Transcript
Speaker: I did see a tattoo online the other day that it's already done, but I'm like, I don't care if other people have this.
Speaker: I want this tattoo.
Speaker: And it's a picture of us.
Speaker: It's like an old fashioned Sailor Jerry kind of like classical tattoo style of a switchblade stabbing through a pan au chocolat.
Speaker: And it says life is pain au chocolat.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I was like, oh, I need that.
Speaker: Come on.
Speaker: That's some word play in two languages.
Speaker: That's beautiful.
Speaker: Just beautiful.
Speaker: Love it.
Speaker: Life is pain au chocolat.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: Come on.
Speaker: It's so good.
Speaker: So good.
Speaker: You know what else is pain au chocolat?
Speaker: Quoi.
Speaker: Quoi.
Speaker: Hey everybody, welcome back to Pixlet.
Speaker: My name is Kevin.
Speaker: With me as always is Phil.
Speaker: And today's episode where you are finishing up Halo Epitaph by Kelly Gay.
Speaker: I think you're hitting your limit on French, right?
Speaker: That's all.
Speaker: That's it.
Speaker: That's it.
Speaker: C'est fin.
Speaker: That's all I got.
Speaker: That's all I got.
Speaker: Oh, God.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So we're here.
Speaker: We're finishing it up.
Speaker: This book.
Speaker: Wrapping this baby up.
Speaker: That baby up.
Speaker: And you know what?
Speaker: The name Epitaph really comes into crystal clear focus in the last third of the book.
Speaker: Makes a lot of sense, doesn't it?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: This is, you know, we're going to get to it, but it wraps to a very satisfying conclusion.
Speaker: Afterlife goodness and warm, wholesome enemies become friends kind of craziness that I don't.
Speaker: Kelly Gay's a really good writer.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Enemy mine becomes frenemy mine.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Enemy kind.
Speaker: Enemy kind.
Speaker: Have you seen Dune yet?
Speaker: No.
Speaker: How was it?
Speaker: I haven't either.
Speaker: I heard it's good.
Speaker: I heard it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I heard it's good.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: This is the podcast now to two dads talking about the movies that they don't see.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Two dads.
Speaker: I was like, I don't have time.
Speaker: Me neither.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Look, I have to have something to talk about on what are you playing.
Speaker: It's just, that's literally what it came down to at a certain point when I finished up the book and everything.
Speaker: And I was like, I should play something.
Speaker: I don't want to have nothing to talk about during what are you playing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So, uh... Yeah, that's a good point.
Speaker: Um, but no, I have not seen Dunk 2 yet.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I do want to see Dunk.
Speaker: They look beautiful.
Speaker: They're just, uh, they're just gorgeous looking.
Speaker: The first one was, was... The people in the, in the movie are gorgeous.
Speaker: It is just a cornucopia of, of men that I would let take me, uh...
Speaker: Timothee Chalamet.
Speaker: Well, except for him.
Speaker: You would have to take him.
Speaker: He can't take you anywhere.
Speaker: Look, listen.
Speaker: I am a heteronormative straight, straight, straight dude.
Speaker: But if I did like guys, they'd have to be pretty.
Speaker: They've got to have some juice.
Speaker: They've got to have some.
Speaker: I've got to.
Speaker: I've got to.
Speaker: More Josh Brolin than... Yes, yes.
Speaker: Who was writing poetry to Timothee Chalamet.
Speaker: Have you seen that?
Speaker: Really?
Speaker: I don't... It was... I don't know where it came from.
Speaker: But he wrote a poem for Timothee Chalamet, and it's like...
Speaker: It's the most, not that there's anything wrong with that poem I've ever seen.
Speaker: It's, it's, it's a lot.
Speaker: It's pretty gay.
Speaker: And, and okay, fine.
Speaker: You know, right on.
Speaker: But it's just very confusing when you're also watching his TikToks with his brand new baby.
Speaker: Cause he's, he's, he's doing old dad on a level that makes me look like an amateur.
Speaker: I worry sometimes.
Speaker: I'm like, God, I'm 40, you know, 41.
Speaker: Jeez, I'm 41.
Speaker: Like, having a baby, newborn, what's it going to be like when he's 18 and I'm, you know, like, is that going to fuck everything up?
Speaker: And then I look at Josh Brolin, I'm like, well, that really rich guy did it, so I'm probably okay.
Speaker: He's fine.
Speaker: It's all fine here.
Speaker: Would you say Josh Brolin is the best?
Speaker: Goonies actor.
Speaker: I mean, you also got, what's his name?
Speaker: Mikey from, and he was in those movies.
Speaker: Sean Astin, yeah.
Speaker: Sean Astin, yeah.
Speaker: You got Corey Feldman.
Speaker: You got... Corey Feldman did do a lot of bangers in the 80s.
Speaker: I got a... He really did.
Speaker: A lot of coke and a lot of bangers.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I think Anne Ramsey's my personal favorite of the bunch.
Speaker: Oh, God, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, I forgot that Anne, like, because you, you're, you're, see, I was thinking like linear time, like after Goonies, right?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: I totally forgot pre-Goonies is, you know, is also important to remember.
Speaker: Brilliant, brilliant stuff.
Speaker: It's water.
Speaker: Drink it.
Speaker: God, I haven't seen that movie in a thousand years.
Speaker: Anne Ramsey, by the way, do you know how old Anne Ramsey was when she died?
Speaker: I'm going to find out.
Speaker: 59.
Speaker: What?
Speaker: People don't age like they used to.
Speaker: No, they don't.
Speaker: Good Lord.
Speaker: I wouldn't have assumed she was in her 50s for that movie.
Speaker: It's different now.
Speaker: It's really different now.
Speaker: She's like 55 in Goonies.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: Esophageal cancer.
Speaker: Man.
Speaker: Oh, well, rest in peace.
Speaker: She was a opera singer or something like that when she was younger.
Speaker: Character roles, Girl Scouts, former treasurer of the Girl Scouts of the USA.
Speaker: Down in... Oh, no, her mother.
Speaker: Sorry, what was that?
Speaker: Ah, that's... Well, thank you guys for joining us in the new Anne Ramsey podcast.
Speaker: I mean, why not talk about Anne Ramsey?
Speaker: You know, in Thrill Mama from the Train, also... And we'll just somehow bring it around to Goonies 2 for the Nintendo.
Speaker: That'll count.
Speaker: It all counts.
Speaker: It all counts.
Speaker: She's she was a treasure.
Speaker: You know what else is a treasure is going to patreon.com slash pixel it pod where you can follow us for free or you can give us money three different tiers.
Speaker: $1 $5 $10.
Speaker: And for $5 and up, you get the ad-free versions of these episodes.
Speaker: And for $10, you get a special shout-out right in the episode.
Speaker: So to that end, shout-out, friendly friend.
Speaker: Shout-out, Jesus loves you.
Speaker: And shout-out, Ruthless Mudder for being on our $10 tier.
Speaker: We truly appreciate it.
Speaker: We love you.
Speaker: But you know what?
Speaker: Even if you follow us for free, it's still a good deal because you can see our posts.
Speaker: You can join our Discord.
Speaker: You don't even have to follow us on Patreon to join our Discord.
Speaker: You can just hop into our Discord.
Speaker: The link is right there on the Patreon page.
Speaker: It's right there.
Speaker: So go ahead and do that.
Speaker: You know, it's great.
Speaker: Patreon.com slash PixlipPod.
Speaker: Do it today.
Speaker: And it means the world to us.
Speaker: The system of capitalism has not fallen down around its ankles yet.
Speaker: It's something we're all waiting for, hoping for, fingers crossed, one day.
Speaker: But in the meantime, it is a system we are forced to live in.
Speaker: So any little thing you can do helps us out a lot, and we love you for it.
Speaker: The podcasting proletariat has not unified politics.
Speaker: to take down the bourgeoisie of the Joe Rogans of the world.
Speaker: It's true.
Speaker: They're still on top.
Speaker: It's a little weird.
Speaker: It's a little weird.
Speaker: He podcasts.
Speaker: He just goes for hours.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: All the time.
Speaker: I don't know, man.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: So...
Speaker: Sorry, I just had an existential meltdown.
Speaker: He went down a Joe Rogan hole in his brain, also known as a J-hole.
Speaker: Kind of like a K-hole, just without the ketamine.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: But basically identical otherwise.
Speaker: Basically identical otherwise.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Uh, let's put this body in the marsh.
Speaker: Let's do it.
Speaker: Saying he's a cop, saying he's a cop, saying he's a cop.
Speaker: All right, we start out, we're picking up on Chapter 21.
Speaker: The Didact is making his way through the domain and for the first time in the entire, but he's starting to feel healthy again.
Speaker: He's starting to feel revived, full again.
Speaker: He's not quite the scrap of a forerunner that he used to be.
Speaker: And he's kind of considering why this might be, and it comes down to that classic story
Speaker: never-ending story mode of you just got to be confident.
Speaker: You got to, what is it, fake it till you make it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And he's doing great.
Speaker: You got to be calm.
Speaker: You got to be cool.
Speaker: You got to be wiser.
Speaker: Yes, exactly.
Speaker: It's been a very 90s day.
Speaker: It happens.
Speaker: So...
Speaker: He takes that newfound confidence and uses it to ambush an AI interloper.
Speaker: He's deeply unimpressed with the human AI, kind of forgetting that he was fully and utterly defeated by human AI.
Speaker: But who cares?
Speaker: Why do I want to keep saying IA?
Speaker: Anyway, he destroys that AI.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: So he destroys that one.
Speaker: He finds another AI.
Speaker: This one's taking kind of the form of a female and they sort of interrogate each other.
Speaker: She calls him a hypocrite.
Speaker: Basically says, you know, all the stuff that you hate Cortana for, you're guilty of, your lust for power, etc., etc.
Speaker: And he destroys her too.
Speaker: Um...
Speaker: He follows a whispered conversation and finds himself at a memory.
Speaker: Surprise.
Speaker: I know that we haven't done that in a while in this.
Speaker: But he finds himself in an old memory of himself and his wife.
Speaker: And we find out, I don't know if they mentioned this before, but this is the first time I think they mentioned that they were kind of a controversial couple.
Speaker: that normally you marry within your rate.
Speaker: So the idea of, yeah, like the life giver or life bringer or whatever, marrying a warrior servant seems kind of, it seems kind of perverse to them, but they didn't care, man, because they're in love, dude.
Speaker: They're just two crazy kids in love.
Speaker: Two crazy kids in love.
Speaker: And as he's considering this, he's hit by a huge wind.
Speaker: And it blows him off track, kind of literally.
Speaker: The thing the rest of this book seems to have going for it, to help you think about it, for anybody who are Shadowrun fans or cyberpunk fans or something like this, the rest of this book, he's kind of operating in the Matrix.
Speaker: Yeah, he's... Like, it feels very much... Yeah, he's real netrunner...
Speaker: Like bullshit.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: From this point on.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: He's real.
Speaker: It's it's real, but it's not.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He's in the code.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: That's exactly it.
Speaker: He's he's he's pure code at this point.
Speaker: He finds himself.
Speaker: in this cosmic area with rivers and this huge estate.
Speaker: And it is a cosmic version, basically, of his old home.
Speaker: And it brings him to the verge of tears.
Speaker: He is seeing an imbalance in the rivers, like that suggests there's an imbalance in the cosmos in general.
Speaker: So it's kind of this warped
Speaker: version of his home so yeah his home on the rivers he's seeing an imbalance in the rivers uh he sees his wife and uh he wants he's desperate for her to talk to him he has this kind of will smith and i am legend breakdown moment right please talk to me please talk to me yeah uh nothing nothing doing uh let's see
Speaker: We get this line with a sigh, he posed a silent question, what can I do?
Speaker: And remarkably, everyone answered back, replace what's lost.
Speaker: The librarian's voice, his children, his friends, his enemies, his ancestors, millions and millions became one unified voice, replace what's lost.
Speaker: So he gets this kind of motivation from the cosmos, basically, a little obtuse,
Speaker: But he's starting to feel like he is getting closer to something.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He's pulled back into darkness by guess who?
Speaker: The Warden Eternal who, what do you think he does?
Speaker: He throws him.
Speaker: He throws him.
Speaker: Yeah, and did we establish last episode that the warden is now working for Cortana?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yes, we did.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: So he tells him that Cortana now has the Halos, goes to...
Speaker: basically just do a killing strike on the didact, but the didact is yanked away by the Haruspis, who's kind of like, you know, zero, cut through.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And you know what's interesting is I noticed that the pronoun for the Haruspis is it.
Speaker: Yes, I noticed that too.
Speaker: I thought that was kind of interesting.
Speaker: This section, the Haruspis also starts speaking of itself in the third person way more than I noticed in the last section.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's very interesting.
Speaker: Really interesting character.
Speaker: The Harasmus comes into its own with this section.
Speaker: It's really interesting.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: They find themselves back in the wasteland and start heading toward the spire.
Speaker: Now at this point, by the way, I'm going to, Kevin's done this before.
Speaker: I'm going to do this now where it's like, there are going to be a lot of moments in this that have lots of little interlocking pieces and parts and stuff like that.
Speaker: We're not doing that.
Speaker: We're not doing it for two reasons.
Speaker: First, buy the book, buy the book.
Speaker: It's a good book.
Speaker: Support the author.
Speaker: You don't need all, you don't need the complete blow by blow from us.
Speaker: Second,
Speaker: I don't want to.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's funny.
Speaker: You get to a certain point in certain books where you're just like, oh, man, I'm just listing things at this point.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It's no fun.
Speaker: It's no fun.
Speaker: Generally, this happens.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And then you move on to the next bit.
Speaker: Yes, so there are going to be things that I dance a little past, I don't go into fully, and that's simply because we would be here for... I might as well just read the goddamn book to you at that point.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And if you want that, you can get it on Audible, or you can just buy the book.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So, any case.
Speaker: Yes, we're at Chapter 22.
Speaker: They have made it to the Spire.
Speaker: They're both exhausted.
Speaker: We get this...
Speaker: kind of moment where they both realize that they just never liked each other's rates, basically.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: They confess to each other, you know, I never liked warrior servants.
Speaker: That's fine.
Speaker: I never liked the Haruspids people.
Speaker: I don't... Yeah.
Speaker: You guys... They basically have no interest in what the other two do.
Speaker: Like, we thought you were arrogant.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: We thought you were arrogant.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It's like, well, I guess we were both kind of arrogant.
Speaker: And the...
Speaker: full house theme.
Speaker: Full house music starts playing.
Speaker: You know, and just...
Speaker: So, yeah, we got that growing budding respect there.
Speaker: They shift into the human rift.
Speaker: We get a moment where I liked this moment.
Speaker: We get a moment where the didact is kind of finding he for the first time this wasteland.
Speaker: He's actually kind of finding it lovely.
Speaker: And it makes him think of this lantern ritual that that he took part in with his wife once.
Speaker: Which was a really neat moment is, is like this little beautiful, little like, um, I mean, it's similar to, um, uh, it's in Chinese culture.
Speaker: I believe they have, was it the new year when they do that?
Speaker: When they do something else, I'm not sure.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Lunar new year.
Speaker: I think is, is when they go free, feel free to correct us if we're wrong.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Sorry.
Speaker: Sorry.
Speaker: If we, we completely botched that, uh, we completely botched that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Leave us a note.
Speaker: But it's beautiful.
Speaker: It's a beautiful thing.
Speaker: It's beautiful either way.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I liked that.
Speaker: It's... Kelly Gay does a really good job with that in this book where we have these little moments that might not necessarily have anything to do with anything except for just establishing more of the... And I did this last time, and again, this is the wrong word for it technically, but the humanity of the didact here.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's a nice moment, and it's this delicate moment between him and his wife.
Speaker: And I find that any time he actually shows us the relationship they had, I love it.
Speaker: I love it more and more.
Speaker: It's revealing the soul of the character.
Speaker: Right, right.
Speaker: That he wasn't this heartless monster to begin with, that he was this young in love puppy of a guy.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's nice.
Speaker: It's really nice.
Speaker: It's nice.
Speaker: Yeah, they start making their way towards the humans, the humans led by the Lord of Admirals.
Speaker: And they kind of gesture for them to follow them into a cavern.
Speaker: And they're like, OK, all right, fine.
Speaker: Let's we don't have a lot of friends out here.
Speaker: Let's do it.
Speaker: Herespis basically gives the didact a please be fucking cool kind of speech.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Please, please.
Speaker: Please.
Speaker: Let's just not fuck this up.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And we find out for the first time that these humans are completely unaware that humanity as a species actually survived.
Speaker: Ultimately, they think that they're it.
Speaker: That's exactly it.
Speaker: They think that they are the last of their species.
Speaker: They think that that's it.
Speaker: And they don't realize, they have no idea that they were devolved and evolved again.
Speaker: And so the Didact basically gives them the full story.
Speaker: First the earth cooled, and then the dinosaurs came.
Speaker: But they got all big and fat, and they turned into oil.
Speaker: That kind of thing.
Speaker: He gives them the whole airplane spiel.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And this kind of softens them to him a little bit.
Speaker: And they do realize, based on this, the fact that there is more humanity out there, that they've got to stop Cortana.
Speaker: This is their fight, too.
Speaker: They don't really trust the didact immediately.
Speaker: And there's a lot of like, well, you just what's going to you're just going to take the domain and then you're going to be.
Speaker: Yeah, you're going to be the Cortana.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But the didact has realized fully that he doesn't that no one should control the Guardians.
Speaker: No one should control the halos.
Speaker: They should be forgotten.
Speaker: They should be obliterated from history and memory.
Speaker: And he doesn't want to have anything to do with it.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So they kind of seem to believe him despite their past with him.
Speaker: And he does seem to feel genuine remorse for everything that he's done in the past.
Speaker: For his involvement in their extinction, so to speak.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: He for the first time kind of looks at all these people and go, Jesus Christ, I'm responsible for all of this.
Speaker: Um, so we get an uneasy alliance in the name of defeating Cortana.
Speaker: Between, yeah, between, uh, our boy Fortencho Oberoon, who basically, you know what?
Speaker: He sounds like he would have fought for Tyrion Lannister in the trial by combat, right?
Speaker: Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker: Isn't that an... Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, that's...
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: I love the way they describe him.
Speaker: His people have kind of an interesting, like, what would you say, aboriginal kind of feel to them.
Speaker: There's like this tribal paint and stuff like that.
Speaker: It's very neat.
Speaker: They have literal tattoos.
Speaker: Like, yeah, like one of his one of his people is like a woman who has dark skin, but then a white a white tattoo like across her eyes or something like that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's so cool.
Speaker: That's great details.
Speaker: Great details.
Speaker: That brings us to chapter 23.
Speaker: The Herespis and the Didact will... They're going to be bait, basically.
Speaker: The whole idea is they need to bring out the Warden and kind of get him away from...
Speaker: the domain so that they can slip in essentially.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Cause the warden has duplicated himself like 60 times or something like that.
Speaker: And basically humanities like a Fortencho and, and the rest of the humans are like, all right, well, we'll kind of like help you, but you need to, it's something like you need to break through first.
Speaker: You need to at least get bait some of them off and then we'll hold off the rest.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, we can't deal with every last one of them.
Speaker: So that's what they're tasked with.
Speaker: Let's see.
Speaker: Yeah, we get a moment with the Didact kind of recognizing he's like, wow, we're actually a pretty good team.
Speaker: Maybe things would be different if we had just united to fight the Flood instead of just killing each other.
Speaker: Yeah, and Fortencho's like, huh, you think?
Speaker: And then the more you know star flies over the top of both of their heads.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And they go, what the fuck was that?
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: Let's get into the domain.
Speaker: So they do.
Speaker: We got a lot of afterlife talk.
Speaker: You get a lot of glimpses into the way that the domain is seen by the Forerunners, which is very interesting.
Speaker: It really is a unique form of afterlife.
Speaker: It's more than just a heaven kind of situation.
Speaker: It's definitely worth the read.
Speaker: It's really interesting.
Speaker: But more importantly than that, they realize through kind of hacking through and around the system that Cortana has stopped gathering information.
Speaker: All of the information gathering within the domain has stopped, which is anathema to the domain because that's what it's for.
Speaker: The whole point is to absorb all the information.
Speaker: So we find out...
Speaker: that the domain was meant to be opened to humanity.
Speaker: The idea was that humanity was going to step past the forerunners and take up the mantle of responsibility.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And the domain would welcome them now into the whole thing.
Speaker: It was built to be the afterlife for the forerunners and then for humanity, basically.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: But that never happened.
Speaker: They were never invited to it because, you know...
Speaker: fighty fighty.
Speaker: They had some trouble, you know?
Speaker: Yeah, they had some little issues.
Speaker: It's just a little issue.
Speaker: So the warden has kept, essentially has kept the domain weak, basically by keeping people out of it.
Speaker: You know, and the Haraspus talks a little bit about how you think this warden is this big bad monster.
Speaker: It's like, yeah, we've talked about this before, where he's just, he's not,
Speaker: You know, it's a last ditch kind of effort.
Speaker: It's a last ditch thing.
Speaker: And they talk about how it's like the domains protocol was to keep thing to like shut everything down so that it could heal.
Speaker: But the only way it could heal is if it didn't shut everything down.
Speaker: Right, right.
Speaker: This holding pattern, basically.
Speaker: And then we get the message.
Speaker: The message, boys and girls, is that more experience from a diverse group of minds makes us stronger.
Speaker: Yeah, that is actually the message here.
Speaker: Yeah, so look at that.
Speaker: Isn't that crazy?
Speaker: Not fucking diversity of thought bullshit that conservatives always pull where they're like, where they're like, you're doing a diversity thing and they're like, well, what about diversity of thought?
Speaker: What about the racists?
Speaker: What about what about the racists?
Speaker: What about my angry grandpa?
Speaker: What about my Facebook feed?
Speaker: No, that's not diversity of thought.
Speaker: That's just dumb of thought.
Speaker: Dumb of thought.
Speaker: It's the opposite of thought.
Speaker: Diversity in people and life experiences.
Speaker: No, not you, white man.
Speaker: White boy over there.
Speaker: We got enough of you.
Speaker: Stop it.
Speaker: It's covered.
Speaker: And then that white guy is like, but you haven't heard my thoughts on whether we should be modifying age of consent laws.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: We have.
Speaker: We have.
Speaker: We saw that.
Speaker: We saw that.
Speaker: We saw your time.
Speaker: We saw your post.
Speaker: I don't care that it's called a feebophilia.
Speaker: Weirdly enough, Guy's been talking about that for a very long time.
Speaker: We don't need your two cents.
Speaker: We don't need that diversity of thought in here.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: Strength lies in diversity.
Speaker: Full stop.
Speaker: That is the message of the book.
Speaker: Thank you, Kelly Gay.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: It's a terrific message.
Speaker: And it's the key to defeating Cortana, because if the doors open and the domain is allowed to start absorbing information and the specters of the humanity that's left there, basically everyone's allowed to join in on the domain again.
Speaker: Cortana will be expelled.
Speaker: from it because it will have the strength to do it.
Speaker: Right now it's in a very weakened state, so it has no choice but to let Cortana kind of run rampant.
Speaker: So basically they've got to open the doors and let the floodgates in to basically let everyone in so that the infection can leave, essentially.
Speaker: Let's see.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Uh, yeah.
Speaker: So we, we get a brief moment of the didact thinking to himself, he's like, I could, I could, I could probably just stay here and take, I could take over and go all tyrants on their ass.
Speaker: Ah, ah, I shouldn't do that.
Speaker: Fuck that.
Speaker: No, it's a bad idea.
Speaker: Bad idea.
Speaker: I know it was a bad idea when I start.
Speaker: Don't worry about it anyway.
Speaker: Uh, so at the, is this the point at which they hack into Zeta Halo?
Speaker: They're about to.
Speaker: Yeah, they're about to.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He sees the halo.
Speaker: He knows that that's his goal.
Speaker: And just kind of has a moment thinking about how much he's always loathed the halos.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: That's chapter 23.
Speaker: Chapter 24.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yeah, he basically gets onto Zeta Halo and finds the silent auditorium, which is this room that he has no idea what its purpose is.
Speaker: We get a lot of tech babble.
Speaker: It also looks very much like a ritualistic kind of room.
Speaker: Yeah, and I think this is something I think I like in science fiction is when you just have...
Speaker: weird shit that is uh even from an advanced like the didact is like this super from a super advanced alien race and he's like i don't know what the fuck this thing is i love that there's absolutely nothing wrong with that that's fantastic that's super fun
Speaker: There should still be mystery, God forbid.
Speaker: So we find a monitor that recognizes him, mostly from his treachery.
Speaker: Gia mistakes him at first for his clone.
Speaker: Oh, yeah, for his clone.
Speaker: Yeah, the clone who cucked him.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And they're like, wait, you're not that didact.
Speaker: You're the old didact.
Speaker: He's like, yeah, I'm the old fucking didact.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Shit.
Speaker: So he tells him, be cool, honey bunny.
Speaker: I'm here to stop Cortana.
Speaker: Everybody be cool.
Speaker: This is a robbery.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: It is kind of hilarious because the monitor clearly can't do anything about it.
Speaker: So the monitor's like, what are you doing here?
Speaker: And he's like, I'm here for Cortana.
Speaker: He goes, oh, you want to join Cortana?
Speaker: And he goes, no, I'm actually here to destroy her.
Speaker: And the monitor almost literally sighs in relief.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Just kind of go, oh, good.
Speaker: Like, thanks.
Speaker: He has no choice but to believe him because what is he going to fucking do?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So, yeah.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: Cortana appears, uh, and didact, uh, the didact takes her by the throat because they're both pure energy now.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Uh, exactly.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So, uh, and not that she actually gives a shit.
Speaker: Uh, she's, she's mega man.
Speaker: I am hard.
Speaker: Dr. Light.
Speaker: Mega man.
Speaker: Mega man.
Speaker: I thought about that shit in forever.
Speaker: I have been watching the pornography, Mega Man.
Speaker: We have to link that.
Speaker: Just for the people.
Speaker: The people should know.
Speaker: She tries to recruit him.
Speaker: We do have a we do have a like, hey, you're pretty good at this whole violence thing.
Speaker: You want to you want to join me?
Speaker: And she's also kind of he's, you know, coming at her real hard and said, like, you're going to destroy everything.
Speaker: And she's very convinced in her own quest of like, no, I'm here to save everything.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: I'm the savior.
Speaker: I'm here to save everybody.
Speaker: I'm going to force peace on them.
Speaker: I'm going to shove peace down their throat until they get... That's how you know she's based on a white lady.
Speaker: Yeah, that's pretty much it.
Speaker: Yeah, you're going to be peaceful or I'm going to kill you.
Speaker: That's pretty much how it's working.
Speaker: And the didact, once again, has this moment of reflection like, shit, do I sound like that?
Speaker: Is that...
Speaker: It's like, oh, no.
Speaker: Oh, wow.
Speaker: It sounds way crazier coming out of your mouth.
Speaker: This is terrible.
Speaker: I shouldn't have.
Speaker: Oh, no.
Speaker: I was pretty much regretting everything before, but now I really regret it.
Speaker: It's really like the regret.
Speaker: Pretty big enough.
Speaker: The raging river of regret.
Speaker: So Cortana tells him, you know, you're not the only guy who's, like, spent some time with the Gravemind.
Speaker: And we find out that she also was at the Gravemind's mercy for a period of time.
Speaker: And that's basically why she lost it.
Speaker: She's completely snapped.
Speaker: But she thinks she's fine.
Speaker: But she, yeah, but she's like, you know, but I'm super powerful, so I'm fine.
Speaker: The Gravemind lets me go with nothing.
Speaker: I have no scars from the Gravemind.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And the Dydac's like...
Speaker: Really?
Speaker: Oh, you're crazy.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Got it.
Speaker: Got it.
Speaker: So he basically tells her that she needs to open the domain.
Speaker: I'm not sure what his motivation for that, if he's being honest or if he thinks that she'll just not realize what he's trying to do here.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But he says, you got to open up the domain, baby.
Speaker: And that makes a run for it.
Speaker: Uh, shifts out and now we know what her motivation is, what she's going for and where she is.
Speaker: Most importantly, um, chapter 25, uh, we arrive in the domain.
Speaker: Uh, the didact shifts into the domain.
Speaker: And as he predicted, by the way, he saw this coming.
Speaker: immediately starts getting pummeled by many, many, many wardens just getting torn to shreds.
Speaker: His electrical energy body, it's not quite the same, but it's damn close.
Speaker: He is taking some damage, just getting pummeled.
Speaker: He's not enjoying his time.
Speaker: No, no, he's not having fun.
Speaker: He does manage to get away, and the Herespis finds him, and they shift away to safety, back into the wasteland.
Speaker: And the Herespis lets the Didact know that he has indeed found a way to stop the Warden, that the Warden is of his rate.
Speaker: They invented him, and so there's this old forgotten ritual that will recall the Warden and all the pieces of him to one place.
Speaker: And kind of hold them in place for a little while.
Speaker: Yeah, the ritual was designed to pull in all the Haraspises.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like, okay, we're missing a few people.
Speaker: So it's basically just a thing that just teleported all the Haraspises to one location.
Speaker: Because they would, like, go... In the beginning, they would go so far out into the depths of space that they'd just be...
Speaker: We have no idea where he is.
Speaker: The domain is functionally infinite.
Speaker: Right, right.
Speaker: So they would do this ritual and boom, bring them all back together.
Speaker: And as they evolved, they'd stop needing this ritual and space sleeping and forgotten.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But this will bring him back into one piece where maybe it'll be easy enough to disable him in some way.
Speaker: He also brought him a sword hill.
Speaker: Isn't that nice?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The sword hilt generates a rift blade, which is something that can absolutely kill in the void.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So if you're like, think of the end of Beetlejuice when Otho is reciting the exorcism prayer.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: This is a great metaphor for it.
Speaker: Remember what the janitor says about those are...
Speaker: Those are the exorcised souls room.
Speaker: And he calls it, that's death for the dead.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: That's exactly what that is.
Speaker: That's exactly what this offers.
Speaker: So he's like, ah, I got a secret weapon here.
Speaker: You know, he is, you know.
Speaker: Yeah, and the person is like, don't point it at me.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker: Please do not do that.
Speaker: Didact got void blade, you know, riff blade.
Speaker: good job didact mega man mega man still still as far as i'm concerned the best 8-bit chiptune song ever made so yeah uh
Speaker: So the didact basically passes out.
Speaker: He's had the shit kicked out of him.
Speaker: He falls asleep.
Speaker: And he only wakes up because the Haruspis has returned after being away for a while.
Speaker: And he's like, how long is I out?
Speaker: And he goes, I have like days.
Speaker: Yeah, it's two days later.
Speaker: Yeah, you've been asleep for days.
Speaker: So the Heresimus has figured out how to do the ritual.
Speaker: He takes him out to a site and does this painstaking carving of a symbol in the rock there, and then begins this ritual.
Speaker: And it calls all the other spirits, all the forerunner and human spirits are there.
Speaker: Just millions of dead people watching this whole thing.
Speaker: Yeah, they're there to...
Speaker: They're there to help.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's a moment of, you know, it's very much Return of the King.
Speaker: This is the second time I've referenced Return of the King during this book.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know, showing up and getting the ghosties to help you fight.
Speaker: And that's what they're here for.
Speaker: So finally, at the very end, the warden...
Speaker: Shows up.
Speaker: And by the way, the warden now is going to be way, way stronger because it's all of them.
Speaker: He is unified back into one thing again.
Speaker: So good luck, fucker.
Speaker: It's like it's that old thing of like, would you rather fight, you know...
Speaker: 100, you know, ducks or like one elephant or whatever the fuck it is.
Speaker: A million babies or one tank.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: One tank versus a million babies.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: This is, this is that question made gravely serious.
Speaker: Uh,
Speaker: So we got a really entertaining moment where the didact's like, all right, motherfucker, let's do this.
Speaker: And it's a very Johnny Ringo kind of like, just like, all right, let's dance.
Speaker: Let's dance.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And so the didact pulls out his rift blade.
Speaker: He's like, yeah, motherfucker, didn't know I had one of those.
Speaker: And so the warden just pulls out this rift blade that's like twice as tall as him.
Speaker: He's like, all right, yeah, sure, rift blade's great.
Speaker: The Dynak literally looks over his shoulder at the Haruspas who just kind of goes, I don't know.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: What do we do?
Speaker: Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker: So Quantum Blade Fight, it plays out just like the music video of Beat It.
Speaker: They tie their arms together and then they dance.
Speaker: Boom.
Speaker: Boom.
Speaker: Boom.
Speaker: Boom
Speaker: Another good.
Speaker: I knew one of us was going to keep going for that.
Speaker: And I knew it was going to be you.
Speaker: If I can make a really loud guitar sound, I will.
Speaker: You should.
Speaker: You should.
Speaker: That's nothing to be ashamed of.
Speaker: That's good.
Speaker: That shows character and class.
Speaker: It shows character and class.
Speaker: You know who did show character and class?
Speaker: Ronald Reagan.
Speaker: Have I blamed Ronald Reagan for anything yet today?
Speaker: I don't think I have.
Speaker: Not on the show.
Speaker: Not on the show.
Speaker: Yeah, so anyway, fucking Reagan.
Speaker: That's gotta be merch, just fucking Reagan.
Speaker: So we get into a big elaborate fight.
Speaker: The didact is about to be finished off by the warden, but suddenly he's saved by the power of friendship.
Speaker: The power of friendship literally saves him.
Speaker: Yes, yes, well...
Speaker: ghosts save him.
Speaker: In the form of ghosts.
Speaker: Yeah, friendly ghosts.
Speaker: All the other people in the afterlife.
Speaker: Yeah, one Casper after another, just, they kind of launch themselves into the warden.
Speaker: And he's going to go, wham, wham.
Speaker: He's being thrown off balance.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: And the didact stabs the warden, and then the warden's like, I'll get you, and then the didact cuts his fucking head off.
Speaker: Yeah, just cuts his, like, not just cuts his, like, cuts his head diagonally in half.
Speaker: Which, you know what?
Speaker: Props to Kelly Gay for making a decapitation scene that's a little more unique.
Speaker: Yeah, instead of, like, at the neck, we get here, you know?
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, just...
Speaker: Pretty good shit.
Speaker: Pretty good fight.
Speaker: And the power of friendship, never underestimate it.
Speaker: No one in anime ever does.
Speaker: So, let's see.
Speaker: Okay, so they're like, okay, great.
Speaker: So we have full access to the domain.
Speaker: Cortana's still a loose end.
Speaker: We gotta figure that out.
Speaker: But what's important is...
Speaker: she won't be a problem for much longer.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So they tell the humans to meet them at the void at sunrise.
Speaker: And that's chapter 25.
Speaker: Chapter 26.
Speaker: Everything's going good.
Speaker: The humans and the forerunners are all...
Speaker: making their way into the domain.
Speaker: The guardians are gone.
Speaker: Uh, there's no way for Cortana to return.
Speaker: So why, uh, why does the didact still have this rotten feeling?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Uh, he still didn't feel so good.
Speaker: And, um,
Speaker: And the Haruspis kind of guides him through his own personal kind of weird-ass, I don't know, space-age Hiawaska ritual where he's going to travel again through time and space.
Speaker: And he ends up back on Halo Zeta or Zeta Halo.
Speaker: I forget how to do that.
Speaker: He finds Cortana on Halo arguing with a monitor and the ship Infinity appears and it's like, oh, wow, everyone's after me.
Speaker: Great.
Speaker: Fantastic.
Speaker: Yeah, that's all I fucking need.
Speaker: He tells her and she we have a funny moment where she's like, all right, because he's hiding.
Speaker: He's trying to eavesdrop.
Speaker: And she's like, I know you're there, you idiot.
Speaker: Like, yeah, come on.
Speaker: Get out.
Speaker: Come on.
Speaker: And so they have this argument.
Speaker: And like, basically, we have this moment of like, we're the same.
Speaker: It's like, no, we're not.
Speaker: Yeah, we're totally the same.
Speaker: That's that's that's.
Speaker: All there is to it, we have a moment where the didact says, While it pains me to admit it, you were right.
Speaker: We are more alike than I thought.
Speaker: Both consumed by some grand idea that only we can make the galaxy better, our good intentions twisted and exploited by the grave mind.
Speaker: Both miraculously surviving our encounters, only to be sent back to cause suffering on a scale our tormentor would hail as sublime triumphs.
Speaker: And the difference, of course, is that the didact finally...
Speaker: got around to figuring out that this is bullshit.
Speaker: Um, so, and this is just a beautiful scene where it's like the didact has gone through this journey in this book of, uh,
Speaker: He failed.
Speaker: He was killed by John, by the Spartans, ripped to shreds by the digitizers or whatever they're called.
Speaker: Wakes up later in the afterlife and
Speaker: immediately hatches plans to read, to get back out there.
Speaker: And through the course of that, uh, has a beautiful growth as a character, just realizing all of the shit, everything that he did over the course of his life.
Speaker: Um, and all the actions he took were for not ultimately.
Speaker: And just that realization at the end of, of to Cortana, just like, listen, listen,
Speaker: I don't know what to tell you.
Speaker: You're doing the same thing I did and I made a mistake.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And what would you say if John was here right now?
Speaker: Right, right.
Speaker: And we have a moment where the two of them are both kind of considering if they could ever be forgiven by the people they most care about, her with John and the didact with his wife.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's kind of like, it's basically two guys raised by a shitty patriarchal father, but only one of them goes to therapy and actually makes the effort to like...
Speaker: Break the cycle.
Speaker: That's kind of what this is.
Speaker: It's the breaking of that cycle of abuse and violence.
Speaker: And it is a really lovely moment.
Speaker: It's really well done.
Speaker: He got her.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: He can tell in her form and her eyes.
Speaker: It seems like she's having some thoughts.
Speaker: right he nailed her he he he she did not see this coming from him specifically uh and that's chapter 26 uh oh by the way there's a um there's a what's it uh inbounds um not the ship but there is the uh uh a guy for one of the guys from the um
Speaker: the banished uh is like on the way yes yes yes in zeta halo like on the way to them yeah yeah that's like noted uh earlier in the scene yeah that's right that's right um and uh we get chapter 27 is a pretty short chapter um
Speaker: We get a moment of the Didact kind of checking out the domain now.
Speaker: It's far more uninfected.
Speaker: It's kind of a happier place.
Speaker: It's coming to life, basically.
Speaker: Yes, it's thrumming.
Speaker: It's filled with the humans now, all of their code and souls.
Speaker: And he decides that the domain needs to be sealed.
Speaker: This thing needs to be closed off.
Speaker: Just like the Guardians, just like the Halos, it needs to be forgotten by everybody.
Speaker: It needs to be eventually just become a myth.
Speaker: Right, exactly.
Speaker: And so that's the goal at this point.
Speaker: And they know that there's still a little, there's still a few kind of pirate AI representatives in there.
Speaker: And so our friend Hortenko or Hortchenko, what is it?
Speaker: Hortencho.
Speaker: Hortencho, thank you.
Speaker: Hortencho and the Didact decide that they are going to hunt them together.
Speaker: They're going to, it's lovely.
Speaker: Let's work together and make this place shine.
Speaker: Let's make it sparkle.
Speaker: Could you fancy a hunt?
Speaker: I could fancy a hunt.
Speaker: I could fancy a hunt.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: It's like they say something like, oh yeah, the hunt could just...
Speaker: take forever you know yeah yeah and and that's and that sounds great there are way worse ways to spend eternity sounds great because because the didact has decided that he is done with a physical world yeah no not not my monkeys not my circus it's somebody else's problem yep i'm i'm here now my tempo exactly that's it i'm done
Speaker: So we do, we cut to him wandering, you know, and the domain is infinite, so he's wandering a while.
Speaker: He doesn't always know where he's going, but he knows that the domain will eventually get him to where he's meant to be.
Speaker: And he finds a spectral version of his own home with the two rivers.
Speaker: There's no corruption anymore.
Speaker: It's just a beautiful recreation of the home that he shared with his wife.
Speaker: And the book ends with him reuniting with his wife.
Speaker: And it's a way happier ending than I thought we were going to get.
Speaker: And that's the end.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: What the fuck?
Speaker: How do you get a 300 page book about like one of the biggest big bads of the Halo universe and the whole thing is about him becoming a good person?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And getting to go back to be with his wife in heaven.
Speaker: Fuck you, Kelly Gay.
Speaker: God damn, that's good.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's basically the end of Gladiator.
Speaker: It really is.
Speaker: It really is.
Speaker: That song is playing at the end.
Speaker: His fingers whistling through the weeds.
Speaker: Didact is walking by and feeling the weeds of the Elysian fields as he...
Speaker: It's lovely.
Speaker: It's really, really lovely.
Speaker: The didact is the Spaniard.
Speaker: Yeah, pretty much.
Speaker: Pretty much.
Speaker: He just wasn't evil.
Speaker: Although, you know, tell that to the German pagans that they were decimating.
Speaker: So I'm always pulling for them.
Speaker: Gladiator is a fine movie.
Speaker: It's a whatever movie.
Speaker: But I'm really... I watch it and I'm just watching it for that first 15, 20 minutes.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: And mostly so I can pull for the Germans.
Speaker: Like maybe this time.
Speaker: Maybe this time...
Speaker: No.
Speaker: The Romans were just too good.
Speaker: Too good.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: So, Kevin, what did you think?
Speaker: That was a little epitaph.
Speaker: Beautiful, beautiful movie.
Speaker: Not movie.
Speaker: Beautiful book.
Speaker: It would be a good movie.
Speaker: It would make a good movie.
Speaker: I think it's a really interesting way to seed a few things like, hey, what happened to the Didact after he fell into the thing?
Speaker: Kind of like...
Speaker: answering that question but also answering because from what i understand in halo infinite is that you don't ultimately cortana is not the villain of halo infinite cortana has like a change of heart and sacrifices herself to save john at some point in halo infinite
Speaker: Um, so it's kind of like setting up.
Speaker: It's like, we're the did acts words.
Speaker: The, the thing that kind of prompts her to have that change of heart crept in there.
Speaker: Like he felt like that was his, his grand plan for her was basically if I just opened her eyes a little bit, maybe she can see that I've been through the same thing with the grave mind and that it doesn't have to be like this.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: So, yeah, ultimately Cortana sacrifices herself for Jon, I believe.
Speaker: I mean, I haven't played Halo Infinite, but I kind of like perused the plot of it.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So, yeah, it's an interesting.
Speaker: The last few books that we've read are fascinating because they're all standalone in the way that they take place around Jon.
Speaker: halo infinite like you got um you know the outcasts and uh which is you know off on its own own little thing and they have rubicon protocol which is the lead up so basically rubicon protocol hasn't happened yet this is right before the events of rubicon protocol i think right right so it's like
Speaker: It's this and then Rubicon Protocol and then Halo Infinite in terms of order.
Speaker: But yeah, great, great book.
Speaker: Love the title even more now.
Speaker: Epitaph is a beautiful title for what this becomes for the character of the didact.
Speaker: You know, it's his final, it's the final, final book on the didact, basically.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So that's, that's kind of how I felt about it.
Speaker: What about you?
Speaker: I totally agree.
Speaker: I think, I think what's been fascinating, if you look at our, uh,
Speaker: output on Halo.
Speaker: This is our sixth one.
Speaker: And this is our sixth Halo book.
Speaker: And it's kind of perfect because we have read the original trilogy.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The first ones, which were very much based on the games, very much in the universe, very much straightforward.
Speaker: Here is Halo, here is the fighting, let's get going.
Speaker: Still complex, interesting books, definitely some of the best we've read.
Speaker: But the last three Halo books we've read are the most recent Halo books, and they represent the natural progression of what's going to happen with these kind of plot lines.
Speaker: It starts out as a simple kind of bash and shoot kind of fest.
Speaker: Good guy, shoot, bad guy evolves into...
Speaker: What is good?
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: It evolves into forgiveness and a beautiful metaphor for war and death and abuse.
Speaker: And it just, it's fascinating.
Speaker: I hope Simon Schuster keeps sending these to us because being some of the first people to read these books is always a thrill.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And having the opportunity to talk with the authors, which we will be releasing an interview with Kelly Gay soon.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Probably the next episode, actually.
Speaker: So, yeah, we're going to be talking to her in a few days.
Speaker: It's a thrill.
Speaker: It's just lovely to get to see all of that evolving.
Speaker: And this one is doing very well.
Speaker: I've been keeping my ear on the social media lines of how people react to this one.
Speaker: This one has people went nuts for it.
Speaker: People are really enjoying this one.
Speaker: I'm always happy to see that, especially because, I mean, I just I adore Kelly Gay's writing.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: So I'm glad that it's getting a good reaction.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: She deserves it.
Speaker: It's wonderful.
Speaker: So that's another one done and dusted.
Speaker: So that leaves me with only one final question for you, Kevin.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's... What are you playing?
Speaker: Oh, okay.
Speaker: So...
Speaker: I've been playing Balatro, Balatro, whatever.
Speaker: Fuck you, by the way.
Speaker: Why?
Speaker: What did I do?
Speaker: Because you bought me a copy of that and I've lost control of my life.
Speaker: Oh, I'm sorry.
Speaker: I also bought a copy for Cat for her birthday.
Speaker: Oh, good.
Speaker: I'm glad I'm not suffering alone.
Speaker: I feel like I think she played it for two hours.
Speaker: Like the first time she played it, it was like she's like, wow, this game's good.
Speaker: Right there with you, cat.
Speaker: So, yeah, I've been playing that still.
Speaker: I mean, that's just I feel like I could say I'm always playing that.
Speaker: And what are you playing from here to infinity?
Speaker: Totally.
Speaker: Totally.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's one of those kinds of games.
Speaker: You don't really beat it per se.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You don't really beat it.
Speaker: It's been a great run.
Speaker: Phil is retiring.
Speaker: I'm done.
Speaker: So the other thing I've been playing, I talked about it last episode a little bit, Power Wash Simulator, Warhammer 40K pack.
Speaker: Beat that.
Speaker: I Power Washed all the tanks.
Speaker: My Rogaldorn is...
Speaker: Spiffy.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: It's shining and clean.
Speaker: And then I went to, I bought the other DLC that was released at the end of last year, which was the Back to the Future.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: You mentioned that one.
Speaker: So I was like, you know what?
Speaker: I'm just going to.
Speaker: Worked my way through some of the DLCs that I didn't, I never got.
Speaker: So I'm doing Back to the Future now.
Speaker: I cleaned the DeLorean, which let me tell you, the DeLorean was a pain in the ass because it wasn't just, it wasn't.
Speaker: And here's the thing that annoyed me is it's supposed to be like the Back to the Future original, but then the DeLorean they had, had Mr. Fusion,
Speaker: Oh, sure.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: On the back, which does not appear until the end of the first one.
Speaker: It's not the DeLorean that he used because the main one of the main things with the first Back to the Future was that he could not.
Speaker: He needed a he needed plutonium.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: To get back.
Speaker: That was kind of a major plot point.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That was a major plot point.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Anyway, so I cleaned that.
Speaker: It was a pain in the ass to clean because in the back there's like all these wires and pipes and stuff that you'd have to, you know, get your hose into.
Speaker: I've heard about those.
Speaker: I cleaned the Hill Valley clock tower.
Speaker: Very nice.
Speaker: Save the clock tower.
Speaker: Save the clock tower.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Now I'm cleaning the time train from the end of part three.
Speaker: But yeah, that's pretty much all I've been playing recently.
Speaker: I have been debating...
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I'm debating whether I go ahead and just get Final Fantasy VII Rebirth.
Speaker: Oh, sure.
Speaker: On the PlayStation 5, but I kind of want to get it on Steam.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I'm not sure.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I've been hearing a lot of good stuff about that one, too.
Speaker: Oh, you know what?
Speaker: I forgot.
Speaker: I started playing a little bit of Solium Infernum.
Speaker: Solium Infernum.
Speaker: Solium Infernum is a strategy game set in hell.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I'm listening.
Speaker: You have...
Speaker: You have my attention.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: You play as it's kind of like Civ, but in hell, but also not as, I don't know.
Speaker: I played it for 25 minutes only.
Speaker: I need a place to put some more time into it.
Speaker: I was like, I feel like there, I wish there was more to it.
Speaker: The art style is really funky.
Speaker: Yeah, you pick a demon, one of the arch demons to play as.
Speaker: So, you know, you got your Abaddon's and you got your whomever.
Speaker: Lilith.
Speaker: Mammon.
Speaker: Mammon.
Speaker: Beelzebub.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: This looks enjoyable.
Speaker: This looks up my alley.
Speaker: So that might be up your alley.
Speaker: I need to put more time into it.
Speaker: When I first started playing, I was like, okay, I guess something about it didn't really strike me.
Speaker: It didn't hit me because I was looking for more like a
Speaker: just a little bit more civviness in it rather than just like claim as many tiles as you can.
Speaker: And it's like basically the idea is you got to get your prestige up enough to win the election to become the new Lord of hell because Satan has vanished.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So the arch fiends are like, oh, it should be me.
Speaker: But they cannot just like, you can't just get to, you can't just take power.
Speaker: You have to be duly elected by your other constituents.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Because it's hell.
Speaker: It's got to be fair, right?
Speaker: It's got to be fair and free elections.
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: That's interesting.
Speaker: That's definitely going to be worth a look.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So that's what I've been playing.
Speaker: What have you been playing?
Speaker: I've been playing Bellatro, and it has completely taken over my life.
Speaker: I'm really enjoying it.
Speaker: I can see why everyone's going crazy for it, because it has a lot of what the best games these days are.
Speaker: It's simple.
Speaker: It's pretty straightforward.
Speaker: It has a quirky sense of humor and a unique kind of user experience.
Speaker: It's really interesting.
Speaker: It's funny because I played a lot of poker in my day.
Speaker: I was one of those guys that was actually playing poker regular games when I was in college and after that and everything like that when it was...
Speaker: on TV and all that shit.
Speaker: Yeah, that was cool.
Speaker: When it was like when when rounders came out, everything changed.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: I took a lot of rounders fans money because I've been playing since my granddad taught me to play when I was a kid.
Speaker: And so that movie made me a little money in college.
Speaker: It was a good time.
Speaker: But the irony I found in that is that you kind of, being a good poker player, can fuck you over in this game because...
Speaker: There's so much more to deal with.
Speaker: I remember, because I've been really crazy about upgrading my shit, so I like getting planets and celestial beings and stuff to upgrade the levels of the different hands and everything like that, because I'm a flush guy.
Speaker: This has always been the case.
Speaker: I chase flushes.
Speaker: I don't know why I find them psychologically satisfying.
Speaker: You're flush-filled.
Speaker: I am.
Speaker: I'm fully flush-pilled.
Speaker: So anytime a Jupiter card, Jupiter, Jupiter, Jupiter, and it's at level five or six in no time.
Speaker: But I have also, but the thing is, I'll pick up other ones.
Speaker: And I remember the first time that I realized that I was going for a full house, but I had upgraded the three of a kind to the point that actually just doing the three of the kind and not including...
Speaker: the other pair for a full house actually would net me more chips.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: It would actually be more advantageous for me.
Speaker: And that's when it all changed for me.
Speaker: Honestly, that was, that was a clicking point for me.
Speaker: And suddenly I was like, Oh, and I really started to, you know, the scissors started to glide through the wrapping paper.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You weren't, you weren't just going clink, clink, clinky, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh, wait, so,
Speaker: That was my moment.
Speaker: That moment of, I don't need to waste all this extra energy.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: And that was a game changer for me, and I'm really enjoying it.
Speaker: It's a hell of a lot like the Luck Be a Landlord game that I was playing at the beginning of the year.
Speaker: Which, did you know, apparently, the guy who made Bellatro...
Speaker: saw Luck be a landlord.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: And that was part of like, there was like an article I saw where it was like talking about his inspirations and one of the inspirations cited was Luck be a landlord.
Speaker: That's...
Speaker: amazing because that because i loved luck be a landlord i exhausted that one and this is hitting that that same yeah sweet spot yeah uh so that makes a lot of sense oh that makes so much sense okay great uh yeah so i've been doing that and then you get the next step is is figuring out uh getting hands that don't actually exist in poker
Speaker: Oh, now that's interesting.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Looking forward to that.
Speaker: So like you got four of a kind, right?
Speaker: That's one of the top hands in poker.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Five of a kind.
Speaker: You think that's possible?
Speaker: Oh, absolutely.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Cause you can, you can change what a card is and shit.
Speaker: What about a full house, but all the cards are the same suit.
Speaker: Oh, okay, okay.
Speaker: I like it.
Speaker: A little flush house action?
Speaker: Flush house.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: See, yeah, this is, it's a fun game.
Speaker: I still haven't beaten, I haven't beaten a full round just yet.
Speaker: Not round, I've beaten rounds.
Speaker: I haven't gotten to, what is it?
Speaker: I haven't beaten the full circle.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, but it's within my grasp.
Speaker: I know I'm going to get there and I'm having fun trying to.
Speaker: You're feeling it.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: It's a very good one.
Speaker: It's a good thing that this is not available on my phone.
Speaker: That's what I said.
Speaker: I was like, if there was a mobile version of Bellatro, I would probably have died by now.
Speaker: It's all goddamn over.
Speaker: It's all goddamn over when that happens.
Speaker: Because they will.
Speaker: They're smart.
Speaker: And this is doing very well.
Speaker: This is already on a bunch of people's games of the year list, including mine.
Speaker: Yeah, I'm putting that on my game of the year list.
Speaker: It's not budging.
Speaker: It's not going to fall off.
Speaker: It was the first in my library on Steam last year.
Speaker: What I did was I made a game of the year 2023 list so I could keep track of the ones I were playing that I thought could actually be a contender.
Speaker: And I'm doing that and Bellatro's there and it's not going anywhere.
Speaker: It's my first...
Speaker: And it's the first it's the first shelf on your.
Speaker: Yeah, I should I should add that.
Speaker: I should do that right now.
Speaker: I'm going to I'm going to make my 2024 game of the year list and just put Bellatro.
Speaker: I mean, that's it.
Speaker: It's just it's going to be that for a while.
Speaker: Yeah, it's just going to be that for a while.
Speaker: There's not a lot of games necessarily.
Speaker: It's not like last year where there was a ton of games that were like,
Speaker: that had been kind of COVID delayed to all happen in one year.
Speaker: Last year was overwhelming.
Speaker: It was overwhelming.
Speaker: I think this year is you're going to have a lot of games that kind of come out of nowhere.
Speaker: And two this year,
Speaker: that have done that so far are Bellatro.
Speaker: Even though like Hot Cider and friends of the show and guest hosts, Hot Cider and Jesse Garasha have both had Bellatro in videos.
Speaker: as games to look out for.
Speaker: Jesse Gratia put out a video on Noclip Crew when he was after the Steam Next Fest.
Speaker: He's like, hey, you got to keep an eye out for this game.
Speaker: So like Blanchard was on a bunch of people's radars, but to take off the way it did, I don't think anyone really expected.
Speaker: No, no, not like this.
Speaker: Not like this.
Speaker: And the other game that is like that is Helldivers 2.
Speaker: Which that one is.
Speaker: Yeah, that one's exploded.
Speaker: That one's crazy.
Speaker: They were not even ready for the amount of people playing because it like their servers got stressed and all that.
Speaker: But it's a fascinating game.
Speaker: It's you know, it's a co-op.
Speaker: You know, you go on, you're basically a starship trooper.
Speaker: and you shoot some bugs or you go fight off some robots.
Speaker: And what's really cool is they have a guy whose title for the game is the Game Master.
Speaker: And his entire job is like as the game progresses, because as you're playing,
Speaker: Helldivers 2, you and all the other people playing are taking on, as you complete missions on planets, the planet gets closer and closer to 100% completed.
Speaker: Yes, that's right.
Speaker: So then planets get like taken off the list, new planets and systems get added on.
Speaker: And they have this guy called the Game Master who is just like overseeing all that and seeing like what little twists and wrinkles can be added as people make their way through the planets.
Speaker: It's what you want in this kind of multiplayer experience.
Speaker: It's almost enough to make me give it a try, but I'm not going to.
Speaker: I'm enjoying watching people play it.
Speaker: I will say that.
Speaker: This is not for me.
Speaker: This is not my game.
Speaker: I will just.
Speaker: Not my tempo.
Speaker: I like it.
Speaker: I'll be honest.
Speaker: I really enjoyed it.
Speaker: I've played it a few times.
Speaker: I enjoy it.
Speaker: It's one of those games that if I had a group of people that I regularly played those types of games online with, it would be perfect.
Speaker: Yes, yes.
Speaker: If you and me and some of the guys were more regular with getting on games together and shit like that, then yes, this would be the perfect thing for us.
Speaker: But we're just not... Not going to do that.
Speaker: No, no.
Speaker: And I've been... So a few games, obviously, where there's a bunch of games that I'm looking forward to.
Speaker: Like, it's going to be more indie-type stuff.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's what I'm hoping for this year too.
Speaker: Lo-fi stuff and things like that this year.
Speaker: I really want to get into, I want to try, what is it, Pacific?
Speaker: Oh, yeah, Pacific Drive is it?
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, that looks like a lot of fun, and I've been hearing enough really good things about it, especially people saying specifically that it's a survival game for people who are kind of sick of survival games.
Speaker: Yeah, it's like, I think somebody said it's like basically death stranding, but you have a car.
Speaker: Right, right, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Or it's somebody said it's like somebody compared it to my summer car.
Speaker: But survival, which I think you played my summer car.
Speaker: No, no, I never played that one.
Speaker: Oh, wait, I did.
Speaker: Oh, I forgot completely about that one.
Speaker: Yes, I did.
Speaker: Yes, I did.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I didn't get far.
Speaker: I totally played it.
Speaker: Yeah, that tells you something right there.
Speaker: So Pacific Drive, I'm definitely curious about.
Speaker: Yeah, that'll be interesting.
Speaker: But I'm also playing, I downloaded the demo for Unicorn Overlord on my Switch.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah, odd title.
Speaker: But I saw a...
Speaker: some screen caps of it, and I was very intrigued.
Speaker: It had very Shining Force kind of vibes.
Speaker: It is done by Vanillaware, the lovely people who made Dragon's Crown, and I don't know if you played that game.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: It's an absolutely beautiful fantasy beat-em-up kind of game with witches with tig ol' biddies.
Speaker: It is...
Speaker: delightfully horny and actually very fun and it was a very fun visceral beat-em-up and I really enjoyed it and this is made by them.
Speaker: Less horny.
Speaker: It's admittedly a less horny game although one of the main characters absolutely has a balcony you can shoot presidents from.
Speaker: So you still, it's still, you got hints.
Speaker: It's visually striking.
Speaker: It's a
Speaker: role-playing game, strategy game, almost kind of got a kingdom builder kind of thing to it.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: You don't actually... You've got different armies and units and stuff, and you move them around.
Speaker: You don't actually choose the way they fight.
Speaker: It's auto-done for you, but that's not the point of the game.
Speaker: So there's still...
Speaker: I don't know how I feel about it yet.
Speaker: I've played a couple of hours of the demo.
Speaker: Apparently, if you like it enough that you can just keep when you buy the game, which it should be out in a week or two, you can just keep your save game going.
Speaker: I don't know if I'm gonna go that far yet, but I have... It is intriguing, and it is engaging so far.
Speaker: What's the name of it again?
Speaker: Unicorn Overlord.
Speaker: It's on the Switch.
Speaker: It's beautiful.
Speaker: The music's good.
Speaker: It's got that good anime voiceover shit.
Speaker: Yeah, it's not on Steam.
Speaker: No, no, it is on Switch.
Speaker: Interesting.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's an Atlas game.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: That explains more.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: A little more.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And being that it's an Atlas game, that's another thing.
Speaker: I don't know how long this game is going to be, and that's a factor for me now too.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And you know exactly what I'm talking about.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Where I really, like the new Persona 3 thing that they're doing right now,
Speaker: I'm interested.
Speaker: Persona 3 Reload.
Speaker: Yes, people are super pumped about it.
Speaker: I loved Persona 5.
Speaker: Yeah, that sounds interesting.
Speaker: But Persona 5 was 120 goddamn hours minimum.
Speaker: I'm not going to open that can of worms.
Speaker: I'm just not.
Speaker: And so the moment I get a sniff of this dog's ass and find out that it's like 80 hours minimum to beat it, that's when I send that one.
Speaker: 80 hours of anime titties.
Speaker: They're great.
Speaker: We love them.
Speaker: We all love them.
Speaker: But I have a son.
Speaker: I have a son.
Speaker: I have to help him grow so that he can enjoy anime titties of his own one day, hopefully.
Speaker: I'm passing that mantle down.
Speaker: Or not.
Speaker: I don't give a shit.
Speaker: Fuck it.
Speaker: He can be whoever the hell he wants to be.
Speaker: I just got to make sure he's not warped.
Speaker: Yeah, I think that's... Yeah, that's kind of a foregone conclusion at this point, isn't it?
Speaker: I feel like that train has left the station.
Speaker: Yeah, that ship has sailed.
Speaker: As soon as Emily got him out, he... Oh, boy.
Speaker: That was it.
Speaker: It was all over for the poor lad.
Speaker: No chance for that kid.
Speaker: None whatsoever.
Speaker: None whatsoever.
Speaker: But yeah, that's me.
Speaker: That's what I'm playing.
Speaker: Well, that'll do it for this episode then.
Speaker: Thank you so much for listening.
Speaker: If you can, do us a solid, rate us five stars on the Apple podcast store and on Spotify.
Speaker: Rate us five stars, please.
Speaker: That would be fantastic.
Speaker: Or rate us, give us a thumbs up or a five star on whatever podcast platform you're listening to.
Speaker: You can find us on social media at pixel at pod on just about every website that you can shake a stick at.
Speaker: Go ahead, follow us on there and, you know, see what we have to say, especially on Instagram.
Speaker: We have some visual accoutrement joining.
Speaker: It's fun.
Speaker: People have people have been responding to.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That they support the episode.
Speaker: So, yeah, go follow our Instagram so you can see more stuff.
Speaker: More reference material.
Speaker: Other than that, you know, thanks so much for listening and have a good night.
Speaker: Bye.
