Transcript
Speaker: It mutated the cat and yeah, turned it into a fucking dog or something.
Speaker: No longer a cat.
Speaker: Whatever it is, it's not a cat anymore.
Speaker: It's not a cat anymore.
Speaker: You know what else isn't a cat anymore?
Speaker: What's that?
Speaker: Hey there, everybody.
Speaker: Welcome back to Pixel It.
Speaker: My name is Kevin with Beasoy is Phil.
Speaker: And on today's show, we are talking about the adaptation of Silent Hill 2 by by Sadamu Yamashita, translated by Emily Fitch.
Speaker: So it's it's it's just a straight up adaptation of Silent Hill 2.
Speaker: These were Japanese only books.
Speaker: So this is like a fan translation that we're going off of.
Speaker: So to that end, as with like, you know, the sacred and terrible air or what have you, honestly, there's some things that we can and cannot really critique with the original writer based on not knowing how...
Speaker: specifically how good this uh this translation might be as we are not speakers of the japanese language um not yet not yet but yeah so silent hill 2 um before phil i assume you've looked into sademu yamashida's
Speaker: Indeed.
Speaker: Past Silent Hill 2, though, as a game, everybody knows it.
Speaker: Everybody loves it.
Speaker: It was released by Konami back in, I want to say 2000 Silent Hill 2.
Speaker: I had this open and I closed.
Speaker: I feel like it was 2001.
Speaker: 2001.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: A few days, a few weeks after September 11th.
Speaker: So, you know, that explains a lot.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It follows a man named James Sunderland as he is going to Silent Hill to find his wife, his dead wife, who has sent a letter to him.
Speaker: um it's probably one of the most respected old school survival horror games of all time uh probably one of the most well written i had a remake that came out last year that was by bloober team and lo and behold bloober team did not it up uh they actually made a pretty damn good remake
Speaker: And I would say if you haven't played Silent Hill 2, go ahead, go play it.
Speaker: Pause the episode and go play it.
Speaker: Takes about seven hours if you just do the enhanced edition version of the original.
Speaker: or the 15 hours if you play the remake.
Speaker: Go ahead, play that, and then come back and listen to this.
Speaker: Because as we're reading the book, it's like, oh, this is pretty one-to-one with what the game is, except less of the game is in the book.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: It's like, I like, we got to the part, finished the part that we're reading for today, and I was like,
Speaker: I feel like they cut some things.
Speaker: Yeah, they really.
Speaker: And that's another thing I wanted to know about basically with the translator.
Speaker: This is it feels short, but I also I have no idea.
Speaker: I have no idea because as you pointed out for it, this is a Japanese only novel.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So, Phil, what do you know about Mr. Yamashita?
Speaker: Next to nothing.
Speaker: As far as I can tell, Sadamu Yamashita is the author of the novelizations of Silent Hill, Silent Hill 2, and Silent Hill 3.
Speaker: And that's it.
Speaker: I can't find anything else on this person.
Speaker: I have to assume that...
Speaker: There is, you know, maybe this is a pen name or something like that, or even that, frankly, if it's a world of power situation where they just got some writer for hire who didn't have much under their belt.
Speaker: And it's just that much harder for me to find out about that person because it's Japanese only.
Speaker: I looked up Emily Fitch.
Speaker: I almost said Edith Finch.
Speaker: Edith Finch.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Emily Fitch.
Speaker: I looked her up.
Speaker: She is also similarly kind of quiet on the ground when it comes to her resume, but she is known as a fan translator that she's done a lot of Japanese fan translations and people are kind of
Speaker: positive on them.
Speaker: So that's pretty good.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: I dig it.
Speaker: Before we get into the book, I just want to
Speaker: Talk about a website that is really cool, really neat.
Speaker: It's called patreon.com slash pixelitpod.
Speaker: And there you can follow us for free or you could pay us a dollar a month and get the ad-free episode or $5 a month and get the bonus episode or $10 a month and get your name shouted out in every episode.
Speaker: To that end, I want to thank Jesus loves you, Kyle Seaman, Ruthless Mudder, Middle of Things, Sigma Sal, Chut Beaks, Dumbad Vic,
Speaker: And friendly friend, thank you so much for being a friend.
Speaker: Patreon.com slash PixelitPod.
Speaker: Do it.
Speaker: Today.
Speaker: Today.
Speaker: So yeah, Silent Hill, Silent Hill series.
Speaker: By the way, the reason we skip straight to Silent Hill 2 novelization is because Silent Hill 2 is disconnected from what I understand in the Silent Hill mythology as a story.
Speaker: I'm not a Silent Hill guy, but I can tell you I never hear about the first Silent Hill game.
Speaker: No one seems to give a shit.
Speaker: One and three are connected.
Speaker: I think one and three are connected story-wise.
Speaker: Two is not.
Speaker: It's just its own thing.
Speaker: It just happens to also be set in Silent Hill.
Speaker: And it even changes some aspects as to what's going on in the town itself.
Speaker: It's a lot more metaphorical.
Speaker: There's more literal supernatural shit happening in Silent Hill 1, like culty stuff, whereas in Silent Hill 2, it's more like...
Speaker: What's actually happening?
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: Is it on your head?
Speaker: No.
Speaker: Is it?
Speaker: No.
Speaker: But is it though?
Speaker: Is it?
Speaker: No.
Speaker: But maybe.
Speaker: But now that you've asked me three times, possibly yes.
Speaker: Possibly yes, because that's the key.
Speaker: But let's put the body in the marsh.
Speaker: Let's marsh this body.
Speaker: It's Marshless Body.
Speaker: When I tell you to dump a body in the marsh, you dump them in the marsh.
Speaker: the mind um silent hill 2 by sadomu yamashida is not written in chapters it is written in these like little named segments the first of which is a little vignette just titled girl uh the brief opening chapter we meet a young girl named laura as she arrives at silent hill she notes the fog layering the town looks a bit like milk
Speaker: that some scatterbrained God had dropped a cup and spilled his milk all over the place, which honestly is quite possibly my favorite line that we'll get in this entire entire section.
Speaker: It's a very evocative way of it.
Speaker: It was an evocative way.
Speaker: It's like this.
Speaker: That's a evocative way.
Speaker: That's also good for the POV of an eight year old girl.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Like it's two levels.
Speaker: Like you can have evocative, like the character would never actually think that.
Speaker: But evocative and true to the character, that works.
Speaker: It tells you something about the character, too.
Speaker: It does.
Speaker: It does.
Speaker: She's skipping towards the town while her fat and thick headed friend follows along.
Speaker: And she's going to the town to look for a person that gave her a letter.
Speaker: The fat and thick headed friends.
Speaker: If you don't have know the connection, it's it's Eddie.
Speaker: It's a it's a guy named Eddie.
Speaker: And we will meet him again later.
Speaker: The next section is called Beckoning Town, and we meet James Sunderland as he is staring at himself in a dirty mirror of a public bathroom.
Speaker: He is musing about his depressed emotional state while standing in probably the grossest bathroom in the world.
Speaker: He steps outside into the parking lot, which overlooks Toluca Lake and recounts the letter that brought him to town, which he assumes is from his late wife, Mary, because of the handwriting.
Speaker: They had spent a holiday in this town three years ago before she had passed away.
Speaker: James has to walk through a park to get into town as the road into town is closed from the parking lot that he stopped at.
Speaker: He muses more about the source of this letter, how it might be a cruel prank by his co-workers or neighbors who have been upset with how he's behaved since Mary passed.
Speaker: Then as James walks, he thinks about how it would be possible that Mary could be alive.
Speaker: Maybe she was never really dead.
Speaker: Maybe a gravedigger found her.
Speaker: Who knows?
Speaker: Like this whole section is kind of funny because like maybe Mary was slamming on the coffin lid and like she has brain damage from lack of oxygen in the coffin.
Speaker: And like it goes very it goes it takes it pretty far.
Speaker: But at the same time, like I think a person in that position, I don't think that that's a
Speaker: I think that is something I could see myself wondering about where I am at the same time.
Speaker: Part of me is like, I like also like the concept that of a James Sunderland who does does not even consider any of this, you know, who is just like, I'm doing it because I got the letter and I'm going and he doesn't even like he's not even thinking logistically.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: You don't get any and you don't really get anything of James from the game itself that that prompts you to think that he's he's in the headspace to to consider these elements, you know.
Speaker: But anyway, yeah, he ends up in a cemetery meets a woman who later will find out her name is Angela.
Speaker: She is staring at a gravestone.
Speaker: He asks her where the town is, and she points the way, but tells him that it's best not to go because it's a dangerous place.
Speaker: When he tells her that he will be careful, she screams at him.
Speaker: I get it.
Speaker: Yeah, I get it.
Speaker: He leaves her and continues walking, ending up in the town itself.
Speaker: He sees... And by the way, just stopping...
Speaker: The conversation between James and Angela in the game is fascinating because someone said to me, it's like two people who have never talked to anyone before talking to each other.
Speaker: That's the original version of the game, not the remake, because of how unhinged both of them sound during the course of the conversation.
Speaker: Um, you really only get Angela's being a little, uh, as the book says, hysterical, but James is like weird.
Speaker: You like something's weird, weird with James as well.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: So he continues on, he gets to town, he sees a large bloodstain on the road, and then he sees what looks like a person in the distance walking away.
Speaker: He gives chase and ends up in a small construction site where a radio is buzzing static.
Speaker: He hears footsteps approaching, and as they get closer, the static gets louder.
Speaker: He then sees what he's been chasing after, a creature with its arms merged into its body with rotting flesh.
Speaker: In the games, like the bestiary, so to speak, of the game, this is called a lying figure.
Speaker: You find them a lot like they're just like on the ground when you first run into them before they kind of like get up and start going after you.
Speaker: Spitting at you.
Speaker: It's an underrated monster design.
Speaker: And I mean, it says something to how fucking solid the creatures in Silent Hill 2 are, where something that horrible and pretty fucking excellent takes not even second fiddle, but third fiddle to like, you know, Pyramid Head and the nurses and just the nurses.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Iconic creatures.
Speaker: Everyone's favorite sexy cosplay, the the Silent Hill two nurses.
Speaker: If you go to a con and there isn't someone dressed up as a Silent Hill two nurse, did you actually go to a con?
Speaker: You did not.
Speaker: No, that's actually a nurse cosplay.
Speaker: That was actually an autocomplete.
Speaker: Oh, look at those.
Speaker: Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker: There's a lot of them.
Speaker: Anyway, what was I saying?
Speaker: Nurse cosplay.
Speaker: Nurse cosplay.
Speaker: So James grabs a wooden board that's nearby and beats it to death.
Speaker: And once it's dead, the radio falls silent.
Speaker: And by the way, the fact in Silent Hill 2, the first weapon you get is a wooden board.
Speaker: And it just reminds me of the Simpsons Treehouse of Horror.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Where the alien's weakness is a wooden board with a nail in it.
Speaker: With a nail in it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Moe chasing him around.
Speaker: Moe chasing Kang and Kodos around with a wooden board with a nail on it.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: I fucking love it.
Speaker: So the radio falls silent, much like the hills, the titular hills.
Speaker: The radio sparks the life again, and he hears Mary's voice over the static saying something about the Woodside Apartments.
Speaker: And James makes his way back towards the center of town.
Speaker: And then the book becomes a bit of a reenactment of the Californian sketch from SNL until he gets to the Woodside Apartments.
Speaker: You take this, turn around.
Speaker: You can't go that way.
Speaker: You got a Flynn Street and then you make a right on Baker and then you get on the PCH and then you take the five and then you're at the Woodside.
Speaker: We do get it.
Speaker: It does get a little tangled up in the directions, doesn't it?
Speaker: It does talk a lot about the roads that you're going through a lot.
Speaker: This actually skips because now he's already at the Woodside Apartments.
Speaker: There is a there's a moment in the game where James goes into a building and on the window like painted in blood.
Speaker: There's a there's something written that says there used to be a hole here where it's something like that.
Speaker: And it's just one of those like weird little creepy messages that you would find.
Speaker: But that's one of the things I'm noticing about the book right off the bat is that we're just kind of we're just kind of like skipping through.
Speaker: It's like it's like a joyful just like it mentions Laura was skipping to the town.
Speaker: The story is just kind of skipping through any semblance of the world building or weirdness in Silent Hill.
Speaker: It's just one step after the next.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: There's like James then killed this creepy monster and then he ran down the street and he turned a right on Baker and then he turned a left on Fairfax.
Speaker: And then he got a scone.
Speaker: It made me think while I was reading it, it was like if somebody you knew was describing the game to you, it's like, okay, so you do this and you're going to run into this monster and then you're going to do this.
Speaker: And without addressing like what is, yeah, like you said, the undercurrent of it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, there was a hole here.
Speaker: It's gone now.
Speaker: Yeah, that's that was in both both the original and the remake.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Anyway, he gets to the apartment and while he's outside the apartment, he is catching his breath and he decides to clean the blood off of his boots because he used his boots to like squish on a lying figure.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And he's wiping off the boots with an old newspaper and catches the headline on the paper about a man committing suicide with a spoon.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: With a spoon, a spoon, not even in a particularly creative way.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He just stabs himself in the carotid artery with the spoon until right.
Speaker: I read that and was like, okay, I'm listening.
Speaker: And it's, oh, you just, you, you just have no knife.
Speaker: Therefore I am a spoon.
Speaker: I have no knife.
Speaker: Therefore, I am.
Speaker: I must spoon.
Speaker: I am is filled with hate for that.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Very much so.
Speaker: Hatred.
Speaker: The man was a suspect in the murder.
Speaker: How would am fair in Silent Hill?
Speaker: Oh,
Speaker: Can can am be affected by the can be affected by the metaphorical, like mental purgatory of of Silent Hill?
Speaker: I assume so.
Speaker: That's that's an interesting question.
Speaker: Is that a power greater than am?
Speaker: Is the power that Silent Hill uses to send people through existential metaphorical nightmares similar to the one that Am uses to send people through existential metaphorical nightmares?
Speaker: Are they?
Speaker: Well, Am is doing is Silent Hill Am.
Speaker: Well, there might be some more that backs you, backs up your assertion on that one.
Speaker: There you go.
Speaker: Actually, I feel like there's an ending with a dog controlling a computer.
Speaker: Really?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's outstanding.
Speaker: But no, yeah, that would be.
Speaker: So Am is doing it physically and Silent Hill is doing metaphorically.
Speaker: It's like Am isn't doing is like it's not magic when Am does it, but Silent Hill is using magic.
Speaker: Is this like Superman where like, you know, Superman isn't weak to magic, but he can be affected by magic.
Speaker: You know what I mean?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: It's like Zatanna casting a spell on Superman, you know, and Superman is Am in this case.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So Silent Hill is Mr. Mixapiddleic.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like, man, I tell you, that could be our Freddy versus Jason.
Speaker: Silent Hill versus Am.
Speaker: That's that's what the people are craving.
Speaker: That's what the people want.
Speaker: They want it.
Speaker: They want it.
Speaker: Horror nerds crave suicide with a spoon.
Speaker: The man was a suspect in the murder of siblings, Billy and Miriam Locaine.
Speaker: And it talks about how Sullivan, the man who killed himself, was haunted by the red demon.
Speaker: James wonders why he feels connected to this particular article.
Speaker: He then continues into the apartment building calling out for Mary.
Speaker: All the doors that he checks are locked until he gets to room 205, which looks like a person is standing in there.
Speaker: But it's actually a mannequin strangely wearing clothes similar to what Mary is wearing in the photo that he carries around of her.
Speaker: There's a flashlight hanging off the mannequin and he grabs it so he can actually see in the apartment building, but he feels guilty taking it.
Speaker: He continues on and in the middle of the hallway runs into a mannequin monster and he runs away from it.
Speaker: And the mannequin monster is described if you've never seen it.
Speaker: It has legs, mannequin legs coming out the bottom.
Speaker: And instead of a torso, it's got more legs coming out the top.
Speaker: It's another another really solid design.
Speaker: Legs and legs.
Speaker: Lady legs.
Speaker: Legs for day.
Speaker: Lady legs.
Speaker: And I got to tell you, you'd better start clocking the fact that these are these are lady.
Speaker: This is a lady thing.
Speaker: It's going to be up because it's not in here, people.
Speaker: This ain't over.
Speaker: Zane over, but, and I feel like if you were playing the game, you might have picked up on the metaphor that you're violently killing feminine things, monstrous looking feminine things by now, but you're, it's a book and it's not a great book.
Speaker: So I'm just here to tell you the subtext.
Speaker: Sometimes, sometimes video games can do what books don't.
Speaker: at least these kinds of books at least these kinds of books anyway yeah he continues on runs away from it he wonders if everyone in town has already escaped when he heads to the third floor continues exploring and enters room 301 to find a gun sitting in the middle of an abandoned shopping cart
Speaker: He considers returning to the second floor with it, and on his way to the stairs, he notices a key on the floor beyond one of the metal gates that blocks parts of the third floor.
Speaker: As he reaches for it, a foot smashes down on his hand and kicks the key away.
Speaker: He sees a little girl running away, calling him an idiot.
Speaker: Ha ha ha!
Speaker: It's Laura from the first scene.
Speaker: Suddenly there's a violent screech and James starts running in the direction it comes from.
Speaker: At this point, I think there might be a misnumbering in the translation because it says he enters room 208 to get around the metal shutter.
Speaker: But we never said that he went back down to the second floor.
Speaker: Either way.
Speaker: He goes to 208, sees a grandfather clock blocking a hole in the wall.
Speaker: We're just going to skip that puzzle because he just moves the grandfather clock.
Speaker: Never mind.
Speaker: We don't want to get you.
Speaker: No, no, there's no here.
Speaker: I'm not doing 200 pages on this fucker.
Speaker: I'm not.
Speaker: There's no puzzles here.
Speaker: We're just skipping them.
Speaker: And I'm not skipping them.
Speaker: But the tag team of Sadamu Yamashita and Emily Fitch skipped them.
Speaker: Emily had less of a choice in the matter, but.
Speaker: True.
Speaker: You know what I'm saying?
Speaker: She could have she could she could have been played the hero and put her own.
Speaker: Play the hero and put a little twist in there.
Speaker: Like he had to get the the minute and second keys or whatever.
Speaker: I can't.
Speaker: That's the problem with the remake and the original is like, I know the grandfather clock is a puzzle in the remake, but I can't remember if it's also a puzzle in the original.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: He reaches room 307 and finds one of the most famous scenes in Silent Hill 2.
Speaker: Pyramid Head is going to town on a couple of mannequin monsters.
Speaker: Now, in the original version of the game, this scene, and I know the creator of the game has since come out and said it wasn't intended to be like this.
Speaker: but it looks like pyramid head is, uh, doing a sexual assault on the mannequin monsters.
Speaker: Ah, yeah.
Speaker: In the in the original in this scene, it's a very just look up the scene.
Speaker: You'll you'll see what I mean.
Speaker: James hides in the closet.
Speaker: Once pyramid head is done doing the thing with the mannequins, starts approaching him in the closet and James shoots at it with his gun.
Speaker: And somehow pyramid head just leaves.
Speaker: James leaves room 307.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: By the way, if you don't know what pyramid head looks like, I guess look him up, but he's a big beefy dude.
Speaker: Cake for days.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Lots, lots, lots going on back there.
Speaker: Lots going on back there and he's wearing a giant rusted pyramid shaped helmet that like it's it's massive.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: When Kevin says giant, think about what you're thinking about now.
Speaker: And just enhance like to the point where it's kind of stupid and then take it back one.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know, the main character from last miss.
Speaker: It's like that in terms of height and now make it also wider.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And more angular.
Speaker: A helmet that makes you wonder.
Speaker: How?
Speaker: How?
Speaker: How's that?
Speaker: How is that staying on?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And why?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And who?
Speaker: I mean, I think I think the who is a big one throughout the game for a lot of these people, though.
Speaker: Who is very important.
Speaker: Every time I take a sip of my Kirkland signature sparkling water lime, it throws my, the, the color white, the white balance of my camera just completely off.
Speaker: That's so funny.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's suddenly you're in like a no tell motel and it was like, I'm in red lighting.
Speaker: It's back.
Speaker: It is.
Speaker: It's back.
Speaker: What if I have another sparkling water here?
Speaker: What if I bring this one up?
Speaker: What happens?
Speaker: Well, it warmed up a little.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: What about this?
Speaker: Not anything compared to the other one.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So if I this is great for the audio only listeners.
Speaker: They love it.
Speaker: They love.
Speaker: There it is again.
Speaker: It's like there it is.
Speaker: They're like going up.
Speaker: I'm in Mexico.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Denzel's about to kick some fucking ass.
Speaker: Man on fire.
Speaker: That was set in Mexico, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So what the fuck happens?
Speaker: James leaves room 307 and he finds the key that the girl kicked away.
Speaker: He goes back down to the first floor and goes to into room 101.
Speaker: He finds the body of a man badly beaten to death and he hears the sounds of someone vomiting in the bathroom.
Speaker: James goes and talks to the guy and the guy's like, I killed him.
Speaker: I found him like that.
Speaker: The guy's name is Eddie and James talks to Eddie about the monsters he's been seeing.
Speaker: And Eddie is like, I don't know what you're talking about.
Speaker: I did see a creature out there, but and that's why I ran into the apartments.
Speaker: So, hey, oh, yeah.
Speaker: Uh, James wishes him luck and decides to try to get to the apartment complex that is adjacent to the Woodside one ones by jumping through a second story window.
Speaker: Uh, this is not like a, this is weird because it's not like an active thought you have in the game.
Speaker: You do it because it's like the fucking, it's like, oh, I, there's a weird apartment comp.
Speaker: There's like a hole in the building next to it.
Speaker: So you jump across and then you, right.
Speaker: When you get across there, it's like hell over there.
Speaker: It's like, what is wrong with these this building?
Speaker: He does this and he kills a mannequin and goes to the first floor, goes the of the other apartment building and finds a woman that he met earlier, Angela, in room 109.
Speaker: They have a brief conversation.
Speaker: Angela is about as even tempered as ever, and James tries to get the knife that she's holding from her.
Speaker: He also offers Angela to come with him, but she's not into the whole being around men thing.
Speaker: I get it.
Speaker: I get it.
Speaker: She had a choice between a man, a bear and pyramid head.
Speaker: And she went like, I'll take my chances of pyramid head.
Speaker: Yeah, I really think this one out.
Speaker: I was going to make the same joke about the man and the bear.
Speaker: And I'm glad you got there first.
Speaker: This is this is why we have a show.
Speaker: This is why we have a show.
Speaker: This is our partnership, people.
Speaker: This is why it works.
Speaker: But Angela leaves the knife with him so she doesn't hurt herself and carries on.
Speaker: Before he leaves, he finds a photograph of what looks like Angela and her family with like the rest of her family scratched out.
Speaker: Most of the rooms in this apartment building are locked until James enters a stairwell filled with ashen gray water.
Speaker: He goes to leave, but SpaghettiOs pyramid head is here.
Speaker: Boss fight time.
Speaker: James empties his magazine at pyramid head and then closes his eyes thinking he's going to die via massive knife wound.
Speaker: But then Pyramid leaves, leaves them and goes down the steps into the water.
Speaker: And James falls to the ground exhausted.
Speaker: But then here's a kid singing through the fog.
Speaker: He exits the building to see the girl that stomped on his hand out in the street.
Speaker: He yells at her for it and she feigns ignorance.
Speaker: I don't know what you're talking about.
Speaker: He asks her what she's doing there.
Speaker: Wyatt looks like she has a letter in her hand and she responds, what's it to you that
Speaker: You never even liked Mary anyway.
Speaker: The girl climbs over a brick wall, leaving James shouting after her.
Speaker: And that's that's where we leave it for tonight.
Speaker: It's a good place to stop.
Speaker: Good place to stop.
Speaker: Phil, what do you think so far?
Speaker: And is this a satisfying book?
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Let's just cut to the chase.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: It this is it's not a bad I will say, you know, as far as translations are concerned, I don't know what Miss Fitch had to work with here.
Speaker: But as far as we can tell.
Speaker: It's a serviceable translation.
Speaker: And she did it out of the goodness of her heart.
Speaker: Obviously, this is not a professional thing.
Speaker: And to her credit, I don't think this is her fault.
Speaker: This is very much the kind of adaptation that we've read before that makes me wonder why?
Speaker: Why do this?
Speaker: If this is the way you're going to adapt it, why do it?
Speaker: Who's this for?
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: It just hits the beats without any of the gravitas that goes behind everything that's happening.
Speaker: If you can make pyramid head kind of like, oh, then you fucked up.
Speaker: Like if that's almost impressive to be able to make someone that iconic and crazy and you just go, oh, okay.
Speaker: So he's wearing.
Speaker: Okay, got it.
Speaker: And that's it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So, yeah, it's not it's not bad in the traditional sense.
Speaker: It's just pointless.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah, I would.
Speaker: I agree.
Speaker: I think one of the things were I tasked with writing an adaptation of Silent Hill 2, there is something that need like some things about it are heavy handed and some things are like way too standoffish in terms of what the subject matter is.
Speaker: because I think there's a theme of violence against women that is in the subtext of the game Silent Hill 2 that you wouldn't necessarily notice here in this book.
Speaker: The other thing that I would say is that there's
Speaker: I feel like you should have chills reading about
Speaker: pyramid head.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Even though I know like the language has to be wielded carefully like a like a scalpel in this in these scenes to really send the reader down a path of of I don't I don't like this one bit.
Speaker: And I mean, I I imagine that Emily Fitch probably just translated what was there and what was there was not a whole lot.
Speaker: No, no.
Speaker: And I will say I will also say this is clearly not a Google translation kind of situation.
Speaker: It's not it's not localized or anything like that, but it's someone actually did some work on this.
Speaker: So, yeah, I'm with you.
Speaker: There's she didn't do anything wrong.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It also cut out the first time you see Pyramid Head is not in that room.
Speaker: You see him through like the metal bars of one of the hallways just kind of standing there staring at you.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So I feel like that these moments of terror that James feels, you never really get the idea that there is an inner, a full and fruitful inner monologue in James's head other than like, well, I got to go save Mary.
Speaker: Maybe I should run.
Speaker: But then I would I've already gone so far like fucker.
Speaker: You haven't really gone that far.
Speaker: You haven't not even you could you could turn around any time you want at this point.
Speaker: And and based on the fact that we're getting no real motivation behind it, maybe you should.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: That you like you are willing to chalk up the letter to neighbors or coworkers also while you're walking into town.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: So and obviously there's things about this that, you know, we'll get to why none of that, why this is none of that is actually doable, but.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I just, it's just a little meh.
Speaker: It's just like if you wanted to just like live in the world of Silent Hill a little bit, you like you beat the game and now you're just like, I just want to experience it again, but I don't want to have to play the game again necessarily.
Speaker: And I just want to.
Speaker: snuggle in the blankets of Silent Hill 2 a little bit longer.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: I get it.
Speaker: But if you're looking for anything that adds anything to the story so far, not getting in this book.
Speaker: No, no.
Speaker: So it's a shame.
Speaker: It's a shame.
Speaker: It's a shame.
Speaker: But anyway.
Speaker: Hmm.
Speaker: Phil.
Speaker: I have something to ask you.
Speaker: Oh, please.
Speaker: Please do.
Speaker: Hold on.
Speaker: Hold on.
Speaker: Now it's not coming.
Speaker: What are you playing?
Speaker: Oh, well, aside from it, for anyone, anybody who is listening in on our early pre-
Speaker: uh, show banter knows, uh, I'm, I'm still playing rogue trader, uh, really, uh, clipping along now, uh, getting some really cool stuff.
Speaker: Uh, have killed no fewer than two of my companions going full dogmatic.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: enjoying it, romancing both my navigator and my blood spinner, because it's honestly, you know, you remember Tommy Lee Jones in Batman Forever and he had Drew Barrymore on one side and, you know, Elvira's mom on the other side.
Speaker: It's basically that I'm basically doing, you know,
Speaker: I've got my nasty, murderous gal on one side, and I've got my sweet albino girl on the other side.
Speaker: And they're both for different occasions.
Speaker: You know what I mean?
Speaker: They're accessories, is what it comes down to.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Chapter two is...
Speaker: Crazy.
Speaker: I actually looked looked it up to see if I was doing something wrong.
Speaker: And and I found out that, like, yeah, no, no.
Speaker: The second act is huge compared to the first and the third.
Speaker: And so it's OK, good.
Speaker: At least at least it's not just me.
Speaker: So I'm working my way through that still really enjoying it, killing a lot of Dracari, joined the blood spinners, basically, which fucking excellent.
Speaker: Yeah, really enjoying myself.
Speaker: Excuse me.
Speaker: Played a couple of demos.
Speaker: Big, big shocker.
Speaker: Played a demo for a game called I Am Jesus Christ.
Speaker: Ooh.
Speaker: Yes, yes.
Speaker: And what basically they seem to be going for here now years ago when I was still working on my YouTube channel, I did a I did a video about the history of Christian video games and
Speaker: At the end of it, I suggested that some kind of a big open world video game where you play Jesus and you accumulate your powers and work your way up like that could be really, really cool and a lot of fun to actually play.
Speaker: And I just publicly now on our show want to say I was wrong.
Speaker: It's just fucking terrible.
Speaker: It is a mess.
Speaker: This game is a mess.
Speaker: They are, I admire what they're going for.
Speaker: First and foremost, it is fully sincere.
Speaker: I wasn't sure what we were dealing with in terms of are the makers of this game Christians or is there a twist?
Speaker: Is there an ironic eye rolly kind of aspect?
Speaker: No, super sincere.
Speaker: Super sincere.
Speaker: As you walk around different places, you will you will collect Bible verses like Assassin's Creed style.
Speaker: Now, and it's funny that we talked about how Silent Hill 2, the book we're reading, just hit the basic beats because that's exactly what's happening in this.
Speaker: When you first start playing, and I think the demo is actually just the alpha.
Speaker: I don't, I just ended up turning it off after a while.
Speaker: I don't think it's, I don't think that it's just a piece of the game.
Speaker: I think it might be the whole game.
Speaker: And you start out, you have to go find John the Baptist.
Speaker: So you got to go talk to your mother, Mary.
Speaker: You got to talk to John.
Speaker: You know, you got to get baptized by him.
Speaker: And then after you get baptized, it's like, OK, time to go to the wedding at Cana.
Speaker: So you go to fucking Cana and turn the water into wine.
Speaker: And then, OK, time to go and collect your disciples.
Speaker: And it's like there's no.
Speaker: Um, it's time for egg delivery.
Speaker: It says yes, yes.
Speaker: It's, it's constant.
Speaker: And I would love to say, cause I was trying to find another way to say this.
Speaker: Cause I would say there's no downtime, but that's actually the opposite.
Speaker: There's nothing but downtime because for a lot of it, you're just walking through.
Speaker: I think you get about 10 FPS on this thing.
Speaker: It's harsh.
Speaker: It feels like these people played open world games from the mid two thousands that people complained about where it's like, oh yeah, the world's huge, but there's nothing to do.
Speaker: They played a bunch of those games and they learned nothing.
Speaker: Nothing at all.
Speaker: It's, it's.
Speaker: Nothing at all.
Speaker: It's so funny.
Speaker: Nothing at all.
Speaker: I wanted very much.
Speaker: Sincerely.
Speaker: I wanted very much to enjoy this.
Speaker: I, I, I saw it.
Speaker: I saw how, um,
Speaker: The people who are making this clearly give a shit.
Speaker: They are imitating all of the kind of Skinner box style things you see in video games.
Speaker: The percentage of a city that you've completed, stuff like that.
Speaker: Stuff that me personally, I know that it's just tapping into the food pellet part of my brain, but I don't care.
Speaker: I enjoy that.
Speaker: You like the food pellets.
Speaker: I like the food pellet.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: And I feel like I've accomplished something when I get one.
Speaker: But it's just, it doesn't work.
Speaker: It literally doesn't work at times.
Speaker: And it's just dull as dishwater.
Speaker: And I almost forgot, between...
Speaker: You can get your you accumulate miracles that you can cast.
Speaker: One of the early ones is transformation.
Speaker: So you transform the water into wine, that kind of thing.
Speaker: One of them is exorcism.
Speaker: And I was like, OK, OK, that should just be the whole game.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: That's just Jesus Christ, exorcist, exorcist.
Speaker: Jesus Christ, colon, exorcist.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: I would play the shit out of that game.
Speaker: Cut to the chase.
Speaker: Give us what we want.
Speaker: It's it's it.
Speaker: I wanted to open with Willem Dafoe in Last Temptation of Christ saying, I used to believe in this, holding up his heart and going, now I believe in this, you know, just going out and just punching Satan in the face.
Speaker: That great.
Speaker: Fine.
Speaker: Do it.
Speaker: But instead, it's just this very milk toast.
Speaker: dull, drawn out kind of experience where you have to go to this person, then you go to that person.
Speaker: And I wondered if there was an a failure state.
Speaker: I was like, could you have a failure state if you're playing?
Speaker: How does that work?
Speaker: My bread maker, my bread is done.
Speaker: Uh, fantastic.
Speaker: What kind of bread?
Speaker: Uh, that's just, I always, I make a, I make a loaf of sandwich bread, uh, every, uh, for the week, uh, out of our, for your week of sandwiches.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: For a week of sandwiches.
Speaker: It's great.
Speaker: We haven't, we haven't purchased, uh, uh, in years at this point.
Speaker: it's worth it.
Speaker: It takes a little extra.
Speaker: I agree.
Speaker: I think homemade bread is made with love.
Speaker: Even machine made stuff.
Speaker: It's better.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Wonder bread is made with wood.
Speaker: Yes, it is.
Speaker: Yes, it is.
Speaker: But what I was getting at is between getting the miracles, you have to
Speaker: solve a puzzle in heaven, it seems to be, because you're definitely in the clouds and there are definitely pearly gates.
Speaker: And the puzzle has nothing to do with what's going on.
Speaker: It falls back on a thing that you see with a lot of Christian video games where it's just basically trivia.
Speaker: So you end up at this...
Speaker: series of rings, seven rings in concentric circles.
Speaker: And each one of them is for days one through seven.
Speaker: And you have to pick the right thing that God did on that day.
Speaker: OK.
Speaker: which, all right, fine, but it has nothing to do with what I'm what I was doing in the moment.
Speaker: It doesn't tie in in any way.
Speaker: And it is my wife literally sat down with me with her with her Bible.
Speaker: It was like, OK, all right, what is it?
Speaker: Which ones are these?
Speaker: And it's so frustrating.
Speaker: It's such old school, and I don't say that fondly, game design where you have to literally click on the rings and turn them.
Speaker: And I ended up clicking the wrong one so many times because, again, 10 FPS at best.
Speaker: It's such a mess.
Speaker: I sincerely wanted to like this.
Speaker: I'm not a Christian.
Speaker: I'm not that guy.
Speaker: But...
Speaker: I know good material to work with when I see it.
Speaker: Oh, 100%.
Speaker: I mean, listen, if Gori Barlog can take God of War into the Norse mythology, then we can have a Jeebus game where he's just Jeebusin all over the town, you know?
Speaker: There is no reason not to.
Speaker: None whatsoever.
Speaker: People will buy that.
Speaker: And he is exorcist.
Speaker: And it's just Jesus Christ exorcist.
Speaker: I just want that game.
Speaker: I want that game.
Speaker: And maybe the whole thing could be like after he, it's like a whole story like this, you won't find this in your daddy's gospel.
Speaker: Ha!
Speaker: And then it's like it's like after he resurrected Lazarus, like he opened like something else came back with Lazarus.
Speaker: Now there's all these exorcisms that he has to perform because Lazarus was dead and and he has to Lazarus was dead.
Speaker: And now that Lazarus came back to life, like everything came back with him.
Speaker: And now like he he raised Lazarus from the dead.
Speaker: But Lazarus wasn't the only thing that came back.
Speaker: Lazarus is the only one who rose from the dead or Jesus, for that matter.
Speaker: Anyway, anyway, Jesus Christ, Exorcist, Jesus Christ, Exorcist.
Speaker: That game would fucking rule.
Speaker: Switch two.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: That's a free one, Nintendo.
Speaker: Make it happen.
Speaker: On a much, much brighter note, I also played the demo for a game called Fretless, the Wrath of Riffson.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: This is a old school turn based RPG game.
Speaker: It's got eight bit to 16 bit vibes.
Speaker: It's a very Scott Pilgrim kind of thing.
Speaker: You are in a world where music is like.
Speaker: everything and you're a guy with an acoustic guitar who wants to uh take part in this battle of the bands it's a literal battle though so like in scott pilgrim sure like it's good yeah yeah music is the weapon and it's a rhythm game uh and uh it's very basic rhythm stuff but it it's very hi-fi rush it honestly it was a cross between hi-fi rush and like secret of mana
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: It had it had those vibes.
Speaker: The music is really nice.
Speaker: The vibe is incredibly good.
Speaker: It has this kind of like homey autumn kind of vibe to it.
Speaker: The indie rock is just right.
Speaker: It kind of struck a few of the chords that Keep Driving did for me.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Where it just it just it's hitting me and kind of the in the old school feel goods and
Speaker: It brings out the guitar nerd in me.
Speaker: Like I used to play guitar.
Speaker: I never got to be heavy into that because that's kind of playing the guitar is kind of like Warhammer.
Speaker: You got people who do it occasionally sometimes, but it's such an expensive hobby that not as frequently.
Speaker: And then you got the people who are obsessed.
Speaker: Obsessed.
Speaker: obsessed.
Speaker: So the pedals and the.
Speaker: Exactly all that.
Speaker: And that's think you are you're defeating like mushroom monsters and rival musicians and stuff like that.
Speaker: And they drop things like fret oil and new pickups.
Speaker: And near the end of the demo, the scientist that I know makes me a bass.
Speaker: So now instead of my acoustic guitar, I'm slapping the bass and it has a whole other.
Speaker: Slapping the bass.
Speaker: I'm slapping the bass.
Speaker: It's got a whole other mechanic to it.
Speaker: And and it was perfect timing because at that point it was starting to feel a little samey because it was the same like three or four villains.
Speaker: The rhythms are
Speaker: nice and satisfying but it's pretty standard bump bump bump you know four four kind of tempo and uh there's nothing too complicated about it and so and then boom i got a new weapon slash instrument and i can play with that and you can customize them and and you know each get different riffs for them the riffs are different attacks or it uh there's a little uh uh slay the spire in there uh in terms of the gameplay it's it's it's
Speaker: Totally worth playing the demo.
Speaker: And I could see when you go over the Steam store, it's overwhelmingly positive over there, which good for them.
Speaker: This is a this is a very cool indie game project.
Speaker: Let's see.
Speaker: I don't know if they did.
Speaker: No, this is this is it.
Speaker: This is the only thing this it's Ritual Studios.
Speaker: This is their first game.
Speaker: um and i'm really impressed with it uh it it it's a lot of fun it's very self-aware and the rhythm stuff in it is a lot of fun it it's just a a really solid music-centric kind of a game i think a lot of people get something out of yeah that's cool yeah so that's fretless and uh uh uh kevin what are you playing
Speaker: oh okay um so uh what i have been playing first uh i beat ninja guide and rage bounds uh i don't know if i mentioned i beat it last week uh i don't think you know you mentioned you mentioned the game but yeah i beat i beat it uh it is uh it only takes like i don't know six hours to beat it all the way through once
Speaker: And then once you get to the end of it, it's like, okay, well, new game plus hard mode, you know, and that changes the levels a bit.
Speaker: Like as you go through, it's the levels are harder, enemy, the bosses are harder and all that stuff.
Speaker: So you can go through and, and,
Speaker: go try it again uh and with a with a higher difficulty it's like not an easy game to begin with it's just it's made easier by the fact that it's unlike old old school ninja gaiden nes days it has no uh there's no limit on on lives you know oh thank god so you're just because and i died so many times over the course of of playing of beating it once it was like in the 200s i was like right a number of deaths um
Speaker: So, you know, it's it's good.
Speaker: It's it's on my game of the year list.
Speaker: It's it's a fun, fun little game.
Speaker: There's actually like a there's there's two there's two endings to the game.
Speaker: So I might, you know, just get the other one just for the sake of of having it.
Speaker: But yeah, it's a fun game.
Speaker: I totally recommend it.
Speaker: What else I have been playing?
Speaker: I just started playing the second Bloodstained game.
Speaker: So they haven't, there isn't, it's not the full one, you know, the full Bloodstained, which is like Symphony of the Night.
Speaker: This is Bloodstained Curse of the Moon 2, which is made by Inti Creates.
Speaker: They did a version that is... Well, technically, the full version is also made by Inti Creates.
Speaker: But yes, they made the 8-bit Castlevania-style game.
Speaker: There was the original Bloodstained Curse of the Moon.
Speaker: I wasn't even aware that this game exists.
Speaker: I really enjoyed Bloodstained.
Speaker: I didn't...
Speaker: I don't know this is a thing.
Speaker: And Bloodstained, you're talking about the old PlayStation style one, right?
Speaker: The one that looks like Symphony of the Night.
Speaker: Exactly, yeah.
Speaker: So before Bloodstained released, they made a game called Curse of the Moon, which is just like a retro Castlevania style with characters from Bloodstained in it.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: And they made it as like a bonus because of their their what's it their Kickstarter when they first got started.
Speaker: So yeah, they've they've been doing Inti Creates has been doing a lot of neat stuff over the years.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Top sellers.
Speaker: What is there?
Speaker: They do the Gunvolt Gal Guardians.
Speaker: Yeah, they've got a style, don't they?
Speaker: They do have a style.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And the the let's see blood stains ritual of the night.
Speaker: That is that's what I'm thinking of is one of those rare Metroidvanias that I fucking devoured.
Speaker: I really enjoyed that.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, it's it's a good one.
Speaker: There is probably another I think there's a sequel to that one.
Speaker: The big the big the big boy version coming out at some point.
Speaker: Ritual of the Night.
Speaker: There's a bunch of DLCs for it, too, that I never got around to playing.
Speaker: Anyway, yes.
Speaker: So played that.
Speaker: What else have I been playing?
Speaker: A little game called Warhammer 40k Rogue Trader.
Speaker: Oh, tell me more.
Speaker: Yeah, I'm continuing on my...
Speaker: I have a problem with being an iconoclast in that my problem is that I'm no matter what I say when I start a new run, I'm like, I'm going to do dogmatic or heretic.
Speaker: I'm not going to be a nice guy anymore.
Speaker: And then, God damn it.
Speaker: I just can't.
Speaker: It's so hard.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's so hard.
Speaker: So like iconoclast in Rogue Trader is basically nice guy mode.
Speaker: Like everything, all the options for iconoclast.
Speaker: Let's save some people.
Speaker: Um, let's, um, it's that comic of like, we should improve society somewhat.
Speaker: And then the dogmatic guy popping out of well, that's exactly what it is.
Speaker: That's exactly what it is.
Speaker: It's just, it's not even like that.
Speaker: Iconoclast is like a kick-ass person.
Speaker: They're just reasonable.
Speaker: You know, they're just like, yeah, we shouldn't kill everyone.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Whereas her, her, heretic is like, let's kill everybody.
Speaker: But in parentheses, it's like for the chaos gods.
Speaker: And, and, and dogmatic is let's kill everybody in parentheses for the guy.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, that's the thing.
Speaker: I'm playing full dog.
Speaker: I say I'm playing full dogmatic, but I still have got like at least a full level in our kind of iconoclast because sometimes you just can't keep going that way.
Speaker: You got to.
Speaker: Give yourself a little break.
Speaker: Sometimes you gotta give somebody a pep talk instead of telling them that they're an embarrassment to the God Emperor when they're sad.
Speaker: If I gotta kill one more person without thinking about it, I'm gonna snap and therefore I'm going to give this person a pep talk.
Speaker: Dogmatic, kill them.
Speaker: Heretical, kill them but smile about it.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's it's the Republican and Democratic Party.
Speaker: Yes, sir.
Speaker: Republican and Democratic Party.
Speaker: Dogmatic and heretical are Republicans and Democrats.
Speaker: Kill them.
Speaker: Which one?
Speaker: Kill them, but smile about it.
Speaker: Which one are they?
Speaker: You decide.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It kind of works either which way.
Speaker: But I'm working my way through act two, working my way downtown, working my way through act two and I'm nearly, I think I'm nearly at the end of act two.
Speaker: I just got the, got my fourth planet back online.
Speaker: Uh, um, cause like, it's like in act two, it's like, you gotta get three, these three planets back online and then it's like, all right, now get this.
Speaker: There's a fourth one that you have to go find.
Speaker: Um, so I think I'm, I'm getting pretty close to, to having that, uh, all settled.
Speaker: Um, there's a bunch of act two, like side quests though, that I want to finish before I get into act three, knowing, knowing what happens in act three, I it's, it's good thing that you,
Speaker: It's a good thing to do those first.
Speaker: It's a good thing to do as many side quests as possible before you get to Act 3.
Speaker: I think some of them you might be able to come around and do again in Act 4, but clear the decks as much as possible.
Speaker: Good to know.
Speaker: That's what I'm doing just out of pure habit, so I'm glad to know that's going to be helpful in the long run.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And also make sure Argenta's in your party at the end of Act 2.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Good to know.
Speaker: She's usually part of my usual.
Speaker: Just have her with you.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Good to know.
Speaker: Good to know.
Speaker: Argenta.
Speaker: Not trying to spoil anything.
Speaker: Just it's like there's certain things that you don't that are elucidated upon in act three if you have certain characters in your party.
Speaker: It's wild.
Speaker: You can totally miss them otherwise.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So, yeah.
Speaker: So Rogue Trader almost through Act 2 and then Act 2 is one of the longest stretches of the game.
Speaker: Oh my God.
Speaker: Act 3 is a lot more self-contained but very different.
Speaker: And then Act 4 is like back to Act 2 shenanigans of like you're doing stuff again all over the galaxy.
Speaker: But yeah, finishing up Rogue Trader Act 2.
Speaker: And what else?
Speaker: I think that's it.
Speaker: That's all.
Speaker: That's it for me playing things.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So thank you so much for listening.
Speaker: If you want, you can follow us on Blue Sky and on Instagram and on TikTok.
Speaker: It's all pixelipod over there.
Speaker: Starting to post more on TikTok in terms of like, I'm just like recording myself talking about books that we've had.
Speaker: If you want to ask us a question on our TikTok, go ahead, throw us a comment on one of our videos and I'll get around to it and be like, hey, I'll answer that question.
Speaker: I'll answer that question nine times.
Speaker: I'll take that one.
Speaker: But yeah, thanks so much for listening.
Speaker: So Phil, I don't know if you can see him behind me, but...
Speaker: Homestar Runner has been standing in my closet for a while.
Speaker: How do I get rid of a Homestar Runner that has decided to take up residence in my closet?
Speaker: Oh boy.
Speaker: Let me tell you with the Homestar runners, it's all about trauma.
Speaker: Uh, the last time I had a Homestar runner stuck in my closet, I ended up just sitting outside with my wife.
Speaker: And after I explained to her over and over again, this is just, we're just, this is a put on, this is an act.
Speaker: Uh, I got into a vicious argument with her, uh, about,
