Latest / The Book-Watchers / 99. Happy Pride! (Pride Month: Cerulean Chronicles)

Transcript

99. Happy Pride! (Pride Month: Cerulean Chronicles) · The Book-Watchers

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: You know, I'm its. I don't know where you're going with.
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: This high I don't know either. We're really bad at
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: these introductions. We could take a page out of the
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: trick you. Seeing Katia's book, I feel like, Hi, Yeah,
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: I'm the only thing that comes out of Texas Steers
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: and queers Jacob.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: And Hi, I'm almost too gay a fucking function.
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: And this is uh no, I'm kidding, this is book watchers.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: This is book. I almost said, I am from the
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: Iraqi porn Iraq and a hard plant.
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: Then you call me. You called me.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: Trixie said that first, and that stuck with me.
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: And again, I'm gonna lose my ship if if Tricksie
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: listens to this podcast.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: I will scream. I will die.
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: I will if she calls us out like, we're not
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: doing this for money. They don't pay us to do
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: this ship.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: You literally literally.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: The like, literally the cover of this, of this entire
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: podcast is you guys are getting paid.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: Paid.
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: You guys are getting paid. Like we may have gotten
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: that one audible sponsorship that didn't last, it was temporary,
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: they didn't renew it.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: That was a hot mask.
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we need more followers, we more followers. We need
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: more recognition. People tell people about us, please. I'm sorry,
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: but like you know, we're working. We're working nine to
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: five jobs, like we're not actually like nine. Our schedules
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: aren't actually ninety five.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: But still I wish it was nine to five.
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: I know, right, we worked ay jobs, Like damn it
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: is something like give us something, guys, like, tell your
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: friends about this. We're funny, we're funny kind.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: Of I'll do I'll do. Oh god, I won't. I
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: won't sell feed picks. I'm sorry, I won't do it.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: I won't sell feed picks. Say I won't sell feeds.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: You know, you know when you see my toesies, my
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: boy my boyfriend makes a running joke that I should
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: make that I should make furry art, like I make
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: a killing off that, And I'm like.
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: You probably could have seen some of your character art.
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: I don't know, that's that's a compliment. That's a compliment.
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: I've seen the character that you've done, Like you just
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: doodled Pelisario one time, and I was like, I did
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: are You're like, yeah, look at you just make her
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: like face into like a I don't know, like like
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: a feline or a camp can I you know, Tellsaria
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: is giving like fox Like, no, no, she's not a fox.
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: He's too chaotic for that. Some kind of cat, some
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: kind of cat, like some kind of cat. She's a cat.
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, she's a cat. But welcome to bok Watchers. Were
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: just talked about that for like five minutes.
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: We literally talked about anything else but books or watching
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: movies anyway. So this so this episode is going to
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: be a start of series of Pride Month, like if
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: you live in the US gay exactly, And for those
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: of you who live in the US, you know that
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: there's a bit of a crisis going on for the
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: LGBTQ community, especially concerning our dumbass president, uh getting rid
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: of certain natally recognized months, and that included, unfortunately Pride,
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: and that also included Black History Month and other and
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: like other, like another month recognizing different ethnicities and races.
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: So like, uh, February was Black History Month. I think
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: April was April. No, which one is Mexican Heridan like
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: Latin American.
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: Isn't that November? I think that November.
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: No, No, we just went through it on Hispanic Heritage Month.
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: I was, what what is it?
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: It's freaking uh it's from September fifteenth to October fifteenth. Huh,
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: that's weird. I would start in the middle of the month.
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: I thought it was partially in October.
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: If you haven't cut this part out, But hold on,
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: uh heritage months calendar and let me look at let
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: me look at up a calendar. What are the twelve
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: heritage months. So there's Black History Month, Native American History Month?
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: That is, uh, there was Woman History Month. Didn't they
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: get like he pretty much did away with all of
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: the heritage months pretty much kind of.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: I mean, obviously people still.
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: Like Dune is pride, and he made it to where
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: pride is no longer recognized, and you know, Usks, like
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: for US Skays, we're pissed, like we're still going to
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: celebrate pride. So like, I'm pretty sure they're like depending
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: on where you live, like if you live in areas
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: that are of course, like this is for US babies,
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: for those of y'all overseas or out of who are
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: not in the US right now, I'm pretty sure you
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: guys still celebrate your own form of pride. I'm not
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: sure if you celebrate pride at the same time as
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: we do. But then in America. It's no longer considered
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: a nationally recognized month like Holiday m HM, which is
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: dumb because Pride has been has been around for so
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: long and even without even without its national recognition, people
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: are still gonna be celebrating it. We're still gonna be
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: celebrating it, even though Target can go fuck themselves for
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: ticketing off.
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: Target and Walmart Target for years, so.
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: Well you worked for them.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: I did, I did. I don't understand why the gays
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: love Target because Target's not cute targets. The good is
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: white trash of the Gucci belt.
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: It's overpriced. Like, honestly, I wish there was another general
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: store like Target that I could go to that's not
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: Target because it's overpriced. Target is overpriced, and then Walmart
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: is like where you can buy like the cheapest skit
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: that will never last, that's fair. Like there's only some
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: things that I'll buy from from Walmart. Some if I
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: need like a cheap like a charger, that's cheap, but
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: even then I can get that at ATB. Yeah, at
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: this point, they just got to turn at B into
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: like like the local Target slash Walmart because right now
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: and because where we live, guys, we live in South
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: Texas and in South Texas and like throughout different parts
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: of Texas. We have a general store called ATB, which
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: stands for Here Everything is Better, And primarily they sell produce.
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: They sell just groceries, but some ATVs have like are
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: a little bit more general lize, so they have like
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: outdoor stuff, they have clothes and kitchen where like they
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: have longer, like larger expanded sections for different things. But
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: it's not like Walmart or Target, which is uh which
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: has all of these pretty much like a bit of everything.
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: So at this point though, they they just expand ATB
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: into those kind of things, into like something more like
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: Walmart and Target. And some of the stuff they sell
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: there is actually really good, Like in some of the
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: agb's that've been to you, Like there's an HIV plus
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: in San Antonio that like has like all these different
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: stuff like a big electronic section as a book section,
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: toy section, outdoor section, kitchen section, you know, aside from
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: just the groceries. And I'm like, this is shit. They
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: got the stuff they sell here, it's pretty good. Mm hmm.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: We gay as fuck. I mean I'm straight passing, but whatever,
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: you know, I can I can be I go walking
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: down the street and no one can clock my ass.
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, as soon as you open your mouth though.
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: I could, I could, I could do the.
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: Dildos and rainbows and buck plugs just come shooting.
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: Out, not the butt plug. But this is a Christian podcast.
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: Christian podcast. Wow, I just I just I feel like
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: I'm my skin's on fire now just saying that.
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: I won. It was like, no, I can see a
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: little bit of spolk coming off of you right now.
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: Just trying not to do the whole Christian like cross thing.
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: Oh like beetlejuice.
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: I mean, the only time I ever step into a
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: church is I want to see all the cardinals fight
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: each other to figure out who's gonna be the next pope.
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: Oh, they already figured that out.
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: I know, I know they did. I know they just did.
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: But like, I want to be in the room. What
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: does that tea that drama because that is dramas thet Anyways,
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: it's a.
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: Secret, Sigaret whatever whatever. Anyway, we're not here to talk
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: about We're not here to talk about face. We're not
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: here to talk about any of the other stuff that
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: we spent the last five minutes talking about. We're here
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: to talk about gay, gay and gay in literature. Yeah,
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: because that's what we do.
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: You maybe thinking, oh my god, are you all going
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: to talk about the smitt Not this week?
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: Not this week? This week, we're gonna be. We're gonna
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: be this week. We're gonna be. We're gonna be keeping
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: it PG maybe a little bit. PG thirteen, just a
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: little bit because there's like but it's still family friendly
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: and it's LGBTQ. So if you're fans of like Academia,
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: like those Academia type novels and Found Family and like
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: orphanages or like it's kind of like a it's then
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: you then you're gonna love this because this book. The
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: books that we're gonna be reviewing today, we're gonna be
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: reviewing two of them. They're both by my favorite, our
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: favorite LGBTQ author TJ. Kluhne. We've reviewed several of his
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: book series here already. We were going to do an
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: another one of his books, but a certain somebody deleted
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: deleted the episode.
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: You know what, whatever, Okay, we'll get there someday. Also,
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: disclaimer on the book we're talking about today, Jacob will
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: say it I at least know about the controversy with
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: that series. Now, will we talk about the controversy now
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: we're just talking about the book. What do you know
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: the controversy about it?
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: I had something to do with like, uh, I heard
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: some of it, Like it has something to do with
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: the fact that, like it's dealing with like foster care
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: and orphanages and also disabilities and things like that, and like.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: Yes, but future even cut this part out. It actually
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: deals with back in Canada. I think it was like
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: during like the sixties and seventies where they took Native
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: children and put them in schools and a bunch of
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: Native kids died from that. They just weren't taking care
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: of him shit. Apparently that inspired this series, and he
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: said in the TJ Clues said that, and everyone's like,
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: why the fuck would you take something like that and
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: write a fancy story? Kind of inspired from that? From
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: that inspired you to do something like that, That's what
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: That's what the whole countroversy is about. But in the
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: last feature, everyone, we're back, We're not gonna talk about
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: the controversy. If you don't know the controversy, you can
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: look into it in your own time. There is a
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: conversation there, but this is not an episode of a
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: podcast to have that conversation.
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: No, we're so I'm aware of the controversy, and.
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: And I was like, I had no room, no place
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: there to have a conversation.
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: About Yeah, I'm Hispanic, I'm mixed race, Hispanic Caucasian, so
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: and like, I have no real opinion on that. I
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: read into it and I was like, oh, like that sucks.
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but nonetheless, you want to learn more about the
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: controversy and be in the conversation about that. There are
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: much better places on YouTube as well as podcasts that
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: go over that controversy and more definite conversation there.
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: Hey, real quick, can we like pause for a second, Like,
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: do we really need to mention the controversy?
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: No, we don't, but I want to mention at least
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: we're not going to talk about it because I don't need people.
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: Granted we don't have a lot of people in the comments,
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: but like, I don't need people in the comments, So
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: I rather just be like, we know about it. We're
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: not the right people to talk about it because we're not.
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: Let's okay, let's let's rewind. Let's start out, let's rewind
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: cut that last, let's stick the last few minutes out
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: and start over.
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: You give me the three thousand dollars check?
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: Well, why does he have a three thousand dollars check?
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: And why is he waving it in your face?
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: Give me, give me, give me, give me, give me
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: your grimear's check.
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: Last minutes we're gonna start. We're gonna start by over. Okay,
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: you look like a hamster, not like a hamster. That
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: face you made just screamed hamster.
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: Okay, okay, but I don't uh huh okay, all right, bye, babe,
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: I love you. Weird fucking weirdo anyway.
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: Or what for? I was distracted, so let's just go back.
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: Let's go back. We'll start over because I'm like, I
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: don't think I think I was a little too sounded,
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: a little too insensive where I was like, yeah, I'm
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: aware of it. That sucks, So let's just start Let's
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: just go back.
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: Okay, all right, rewind, we're getting today's book before I
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: get in Today's Actually note the collup point great lovely.
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: If you look at the description below, you'll see a
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: line to a line tree that I'll take you all
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: the podcasts, you know, the productions family podcasts as well
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: the YouTube channel. Go in there and say hi, say
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: hi to my cute little face because apparently look like
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: a fucking hamster, because you know whatever. And of course
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: you can look at Jacob's He's beautiful, stunning, and your
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: your pain in my ask, horribly horribly hemorrhoids.
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: Hemorrhoids.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so there you go. But now before we get
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: in today's episode with the book we're talking about, to say,
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: are the two books we're talking about today? There is
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: a bit of a controversy with it. I we are
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: aware of. We are aware of the controversy. Will we
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: talk about the controversy here? Personally, It's not my place
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: to say, I'm not I'm white. I'm a literally white
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: American Irish American descent. I have no stake, no qualm
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: in that conversation. I don't need to be in that conversation. Now.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: I have my own views on that controversy. But this
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: is the mom podcast for that. We're not we're not
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: talking about the controversy. You want to go and look
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: up the controversy yourself, more than happy to you. There
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: are much better people qualify people that talk about the
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: CONTROVERSI and have the conversation with or listen to people
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: have a conversation about that, and there's a conversation there,
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: very important one. But this is the podcast just about books,
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: not necessarily the controversy. We are aware of it, but
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: we are never.
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: Good. We are aware of it, and uh yeah, I
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: have nothing to say on it either. I know people
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: have their opinions. Honestly, I didn't really I didn't know
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: there was a controversy ond this book until after I
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: read it, and by that point I'm already like, well,
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: I read it, I enjoyed it, and overall, the like,
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: the overall reception of House in this Serulian Sea was
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: actually very for the most part, it was very good. Yeah,
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: it's one of his more popular books. In fact, it
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: was so popular that it weren't to a sequel. So
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: the books that we're going to be reading today is
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: The House in the Serulean Sea and its seql somewhere
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: beyond the Sea. So if you are familiar with Miss
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: Paragrind's House of Gifted Children, then this book is this
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: book has a similar setting because so the main character.
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: So like just to give you like an idea, like
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: a good decent summary of it. Ah, the book takes
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: place doesn't really say what country this takes place in.
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: It's very vague, like really it's it takes place in
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: a city. And then like where the actual house or
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: orphanage is. It is, uh set on the island called
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: Marcius Island.
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: And if you can, if you can the DMS and
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: be like, oh my god, where's this located?
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like it's Marcius Marcius hold On, not marsis
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: It's Marcius Islands and takes place in a small town
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: called Marcie hold On. I'm gonna like, future, you haven't
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: cut this part up? Is I there we go? Yeah,
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: it's Marcius. I'm sorry. Okay, So it takes so it
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: takes place in a It kind of goes back and
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: forth a bit, but primarily it's gonna be taking place
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: on a place called Marcius Island. Uh so the so
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: the island is like a private island. The school, it's good.
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: It's actually described more as a home than an orphanage.
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: It's not really it's not so much an orphanage. It's
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: more of a home. And uh this is home is
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: is for children with magical abilities. So uh, in this
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: world there are people with there are magical people so
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: be it people with superpowers or magical people with who
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: come from like mythical backgrounds like fay or there's the
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: there's fay gnomes, there's vampires. There's all different kinds of
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: like unique people. And these people are regulated by several
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: government organizations. Apartment of Management of UH. Let me see
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: this is like it's an acronym, Like it's one of
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: those acronym type organizations where it's like so long you
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: typically referred by dicomy like let me see here almost
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: really see it's like Department of Yeah, Department in charge
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: of Magical Youth. So we're gonna be I am not
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: being very coherent today. I'm so sorry. So the magical
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: the people going back a bit, so the magical people,
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: like be it adults or children, they are being managed
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: by several organizations. UH. One of the organizations that we
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: primarily see in UH these two books is uh Dakami,
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: which is an acronym standing for the Department of the
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: Department in Charge of Magic Youth. So it's like the
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: foster care, it's like child protective services, but it's for
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: it's primarily deals with magical children, children with magical abilities,
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: unusual abilities, things like that, And it's inter around the
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: main care, it's inter around the story itself is going
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: to be about our main character.
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: He is.
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: Wow, I'm like just why, like why is it when
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: I'm trying to recall all these details, I'm just brain farting,
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: just like brain fog. Yeah. So, so the house, the
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: home is the So the home is home for magical children.
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: And this home itself is registered and man and under
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: the purview of the department in charge magical children. And uh,
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: these children this orphanage. And this is how I'm sorry,
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: I should I need to stop saying orphanage because it's
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: not an orphanage. It is a it is a home
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: for gifted children. And the home isn't The home in
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: question is run by a man, by a man by
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: the name of Arthur, Arthur Parnassus, and the story follows
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: follows from the perspective not of Arthur, but of a
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: agent of Dakeony. His name is Linus Baker.
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: Uh.
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: So this is so, this is kind of This is
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: a little bit of a breakaway from t. J. Kluhne's
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: usual characters, because usually he makes his characters seem more
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: above average in terms of like physical appearance, so they're
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: usually pretty good looking, hot, or you know, like what
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: she would typically expect of the book hero or the
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: book's main character. So Linus Baker, he's plus size kind
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: of guy, so he's described as like balding hair. He's balding,
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: he's in his fort he's in his forties. He's plus sized,
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: so he's not so he's pretty average looking. Its just
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: like refreshing because you know, usually like most of the
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: characters and like these kind of stories are like above
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: average and appearance, like oh, they're so hot, romance things
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: like that. So nope, we're dealing with average characters, which
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: is refreshing. We love that body positivity. And so Linus
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: Baker is an h is an agent for Guycam and
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: he's given an assignment by extremely Upper Management, which is
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: literally the department that's hard of all the other departments.
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: So he so Linus is like, he's an average guy.
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: He he kind of lives a pretty dull life, pretty dull,
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: gray average life. And I say gray because that's the
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: overall tone you get in the beginning of the story
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: because he lives in this big city and the thing
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: is the biggest characteristic of the city is that it
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: is always gloomy. It's raining every day, it rains for
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: weeks on ends. Rarely does it stop raining. So you
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: get like this very gray and gloomy outlook at the
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: beginning of the at the beginning of the story, and
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: h Linus he basically living, taking it day by day.
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: He's not really living. It's very clear he's not really
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: living his life. He's just go to work, go home,
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: listen to some records, pet his cat, go to sleep,
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: Rinston repeat, Rinson repeat the next day, and he's pretty
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: much doing this and until he's given an assignment by
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: Daikum's Department of extremely Upper Management, which is like the
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: department in charge of all the other departments. They call
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: him in and they tell him that they have they
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: have a special assignment for him. They picked him because
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: his uh so far, his reviews of other foster homes
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: and other homes under the management of Diachamy have always
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: been pretty straightforward, and they've always been very detailed as
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: well as unbiased. So he's never he's never he never
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: allows himself to get close to the people that he reviews.
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: He's never gets too involved with the children. He's just
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: he goes in, he does his job, he makes his reports,
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: and then he goes home. So he's somebody that they
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: can tell that they they picked him deliberately because he's
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: not very he's very detached and he doesn't get too involved,
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: and they want that for the next review that they're
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: going for the next field assignment that they're going to
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: give him. So they're sent So they tell him that
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: they're sending him to a special orphanage, a special home,
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: I should say, out out on Murris's Island. And sorry, brother, sorry,
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: my brother just walked by, Bruce. Okay, all right, sorry
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: recording now. So they said they decided to send Linus
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: to uh alt home that's being run by a guy
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: named Arthur Parnassis. Uh this home houses several unique children,
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: which isn't to Linus, that's not unusual. But he's always
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: been visiting house homes like foster homes or like other
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: housings for magical youths, and nothing new there, and he's
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: confusing why they chose him for this one. The house
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: is the home is located on marcis Island or Marcius Island,
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: and uh the island is off the coast of Marcius village.
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: They tell him that this particular home is special one
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: is that one because for starters, nobody knows about it.
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: Everybody that does knows about it is UH is required
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: to sign an n B A and we'll be prosecuted
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: to the highest extent if they UH blab about anything
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: to do with the UH Marcius Island home because this
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: home is houses children of very unique and very powerful origins,
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: who are of a very unique and very powerful origins. UH.
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: They had they give uh linus packet filled with the
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: dusties of all the children and of course the UH
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: headmaster of the home, and they basically tell them, you're
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: you got to train. You have to be on a
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: train the next day, and you're not to You're not
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: to open this package until you get there. So he
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: gets there and and he one thing he notices is
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: like as the train gets closer and closer to Marcius Village, UH,
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: it stops raining and it's sunny and it's clear. When
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: the train stops, there's white sandy beaches. And for him
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: it's like, like, oh, this is actually this is paradise
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: right here. Because he's been he like work himself is
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: like for him, work is always like that's all he
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: ever does, and Dakami demands so much of his attention.
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: Like last in fact, the last time he'd ever take
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: took a vacation, he took like a couple of days
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: to himself, but literally within the first day he was
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: called back for like some sort of emergency like oh,
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: we need you here, and he just went in without
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: without any real question or complaint. So one thing about
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: this series, like at least with the first book, we see,
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: is that Linus is like he's looking for a change.
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: He's just living. He's he's living, but he's he's living,
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: but he's not really living. He's not doing anything for himself.
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: He doesn't have anybody in his life. He doesn't really
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: he doesn't think that he has time for that special
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: somebody in his life. But then he gets to Marcius,
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: and let's just say this, his time in Marcius is
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: gonna it changes things for him. So as soon as
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: he gets there at the train, Marcius is actually the
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: end of the line for the train, and he gets
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: there wondering like, Okay, well now I'm here, what do
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: I do. As soon as he steps off the off
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: the train, there's this pay there's a pay a public
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: payphone nearby that starts ringing. Furious, he picks it up
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: and he hears somebody on the other line ask him,
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: are you the guy the guy sent from dakem me.
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: He's like, yes, cool, glad you, glad you finally make it.
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: I've been calling for hours. I'm on my way, and
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: just hangs up. He's like, okay, well, I guess confused.
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: He sits down to wait for whoever's supposed to come
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: pick him up, and he decides to open up the dossier.
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: Dossier has files for let me see leave, it's five children,
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: so six children. I'm sorry, there's six children. It has
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: files for six children, and then, of course the file
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: for the headmaster. And the very first file he sees
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: when he opens up the package is a file for
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: a boyd named Lucifer, nickname Lucy and species listed under
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: his species or magical background is Antichrist. He's the end.
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: So this so the Marcius Island home is home to
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: very power, to a group of very powerful and unique children,
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: one of them being the actual Antichrist. When as soon
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: as as soon as Linus read that, he fainted and
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: he didn't wake up until his ride appears his ride
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: showed up. The person who was who came to the
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: person who had called and said it was on her
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: way was a woman by the name of Zoe Chapple White.
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: Zoe picks him up, like literally picks him up off
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: the ground because he because he fainted for the entire
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: period it took her to get from the island to him.
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: And she's very known. Zoe is very no nonsense. She's
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: described as having white textured hair, you know, average height,
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: and of course dark skin. And she takes she gets
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: linus seats like what's wrong with you right? Like you
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: were just lying there and he's like, I just read
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: the dulcier. He's like, oh, okay, cool, Well you might
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: want to read the rest because as you have until
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: we get to the island to read them. And she'd
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: get she puts them in his uh see, he loads her.
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: She loads him up into the into her pickup truck,
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: drives him across the town. He notices, of course, like
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: the town is just your typical sunny beach side village
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: and uh he notices, like, of course, the stand the
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: village has the standard dycam me propaganda. And think about
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: the thing about the books is that it also deals
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: with that kind of propaganda that we see during the
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: times of like segregation and you know where like there
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: was government policies regulating like segregation and uh uh just
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: overall racial discrimination. So like for Dyke and me, and
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: also the Department in charge of Magical adults, so Diacoma,
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: they have a lot of propaganda, and their propaganda often
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: appears in the form of see something, say something. So
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: if you see it a magical and unregistered magical child
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: or magical adult, say something. So that's like see something,
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: say something becomes the motto for this story's form of discrimination,
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: especially against magical people. Yeah, so hmm. Linus is taken
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: to the island. He's start he's he's too frazzled to
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: really uh look like glance at the to really glance
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: at the dose's And he also while they're driving through
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: the village, he also notices that a lot of the
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: people when they see Zoe driving by, they stop. They
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: give her these like nasty looks or like really suspicious looks.
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: And even when they get to the fairy, the ferryman
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: is also very crotchety and very and cross with them,
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: I mean Zoe, she handles it like she handles it.
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: She doesn't really say anything to him. She doesn't really
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: She takes everything in stride, even when the ferryman like
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: tells her rates are going up or rates are going up,
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: and very like clearly he's only gouging the price for her.
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: They get to the island, Zoe drives them, drives them
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: up into the island, like some about halfway through the
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: island before she stops and like has a serious conversation
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: with him. Because the thing is is that one thing
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: that Linus was not expecting was he was not expecting
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: someone like Zoe. He was informed that there would be
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: the headmaster and of course the children, but not this,
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: not her. He has no idea who she is. But
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: once she has act but she basically lays it out
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: for him that these children are all good children. And
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: you know, there's he's whatever he's looking for, whatever Diachami
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: or the extremely upper management is looking for, they're not
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: going to find it. Because thing about extremely upper management
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: is they're looking for a reason to close down the
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: orphanage because one thing, they're terrified they have all these
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: really powerful children there. And already we know that the
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: that the Antichrist is there, and these other children are
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: supposed to be also just as unique and just as
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: powerful as Lucy. So what are like they want? They
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: are skeptical, skeptical about leaving it, leaving these children in
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: charge of just one man and then isolated island like this.
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: They think they need to be put into more into
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: the into like a different home with more government oversight
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: and things like that. So that's what Linus is there for,
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: because he needs to figure out if this uh, if
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: this home needs to be closed down, if it needs
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: if these children need to be removed, if there's any
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: kind of like foul play or any kind of like
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: a use going on in the home, you know, they anything,
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: They need something right, they need a good excuse to
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: close the home down. And after she gets her saying
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: Zoe vanishes, Linus is left there like what He realizes
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: that as it turns out, Zoe Chapple White is actually
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: an island sprite. So Sprite's like their form of fay.
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: There's many different like I don't really know like the
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: whole mythology behind this, but sprites in this, in this
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: book and the next book, they're like they're descended from
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: the Fay. So I guess like they have like some
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: sort of half human heritage to them. But Zoe Chappele
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: White is a very powerful island sprite. And the thing
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: about sprites is that they're territorial. So in Zoe's case,
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: like she's very she's very protective of the island and
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: her home on the island, and anybody who's there on
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: the island are there because she allows them to be there.
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: And she makes it very clear that if he does
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: anything to hurt the kids or lie or like, right,
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: pretty much of the overstays is welcome. See What'll make
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: sure he's never allowed onto the island again. So Actress,
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: he vanishes. Linus is forced to go to walk the
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: rest of the way to the to the house. When
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: he sees it, he sees a nice old, almost like
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: colonial style house, almost well, not colonial style. It's an
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: older house like about two or three it's about like
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: two stories high. It's very nice and worn in, very
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: well taken care of. You know, it's honestly a dream.
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: It's like a dream house on an island. Think about it.
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: You know. This is off to the side of the
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: of the house is a nice little guest cottage. There's
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: also a garden stretched off to the side very top
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: of the house. There's like something that looks like a
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: lookout tower, which is odd. But still, rather than go
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: into the house, he kind of he decides to take
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: a look around the house. He walks into the garden,
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: sees that it's very well taken care well, like well
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: cared for a garden. There's a little gazebo in the
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: center of the garden and he notices what he thinks
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: at first is just a little statue of a garden dome.
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: Sony walks by it. The garden home turns and looks
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: at him and starts talking to him and freaks him out,
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: and he meets one of the children, one of the
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: other children of the of the house. This is this
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: child in question is uh, let me see here, Talia.
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: So Talia is a garden nome And what makes her
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: unique is that she is a female garden home, which
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: in this story, female garden homes are actually very rare
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: and unheard of. That are just female garden homes look
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: so much like the male counterparts that they're hard to take.
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: They're hard to like. Really, it's hard to tell the difference, uh,
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: because think about Talia. Yeah, she obviously sounds like a
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: little girl. She looks like she looks like any other gardener,
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: any bargain brown gardener. She has a beer, she has
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: a nice soft white beard, she wears a cap. Yeah,
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: she's very invested. She's very invested in her garden, and
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: she has a very She, like a lot of the
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: other children in the in the home, have a very
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: morbid sense of humor. So like, you know, she like
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: casually makes death threats, saying like I'll bury you in
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: my garden if you cross.
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: Me not to bury you in the garden.
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: Mm hmm. And that's how the other children are, like
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: most of the children are like, uh, we see. So,
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: so this is the first child he meets. Talia leads her,
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: leads him to the guest house where he can unload
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: his stuff, and it's there he meets the other children.
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: He meets another one of the children, and that is
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: that child in question is a slime name Chauncey. Chauncey
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: is a an enigma because no one knows exactly. No
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: one is really sure what he is. Like all the
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: other children in the house like, oh, we have labels
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: for them, but Chauncey Chauncey is Chauncey. Honestly, Chauncey is cute.
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: He's probably one of the cutest ones. He's probably the
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: cutest kid in the in the entire household, because like,
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: for one thing, he has dreams to be like all
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: of course, all the children, they have their dreams, they
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: have their aspirations of what they want to be in
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: the future. And Chalancy wants to be a bell hop
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: because of all things, Like, he was told he could
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: be whatever he wants. Because most when when people first
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: discovered him, they thought, oh, he's a monster, right, but
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: then uh, but then when he was brought into the
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: Parnassas household, he was told that he could be whatever
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: he wants. And he watched the movie. He watched a
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: movie I forgot the name of the movie, but there
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: was a bell hop. There was like a hotes took
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: place in a hotel and one of the main characters
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: was a bell hop. And he loved it so much.
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: He was like, I want to be a bell hop.
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: So throughout the book he's constantly trying to, like, you know,
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: play the role as a bell hop. Try to take
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: Linus's luggage full his clothes, do his laundry things like that.
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: He has a little bell hop cap. You know, way
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: Chauncey's described like he looks like a he looks like
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: a slime, like a blob. And you know, he's kind
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: of more snail like or sluglike than anything, because you know,
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: he had he's slimy looking. He has these tentacles for arms,
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: and he has these like stalk eyes, like a snail
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: or a slug would have so eyeballs on stalks. And
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: he's pretty cute. He's very sweet. He also meets another
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: one of the Linus is also introduced to another one
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: of the children, a young fourteen fifteen year old boy
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: named Sal. The thing is Sal at first is very
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: sky and very quiet. In fact, he's terrified of people
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: he doesn't recognize. The first time he sees the thing
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: is his first time he sees Sal. Since Linus was
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: going to be spending the next month there, he had
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: to bring his cat with him, and as soon as
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: he put the cat down and opened her cage, she
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: immediately ran out into the run around the island in
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: the in the house and when he sees when Linus
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: sees his cat again, sees like being very loving and
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: very affectionate towards Sal, and she's actually meowing at him,
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: which is which throws Linus off, because she never meows that.
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: She's never vocal with Linus. But here's this, here's this
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: very quiet boy, you know, petting her, and she's getting
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: she's being all affectionate with him, and she's meowing at him.
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: She's talking to him, and Linus is like like mystified,
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: and he's like, you there, boy, how did you do that?
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: How did you get her to talk like that? But
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: as soon as Sal sees Linus, he gets tear, he
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: gets freaked out, and he transforms into he transforms so
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: being a boy of about fourteen fifteen. Uh uh, Sal,
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: he's a he's a he's another black character like uh,
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: like Zoe, but he's like for his age, he's actually
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: pretty big for his age. And well he's a shape shifter.
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: And the thing is, though he shaped, the thing is
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: he's a big boy, but he shapes shifts into a Pomeranian.
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: Oh so Sal ends up stape shift thing into a
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: Pomeranian and runs off and like, uh, Talia has to
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: uh had to warn him, like I had to warn Lionus,
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: Like hey be careful. He's very shy, and Lionus is like,
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: but he just spoke. He just like, what was he
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: doing with Calliope? She's never done that before. His cat's
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: name as Calliope. She's a very sassy cat. She's that
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: kind of cat that's like, you know, I'm in charge,
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: like unfazed, unbothered, Like if I give you attention is
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: because I chose to exactly mm hmmm. Queen diva icon legend.
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: So Lionus is introduced to the rest of the kids.
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: So the okay, so he was introduced. We've already seen
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: Chauncey Chauncey, the slime Talia, the garden Nome Style, the
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: shape Shifter, and let me see. So those are the
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: three he's introduced to the others. So there's Phoebe. Phoebe
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: is another sprite, but she is a forest sprite mm hmm.
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: And so Phoebe or fee as everyone calls her, she's
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: a forest sprite. She's a little she's actually a ginger.
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: So the best way to describe her, she's a young
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: ginger like, uh, like, zoe has a sprite she has
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: she has she has these transparent wings kind of like
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: a dragonfly. Or like across between a dragonfly and a
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: butterfly kind of type wings, you know, like how fairies
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: have like four typically or just are drawn with like
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: are depicted having like four wings like insectoid wings. So
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: she has a similar pair of wings like Joey does,
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: and she's she's very closed off and kind of stand
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: offish when he first when Minus first meets her, after her,
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: he meets another non human, non human child, and this
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: child is a wyvern, a adolescent wyvern named Theodore. So
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: when he first meets Theodore Theodore, he can't really understand
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: Theodore because Theodore only speaks in like chirps and clicks
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: and growls, but everyone else around him can understand what
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: he's saying. So he's pretty He's pretty cute. He's pretty cute.
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: He's very gang like gangly and like clumsy, And when
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: he first meets Lionus, he basically demands Linus give him
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: something for his hoard, and the only thing Lioness can
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: finds in his like that he could give is like
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: a spare bronze button in his pocket, and Ador actually
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: loves it. He takes the button and hides it in
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: it with his horde and like, he's like, it's a secret,
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: his his heard is a secret. No one knows where
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: it is, and everyone in the house is like, well,
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: there's there's a horde in your bedroom. And then there's
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: a horde under the couch. So it's only one of
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: one or two places that he could that you could
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: hide your stuff. He hides it in the he hides
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: it under the couch. M and then and then of
• 47:26
  Speaker 2: course the last kid that uh that Linus is introduced
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: to is Lucy. Lucy out of all the kids, has
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: the most morbid personality and more and sense of humor.
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: But he's not like he's not an actual devil child
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: being the Antichrist. He's he's mischievous, he's very intelligent, he
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: makes very dark jokes, but he's actually very sweet and
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: he's all he's Also he respects his house. The head
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: map sure Arthur Parnassis and that and Linus is introduced
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: to Arthur. Arthur is described as a very as a tall, lean,
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: older man in his forties. He has like pale blonde hair,
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: and he often wears pants that are too short, that
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: are too short on the leg and are always showing off.
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: Is very colorful socks, it's that's an actual personality trait.
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: Arthur loves wearing pants are a little bit shorter around
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: the calf, so that way he can show off his
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: colorful shop, his colorful socks. So Linus introduces himself and
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: pretty much sets the record straight that he's there to
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: inspect the household, make sure that no, there's no foul
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: foul play and there's nothing going on, like weird going on,
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: and he also makes it clear that he's very he
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: thinks it's very it's very unprofessional that and also like
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: very unusual that they're an extra person in the house
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: that Dyke is not aware of, and that person is
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: Zoe Chapel White. It turns out Zoe is not registered,
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: is not a registered uh, it's not registered with the
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: Department in Charge and Magical Adults. So she's an unregistered
• 49:16
  Speaker 2: magical person. And it's prey it's prety much hinted that
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: throughout the rest of the book the story that like
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: she'll that she doesn't care that she's unregistered and she
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: will never register with the with the government because she
• 49:33
  Speaker 2: lives on an island off the coast of the off
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: the coast of the mainland, and this island is uninhabited,
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: saved for the people and the the people and children
• 49:41
  Speaker 2: and the orphanage. So it's like, what are you gonna do?
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: S island belongs to me, You have no you have
• 49:48
  Speaker 2: no authority, you have no power here exactly. But uh
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: Lioness makes it clear, that makes it very clear that
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: he's just there to inspect the house, to expect inspect
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: the house, make sure the children are taken care of.
• 50:03
  Speaker 2: And Arthur very amicable, he's very chill and unbothered by
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: the fact that Linus is there, and he's very welcoming
• 50:11
  Speaker 2: to Linus and tries to make Linus feel as much
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: as home as I feel, as much as home here
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: as he killed as the kids are. So after the
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: introductions and you know, getting to know some of the kids,
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: Arthur uh Linus goes back to the guest house and
• 50:29
  Speaker 2: he decides to finally read through the dussiers of the
• 50:34
  Speaker 2: rest of the children because he didn't get the chance
• 50:37
  Speaker 2: to after he glanced at Lucy's After glancing at Lucy's dussier,
• 50:45
  Speaker 2: and he learned some pretty shocking things about about the children,
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: and he now understands why this orphanage is so special
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: because this orphanage was meant to be just an experiment
• 50:54
  Speaker 2: to see to try to put these children, who are
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: very powerful, very unique, and also very dang like, try
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: to keep them away from the rest of the world,
• 51:03
  Speaker 2: make sure that they're in a safe and secure location.
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: But at the same time, the government thinks are beginning
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: to believe that these children need to be placed in
• 51:12
  Speaker 2: homes where they're under more direct government oversight. So after
• 51:18
  Speaker 2: reviewing Lucy's Dussier again, Lucy, of course is the son
• 51:21
  Speaker 2: of the actual devil. He is the Antichrist. He learns
• 51:25
  Speaker 2: that Chauncey is unique. The slime is the reason why
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: he's there is because he's very unique. It's never been
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: seen before. Nobody knows what he is. He's just he's
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: a slime who is a green, somewhat transparent slime, sluggish
• 51:41
  Speaker 2: looking creature. All right. He has teeth. His teeth are
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: yous are described as being just pitch black, not in
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: the rotted way, but that's just how they look. Of course,
• 51:52
  Speaker 2: he has these little eyes sticking up sitting on a
• 51:55
  Speaker 2: pair of stocks. We have Phoebe, who is a force, right,
• 52:00
  Speaker 2: and the thing is the reason why Phoebe is theirs
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: because at a young age, she's already considered to be
• 52:05
  Speaker 2: an incredibly powerful force. Right because at one point, out
• 52:11
  Speaker 2: of self defense, just before her parents were killed, she
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: transformed several normal people into trees. Like out of self defense,
• 52:20
  Speaker 2: she transforms three people into trees. And even though the
• 52:25
  Speaker 2: government had tried getting other sprites to come back to
• 52:28
  Speaker 2: come over and transform these people back into normal people,
• 52:31
  Speaker 2: they weren't able to until they convinced Phoebe or a
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: Fee to transform them back again. So she was able
• 52:38
  Speaker 2: to transform them into humans again. But still that's something
• 52:42
  Speaker 2: that's not been seen among sprites. This ability is not
• 52:46
  Speaker 2: something that sprites have ever been able to do. Sprites
• 52:49
  Speaker 2: are considered powerful, especially like when once they establish their territory,
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: you know, you got especially like someone like Zoe, they're
• 52:57
  Speaker 2: the masters of that territory. They control everything within that territory.
• 53:01
  Speaker 2: So Zoe is very powerful because she controls pretty much
• 53:04
  Speaker 2: everything within her island. And Phoebe wants she mature, Fie
• 53:09
  Speaker 2: want she matures. I keep calling her Phoebe everyone like
• 53:12
  Speaker 2: her name is phi Phie. Once she matures and she
• 53:18
  Speaker 2: settles down into like a forest or establishes her own territory,
• 53:22
  Speaker 2: she would be extremely powerful. Uh, we have Talia, the
• 53:26
  Speaker 2: female garden home. She's there because as much for her
• 53:30
  Speaker 2: as mainly for her protection, because the thing is is
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: that it's not she's very She's something that's also unseen
• 53:36
  Speaker 2: and then also unheard of, a female garden ome. For
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: most part, garden homes are assumed to be an all
• 53:43
  Speaker 2: male race, so having a female here uppere is unusual.
• 53:51
  Speaker 2: And then we have Sal. Now, Sal is a shape
• 53:54
  Speaker 2: shifter that transforms into a Pomeranian. And think about what
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: makes Sal so special and also somewhat dangerous is that
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: he is also like the others, unique and unheard of.
• 54:06
  Speaker 2: Because the thing is, Sal has had a rough, has
• 54:09
  Speaker 2: had it rough within the childcare system. The last orphanage
• 54:15
  Speaker 2: that he was in, he was horribly abused. He was
• 54:20
  Speaker 2: abused by the uh the directors of that orphanage. He
• 54:28
  Speaker 2: was often starved and beaten, and at one point he
• 54:32
  Speaker 2: tried to sneak some food out of the kitchen because
• 54:35
  Speaker 2: they had they had denied him access to food and
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: they were constantly punishing him for like just to the extremes,
• 54:43
  Speaker 2: and he got caught and was struck by one of
• 54:46
  Speaker 2: the kitchen staff and out of fear and self defense.
• 54:52
  Speaker 2: He Trent, he shaped shifted into his pomerating form and
• 54:56
  Speaker 2: bit the person who struck him. But the thing is
• 54:59
  Speaker 2: when he this person a week later, they themselves transformed.
• 55:05
  Speaker 2: So he is unique because he is the first street
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: sifter encounter that has been able to pass on his
• 55:12
  Speaker 2: abilities outside of, of course, just genetics, so he can
• 55:18
  Speaker 2: infect other people with shake shifting. So that's why he's here.
• 55:24
  Speaker 2: And then Theodore, the little wyvern. Theodore is there because
• 55:29
  Speaker 2: for one thing, wyverns have been thought to be extinct
• 55:32
  Speaker 2: or that are they're very rare m hm. So it's
• 55:36
  Speaker 2: been it's been a long time since anyone has seen
• 55:38
  Speaker 2: a wyburn. And now here we here we are. We
• 55:40
  Speaker 2: have a very young adolescent wyburn. So they put him
• 55:44
  Speaker 2: here because he's just a dime a dozen. So now
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: Linus has to spend the next four weeks, uh pretty
• 55:59
  Speaker 2: much spending his time with these kids within the orphanage,
• 56:02
  Speaker 2: reviewing everything, making sure the house is kept is you know,
• 56:06
  Speaker 2: kept saying the full upkeep, ah, the children are taken
• 56:11
  Speaker 2: care of, and that there's nothing uh like nefarious going on.
• 56:16
  Speaker 2: There's nothing, there's no abuse, no signs of abuse, no
• 56:19
  Speaker 2: sign that these children are not being taken care of
• 56:22
  Speaker 2: or they're not being taken care of under the strict
• 56:25
  Speaker 2: guidelines of Dickamy of DACAM and everything that they that
• 56:31
  Speaker 2: pretty much everything in the house has to be reported
• 56:33
  Speaker 2: and like thoroughly documented and reports sent and reported and
• 56:37
  Speaker 2: sent back to Diacamy headquarters. So he that's what he
• 56:41
  Speaker 2: does for he quickly learns their their daily routine. Of
• 56:48
  Speaker 2: course the week weekdays, Arthur is in charge of educating
• 56:54
  Speaker 2: the children they have. He learns their schedules pretty quickly
• 56:58
  Speaker 2: and then a like so of course they have schooling
• 57:00
  Speaker 2: from like early to mid early morning to noon, and
• 57:04
  Speaker 2: then of course they have lunch and then more then
• 57:06
  Speaker 2: more schooling uh after lunch to about afternoon mid afternoon,
• 57:12
  Speaker 2: and then they are given like an hour or two
• 57:15
  Speaker 2: to explore the island basically pursue their own interests. Uh.
• 57:19
  Speaker 2: Jauncy likes to practice being a bell hop. He spends
• 57:25
  Speaker 2: her time in the forest with Zoe learning how to
• 57:27
  Speaker 2: take care of the trees. Talia spends her time her
• 57:30
  Speaker 2: free time in her garden taking care of the garden,
• 57:33
  Speaker 2: deweeding it, planting new plants and flowers. Sal and Sal
• 57:41
  Speaker 2: tends to spend Divida's time either in his room or
• 57:44
  Speaker 2: in spending time with Theodore, because Theodore the wi burn Ah,
• 57:50
  Speaker 2: he took a. He's really taken to Sal because because
• 57:56
  Speaker 2: aside from the others, Sal was the one, the first
• 57:58
  Speaker 2: one to learn how to learn how to speak Theodore's language,
• 58:03
  Speaker 2: and he was able to understand Theodore more easily than
• 58:06
  Speaker 2: the others at first. But now everyone can easily understand
• 58:11
  Speaker 2: Theodore when he talks because his language is just like
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: chirping and chirping in you know, perrs and and little
• 58:22
  Speaker 2: like growls and things like that, clicks, chirps and growls. Linus, Yeah,
• 58:28
  Speaker 2: Linus eventually learns to like understand him through through his
• 58:32
  Speaker 2: time staying there. You know, in the first few weeks
• 58:36
  Speaker 2: he's there, he has a more like he has his
• 58:39
  Speaker 2: typical uh like detached observations and makes his typical detached observations.
• 58:49
  Speaker 2: But as he's getting to know these kids, he's realizing, like,
• 58:51
  Speaker 2: first of all, these kids are not monsters. I mean,
• 58:53
  Speaker 2: none of the kids that he's worked with have ever
• 58:54
  Speaker 2: been monsters, but these kids in particular have been thoroughly
• 58:58
  Speaker 2: labeled as like threats, as more monstrous and more upsetting
• 59:06
  Speaker 2: to the human populace. But as he's getting to know
• 59:09
  Speaker 2: these kids, he's realizing they're nothing like what Diachomedes said.
• 59:13
  Speaker 2: They are all right, They're not They're not a danger
• 59:17
  Speaker 2: to anybody. He begins to spend more time with them.
• 59:22
  Speaker 2: They begin to interact with him more. He opens up
• 59:25
  Speaker 2: to him more. Sal warms up to him and becomes
• 59:27
  Speaker 2: more vocal. He learns that Sal is actually a wonderful
• 59:31
  Speaker 2: poet and writer. In fact, one of the first one
• 59:34
  Speaker 2: of the first gifts that Arthur had ever given Sale
• 59:37
  Speaker 2: was an old typewriter. And whenever Sal has free time,
• 59:41
  Speaker 2: whenever he's in his free time, he spends his time
• 59:43
  Speaker 2: in his room typing on the typewriter, you know, writing
• 59:46
  Speaker 2: on the typewriter. And Theodore, of course, spends his time
• 59:50
  Speaker 2: either with Sal or with his horde, like bandaging his horde.
• 59:57
  Speaker 2: They're all like, these kids are so adorable you for Lucy.
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 2: Lucy spends his free time with Arthur. Arthur holds special
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 2: one on one sessions with Lucy because thing about Lucy
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 2: is that he already knows what he is. And the
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 2: thing is is that Lucy is dealing with his own
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 2: form of mental illnesses. And this may be because since
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 2: he is the Antichrist, he has he has abilities like
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 2: reality warping abilities, and he's often he's often used them
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 2: to pull pranks on his on the rest of the
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 2: fan of his family, and he's pulled several pranks on
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 2: Linus to try to freak him out, and and it works.
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 2: He's he's thoroughly freaked out Linus several times. But Linus
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 2: quickly comes to learn that Lucy is actually he's just
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 2: a kid. He's only six years old, all right. He's
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 2: not evil, He's not inherently evil. And the thing is
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 2: is that he sits in on one of their sessions,
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 2: one of Lucy's sessions, and learns that Lucy deals with
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 2: some sort of some form of mental disability, some form
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 2: of like uh. He describes as having spiders in his
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 2: head and whenever these spiders get agitated, things like tend
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 2: to happen, you know. And Arthur is trying to help
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 2: Lucy find some way to like, you know, manage the
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 2: spiders as they describe it, like not and help Lucy
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 2: understand that he has a choice. He's not what He's
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 2: not what people say he's supposed to. He's what he's
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 2: supposed to be. He's supposed to be what the Antichrist,
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 2: he's supposed to he's supposed to destroy the world, he's
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 2: supposed to be the greatest evil, right, do all these
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 2: bad things. But Arthur is of the firm belief that
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 2: he is just he is just a child, and he's
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 2: not supposed to do anything that he doesn't want to do,
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 2: and that he always has a choice, right, And Lucy
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 2: is learning that he doesn't have to be a monster
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 2: he does and have to be evil, he can choose
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 2: to be a good person and like, of course, Lucy
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 2: later learns that like, it's okay to like, you know,
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 2: it's okay to scare people, to prank people, all right,
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 2: it's harmless, it's fun, okay, as long as he's not
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 2: hurting people. Yeah, And you know, Linus quickly comes quickly
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 2: realizes that, you know, this is just a houseful of
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 2: rambunctious kids. They're happy, you know, they have people, They're
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 2: surrounded by people they love, okay, people who care about them.
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 2: And the thing is, what's frustrating to Linus is that
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 2: he doesn't really know who exactly Arthur is. And it's
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 2: frustrating to him because he even in his first report
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 2: that he sends back to that he sends back to
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 2: Diake and Mee was that his key. He lobbied several complaints,
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 2: mainly that he felt like he was underprepared for the
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 2: nature of this assignment, and also that one there was
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 2: no dousier concerning Zoe Chappelwhite, and also the dulsier received
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 2: for Arthur was mostly redacted, and there's nothing describing what
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 2: Arthur is. Is he a person like is he a
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 2: human or is he like a magical person like the
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 2: like the rest of the kids, And what makes Arthur
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 2: qualified to take care of these children, especially if they're
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 2: especially if these children are of a great threat as
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 2: they're supposed to be as he was led to believe.
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 2: So first two weeks he's very detached. Second two weeks
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 2: that's when Lionis is starting to come around. He learns
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 2: that every Saturday they go on adventures. They do something
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 2: fun like. Arthur leads them on adventures on the islands,
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 2: on and around the islands. And the first, the very
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 2: first adventure they go on together is uh they go
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 2: they go exploring the island, and the kids actually convinced
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 2: Arthur and Zoe to get Linus some adventure clothing, so
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 2: like kaki shorts, button up shirt and even like those
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 2: explorer cap you know how the old British explorers would
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 2: where those funky those funky looking gaps.
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, those weird looking caps.
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And at first he's like, hell, no, I'm not
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 2: wearing this. He's like, okay, I'll wear it, and he
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 2: wears it and Arth. You know, throughout the book you
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 2: can kind of you can start seeing that, like Arthur
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 2: is starting to chip away at Linus's armor and slowly
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 2: getting through making a connection with Linus. And Linus is
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 2: somewhat confused about his relationship and how he feels about Arthur.
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 2: For one thing, I mean, he always knew that he
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 2: wasn't straight, but he never considered having a relationship with anybody.
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 2: But he still doesn't really know much about Arthur. But
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 2: the kids take him on a trip through a journey
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 2: throughout the island in the forests in the island, pretend
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 2: that there's spiders, They pretend Arthur pretends that he gets
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 2: captured by spiders, and their path ends up taking them
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 2: to a hidden house deep within the island. So all
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 2: sprites think about sprites is that they they hide their homes.
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 2: They defend their the place that within their territory that
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 2: they call her home. So in Zoe's case, she has
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 2: a little cabin, a little cottage hidden deep in the island,
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 2: and she doesn't typically allow anybody to go there. Uh
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 2: where was I? Okay? Yeah, So they go on their
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 2: first adventure and Zoe allow allows the kids to all
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 2: come to her private home because I think about sprites,
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 2: they defend their They are very like possessive of their
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 2: of their personal home like workplace where they typically lay
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 2: their head rest rest their feet. And she decides to
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 2: let all the kids come to her home for the
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 2: first time. I'm sorry, is there something No, there's nothing
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 2: going on. Wow.
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: Uh okay, you you would understand when you get a man,
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: you'll understand.
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 2: Okay. Well, and Linus himself is a little puts a
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 2: little shocked that she would also include him in this,
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 2: letting him, letting him see her private home. Arthur is
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 2: there and they have, uh, they have dinner together. They
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 2: kind of sell like a little bit of a party.
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 2: There's food, there's food, and Arthur convinced is Linus to
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 2: dance with him. So there's a little bit. There's a
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 2: there's a sweet bit of an intimate moment there, and
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 2: we're solely we're starting to see Linus lower his guard.
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 2: The next adventure they go on, Linus had can began
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 2: to become more vocal with Arthur about the children, like
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 2: these you you know, you're taking good care of these
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 2: these children are very well cared for, but yet they're
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 2: they're isolated here. You know, they have a whole there's
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 2: a whole world out there. What's gonna happen when they
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 2: age out? Are they just gonna you can't protect them
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 2: for the rest of their lives? And he manages to
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 2: convince Arthur to take the kids on it the next adventure,
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 2: to take them to the mainland to explore the village,
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 2: and he does, but he's a little Arthur's a little
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 2: wary because you know, the villagers are not very welcoming.
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 2: I mean, even though the thing is Dyke and Me
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 2: pays the villagers monthly, a monthly stipend, it's pretty much
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 2: it's just huss money. Like they are not permitted to
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 2: talk about the orphanage on the island, and they're not
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 2: permitted to tell anybody what's going on, Like who lives
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 2: on the island, pretty much like the thing is, they
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 2: all know that the Antichrist is there on the island,
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 2: so that's the biggest thing, so he tells. But still
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 2: he managed to convince them and they split up between
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 2: the three adult chaperones. Arthur takes the I think he
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 2: takes Fie and Chauncey, and Zoe takes Theodore and sal
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 2: Which book are we on right now? The first one
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 2: is still Yeah, we're still in the first book, and Linus
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 2: ends up chaperoning Lucy and Talia in the first place.
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 2: They and they all agree that they're going to meet
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 2: at the local ice cream shop after a couple of hours,
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 2: So while the other kids go off on their own,
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 2: Linus takes the kids, takes his two kids walking around,
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 2: and they just immediately go to a garden shop is
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 2: Talia loves gardening, and they meet. They meet a very
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 2: nice woman. At first, she's a little like put off
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 2: seeing a garden homean the Antichrist in her store, but
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 2: she she kind of warms up, so she warms up
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 2: to him immediately, and she starts talking to Talia about
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 2: garden equipment and things like that, and they start exchanging things,
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 2: and Steven convinced Talia to subscribed to like a gardening
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 2: weekly magazine, and Talia uses her allowance to buy some
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 2: really nice garden like garden tools. And after that, after
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 2: they look around the town some more and they discover
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 2: a record a record shop. And uh, one thing about
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 2: Lucy that Linus learned had figured out was Lucy loves music,
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 2: particularly dead people music. So he loves he loves music
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 2: by artists, by artists that are already dead, so like
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 2: Elvis Presley and all those other like like all those
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 2: other like oldies like a guy who did Somewhere Beyond
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 2: Somewhere Beyond the Sea, and a few others. So he
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 2: loves listening to those kind of oldies music. They go
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 2: into the record store, they meet they meet uh the
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 2: stoner owner, I think his name is Jay Dog, and
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 2: he had in another employee there, and Jay Dog immediately
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 2: takes to Lucy. They start talking about old music. He
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 2: starts telling him about some of the other like classics
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 2: and pulling out a bunch of records for Lucy to
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 2: look at, and he's like, oh, hey, we have some
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 2: really good ones in the back. Let's go check it out.
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 2: He takes the boats to the back. The thing is,
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 2: one thing that they didn't realize was that Jade Dogg's assistant,
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 2: like Storehands, was like very prejudice and immediately tries to
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 2: like like once they're in the back room, he pulls
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 2: out a crucifix and immediately tries to exercise Lucy. And
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 2: the thing is that he also tried to assault Lucy
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 2: with the crucifix, and Lucy he uses his powers to
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 2: like throw him against the wall and knock him out.
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 2: So kind of a bit of a scuffle happens. Linus
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 2: immediately runs in and is like what's going on, Like
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 2: what happened? And Jade Dogg explains what happened is like
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 2: oh hey, no, no, no, you're fine. He's fine, Like
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 2: we're cool. Is this guy here he's fired, Like he's
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 2: fired because he just tried to execute he just tried
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 2: to exercise this kid, I know. But Lucy's cool. He's
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 2: not scared. He if anything. He's like very nonchalant like, yeah,
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 2: it's just too It's just another Saturday. So yeah. Jade
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 2: Dogg ends up giving him a couple of records, uh,
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 2: free of charge, and he gives him one. He gives
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 2: him one record free of charge, and but Lucy wanted
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 2: to a few more, and Linus immediately pays for them,
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 2: like like, don't worry about using your uh your allowance
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 2: for this, I got to He takes some both. He
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 2: takes both Tall and Lucy back to the ice cream store.
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 2: They meet Helen again. They learned that Helen, the garden
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 2: shop owner, is actually the town mayor and thing is though,
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 2: the guy who runs the ice cream shop. Once he
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 2: sees all these magical kids come walking in, he immediately
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 2: tries to kick him out, like we're talking like nineteen
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 2: fifty style, Like yeah, yeah, nineteen fifty styles. No colored
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 2: folk in my in my restaurant. But Helen steps in
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 2: reminds him that, hey, like you can't just Hey, their
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 2: money is as good as anybody else is. You don't
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 2: like it, then you can just leave and I'll take
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 2: over from here, and that's what he does. He ends
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 2: up walking out, and she goes behind the counter and
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 2: serves the kid's ice cream. So it was really nice.
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 2: That was nice for her and as she and as
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 2: she gets in throughout the series the rest of the book.
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 2: In the next book, Helen becomes a more regular kid character,
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 2: if anything, Helen actually starts a relationship with Zoe. Oh yeah,
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 2: and uh so, the first adventure across the into the
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 2: village turns out well for everyone. All the kids get
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 2: their goodies. They Chauncey actually gets a job at the
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 2: local hotel as a bell hop man. It's just the
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 2: Even though the bell hop there and the hotel staff
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 2: there were a little put off by him at first,
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 2: they become so charmed by him that the bell hop
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 2: there hired the actual like manager for the bell hops there,
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 2: hires him as a bell hop as a part time
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 2: bell hop. So it's really cute. And from this point
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 2: they start having regular visits to the village. And if anything,
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 2: this first village, this first visit to the village actually
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 2: starts they're changing the people's opinions because at first, people
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 2: there like, we're like a little freaked out how these
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 2: kids here. But it slowly starts to change. Helen, being
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 2: the mayor of the village, actually like starts advocating for
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 2: the kids, like, hey, we need to like be more
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 2: welcoming to them because they they live here just like
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 2: like we do. Even if they live on the island,
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 2: they still, you know, they're still part of our community.
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 2: And the thing is though, like after this first visit it,
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 2: some of the some of the locals actually do get
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 2: pretty pissy because they don't like having the kids come
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 2: into their home, like come into their community stirring up trouble.
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 2: And they also use the fact that that Lucy basically
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 2: bitslapped a guy into a wall.
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 1: I mean, he kind of deserved it, he did.
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 2: And the thing is that dude tried to pretend that
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 2: very dude tries to pretend that Lucy had like, uh
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 2: like seriously hurt him, and uh they started a protests
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 2: at the ferry to the island, and the ferryman wasn't
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 2: The thing is cool. The funny thing about the ferryman
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 2: is that you gotta get mixed signals from him, Like
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 2: he's very gruff and like, you know, kind of like
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 2: seems like he's kind of bigoted towards the magical kids.
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 2: But then he's at the same time, he's not allowing
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 2: a bunch of protesters to take his ferry to like
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 2: storm the island and attack these kids. So when the
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 2: so when the protest happens, Zoe, Zoe, Helen and Arthur
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 2: and Linus they take they go across, Uh, they go
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 2: across to the mainland. Zoe has an interesting ability that
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 2: lets her He's able to control the salt in the
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 2: water around the around the island, and she uses that
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 2: salt to form a solid bridge so they're able to
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 2: drive across without needing the ferry. And so Helen, Linus
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 2: and Arthur head to the head to the mainland to
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 2: try to like they like, confront, to confront the protesters,
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 2: and Linus surprises himself by how hard, like by how
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 2: hard he stands up for these kids. And he's telling
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 2: and he's like telling these people off, like you have
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 2: no business, Uh, you have no business harassing these kids
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 2: like this okay. And when he sees the guy, when
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 2: he sees the guy from the record shop who assaulted
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 2: who had assaulted Lucy, he immediately calls him out, like,
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 2: first of all, you were fine, Lucy. Didn't even hurt you.
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 2: He mean, he knocked you out, for sure, but he
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 2: didn't hurts you enough to where you were for you
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 2: to need need that neck brace. And the guy's like,
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 2: I've been he did permanent damage to me and his
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 2: his aunt who had his aunt who happens to be
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 2: the mayor of the village. Helen sees him there too
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 2: and calls him out, like, isn't that the net prace
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 2: I wore last year? Who immediately calls him out and yeah.
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 2: The protesters kind of escalate and one of them actually
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 2: throws something at Linus, and this is where Arthur reacts.
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 2: So up to this point, Arthur Linus has been slowly
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 2: putting the pieces together about Arthur and some other things
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 2: about Arthur Parnassis, and it was confirmed when he receives
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 2: a response from Dakini, one of the UH, one of
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 2: the executives from the extremely Upper Management Division, sends him
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 2: a unredacted file about Arthur Parnassis and tells him his
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 2: own their own personal experiences with Arthur. So, as it
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 2: turns out, Arthur is a is a magical person and
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 2: he's actually a phoenix.
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 1: He's the bird. M he's a bird, a firebird, a
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 1: firebird yep, uh huh uh huh h. So he's a
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 1: firebird in a human form. M.
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 2: Interesting, you can you can transform. So at this point,
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 2: when they're confronting the when they're confronting the the protesters,
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 2: one of them throws something at Linus and Arthur reacts
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 2: and actually lets out the firebird a bit, and it
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 2: protects the firebird, protects Linus from the projectile. And the
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 2: thing is is that when the firebird comes out of
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 2: when the phoenix comes out of Arthur, like he's still
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 2: the standing there in his human form, but you have
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 2: this big ass fiery phoenix standing over him too, wings
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 2: spread and everything. Lion Linus is like like shots seeing
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 2: his phoenix form, uh, and he could see that Arthur
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 2: is kind of trying to hold it together because Arthur's
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 2: looks like he's pretty pissed off, but Linus manages to
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 2: talk him down. He meant, he also manages to get
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 2: the villagers to clear out, like this protest is not
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 2: solving anything. You have no business doing anything like this.
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 2: And oddly enough, the protesters there, they kind of lost
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 2: their energy, they kind of lost their vigor when they
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 2: see this big ass firebird peer out of nowhere and
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 2: they clear out. So now the thing is is that
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 2: it's already been almost a month Linus is Linus's reports
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 2: have the first in the first two weeks, his reports
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 2: were pretty thorough, but the weeks following they were not
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 2: as thorough, and if anything, they were more biased. His
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 2: third weekly report was more was actually showcasing that, like
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 2: laid it out to the extremely upper management that, uh,
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 2: there's nothing wrong with these kids. They're not monsters, they're
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 2: not dangerous. Okay, they're just kids. Okay, they're kids. They're
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 2: just kids in a loving home with with a purse,
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 2: with a headmaster who actually cares about him about them,
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 2: who's doing everything they can to take care of them.
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 2: And he got a response from that, and he got
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 2: a response from Diakem about that kind of admonishing him
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 2: and also telling him more the truth about Arthur. And
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 2: the thing is Linus had gotten like before the protest,
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 2: Linus had got uh had gotten curious because one thing
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 2: he noticed on the outside of the house next to
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 2: the garden was there was a a seller and this
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 2: seller had been locked and Lionus wasn't able to go
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 2: inside of it. But when Diakem had responded to him
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 2: about about his complaints and his pass reports, the extremely
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 2: out of the management had also like sent the dolcier,
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 2: the updated dulcier about Arthur, and with it they sent
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 2: a key and this key was to this cellar, Like
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 2: you want to know who Arthur is check out the cellar.
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 2: So he goes into the So he actually snuck into
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 2: the cellar and found that the cellar was like some
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 2: kind of like not just a cellar, like a basement,
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 2: but an actual cell almost like a jail cell There
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 2: was a bed, there was a desk, and it seemed
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 2: like the whole place had been charred to bits, like
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 2: something had burned it. And he noticed scratched into the
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 2: charred walls where these little tick marks, like hundreds of
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 2: little tick marks. It was clear that somebody had been
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 2: in there, and they'd been they The cellar had no
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 2: windows whatsoever. The only entrance or exit was from the
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 2: outside cellar door. And when he was looking around, Arthur
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 2: had found him in there. And Arthur told him more
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 2: about the truth of his own experiences with Dakeamy. See,
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 2: Arthur was once a child in the Diakeame childcare system
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 2: mm hmm a foster care system. And in fact, it
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 2: was at this very house that he was that he
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 2: was once uh homed in. The thing is though the
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 2: head master at the time was an excuse my language,
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 2: an actual cunt. Oh. He hated the kill the children,
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 2: h with a fiery passion, and for some reason he's
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 2: especially hated Arthur, and I think and as opponent and
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 2: as one of the times that the thing is that
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 2: Arthur was being Arthur was physically and horribly abused by
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 2: this head master, and he wanted to try to call
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 2: out for help. So during one of their visits to
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 2: the to the village, Arthur tried to send a letter
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 2: to Dykeamy to report the to report what was going
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 2: on the abuse. And the thing is is that the
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 2: headmaster found out and tried to prevent Arthur from sending it,
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 2: and Arthur managed to send out the the letter, but
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 2: as punishment for doing that, the headmaster locked him in
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 2: that cellar for six months. He would only get food
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 2: once a day. And the thing is is that Arthur,
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 2: being a child, he was so scared and also he
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 2: didn't really have much control over his powers, so for
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 2: like weeks he was just burning in his phoenix form.
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, he sees you.
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 2: I can't see him, but I know you're looking at.
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 4: Him some when you just say what food you kind
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 4: of get, I mean dinner.
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 1: I love you.
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 2: Much, Baggotry.
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 1: You're the love of my life. Well he is love
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 1: of my life.
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 2: Mm hmm.
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 1: I don't think we're gonna be able to do to
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 1: both books today.
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 2: Probably now it's already gonna be it's already four thirty,
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 2: he said, five thirty. Right, mm hmm, I wanna. I'm
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 2: gonna try to wrap this up by five. We'll probably
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 2: do the next part next week. Hold on, hold on,
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 2: We're almost done.
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 1: With this book.
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 2: Okay, all covert covert Okay, So Linus. So Arthur till
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 2: Linus about his experiences. And the thing is when he
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 2: was put in this he was in that cellar for
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 2: about six months in total isolation, and the reason why
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 2: he got out was because his letter had managed had
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 2: reached the right person in Dikeamy. They sent a team
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 2: to shut down the house and he was immediately taken
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 2: and put into another home, and he was still in
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 2: the system until he aged out. Thing is, Arthur had
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 2: received a basically received a settlement from Dykemy about like
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 2: a million. I think this takes place in like Europe,
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 2: like in the UK, because they they used to they
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 2: used pounds, so it was like a million pounds.
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, probably UK.
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 2: So he used so he was given a settlement by
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 2: Dikemy of a million pounds and that supported him throughout
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 2: his adult life until eventually he decided to return to
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 2: the island, renovate the closed down house and real open
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 2: the orphanage and you know, do things right, try to
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 2: do the right thing for kids. By this point, Linus's
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 2: opinions about the children and about the household, and pretty
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 2: much his life in general has been completely like as
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 2: Zoe chap A White said, his bubble has been popped
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 2: because he's been living in this bubble of like isolation
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 2: and of self isolation, of just living his life day
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 2: by day, surviving, not really living or thriving. And now
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 2: that he sees that the life can be so much
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 2: more different, and hell, even Arthur tries to convince him
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 2: to just stay, like you could just stay. The kids
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 2: love you, all right. I've never seen any of the
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 2: kids respond to other workers like they do to you.
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 2: And you're clearly just You may not see it, but
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 2: you clearly care for these kids. But Linus tells him
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 2: that he has no choice but to leave. He has
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 2: to return back to give his final report. The thing is,
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 2: though he didn't write, he doesn't actually write his final report.
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 2: He he only like his other reports are like his
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 2: other His first two reports are like many pages long.
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 2: His third report was actually very like skinned, very tone
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 2: like trimmed down. His last report was pretty much a
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 2: was just like a one page essay saying that Dakemie
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 2: was wrong. There's nothing wrong with the house and it
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 2: could stay open, and Arthur Parnassis is doing nothing wrong.
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 2: The thing is is that when he returned, so he leaves.
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 2: Ants are sad that he leaves, but they see him,
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 2: they see him off, and he gets on the train
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 2: and goes back to the city. And when he's back
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 2: to the city, he realizes, like start contrast to what
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 2: he's been, what his normal life was, because over there
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 2: it's almost always sunny, it's beautiful, it's colorful. Back in
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 2: the city, it's dreary, it's raining. The only color in
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 2: his life that he ever really sees is the sunflowers
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 2: that he would grow outside his house. But when he
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 2: gets back to his house with his cat, he finds
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 2: that his sunflowers had died. His neighbor didn't actually take
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 2: care of him, because he asks his neighbor to take
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 2: care of his house. But see just ends up. What cool?
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 2: All right? Bye? Oh well, no, I'm being interrupted anyway,
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 2: I'll kiss her. Damn it all right, Seeya, Oh, hey,
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 2: lookas fuck? What damn it forgot to ask him to
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 2: like just walk silly because I'm spending the night with
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 2: uh Alex. Anyway, I'll just send them a text Shelly. Oh,
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 2: that's a oh he has a Lohy receipt on that's why.
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 2: So anyway, that totally threw me off. Yeah, So he
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 2: goes back, he files his final report, and he's pretty
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 2: much waits for upper extremely upper management's response. And while
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 2: he's waiting, he actually does something he's never done before,
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 2: something that would be considered illegal. He starts pulling up
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 2: his old files, files from previous cases he's worked at,
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 2: because before, like he would file his reports and just
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 2: submit them and never think about them again. But he
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 2: has dealt with he has dealt with a lot of
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 2: mismanagement on Diakeame's end, Like he's dealt with several he's
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 2: had He himself has personally had to close down several
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 2: orphanages because of poor treatment, mismanagement, things like that. So
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 2: what he begins doing is like he's actually gathering evidence.
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 2: He starts gathering these reports and files and he's he
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 2: actually sent uh sends him in to a reporter to
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 2: basically airs out some of Dakam's dirty laundry, and uh,
• 1:30:36
  Speaker 2: eventually he's called. He is called before uh extremely upper
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 2: management and upper management, the upper management, they lambass him
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 2: and criticize him for the lack of information and his reports.
• 1:30:51
  Speaker 2: I mean, they take his reports into consideration, but you know,
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 2: they they wanted something more like where's the juice, Like,
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 2: you know, where's the tea?
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 4: We drama mm hm, and you.
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 2: Know this is all you get, just like, oh, Arthur
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 2: Parnassis did nothing wrong with the kids are amazing, leave
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 2: them alone. That's it.
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 2: So but at the end the end of the at
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 2: the end of the day, they like but the thing
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 2: is our Linus ends up going off on them and
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 2: calling them out for trying to purtecute these kids. And
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 2: really all they're trying to what really, what they're trying
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 2: to do is get control of Lucy because he's the
• 1:31:42
  Speaker 2: biggest threat, all right. But he immediately tells them that
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 2: this is not like, that's not a good idea. He's
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 2: in a loving home, he's in a place where with somebody,
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 2: with somebody who cares about him, and it's actually trying
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 2: to teach them that he can be better. He doesn't
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 2: have to be the Antichrist. He doesn't have to beat
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 2: this all this evil figure, you know, sorry to Alex
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 2: texted me. So he has to hear back from them soon, right,
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 2: and not hear back from him soon. Sorry, Devin cut
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 2: the future, devint cut the part up.
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 1: UH.
• 1:32:37
  Speaker 2: So he just tells them off, tells them that they're wrong,
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 2: leave them, leave those kids. You leave those kids alone.
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 1: Lead those little children alone, leave Brittany alone.
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 2: And after after that they dismiss him. He goes back
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 2: to his to his cubicle, and he later learns that
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 2: the that upper managed, the extremely upper management UH, decided
• 1:33:08
  Speaker 2: that they're gonna leave the orphanage alone. They have no
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 2: evidence of like abuse or mismanagement of the orphanage, so
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 2: they decided to leave alone. And that's when and that's
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 2: when Linus takes his UH next course of action, he
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 2: sends in He sends out a letter to UH. He
• 1:33:32
  Speaker 2: basically sends out a letter to the press airing out
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 2: the Daikumus dirty details, especially concerning Arthur Parnassis. Like he
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 2: doesn't really like out Arthur, but he tells him, like
• 1:33:45
  Speaker 2: these people, like what they're people? What these people are doing,
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 2: and you know, to scare him Mountain say. After and
• 1:33:59
  Speaker 2: after he sends out that letter, he immediately tenors his
• 1:34:02
  Speaker 2: resignation from backing me and leaves, shocking everybody like, you
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 2: can't quit, You're quitting. You can't quit once again, watch me,
• 1:34:13
  Speaker 2: And he does. He goes. After he quits, he packs
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 2: up his house and grabs calliope and goes back to Marcius. Yeah,
• 1:34:25
  Speaker 2: he goes back to He takes the ferry. He gets
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 2: back on the train, goes back to the to Marcius
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 2: hops the ferry heads right back. He doesn't he doesn't
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 2: tell anybody, but he gets back to the island, pikes
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 2: up back to the house, and when he sees Arthur,
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 2: you know, basically, he confesses his feelings for Arthur and
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 2: begs him, please let I hope you'll let please let
• 1:34:48
  Speaker 2: me stay, like I hope your off your offer still stands,
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 2: and Arthur is like yeah, duh, like yeah, of course
• 1:35:02
  Speaker 2: quite and he immediately lets Arthur's. Arthur immediately lets Linus stay.
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 2: And and the kids they're happy that Linus came back,
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 2: but they wanted to know why did he leave in
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 2: the first place. Why couldn't he just stay and he
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 2: said there was things I had He told him, There's
• 1:35:17
  Speaker 2: things I had to do. I had to make sure
• 1:35:19
  Speaker 2: that Dikemte doesn't ever bother you again. And I also
• 1:35:22
  Speaker 2: had to make sure that they can't ever do the
• 1:35:25
  Speaker 2: same thing to other kids. They need to be held accountable,
• 1:35:29
  Speaker 2: both dike Me and Diacoma. So the book pretty much
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 2: ends with Arthur and Lionus beginning their beginning their relationship together.
• 1:35:42
  Speaker 2: This is PG. So there's no smut that we already
• 1:35:46
  Speaker 2: said that beginning of the episode. No, there's no smut.
• 1:35:49
  Speaker 2: He's very it's very PG. His are happy that Linus
• 1:35:53
  Speaker 2: has come back, and you know, we see a lot
• 1:35:56
  Speaker 2: of changes in the characters. They're more open with him.
• 1:35:58
  Speaker 2: Fee is not as stand offish with him anymore. Sal
• 1:36:02
  Speaker 2: is actually very open and if anything, Linus actually helps
• 1:36:06
  Speaker 2: Sal like find his voice. Because when because when Linus
• 1:36:13
  Speaker 2: was inspecting the kids rooms and everything, Sal's was the
• 1:36:16
  Speaker 2: very last room he inspected because Sal was not comfortable
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 2: with letting him see his room yet, because he still
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 2: wasn't very he was still very shy. But after he
• 1:36:24
  Speaker 2: warmed up a bit, Saal agrees to let Linus into
• 1:36:27
  Speaker 2: his room. Linus sees it and actually compliments him like
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 2: how neat and orderly his room is, and also sees
• 1:36:33
  Speaker 2: that Stahle has like it's very minimal, like he doesn't
• 1:36:36
  Speaker 2: have a lot of his own personal stuff set up,
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 2: and Linus even encourages him to start, like making the
• 1:36:43
  Speaker 2: room his all right. He notices that Saal keeps his
• 1:36:48
  Speaker 2: desk and his typewriter in his closet because Sal being
• 1:36:56
  Speaker 2: sky and scared that he'd bother Arthur and the other
• 1:37:00
  Speaker 2: kids with his typing, he only ever types while in
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 2: the closet, but Linus encourages Sal to take the desk out,
• 1:37:07
  Speaker 2: put it in his room. Okay, it's his home, they
• 1:37:10
  Speaker 2: want him there. They're not anything he does in his
• 1:37:13
  Speaker 2: room there, He's not gonna actually bother anybody exactly. That
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 2: causes Sal to open up more and shall asks Linus
• 1:37:20
  Speaker 2: to help him move the desk into his room, and
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 2: Linus does, and later he's happy to hear Sala type
• 1:37:27
  Speaker 2: typing away, writing his little short stories and poetry. And
• 1:37:33
  Speaker 2: Theodore is always like asking Linus for a button, does
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 2: he have any doesn't have any more buttons.
• 1:37:42
  Speaker 1: For his hoard.
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 2: M Lucy isn't threatening to doesn't threaten to send him
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 2: into the into oblivion is as as much, and Talia
• 1:37:54
  Speaker 2: does the same, she doesn't threaten to berry him in
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 2: her garden. Johncey is loving Chauncey is still asking him
• 1:38:03
  Speaker 2: if he could, uh, if he could fell hop for
• 1:38:05
  Speaker 2: him pick his luggage.
• 1:38:08
  Speaker 1: Oh my god, m M.
• 1:38:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's very cute the story. It's like a very
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 2: definitely like a happily ever after story. And in fact,
• 1:38:21
  Speaker 2: this story was actually one of j Klune's for popular books. Yeah,
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 2: and uh, it was popular enough that he wrote a sequel.
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 2: Sequel is uh Somewhere Beyond the Sea, and it's just
• 1:38:36
  Speaker 2: as cute and just as it's just as wonderful as
• 1:38:40
  Speaker 2: a story as this book. That Somewhere Beyond the Scene
• 1:38:43
  Speaker 2: will be taking place from Arthur's point of view, So
• 1:38:48
  Speaker 2: instead of Linus point of view, it'll be from Arthur's,
• 1:38:50
  Speaker 2: and we're gonna be exploring Arthur's trauma, you know, because
• 1:38:55
  Speaker 2: the thing about Arthur is that he is he has
• 1:38:58
  Speaker 2: a lot of like repressed anger. And we learned a
• 1:39:02
  Speaker 2: bit more about Arthur's life as a young adult and
• 1:39:05
  Speaker 2: like from his from the rest of his childhood to
• 1:39:08
  Speaker 2: his adulthood leading up to his decision to become a
• 1:39:14
  Speaker 2: the headmaster of the orphanage and reopen it. And also
• 1:39:18
  Speaker 2: his just his reasonings and why he chose Marcius even
• 1:39:22
  Speaker 2: though Marcius is where the trauma began, like this is
• 1:39:26
  Speaker 2: where this is where he felt the most pain, where
• 1:39:29
  Speaker 2: he was like abused, So why come back here? Well,
• 1:39:34
  Speaker 2: we're see his reasonings. Then are we just gonna like
• 1:39:39
  Speaker 2: just stop here and then like you're gonna edit it
• 1:39:42
  Speaker 2: next week?
• 1:39:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we're gonna stop it here and then the part
• 1:39:44
  Speaker 1: we did it next week, I'll just add them together.
• 1:39:47
  Speaker 2: Cool. So, uh so, just to get started on our book,
• 1:39:54
  Speaker 2: are like, so we've so we've already we just finished
• 1:39:58
  Speaker 2: h housing is really in ce and now we're going
• 1:40:05
  Speaker 2: into the some the sequel to this book by T. J.
• 1:40:11
  Speaker 2: Klune Somewhere Beyond the Sea. So somewhere beyond the sea
• 1:40:18
  Speaker 2: just like it's just like the previous book. It is
• 1:40:21
  Speaker 2: very pig so there's not many Hold up, can you
• 1:40:27
  Speaker 2: hear Lucas snoring in the background? No?
• 1:40:36
  Speaker 5: Uh second, okay, he just stopped out, like never mind, No,
• 1:40:44
  Speaker 5: I can't hear Lucas okay, because that's one of the
• 1:40:48
  Speaker 5: one of the things that's annoying the funk out of me.
• 1:40:49
  Speaker 2: Is that since he has to sleep in the living
• 1:40:51
  Speaker 2: room until we get rid of this of this rat.
• 1:40:53
  Speaker 2: He's sleeping on the couch right here, and I went
• 1:40:56
  Speaker 2: up working. Like sometimes most of the time he's quiet,
• 1:40:58
  Speaker 2: well he's asleep, he's quiet. But then when I'm on
• 1:41:00
  Speaker 2: the when I get a call, just snore snore. Like
• 1:41:07
  Speaker 2: one time, like just as I got a call, he
• 1:41:09
  Speaker 2: just let out a massive snore like he was quite
• 1:41:16
  Speaker 2: the whole time.
• 1:41:17
  Speaker 1: Picking your nose on recording, Jacob, God, I'm wanna zoom
• 1:41:20
  Speaker 1: in on that. I wanna zoom in on that.
• 1:41:23
  Speaker 2: I wasn't picking my nose.
• 1:41:24
  Speaker 1: Yes, you worried your your pink eels fall on in
• 1:41:26
  Speaker 1: your nose digging for gold.
• 1:41:27
  Speaker 2: You better not.
• 1:41:29
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm gonna zoom in take a picture of it.
• 1:41:32
  Speaker 1: Put in the group chat. I would I would not
• 1:41:37
  Speaker 1: m that's funny anyway.
• 1:41:42
  Speaker 2: So going back into it, we're now doing UH Somewhere
• 1:41:46
  Speaker 2: beyond the Sea. Uh. So we're beyond the sea carries
• 1:41:49
  Speaker 2: the same kind of tones as the first book, just
• 1:41:53
  Speaker 2: for like contant warning. UH somewhere beyond the sea, just
• 1:41:57
  Speaker 2: like UH house in isriliant. Sea makes references to child abuse,
• 1:42:03
  Speaker 2: body shaming, and this book actually goes explores anti queer
• 1:42:09
  Speaker 2: and racial bias. So it's not so much like the
• 1:42:13
  Speaker 2: traditional racial bias, like you know, based on the color
• 1:42:15
  Speaker 2: of your skin. It's more of like based on like
• 1:42:17
  Speaker 2: your magical affiliation, because you know, there is a community
• 1:42:21
  Speaker 2: of magical people, people who are either like demi human
• 1:42:24
  Speaker 2: or like they're completely different species. Because each of the kids,
• 1:42:29
  Speaker 2: the kids that are in these books, they're all like
• 1:42:32
  Speaker 2: some form of like demi human or not our non
• 1:42:36
  Speaker 2: human race. So like you got sprites, we have like
• 1:42:39
  Speaker 2: two sprites, you know. One of them is uh Phoebe,
• 1:42:44
  Speaker 2: She's she's one of She's a sprite, afore spright. You
• 1:42:47
  Speaker 2: have Chauncey, who's a slime. It's not even a ah yeah,
• 1:42:52
  Speaker 2: Chauncey's not even a human or or demi human. He's
• 1:42:55
  Speaker 2: just a slime. You have a wyburn, yeah, yeah, a
• 1:43:00
  Speaker 2: shape shifter. Who which is you see? There's Lucy Phoebe.
• 1:43:17
  Speaker 2: Why do I forget? I literally just read this, I'm
• 1:43:20
  Speaker 2: forgetting their names. So there's be, Oh, Theodore is the wiburne,
• 1:43:27
  Speaker 2: Chauncey is the slime, Talia is the gnome, yeah, and
• 1:43:33
  Speaker 2: sal that's his name. I wasna I was gonna say Sam,
• 1:43:35
  Speaker 2: but I was like no, wait, no, not Sam. So yeah,
• 1:43:39
  Speaker 2: so you have a you have a shake shifter, but
• 1:43:42
  Speaker 2: he transforms into a Pomeranian. Oh you have Lucy who
• 1:43:48
  Speaker 2: who is the Antichrist?
• 1:43:51
  Speaker 1: Oh that's right. Yeah.
• 1:43:53
  Speaker 2: And then in this book they introduced a new a
• 1:43:55
  Speaker 2: new child who was adopted by Arthur and my he
• 1:44:01
  Speaker 2: is actually a Yeti and his name is David love
• 1:44:06
  Speaker 2: that mm hmm, David the Yedi. He's pretty cute. He
• 1:44:13
  Speaker 2: So the thing is is that they so like before
• 1:44:18
  Speaker 2: we get into David that so yeah, like content warning,
• 1:44:21
  Speaker 2: like back to the content warning. These there we're gonna
• 1:44:24
  Speaker 2: be dealing with more like references to child abast and
• 1:44:29
  Speaker 2: body shaming and also racial bias and anti queer sentiment
• 1:44:34
  Speaker 2: because you know, of course Linus and Arthur they are
• 1:44:38
  Speaker 2: a queer couple and they do face some discrimination, but
• 1:44:44
  Speaker 2: that discrimination mainly comes in the form of just more
• 1:44:49
  Speaker 2: like the racial bias against magical people, like especially in
• 1:44:53
  Speaker 2: this book, that racial bias tends to appear in the
• 1:44:56
  Speaker 2: form of see something say something like government propaganda, segregation,
• 1:45:02
  Speaker 2: all that jazz and uh, you know this book. I
• 1:45:07
  Speaker 2: don't think this book had as much controversy as the
• 1:45:09
  Speaker 2: first book, because we all know the first book was
• 1:45:11
  Speaker 2: inspired by uh, like real life events concerning orphanages and
• 1:45:17
  Speaker 2: things that the US government. Yeah mm hmm, I'm sorry what.
• 1:45:22
  Speaker 1: It was Canadian it was. It was like it was
• 1:45:25
  Speaker 1: a Candida thing, the most part of it.
• 1:45:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, and uh, the story like it. It doesn't
• 1:45:39
  Speaker 2: really focus too much on like the on the relationships
• 1:45:42
  Speaker 2: with the kids because it's like, at this point, like
• 1:45:44
  Speaker 2: the relationship with the with their kids are pretty solid,
• 1:45:48
  Speaker 2: and it doesn't explore some of the mental hurdles that
• 1:45:50
  Speaker 2: some of them have to go through, like especially Lucy,
• 1:45:52
  Speaker 2: because Lucy deals with like a form of schizophrenia, are
• 1:45:58
  Speaker 2: like some sort of disassociative or a disorder, because she
• 1:46:02
  Speaker 2: experiences what he calls like spiders in his head. And
• 1:46:06
  Speaker 2: these spiders, when they get agitated, they tend to make
• 1:46:08
  Speaker 2: him more like unstable and prone to acting out. And
• 1:46:15
  Speaker 2: one thing that Arthur tries to do to help him
• 1:46:18
  Speaker 2: is help him find like a good outlet. So one
• 1:46:21
  Speaker 2: good outlet is music.
• 1:46:24
  Speaker 3: So he loves Lucy loves old people music, so like
• 1:46:28
  Speaker 3: music from like the fifties, sixties, and mainly he it's
• 1:46:33
  Speaker 3: the reason why he likes this music is because it's
• 1:46:36
  Speaker 3: he calls it dead people music.
• 1:46:37
  Speaker 2: So like all the artists that's seeing the meat that
• 1:46:40
  Speaker 2: performs and in these songs and on these records are dead.
• 1:46:45
  Speaker 2: So that's mainly why he loves them. And this book
• 1:46:52
  Speaker 2: really explores Arthur Parnasis' background because in so to give
• 1:47:01
  Speaker 2: a little bit of a background to Arthur, Arthur was
• 1:47:04
  Speaker 2: once a war was once award to the to Diachomie
• 1:47:09
  Speaker 2: Department of Department in charge of magical youth. In fact,
• 1:47:14
  Speaker 2: the orphanage that he now runs, the home that he
• 1:47:17
  Speaker 2: now runs, was actually the home that he lived in
• 1:47:19
  Speaker 2: when he was a child. But it was very different
• 1:47:21
  Speaker 2: back then because the headmaster was very abusive and one
• 1:47:25
  Speaker 2: of the ways he would punish Arthur was by locking
• 1:47:28
  Speaker 2: him in a cellar with no windows, no lights, and
• 1:47:31
  Speaker 2: he would only feed the poor kid once a day.
• 1:47:34
  Speaker 2: And it got so bad that like when Arthur was
• 1:47:38
  Speaker 2: finally rescued, he had been in he had been isolated
• 1:47:43
  Speaker 2: for so long, like in the in like just a
• 1:47:45
  Speaker 2: dark cellar, that when they pulled him out, his eyes
• 1:47:48
  Speaker 2: were like hyper sensitive to the light. He dealt with
• 1:47:51
  Speaker 2: severe post traumatic stress, and he came to really distrust
• 1:47:56
  Speaker 2: the establishment, the Dikem. And the thing about Dikem is
• 1:48:02
  Speaker 2: that even though he was he was put into like
• 1:48:05
  Speaker 2: a like a more communal like a larger communal home,
• 1:48:08
  Speaker 2: and his time there he was better taken care of.
• 1:48:11
  Speaker 2: And thing is Dikem paid him a like, gave him
• 1:48:16
  Speaker 2: a settlement. Was he refeeting of it as hush money? Uh,
• 1:48:22
  Speaker 2: he still doesn't trust them. In fact, even to this day,
• 1:48:25
  Speaker 2: he still harpers some resentment to them, and we've seen
• 1:48:28
  Speaker 2: in this book that he's really like dealing with that,
• 1:48:31
  Speaker 2: really that internalized anger and frustration that he has towards
• 1:48:34
  Speaker 2: these establishments. And at the end of the first book,
• 1:48:39
  Speaker 2: Linus had compiled a report and had sent it to
• 1:48:44
  Speaker 2: higher authorities as a way to report the miss treatments
• 1:48:48
  Speaker 2: that had been going on that dike Me tends to
• 1:48:50
  Speaker 2: sweep under the sweep under the rug, you know, so
• 1:48:54
  Speaker 2: like he also did this as a way of protesting
• 1:48:59
  Speaker 2: the clear misuse and abuse that Diakem was that was
• 1:49:06
  Speaker 2: leveling towards Arthur, because they were afraid that Arthur was
• 1:49:11
  Speaker 2: going to try to train kids to be like rebels,
• 1:49:15
  Speaker 2: to be soldiers to start like a revolution or something,
• 1:49:19
  Speaker 2: because all this, like Arthur's past gets really brought into
• 1:49:23
  Speaker 2: light in this in this book. So like starting right
• 1:49:27
  Speaker 2: off the bat, Arthur and Linus head to the city
• 1:49:31
  Speaker 2: because they were invited to a hearing where they where
• 1:49:34
  Speaker 2: they would hear a testimony of Arthur's time as a
• 1:49:39
  Speaker 2: ward of Kamy, and he tells him everything that happens
• 1:49:44
  Speaker 2: with his former headmaster. He was abused, he was beaten,
• 1:49:48
  Speaker 2: how he was locked in a cellar. And for the
• 1:49:52
  Speaker 2: most part, of the four four members of the committee
• 1:49:56
  Speaker 2: that was listening, there was one who actually was determined
• 1:50:01
  Speaker 2: to like basically turn this whole thing against Linus. I'm sorry,
• 1:50:06
  Speaker 2: not Linus, Arthur turned this whole thing against Arthur. So
• 1:50:09
  Speaker 2: after hearing everything on Arthur has to say, the other
• 1:50:12
  Speaker 2: the other three committee members, two of them were more
• 1:50:16
  Speaker 2: or less like two of them were more or less
• 1:50:18
  Speaker 2: sympathetic to his cause and actually were listening to what
• 1:50:21
  Speaker 2: he had to say. One was kind of like on
• 1:50:23
  Speaker 2: the fence, like, you know, this is all this like hearsay,
• 1:50:27
  Speaker 2: like you know, we have no real evidence, blah blah blah.
• 1:50:30
  Speaker 2: And the third one, this lady, oh my god, what
• 1:50:34
  Speaker 2: is her name. Her name is Janine Rouder, and think
• 1:50:48
  Speaker 2: about Janine is that she is a very ambitious woman,
• 1:50:52
  Speaker 2: politically minded. She worked her way up from like the
• 1:50:54
  Speaker 2: lowest levels of di Comena and is now like head
• 1:50:58
  Speaker 2: of like completely in. She's now been appointed the acting
• 1:51:02
  Speaker 2: ahead of Dachamy and her she's planning. Her goal is
• 1:51:06
  Speaker 2: to eventually become the prime minister. And the thing is
• 1:51:09
  Speaker 2: a lot of people see this as bad because Arthur
• 1:51:13
  Speaker 2: and Linus have made some friends within the government and
• 1:51:17
  Speaker 2: they warned them that they actually get in contact with
• 1:51:19
  Speaker 2: them before the committee and let them know, like, hey,
• 1:51:22
  Speaker 2: just let you know this lady Janiene Roter is going
• 1:51:24
  Speaker 2: to be a part of the committee and she's gunning
• 1:51:27
  Speaker 2: for prime minister's in office. And the thing is, despite
• 1:51:31
  Speaker 2: her somewhat near flawless record, she does have a history
• 1:51:35
  Speaker 2: of being very anti magical establishment. So she's very like,
• 1:51:41
  Speaker 2: you know, pro government and making sure like magical community,
• 1:51:47
  Speaker 2: the magical community knows that like who's in charge, you know,
• 1:51:52
  Speaker 2: person that tries to say like, oh, I'm just looking
• 1:51:54
  Speaker 2: out for the people's interests, but really she's just looking
• 1:51:56
  Speaker 2: out for the people, like a certain kind of people interests.
• 1:52:01
  Speaker 2: You know people that she believes are real people. Yeah,
• 1:52:06
  Speaker 2: And before their committee hearing, when they check into their hotel,
• 1:52:12
  Speaker 2: Linus finds a bug in their hotel and they had
• 1:52:20
  Speaker 2: to so the two of them like he removes the bug,
• 1:52:24
  Speaker 2: but the two of them had to be cautious for
• 1:52:25
  Speaker 2: the rest of this day because they work there. If
• 1:52:28
  Speaker 2: there were any if there were any more bugs in
• 1:52:30
  Speaker 2: the hotel, they go to the committee hearing, Arthur tells
• 1:52:35
  Speaker 2: his side of the story, his the beausey faced and
• 1:52:39
  Speaker 2: when it comes time for the rebuttals, Janine Rouder completely
• 1:52:44
  Speaker 2: just just reads him to filth. Like she begins making actis.
• 1:52:50
  Speaker 2: She agains pointing out some very like some some facts
• 1:52:55
  Speaker 2: about Arthur's past that kind of bite him in the
• 1:52:58
  Speaker 2: back here in the present, main the fact that Arthur
• 1:53:01
  Speaker 2: is not registered with the Department in Charge of Magical Adults.
• 1:53:05
  Speaker 2: So after like once you reached you know, once you
• 1:53:08
  Speaker 2: reached becomes of age, you're supposed to register yourself with
• 1:53:11
  Speaker 2: the with diacoma and thing is, as soon as Arthur
• 1:53:16
  Speaker 2: hed out of the of Diakeome system instead of registering,
• 1:53:19
  Speaker 2: he actually just fell off the face of the earth.
• 1:53:21
  Speaker 2: For like I'd say about two decades so like from
• 1:53:26
  Speaker 2: from time in his lateeens to his late thirties, because
• 1:53:31
  Speaker 2: Arthur is like he's like forty five now, so he
• 1:53:35
  Speaker 2: was like for he spent like a good solid two
• 1:53:37
  Speaker 2: decades living off the grid, and they questioned him. It
• 1:53:41
  Speaker 2: was like it turned it the whole situation turned into
• 1:53:44
  Speaker 2: something like a cross examination, and they pointed out some
• 1:53:48
  Speaker 2: facts and turns out the government and was aware of
• 1:53:50
  Speaker 2: some of his actions, like they so in his time
• 1:53:57
  Speaker 2: outside of Diacoma's registry, he actually had been helping other
• 1:54:04
  Speaker 2: not unregistered magical adults to avoid the system. So like
• 1:54:09
  Speaker 2: he was kind of like running his own underground railroad.
• 1:54:13
  Speaker 2: So he would help certain magical families and people find
• 1:54:18
  Speaker 2: safe havens in like either in different countries or like
• 1:54:20
  Speaker 2: other safe havens inside the country, right trying to help
• 1:54:24
  Speaker 2: them get find a safe place. And the thing is
• 1:54:28
  Speaker 2: is that they also use the fact that Arthur accepted
• 1:54:30
  Speaker 2: hush money from Diekon from Dikeamy, which was they call it.
• 1:54:36
  Speaker 2: It's technically hush money, but they call it a settlement
• 1:54:39
  Speaker 2: in as recompense for uh his his mistreatment while a
• 1:54:46
  Speaker 2: ward of dicamy. So he got like about one pounds.
• 1:54:51
  Speaker 2: It's a lot of money, and that's how he's pretty
• 1:54:54
  Speaker 2: much supported himself this entire time, like invested. Of course,
• 1:54:58
  Speaker 2: he invested the money, and he he was smart with it,
• 1:55:01
  Speaker 2: and that's why he was able to purchase the Marsius Orphanage,
• 1:55:06
  Speaker 2: the Marcius Orphanage, and rebuild it and open it up again. Uh.
• 1:55:12
  Speaker 2: But they use a lot of these, all these facts
• 1:55:14
  Speaker 2: against him, and she even goads him into releasing his
• 1:55:19
  Speaker 2: phoenix form, and unfortunately for him, she she put Unfortunately,
• 1:55:25
  Speaker 2: she managed to push his buttons enough to where he
• 1:55:27
  Speaker 2: actually did let the phoenix out, and it scared a
• 1:55:30
  Speaker 2: lot of people within the committee. The Linus completely unafraid,
• 1:55:34
  Speaker 2: like cut calms him down, but still a lot of
• 1:55:37
  Speaker 2: people use that image of him. But if phoenix bursting
• 1:55:41
  Speaker 2: out of him is firing phoenix form from bursting in out,
• 1:55:43
  Speaker 2: they use that against him, and it kind of creates
• 1:55:48
  Speaker 2: a it creates a bit of a mess, and they
• 1:55:50
  Speaker 2: use and they try to use that against him. But
• 1:55:54
  Speaker 2: the committee is over. The committee members decide to hold
• 1:55:57
  Speaker 2: deliberations to see how they should proceed now, and Arthur
• 1:56:01
  Speaker 2: and Linus they leave. They don't leave that day. They do.
• 1:56:05
  Speaker 2: They part of the reason why they came into the
• 1:56:08
  Speaker 2: city was not just the committee but also to meet
• 1:56:14
  Speaker 2: and possibly bring home a new child to the orphanage.
• 1:56:18
  Speaker 2: So after they leave the committee, they check out of
• 1:56:22
  Speaker 2: their hotel and check into a smaller hotel, a smaller,
• 1:56:26
  Speaker 2: older motel on the other side of town, because they
• 1:56:29
  Speaker 2: didn't want to risk staying in a hotel that was
• 1:56:32
  Speaker 2: bugged by the government again. And they go to meet
• 1:56:36
  Speaker 2: a They go to meet some friends of Arthur's and
• 1:56:44
  Speaker 2: the uh these friends, these are these people are kind
• 1:56:47
  Speaker 2: of like they do what Arthur used to do, and
• 1:56:49
  Speaker 2: that is like help magical families to avoid the registration
• 1:56:53
  Speaker 2: and the government. And this famly, uh, this couple. Uh,
• 1:56:59
  Speaker 2: so this couple takes in magical adults and helps them
• 1:57:05
  Speaker 2: find homes and help them avoid the registration and the government.
• 1:57:10
  Speaker 2: The thing is, though they had taken in a young
• 1:57:14
  Speaker 2: magical youth, a young yetti by the name of David.
• 1:57:21
  Speaker 2: And the thing is is that they don't have the
• 1:57:24
  Speaker 2: facilities to take care of a child all right. They
• 1:57:28
  Speaker 2: mainly handle adults. Help the adults people who are capable
• 1:57:32
  Speaker 2: of taking care of themselves and move and being capable
• 1:57:35
  Speaker 2: of being moved around more often, but with a child
• 1:57:38
  Speaker 2: they don't have the facilities to take care of a
• 1:57:40
  Speaker 2: young child, and they don't you know, and they don't
• 1:57:44
  Speaker 2: want to put in through the stress of constantly being
• 1:57:46
  Speaker 2: moved around, so they had asked Arthur and Linus to
• 1:57:50
  Speaker 2: take him in. So first thing, the first thing Arthur
• 1:57:53
  Speaker 2: and Linus immediately note when they meet David is that
• 1:57:57
  Speaker 2: David has the flair for dramatics. Because the thing is,
• 1:58:01
  Speaker 2: David was worried that Arthur and Linus wouldn't agree to
• 1:58:06
  Speaker 2: take him take him in if he doesn't put on
• 1:58:09
  Speaker 2: a performance. So David proceeds. So when they first meet David,
• 1:58:15
  Speaker 2: David had set up a sort of like a stage play,
• 1:58:21
  Speaker 2: like a little a little self made production. It was
• 1:58:25
  Speaker 2: very noir, like a detective solving a case. So as
• 1:58:30
  Speaker 2: they're watching him, he's like, it's you know, directed by David,
• 1:58:34
  Speaker 2: starring David, played by David, right, play right by David.
• 1:58:40
  Speaker 2: So he's like he puts on this whole performance for them.
• 1:58:44
  Speaker 2: He's like running back and forth to like because he's
• 1:58:47
  Speaker 2: playing all the roles. There's only two people in the play,
• 1:58:49
  Speaker 2: but he's like switching back and forth between the detective
• 1:58:52
  Speaker 2: and this dame. And they're watching and like, Arthur is
• 1:58:56
  Speaker 2: completely enamored with him. He's like, oh, this is very
• 1:58:58
  Speaker 2: well done. And when he was done, David was like,
• 1:59:03
  Speaker 2: how is that was that good? And I did I
• 1:59:05
  Speaker 2: get in? And Arthur and Linus was like, well, there
• 1:59:10
  Speaker 2: wasn't an entry exam, but yeah, we'd be happy to
• 1:59:14
  Speaker 2: have you, like this wasn't a requirement, but so so
• 1:59:21
  Speaker 2: they agreed to take David in and which just makes
• 1:59:25
  Speaker 2: David really happy. So after making sure David has all
• 1:59:31
  Speaker 2: his things packed since he's been since he's an orphan,
• 1:59:34
  Speaker 2: he doesn't have much to begin with, he didn't have
• 1:59:36
  Speaker 2: much to pack with them. They the next day they
• 1:59:39
  Speaker 2: leave and take the train back to Marcius Village. And
• 1:59:44
  Speaker 2: the thing is is that Arthur and Linus, despite being
• 1:59:48
  Speaker 2: happy that they have David with them, now they're face
• 1:59:50
  Speaker 2: they have new they have completely new challenges that they
• 1:59:53
  Speaker 2: have to face. For one thing, the government Jeanine, especially
• 1:59:57
  Speaker 2: Janine Router, had accused Arthur of using the children under
• 2:00:01
  Speaker 2: his care to create his own anti government movement. They
• 2:00:05
  Speaker 2: think that he's going to that he's going to be
• 2:00:07
  Speaker 2: training them to use their power to resist the government,
• 2:00:10
  Speaker 2: to avoid registration, and to basically empower them into seeking
• 2:00:14
  Speaker 2: out like a becoming like rebels or like a revolution
• 2:00:18
  Speaker 2: to start a revolution, things like that. And now they
• 2:00:24
  Speaker 2: are aware that the government is going to be sending
• 2:00:26
  Speaker 2: another inspector to the island to determine whether or not
• 2:00:30
  Speaker 2: the children should remain in the in his care or
• 2:00:33
  Speaker 2: to be removed from the orphanage. Another thing that another
• 2:00:37
  Speaker 2: challenge they have to face is that David has his
• 2:00:42
  Speaker 2: own unique challenge, has his own unique challenges despite being
• 2:00:47
  Speaker 2: of course, despite his his own trauma from losing his parents.
• 2:00:50
  Speaker 2: His parents were killed by human hunters. David aspires to
• 2:00:58
  Speaker 2: be a monster, like he wants to be a monster,
• 2:01:02
  Speaker 2: but in his for him is from an innocent perspective.
• 2:01:05
  Speaker 2: He doesn't want to be a monster like you know,
• 2:01:07
  Speaker 2: like this inhuman beast that kills people. No, he wants
• 2:01:11
  Speaker 2: to be a monster for fun, Like he wants to
• 2:01:13
  Speaker 2: be that bogeyman that scares people, you know, kind of
• 2:01:17
  Speaker 2: like you know, like a as more of like an
• 2:01:19
  Speaker 2: entertain for entertainment. Like you know, it's like it's okay
• 2:01:22
  Speaker 2: to scare people as long as you're not hurting people, right,
• 2:01:26
  Speaker 2: which is a challenge. It's it's gonna be a challenge
• 2:01:29
  Speaker 2: to h for Arthur, because thing is, he's been trying
• 2:01:32
  Speaker 2: to teach all of his kids that they are not monsters,
• 2:01:35
  Speaker 2: that they don't have to be monsters, that they don't
• 2:01:37
  Speaker 2: have to choose to be what, that they don't have
• 2:01:40
  Speaker 2: to be what people believe that they are, these inhuman
• 2:01:45
  Speaker 2: creatures that lurk in the night, that are going to
• 2:01:47
  Speaker 2: kill them, take away their families, you know, take their
• 2:01:51
  Speaker 2: children away, whatever, you know, all that superstitious bullshit. And
• 2:01:58
  Speaker 2: so now he has to basic this is a curve
• 2:02:01
  Speaker 2: ball that he has to work with because he doesn't
• 2:02:03
  Speaker 2: want to discourage David from his dreams. But he knows
• 2:02:08
  Speaker 2: that this is gonna it isn't going to sit well
• 2:02:10
  Speaker 2: with some with the other kids, especially especially because some
• 2:02:16
  Speaker 2: of them haven't basically told their whole life that that's
• 2:02:18
  Speaker 2: what they are. They're going to destroy the world. They're
• 2:02:21
  Speaker 2: a monster, right, And you know, it's something that he
• 2:02:26
  Speaker 2: has to deal with. That's something he is going to
• 2:02:28
  Speaker 2: have to deal with. And the thing is is, so
• 2:02:33
  Speaker 2: they make it back to Marcius, They get back to
• 2:02:36
  Speaker 2: the island and introduce David to the other kids, and
• 2:02:41
  Speaker 2: you know, the children, they're very happy to have David.
• 2:02:45
  Speaker 2: They instantly take to him. They start to get to
• 2:02:48
  Speaker 2: know him and quickly make him feel like like he's
• 2:02:51
  Speaker 2: at home. In fact, they had actually turned the seller
• 2:02:56
  Speaker 2: that Arthur used to that Arthur used to avoid, because
• 2:03:00
  Speaker 2: it was the very cellar that he had been locked in.
• 2:03:03
  Speaker 2: They turned it into a room for David because David,
• 2:03:06
  Speaker 2: since he's a Yeti, he needs he's more comfortable in
• 2:03:09
  Speaker 2: the cold, especially like at night, So they designed his
• 2:03:14
  Speaker 2: They renovated his room to be somewhat of a cooler,
• 2:03:18
  Speaker 2: so it's lot colder in there, that has like ice,
• 2:03:21
  Speaker 2: like an ice like a freezer and an ice maker
• 2:03:24
  Speaker 2: and just keeps a whole place like kind of like
• 2:03:27
  Speaker 2: below freezing. So that way whenever he's when he's in
• 2:03:31
  Speaker 2: his room and he's sleeping, he's actually in a comfortable environment.
• 2:03:35
  Speaker 2: Because things that they're living in a tropical island, it's
• 2:03:39
  Speaker 2: not exactly the best environment for a Yeti. So they
• 2:03:42
  Speaker 2: make him very feel like he's at home. And there's
• 2:03:47
  Speaker 2: one more challenge Linus and Arthur have to face, and
• 2:03:50
  Speaker 2: that's the fact that David is an unregistered magical being,
• 2:03:54
  Speaker 2: so he's not registered with Dakemi. And since there's a
• 2:03:58
  Speaker 2: government inspector coming to the island, they have to figure
• 2:04:02
  Speaker 2: out a way to hide him keep the inspector from
• 2:04:05
  Speaker 2: figuring out that like, oh, they have another child that
• 2:04:08
  Speaker 2: is unregistered. And the way they do that is because
• 2:04:12
  Speaker 2: since he the yetti, he's actually very tall. So he's
• 2:04:16
  Speaker 2: like what ten years old, and he's already almost as
• 2:04:23
  Speaker 2: tall as an adult, and so they decide to pass
• 2:04:32
  Speaker 2: him off as like an adult friend of Arthur's. In fact,
• 2:04:37
  Speaker 2: when the new got when the inspector arrives at the
• 2:04:40
  Speaker 2: island and she notices him, they play him off as
• 2:04:42
  Speaker 2: like an old friend of Arthur's. And once he asks him, well, wait,
• 2:04:47
  Speaker 2: aren't Yeti's supposed to be like ten feet tall, like
• 2:04:49
  Speaker 2: over ten feet tall adult. Yeti's are supposed to be
• 2:04:52
  Speaker 2: like over ten feet tall, And he plays it off like, oh,
• 2:04:54
  Speaker 2: I have a condition. It's like it's kind of like
• 2:04:57
  Speaker 2: dwarf Ism but Freeeddi's it's like a hormone disorder that
• 2:05:05
  Speaker 2: basically prevented him from growing to his full height. And
• 2:05:07
  Speaker 2: why he still kind of looks and acts like a child.
• 2:05:11
  Speaker 1: That's funny, mm hmm.
• 2:05:14
  Speaker 2: So the new inspector shows up. Her name is Harriet
• 2:05:19
  Speaker 2: marble Ma, and she's a piece of work. Because the
• 2:05:29
  Speaker 2: thing is the one thing that she immediately, uh disapproves
• 2:05:33
  Speaker 2: of is that, let me see see she she disapproves
• 2:05:41
  Speaker 2: of their teeth, of their education methods, like they're teaching
• 2:05:45
  Speaker 2: the kids that if they can be whatever they want,
• 2:05:47
  Speaker 2: that they have a bright future and these and she
• 2:05:50
  Speaker 2: believes they need to teach them the strict rules of
• 2:05:52
  Speaker 2: diakeamy and eventually diacoma. Right, like, you know, respect the government,
• 2:05:59
  Speaker 2: fall the role, all right, don't give them, don't give
• 2:06:02
  Speaker 2: them like false hope, like, oh, they're magical beings. They're
• 2:06:04
  Speaker 2: not gonna be able to like actually work or integrate
• 2:06:08
  Speaker 2: with the society. Within society. She's also very she's very cool,
• 2:06:14
  Speaker 2: like she's very narrow minded. And she immediately calls out
• 2:06:20
  Speaker 2: she immediately thinks that they're that David's disguise. His backstory
• 2:06:25
  Speaker 2: is bullshit, but she can't really prove it. You know,
• 2:06:32
  Speaker 2: she's supposed to only be there for like two weeks
• 2:06:36
  Speaker 2: on the island, but the whole time she's overtly rude,
• 2:06:40
  Speaker 2: and she's constantly threatening to remove the kids from Linus
• 2:06:44
  Speaker 2: and Arthur's care. And the children, all of them, are
• 2:06:47
  Speaker 2: on their best behavior, and you know, they're all deliberately
• 2:06:51
  Speaker 2: trying hard to make their home to like portray their
• 2:06:54
  Speaker 2: home in like the best light. You know, marble mad.
• 2:06:57
  Speaker 2: She's continuously like fought, nitpicking everything. She's constantly criticizing the children,
• 2:07:02
  Speaker 2: their home, their caregivers. And the thing is that like
• 2:07:07
  Speaker 2: they are constantly at odds with her. Like Arthur, like
• 2:07:10
  Speaker 2: he's consummate professional, Lionus is a little bit more outspoken
• 2:07:14
  Speaker 2: against her methods because mainly because he used to be
• 2:07:18
  Speaker 2: an inspector just like her, so he knows the rules
• 2:07:21
  Speaker 2: as much as she is, and he thinks that her
• 2:07:23
  Speaker 2: approach to enforcing the rules is too much and it's
• 2:07:28
  Speaker 2: not necessary. Now. They now during their every weekend they
• 2:07:37
  Speaker 2: have every Saturday, they have a little adventure and the
• 2:07:41
  Speaker 2: kids get to pick out what they can do for
• 2:07:43
  Speaker 2: their adventures. And this week Lucy was the one who
• 2:07:45
  Speaker 2: was in charge of picking out their next adventure, and
• 2:07:48
  Speaker 2: he decided, let's all take a trip to the mainland
• 2:07:50
  Speaker 2: to the village. You know, he loves visiting the record store.
• 2:07:56
  Speaker 2: Talia loves visiting the gardens, the gardner store. Let me
• 2:08:03
  Speaker 2: see here, let me see pie, sallyin so Salfie and Theodore.
• 2:08:14
  Speaker 2: They don't really say, I don't really remember which stores
• 2:08:17
  Speaker 2: they like visiting, but they most but usually they end
• 2:08:19
  Speaker 2: the trip at with trips to the ice cream shop.
• 2:08:22
  Speaker 2: Jauncey loves going to the bell hop to do his
• 2:08:25
  Speaker 2: part time job as a bell hop at the local hotel.
• 2:08:31
  Speaker 2: But during their incursion, the David was playing with one
• 2:08:36
  Speaker 2: of the shop owners. I think this was the owner
• 2:08:42
  Speaker 2: of the record store. And it's the record store owner.
• 2:08:45
  Speaker 2: He's a total stoner guy, like we're talking like, you know,
• 2:08:49
  Speaker 2: right on, dude, m and he while he was playing
• 2:08:56
  Speaker 2: with David, he was like, he asked David to try
• 2:08:58
  Speaker 2: to scare him, you know, chase him around like real monster,
• 2:09:00
  Speaker 2: because that's what David loved doing. And David complies and
• 2:09:04
  Speaker 2: they're having fun. But miss marble Ma, miss mistook that
• 2:09:08
  Speaker 2: as David trying to attack him, and she actually like
• 2:09:11
  Speaker 2: grabs David and starts just really berating him. You know,
• 2:09:18
  Speaker 2: we're and we're done. In the kind of language she
• 2:09:19
  Speaker 2: uses against him is very like derogatory, like practically being
• 2:09:24
  Speaker 2: like overtly racist, and like the all the children immediately
• 2:09:30
  Speaker 2: come to his defense, and the record store owner was like,
• 2:09:33
  Speaker 2: WHOA hold up, No, we were just playing. I asked
• 2:09:35
  Speaker 2: him to do that, but she's not but she's not
• 2:09:41
  Speaker 2: buying any of it. But eventually all the kids like
• 2:09:43
  Speaker 2: come to his defense and they basically they pretty much
• 2:09:46
  Speaker 2: threaten her, like they threaten her, you don't mess with David,
• 2:09:52
  Speaker 2: all right, He's our brother. You don't mess with him period.
• 2:09:58
  Speaker 2: Mm hmm. When they return to the island the next day,
• 2:10:04
  Speaker 2: Arthur is trying to find a way to make peace
• 2:10:06
  Speaker 2: with Miss Marblemock because he wants her to. He wants
• 2:10:09
  Speaker 2: her he wants to convince her that this that he's
• 2:10:12
  Speaker 2: not teaching these kids or training them to be soldiers,
• 2:10:17
  Speaker 2: all right, or to be anti government at all, all right.
• 2:10:21
  Speaker 2: He wants to teach them that. He wants to teach
• 2:10:23
  Speaker 2: them that they have a choice, all right, to have
• 2:10:27
  Speaker 2: better lives and give him a better life. And he
• 2:10:30
  Speaker 2: tries to approach her, but he notices that she's not
• 2:10:32
  Speaker 2: in the guest house. But he also knows this that
• 2:10:35
  Speaker 2: that he did see her going down to the beach
• 2:10:37
  Speaker 2: with like a suitcase, So he follows her and secretly
• 2:10:40
  Speaker 2: watches her and finds that the suitcase is actually like
• 2:10:43
  Speaker 2: a like a portable like like a portable phone. It's
• 2:10:48
  Speaker 2: like an old time. It's like an old style like
• 2:10:50
  Speaker 2: video phone, and he sees her speaking to Janine Router,
• 2:10:58
  Speaker 2: and he overhears their conversation and realizes that they that
• 2:11:02
  Speaker 2: regardless of what Arthur and Linus does, Router and marble
• 2:11:09
  Speaker 2: mall are planning on just making up a very embellished
• 2:11:13
  Speaker 2: and fake report just to get just so they can
• 2:11:16
  Speaker 2: take the kids from uh, take the kids from his care,
• 2:11:21
  Speaker 2: especially Lucy. It's all it's all coming down to Lucy,
• 2:11:24
  Speaker 2: because Lucy is the most dangerous one of them all.
• 2:11:29
  Speaker 2: And this kind of this kind of triggers Arthur, like
• 2:11:35
  Speaker 2: for the next few days, Arthur's kind of like in
• 2:11:37
  Speaker 2: this huge state of like it's almost like despair, Like
• 2:11:41
  Speaker 2: he's he's freaking out. He's not sure what he's gonna do,
• 2:11:44
  Speaker 2: all right. He's realizing that, you know, no matter what
• 2:11:46
  Speaker 2: he says to this woman, it's not going to be
• 2:11:48
  Speaker 2: enough to protect the kids, all right. And at one
• 2:11:51
  Speaker 2: point he actually kind he actually loses control and he
• 2:11:55
  Speaker 2: has to run out of uh like he actually like
• 2:12:00
  Speaker 2: goes off on Linus at one point, and he leaves
• 2:12:03
  Speaker 2: the house and takes on his phoenix form and and
• 2:12:07
  Speaker 2: just lies off into the into the sky. Like as
• 2:12:12
  Speaker 2: high up as he can, and he ends up like
• 2:12:17
  Speaker 2: burning up so much to his energy that he falls
• 2:12:19
  Speaker 2: out of the sky and lands on lands in the ocean. Thankfully,
• 2:12:25
  Speaker 2: Zoe uses her power to pull him out of the ocean,
• 2:12:28
  Speaker 2: but he leaves him be to let him cool off,
• 2:12:30
  Speaker 2: literally cool off. Lionus eventually finds him and and he
• 2:12:39
  Speaker 2: convinces and he he has a good heart's heart with
• 2:12:42
  Speaker 2: Arthur telling him that he doesn't have to take all
• 2:12:44
  Speaker 2: of this, you know, all of this onto himself. He
• 2:12:48
  Speaker 2: doesn't have to take the whole burden of protecting the kids,
• 2:12:51
  Speaker 2: of protecting their island by himself, because he has Arthur,
• 2:12:56
  Speaker 2: has Linus. He also has Zoe and even the kids
• 2:12:58
  Speaker 2: and the people of the community. Hell, Zoe's girlfriend is
• 2:13:01
  Speaker 2: the mayor of the is the mayor of Marcia's village,
• 2:13:07
  Speaker 2: you know, and Helen, the mayor is constant is always
• 2:13:10
  Speaker 2: coming back and forth from the island from the main
• 2:13:12
  Speaker 2: lands of the island, so they have good connections in
• 2:13:15
  Speaker 2: the village, so they're not alone. The people have really
• 2:13:19
  Speaker 2: changed their minds. They accept the kids. In fact, they
• 2:13:22
  Speaker 2: love the kids. They love it when they come to
• 2:13:24
  Speaker 2: the island now and you know, after you know, very
• 2:13:30
  Speaker 2: emotional moment, Arthur reveals to Linus about Router's plot and
• 2:13:36
  Speaker 2: they and it's at this point they decide, all right,
• 2:13:39
  Speaker 2: they got to make plans to defend their kids. When
• 2:13:45
  Speaker 2: they return to the house, they do find marble Mant
• 2:13:47
  Speaker 2: waiting for them, and she's like losing her shit over
• 2:13:51
  Speaker 2: the spectacle of a phoenix fiery explosion over the island,
• 2:13:55
  Speaker 2: and you know, she starts threatening Zoe of all people,
• 2:14:00
  Speaker 2: because Zoe is an unregistered magical being and Zoe not
• 2:14:06
  Speaker 2: taking her bullshit because think, here's the thing about Zoe.
• 2:14:10
  Speaker 2: Here's the thing while on Marcius Island. It's not Arthur
• 2:14:16
  Speaker 2: Parnassas that you need to worry about. It is not
• 2:14:18
  Speaker 2: Lucy that you need to worry about. It is Zoe.
• 2:14:21
  Speaker 2: Because despite how powerful Lucy is, while on this island,
• 2:14:27
  Speaker 2: Zoe is literally the baddest bitch in town. Because the
• 2:14:30
  Speaker 2: thing is Zoe is a is an island sprite, and
• 2:14:35
  Speaker 2: the island is her territory, and a sprite within their
• 2:14:39
  Speaker 2: territory has absolute control, so they have all the power there,
• 2:14:45
  Speaker 2: and Zoe completely just don't like, fed up with Marble
• 2:14:49
  Speaker 2: Mom's mistreatment, uses her power to confine Marble into the
• 2:14:54
  Speaker 2: guest house for a few hours while she and the
• 2:14:57
  Speaker 2: others discuss their options and the kids, especially Sal, who's
• 2:15:04
  Speaker 2: really like. The thinking about Sal is that he's really
• 2:15:07
  Speaker 2: come out of his shell. In the first book, he
• 2:15:09
  Speaker 2: could barely speak to anybody. He doesn't know. He was
• 2:15:12
  Speaker 2: very terrified. He was very especially he was very terrified
• 2:15:15
  Speaker 2: of Linus because he was afraid that Linus would take
• 2:15:18
  Speaker 2: him away. And you know, he's very like closed off
• 2:15:23
  Speaker 2: and a very closed off individual. But now in this book,
• 2:15:26
  Speaker 2: he's grown into himself. He's very confident. He rarely ever
• 2:15:29
  Speaker 2: shrinks back into his like cell. He's more outspoken, and
• 2:15:34
  Speaker 2: he argues that they shouldn't they shouldn't expel Marble Moth
• 2:15:37
  Speaker 2: from the island right away. Is that they do, then
• 2:15:40
  Speaker 2: that's going to put Diakeomy on the on the offensive.
• 2:15:45
  Speaker 2: So they allow. They decide to allow Marble Mom to
• 2:15:48
  Speaker 2: stay for a few more days, and the children all
• 2:15:52
  Speaker 2: deliberately play different pranks on her to design to frighten her.
• 2:15:57
  Speaker 2: Because she has this the whole time that she's been there.
• 2:16:00
  Speaker 2: She claims that she does not feel fear at all,
• 2:16:06
  Speaker 2: and they really test her, but every time it's funny
• 2:16:09
  Speaker 2: because every prank they pull on her, like she created
• 2:16:13
  Speaker 2: this system of like rewarding the kids with these gold stars,
• 2:16:17
  Speaker 2: and every time they pull a prank on her, rather
• 2:16:18
  Speaker 2: than like just like giving into like you know, giving
• 2:16:23
  Speaker 2: into them or like letting them get a rise out
• 2:16:25
  Speaker 2: of her, She's just like, that's a gold star for you,
• 2:16:28
  Speaker 2: Miss Talia, good work, and walks away. But finally, when Lucy,
• 2:16:39
  Speaker 2: they managed to get a huge rise out of her.
• 2:16:43
  Speaker 2: When Lucy uses his power to create sentient mud creatures,
• 2:16:47
  Speaker 2: so he creates like three mud men and brings them
• 2:16:50
  Speaker 2: to life, and they end up throwing a lot of
• 2:16:52
  Speaker 2: mud on Miss Marblelaw. Miss marble Ma. That's when she
• 2:16:55
  Speaker 2: finally loses it, and she starts making all these very
• 2:16:58
  Speaker 2: abusive remarks to the kids and starts threatening everyone on
• 2:17:02
  Speaker 2: the island. Arthur decides that this is too much and
• 2:17:07
  Speaker 2: he lets her have it. He tells her that he's
• 2:17:09
  Speaker 2: had enough, He's dealt with Miss marble Ma's abusive and
• 2:17:15
  Speaker 2: overtly discriminatory remarks and tell and tells her to leave
• 2:17:19
  Speaker 2: the island. When she refuses, Zoe build Zoe and Lewisy
• 2:17:26
  Speaker 2: direct the mud people to escort her to the docks
• 2:17:29
  Speaker 2: and loose, and Zoe places a spell on marble Ma
• 2:17:32
  Speaker 2: that will prevent her from ever returning to the island.
• 2:17:36
  Speaker 2: So basically expelled.
• 2:17:38
  Speaker 1: They're done, you out, You're gone.
• 2:17:40
  Speaker 2: How mm hmm, that's it. You are out, picked out,
• 2:17:47
  Speaker 2: marble Mas expelled from Marcias Island and by extension, Marcius Village.
• 2:17:52
  Speaker 2: And for the next few days the children enjoy some
• 2:17:56
  Speaker 2: peace and quiet and they though. The following week they
• 2:18:02
  Speaker 2: take a trip back to the to the village and
• 2:18:06
  Speaker 2: they are While they're there, their entire group is accosted
• 2:18:12
  Speaker 2: and surrounded by a whole group of government forces led
• 2:18:16
  Speaker 2: by Router and Marblem. Router announces that the children will
• 2:18:21
  Speaker 2: be seized and placed into foster care. But before they
• 2:18:24
  Speaker 2: can do anything, the entire village comes to the defense.
• 2:18:29
  Speaker 2: Like townspeople, tourists, and reporters. They gather for the face off,
• 2:18:32
  Speaker 2: and they actually make a stand and and prevent Router
• 2:18:37
  Speaker 2: from taking the kids. Arthur and Linus make a public
• 2:18:43
  Speaker 2: announcement that Routers real of like, telling everybody this is
• 2:18:47
  Speaker 2: what Router's real plan is and how abusively the government
• 2:18:50
  Speaker 2: agents have acted towards the children. You know, the town
• 2:18:53
  Speaker 2: people really gets riled up and further take a stand
• 2:18:59
  Speaker 2: against the government, saying that they're not going to let
• 2:19:01
  Speaker 2: them take the children, and Rouder threatens to arrest them all,
• 2:19:07
  Speaker 2: but they don't back down. It's at this point that
• 2:19:10
  Speaker 2: Zoe arrives. So Zoe wasn't with them, she was still
• 2:19:14
  Speaker 2: back on the island because so we're gonna just take
• 2:19:17
  Speaker 2: a little step back. In the wake of Miss Router's
• 2:19:20
  Speaker 2: banishment from I'm sorry not Miss Router marble Mall's banishment
• 2:19:23
  Speaker 2: from the island, Zoe makes a decision to begin using
• 2:19:30
  Speaker 2: the ancient power that she has had access to but
• 2:19:33
  Speaker 2: never used because she was too afraid. Because this whole
• 2:19:36
  Speaker 2: time she's been hiding from the government, she's been hiding
• 2:19:38
  Speaker 2: from just humans in general. But after meeting Arthur and
• 2:19:43
  Speaker 2: later Linus and the kids, she starts realizing that she
• 2:19:46
  Speaker 2: has a lot to live for, she has a lot
• 2:19:48
  Speaker 2: to fight for. So she decides to activate an old
• 2:19:54
  Speaker 2: like an old form of magic, So Zoe. When Zoe
• 2:19:57
  Speaker 2: appears before Router and the and all these government officials,
• 2:20:02
  Speaker 2: she's wearing this like very ornate royal garb. It's like
• 2:20:06
  Speaker 2: and it kind of looks like armor that it's like
• 2:20:08
  Speaker 2: ce cells and like kind of like, you know how
• 2:20:11
  Speaker 2: like the inside of an oyster shell has that polished,
• 2:20:14
  Speaker 2: that very pearl polish, kind of like that. And she
• 2:20:19
  Speaker 2: reveals to everybody that she's actually an ocean sprite, not
• 2:20:24
  Speaker 2: an island sprite. And she's also the last member of
• 2:20:28
  Speaker 2: her community to survive a massacre that happened centuries ago
• 2:20:32
  Speaker 2: that not only wiped out her community, but also killed
• 2:20:36
  Speaker 2: her mother, who was the former queen of the territory
• 2:20:44
  Speaker 2: known as Marcius. And she even produces an ancient document
• 2:20:48
  Speaker 2: signed back in thirteen thirty two declaring that the territory
• 2:20:54
  Speaker 2: of Marcius belongs to the Ocean sprites. So the islands
• 2:20:59
  Speaker 2: actually used to be a part of a peninsula that
• 2:21:02
  Speaker 2: connected to the mainland. But when back in the day,
• 2:21:06
  Speaker 2: like the humans had attacked Marcius and took it over,
• 2:21:11
  Speaker 2: her mother uses had use wait, was there her grandmother
• 2:21:15
  Speaker 2: or her mother? Dang it? Okay, So I will just say, like,
• 2:21:19
  Speaker 2: I'll just put it like this, because I can't remember
• 2:21:22
  Speaker 2: if Zoe was the well, you know, let me pull
• 2:21:24
  Speaker 2: up the book right now. I have to know, because
• 2:21:25
  Speaker 2: I can't remember if it was Zoe's grandmother or her
• 2:21:28
  Speaker 2: mother that was the former queen of Marcius. Okay, I
• 2:21:33
  Speaker 2: can't find anything about Zoe like okay, so I'll put
• 2:21:37
  Speaker 2: it like this. Zoe is the descendant of a royal
• 2:21:40
  Speaker 2: line of an old Marcia's kingdom, and this was completely
• 2:21:45
  Speaker 2: controlled by ocean sprites. And the thing is is that.
• 2:21:49
  Speaker 2: And she reveals to the to the government that she
• 2:21:54
  Speaker 2: has a legal document proclaiming that the territory of Marcius
• 2:22:01
  Speaker 2: is not is its own independent state and it belongs
• 2:22:06
  Speaker 2: to her as the last living descendant of the royal line.
• 2:22:10
  Speaker 2: So after showing them the document she uses she uses
• 2:22:15
  Speaker 2: magic to cast the same spell over the assembled government
• 2:22:18
  Speaker 2: forces that she did over marble Ma, making it impossible
• 2:22:22
  Speaker 2: for them to return, and Lucy uses his power to
• 2:22:26
  Speaker 2: teleport them all back to the city, and Zoe combines
• 2:22:33
  Speaker 2: her power with those of Arthur and the children and
• 2:22:36
  Speaker 2: uses their combined power to raise the land around Marcius Island,
• 2:22:41
  Speaker 2: so the island is now returned to its original form.
• 2:22:46
  Speaker 2: It becomes a large peninsula as it was back in
• 2:22:50
  Speaker 2: Zoe's youth before the sprite flooded parts of its land
• 2:22:53
  Speaker 2: to cut off cut it off from the mainland. Zoe
• 2:22:56
  Speaker 2: declares that her realm will be a place of refuge
• 2:22:59
  Speaker 2: for any magical being who need a safe home. Yeah,
• 2:23:03
  Speaker 2: the reporters that are present, they spread the story of
• 2:23:06
  Speaker 2: what happened on Marcius and Router is actually fired, so
• 2:23:13
  Speaker 2: she's removed from her office and replaced this head of
• 2:23:15
  Speaker 2: Dicamy by a satyr, by an actual magical person. Because
• 2:23:21
  Speaker 2: the funny thing is is the one thing that they've
• 2:23:23
  Speaker 2: argued that if that the people the kind of people
• 2:23:26
  Speaker 2: that need to be running these departments like diac to
• 2:23:29
  Speaker 2: me and Diacoma shouldn't be like humans, but it should
• 2:23:32
  Speaker 2: be other magical people. That's why I've been saying, Dica.
• 2:23:38
  Speaker 1: Me, dick and me.
• 2:23:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm sure you've had a few of them, and.
• 2:23:57
  Speaker 1: Just call me a slug. Yeah, our own pod.
• 2:24:01
  Speaker 2: Wi'ld be the first time.
• 2:24:04
  Speaker 1: You're right, it wouldn't be the first time.
• 2:24:07
  Speaker 2: Tony way so rude. But anyway, so a lot of
• 2:24:12
  Speaker 2: changes happened by the happens. By the time this book
• 2:24:15
  Speaker 2: is coming to an end, the leader, the head of Diachamy,
• 2:24:19
  Speaker 2: is now a satyr and you know some basically somebody
• 2:24:24
  Speaker 2: who's much more sympathetic to the magical community. Arthur and
• 2:24:27
  Speaker 2: Minus actually end up getting married on the new lands
• 2:24:32
  Speaker 2: within the new community that's been built in the Marcius territory.
• 2:24:38
  Speaker 2: Refugees from all over the country have begun flooding into Marcius.
• 2:24:43
  Speaker 2: So all these kind of magical people, magical families, people
• 2:24:46
  Speaker 2: that have been avoiding the registration and diacoma they've all
• 2:24:52
  Speaker 2: been they all start coming to uh Marcius, and and
• 2:25:01
  Speaker 2: that's pretty much where the book ends. Linus and Arthur
• 2:25:04
  Speaker 2: get married. They've officially adopted all of the children, so
• 2:25:07
  Speaker 2: they are not just their orphanage. They're not just the
• 2:25:10
  Speaker 2: orphanage headmasters now they are actually they're legal adopted parents.
• 2:25:16
  Speaker 2: And that is where we're going to end the story
• 2:25:20
  Speaker 2: of House in the Cerulean Sea and Somewhere Beyond the Seed.
• 2:25:26
  Speaker 2: This honestly TJ. Klute never disappoints. Now, of course, if
• 2:25:31
  Speaker 2: you were really if you'd read this book hoping to
• 2:25:34
  Speaker 2: like get some of the smut from from his usual work,
• 2:25:37
  Speaker 2: you're going to be sorely disappointed. And also get your
• 2:25:40
  Speaker 2: mind out of the goaters people, because this story involves children,
• 2:25:43
  Speaker 2: and you know that's not gonna sit well. Yeah, it's
• 2:25:48
  Speaker 2: really not gonna sit well with people. Yeah, which I
• 2:25:53
  Speaker 2: can appreciate. I like that they that TJ. Klune made
• 2:25:57
  Speaker 2: this one more PG thirteen, made these books more PG
• 2:26:01
  Speaker 2: PG thirteen. You know, of course I explore the relationship
• 2:26:05
  Speaker 2: between Arthur and Linus, but you know, without the smutt.
• 2:26:13
  Speaker 2: So he came here looking for smut. You're in the
• 2:26:15
  Speaker 2: wrong place.
• 2:26:15
  Speaker 1: Now catch us next week where we're talking about smutt.
• 2:26:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, wait until next week. That's what You'll find the
• 2:26:23
  Speaker 2: smut here next week, but until then, until then, b