, that's our AAA game.
SPEAKER_1: Breath of the Feelings dopamine adventures.
SPEAKER_2: Clair, will you tell me your first craving?
SPEAKER_1: Coffee.
SPEAKER_1: I really just want coffee sometimes.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah.
SPEAKER_1: I don't really drink coffee.
SPEAKER_1: I had a coffee today.
SPEAKER_1: I don't either.
SPEAKER_1: Yeah, it's very good.
SPEAKER_1: I do like coffee.
SPEAKER_1: I will drink pretty much any coffee.
SPEAKER_1: It is the fast juice, makes you speedy, sonic adjacent, if you will.
SPEAKER_2: I will, yes, I will submit it.
SPEAKER_1: But years ago, I became reliant on coffee, and I decided that I was not going to drink it anymore one day.
SPEAKER_1: And I just sort of stuck with that.
SPEAKER_1: I'll have a coffee every other month, but I don't know, I want to solve this craving, because decaf just doesn't always hit the spot, you know?
SPEAKER_1: I don't want to want to have the coffee every day, but I want to have a coffee every so often.
SPEAKER_2: What is preventing you from solving this craving of your own accord?
SPEAKER_1: Because I need to find the balance between having a coffee frequently enough that I get to enjoy a coffee, and not feeling like when I wake up in the morning that if I do not get this bean juice in my body, that I will become physically and a magic girl transform into a slug.
SPEAKER_2: I have the perfect solution.
SPEAKER_2: It is a coffee maker.
SPEAKER_2: It's just a coffee maker.
SPEAKER_2: So there's this coffee maker, right?
SPEAKER_2: And it only lets you have coffee every few days.
SPEAKER_2: It keeps a record of when you last had coffee, and won't dispense every single day.
SPEAKER_1: Oh, it's like a parental control coffee maker.
SPEAKER_2: Yes, parental control coffee maker.
SPEAKER_2: It's sort of like a con, cough maker of sorts.
SPEAKER_2: It sort of has con days and cough days.
SPEAKER_1: Are you trying to say on and off with C because coffee starts with C?
SPEAKER_1: I don't understand where this is coming from.
SPEAKER_2: Sorry, let me say it differently.
SPEAKER_2: Conny days and coffee days.
SPEAKER_2: You know, on the conny days, you're on, and you get to have coffee, and then on the coffee days, you don't get to have coffee.
SPEAKER_1: Wait, that's very confusing.
SPEAKER_1: So I don't get to have coffee.
SPEAKER_1: I don't get to have coffee on the coffee days?
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, because it's off, because it's like coffee, right?
SPEAKER_2: Like, coffee days are off-y days, and this is the jingle that we'll have.
SPEAKER_2: So coffee days are off-y days, and conny days are on-y days.
SPEAKER_2: And that's how we'll market it.
SPEAKER_2: It's a genius idea.
SPEAKER_1: So you don't think we'll confuse people by not giving them coffee on coffee days?
SPEAKER_2: There's absolutely no risk of confusion there, because it has a little thing.
SPEAKER_1: What if we just call our product conny, and then you get a conny?
SPEAKER_1: You get turned con.
SPEAKER_2: Sorry, you explained to me.
SPEAKER_2: Oh, hmm.
SPEAKER_2: Maybe instead we could have the conny days be, you just get dispensed a cute little drawing of conny from Steven Universe.
SPEAKER_2: There we go, that's much better.
SPEAKER_1: It's like a unique drawing every single day.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, that's one of the functions of the coffee maker, it draws them.
SPEAKER_1: I love the new subreddit Coffee Connies, which is just like everyone posting their unique conny photos from their conny maker.
SPEAKER_1: I wonder how many people are going to buy this for the images of conny, and how many people are going to buy this for the coffee.
SPEAKER_2: I mean, either way, they're buying it.
SPEAKER_1: So is it conny drinking a coffee just to taunt you, like in different forms with different coffees every day?
SPEAKER_2: Well, it's not taunting you because on the conny days, I guess maybe we should switch around and have the coffee days be the days where you get coffee, and the conny days the days where you get conny.
SPEAKER_2: This is really sorry, Clair.
SPEAKER_2: You should have suggested this earlier.
SPEAKER_2: On the coffee days, you get coffee.
SPEAKER_2: On the conny days, you get conny.
SPEAKER_2: And it still keeps that on-off thing because conny is...
SPEAKER_1: I feel like we've shift gears.
SPEAKER_1: This is more of a conny marketing tool.
SPEAKER_1: This is for people who like connies.
SPEAKER_2: This is a side character of Steven Universe, a show that I don't even think is still running.
SPEAKER_1: What if it's just generally different connies?
SPEAKER_1: What if it's like we just have a database of connies?
SPEAKER_2: Oh, anyone named connie.
SPEAKER_1: Anyone named connie can show up.
SPEAKER_1: And I feel like a bunch of connies would buy this because it's like, what if they show up, right?
SPEAKER_1: I love...
SPEAKER_2: Hang on.
SPEAKER_2: So you know this person does not exist, right?
SPEAKER_2: It's this connie does not exist.
SPEAKER_2: It's just randomly generated pictures of people named connie.
SPEAKER_1: What are the different portraits?
SPEAKER_1: Are they different styles?
SPEAKER_1: What do the refills cost?
SPEAKER_1: Is it like a pack of coffee beans with inks?
SPEAKER_1: It's like printer ink, but the fourth cartridge is coffee grounds.
SPEAKER_2: So yeah, it's just that.
SPEAKER_2: It's just a pack, and then you just put it in.
SPEAKER_2: You want to make sure you put it in the right way, else that's not going to go well for you.
SPEAKER_2: But you know, got to have a little risk in there.
SPEAKER_2: That's what people love.
SPEAKER_2: People love that.
SPEAKER_1: Wait, wait, the risk.
SPEAKER_1: Tell me what you imagine the risks are.
SPEAKER_2: If you put it in the wrong way around, one of your coffee days, you'll get ink instead of coffee grounds.
SPEAKER_2: And on the other day, you'll get a drawing made from coffee grounds instead of ink.
SPEAKER_2: So that's the danger there.
SPEAKER_2: But it's a pretty minor danger.
SPEAKER_1: If we can just so casually make portraits out of coffee grounds, I feel like what we've done is gone ahead and created an entire new genre of art.
SPEAKER_1: We've created the connie genre of art.
SPEAKER_1: So not only have we made a product, but we've revolutionized art in and of itself.
SPEAKER_1: We've truly made an experience.
SPEAKER_2: And I mean, if you think about it, we were already doing that because no one's done this before, right?
SPEAKER_2: No one's created robots who make connies.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, no, I think this is really revolutionary in a lot of ways, right?
SPEAKER_2: And it's also, you know, helping people stay away from coffee as much, right?
SPEAKER_2: Like they get coffee every so often, but they don't rely on it in the same way.
SPEAKER_1: What if you get this and you don't want coffee?
SPEAKER_1: What do you do with the coffee?
SPEAKER_1: I guess so.
SPEAKER_1: Can you refill the cartridges?
SPEAKER_1: I don't think so, right?
SPEAKER_1: Like you have to just get a new cartridge.
SPEAKER_2: Well, yeah, you buy cartridges, you know?
SPEAKER_2: It's part of the business model, you know?
SPEAKER_1: The machine costs $10, but the cartridges...
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, that's the thing that gets you.
SPEAKER_2: But it's worth it, right?
SPEAKER_2: Everyone's going to love it so much.
SPEAKER_1: Think about the Connie's, think about the coffee's.
SPEAKER_1: You're not going to know how you live without them.
SPEAKER_2: So what is that product called?
SPEAKER_1: Is it just called the Connie Coffee?
SPEAKER_2: The Connie Coffee, the Connie Coffee Maker.
SPEAKER_2: And just like every other good household appliance, it's also a wiretap.
SPEAKER_2: Great.
SPEAKER_1: What's your craving?
SPEAKER_2: My ex craving is really quite simple.
SPEAKER_2: Masquerade, paper faces on parade, masquerade.
SPEAKER_2: Masquerade balls are good.
SPEAKER_1: I don't understand.
SPEAKER_1: Is this a song?
SPEAKER_1: Should I know this reference?
SPEAKER_2: This is a song from Phantom of the Opera.
SPEAKER_2: The point is masquerade balls.
SPEAKER_2: I think we need to bring them back.
SPEAKER_2: I think they need to come back.
SPEAKER_1: I love going to masquerade balls.
SPEAKER_2: Right?
SPEAKER_2: This is what I'm saying.
SPEAKER_2: I think they should come back, because if you think about it, what's better than a masquerade ball?
SPEAKER_2: Nothing.
SPEAKER_1: Probably masquerade, like casual dance.
SPEAKER_1: I don't feel like many people do balls anymore.
SPEAKER_2: That's the problem.
SPEAKER_2: See, you can't just have a casual masquerade.
SPEAKER_2: That's just a bunch of people in masks.
SPEAKER_1: A casquerade.
SPEAKER_2: It's a disgrace.
SPEAKER_2: What you need is like full on, I'm talking big poofy dresses, like lots of like absurd glittery masks.
SPEAKER_2: I'm talking like big hair.
SPEAKER_2: We gotta bring it all back.
SPEAKER_1: Okay, so this is really targeted for the bourgeoisie still.
SPEAKER_1: We're bringing that aspect back too.
SPEAKER_2: See, that's one of the problems with the masquerade as it is, is that it's just for the bourgeoisie.
SPEAKER_2: I think we need to redistribute masquerades, right?
SPEAKER_2: I think we need to give masquerades to everyone.
SPEAKER_2: We have better technology now.
SPEAKER_2: I don't see a single reason why we can't have all out, big time masquerade stuff for all classes.
SPEAKER_1: What about the cost factor?
SPEAKER_2: Fuck the cost factor.
SPEAKER_2: This is socialized masquerades.
SPEAKER_1: So we're not gonna have a masquerade until we've socialized everything.
SPEAKER_2: I think it could be our first step, right?
SPEAKER_2: Because everyone's gonna be on board.
SPEAKER_1: Wait, the masquerade or the socializing everything?
SPEAKER_1: Which one's the first step?
SPEAKER_2: The first step is socialized masquerades.
SPEAKER_2: That's the first step towards socializing everything, right?
SPEAKER_1: What if we don't have a dress requirement?
SPEAKER_2: I mean, that's fair, but here's the crucial and important thing.
SPEAKER_2: I think it should be totally normal and reasonable for me to come in an 18th century dress.
SPEAKER_1: 100%.
SPEAKER_2: No one will stop you.
SPEAKER_2: That's what's important to me and for anyone who wants to.
SPEAKER_2: That shouldn't be...
SPEAKER_2: You don't have to do that.
SPEAKER_2: You can do whatever.
SPEAKER_2: I'm talking, you want to go gothic?
SPEAKER_2: You want to go 80s?
SPEAKER_2: You want to go like...
SPEAKER_1: Victorian?
SPEAKER_2: Just your normal street wear?
SPEAKER_2: Hell yeah.
SPEAKER_2: Do it all.
SPEAKER_2: Whatever.
SPEAKER_2: Everyone shows up.
SPEAKER_2: Everyone has masks.
SPEAKER_1: What if just a ball gown with a hoodie?
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, screw it.
SPEAKER_2: Fuck fashion shows.
SPEAKER_2: Fashion shows are trash.
SPEAKER_2: Who cares?
SPEAKER_2: This is the new height of fashion.
SPEAKER_2: It's like the salons of France, but better because it's for everyone.
SPEAKER_1: I have not been to France, nor a salon.
SPEAKER_2: Salons?
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, you wouldn't have been because they're an 18th-century French thing.
SPEAKER_2: The specific thing that I'm describing is basically these big kind of art shows slash dinners where people would get in a room together and you'd mingle with all the high society people and you'd figure out what the trends are and you'd kind of see what everyone's interested in and all of this, and it was a whole big thing.
SPEAKER_2: So it's like that, but it's for everyone.
SPEAKER_1: What about a saloon?
SPEAKER_1: What about a masquerade saloon?
SPEAKER_1: Where it's sort of like you do a square dance, but you have a mask on.
SPEAKER_2: Do we have to have square dancing?
SPEAKER_1: We can have line dancing as well.
SPEAKER_2: Do we have to have square and line dancing?
SPEAKER_1: There's probably other shapes.
SPEAKER_2: Can we have good dancing?
SPEAKER_1: What is good dancing, Brianna?
SPEAKER_2: Good dancing is not that.
SPEAKER_2: It's other types of dance.
SPEAKER_2: I mean, listen, fine.
SPEAKER_1: Coming for line dancing, just so viscerally.
SPEAKER_2: It's fine.
SPEAKER_2: It's okay.
SPEAKER_2: It's just not my favorite form of dance.
SPEAKER_1: We start off with a line dance, but then we go into a waltz directly from that line dance.
SPEAKER_1: We pair off just like any good line dance.
SPEAKER_1: You pair off, and then you immediately switch into a waltz.
SPEAKER_1: And then after waltz, it just turns into casual, I guess, pop for a while.
SPEAKER_1: And then we go into a salsa.
SPEAKER_2: You're really just kind of doing a whole variety of dance, right?
SPEAKER_2: The DJs have to be just masterful, right?
SPEAKER_2: Because the DJs have to, like, smoothly get you from one dance vibe to another dance vibe.
SPEAKER_1: How do we get over the problem of nobody knowing the steps?
SPEAKER_1: Because this is something when I have gone to masquerade balls, it's often a lot of people not really dancing because they don't know how to ballroom dance.
SPEAKER_2: Well, I think it's pretty simple.
SPEAKER_2: We simply have to change the entirety of the culture to make sure that people know, I'll use a variety of dance, we have to change schools so that they're not as much about book learning and they're more about learning different types of dance.
SPEAKER_2: Because you can't just make it so that people...
SPEAKER_2: People have to know ballroom dancing, but they also have to know all these different types of dancing and they have to be good at them.
SPEAKER_2: So say goodbye to doing anything else in gym class.
SPEAKER_2: It's all dance now, baby.
SPEAKER_2: And it's also many hours a day.
SPEAKER_1: This is a much easier solution than my suggestion would have been to just sort of project like a Dance Dance Revolution style dancer on the screen.
SPEAKER_2: I don't see why we can't do both.
SPEAKER_1: Yeah, no, that's fair.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, we can definitely have a good guide kind of up there so that people can remember, right?
SPEAKER_2: That's like the Dance Dance Revolution type thing.
SPEAKER_1: What if we put points to it?
SPEAKER_1: I feel like people like points.
SPEAKER_2: People like points, right?
SPEAKER_2: This would really encourage people to come to the masquerade ball.
SPEAKER_1: Let's digitize the masquerade.
SPEAKER_1: You get points on your mask.
SPEAKER_1: You don't get points on any other part of your outfit.
SPEAKER_1: We do not judge your outfit.
SPEAKER_1: We do judge masks, though, because masks are cool.
SPEAKER_1: And then you get, like Dance Dance Revolution, you get points when you dance.
SPEAKER_1: And then at the end of the night, you can go to the counter, and if you have enough points, you can get a whistle or a balloon animal or another mask.
SPEAKER_2: I love the...
SPEAKER_1: I was going to say, like, Castle Fun Park, but that's such a regionally specific thing and reference.
SPEAKER_2: The thing that you're thinking of is Chuck E.
SPEAKER_2: Cheese style.
SPEAKER_1: But not that, but so much better.
SPEAKER_2: So much better.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, no, this is so much more normal.
SPEAKER_2: The cyber saloon masquerade ball of a hundred types of dances and outfits.
SPEAKER_1: And you get to redeem your points at the end.
SPEAKER_2: It's super normal, and everyone's going to be like, yeah, I totally get how this works.
SPEAKER_2: I've done lots of things like this.
SPEAKER_1: Uh-huh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_2: And it's socialized, so we're going to have to make sure to pitch it to the government and emphasize why the government should want it to exist.
SPEAKER_1: I mean, everyone wants a point system.
SPEAKER_1: The government loves point systems.
SPEAKER_1: We just need to start with the point system.
SPEAKER_2: All right, so imagine a point system.
SPEAKER_1: Just imagine an abstract point system.
SPEAKER_1: Don't worry about too much beyond that right now.
SPEAKER_1: Now, over the course of this 20-hour presentation, don't worry, we do have two intermissions of 15 minutes.
SPEAKER_1: We will be showing the various ways of how to introduce dance back into our culture.
SPEAKER_2: And also, I think it's important, you know, these have to be inclusive dances, and so there's lots of different ways to do them, and you got to have, you know, lots of different forms of ability, and, you know, the points are fun, but it's not the point of why we're there, right?
SPEAKER_2: It's the point we tell the government, that's why we tell the government we're doing it, but that's not really why we're there.
SPEAKER_2: We're there to have a good time with people and not know who each other are, but kind of know who each other are, and be having a good time, you know, in the dance saloon masquerade.
SPEAKER_1: I'm actually just recalling, I met one of my roommates at a masquerade ball.
SPEAKER_2: Where do you find these masquerade balls?
SPEAKER_2: I want to go.
SPEAKER_1: Well, one of them was an anime convention.
SPEAKER_1: So I guess just go to anime conventions, Brianna.
SPEAKER_1: They all have a masquerade ball.
SPEAKER_2: Do I have another choice?
SPEAKER_1: Nope, only anime conventions know what point systems are.
SPEAKER_2: Okay, noted.
SPEAKER_2: I've watched an anime or two.
SPEAKER_2: I could probably survive an anime convention.
SPEAKER_1: I think you could alternatively go to...
SPEAKER_1: I feel like fetish scenes have masquerade balls.
SPEAKER_1: It might be a little different than what you're seeking.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, it might be a little different.
SPEAKER_1: You bring your best outfit.
SPEAKER_1: You're like, where does the line dance start?
SPEAKER_1: I'm ready for the waltz.
SPEAKER_1: And they're like, I mean, the sex corner is over there, if that's what you mean.
SPEAKER_2: No, what I need is like LARP masquerades.
SPEAKER_1: What is a LARP masquerade?
SPEAKER_2: A masquerade in which we all pretend that we are people from like a different time period.
SPEAKER_2: Okay, this is great because my immediate response was not all the same time period, just generally from different time periods, which is great because you can have people that are like from the future and show up and like, yeah, I'm from 2055.
SPEAKER_1: We have the best dances, and this is my cyberpunk outfit.
SPEAKER_2: The only restriction is it has to be from a time that has lots of masquerades going on, or at least some masquerades going on, you know?
SPEAKER_2: It has to be, choose a time, any time in history, as long as there were masquerades happening.
SPEAKER_2: And that could be the year 3000, you know?
SPEAKER_2: I don't know what it's going to be like.
SPEAKER_2: I hope it has masquerades, but I hope they're like for everyone.
SPEAKER_1: They're like, you just put on like a new face at that point.
SPEAKER_2: Great, normal.
SPEAKER_1: That's what the movie Face Off is about, right?
SPEAKER_2: I'm pretty sure, yeah, I think there's a masquerade ball in that one.
SPEAKER_1: Yeah, great.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, I mean, listen, if someone can point me to a masquerade ball, I'll go to it.
SPEAKER_2: In the meantime, Clair, we need our final craving.
SPEAKER_2: Please, won't you give it to us?
SPEAKER_2: Give us your final craving, please.
SPEAKER_1: This has not happened for a while, but you know the feeling when somebody is watching or consuming a piece of media that you've watched, and because of that, they are live reacting their feelings to you as they consume this piece of media, often watching a TV show or playing a video game or reading a book even.
SPEAKER_1: I just really like getting the visceral, raw emotions of someone as they experience the things that I go through or went through, I suppose.
SPEAKER_2: I feel it.
SPEAKER_2: And also, let's consider, let's talk about the double-sided coin here.
SPEAKER_1: What about the triple-sided coin, Brianna?
SPEAKER_1: We don't talk about that enough.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, you know what?
SPEAKER_2: Let's talk about the quadruple-sided coin.
SPEAKER_2: Some people call it a dice.
SPEAKER_2: Those people are wrong.
SPEAKER_2: But okay, so here's my thoughts on this.
SPEAKER_2: I love watching someone experience a piece of media that I've experienced.
SPEAKER_2: I think it's the best.
SPEAKER_2: And then they'll react to things in a way that makes me feel bad about the piece of media that I liked.
SPEAKER_2: Because sometimes it's a piece of media you haven't seen in a bit, and you're like, oh...
SPEAKER_1: This is me watching Cowboy Bebop right now after everyone I know recommending it and being like, I absolutely hate this show, but I will not stop watching because I have feelings about how it could be improved, and it would not be hard to improve it.
SPEAKER_2: I think both sides of this coin are like typified really well by like my reaction to Young Justice, right, when Allida and I were watching season one of Young Justice, and we were just like, I don't know about this one.
SPEAKER_2: Are you sure?
SPEAKER_2: Really?
SPEAKER_2: And then season two Young Justice were like, all right, this slaps.
SPEAKER_2: But like, that's definitely a mood.
SPEAKER_2: Like, you're like, oh no, what if they think this about this thing?
SPEAKER_2: Or you forget that it's a certain way, right?
SPEAKER_1: Have I done that to a piece of media?
SPEAKER_1: I guess friends at the table, but something else, because I sort of caught on.
SPEAKER_2: I think in general, we tend to line up.
SPEAKER_2: There's definitely been things that are like, I think probably the most common thing is one of us being like, oh man, this is the best thing.
SPEAKER_2: I love this so much.
SPEAKER_2: I think it's so cool.
SPEAKER_2: The other person being like, yeah, it's fine.
SPEAKER_2: And I think that happens a fair bit.
SPEAKER_1: Specifically with Young Justice, it's actually funny because I returned to it when you started watching it.
SPEAKER_1: I hadn't seen season three, and it's so lackluster compared to what I remember because it truly was my introduction into like really good animated serial superhero shows.
SPEAKER_2: I think the problem was that I.
SPEAKER_2: Watched Young Justice after having read Young Avengers, which ruins it.
SPEAKER_2: Season two is good.
SPEAKER_2: Season one is fine, but it's so strange.
SPEAKER_2: I mean, not entirely, but it's very...
SPEAKER_1: Oh, don't worry.
SPEAKER_1: Season two and three are also like that.
SPEAKER_2: And so there's big those vibes.
SPEAKER_2: And then reading Young Avengers, you're like, wow, wow, this slaps.
SPEAKER_2: I will say Young Avengers 2013 more than 2005, but 2005 is still good.
SPEAKER_2: This is definitely a thing that happens sometimes.
SPEAKER_2: And it's so good when you show someone something and they just love it.
SPEAKER_2: I showed my roommate the half of it the other week, and I remember being like, yeah, it's a pretty good movie, right?
SPEAKER_2: It's good.
SPEAKER_2: It's a recent Netflix one.
SPEAKER_2: It's by Alice Wu, who directed Saving Face.
SPEAKER_1: Oh, I haven't seen that yet.
SPEAKER_1: It's on my list.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, it's very good.
SPEAKER_1: Okay.
SPEAKER_2: It's like, yeah.
SPEAKER_2: I really, really enjoy it.
SPEAKER_2: But watching the first time, I was like, yeah, I thought that was pretty good, right?
SPEAKER_2: And then we watched it, and she was like, that's a perfect movie.
SPEAKER_2: This is a perfect movie.
SPEAKER_2: And I was like, damn, this is kind of a perfect movie.
SPEAKER_1: I guess I gotta go watch this movie now.
SPEAKER_2: I mean, yeah, I think it's a very good movie.
SPEAKER_2: But it's like, this is the thing, right?
SPEAKER_2: Is sometimes it is just like, yes, we're on the same page.
SPEAKER_2: We both love this thing.
SPEAKER_2: This rules.
SPEAKER_2: This is great.
SPEAKER_2: And sometimes it's like, I'm glad you like it.
SPEAKER_2: What's the diplomatic way my girlfriend says things when I show her something and she says it like, I see why you like this.
SPEAKER_2: It's like so sweet and so good and so diplomatic.
SPEAKER_1: I also love, I love your enthusiasm about this.
SPEAKER_2: Oh, yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_2: I'm so glad that you like this.
SPEAKER_2: You know, I'm happy for you that you enjoy this thing.
SPEAKER_2: I don't know, there is something kind of funny or at least fun about that, but it is great when you are both kind of on the same page.
SPEAKER_1: I think there's also like the other problem of delay, where I think Celeste is a great example where you were really into Celeste for a while, and that was during the time that I had put Celeste down and then picked it up later, and I got very into it, but that was like months after you sort of had Celeste in your system.
SPEAKER_1: So it was like we both had similar feelings, but were delayed.
SPEAKER_2: I think probably the best example of all of us having this great moment of all getting to feel a certain way about a thing was like She-Ra.
SPEAKER_2: Literally was gonna bring that up.
SPEAKER_2: Because I watched it with Ash, and so we saw it at the same time, so we got to see how each other were reacting, and then you watched it pretty much immediately after.
SPEAKER_1: And I think I messaged you periodically.
SPEAKER_1: You did.
SPEAKER_1: And then someone else watched it after me and was live reacting at me, so we all sort of got that feedback.
SPEAKER_2: And it ruled.
SPEAKER_2: It's great.
SPEAKER_1: Yeah.
SPEAKER_2: How can we increase this feeling, right?
SPEAKER_2: How can we make it so that people react to the things that we like in the way that we want?
SPEAKER_1: What if there was a service where as you were watching the thing, you live react, and then when somebody else watches the thing, you can subscribe to specific people's live react?
SPEAKER_1: And so this way, you can get your friends live react rather than just the strangers.
SPEAKER_1: I feel like that is the simplest solution that I've now realized is actually kind of a good idea.
SPEAKER_2: It's like a reaction-based social network.
SPEAKER_1: We can call it reactor with no E.
SPEAKER_2: I don't know if the react, the, you know, kids react to or whoever those people, I know that they're pretty big about their copyright for that term and have like...
SPEAKER_1: Wait, copyright the term react?
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, they've specifically done weird shit where they tried to like copyright claim ownership over the concept of people reacting to things.
SPEAKER_1: Oh, good.
SPEAKER_1: That's normal.
SPEAKER_2: So that would be probably our biggest hurdle.
SPEAKER_2: But in general, I think this is a fun idea, right?
SPEAKER_2: You can totally just get to witness people react to things live.
SPEAKER_2: I think this is kind of...
SPEAKER_2: Twitter often get this, right?
SPEAKER_2: Because people will react to a thing, they'll do a thread, or they react to a certain piece of media.
SPEAKER_2: But this is like way more organized, and you can actually find it when you want to find it.
SPEAKER_2: And like, yeah, no, for sure.
SPEAKER_2: Is this streaming?
SPEAKER_2: Have we reinvented streaming?
SPEAKER_1: The problem with streaming is, like the difference at least is like, you're consuming the person's media.
SPEAKER_1: Like, unless someone literally is sitting in the corner, reacting, I don't want people's screams over when I rewatch She-Ra.
SPEAKER_1: I just want like little bubbles on my phone when I choose to look at them, and just sort of syncing it up with a platform.
SPEAKER_2: The thing that we've done is we've kind of reinvented fandoms.
SPEAKER_1: I think we've given fandoms a way to catalyze their excitement.
SPEAKER_1: This is the thing about tech, is we make a slight adjustment to existing software, we rebrand as a completely new revolutionary idea, and then we make a million dollars.
SPEAKER_1: All we need is probably two million dollars of investors, and you can send that investment to submissions at saltcravings.com.
SPEAKER_2: Yeah, just invest in our new idea, Reactor.
SPEAKER_1: Reactor, I feel like we can workshop the name.
SPEAKER_1: Investors, you do get a say in the name, as long as your investment is over $150,000.
SPEAKER_1: If you really hate Reactor, it's just a small investment.
SPEAKER_1: I think it's going to be worth your time.
SPEAKER_2: I think we could create this entire kind of ecosystem of people reacting to things, of people being involved in different fandoms, people being excited about things, really kind of clear-cut that's what it's for.
SPEAKER_2: And then when certain things kind of get popular in the sphere, we could totally...
SPEAKER_2: Those things could become kind of representative of that platform, and then we could create some sort of convention to do with those things.
SPEAKER_2: And it could be sort of about what's on your dashboard, so we could call it DashCon.
SPEAKER_2: And then...
SPEAKER_2: And then we'll just get funding to do that, and it'll be a totally cool original idea no one's ever done before.
SPEAKER_1: I mean, I've personally never heard of anything called DashCon, so this sounds great to me, and I see no problem with it.
SPEAKER_2: I also have definitely never heard of a thing called DashCon ever before in my life.
SPEAKER_1: See, it's great, because I definitely can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not, but I think...
SPEAKER_2: Oh, are you being genuine?
SPEAKER_1: Yeah, I mean, I don't know what a Dash is.
SPEAKER_1: I don't even know what a con is.
SPEAKER_1: This sounds like a con to me, maybe.
SPEAKER_1: I feel like you're conning me, Brianna.
SPEAKER_1: Anyways, let's end this episode.
SPEAKER_1: This has been Salt Cravings.
SPEAKER_1: My name's Clair.
SPEAKER_2: And my name's Brianna.
SPEAKER_1: You can send your investments over at Patreon or submissions at Salt Cravings.
SPEAKER_1: Really, you could do cash deposit if you want.
SPEAKER_1: We take investments any way you want.
SPEAKER_1: Probably Carrier Pigeon is the best, though.
SPEAKER_1: You can also find us on social media, at Salt Cravings, at Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
SPEAKER_1: And if you want to invest with your cravings, you can send those over to submissions at Salt Cravings as well.
SPEAKER_1: Did I miss anything?
SPEAKER_2: I don't think so.
SPEAKER_2: Oh, I have been putting in the description recently some links to support Black trans women in need, which instead of sending your investments to us, if you want to send them to someone else, look in the description for that as well.
SPEAKER_1: I mean, not gonna lie, if you send them to us, they'll probably end up there anyways.
SPEAKER_2: They almost certainly will.
SPEAKER_2: That's what we're going to do with them.
SPEAKER_2: But with that said, you know, um, gotta end the episode.
SPEAKER_1: Oh, and how would you end the episode, Brianna?
SPEAKER_1: Oh, oh wait, oh gosh, they're...
SPEAKER_1: Okay, the men in coats have arrived.
SPEAKER_1: Oh, I need to go with them.
SPEAKER_1: I suppose I will see you soon.
SPEAKER_1: Oh shit, is that the one with the pool?
SPEAKER_1: And like, just in the middle?
SPEAKER_2: The ball fit, oh shit, no, I do know about DashCon.
SPEAKER_1: I do know about DashCon.