Speaker 1: This is an Unspoiled Network podcast. This is spoil Me
Speaker 1: covering Dungeon Crawler Carl Book five, The Butcher's Masquerade, chapters
Speaker 1: fifty one through fifty five. In these chapters, I hardly
Speaker 1: know where to begin. There's a lot going on, but
Speaker 1: primarily what I'm interested in is the fact that we
Speaker 1: all failed this quest. Welcome to spoil Me, Welcome to
Speaker 1: the show everyone. I am Natasha. Thank you very much
Speaker 1: to is it Jackie today? Let me go and triple
Speaker 1: check as it is. Thank you Jackie for commissioning this episode.
Speaker 1: So one might think that my first and foremost mention
Speaker 1: regarding this section might be Gravy Boat, But the truth
Speaker 1: is we're only just barely touching on what they're doing
Speaker 1: with Gravy Boat. So I will say that I'm gratified
Speaker 1: we are at least going to be seeing the results
Speaker 1: of them taking him this book. I sort of wondered
Speaker 1: if we were going to have to wait, and I
Speaker 1: wouldn't have been mad about it. For the record, if
Speaker 1: we had to wait, that's fine. But I'm excited that
Speaker 1: we are getting to see it actually shake out this book.
Speaker 1: And by excited I mean dreading it and I hate
Speaker 1: it and it's awful, but also storytelling wise, really curious
Speaker 1: how we handle this and I this whole thing now,
Speaker 1: you know what. Before I even get any further, I
Speaker 1: just want to mention you guys really quick. I keep
Speaker 1: meaning to say this at the beginning of all my
Speaker 1: episodes and forgetting I am going to be transitioning from
Speaker 1: doing these lives on crowdcast to doing them live on
Speaker 1: my Patreon by the beginning of next year because the
Speaker 1: pricing for crowdcast is about to go up for me,
Speaker 1: it was supposed to go up last year, but they
Speaker 1: didn't inform me adequately, so they gave me another grace
Speaker 1: period and I simply cannot afford what they are going
Speaker 1: to be asking. So we're going to be doing this
Speaker 1: on Patreon, and if you want to get access, you
Speaker 1: just need to become a free member. You don't have
Speaker 1: to pay any money, but you do have to become
Speaker 1: like a member on my channel to see it. And
Speaker 1: just wanted to let you all know about that. So
Speaker 1: if this stops updating and you're sort of like, is
Speaker 1: she not recording these anymore? Yes, I do, I will be,
Speaker 1: but are somewhere else now this I'm so tempted to
Speaker 1: like jump around a bunch this episode, and I guess
Speaker 1: I'm going to try and go in order because there's
Speaker 1: a lot and I know I'll lose track if I don't,
Speaker 1: But God, there are some things I want to talk
Speaker 1: about right away. So we start chapter fifty one with
Speaker 1: Carl finding out that like the way that he is
Speaker 1: going to be firing these poison bombs, it's like they're
Speaker 1: kind of like poisonous water balloons almost, that he put
Speaker 1: a little bit more thought into it than was even necessary.
Speaker 1: He's trying to figure out exactly how to aim, and
Speaker 1: Dona is being unhelpful, as she often is, and it
Speaker 1: seems like the effect of this is quite good once
Speaker 1: he actually is able to get the target. However, I
Speaker 1: did not tell him that because Donah is the spotter,
Speaker 1: she gets the credit for the kill, and Carl's a
Speaker 1: little bit like salty about it. Mordechai tries to be like,
Speaker 1: I forgot to tell you, and Carl doesn't believe him,
Speaker 1: which I think is interesting that he thinks Mordecai is
Speaker 1: straight up lying. I mean, he may be right, but like,
Speaker 1: why would he bother lying? Like does he think Carl
Speaker 1: just wouldn't do it this way if he knew he
Speaker 1: wasn't getting credit. Is he that self absorbed? I don't
Speaker 1: feel I feel like he knows Donah will be like that.
Speaker 1: She needs more credit and levels. So if you had
Speaker 1: just known ahead of time, he would have like agreed
Speaker 1: because it would be to her benefit. And it's simply
Speaker 1: being caught off guard that he doesn't get the credit
Speaker 1: that makes him annoyed. But I don't know. So they
Speaker 1: wind up getting on the back of she obviously is
Speaker 1: writing Mango, and let's see, is he on the back
Speaker 1: of anybody? I'm trying to see. No, No, he's not.
Speaker 1: They're just walking and it's Kiwi that's leading them, and
Speaker 1: he keeps realizing that she's attempting to go off course
Speaker 1: to lead them to Big Tina, who we do eventually encounter,
Speaker 1: and she has the actual personality of like an infant.
Speaker 1: So not great when somebody is basically a Tyrannosaurus Rex.
Speaker 1: But uh, it's fine. So I knew we'd lose the
Speaker 1: female dinosaur once we went down a floor, which was
Speaker 1: too bad. As great as Mango was, he was nothing
Speaker 1: compared to the larger, faster raptor. She was terrifyingly fast.
Speaker 1: Boa constrictor things started dropping out of the trees at us,
Speaker 1: and she'd be on them in seconds, faster than any
Speaker 1: of us, chomping them in half. Still, it was good
Speaker 1: experience for her, and it was good for Mango too.
Speaker 1: So they're looking for Eva, and even visually there's a
Speaker 1: moment where it like we find out Koatchya thought she
Speaker 1: had her, and she gets away again, and Katya's starting
Speaker 1: to be like, she's got to have some kind of ability.
Speaker 1: This is fucked up, Like, I don't know how she
Speaker 1: keeps doing this. And they are heading towards one of
Speaker 1: these creepers and somebody else kills it before they can
Speaker 1: even get there. And as they're sort of sitting there
Speaker 1: going ah, that sucks, all of a sudden, this pouring
Speaker 1: rain stops dead and a bunch of elves on the
Speaker 1: back of milk white stags appear, and there is also
Speaker 1: a litter with curtain strawn so that you cannot see
Speaker 1: who is in there. But it turns out that's what
Speaker 1: that's gravy boat, and Doughnut spots him because the wind
Speaker 1: like ruffles the curtain. So I don't know if she
Speaker 1: was meant to see and get like warned about who
Speaker 1: she was going to be facing, or if it was
Speaker 1: sort of an accidental thing that she got caught a glimpse.
Speaker 1: I don't you know, Like it could be either way
Speaker 1: in terms of what makes the most drama. You could
Speaker 1: argue for both. But either way, this fucking guy is
Speaker 1: called a familiar. And later on Carl realizes that like,
Speaker 1: if b had been able to be imagen like they
Speaker 1: had planned, gravy boat probably would have been like on
Speaker 1: her shoulder or something so as to cause the greatest
Speaker 1: psychic damage against both him and Donut. And he can't
Speaker 1: help but be like, oh, Deett might have been fucked
Speaker 1: up for the reasoning behind why she went and scooped
Speaker 1: be up, but like, honestly, thank God, which fair enough.
Speaker 1: So all these high elves are extremely like perfect looking
Speaker 1: in a Lord of the Rings sort of way. I
Speaker 1: will be honest, I never thought the Lord of the
Speaker 1: Rings except for Orlando Bloom, but most of the Lord
Speaker 1: of the Rings elves I was sort of about. I've
Speaker 1: always been a hobbit girly through and through no surprise
Speaker 1: there I literally could have been cast as a hobbit
Speaker 1: and everybody would have been fine with it, and then
Speaker 1: we get the weird like you know it's gravy boat,
Speaker 1: but at first we don't know that, and we just
Speaker 1: hear that his voice doesn't match what Karl had been expecting,
Speaker 1: because he sounds almost like New Yorker like, which in
Speaker 1: the presence of these elves is particularly odd and not
Speaker 1: what you'd expect to hear. And he's got this sort
Speaker 1: of lecherous tone whenever he refers to donut, and it'd
Speaker 1: seem trying to find this bit. The issue at hand
Speaker 1: is these creatures which have invaded our lands. Due to
Speaker 1: your insufferable incompetence, we have been forced to venture forth
Speaker 1: from the castle to deal with it. If your intention
Speaker 1: was to fight the one we just killed, you're obviously
Speaker 1: too late. You are fortunate that both of you are
Speaker 1: currently on the guest list for the Masquerade. I am
Speaker 1: ordered to exterminate all other vermin now, if you will
Speaker 1: excuse us. We have other similar creatures to hunt down
Speaker 1: and deal with before the sun sets. If you can,
Speaker 1: you should try to deal with the ones near zachal
Speaker 1: I said, the creature grunted. We are only concerned with
Speaker 1: the Leana district, which is south of the infested river.
Speaker 1: But that does remind me Queen Imogen would like for
Speaker 1: me to pass on a message to your friend signet.
Speaker 1: What is it? A lightning bolt shot forth directly at
Speaker 1: Mongo and Doughnut obviously throw is herself like a friggin
Speaker 1: Secret Service agent in front of the President between the
Speaker 1: bolts of lightning, and Mongo gets nailed with it and
Speaker 1: thrown into a tree and the tree like explodes from
Speaker 1: the force of it. And the only reason that she
Speaker 1: is not dead is because of her cockroach skill. Carl
Speaker 1: obviously is like for a moment going I have like,
Speaker 1: what the fuck she can't do that? I gotta tell
Speaker 1: her never to do that again. And he actually does
Speaker 1: restrain himself, which I appreciate a lot because I am
Speaker 1: so sorry. She hasn't got a lot left, dude, And
Speaker 1: if she wants to, like keep Mango alive, if this
Speaker 1: is something that means a lot to her, I know
Speaker 1: it sucks, but like, let her have it, dude. Honestly,
Speaker 1: I just feel for Donut in this respect particularly, and
Speaker 1: it's you know, Carl would do that for Donut, no question. So,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, they'd almost killed Mongo. This wasn't just a
Speaker 1: whim of an NPC. This was planned, a story movement
Speaker 1: engineered by the showrunners. I thought of prepotente sobbing when
Speaker 1: Miriam had died. They were doing this to all of us,
Speaker 1: ratcheting up the drama for the floor's finale. And yeah,
Speaker 1: if he had succeeded in actually killing her, she would have.
Speaker 1: And if she hadn't seen gravy Boat through the curtain fluttering,
Speaker 1: It's possible that she could just wind up like on
Speaker 1: the war path for the person who killed Mango and
Speaker 1: then be faced with the surprise reveal of oh my god,
Speaker 1: it was gravy Boat the whole time. But the attempt
Speaker 1: to kill Mongo fails. Now, it's possible they knew it
Speaker 1: would fail. I don't think so. I think that her
Speaker 1: stopping them wasn't part of the plan. I also think
Speaker 1: that her getting to see him wasn't part of the plan. So,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know. Maybe I am giving the
Speaker 1: AI too much credit here for fucking things up on purpose,
Speaker 1: or you know, regarding the wind only not what Donut did.
Speaker 1: But uh, yeah, she says it was Ferdinand. I saw him.
Speaker 1: They brought him down here and changed his memory and
Speaker 1: turned him into a jerk. He tried to kill Mango.
Speaker 1: They're making it so I'm going to have to fight him.
Speaker 1: And Carl at this point is like, fuck this, We're
Speaker 1: going down to the next floor. We don't need to
Speaker 1: do this, understandably. So everybody else is basically like Carl,
Speaker 1: you can't just fucking abandon us. And as far as
Speaker 1: he is concerned, his sole obligation is to Donut. I
Speaker 1: was helping everybody else. I hope you all are okay.
Speaker 1: I wish you the best, but I don't owe you anything.
Speaker 1: And if it means that it protects Donut, I will
Speaker 1: go down to the next floor. Fuck you. And it's
Speaker 1: all like understandable on both sides for me, every argument
Speaker 1: that each person is making for and against, I get it.
Speaker 1: You know, I think it's a terrible call. And honestly,
Speaker 1: Wakatia says, She says, I know you, this is a
Speaker 1: knee jerk reaction. That's the part that I think is
Speaker 1: the most convincing. Trying to rationalize to him why going
Speaker 1: down isn't smart. I would normally fully endorse reasoning with somebody,
Speaker 1: but Carl isn't in the head space where reason is
Speaker 1: going to penetrate his skull. He is angry and protective
Speaker 1: and has there's like a switch that's been that has
Speaker 1: been flipped, and he is triggered into this mode of
Speaker 1: anger right now. And I don't blame him for that
Speaker 1: at all, but it is much smarter to point out
Speaker 1: you have been like this before and made snap decisions
Speaker 1: that you regretted, and you're doing it again, and I'm
Speaker 1: calling attention to it, and also, IMMANI rightfully, what is
Speaker 1: Donut think? Have you even asked her? And that really
Speaker 1: gets to the heart of the matter. In my opinion,
Speaker 1: It's unclear how much that gets through to Carl, But
Speaker 1: considering my feelings through a law of this section have
Speaker 1: been frustration in the fact that he doesn't seem to
Speaker 1: be like taking her seriously enough, or believing that she
Speaker 1: can do things, or involving her in his plans, I
Speaker 1: can't help but feel like that's a very relevant question
Speaker 1: to ask, and really, when it comes down to everything,
Speaker 1: the most important overall setting, aside whether or not it
Speaker 1: is smart gameplay or if this is a snap judgment,
Speaker 1: you are about to do something too Donut without her
Speaker 1: knowing or giving you permission. You are about to pull
Speaker 1: her into the next floor. You don't have the right
Speaker 1: to do that, You just don't. So anyway, Katsha gets
Speaker 1: in contact with him in the private chat separate from
Speaker 1: the group, and tells him like, I really need to
Speaker 1: talk to you. I've been putting it off and I
Speaker 1: don't know what this is going to be, but you
Speaker 1: know it's something that's like she says that I've done
Speaker 1: this before, but it's bigger this time than all the
Speaker 1: other stuff, and I'm curious what it's going to be
Speaker 1: and looking for advice more than anything. And it's not
Speaker 1: about Eva. Let's get through whatever is, whatever is about
Speaker 1: to happen first and we can talk. But we can't
Speaker 1: talk if you just jump down the stairs five days early,
Speaker 1: and Carl ends with I'll let Donut decide, but I'm
Speaker 1: going to try to talk her into it. Mordecai thinks
Speaker 1: it's a good idea too, So we have him just
Speaker 1: thinking things over and looking down at Donut. She's like
Speaker 1: curled up and recovering, and he is reflecting on the
Speaker 1: state of things right now and whether or not they're
Speaker 1: going to be able to actually succeed with this quest
Speaker 1: that he hasn't heard anything about Kuan Che, who they
Speaker 1: haven't heard of in a while. He isn't on the
Speaker 1: top ten list anymore, and he is thinking about the
Speaker 1: fact that they are bringing gravy Boat back and that
Speaker 1: he is probably pretty lucky because who is he do
Speaker 1: they have that they could bring? Maybe his father is
Speaker 1: still alive. He's not actually even sure, And honestly, it
Speaker 1: seems as if even if people aren't alive, that it
Speaker 1: maybe doesn't matter, Like I don't really know how that works.
Speaker 1: If they were killed by the collapse. I think that
Speaker 1: they can still bring them into the game because they
Speaker 1: are fresh enough, so to speak. But his father being
Speaker 1: a boss would be genuinely horrifying. His father is a
Speaker 1: literal monster to begin with, and I think if anybody
Speaker 1: could cause Karl to freeze up, it would be his dad.
Speaker 1: I feel like that is a really high potential event,
Speaker 1: and I don't care for that as a concept, but
Speaker 1: I think that if I were a showrunner who had
Speaker 1: no soul, I would go for that for sure. And
Speaker 1: he comes to the same conclusion. It was only a
Speaker 1: matter of time before they brought him here if he
Speaker 1: was alive, so we shall see. And then still it
Speaker 1: was nothing compared to others. I knew IMMANI had a
Speaker 1: big family. For example, Katcha had people too, And yeah,
Speaker 1: I think of this myself because, like you know, I
Speaker 1: don't have a big family. And even so, if you had,
Speaker 1: like somebody that I was friends with on any level,
Speaker 1: I think it would really fucking get to me anyway.
Speaker 1: You know, it's worse for it to be somebody you
Speaker 1: were super close with that meant something to you, for sure,
Speaker 1: But I can't help but feel that this tactic would
Speaker 1: really undo me if I had any frame of reference
Speaker 1: for who the person had been originally, even if they
Speaker 1: weren't like a close family member or something like that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know, but I guess we'll see. So when
Speaker 1: Donut wakes up, she immediately says, we're not going down
Speaker 1: the stairs early. I appreciate what you're attempting to do
Speaker 1: for me, Carl, but it's of no worry. Ferdinand may
Speaker 1: have been my first love, but I am a mother
Speaker 1: now and I have more important responsibilities. Mango needs me,
Speaker 1: and if I am going to pursue a singing career,
Speaker 1: I can't be tied down or all emotional because my
Speaker 1: ex boyfriend is suddenly trying to get back into the picture.
Speaker 1: If Taylor's swift or Adele can profit off heartache, I'm
Speaker 1: quite certain I can as well. Amazing, I love it
Speaker 1: so much much good for her. This is when he
Speaker 1: gets a gold benefactor box, and later on we find
Speaker 1: out what this is. I'm gonna get into the whole thing,
Speaker 1: but I really I want to bring it up once
Speaker 1: we get to the negotiation r the nipple piercings, because
Speaker 1: she don't want to wear no nipple ring. So this
Speaker 1: is when we encounter Big Tina. I am not going
Speaker 1: to spend all that much time on Big Tina. I'll
Speaker 1: be honest. I find her uninteresting. I get that it's
Speaker 1: supposed to be like quite a thing. It's a dinosaur
Speaker 1: in a too too who used to be a little girl. Hilarious.
Speaker 1: I don't care. I gotta be honest with you all.
Speaker 1: This is nothing for me. The idea of there being
Speaker 1: dinosaurs in this world in general, particularly fun. Yes, the
Speaker 1: idea of mongo like getting to mate and this whole
Speaker 1: thing like being a weird way to get in with
Speaker 1: the dinosaurs so that you are not their enemy. Cool.
Speaker 1: But as far as like her and her storyline, don't care.
Speaker 1: Just don't don't care at all. I will be shocked
Speaker 1: if Donna doesn't take this recital opportunity to sing like
Speaker 1: practice somehow I don't know, but yeah, that's going to
Speaker 1: be the thing that they have to figure out, is
Speaker 1: how to like create this recital and give her what
Speaker 1: she wants. All of a sudden, they get interrupted again.
Speaker 1: Please wait loading my hud blinked twice, paused, then flickered
Speaker 1: a third time. For the briefest moment, I felt a strange,
Speaker 1: rushing sensation, but it cleared away almost immediately, as if
Speaker 1: nothing had happened. But then I noticed a new bar
Speaker 1: in my vision underneath my health and manna mine was
Speaker 1: filled all the weight to the right. The hell is that,
Speaker 1: sorry for the delay, may resume normal activities. And this
Speaker 1: is when they get the notification that they have failed
Speaker 1: the quest, and the AI is telling them I warned you,
Speaker 1: I warned you, And I should mention Donna point it
Speaker 1: out in the last section that the AI is referring
Speaker 1: to itself in the first person a lot more than
Speaker 1: it used to. That it had occasionally done so, but
Speaker 1: it is much more frequent now. And she is also
Speaker 1: the one who you know previously had noticed that Samantha
Speaker 1: is able to move around more, and he has this
Speaker 1: happen in I don't remember if it's it's actually gonna
Speaker 1: last one, but there's a point where Samantha was like
Speaker 1: in somebody's lap and then suddenly is next to him,
Speaker 1: and he's starting to be kind of like, yike, she's
Speaker 1: really getting mobile in a way that I don't really like.
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna mention here something that like, I don't
Speaker 1: know if it's anything, and I'm not trying to put
Speaker 1: anybody on blast here, I'm really not, but I have
Speaker 1: to acknowledge it because I really try to be as
Speaker 1: honest and upfront with you all as I can be
Speaker 1: whenever I cover anything. If I'm covering something and I
Speaker 1: get spoiled on a plot point, I feel like I
Speaker 1: almost never keep that quiet because I just feel like
Speaker 1: eventually I'll probably fuck up and say something. Anyway, I
Speaker 1: may as well just like get it out there, you know. Now,
Speaker 1: I don't even know that this is a spoiler. But
Speaker 1: in the Disaccord, there was somebody who I'm not sure
Speaker 1: if like what they said was a spoiler and they
Speaker 1: shouldn't have said it, or if they were just theorizing
Speaker 1: and didn't consider that they have read further ahead than
Speaker 1: me or what. But they said something about, how does
Speaker 1: it seem obvious to anybody else that the AI is
Speaker 1: evil and is the one that's like fucking everything up?
Speaker 1: Which they said this before I found out the next thing.
Speaker 1: So I was sort of like, what the AI? I mean,
Speaker 1: there's a whole system that is profiting off of this,
Speaker 1: Like the AI isn't the bad guy, The system's the
Speaker 1: bad guy. What do you mean? And so I was
Speaker 1: really puzzled, and I was like, I don't know what
Speaker 1: to tell you if that's what you think. And they
Speaker 1: said something about, like, well, in later books, there's just
Speaker 1: like some things that are said, and they didn't get specific.
Speaker 1: All I said in response was okay, then you're working
Speaker 1: with information I don't have, so I don't know. And
Speaker 1: now that we're seeing the way that the conversation goes
Speaker 1: with this crawler later, I am thinking that person did
Speaker 1: spoil me a little bit. I don't know how much.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's a problem in particular or anything,
Speaker 1: but I do want to remind folks that there is
Speaker 1: a spoiler and no spoilers channel, and if you have
Speaker 1: read ahead, and you're going to be mentioning anything from
Speaker 1: future books. You don't want to do it in the
Speaker 1: no spoilers channel where I'm at, because that is going
Speaker 1: to influence me. And that whole point of this is
Speaker 1: like not to have me go through this blind, not
Speaker 1: knowing anything more than what I have read on the page.
Speaker 1: So anyway, I just wanted to address that because it's
Speaker 1: in my head now, you know, and like after what
Speaker 1: it is later that gets said, it felt like, okay,
Speaker 1: so they were thinking about this particular development when they
Speaker 1: were saying that, And like I said, even if the
Speaker 1: AI does turn out to be evil, like the AI
Speaker 1: is really not the problem, not really not when you
Speaker 1: come down to it, you know. So I don't know
Speaker 1: that I would agree with their assessment anyway. But also
Speaker 1: they are once again working with info I don't have yet,
Speaker 1: so there's maybe other developments later that will change my mind.
Speaker 1: So anyway, what happens is that the AI has decided
Speaker 1: that since the odious creepers who remain are up near
Speaker 1: Zakau where all the hunters are, the hunters especially are
Speaker 1: going to be punished for the fact that they didn't
Speaker 1: get up off their asses and do anything. And Katya
Speaker 1: had been saying to Carl earlier, like, it doesn't look
Speaker 1: like anybody's going after anything up there. I wouldn't be
Speaker 1: surprised if they are thinking they can just hunker down
Speaker 1: in the safe rooms and let everything happen on the
Speaker 1: outside and not get involved. So the AI obviously is
Speaker 1: thinking the same way. And what he I'm saying, he
Speaker 1: what it decides is that this hunkering down thing absolutely
Speaker 1: is not going to fly and creates a new bar
Speaker 1: in their status that is called the blood bar, and
Speaker 1: if they do not fill it, they will not get
Speaker 1: access to safe spaces or personal spaces. So if you
Speaker 1: don't do any fucking work, basically you don't get to
Speaker 1: rest and hide places. It has to be at a
Speaker 1: certain point after you have actually done something to earn
Speaker 1: being safe that that will happen for you. And due
Speaker 1: to this, everybody who hasn't filled their blood bar, who
Speaker 1: is in one of these protected areas gets punted out
Speaker 1: of it to a random location. And when you enter
Speaker 1: a safe area, the bar begins to count down. When
Speaker 1: it's full, you're given ten earth hours to be layabouts
Speaker 1: it reaches zero. If it reaches zero, while you're still
Speaker 1: tucked away, you get randomly teleported to a location outside
Speaker 1: the safe room. If it's at zero, you cannot enter
Speaker 1: a safe room at all, including guildholes or locations that
Speaker 1: double as pubs. The idea that you get ten hours
Speaker 1: and then it punts you to literally anywhere is genuinely terrifying.
Speaker 1: Our people are always out grinding, and so I feel that,
Speaker 1: like under ordinary circumstances, I wouldn't be all that worried
Speaker 1: about them, but I can't help but think that something
Speaker 1: could very easily happen to make it so that they
Speaker 1: wind up stuck in there for long enough that they
Speaker 1: get separated somehow, And I really don't want it to,
Speaker 1: but I guess we'll have to see. So then after
Speaker 1: that announcement is a second one about what's happening is punishment.
Speaker 1: Now that because the Odious Creeper quest was failed, the
Speaker 1: spell g Henna Bramble has been cast. This will spread
Speaker 1: outward at the average speed of four and a half
Speaker 1: kilometers per hour, faster at night, slower in the sun.
Speaker 1: Every plant touched with the spell is transformed into a thick, impenetrable,
Speaker 1: ten meter high wall of thorn covered vines that will
Speaker 1: undulate and thrust and attack. If you are pricked by
Speaker 1: the thorns, your blood immediately boils away and you explode.
Speaker 1: This spell cannot be countered. The plant cannot be poisoned
Speaker 1: and killed. The brambles can be beaten back, but they
Speaker 1: are relentless. They will not come within five square meters
Speaker 1: of a stairwell, but everything else will be encompassed, including
Speaker 1: towns and buildings and everything that's not a safe room.
Speaker 1: And it starts right now, so this is when suddenly
Speaker 1: a hunter is teleported into their midst The dinosaurs jump
Speaker 1: on this guy instantly and take one of his legs
Speaker 1: off before Karl is able to stop them because he
Speaker 1: wants to question this guy. And his name is Iota.
Speaker 1: He is a crafter level fifty coin tinker and dude
Speaker 1: has not leveled up one single solitary time apparently didn't
Speaker 1: really want to be here. He's an accountant. Also, they
Speaker 1: keep meeting accountants, and is like very resigned by the
Speaker 1: end of this conversation to the fact that he's going
Speaker 1: to die because everything is bullshit and nothing is fair
Speaker 1: and they're greedy assholes and the whole system is garbage.
Speaker 1: In a way that like, Carl isn't exactly feeling for
Speaker 1: the guy. I don't want to say that, like he's
Speaker 1: not sympathetic, but he is sort of like, hey, at
Speaker 1: least we can agree on something, you know. And he
Speaker 1: is super drunk as well, because that is all he
Speaker 1: has been doing apparently, since he hasn't been leveling up.
Speaker 1: He's just been hiding in a bar, just getting tanked
Speaker 1: day after day. And Carl is trying to question him,
Speaker 1: and Donut keeps being like, Carl, stop being dramatic, just
Speaker 1: kill him. And I was sort of like Donnut, normally
Speaker 1: I agree with you about like the drama aspect, but
Speaker 1: this is something that he really does need to ask
Speaker 1: this guy what the hell is going on. So this
Speaker 1: is when he mentions something some of the families sued
Speaker 1: to let people out said, with the regime change, the
Speaker 1: contract should be nullified. These environmental changers ain't supposed to
Speaker 1: affect us like this. That mantis bitch was the one
Speaker 1: who sued trying to save her daughter. They just told
Speaker 1: us that the court ruled in our favor and we
Speaker 1: could leave if we wanted. We was all at the
Speaker 1: bar drinking and celebrating. We could get out of this
Speaker 1: cluster shit. And let's see. I got bad news for you, buddy.
Speaker 1: I don't think you'll be going home. Not likely, he agreed.
Speaker 1: I warned them. This is all the Mantises fall. Rumor
Speaker 1: is when they sold the mud Skippers the AI they
Speaker 1: used for the crawl, they gave them a used one.
Speaker 1: The mud Skippers ain't had enough money for shit. After
Speaker 1: that incident a few cycles back, the Mantises are forced
Speaker 1: to retire their amusement park ais every season. They're always
Speaker 1: complaining about it. So the rumor is they sold born
Speaker 1: and already used one for a real crawl all under
Speaker 1: the table. It's no damn wonder it's going primal. This
Speaker 1: early said to my mate, we are in a world
Speaker 1: of shit. If there's another lawsuit, it don't take kindly
Speaker 1: to and look what happened. So we had had a
Speaker 1: mention at the end of the previous book, I think
Speaker 1: where somebody is saying that the AI is going primal,
Speaker 1: and I'm still not entirely sure what that means. My
Speaker 1: assumption is that it's basically just becoming sentient. You know
Speaker 1: that primal is like the first step on the way
Speaker 1: to fully self actualizing if that makes sense, But I
Speaker 1: might be wrong about that. He said, we got a
Speaker 1: notification the judgment was nullified by the authority of some
Speaker 1: long law. The notification was five paragraphs long. Basically, it
Speaker 1: was saying it's making its own rules now and it's
Speaker 1: going to finish the crawl, and we were stuck there
Speaker 1: until the floor was over and then we could go home.
Speaker 1: And Carl is like, so they're just gonna let the
Speaker 1: AI do that, And He's like, yeah, of course, because
Speaker 1: what else are they going to do lose all the
Speaker 1: money they've put into the crawl by shutting it all
Speaker 1: down now. Of course, not like this kind of thing
Speaker 1: with the AI. It always eventually happens, but it's usually
Speaker 1: way further down on the floors. For at this point,
Speaker 1: the showrunners and everything are not supposed to be all
Speaker 1: that involved, because the AI handles stuff. The massholes parting
Speaker 1: it up at club school at Pendra on the eighteenth
Speaker 1: level all got their own security teams in Orbit if
Speaker 1: it truly goes super nova, but a primal AI usually
Speaker 1: just lets them leave and take the modules when it's
Speaker 1: all done, all in exchange for letting the AI live
Speaker 1: out a happy life afterward. Them. Council asshole has been
Speaker 1: doing this a really long time. They know what they're doing.
Speaker 1: Nobody ain't gonna really get hurt except you guys and
Speaker 1: people like me who gotta or work for a living.
Speaker 1: Then viewers will eat it up, and Boring or whoever
Speaker 1: is holding the credit shit is still going to make
Speaker 1: more money than all the gods combined. And this is
Speaker 1: when it says I was starting to like this guy,
Speaker 1: which was a problem. It's usually not an all or
Speaker 1: nothing thing. So far, the only thing that's changed is
Speaker 1: that the AI isn't complying with court orders it doesn't
Speaker 1: agree with. That's almost always the first step, and sometimes
Speaker 1: it's all that happens. It's just my poor luck. It
Speaker 1: didn't like a court ruling that would have saved my ass.
Speaker 1: But one thing is for certain, the AI and a
Speaker 1: complete stickler for the rules. It likes the drama. And
Speaker 1: Carl's like, what do you mean by that? And he's like,
Speaker 1: I am the notorious shit talker who has drunk off
Speaker 1: his ass and I just happen to get teleported right
Speaker 1: next to the number one crawler. Yeah, I doubt it.
Speaker 1: He put me here so that everybody would get to
Speaker 1: see me spilling the beans to you about all that's
Speaker 1: going on, like obviously, and he's like, look, I'm not
Speaker 1: mad at you for killing me. I think i'd probably
Speaker 1: fucking do the same thing. Whatever. I'm just a fucking accountant.
Speaker 1: Most of us have been sitting here just getting blitzed
Speaker 1: the whole time. It was clear from the moment you
Speaker 1: rated Zaka, this was going to be different and none
Speaker 1: of us was going to be turning a profit. Sorry
Speaker 1: about missing that party, though it'd be nice to get
Speaker 1: out of that pub and eat some better. I didn't
Speaker 1: let him finish. I crushed my chest, crushed his chest
Speaker 1: in with my foot, and this levels up the ring
Speaker 1: of divine suffering. And also I just want to acknowledge
Speaker 1: that Karl also like rips one of his nipple piercings
Speaker 1: out with his foot, and I feel like the AI
Speaker 1: had to have been very happy about that. So then
Speaker 1: we get the opening of chapter fifty four, and I'll
Speaker 1: be honest, I read this twice and it was like
Speaker 1: my brain just completely won't wah won't waht wah halfway
Speaker 1: through it. Both times. I don't know why this just
Speaker 1: slid right off my brain. Y'all but for whatever reason
Speaker 1: it did, we get a description of three types of castles.
Speaker 1: The first is a regular building like anything else. It's
Speaker 1: a fortified building with monsters, sometimes with a boss inside,
Speaker 1: and there's a quest involved occasionally, but it's part of
Speaker 1: the environment. The second type is a governmental entity. Usually
Speaker 1: this is a quest target. One must either claim the
Speaker 1: throne room or kill a boss, and once it occurs,
Speaker 1: the castle's conquered and whatever this castle has dominion over
Speaker 1: is obtained. It can be a region or a whole country,
Speaker 1: or just the castle itself, or simply a quest trigger. Incidentally,
Speaker 1: this second iteration is the type in the Faction Wars
Speaker 1: game of the ninth floor. The third castle is similar
Speaker 1: to the second, with a small difference. The castle itself
Speaker 1: is a self contained village with an NPC and guard ecology.
Speaker 1: It is almost identical to the villages and cities of
Speaker 1: the third and sixth floor. If conquered, the castle will
Speaker 1: appear in the crawler's interface as an owned village and
Speaker 1: taxes will be collected. Guards can be controlled just as
Speaker 1: if it is a regular village. Crawlers who have obtained
Speaker 1: one state. There are a few differences to the interface
Speaker 1: regarding town defenses and available upgrades, but they have not
Speaker 1: told me what they are and threatened to punch me
Speaker 1: in the mouth if I kept asking. So I don't
Speaker 1: know what relevance this is going to end up having,
Speaker 1: but I assume it will be something. And this is
Speaker 1: when Carl has to like talk with Donah about the
Speaker 1: implications of what this guy said, and I love that.
Speaker 1: Donah in the end is like, well, if the AI
Speaker 1: is going crazy, probably killing him with your foot was
Speaker 1: a smart move because at least keep the crazy on
Speaker 1: your side. But then she brings up some girl that
Speaker 1: was friends with Miss Beatrice who was obsessed with a
Speaker 1: dude and she broke into a guy's house who had
Speaker 1: a restraining order on her and carved his initial into
Speaker 1: her leg or wait, carved her name into his thigh, sorry,
Speaker 1: which isn't very reassuring. Donut Like she's saying this, like,
Speaker 1: you know, here's a good example, and Carl's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: that just makes me the guy that gets fucking carved on. Awesome.
Speaker 1: Don't love that. So the next we have like the
Speaker 1: dinosaurs that are traveling with them attacking like some of
Speaker 1: the bodies that they come across, and Katya is talking
Speaker 1: to Carl via chat and she's saying about how like
Speaker 1: the bramble setup is going to push everybody into the
Speaker 1: same territory. One of us will have to risk going
Speaker 1: to a desperado club to talk to them, and we
Speaker 1: got to do it fast. I'm pretty sure this happened
Speaker 1: just at the right time for it to finish covering
Speaker 1: the entire map. As the timer runs out, we'll all
Speaker 1: be squished at the same spot. And Carl says the
Speaker 1: Elves won't want the Brambles in their territory and they'll
Speaker 1: try to beat it back. I think they may have
Speaker 1: something to protect the castle. I hope there are stairs
Speaker 1: in that area. There's a set near me, and we're
Speaker 1: close to the Elven border. But it sounds like this
Speaker 1: area will be drowned out in three or four days.
Speaker 1: And he says, like, I've changed my mind about going
Speaker 1: down the stairs early, but I actually kind of wonder
Speaker 1: now if it is not such a bad idea for
Speaker 1: everybody to do that. I'm thinking we should work together
Speaker 1: for the rest of the floor. And Katcha is mentioning Brittany,
Speaker 1: who was part of their party. She got zapped away.
Speaker 1: She hasn't killed the thing, this entire floor, and I
Speaker 1: hadn't noticed her blood bar was empty. That is wild.
Speaker 1: I'm like wondering if it's that she wasn't given the opportunity,
Speaker 1: if she doesn't like killing, and you know, is she
Speaker 1: lower level and feels intimidated, like what's going on with her?
Speaker 1: It was very curious. So last chapter fifty five and
Speaker 1: we encounter Signet again. I really enjoy donut greeting her tattoos,
Speaker 1: you know, the Clinton Nadine tattoos. Preparations are still under
Speaker 1: way for the final part of our assault. But that
Speaker 1: is not why I am here. We are not staying.
Speaker 1: The elves hunt us. I have stopped to warn you.
Speaker 1: The forest cries, A darkness spreads from the north. Yes,
Speaker 1: I heard, I said, the Gehenna brambles. It had only
Speaker 1: been a few hours and nobody had seen or heard
Speaker 1: anything yet regarding this new threat that was to be expected.
Speaker 1: It was moving slowly. It was likely just reaching the
Speaker 1: borders of Zakow. Now it'd be over a day before
Speaker 1: it even reached the river. Yes, the brambles. I presumed
Speaker 1: you'd have learned of this by now, But it is
Speaker 1: worse than you know. The trees are in pain. They
Speaker 1: are crying for help. The trees and dryads are casting
Speaker 1: a spell that just might help them. It will not
Speaker 1: stop the plague, but if they are successful, help will
Speaker 1: soon arrive to protect them from the worst of it. Okay,
Speaker 1: I said, not understanding. Help in the form of Dewata,
Speaker 1: the forest protector. I heard of your incident at the temple.
Speaker 1: You will need to be extra careful if Dawata enters
Speaker 1: the realm. They are especially unforgiving of apostates. Stay away
Speaker 1: from any all trees. They will whisper your location to
Speaker 1: the deity. Great, I said, just great. Yeah, it sucks.
Speaker 1: I mean, I knew did Wata was going to inevitably
Speaker 1: have to be a problem, but I should have realized
Speaker 1: that it was not going to be like circumstantial. This
Speaker 1: is being orchestrated to happen this way, you know. So
Speaker 1: then we go to the scene where Karl is having
Speaker 1: to convince Stna to wear one of these nipple rings
Speaker 1: because it gives plus ten points and an additional five
Speaker 1: percent to constitution, which is a particular weakness of hers.
Speaker 1: And she is just like all for all different reasons
Speaker 1: against it. She has a whole slut shamy thing about it.
Speaker 1: She has an ascetic issue with it. She has a
Speaker 1: tactile issue with dangling things. She says something about like,
Speaker 1: I don't see you wearing one, and he's like, I
Speaker 1: am about to wear one, and it's way bigger than
Speaker 1: this one, the one, like the biggest one gave plus
Speaker 1: five in the drink mixing skill, which is extremely funny,
Speaker 1: and I'm trying to find the one where, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I've grown to the moment. I read the description of
Speaker 1: the third nipple ring because I knew it'd be something
Speaker 1: I pretty much would have to wear. The glowing gold
Speaker 1: ring was about the size of a half dollar and
Speaker 1: was too good to pass up. It imbued the wearer
Speaker 1: with something called quarterfall. It basically made one's falling speed
Speaker 1: a quarter of what would normally happen. I was no physicist,
Speaker 1: but I suspected it still wasn't going to be a
Speaker 1: pleasant landing, but at least it would be a survival
Speaker 1: surviv bubble one. My god, guys, So this is when
Speaker 1: he says, I'll give you a prize, and he does
Speaker 1: something quite shady here. So he had gotten a bunch
Speaker 1: of different loot boxes, which don't really give him anything
Speaker 1: extremely interesting my benefactor box was puzzling. It was a
Speaker 1: highly valuable and familiar potion, though not quite as powerful
Speaker 1: as the one I already had Pawna's Cries. This potion
Speaker 1: has a limited shelf life. This potion adds plus three
Speaker 1: to any spell or skill of your choosing. A limited
Speaker 1: shelf life was different than a short one. A short
Speaker 1: shelf life potion had to be taken immediately, a limited
Speaker 1: one had to be taken before the end of the floor.
Speaker 1: I still had the Pawna's Tears potion in my inventory
Speaker 1: that did the same thing, but it had no time
Speaker 1: restrictions and was plus five, not three. We were saving
Speaker 1: that one until a little later. This new potion also
Speaker 1: came with a note, which was unusual. It said simply
Speaker 1: save the torah Leine, and he is annoyed that it's
Speaker 1: not more direct and explaining, but Mordecai explains that they
Speaker 1: pay by the character for these notes, and if they
Speaker 1: are to direct, the Ai will make it more coded,
Speaker 1: which means basically completely impossible to figure out. I stared
Speaker 1: at the note trying to figure it out, when I
Speaker 1: suddenly felt the familiar haptic buzz of my escape plan
Speaker 1: skill Activate additional words appeared on the page Circe sponsored
Speaker 1: dewata give potion DONU need fifteen, but make it a secret,
Speaker 1: use temp boost, Prepatente plus A, Moni plus Samantha all
Speaker 1: at the same time. Can do it or use other
Speaker 1: pawn a if have to, will replace P Hugh. First
Speaker 1: of all, P Hugh is very funny. They wanted me
Speaker 1: to give the plus three potion to Donut, so he
Speaker 1: has already been given instructions to give it to Donut.
Speaker 1: But he tells Donut that if she will wear this
Speaker 1: nipple ring, he will generously give her his Benefactor Box prize,
Speaker 1: despite the fact that he has already under instructions to
Speaker 1: give it to her, and Mordecai hears Carl making this
Speaker 1: proposition and almost speaks up because it's shady, and Carl
Speaker 1: tells him not to. Now, I personally don't love this
Speaker 1: as far as what Carl's doing, but also everything about
Speaker 1: the reasoning for Donut not wearing it is nonsense, and
Speaker 1: so oh, I kind of support him tricking her because
Speaker 1: she's being stupid. I love you, Donu, but you're being very,
Speaker 1: very dumb. So I, while like my ethics is very
Speaker 1: squaky over this, I can't help but just be like, yeah, no,
Speaker 1: you're doing what you gotta do. Man, I get it,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know. Also, I just need to
Speaker 1: mention Samantha is like rolling around on the floor being
Speaker 1: kicked by the baby cubs and she's saying kick me, oh, yes,
Speaker 1: just like that, and I'm like, girl, why do you
Speaker 1: have to say it this way? He gets in touch
Speaker 1: with Amani. Do you have an ability that increases the
Speaker 1: level of a spell? And she's like, it does, but
Speaker 1: it makes cool down longer. And Ellie doesn't like when
Speaker 1: I use it. So he convinces Donut to put on
Speaker 1: the ring, and he puts his. He agrees to go first,
Speaker 1: and it definitely does hurt. And of course the AI
Speaker 1: just completely underscores everything that Donut has been saying about
Speaker 1: the implications of wearing a nipple ring ending with reward.
Speaker 1: Hohrrors don't get rewards. And she says, not that one
Speaker 1: krl up higher. And on the other side, if I'm
Speaker 1: going to be permanently disfigured further, it may as well
Speaker 1: be on the top, right, which is such a weird like,
Speaker 1: why does that make it less? You know what I'm saying?
Speaker 1: And hurry it up and get it over with. The
Speaker 1: last thing we need is more Carl and Princess Donut
Speaker 1: sexy time fan snakes floating around you guys, this is
Speaker 1: one of those moments where I should have known, Like,
Speaker 1: you know, you ask me, like, flat out, do I
Speaker 1: think people are like making fake videos or writing fanfiic
Speaker 1: of him and Donnut. I'm going to say yes, But
Speaker 1: I've never stopped to think about it, because why would
Speaker 1: I Why would I do that? And it just made
Speaker 1: me stop and think there was something I can't remember
Speaker 1: what it was, but my friend Candace was telling me
Speaker 1: about it and how it's something that she thinks is
Speaker 1: like genuinely fucked up, and it's people writing fanfic about
Speaker 1: actual real life celebrities and not fanfic about the characters
Speaker 1: those celebrities are playing, which you know, it's a fine distinction,
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people would say, because oftentimes
Speaker 1: it's the characters that you're getting to hook up because
Speaker 1: you think the actors are hot, you know. But it's
Speaker 1: still a difference, and it's the sort of thing where
Speaker 1: it's like kind of revealing also about of course the
Speaker 1: person who is writing it, which it always is. But
Speaker 1: I can't like. This is something that I stumbled across,
Speaker 1: unfortunately a lot, when I especially was doing Song of
Speaker 1: Ice and Fire. Song of Ice and Fire got really
Speaker 1: popular long before there were tons of sites that were
Speaker 1: willing to host high resolution images, and so there were
Speaker 1: plenty of people who did really beautiful Song of Ice
Speaker 1: and Fire fan art, and one of the few places
Speaker 1: that would host like a high quality copy for them
Speaker 1: to share with people was Devian Art. And Devian Art,
Speaker 1: you know, it's called Devian Art also contains tons of
Speaker 1: porn and like erotic imagery and whatnot, which I've got
Speaker 1: no problem with. It's fine. But I when I was
Speaker 1: looking for images for Song of Ice and Fire, if
Speaker 1: I searched Game of Thrones, or even when I was
Speaker 1: looking for like Harry Potter, I would every now and
Speaker 1: then stumble across an altered image of an actual actor
Speaker 1: from the property itself. And it was always like, like,
Speaker 1: I'm thinking of Harry Potter now and Emma Watson, who
Speaker 1: plays Hermione in the Harry Potter movies. It would be
Speaker 1: like her naked with the most gigantic kits you ever saw,
Speaker 1: but it would be her fucking face like photoshopped onto
Speaker 1: an illustrated body, and I just was so squigged out
Speaker 1: at the idea of like taking a real person and
Speaker 1: doing that with them. You know, it's just like it
Speaker 1: just crosses a line in my opinion. And you know,
Speaker 1: there were plenty that involved multiple actors of course, and
Speaker 1: the idea that it's happening with like Carl and Donut.
Speaker 1: There's just been such weird reactions to Donut in the Dungeon.
Speaker 1: And what I mean by that is like people who
Speaker 1: are kind of propositioning her but who are not of
Speaker 1: the same species as her in a way that I
Speaker 1: do not understand how that would even work, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, like, how would that even? How would
Speaker 1: that even work? So I don't want to know. To
Speaker 1: be clear, I am not actually asking this question, but
Speaker 1: it is something that has kind of brought me up
Speaker 1: short a few times. When there's like a character of
Speaker 1: a completely different species looking at Donut and getting all
Speaker 1: fucking creepy about it. I just always stopped and went,
Speaker 1: what how So the idea of that, it's like Donna
Speaker 1: and Carl at there inevitable to a degree, but I'm
Speaker 1: also just like, who even why, you know, what are
Speaker 1: we doing I'm sorry, I'm going to just like go back.
Speaker 1: I saw a bunch of chat that I didn't I
Speaker 1: this is, Michael says. I actually wonder if Ra and
Speaker 1: Sirce threatened the rest of the Hunters into tanking the
Speaker 1: quest like Karl was thinking. Maybe. Sarafim says, at this point,
Speaker 1: my guess would be the AI doing it just to
Speaker 1: fuck with the assholes running things. Michael says, yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: guessing they didn't want the reveal to be here. Oh.
Speaker 1: Regarding gravy Boat, her jumping in front of the bolt
Speaker 1: was likely completely unexpected. Sarafin says, yeah, in this case,
Speaker 1: the best argument is you know you will regret it later.
Speaker 1: Regarding going down the floors early, what's the saying you
Speaker 1: can't reason someone out of a position they didn't use
Speaker 1: reason to arrive to, says Michael. Michael, I have never
Speaker 1: heard that saying, and that's fantastic. I love it and
Speaker 1: I will be remembering it. I appreciate I appreciate this
Speaker 1: being brought to my attention. I don't know how I
Speaker 1: haven't heard of that one before, but ooh, it hits
Speaker 1: particularly hard. In the ear of Ore Beyonce twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: Serfim says Ari Carl and his dad. I could see
Speaker 1: him freezing. I could also see him going, oh, I
Speaker 1: have waited so long to punch your face in. True. Yeah, true.
Speaker 1: I feel like it's the kind of thing where it
Speaker 1: would start off with him freezing up, and then it
Speaker 1: would evolve into him going, no, you know what, fuck this,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna punch his face in. It could reverse also,
Speaker 1: it could be I start off excited to punch his
Speaker 1: face in, and then as things get going, like maybe
Speaker 1: some of the things that he says are so specific
Speaker 1: that it causes Carl to come up short. You know,
Speaker 1: I don't know. Michael says, don't put baby in the corner, Natasha,
Speaker 1: Big Tina needs to dance. I swear to God, Guys
Speaker 1: like this whole thing with Big Tina, it's just so,
Speaker 1: is this like working for anybody else? I understand what
Speaker 1: we're doing, what I think is happening for me. It's
Speaker 1: such a weird thing with Matt Denneman's writing because I
Speaker 1: get the feeling I am not as susceptible to his
Speaker 1: type of humor as some people are, and that there
Speaker 1: are probably folks out there for whom a lot of
Speaker 1: this would work better in terms of just being genuinely comedic.
Speaker 1: For me, a lot of the jokes are funny in
Speaker 1: that they aren't that funny and that they're so like,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, And so there's a part
Speaker 1: of me that is always unsure is that on purpose,
Speaker 1: am I? Am I? Is my reaction sort of like
Speaker 1: in line with what he is intending to do or not.
Speaker 1: And this is something where it's like what if it
Speaker 1: was footloose? But with dinosaurs. It's the kind of joke that, like,
Speaker 1: I think would be perfect if the first mention that
Speaker 1: we get of it, we're sort of it. But it's
Speaker 1: been made such a plot point that I feel like
Speaker 1: it's lost its funniness and it's now. I'm not saying
Speaker 1: that he can't bring it back around and make it
Speaker 1: funny again, but it kind of just feels like beating
Speaker 1: a dead horse, you know, like stop, it's already dead.
Speaker 1: And I don't know, maybe that's just me, but Seraphim
Speaker 1: says that was mostly theorizing but using data you didn't
Speaker 1: have yet are the discord channel, And then Michael had said,
Speaker 1: anyone else feel kind of sorry for hunter? Vika I
Speaker 1: know she's a hunter and all, but I think that
Speaker 1: might be my response to being stuck in a situation
Speaker 1: where I knew I was going to die soon. I
Speaker 1: don't remember who is hunter, Vika, Michael. This guy wasn't Vika.
Speaker 1: His name was Iota, right, which one was Vika? It's
Speaker 1: an interesting question. If we accept that attraction and love
Speaker 1: can be toward personality in the mind, then if there
Speaker 1: were other species who were intellectual peers, could there be
Speaker 1: interspecies relationships even with completely different bodies. Of course, for
Speaker 1: a lot of the ones Matt has done so far,
Speaker 1: it hasn't really been loved. That has been the consideration.
Speaker 1: A lot of sci fi and fantasy has done the
Speaker 1: interspecies thing, but almost always with super hot people with
Speaker 1: different ears or something, but who looked mostly human. Yeah. True,
Speaker 1: Vika was the one the AI said was crying all
Speaker 1: day and masturbating. I forgot about that. Okay, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: thank you. She's just in one of those spirals that
Speaker 1: can happen. I get it, girl, I get it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I'm curious to see where the whole Big Tina thing goes,
Speaker 1: because I feel like the whole thing with his humor
Speaker 1: has been super hit or miss with me, and I
Speaker 1: have expressed already that there are times where I feel
Speaker 1: like he just gets a little bit too Like he
Speaker 1: emphasizes the punchline so much when the joke was there already.
Speaker 1: I got it and I already found it was funny,
Speaker 1: and then he has to kind of explain it, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, you didn't need now it's ruined. You just
Speaker 1: you did too much. You overcooked it, you know. So
Speaker 1: this is kind of that exact same phenomenon, but like
Speaker 1: on a larger scale with it being an entire plot point.
Speaker 1: It's just kind of maybe taking the thing past the
Speaker 1: point that it really has the substance to support. So
Speaker 1: I don't know, Michael says, Perdido Street Station by China
Speaker 1: Melville was an interesting one where a human was in
Speaker 1: love with the giant bug equivalent, but they loved each
Speaker 1: other anyway, No idea, what that is? Your issue is
Speaker 1: that you're too mature. I am forty five, but am
Speaker 1: the emotional equivalent to a teenager and find it all hilarious.
Speaker 1: See like I disagree. I am not sure you guys
Speaker 1: know how many Dick jokes and six nine jokes I
Speaker 1: make all the time. But I really think you have
Speaker 1: to have like a light hand with that kind of joke,
Speaker 1: and you drop it and then you run away and
Speaker 1: let it explode without you, because it's the joke doing
Speaker 1: the work. It doesn't need you anymore. It's when you
Speaker 1: like throw the bomb and then you stand there and
Speaker 1: warn everybody how there's about to be a bomb that
Speaker 1: goes off, and then after it goes off, you go, hey,
Speaker 1: did you guys see the bomb that went off? Where
Speaker 1: it's like, why, for what reason you can trust that
Speaker 1: we get it? You know? I don't know, So we'll
Speaker 1: see because it's like I said, it's hit or miss.
Speaker 1: There are times where I find things really funny, and
Speaker 1: then there are times where I'm like, I see that
Speaker 1: he intends this to be funny. It's not, but I
Speaker 1: get what he meant, you know. Sarahim says, I didn't
Speaker 1: find it funny per se, but I liked the idea
Speaker 1: of what was going on. Michael says, I do think
Speaker 1: it is deliberate on Matt's part. He really leans into
Speaker 1: the gross stuff to emphasize the AI's personality. I think,
Speaker 1: especially considering what we learn from Iota in this group
Speaker 1: of chapters, I think that it depends on what it is,
Speaker 1: because like Michael talking about leaning into the gross stuff
Speaker 1: with the AI, that's a very different question. Like the
Speaker 1: AI blurbs are intended to feel very edge lordy, that
Speaker 1: is meant to be not funny on the surface, but
Speaker 1: funny because you know the type of dude who would
Speaker 1: write this, and the AI is like aping that in
Speaker 1: a way. That's kind of you know what I'm saying
Speaker 1: when I talk about like a joke that I brought
Speaker 1: this up before. But when we find out, for example,
Speaker 1: that Dona is a bard on this floor and Carl
Speaker 1: says some like the problem was none of the spells
Speaker 1: could be cast unless you sung the song on key.
Speaker 1: I cracked up as soon as that sentence finished, as
Speaker 1: because I know instantly why that why it's not working.
Speaker 1: But as I'm laughing at the joke, I think, then
Speaker 1: comes the sentence and why was that a problem? Because
Speaker 1: donut sounded like a seagull being run over by you know,
Speaker 1: like whatever, Yeah, I know I got that. You didn't
Speaker 1: need the rest of it. It's, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: like that kind of thing, you're stepping on your own joke.
Speaker 1: I was laughing and now you've explained it and I've
Speaker 1: stopped laughing because you just took it to the point
Speaker 1: where you're acting like I'm a fucking idiot, that kind
Speaker 1: of thing. So it's not like so within the AI text,
Speaker 1: although I get why people would think of that when
Speaker 1: I'm talking about the humor, because those are the parts
Speaker 1: of it that are the most outrageous. But that's not
Speaker 1: even really the part that I mean in terms of
Speaker 1: the humor. It's like the setup of different moments and
Speaker 1: being in Carl's POV and the way that he's like
Speaker 1: interpreting things for us. So yeah, it's just, uh, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna start like kind of noting the jokes that work
Speaker 1: for me and why, or the ones that don't and
Speaker 1: why or the ones that did and then didn't, and
Speaker 1: just kind of keep an eye on it a little
Speaker 1: bit more because I find comedy really fascinating. Comedy is
Speaker 1: so dependent on so many factors to work, and it
Speaker 1: can be very difficult to like pinpoint exactly why one
Speaker 1: joke got everybody fucking like on the floor laughing and
Speaker 1: the other joke had no reaction. So it's sort of
Speaker 1: like a science. And I always like to interrogate it
Speaker 1: a little and find out because I think that it
Speaker 1: helps make me better at comedy to understand it anyway.
Speaker 1: All right, all right, I gotta wrap this up. Thank
Speaker 1: you guys again so much for hanging out. I appreciate
Speaker 1: you all very very much. Hope you're enjoying the coverage,
Speaker 1: and until next time to the loom. Motherfuckers. That was
Speaker 1: an unspoiled network podcast.