Speaker 1: This is an Unspoiled Network podcast. This is spoil Me
covering Dungeon Crawler Carl chapters thirty two through thirty six.
In these chapters, we come up against the crack heron
genius problematic, Yes, fantastic. Also yes. Welcome to spoil Me.
Welcome to the show everyone. I am Natasha. Thank you
very much to Michael commissioning this episode. So to start
things off, I have Michael and Rob in the chat
here with me, and Rob asked before starting, and I
decided to save answering it until I was recording. I'm
wondering if you're enjoying the book. Also, I wonder how
much enjoyment must change when you do it for a job. Yeah,
so first, I'm loving the book. I am having a
great time. Definitely. I am very lucky with my commissions
that there have been almost no duds at all. I
won't say there have been none, there have definitely been
a couple. There was a series that started to get
commissioned for me at the very beginning of doing this
that got dropped because it became so clear how much
I hated the main character, and that was Iron Druid.
Apparently one of those series that a lot of people
feel if you like Dresden Files, then you will also
like this. I didn't. I feel like Harry Dresden is
written to be a lot more likable than the thousand
year old Druid, who was insufferable. So that was a dud.
But most of the time I have been very lucky
that my listeners have great taste and they are really
eager to share things that moved them, and that's what
they want to spend their money on, and that usually
means something that is really really worth the time. But
oh sorry, Michael says, Iron Druid was very wish fulfillment. Yeah,
Iron Druid. The thing that kept getting me about that
series was how immature the main character was. For being
a thousand years old, he felt like he was twenty,
just a regular old human of twenty years old. There
was no feeling of real wisdom to him that you
would have to accumulate after some time on Earth, and
that always played a part in the plot, was him
just being a fucking fool, and I just couldn't get
on board. You can't have a main character be that
old and not have them be really intelligent to a
degree that you have to change the whole way you're
writing your stories, which the author was not interested in doing.
Rob says apropos of that. Then do you have a
list that you keep of your bests. I don't have
a list, but I definitely do have, like my mental
tally my number one unfinished series. Unfortunately it's not finished.
But the books that I covered that really, by far
have taken over my brain are the Ninth House and
hell Bent books by Lee Bardugo. You guys, I cannot
recommend those books enough. They are some of the most
spectacularly accurate to life and also fantastical books I've ever read,
with some of the most brutal plot elements, but also
moments of such deep satisfaction that you just want to
like stand up and like pound your chest and yell
because you're just like, yeah, fucking do it that kind
of vibe. So highly highly recommend Ninth House and Hellbent,
but only if you are prepared to wait for the
third book, which isn't even forthcoming. We don't have a date, Sorry, everybody.
I don't want to take over this episode with just
talking about I will say though, for right now. Dungeon
Crawler Carl is definitely like in my top ten that
I have covered so far. There are certainly, though, times
where something that starts off on the top of my
list over time begins to fall. So I don't want
anybody to hold me to this. I may change my
mind eventually, who knows. But right now I am having
a really good time and it's like different enough because
of the structure of it from other things that it's
really keeping my attention in this way as well. Sorry, oh,
they're still talking at Michael's mentioning Iron Druid. I had
trouble with a dog just being completely sentient as well.
It doesn't play as well as Donut does for whatever reason.
Agree the dog. It was the kind of thing this
happens a lot when you just decide to make a
pet talk Donut there is a childlike quality to her
that makes her still feel like she needs Carl. But
the dog, I can't remember his name. Wasn't it like
Oberon or something? He uh? There was just always this
sort of vibe of like Oberon can just do with
or without his guy, It doesn't matter. He's basically like
a full person, you know, Rob says oh Man. Ninth
House is so good. I want Gideon Nabs my inner monologue.
And then damn, that's not the same Ninth House. I
don't know which one you're talking about, but yeah, the
Ninth House by Lee Bardugo is. I mean, you guys,
just strap in that. That is one of those books
that the more I read, the more I kept being like,
how does she keep doing this? Like she just she
would these these descriptions that she describes at one point,
the like trees and the fact that there are buds
beginning to form as like rings on a gnarled old
woman's fingers. Just like little moments like that that I'm
just like they stuck in my brain as being so
evocative and correct. And then the plot, the pace is
beyond belief. It's just she just keeps fucking rolling and
the stakes keep getting higher even though you don't think
they can. And I just by the time I finished
the second book, it was like I was out of breath.
It was that kind of energy. So anyway, okay, okay, okay,
start talking about this. Chapter thirty two begins with the
the discovery of these fucking creatures I don't even know,
like when we first see them, and they are described
as unvaccinated. I had my suspicions the direction that we
were going in, right of course, but I was like,
I don't know, maybe I didn't check to see what
year this was written, so that was part of it.
I wasn't really sure if the vibe was different when
it was written than it was now, because there are
certain things where the timing of it totally changes the
context and therefore the intent of the author. And I
was afraid to look up published dight because sometimes you
just start to type in the type I've a thing,
and it'll be like, you know, dungeon Crawler, Carl Donuts,
terrible Death. We'll just autofill and it's like, oh, thanks great.
So I just didn't want to even try it. But
it's also, I have to admit, very difficult for me
to fully comprehend that the start of the pandemic was
at this point almost five years ago, because I can't.
I just that doesn't make any sense. Time is insane.
So I kept thinking, like, the way I'm interpreting this
has to be too recent, because I wasn't understanding really
like how long ago this could have been written and
that still makes sense. And chloricons are distant hillbilly relatives
of the Leprechauns. And while the Leprechauns are said to
guard vast piles of gold, the only thing Chloricons might
hoard are polaroids of their own sisters sitting on the
can and questionable business schemes. This particular sect of the
unvaccines of the unvaccinated variety. Don't let them sneeze on you.
Warning this is a fairy class mob. Mobs of this
class inflict twenty percent more damage against you due to
your goblin pass. So these guys are actually quite easy
to kill. But obviously, with Carl being possibly more prone
to getting infected than Donut, he can't loot the bodies
the way that she can, so she has to go
and get the stuff like and she also he gives
her the option to try her raise the dead spell,
and she manages to do this and make it rip
apart its friends, which is super gross. Both of them
almost throw up when they see it doing the thing
that she told it to do. Each of them has
a clay jug of something called toilet grade moonshine don'na said.
They have slingshots and stones on them as well, And
we get this bizarre flashback. It's not even a flashback,
it's just really a memory. I remembered my dad finding
my sling shot. He and his friends played with it,
breaking the band. He'd promised he'd get me a new one.
He never did. I mean, I like just the idea
that your father is basically the equivalent of like a
shitty little brother. I there's a lot. It's interesting. Actually,
there's a lot of stories out there with female protagonists
who have a mother that they kind of feel they
need to be the adult for. And I've always related
deeply to that because my mother had me when she
was so young, and I grew up hyper aware of
how fragile she was in some ways due to that,
and like very protective of her. And eventually when people
who knew me met my mother, I had more than
one adult, like a teacher say to me, it's so strange.
You feel like you're older than her, which is correct.
That's how it's always felt. So I know this feeling
very well in the context of mother daughter relationships, but
this kind of vibe with a father's son is less
of a thing, the father son relationship being like straight
up abusive. You see that a lot, and this is
clearly he was abusive, but a lot of the memories
that Karl has that we have gotten so far are
less like straight abuse and more just neglect and general
like shittiness in a way that feels really immature. And
I'm really really curious about this because I feel like
this has to inform Carl's personality in a particular way
that we haven't fully gotten to see yet. And I'm
really interested to eventually see what that's going to look like,
because Carl is, like, we know that he is somebody
who is going to try very hard to do the
right thing. We have already seen that with the elderly
people and the way he's reacting to them. We know
how he feels about bullies, and I am feeling like
that may wind up being a big part of what
drives him a little bit further on into things. But
you know, we'll get there. So I loved this. A
pamphlet entitled rev Up, Make Money, Be your own Boss,
Move to the next floor down a y'all. I really
enjoy this. This is look so so many books have
their like little ways of making fun of pyramid schemes
or the energy of like getting ahead and out smarting
the system. And the thing about like why it's so
easy to make fun of is the fact that the
system is not designed for you to outsmart it. It's
designed to trick you into thinking that you are outsmarting it,
thus falling prey to it and looking down on other
people who are also prey to it. Because you believe
you've somehow cracked a code and they don't know the code.
You also don't know the code. They just want you
to feel like you're better than them, because dividing us
is the best way to conquer us. That's really all
it is. But the fact that this MLM, which they
keep saying, it's not a pyramid and I love Donut,
It's like it says, right there, it's not a pyramid,
so it's not a pyramid. I love donut skullibility. It's like,
this is a really fun character trait of hers. It
would be so easy to make Donut, especially as a
cat character. Making her sort of a snob is something
that is a sort of go to personality trait when
you make a cat be able to talk and communicate.
But a lot of times that snobbery is translated by
the author into a sarcasm and shrewdness, maybe even a
cynical quality, and I really enjoy that's not quite present
with her. She is a snob in a very specific,
like a privileged way, but not in like a wise
to the world kind of way, and that just gives
a lot more room to the author to have fun
with her and have her juxtaposed against Carl. So I
just think that he is playing Donut really well because
talking about Ober and the sentient dog in this other
series and why he just isn't as much fun when
the animal just seems straight up smarter than your main
character in a lot of ways. I get that you
think you're being subversive, but it's not really. That's sort
of what often happens. You need your little character, your
animal character, to have something that makes them still vulnerable
beyond just their physical vulnerability of being smaller and more fragile. So,
also getting back to the MLM, we find out later
there is something at the bottom of this pamphlet about
these drinks, these these smoothies rev up smoothies, portable, delicious, invigorating.
The entire line was crossed out with discontinued written under it,
and we find out later that the smoothies are composed
of moonshine plus the body of a dead fairy blended together.
I just feel like that's very significant. It's sort of
like easy to just be like, oh, yeah, that's just
a mechanic of the game, because this is what we're
being led to, is that you do something really gross
to get the perk of this, you know. But I
think that there is something else happening here with the
fact that, like these fairies work for a company that
literally used to sell their parts as a smoothie. That
does ring a little true to hyper capitalism, as like,
oh yeah, you can like you cracked the code they
used to prey on you and blend you into smoothies
and now you're the boss. Oh honey, is that even true? Like,
I just there's there's something there and I can't totally
put words to like what it is, but I just
feel like there's more of a story in this than
we are given time to unpack. And uh, it's obviously
they're not the ones in charge, even though they are
clearly like middle management, they have to be aware what
the recipe used to be. So my assumption is kind
of we used to be killing and blending you to
sell you, as you know, something to stave off this disease.
But for whatever reason, we can't do that anymore. So
instead of literally killing you for sale, we will make
you our middle management and exploit you in a less
brutal but ultimately similar way. You know what I'm saying. Anyway,
I am just I've got my eye on it, that
is all I'm saying. So, of course, Doughnut, do you
think we can become consultants? And he is like, girl,
oh my god, got you gotta stop. As we finished
our circle of the outer ring of the quadrant, I
was forced to kill one of the Chloricons with a
punch to the head. Doughnut missed a shot, and the
little monster came running right at me, impossibly fast, and
he defends himself too slowly, and it's head caved in.
And when I opened my hand, my fingers were covered
with a lime green oily residue. Warning you've been infected
with the taint. Having the taint is like having the giggles,
or like having the time of your life. But instead
of being a good thing, you are balancing on the
precipice of death. You may not heal your health using
any method while you are inflicted with the taint. And
Carl reacts quite poorly to this. Uh, I was genuinely scared.
I had received something that was going to kill me
on its own. The de buff wasn't a big deal.
I simply had to wait it out. I suspected it
was part art of a one to two punch. They
first inflicted you with the taint, then they hit you
with something else that seeped your health away. If that
was the case, it didn't matter. These guys were only
level three. They were dangerous. So this is when he
starts looking at the moonshine and Uh. Jugs of this
concoction are highly sought after by the drinking established this
Oh my god, you guys, I cannot I get ahead
of myself as I'm reading, and my tongue just starts
to read ahead as well before I'm actually done, And
so I combine words in these highly improbable ways. Jugs
of this concoction are highly sought after by the drinking
establishments that populate the third, sixth, ninth, twelfth, fifteenth, and
eighteenth floors. Very very specific drinking A swig defined as
one point five ounces of this potion will immediately cause
you to gain the shit faced deep buff has a
fifty percent chance to render you blind for period of
thirty hours, a five percent chance to immediately kill you,
and a forty five percent chance to permanently raise a
random stat by two points. What odds like? Honestly, even
though it's insane, I was a little still tempted, not
gonna lie, and he decides that he is going to
create some Molotov cocktails, which results in a new item
that's created and named after him, Carl's jug a Boom,
and I love how he is described created by an
unstable pantsless man who talks to a cat. Carl's jug
a Boom takes the bigger is better approach when it
comes to Hobgoblin fire bottles burns hotter, bigger, and faster
than your normal Molotov cocktail. The use of a standard
torch instead of a cloth wick makes these devices much
more stable. Just don't drop it once it's lit, lest
you find yourself doing a joan of our impersonation. And she,
like Donah, is super excited that this is named after
him in a way that Carl isn't, But of course
she would be, and he is like, I really hope
that everybody doesn't see it like that, whereas personally I
was sort of like, I don't know, man, it might
be kind of fun to develop this weird like reputation
before people meet you, and then they're like, wait, you're
Carl jug a boom? Carl? Is that you? So they
test one out and the thing just like makes such
an inferno that they have to back away several times
because it just keeps getting bigger. Most of the jugs
were already about three quarters full, which was good. I
didn't have to waste any of the moonshine. Out of curiosity,
I examined the jugs in my inventory and compare their
value to my other explosive devices. The jugs were pretty
high on lie list, just above the smoke bombs. The full,
unaltered jugs of moonshine were more valuable, however, in fact,
they were near the top of my list, just above
the engineer's table I still had. And I couldn't help
but think about how I would react if I saw
that they made this great weapon, but they also were
super valuable just as moonshine. It would be very difficult
to get myself to use them as Molotov cocktails. I
have to admit it would just be too I think
I might hoard them, I really do so. We finally
came across a new type of mob just outside of
the boss room. There wasn't any sort of giant machinery,
but a tube ran along the ceiling, curving into what
looked like a filthy aluminum bathtub. There were piles of bottles,
empty and full. The snock covered Level threes were taking
the jugs and tipping them into the tub to fill
them up. At the far end of the room was
a doorway guarded by a pair of small floating creatures.
These weren't Chloricons, but small fat fairies who buzzed about
with a pair of hummingbird wings. They looked like miniature
winged soccer moms. Lambanac rev Up Consultant Elites Level six,
the second tier of the rev Up Empire. These Laminac
consultants don't need to speak to a manager. They are
the managers. They run their business with a brutal efficiency.
It is said that if one of their underlings falls
behind on their sales quotas, they punish them by requiring
them to take a sip of their own product. Those
that survive are repurposed as workers for the filling room,
or worse, as still engineers working directly under Krakaren herself,
and he comes up with a plan here with Donut
using her spell to jump over there. The two biggest
problems with donuts puddle Jumper spell was the cool down
and manocost one cast. She couldn't do it again for
five hours, which meant once she was in that room,
she couldn't teleport it out. Secondly, it costs twenty manipoints,
which reminder, she can't drink manipotions for like two full
minutes between them. So he basically tells her, if you
get in trouble, you just have to run, but we're
going to do our best. And what she has to
do is go in there and use her charm on
everybody to get them to leave and follow them into
a room where Carl can attack them using one of
these juggo booms. Every time I say it, it just
feels like a little bit like a slur. I don't
know why. And the thing that is interesting a little
bit later is that Carl feels that using her ability
to attack these creatures is a little bit unsavory. I
think that's the word he uses, and what I thought
he meant was more like, I don't like like. It's
one thing to come in and just be ready to
kill people and honestly say to them, yeah, that's what
we're here for, is to kill you. It's another thing
to pretend to be somebody's friend and act like you
want to help and then turn on them, which I
still would understand. I really would get it. But it
turns out he really means is that once they get
to know people, it's more difficult to see them as
a just straight up faceless enemy because they say things
that humanize them, which is exactly the thing about the
way that war works is that you have to dehumanize
the enemy in order for a lot of people to
be able to do the job they're there for as soldiers.
There's a forgive me for mentioning Black Mirror, which can
be a very heavy handed show at times, but there
is an episode where there is like this weird alien
invasion and all of these soldiers are wearing these particular
suits to protect them from some gas or something that
these beings allegedly give off and you know, to keep
them safe, and they have to go into these spaces
and just eradicate all of these like weird alien insect beings.
And then eventually somebody figures out that the suits or
something that they were given when they first signed up
changes their perception and those aren't alien insectoid beings, those
are people, and they have been made to not see
human beings very literally so that they would just go
in and fucking destroy everybody. And so this whole time
they've been murdering like hiding refugees, and it's a pretty
fucking grim episode, as you can imagine. And the end,
somebody has been promised a beautiful, like three bedroom home
to come back to if he finishes his tour, and
it's left very open ended when he gets back whether
or not the beautiful three bedroom that he is looking
at is really there, or if they have done something
using that perception changer to make it look like that's
what it is, when it's actually like some piece of shit,
you know. And I just really like this was what
I was saying when we were dealing with the goblins earlier,
and then to talking about like the crawlers come here
and we have to deal with them, but eventually we'll
get to another floor. Clearly, everybody is being sold this
bullshit climb the ladder, except the reverse sort of story
where if you just work hard enough, you'll get somewhere
where it's safe, where these people won't bother you. They're
your enemy right now and you have to earn your way.
And it's just obviously a fucking pipe dream for so
many of them. And they are put in a place
where they are being tormented for a game. Why would
they just like let you get out of it eventually.
Even if they do let you get out of it
and go to a different floor, all of the floors
have crawlers on them if you are, like, are up
to the thirteenth floor, So how long could it possibly
take you? You're not gonna make it. It's just so unlikely,
you know. And so yeah, getting to know people makes
them seem more real, and it makes them seem more empathetic,
and you get more wrapped up in how they're doing
and their story. And it's part of the reason why
it's so funny to me how many people can just like,
you know, create a stereotype of like, oh, you know,
welfare queens, and they just make up this person that's
somehow living large on welfare, which is like, that's not
how welfare works unless you are invested in a very
very elaborate fraud, which is extremely rare and unlikely. And
they make this thing up, and then everybody just has
it in their head that that's the majority of people
on welfare, and of course this welfare queen is almost
always black in the imagination, when in fact, the majority
of people on welfare are white, And by dehumanizing them
and making them seem like they're a scammer, anybody that's
on welfare suddenly becomes suspect and suddenly maybe it doesn't
deserve it, and maybe we should keep an eye on
them and look at what's in their cart and maybe
judge them on the fact that they are getting something
that's like a little bit too nice for somebody poor.
Do they really deserve to have that they didn't work
for it, even though the majority of people on welfare
do have jobs. It's just like, it's really kind of
remarkable how quickly and effectively that takes hold, because we
are often so eager to feel superior to other people.
And then there's another aspect to this of like how
we can watch a TV show where we're in the
POV of a bad person, but we still root for
them because we're in their POV and so we've come
to identify with them even though they are actively trying
to harm others and get away with bad things, but
we're still sort of like, yeah, but I want to
I'm here, I'm rooting for them. And it's just like
very funny how we can go from this one extreme
of blaming a completely innocent person for something that you
don't know at all about them, but just comes from
a range of like brainwashing techniques, or if you get
to know a person really well, you start to justify
literally everything they do and make it seem like the
you know, whatever it is that they're inflicting on the
world isn't that big a deal. And it's just a
kind of like interesting phenomenon to me because we'll do
this with our friends as well. We'll know somebody and
we'll know that they did some shitty things, but we'll
also kind of excuse it because there are bud or
you know whatever, and it's just like how much we
actually are personally invested in somebody It's like it cannot
be overstated how much we change our standards of conduct
for that person depending on what we know about them.
So anyway, I just really this like repeated sort of
we were going to go to a lower floor. I
expect that this is just going to be a thing
over and over again. So and also she keeps yelling
for somebody named Damien to come and help, who doesn't.
But later on when he brings up the name Damien
to oh my god, Mordecai, Mordecai gets very agitated that
he even knows that name. So that's interesting. I have
to assume again that this is like maybe maybe Damien
was the one that was like, oh, yeah, we're doing
something good. Well, we're not blending you up into smoothies anymore,
we're putting you in charge. Actually, like I bet he
was the fucking go between to make it seem like
we're doing you such a favor. Look at how much
more woke we are. So he like uses his uh
boom thing, he catches one of them and kills her,
and he has like is hoping that when he kills her,
it's just gonna be that her body like drops a potion.
But that is not how it works. So he just
has to hold on to her, and uh, let's see.
I remember what Mordecai had said that the mobs and
deeper levels weren't going to be as sympathetic I really hoped.
So I needed to remember who the real enemies were,
the syndicate born the Kua Teine. I felt bad about
killing monsters who were nothing more than ponds, but the
fact was we needed to get as strong as we could.
It was us or them, which, unfortunately at this point,
seems to be true. So the Boss. The door to
the boss chamber looked like the entrance to some sort
of community center. It had live, Laugh, Love written on
top of the door in little cutout wooden letters. Under
that was a schedule of events. The next event schedule
was for noon on the day after the collapse. It
read good news everyone, Little Brian Lynn has the chicken pox.
I just need to take a moment to admire Brian Lynn.
That's all one word. It's honestly perfect. It's such a
perfect name for this exact demographic. Pop luck pox party
here at noon, No peanuts, Let's get that immunity. So
he's saying, I think that maybe we shouldn't go into
the deal with the boss. I think that, like, we
might not get out if we try and just blow
it up. We don't know how many of these other
things are going to be in there, and they have
that taint debuff and Donut is on board with this.
So this is when he discovers that the bicycle things
are actually blenders and he gets the smoothie recipe and
it's just like, oh, oh gross, but he doesn't say
out loud what it is yet. We find this out
later and he puts together, oh, okay, this is set
up so that we figure this out just before we
fight the boss. But I don't want to drink this thing.
Let's just not go in there. And then the door
just opens and the AI says bosses can leave their rooms.
Welcome to the second floor, bitches, and we Getaren the
Krakaren Clone Level ten neighborhood boss. First off, this isn't
the krak Karen. This is a Krakaren for everyone that
is killed. Krakheren prime births two more part of a
collective mind intent upon destroying any semblance of scientific progress
in the universe. The kra Karen is the only communal
brain entity in the galaxy who actually gets stupider as
time moves on. Consisting of multiple shrieking tentacles, members of
the k Karen Cooperative spend their days birthing their disease
laden minions, creating and selling harmful products, attempting to debate
scientific experts, and proselytizing to the weak minded, all in
an attempt to well, nobody knows what the hell their
end goal is. I swear to God, I know that
there is a lot in here that like I should
probably take issue with. But it's very difficult because you guys,
if this isn't also partially very very true, I don't
know what is the rise. And if you are listening
to this and you yourself are an anti vaxxer and
you had an issue with this representation, I am so sorry.
But maybe look at the fact that you're an anti
vaxxer and just like reevaluate what that means, because it's
incredibly foolish and shortsighted and self centered and just it's
fucking twenty twenty five. Grow up. But I so part
of the thing for me is that Karen is something
that actually this like has evolved into what we just
call difficult women, especially difficult white women. But what it
had used to be was a particular type of white
women who would bully oftentimes black women, sometimes black people
in general. And it really was like the type that
would see a black person walking in their neighborhood and
like call the cops. That was what Karen originally meant.
And then over time it just became the thing that
people just called a woman that was annoying them, and
so it really lost its like ultimate meaning. But I
still think that it applies here because honestly, if I'm
thinking Karen now, I definitely also have like racist and
anti vaxer together. Apologies if your name is Karen. That's
just something that happens sometimes. But I just really, uh,
I understood exactly what he was doing, and I couldn't
help but support. So I am this this thing. He
has to make the smoothie, and he has to he
describes trying to get the fairy into the bottle that
he will use to make the blender like shoving a
uh what is it that he says, I'm sorry, guys,
I'm trying to remember. I think he says, like a
shoving a cornish game hen into a bottle. Oh. Here
it is trying to stuff us a cornish game hen
into a thermos, which her body is like still warm.
The whole way that he literally has to consume the
enemy to make this work is so gross and so bonkers.
So he blends it and then he has to drink it.
And the description here it was it tasted as if
I'd taken a drink directly from the diseased asshole of
an incontinent skunk. It took all of my strength not
to vomit, honestly, that is vivid. I have to hand
it to him, and of course he winds up getting buzzed,
which later on, as he is feeling this, he's like, wow,
what is this shit face? Deep Buff like, because I
feel fucked up right now actually, and the two of
them are having to like fight these things while there's
a weird sort of shaky cam at Deep Buff that
happens where he's like, woozy, my health already in the
red moved further down. The monster didn't seem to realize
what it has. I watched as it grasped on the
last standing chloricon wrapping around him. The mouths stopped screaming,
all revealing long, sharp teeth as they pulled the shrieking
monster back into the boss room, chewing. It returned a
moment later, blood dripping from the mouths, which resumed their catterwall.
And then there is a tentacle with just orifices. A longer,
thinner arm reached into the room and made a noise
like a spray bottle. A fine green mist filled the chamber.
You've been infected with the vigorous measles infection negated due
to immunity. At this point, Donut says, if we die,
I want you to know that I love you, Carl.
I don't love you as much as I love Miss
Beatrice because she's you know, she's my person, or as
much as I love Ferdinand, But I love you focus, Donut,
I said. I tried not to let what she'd said sting,
but it did. Who the fuck was Ferdinand? Anyway? B
was going to give you up, Donut. She was giving
you up, trading you in for a younger model. But
I didn't say it, not out loud. Now was not
the time for that conversation. Never was that time for
the con was the time for that conversation, not anymore,
but especially not now, not when Bee was fucking dead.
This was so interesting because I really got the impression
that b was like obsessed with donut and knowing that
she was going to trade up. First of all, what
precisely does that mean? Was she going to put donut down?
I have to assume not that wasn't it right giving
you up? I would The thing is, though, what like
he was fighting to keep donut when he felt like
be or her father would definitely come after him to
take donut away, which doesn't exactly align with she was
going to give you up. I don't know, but I
this like, honestly, the picture that he keeps painting of Beatrice,
you really do start to be like, Carl, what did
you like about her? Guy? What about her made you
want to stay at all? It just seems like there
was very little to recommend her. You know, everything that
he has been saying about his time with her has
been riddled with her being like incredibly selfish or just
you know, a shitty person, and then finding out that
he was cheating on her, that she was cheating on
him with multiple people. Also, you know, there's just are
that I'm like, maybe this is part of him having
a father who is such a bully that he winds
up seeking out the familiar, which is a bully. Maybe
it's just that simple that she felt like a familiar
type due to the fact that she It's an interesting
thing that I'm reading this other book right now and
somebody says, are you happy? And the person says yes.
And they say, but you make other people unhappy, and
the person says, yes, I think that's also true. And
they said, okay, so you make other people unhappy, but
you are still happy. That is significant. And the person replies, well,
everybody is in charge of their own destiny. Basically, whether
other people are happy is really up to them, not me.
And the psychiatrist they're speaking with says, well, but you
are driven and intelligent. You're a more powerful person than
a lot of people out there. And they sort of
shrug and are like, well yeah, and they say the
psychiatrist says, so taking that is truth. This means that
you have a certain amount of power and you use
it to make other people unhappy, which means you're a bully.
Because if you have a certain amount of power and
you have the like you inherently have the choice of
either protecting people who are less powerful than you or
exploiting them. And you're choosing to exploit them, You're a bully.
And unless you're a sociopath, and I don't think you are,
Someday you are going to have to reckon with the
fact that this is how you've chosen to live your life.
It's going to catch up with you. And the person
they're speaking with just has a moment of like, you know,
that thousand yard stare into the distance of like realizing
what he is saying is true, and then gets kind
of angry because he truly like fucking read them for
filth basically. And so this is what like I'm wondering
about b is, Like was she just such a dynamic
and driven person that she sort of overwhelmed him? You know?
Because I could see how that could happen. I think
I have been that person for some people. And you
just tolerate a lot if you have been taught during
other portions of your life to tolerate a lot. But
I can't help but wonder if like, as this goes on,
he's gonna start asking himself the same question, like why
was I with her? I don't even remember you know,
and reminder, it doesn't seem like Donut has any real
concept that she's dead, so he isn't telling Donut she
was going to trade you up, but he's not telling
her because B is dead and Donut doesn't know that
B is dead. So he's probably going to have to
eventually have that conversation. Also that just like, I mean,
maybe he won't. I don't know. I feel like, how
long can this possibly be sustained? Though? It will have
to come up at some point because there's been so
many mentions via the AI of like, oh, so and so,
too bad, they're probably dead, you know. I feel like
there has to eventually come a moment where either Donut
puts two and two together and has kind of a meltdown,
or where Donut confesses that she has been in denial
but she is perfect aware that B is probably dead.
You know. Anyway, this the way that this fight eventually goes.
He overdoes it with the dynamite. Donut is immediately like
I thought you said the explosion was going to be
too big to use it in here. I looked at
my health already perilously low. Donut didn't have a scratch
on her it probably is, and I'm probably about to die,
but I think you'll be okay, Carl. No, No, it's okay.
Go back to Brandon. They'll watch over you. I wrapped
myself around the cat. I don't want to do this
without you, Carl, I lied before. I won't be fine
on my own. I need you. No, no, I couldn't
answer her before the explosion came. I feel like him
doing this is really going to uptick their popularity. He
was very willing to sacrifice himself and doing that for
a pet is going to earn you a lot of points.
It just is, it really will. And also I do
have to mention that, like he just had his feelings
hurt by Donut saying that, like, I love you not
as much as be but you know, there is some
part of me that's like, do you feel like you
have to prove something, buddy, because that's the vibe I'm
getting here A little bit is like I'll show you
she was going to trade you up, but I'll literally
die for you, even though it's not like she's gonna
like understand this comparison that's happening. But still, I it
did enter my mind that maybe he had something to prove,
That's all I'm saying. And he doesn't die, he does
have his legs broken, and when he wakes up, his
your drums are busted and she's yelling and he can't
hear her, so she has to speak to him through
the chat and tells him we killed the boss. That
doors open, but the fire is getting closer. Hurry, and
eventually she has to drag him, which it's super lucky
that her strength is as high as it is. And
she says something about how he needs to work on
his cardio, but as we know, he's actually in pretty
solid shape, so that's probably not it. He's probably real
heavy because he's muscular. But yeah, this is delightful and precious.
It's like it didn't even occur to him to not
do this for Donut. This is a hero, straight up.
I awakened my body screaming. I felt everything inside of
me repair itself. Donut had used one of the healing scrolls,
possibly at the last possible second. I jammed down on
my healing spells, also was sped up the process. I
felt my hearing return, my sight restored, the burn on
my face smoothed out. I didn't move for several moments,
sitting there staring up the ceiling of the hallway. You
saved me again, I said to the cat, that's what
I do, donut. I don't want to say this out loud,
but our views went way up. Isn't it great? I
really do love that. She just can't help but type
in all caps all the time. It's just her. She's
a little bit of a boomer. It's fine. I think
I was saved by that damn pedicure kit. I said,
the table should have severed my feet right at the angles.
Instead it bounced off and broke my legs. I would
have bled out. I it's like the idea that it
would break it broke his legs, but that it would
have been worse if he let you know what I'm saying.
That is really scary to me. The idea of like,
you die because you bled out when your legs got
cut off. Friends, that's that's a really awful way to die.
I just there's something about your feet and how essential
they are for like our survival in certain circumstances that
whenever that's the thing that goes first, I have a
very intense visceral reaction similar thing to like, there's some
horror movie where the bad guy is hiding under a
car and he slices their achilles tendons as they're walking by,
and so they just can't get up and run, and
it's just its bad. So what I'm saying is, even
though the AI is a creep, a kind of a
appreciate that it's protecting his feet the way that it is,
because it feels like that's actually a lot more valuable
than Carl completely understands. So let's see they Oh, yeah,
they're looking at the Kirkaeren and uh, he says, I
suspected the Kirkeren Collective was a real thing the whole
time it had seen they were just combining absurd stereotypes
from Earth with random monsters just to fuck with us.
It came to me, now as I stared up at
this thing, that they were doing the opposite. This is
really for the benefit of the audience, not us. They
were taking something familiar to the viewers, like these interstellar
dumbass octopus monsters and combining them with an Earth analog
in an effort to both teach the watchers about Earth
culture and to lampoon Interstellar cultures and creatures they felt
deserving of scorn, kind of like the way cartoonists would
sometimes personify rats and snakes as scumbags, or foxes as
shady used car dealers, or persian cats as princesses. And
this is when he sees on the map fifty brindle
grubs at least heading toward them, which makes sense later
why when they open the door there are so many
right there. So they go to the safe room or
the Tutorio guild sorry, and Mordecai is there, and he
is incensed about what Odette said, and he says, I
want to note I would rather spend another two thousand
years in this room another. You say, that's a long time,
read that fine print when the time comes, Carl, That's
all I'm saying. I'd rather meet a woman's sire children
and then devour those children and then have anything to
do with her again. He, by the way, is no
longer a rat hooligan. He is a bugaboo, which is
essentially some kind of like creepy rapist monster. And he
can only say, like stay away from Alley's at night
on the third floor, which Carl responds to with like
night because they don't have night and day, and he says,
I can't tell you about that, and we get this,
like mentioned later that since they are popular, and since
people can see inside the tutorial guilds like they do
film in here, now that there is more attention on them,
he can't play as fast and loose with giving them
hints as he used to be able to do. And
I for one, am devastated. Now it's going to have
to be a lot more in code. He was doing
his best to help. I believe he still will do
his best to help. Obviously getting them to the fourth
Floori's paramount to him. But I just hate that now
he is more restricted than he was. It is kind
of like a smart idea, though, to put these things
together for the sake of like, yes, it's an advantage
for them to level up and to get more eyes
on them and get more popular, But there is also
a different downside, and that is their guy isn't going
to be able to help them the same way anymore.
So the let's see if she invites us back on
the show, Should we go? Oh, you should go. Her
program is one of the few I would recommend, not
that they give you much of a choice, and later
on we find out about like the way that this
is going to be handled, and they're actually going to
get their own pr agent. This is when he mentions
Damien it was a mob of fairy she called for
him just before we killed her. Those damn theories. They're
always getting themselves in trouble. Damien is a local manager.
Each city area has one. There are only three for
this floor. He's my manager's manager. You're not supposed to
see or know about him. I'm only allowed to tell
you about the sort of stuff if you asked directly.
We spent some time talking about the borough Boss fight
and the last fight with the kirk Karen, but it's
very clear they're going to see another kirk Karen in
the future. I asked him about Agatha, about them editing
her out. He waved it off. They probably didn't want
to confuse the narrative again. I could sense there was
more there. I tried not to let my frustration show.
I told him my theory about how they were combining
real aliens with Earth stereotypes. Mordecai looked equally frustrated. He paused,
as if thinking hard, that's mostly correct again, it's not
really something I can disc But this isn't exactly some
big secret either. Some of these monsters are made by AI,
some are simply the actual creatures from their world, the
Tuskling's ball of swine, for example, and some like you've
deduced or created by a team of writers. Like anything
that's been put together by a team, what you end
up with can vary wildly. Those lamas, for example, they're
unique to your planet, and I don't recall anything in
your culture that suggests they should be anthropomorphized as drug
dealing gang bangers. Someone just thought it'd be an interesting combo.
Not everything will be social commentary. It's usually just stupid,
I muttered. It's entertainment, Mordecai said, once again, reminding me
of something Odette had said. There was a much deeper
story there between those two. I wondered if I'd ever learn.
I just love that this is basically the author being like, hey, guys,
don't try and analyze all of my weird creatures, because
it's not going to do anything that's not like, you know.
That's just very much what it felt like to me
was him just giving us a little bit of a
nod and being like, yo, I know that y'all are
going to want to find meaning in all of these
and kind of don't bother, which I think is like
it didn't even occur to me to try and look
further into the lamas. They're delightful, bad lama. I mean,
it's fantastic, and that is it, and I just immediately
moved on and never thought any more about it. So
apparently that was the right instinct new achievement Dragon Dono. Sorry,
dungeon preneur, you've invented a stackable weapon device or potion.
You will be memorialized for eternity with your name in
the Dungeon Codex. Just don't let it go to your head,
ey lawn. For every kill made with this device by
other crawlers, you will receive a single gold coin. If
you survived the Dungeon. You will continue to receive this
benefit even during future seasons at the current gold to
credit exchange rate, for the remainder of your natural life.
Our lawyers made us put that last part in, but
between you and me, we both no, you're going to
die and or going to keep using your hard work
for our own benefit, which if that isn't the truest
fucking thing, just the idea like this is so, this
is completely on brand, he says, interesting, it was too
bad nobody else would ever use these things. The main ingredient,
the jug of moonshine, was probably pretty rare. I was like,
I don't know, dude, I bet that that's not as
rare as you think it is. There's a mention at
one point about like on floors, what three, six nine,
it's like every multiple of three that there are like
stills or something. I feel like maybe he will make
some money off of this. I don't know. He opens
the boss box. Don't say anything, don't say anything out loud.
I couldn't help it. I looked up at the ceiling
really fucking really behind me. Mordecai laughed, but a moment
later he added, well, that's actually a really good prize.
It was a white pair of boxers covered in little
red hearts. God damn it, I muttered as I examined them.
This is delightful. First of all, I believe on the
cover he is depicted as wearing white boxers with little
red hearts, and I assumed that this was simply the
artist interpretation of him having been outside in boxers, and
I was like, oh, that makes sense that you would
put him in that for like the comedic effect of
the drawing. I never thought about the fact that, like, no,
this is an actual item that he is going to
get later on. So that's delightful. And uh, the have
the enchanted Big Boy Boxers as the name. Have you
ever read an Incredible Hulk comic? I thought to yourself,
everything rips off his body except his pants. No way. Well,
spoiler alert, You're not wrong. Size altering and wear creatures
such as the Big Boy are required to wear enchanted
self sizing items lest they wish to turn the dungeon
into a nudist colony when they transform. That means everything
they wear requires an enchantment everything including their naughty little
undies plus two to constitution. Wearer may cast a level
fifteen protective shell once every thirty hours and duration five
seconds plus one second per level of spell target three
meter radius plus fifty centimeters of radius per level of intelligence.
A favorite of frontline tanks and castle guards, The expensive
and rare protective shell spell shields a caster and anyone
within the sphere from a mob's physical presence or physical attacks.
This spell does not protect against magic or against non
corporeal entities. This shield spell does not move with you.
This spell's area of effect remains static once cast, unimpas
by your physical surroundings. So if you use the spell
only when you really really need it, you're probably only
delaying me inevitable by a few seconds. And Mordecai starts
to say it has a fantastic secondary effect since the
spell doesn't move once cast, you can and then they
get interrupted by the arrival of a kuatine and I
was so annoyed. And of course, at the end of
the conversation, like Carl's just about to open the door
and walk out, he does not remember to ask Mordecai.
So what I keep trying to like determine is how
you would use something like this to protect, Like if
you can leave the area that it is in, is
it possible to use it as like a solid object somehow?
Even if you could, though, who cares because he's got
a bunch of other things in his inventory that he
can actually use the solid objects because they are solid objects.
So what advantage is that serve? I'm trying to like
imagine using it to sort of I don't know there's
something here, and I'm very interested to see if Carl
figures it out. So chapter thirty six, the Kuatine is
two feet tall and she is wearing a particular type
of water tank over her head that Mordecai mentions is
like really antiquated and says, why are you wearing this?
And she says because of the armor. If other people
want to come down here without protection, that's their business.
And when Mordecai is sort of like, I really don't
think you need to worry about danger down here, she says,
tell that to those twelve workers in site prep. Did
you see this morning's update they were swallowed whole or
that human admin who didn't realize the no urinating in
the dungeon rule applied to everyone, they said, All that
was left was splatter on the floor. I really enjoy this,
as well as her little monologue that she gets later,
all of this serving to remind us that even though
these people work for the enemy, they aren't getting treated
any better. They are just as subject to the fucking
whims of the folks in charge as everybody else. Now
there's a caveat here. It's not it's difficult because here's
the thing that happens. It makes sense, fully that you
begin to have sympathy for other people who are also
being put in an impossible position. And I think you should,
and I think if you don't, there's something weird about
you that you need to examine. However, I also feel
that this is another tactic of the people in charge,
is that they make you feel responsible for the other
folks who are at your level in a way that
they don't feel responsible themselves, even though they are actually responsible.
And what I'm saying is, for example, let's say you
work somewhere that's understaffed, and they keep telling you they're
going to hire more people, and they keep not doing that,
and so every day you're always just a little behind
all fucking day and super stressful. And then one day
you're sick and you go to call in and your
boss is kind of shitty about the fact that you know,
we're shorthanded and you're just leaving us in the lurch.
What about your friends here, you're letting them down? Well, no,
I'm not. You know that people have to call out sometimes,
and you've been saying you will hire people, and then
you don't. Now it's my problem. Oh really, but it's not.
It's fucking not. It's their problem. And they just pretend
it's your problem because you're the one being exploited, so
you're the one that's going you know. And the guilt
trip here is very very effective on those of us
who feel some sort of obligation to our fellow workers
a lot of the time. And so that was what
occurs to me when she Odette mentions that Mordecai needs
them to get to the fourth floor in order for
like his inventured servitude to be up. It just felt
to me like, oh, the pressure is on, not just
for yourself but also for him, and that feels like
really manipulative. And then here finding out that, like all
of these other people who are involved in this thing,
she is literally she says, her family is being held
basically at gunpoint, that if she fucks up, her whole
family is going to die. So she is in almost
a worse position than Karl in some ways, because Carl
at least he's got nobody left but Donut, and this
woman has a lot more left to lose. I say, woman,
you know whatever. So it's like everybody is getting fucked
here in this way that is, it's just so like
that there's just so many levels of manipulation in it
that it's it's really gross that the people who seem
to have no empathy can use empathy as a weapon
this way. It's just deeply fucked up. Anyway, she explains
to them that she is going to be their new
pr agent because they are popular enough that the requests
for interviews are going to get kind of like too much.
And she says, they make me come down here and
talk to you directly after interviews for a deep briefing,
and Donat of course, is super excited and is like, oh,
can we provide advanced riders like with makeup and green
room requirements? Which I would love if they could do that.
This question does not really really get answered, but I
would like to cover this later because who knows what
advantages you could get if you set that up. Carl
is much more like, okay, so can we just like
not interview then? Is that something we're allowed to like
just turn down? And she's like yeah, but Odette has
contracted with us, so she gets first right of refusal
and you're locked into those you'll go on her show
if you keep your numbers up. You can refuse what
show you go on, but I'm afraid you'll be obligated
to pick something. We might move to three interviews for
the lower floors, depending on how it's going. Whatever happens,
I promise I'll do my best to get you quality gigs.
For this first one. I went ahead and chose a
program for you. It's a little less serious than Odath's show,
but we'll hit a demographic you aren't yet trending in.
I less serious like Odath's show is fluff. So what
is less serious like? I'm concerned. It's a round table
style discussion. And in this program, all crawlers get a
parting gift. Sometimes it's a joke, but it's usually something
useful a gift. Donut, said Carl. We get a gift.
I am so donut, you guys. As soon as she
was like, and you get a present, I was like, ooh, presence.
I swear to God, you guys, it's just I am
what I am? Are we doing this now? I asked?
No Zev said, I'll pin you when it's time. It'll
be at minus six plus one full. I felt a sudden,
unexpected wave of rage at this fishwoman. It came out
of nowhere, and I didn't know what set it off.
I couldn't help it. She was the enemy and I
couldn't do anything about it. So she like explains, six
hours before the next recap, not the one tonight, but
the next one, so in about forty hours, you should
try to line up a major boss battle right as
the floor closes, like you did last time. That really
worked in your favor. That rage, which I thought I
had successfully held back, bubbled up and out and he
loses his shit and he is like, with respect, fuck you,
we are literally just trying to stay alive, and you're
worried about when we schedule boss battles when they apparently
can fucking just leave their rooms, by the way, so
it's not like it's that much up to them. I
am doing what you have asked. I am killing monsters,
trying to level up, trying to survive. I will smile,
and I will joke, and I will put a proper face.
I'm when we go on these shows. But fuck, you
have already taken everything from us. Do not ask us
to give more than what we have. We are not
going to fight or survive on your schedule. Look, she said,
after a moment, I know, Okay, nobody in this room
is an idiot. The moment I appeared, he was terrified
of me. Once he saw I wasn't wearing a party badge,
he relaxed. When I'm done here, I go back down
to the production headquarters not have to face my boss,
who is a member of the party. If I do
or say the wrong thing, my entire family will be
wiped from the universe. You're going out there to kill
and face mobs who know people like you are prowling
the holes trying to find and kill them. The sapient
ones live in constant fear of you. Guys. We are
all parts of the same inexorable machine. All of us
are afraid. Yes, your place in this really sucks. It's
not fair. You know it. I know it. The cat
knows it. But believe it or not, I am on
your side. The better you do, the longer you survive,
the better I do. So when I tell you that
you should do something, you best listen because I know
what I'm talking about. This is just like that scene
in season three ye Gossip Girl when Chuck and Blair
break up over the Hotel Doughnut said, I turned to
regard the cat on my shoulder and I burst out laughing.
I couldn't help it. It wasn't funny. I never watched
that damn show yet I laughed, and I had a
hard time stopping. No, it's not, Mordecai said a moment later.
How do you even get that from this? Zev turned
her fish gaze to my cat, and then Mordecai, I
can't believe it. You too have watched Gossip Girl. Nobody
on my team has watched anything except that old Cops
and Judge Judy. We've been stuck here for fifteen solars
with nothing for entertainment but earth based programs, and I've
had nobody to talk to about them. You guys, I
love this so much for so many reasons. First of all,
I love the fact that sometimes Donuts like Charm is
seemingly sort of accidental. She just manages to connect with
Zev on this level, purely by mentioning Gossip Girl in
this like offhand way. I also love we are in
the midst of like a hostile government takeover, and I'm
here talking about this book to people who paid me
because they wanted to share it so badly, and other
people are here who have read it because they want
to hear me talk about it. This is like this
kind of thing, detaching from the horror of your current
situation and the world you live in by engaging in
like joint enjoyment of media is like my whole job.
That's what I do. And so for that to be
what kind of brings them together in this moment. It's
not that they are all in an equally garbage position.
It's that they have all watched this show and they
relay on that level, and this also takes their mind
off of things for a little bit. This is it,
This is it, This is how it goes. This just
fucking got to me, guys. You know it would. It's
my job, like I said, so, it's just really gonna
hit a particular nerve for me. But my lord, and
later on, when Zev says something like have you watched
what is it that, she says, uh, there's something some
other show that makes don't oh here it is. Tell
me you've watched Riverdale, which is a similar I've watched
gossip Girl. I have not watched Riverdale. Gossip Girl is
the kind of show that I enjoyed so much at
the time, and I have a feeling if I were
to try and watch it now, I would be so
disgusted that I wouldn't be able to get through it
because it's about people who have such extreme wealth that
it was just sort of fun to watch the rich
people at one point in my life, and now that's
not as much fun anymore. Riverdale is the seems like
type of like trashy drama, you know, So I feel
like I would kind of enjoy Riverdale in a weird
way because I that's Michael Is in the chat saying
Riverdale gets batshit crazy. That is what I have heard.
I've been spoiled on a few small points of Riverdale.
So anyway, just saying if anybody wants to commission that,
I'm open. And Mordecai takes a moment to talk to
Carl about how dangerous that was, and he brings up
the party and is basically like the closest thing you
would have is like access Japan with a good splash
of Nazi Germany. When I signed my Indentions Indentureship contract,
the Bloom represented less than fifteen percent of the votes.
Now they control the whole Kubatine government. They've run it
into the ground. The whole system is bankrupt, which is
part of what is so funny about a lot of
right wingers is that they whine and cry about taxes,
but they always wind up fucking bankrupting us, and then
we have to like, that's why we have to taxes, y'all,
don't mind Like, ugh, you know what, I'm not doing it.
I'm over time already as I was last time. I
really need to get it together. Listen carefully. We don't
have time to get into details. But Boren is being
forced by their own government to end the game as
quickly as possible. You need to be especially careful not
to upset them. I don't understand. I thought they started
it early to stave off a bankruptcy seizure action. That's
what Odent implied. Wouldn't they want to keep it running
as long as possible. That's what everyone thought at first.
They're doing a cash grab with a new patron system.
But they don't get that money or any money from
the advertising or the tourism funds or Elite Monster sponsorship
or anything else until the season is over. They need
that cash as soon as possible, but they also first
need to raise enough. Their whole system is balancing on
a wire. They need the game to be entertaining and profitable,
but they also needed to finish much more quickly than usual.
The committee has already issued a warn putting Boring on
notice over the bugs that keep occurring, like the issue
with the bathrooms and the overpowered mobs. One too many
violations and Born could lose everything. There are protections in place,
plus there's pushback within the company, but the Kuwatin government
is working extra hard to get you killed. That's just wonderful.
And this is when they're like, all right, time to
head out, let's do this. Zev has to leave before them.
And then they opened the door and a waste high
pile of grubs fell into the room. And that's the
end of the chapter. There's more I want to say,
but I don't have time. Kids, I'm gonna have to
save it till next time. All right, everybody, Thank you
all again so much for hanging out with me. Thank
you to Michael for commissioning this and commissioning the next
book as well. I'm very excited. I hope you all
are having fun listening I'm having fun reading, and until
next time, to the lou motherfuckers that was an unspoiled network.