Passages contains graphic and explicit sexual content.

Listener discretion is advised.

Welcome, Oh yeah, welcome to Passages.

Passages.

Indulge me now if you will hang cobwebs and shadows in your mind, think darkness and danger too, entails from another time.

Travel with me, please, into the darkened recesses of other people's.

Minds, to a world of wood and cloth and stream.

This season of Passages is a Harlequin intrigue again, Puppet's Bobby.

Passages, puppet Hella.

Time to can go down into the passages under the puppety We live down here, and I've got twenty roommates, but somehow nobody knows I'm down here.

You can have all the pupet water you want to drink.

There's a bunch of pulpet water over.

But if it's not made in Fransylvania, it's just sparkling propit water.

If it hasn't been made in it's just farpling.

I like that we're starting to like create memetic connections to my to my slip ups sparpling properate water.

If we could find a way okay, listen, listen, If we could find a way to monetize how often I drop things which I drank, if we can find a way to mono times, how often I knock things over.

TikTok or just have a camera on you at all times and they have a supercuts of what a disaster you are.

Dude.

Isn't that girl that woman who got famous because she and her partner started recording her overnight with like a night vision camera because she walks in her sleep so much, Oh.

My god, And she walks into the living the living room, has a hilarious conversation indible.

She's actually really funny.

Yeah, she's so funny.

But yeah, if we could just somehow find a way and we and you want to do it so like I, uh, like yesterday I dropped my birthday cupcakes upside down and created uh a new thing called a sloppy cup which is which is a cupcake with all the frosting all fucked up.

You know what it's a It's a cupcake upside down and deconstructed.

It's a deconstruction in itsake.

It's a deconstructed popcakes and it's Pope.

I think I have a brain in problem.

No, I was gonna say tumor, but I've had a cat scan too recently.

I feel like they would have caught it.

Don't catch everything, that's true.

It's really fast growing.

God willing, God willing, get me good before I know what's coming later.

Oh lady death, take me quick, take me to hell.

Que I'd watch your Robbie knocks things no other context.

No, it's just super cuts.

You bumping into ship, knopping things.

And then have it cut, have it cut mid don or like when I dropped my birthday cupcakes and I just went just cut mid sound.

There's a great like montage in The Simpsons where Homer is hurting himself really bad, but he's trying not to swear because they've instituted a swim jar, and so what they do is he'll like step on a nail and he'll go and they cut halfway through it and just to this a smash cut of coins going into the swear jar, and it is like one of the most beautiful comedic sequences.

Like fucking ever, it's so funny.

If we could find a way to have just whenever I knock over my pupcakes or fucking spill my coffee all over the know you have you ever gone to the store, gotten an extra large cold press.

It's gonna like fuel you for the next thirty six hours, and then you leave it on top of your car and then you just see it tumble down the windshield as you pull away, Like.

I've actually never done that, And it's so shocking to me that I've never left something on top of my car.

Yeah, because that seems so amandicar.

It's so well.

You have add I have.

I have terminal ad you have the world's first terminal case.

But you know, I think what has saved me is that I am also short, and so it is not convenient for me to put things down.

On top of all the way up on all the.

Way up there.

And I am also terminally afflicted with I cannot be inconvenience for even a second.

Bere I lose it.

That is true.

I remember once I am not a patient price.

I tried to inconvenience Amanda, and the next thing I knew, I was in the ICU.

Many tubes, many tubes coming outside him.

I was like, what happened.

They're like, it's okay, she's been subdued.

She can't hurt you.

She can't hurt you.

Anymore, and then I and I felt the and then I felt the ambulance rocking, Yes, you've gotten but.

I have walked to my car, not realizing I dropped my wallet, gone to four different pharmacies trying to find one that had my medical device in stock, finally finding one, and then going up to pay, and I don't have my wallet because I didn't realize I dropped it, and calling my husband.

Like sobbing and freaking out to five places, which we have to check five places.

He walked out into the street and it was in the street, untouched right by my car.

Y'all, welcome to passages.

Welcome.

Being diabetic is so fucking annoying.

Oh my god, and this is.

Kind I'm like, listen, I'm gonna make this political because everything is while I'm all the subject.

The expression like, don't bring politics into this, and it's like, bitch, politics brought themselves.

If you are disabled, chronically ill, queer, a person of color, a woman, frankly even a man, all of our existence is political.

So fuck it.

You know what I'm gonna I'm just gonna go here straightway.

Men are fucking hurt just as bad by this ship.

And they just hurts them last, so they just don't see it coming yet.

Well, anyway, I recognize that I am in such a position of privileged for so many reasons, Like I have health insurance that's decent.

I live in a state, not a country, a state that helped me have health insurance when I couldn't afford to have it.

I have access to technologies that are generations of people didn't have and that people are literally dying.

For me to have because they have.

They rely on lithium batteries, they rely on cobalt, like I, Every every single reason that I am able to be here to take a breath is because of exploitation of labor and resources and humans.

And I genuinely think.

I think we could have too.

I think enough to go around.

I think that there's just we just got to bring the ceiling down.

And even with all of this understanding and all of this access, it is still like, so fucking this health Our healthcare system is so fucked.

It is so challenging for people to get access to what they need.

And also like thank god I work from home so that if I have to put off a recording so I can be on the phone with my insurance company or provider for fucking hours all day to say no, you actually do have to cover my insulin, the insulin that you have been covering for the six years that I've been on this plan, and no, I actually do need it.

Yes, I do need that much.

Yep, that is how much I use.

To find a way to make a living.

And it's in a super unconventional way.

That I mean, like I was thinking about this after I crashed out after driving to fucking five different pharmacies to get a medical device that like I have a car, I had the ability to do that thing so that I could get what I needed.

So many people don't have that.

So I'll have my tantrum because I it's my tantrum is valid, and also I can recognize that what I'm dealing with is pales in comparison.

There's always other people that are that have it so much harder than we do, and we could fix it for fucking everybody.

It's the thing is, it's just so much.

We could make it so much better for so many people.

We just got to bring the ceiling down so that so the resources aren't being hoarded by dragons, Like like.

Really, we could we could, we could take care of each other.

Man, so we could take care of each other, and and the like, We're on this big rock spinning through fucking space around a giant fireball, and in any moment ship could hit us, and like we're in this together.

We're like literally roommates of life on earth.

Like it's not that big, guys, Oh my.

God, I know, I know, I know.

I know, I know, I know.

It's time to go into the vaults.

Puppet water and a community of trolls and dolls and possibly real.

Puppet peace people, possibly monsters and magic and.

Puppas that have been fucked to life and also plastered against the wall would honestly be better.

Life is like almost accurate, like almost accurate to the Actually.

What's the difference between fucking someone to life and putting magic?

But he was the same thing, okay, But he was so enamored with her, obsessed with her romantically, that he had to bring.

Her created magic.

His attraction to her, Yeah, drew in some sort of puppet devil.

Oh man, Okay, Okay, I wonder if I okay, let's not start talking about serial killers.

Talk about the serial killer in this book, which we did just learn recently because of his conversation with Ian he let On that yeah, killing killing people is convenient to our robbery game, but I also fucking love but I fucking totally I comes solve a huge problem.

It's a mess.

And also what happened last week, we got some really fun cinematic scenes because they went to the backstage party where Philip Hambleton's mother came in her best floor length gown and all of her emeralds, like right.

It comes came with a king's ransom and emeralds like they're going to a royal wedding for a backstage puppet theater party.

Could if I could crush my tits in the finest of hand sized emeralds, I certainly won't.

Who wouldn't.

Uh So that was a little shocking.

But then Katerina is introduced to her she invites them to the like Hambleton.

Hamilton bumble the masquarade comes back soon.

All isn't at this backstage party, but we hear tell of a masquerade.

Obviously he's going to crash that.

We haven't confirmed that yet, but like, duh, the two.

Queens who I'm looking at, I don't think he does.

Maybe not in your chapters, but I think eventually he does.

The two queens who own the Puppet Theater have the most incredible cinematic moments of both of them just floating into conversations of great significance and importance where basically everyone even drop being everything.

Yeah, these idiots are having really scandalous conversation.

Remember when that Bett just said to Franz, I'm not talking about murder or robbery.

That one was never mentioned.

Yeah, I didn't.

I didn't bring up anything salacious about robbery.

And then then Ian's like, malady, I think you speak too, because.

She's trashing hard.

We get a good deal more of bat BET's breakdown, thank God, which is quickly.

Becoming really great.

My favorite scenes.

So at the end of the chapters that I read, Katerina runs back into Sophia, our favorite like when she's trying to go fill in Raul about what happened.

To the party character.

She does this around my throat but I can handle it.

And Katerina is asking Sophia if she knows anyone named Jean, and Jehan is like it's.

She's like, but she's trying to figure out if if Sophia knows the our third phantom that lives in the vaults, who might be a puppet person, who might be Giovanni.

Fucking they're they insinuated that he may be the legendary Giovanni somehow granted extra life.

Because what the what threads?

What strings?

Are trying to by the way.

Stay in it.

I think the first thing I wrote on here because she starts dropping more puppet metaphors.

I'm like, you know, a bitch staying at chapter fourteen.

Let's ride this horse until we're.

Literally halfway through.

You can't quit now, just jam more puppet metaphors down.

But I think with how like, oh, the puppet Nicolai, which was made in Giovanni's image, looks so much like Raul, who also looks a lot like she thought Jean was Ral's brother when she first ran into him in the So I think we're really supposed to believe that Raul and Giovanni have physical similarity or some sort of mystical connections.

To everyone is and multiple puppet.

But I also am a puppet, and they just start turning into puppets and collapsing and saying, listen, listen, these these like themes repeating.

It's like George Lucas, It's like George Lucas said about the Star Wars movies.

He's like, well, that's not actually not there repeating around.

That's like they're are you like they rhyme?

Do you know George what George Lucas sounds like, No, it's ky like that.

There's no way.

It's a little goblin.

Yeah, well, I just I wanted to make pictures about the adventure films there.

Was made in his likeness.

Oh, George Lucas, his friends with Steven Spielberg to the like, have produced a lot of movies together.

In my mind, they're like, they're like.

They're both sad, dowe, gray white guys who are way past their prime.

Anyway, Fu fu, fu fun all of you.

I said what I said.

It's cool, but yeah, I mean I think we just end with Sophia and Sophia and Sophia being.

Like, I don't know if I know that guy, but I'll keep an eye out for him.

Yeah, I know a couple of people might be.

And then she leaves a creepy message or like leaves with a creepy thing about the butcher whoever's killing all these women being your evil?

Yeah, I mean they're in the next couple of chapters.

We definitely get like allusions to supernatural evil.

Okay, this move.

This book has everything.

I love it is.

If we get real magic, supernatural shit, I will if.

We get a fourteen chapter slow burn reveal that this is a fantasy novel, I'm not a mystery, just a mystery novel.

I would sob with joy.

I would be beyond exciting.

This might actually be the best book ever written.

Ye that's what we get.

That is fucking incredible.

And if nobody's done that, by the way, do it.

Like two thirds of the way through the book.

Are halfway through the book, you realize that this has been a fantasy novel, and then you go back and go, yeah, it's all there, all the allusions to it and all the like happenstance.

You just didn't realize that they were fantastic supernatural things at the time.

I'm telling you, and and and behind the worst graphic design to cover.

You know, the definition of don't judge a book by its cover would be.

Dude, because this this this one both in writing and plot quality and just it's dumb, dumb nonsense.

It's really fun fun.

Uh this book is I'm gonna say it, this book is fucking good.

It's really fun to read.

Campy and great but not dumb and and and these people make such terrible decisions and are so bad and investigating but like.

But they all are, which I love.

It's not like it's not like a trophy where like the women are stupid and Katerine is trying to protect, like.

The heroes are dumb and the villain is super smart.

Everyone's bad.

Everyone's bad at this and so Katerina is boxing exactly in her wake cuss, it's actually.

Protagging, like really well alongside.

There's no clear front runner because he's like some brilliant man's against moriarty.

No, he's up against the puppet master.

Yeah, who just just is like, well, we'll steal stuff from the puppet man.

I'll stab you, bitch.

Like he's just very that he's not.

I love it.

He's not like a mastermind.

I love it.

This is like he's like the leader of the mean click in a high school.

I was literally just thinking, this is a mystery that I could see playing out in real life during like a high school theater production.

You gonna say this is a mystery.

I could genuinely see us being able to song.

Okay, that too lost that However, We've been actively trying to solve this whole time, and I'm still like.

Yeah, but we is fill.

We can't take action.

We have to watch their action.

We have only unreliable narrators to go off.

Yeah, we can't like pay like people to watch them, which is something I would do, like watch everyone from the theater, see where they fucking go, and like who is who is Ian meeting up with?

Secretly tail him.

You know what's interesting, though, is they do have access to all of that because police police a murder that took place in that theater.

They should be tailing everyone.

They should be watching it, question everyone who works in the theater because.

Guess where the murder took place.

And now the resources are there now no one has seen this other woman.

And apparently a mass robbery of all of their offices.

The cop should be all over this place.

There.

There should be an undercover cop plot line where he joins the castes.

Of whatever prouppet of the opera, A fellow actors.

Every night who infiltrates the theater and finds out all of these things.

Oh my god, dude, louis under the only time not as an undercover cop.

The only time not a cab.

It would be if Sophia ends up being an undercover.

Well, you know, like detectives are well different but the same, the same.

It's still part of a system, no.

Very but but undercover, Sofia would have been credited and absolutely kindergarten undercover Sophia.

It's a child, it's a kid cop.

It's four kids, and she's so tiny.

It's like it's like two kids, like two kids.

It's four six year old old dress.

God fucking amazing.

Anyway, now what happens and they.

Keep switching who's the head and Katerina doesn't notice because she's fucking dense.

I love cattle.

This is this is a good recap that we fought.

We're good.

Oh my god, forty five minutes in and we're ready.

I don't have thought.

Yes.

Raoul wandered deep into the black heart of the vaults, guided by an instinct he neither understood nor much cared about.

Right now, the cat came part way with him, then disappeared.

It had brought the horrible thing to him.

Oh yeah, Alimony.

The cat, what's his name, Alabaster?

Alimony is such a fucking good cat name.

That would be a good cat name.

Oh my god, save it for lated my cat, Alimony.

You have four cats.

One of them is bound.

Changed their name, doesn't know her name.

She also also one of them's gotta die soon.

You got to got yeah.

The two have who have retired to the loft over it.

The ones that will not deign to come out, No, will not, you know, bless us with their presence.

I mean they're old as ship.

They got a dice eventually, and then you could get a cat.

This is Alimony, my kiddy.

I love Alibony.

Okay, it's I'm a Dais, I'm a days.

The cat came part way with him, then disappeared.

It had brought the horrible thing to him, the part of the hand.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right.

I forgot.

Yeah, that was a huge part for the recap that I forgot.

We're covering it right away so that it was all intentional, It was deliberate.

So yeah, it brought the horrible thing to him, the fingers, and it didn't seem to mind relinquishing possession, So give them a game the fingies.

A shudder ran through Raoul's body.

He felt cold, lifeless, like a puppet on invisible strings.

There was no thought behind the actions now.

He simply walked and then I wrote, yes, Mama, stay in it.

Gave us us all the puppets and they get and recycle the metaphors.

It's cool, please please, you don't have that many.

Honestly, at this point it's puppets and strings, puppets and street Are you stiff like what?

There's like, not a ton to work with here?

Yeah, and they're not going for hand puppets, so they're not going to make any hand up.

No, no, no, We've only got the one kind of puppet to work with for here, for all of our metaphors, which turn out to be tiny.

Yeah, and you are right.

I can't believe they're actually very small.

So of course the play has to be if it's for this huge audience, it has to be humans playing puppets, and they could have clarified that.

I'm genuinely thinking of how funny it would be for this sold out house theater to just have one guy.

In Vegas sphere it's like, what is that.

That's the guy doing the puppets.

It's so little because you wouldn't understand.

Yeah, because later the cat picks up and carries one, and I was like, I'm like, oh, I was picturing like a.

And earlier she pulls them out of a pocket.

Sofia pulls them out of her pocket exactly.

So now I'm like, oh my god, these are like little Marionette.

They're little Marionette.

I'm thinking they're literally the size of the puppet on the cover, which I did rip accidentally, but I saved the trunk so I could tape it back.

God, don't worry.

If you win a man, just copy and it will have a good amount of fluids and skin cells in it.

Yeah, so if you want to, if you want him to clone, I'm.

Actually going to be sad to give this book away.

Dude.

I don't think we'll be able to find more copies.

I had a priceless Well, I mean, they're just rare.

There's just not that many of them.

Okay, So he is he talking about how is like mind used to be working better, and so I'm like, he is sick.

He's sick, and he's just still sick.

It's probably I think he has like a mold virus, his fever, his brain activity.

Uh.

So he puts down and then but he's he's actually saying like he he used to, he's been traumatized tonight.

So he puts down the he puts on the fingers, and then he immediately went to go search the interior of the theater.

He snuck back up out of the vaults into the interior of the theater looking for the body.

He's like, did this definitely somebody else got killed.

He's like, I want to see who it is.

I want to find the body.

So he like went and looked around.

But then oh, yeah, because everyone still thinks that she's just missing Genevieve or whatever.

Yeah, so he's like, oh my gosh, is this Genevie's finger?

Has her body been found?

Like?

Can I go discover her body?

And he goes and looks for it.

But then he comes into the prop room, which is where he found Claudia's body.

Oh triggered, he has a flashback.

Oh shit, and so he's kinda kind of fucked up from it.

It had come to him in a rush thoughts of Claudia before she died, the affronted expression on her face.

What's this You think you can take advantage of me and then just dust me off?

Rau.

Her shouts could have been heard in Spain, but Raoul had come to understand her temperament well after two dinners and several weeks working at the puppet theater.

Okay, so they've gone on a couple of dates.

Dude, I wouldn't even say I'm dating somebody during a couple of dates.

And they'd worked together for a while, so they were like friendly oone.

No, they were friendly at work and they're like, hey, we're going on a date.

Yeah, they want to go on another date.

And then and then he's like no more dates, and she's like jef me damn.

So she's being like a little much about it.

She's being very uh, not respecting his boundaries because you know, this is a romance novel, right, so crazy.

No, I'm saying the protagonists are flawless.

This is like you're saying your love that your number one piece of evidence that Hambleton might be the puppet Master is a meda concern because then we as an audience will be more behind her getting with Raul and kind of cheating on Philip, and we will give her a pass.

And this is something that we have definitely seen many times before, like all that ship with Spider Elliott and then suddenly Valentine is like, no, turns out, I was in love with you all the not the bad ship is all fine that.

I remember Spider Elliott.

You know what else?

Dangles strings like fast swimmings.

Okay, so holy shit, it's a crossover fanfic, long con fan.

The only thing I love scruples by.

Judith Krad But I couldn't put that in my acknowledgments because it would have given the Spider Elliot twist.

All right, So Claudia is being kind of unchill and not respecting boundaries.

Uh so he after a couple of dates, he just like ignores her and goes about his business.

She did not want to be dismissed.

I would not be used by a man.

Not a man.

Good for you girl, Go.

Away, Claudia, He's not.

Finally, I don't have the patience for this.

We ate dinner together.

I didn't lead you on, and I didn't pretend to want you.

Yeah yeah you geezy.

Feeling rejected makes you do really unhinged shit sometimes.

Yeah, I think about my twenties sometimes.

Things I've done while hammered in this very house and completely crashing out phone calls.

I've made text messages, I've sent capitals, I've stormed.

Yeah.

January sixth was actually because Amanda got dumped.

No more like ex bowl lines at rock Bottom than I've storm.

I was picturing.

Oh okay, grill lines.

Capitals.

Just cavil of January sixth was actually incited by a man because someone rejected her.

I was crashing out copple that guy.

Man.

No, all these fucking right wing looney tunes co opted my moment.

They followed your rage.

Yeah, oh wow.

So two hours after that argument he found her body, blood everywhere, eyes all.

He's like, it's gonna hot my nightmares forever.

Oh and then he had the other horror to deal with, uh, and now this.

She was on her period.

He's like, And also he had his this other horror to deal with this, the thing the fingers uh while searching theater.

And now he's got this like, fucking I got a human body part that I got to do something with.

And and and then he's like, and the third thing is that I might never have Katerina.

So this woman I know was stabbed to death gruesomely and I found her body.

I'm whole hold a singer, and I.

Might not get this.

Fuck candy.

She touched my zippy, she touched she dressed by the way, Holy, I know that's pretty steemucking steamy move that like little.

She's a widow, she knows her way around zipp zip.

Can I just say the body?

I don't think I've ever seen this in a movie.

Have you ever seen a rom com where like as like kind of a cute sexy bit, someone like zips up someone else's fly so funny, like his zippers, dad zip, Let me get.

That multiple times?

What I've zipped Bill's fly?

Yeah?

Yeah, I don't know what.

It's more like taking care of a like a like a baby.

That it's how this.

Sweet boy he's got no butt and his pants sometimes slide, and I feel like without any pressure of flesh against the zippers is.

More because as you pull them up and down, they is down.

It's very cute.

That is cute.

That's charming.

See that I can find someone who's weird.

Little things like that make you smile, like make you charm.

It's real cute.

Like it's he's always like, here's an embarrassing here's an embarrassing thing that Aaron does.

So here's an embarrassing thing that Aaron does that I think is really cute.

Sometimes Aaron will take a drink too fast and vomit all over.

Himself, and I think it is so cute, it's funny, and he'll just be like and then just and he just spits up all over himself.

And sometimes like if frops and gets like a bit of distance, it's in the car and it's got all over the windshield.

So I just gotta take it.

He's gotta take like a drink of a soda and he goes and then he'll look over at me and he'll go into bubbly and I'm like, oh no, this is all a lie.

But uh, but that is true.

Find find someone who's weird, little idio secretcies you find really charming, all right.

So Rabul's mind and body reacted fiercely at that thought, not not getting to it.

My body is reacting fiercely.

I'm sorry that whole thing was a lie.

And you know it's a lie, right, did you know at the time, of course he did.

No, I still don't really think it was a lie.

I feel like you're trying to walk.

It.

It's up like a little baby.

Because Aaron didn't think it was very funny.

And now you're like.

Okay, I gotta save my marriage.

There was a lie that none that I ever had it.

No, that was you're so stupid.

For believing that very specific lie that I'm.

No, that was a lie.

Whether it's real or not, it's out there now.

And to me was that it was just a lie.

I couldn't think of another one that I wanted to tell, and it just made one up that he spits up thrust frothy soda like a baby.

I can.

Just spits it up.

Fucking Oh my god, I can see it all right.

So Raoul thinks about not getting to bone Katerina, and his body reacts fiercely and he's like, can you I have to solve this burner.

It's like, he's like, I might never get to fund them.

I love I love that.

I love that the thought of getting to bang a particular person makes.

You just like, nah, listen, thrash, that's that's not what it is.

He's he's compelled by love to do whatever it takes to be with his love, much like.

Giovanni m mignon.

He's a pure soul, much.

Like a puppet pulled on strings by tugging at his heart strength.

Love is that the is the puppet master.

Love was the puppet master.

All along, right where I was really pissed off about all the love or whatever.

And and so then he goes into a cave.

So he's like he's gone deep en up and he's got deep up in the funds.

Also, when Amanda takes he always fucking.

Does this three and I don't think about it.

When Amanda takes a drink of something, he's been doing this.

For twenty years, in literal decades.

Takes a drink of something, I get really trying to hear funnier.

Specifically it's her funny bone, so that she'll choke.

You didn't get me that time, though, you bitch.

You didn't fucking get me, and you never went no.

But some of it, some of it's on me though, Because.

Some of it's on me though, because I've.

Always known this, and I absent mindedly, I never think of it before I take.

Yes.

I mean, I'm like means I can't learn.

You can't learn.

I can't fucking learn.

Oh my god, tears my eyes.

That was just for me, man, I just try to make you choke.

Thanks, No, what I think?

Maybe I've just always wanted to get like a legit spit take out of somebody.

I don't think it's ever happened.

It's actually quite difficult.

I've definitely spit You've definitely done that to me.

Okay, well I have the trauma.

Apparently not as I just thought, how funny would it be after saying that about Aaron if I'd made you do it on air spit take.

They're like, no, let's spit off.

You were drinking a diet coke and what if I had made you?

Why about anyway?

All right?

So goes to a cave.

Okay, so he I know why he does this, but he buries the finger.

He like hides it under rocks down here in the caves because he's just like, I just don't want anybody to find this until I figure out what the fuck to do about it.

So he hides the body part, which he is now walking around with.

I guess though I wouldn't really know what to do.

I probably wouldn't have taken it from the cat.

I wouldn't have touched it because I don't want it to have my fucking fingerprints on it, first of all.

Yeah, but now it's been left in his layer.

Yeah, I think he's fucked if it's found down there with him.

Yeah, i'd yeah, I'd probably want to get rid of it too.

Well, so he buries it the burial complete.

Raoul stood and raked his fingers through his hair, which I thought was funny because he's carrying around a bloody finger and then he's like, well, job done, and let me run my hands across my head.

Fucking yuck, right, So he used the blood to slick his hair back.

He ate a little bit of it.

He had no idea where he was.

So why did this damp and musty place seem vaguely familiar to him?

A flicker on the edge of his consciousness.

He hesitated, then dismissed the sensation and started back again.

He gave no thought to direct you catch that?

Why do I see?

Why does this cave deep beneath the theater seem familiar to me?

Yeah?

I don't know, they don't.

That is that is a that is a dangling participle that hangs out there and that does not connect to anything.

That's some sort of foreshadowing.

Again, he gave no thoughts to direction.

He simply knew how to unscramble himself a mental compass in his head.

Perhaps it didn't matter.

He's your dude, I'm telling you.

Remember, I think they're I think they're doing like a reincarnation thing that he is like the descendant of.

He looks a lot, dude.

It is possible that we get the most cracked fucking ending ever and it turns out somebody's a puppet.

I need it.

I need I swear to God, I will fucking shit, yeah, I will not know how to handle myself.

The brilliance of that inside a very like traditionally published, traditionally released.

Is this fantasy book, this long con fantasy twist.

I would be gaged.

It's so gag of.

The fucking century.

Okay, But he's not like thinking about any of these weird things, like how he can kind of map these caves really easily, like he knows them.

He just then he gets hyper fixated on Catterie again.

Only Katerina mattered her safety.

What if the puppet master turned his knife on her.

There was an edge of panic in the tremor that jarred raoul senses.

He was shaking when he reached a more habitable area, far above the Travan's camerons.

But yep, blur here on my page.

Yep, centuries of Mold had clung to those ancient walls, seated itself in.

The poisoning hold.

This next part is so good, I can't believe on muchless made me laugh.

Seated itself into the ancient walls, into the earth where it had dug.

He could never live in Mold if only he could make Katerina understand the truth of this underground world.

He could never live in you're living in it.

Could never live in Mold, if only he could make Katerina understand the truth of this underground world.

And I just wrote a bunch of question marks, and I'm like, do this guy's deranged?

They're all not.

I think he has a like.

I think he's crashing out mentally.

He's sick.

He's sick.

I think he has mold contagion.

No, he had to let the idea go.

As he approached his living quarters.

For a moment, he thought he was seeing things past one o'clock in the morning, and she was here, Katerina dressed in cotton, layers of puppet costume, pretty peasant pastels with ribbons crisscrossed Terrulian style in the front.

Oh my god, is it Mignol.

It's Katerina.

She's come down to the vaults because she just lives there.

Now, thank god, you're back.

Sophia was here, but she left twenty minutes ago, and I was worried.

She pulled away to look at him, her eyes inspecting every inch of his face.

What's the matter, Raoul, Are you all right?

No?

He said, oh god, you guys what we have to take a break?

Why?

Decided to ads?

Thank God?

And then then we jump jump cut ahead.

He does not tell her about the fingy okay, because you know, keeping things from people in a dangerous situation.

So she tells him about Ian's brown book, that he was taking all of them, he was creeping around, and so we jump cut in media res into this next scene and she's like, oh, he'd agreed to the late night search of Ian's office, So she convinces him sneaking to Ian's office look for that book because it will have like incriminating notes about people, about people's security systems.

Because she's talking about this particular guy, Louis Saint Demal is hosting a huge gallon next week.

Ian's taking all these notes.

If we can find a book, that's some evidence tying him uh to the robberies, because she's saying how Armand is going around at this party that I was just at, talking about how he's got the best heat beams and pressure sensors and blah blah blah, and so Ian is like writing all that shit down.

So then if he gets robbed and you can find this thing written by Ian talking about his security system, that's that's a probable cause point of evidence that could push the police in that direction.

So like, if we can get that little brown book, we might have something they're protagging.

See this, I'm kind of into it so compelling.

They're not just laying around waiting to get like fingered to death.

They're not just kicking a mind shaft to the ground.

Yeah, no one has collapsed a wouldn't it be funny.

They're spending time in tunnels in.

Tunnels and Noah's collaps it, Dude, If Katerina kicked something near the end of this book and a fucking call it is there gonna be?

Are the vaults going to collapse?

And I'll and I'll give you I have extra information because in this chapter they talk specifically about how part of the theater is starting to rot, and like, remember how they brought an architect in to prepare the old theater because it's like tumbling down.

What do you think the odds are that we get a a collapse.

There's for sure a non zero chance, and especially if there's like okay, if the magic and the puppets and all of that end up being real, and we do reconnect with Giovanni who made the agreement to get the spell to bring Manuel back to life.

If he never if he gave the theater away and never went back in there, but if everything collapses, he could maybe finally come up from underground.

That it does is if we get action.

And then there's a theater anymore.

This is build a new theory.

This is a trope that I've seen many many horror films use where if you find out that there is something supernatural going on in a place, at the end of the story, that place is destroyed collapsed, buried, so that so that the world at large will never know of this magical thing, that the true magic.

Yeah, the beasts that were down there, they all got carved in.

It could twelve percent chance.

I'm gonna say twenty five.

I'm gonna say yeah, I'm to say that there will be a collapse of some kind, all right, all right?

So, uh so he's practically begging to be robbed, and he'll surely get his wish.

What makes you think the book will be an Ian safe?

Because he made an excuse.

Okay, so she's this is this was a little confusing, but she Ian made an excuse to leave the party after Count Ferdinand saw him with it and demanded to know if it was like his own little black book.

So this guy, Count Ferdinand is a pervo and he keeps a little black book about women there whereabouts, measurements, who the hell knows, something something creepy.

And he's like, Ian, I see you've got a little book and a keeping notes And he's like, no, I have to go ship.

Yeah, he like runs out of the place.

I have to go to the bathroom.

So he runs out of the place.

And so so since someone had spotted the book, asked to see the book.

She's She's like, maybe he'll be nervous about it and wanted it is safe and I will know how to crack.

His Yeah, because he has his SAFECode written in multiple places in his office.

Okay, Roll found that SAFECode and has just been going in the safe.

Wrote it down.

It's his birthday probably.

Oh, by the way, my dad has been doing using my birthday as a code for stuff and then but he's been doing it wrong.

Wait, he has not been reading my birthday in right, So I'm like, it's like an extra layer of security, like one day.

All well, I'm not gonna say what it's off off camera.

That's so sad.

Okay, all right, smash cut to two little sets of peepy eyes staring out from a fucking slat through the war and they're like, he's in here.

They're both going up.

Yeah, she wouldn't not, she wouldn't stay back.

So the peeking through slats in the wall, and then they go in and they like, search the place.

Nothing here, where's the safe?

Behind the portrait Marie Antoinette on the guillotine.

Okay, so guess what happens get caught.

They caught.

Yeah, they're screaming through.

They don't look.

Around, and because they're in Ian's office, someone comes in.

This is the third time that has happened.

It is the first piece of I would say bad writing that we've gotten so far.

Is that because, of course?

Because because I'm literally like in three two one, yep, here comes someone else.

So someone else comes in.

They are caught immediately and they go eh, keys rattling in the door because when she and they hide, Katerina hides behind the door.

He hides behind the desk.

And his logic for that is to protect her so if someone if she tries to run and someone goes after her, I can attack them, okay, okay.

So and they try to sneak back down, can't get the door open because the dampness, the hinges, the mold, the mold, the creeping creeping mode.

Who knew the mold would ever turn on us?

Yes, the dampness.

So he kisses her.

They go to Hyde.

Turns out it is Pierre and Louise.

Oh, and Raoula is mad because he's like, Louise, you should not be alone with this guy.

He's a suspect.

He could be the propert Master, Yeah, could be murder Man, don't be alone.

Yeah, but Louise was also saying earlier, like I don't care who the puppet master is.

Just don't make me think it could be Pierre.

He's my favorite, he's my favorite favorite.

He likes him, she likes him, and he's taking her to a fucking sickets.

That's right there.

She's his date.

Yes, she's his day to go to the handbone handle, hamblebone ball, the hambleball, the hambleball, the hamblebone ball, the hamble the hamblebone, hambleball.

That's the one.

That's the one.

I would go to that so hard word anything to get the bone handle.

Ball, amble bone, ample ball.

I mean we might as well just be like popping big bubbles of oil at this one.

Vampires No, no vampires, just Pierre and Louise.

And then Louise halfway through the sequence like like tenses up, so I think she spots one of them.

But I don't want Yeah, thank god, it's because she's an ally.

It doesn't want to let on.

So she's like, shouldn't shouldn't we she's an ally?

I mean an ally to rowl oh.

I know, I just like, I just like also imagining her.

She's an ally.

No, no, no, she could come in.

She's an allyse tenses up and Pierre's like, did you hear something?

And then she's like, I didn't hear anything.

Excuse me.

We should get out of here because how it's a stinky.

God wait, I'm sick.

We have sick.

I had my im my diarrhea period.

Oh no, no, it's both.

What what do you mean?

I don't hear anything?

Uh with this one, you never do.

Villainous little beast turns out looking Amadaeus.

He thinks that what he's what he was hearing a warlock or a creature of the night?

Is my partner?

Or?

Pierre remarked in a cynical tone.

Perhaps one day I will know the truth of his dark magic.

Always he tells me things, and I think to myself, how does he know this?

But he will not say yes.

Well he's unusual, I admit, So shall we go?

Then he had Yeah, So there in Ian's office, and it turns out Pierre is just there to steal his umbrella.

He's like, I ain't an umbrella, fucking my or I'm gonna break into Ian's office.

Just take his umbrella.

It's no big deal.

Uh, don't concern yourself with thoughts of Monsieur Renshaw or Ian Renshaw.

So she's like, is he gonna be pissed you're taking his umbrella?

I don't care.

Yeah, I'm his boss.

I don't give a ship fucking cook bitch cock bitch.

I don't give a goddamn fucking shit.

All right, So he's like, let's go, let's go to the party, Let's go get crapes.

She's like, I love, Let's get out of here, and so they go.

So Louise was a good ally and then she before she leaves, she pats Amadis and goes, good night, am Dais, I hope you catch a big rat.

So she's doing that thing where there's people in the room, you pretend you're talking to someone else or something else, like good luck, Amedis, I hope you catch a big rat.

So she's talking to them.

It's all clear, come on out to find find what you need exactly.

Okay, So they follow, say the suddenly find themselves following the cat back into the theater crevices and unused spaces of the theater, where if we if we consult our map.

If we consult our.

Map, thank god for the map.

We see boarded up room.

Oh finally, the cat takes them into the boarded up section, which on the map looks like one giant room but is like a part of the theater that is all boarded up.

Okay, the boarded up room.

I just remembered, why freaking Gale, so that shit about, like, oh no, the map has all the important places on its six places.

It was like, steph, that was like, there's no way the boarded up room will be in this story.

Was like, yeah, it's so funny, fucking boarded up room.

It's a thing.

Nothing important about that.

Here it is, here's the thing there.

And they're going into the bolded up room, which by the way, is in a big section of the theater that is unused.

But the one room was the important part.

So that's what's on the insane.

The one room to rule them all, the one.

Room to rule them all.

So they chase the puppet to a place that only the cat can get into, but they can't get into.

Okay, it's the boarded up room.

Oh shit, okay, is.

The bolded up room?

All right?

Well, Amandais did everything but crook his paw at us to follow.

You expect me to ignore that?

Uh?

And then they find the boarded up room and they can't get inside, and he's like, well, so can we can we do you think you can we can get into this sealed up room?

And he's like, probably.

I don't believe I'm doing this at two in the morning.

As he's like trying to pry the door, She's like.

Yeah, look at me, I'm dressed like a pet.

Puppet.

Like, I'm sorry it's so late for you, you fucking asshole.

My hoop skirt hurts.

What she What she says is it wouldn't make much more sense at two in the afternoon.

Can I go first?

And then he kisses her and he no, And then he wiggles through the hole that he's made in the room anything yes and no Ami Dais is here, but I don't think he wants to be caught just yet.

Typical feline.

And then they go inside and they shine the light around.

They've got a flashlight because I keep forgetting it's modern era, and they shine the light around, see the cat's eyes gleaming, and it's just stone and it's kind of empty in here, and a water stain on the floor, and it's just dirty and dusty in here, and that's it weird.

I hope he's playing.

She caught the note of humor in Raoul's tone.

You hope, but you're too curious to leave here without knowing for sure.

Yeah, she didn't deny the truth.

I guess that makes me catlike in my own right, doesn't it.

She felt his fingers slide.

She felt his fingers slide into the crooks of her vagina, Oh sorry, the curve of her neck and trembled a little inside.

Better for one so beautiful to be curious.

I think hiding in the darkness and shutting out the mysteries of the world would be the real tragedy.

Shut out mysteries and death and love as well.

All right, So they're in the dark.

They followed a fucking cat that that scooby doo magic led them into a sealed up room and then they.

Seemingly empty, but I think holds another secret.

Perhaps, And then they start like looking into each other's eyes and.

Real quick die at the hands of these evil puppets.

Okay, and then something really cool happens we start, they both she and Raoul seem to start getting a well, a feeling.

Well, they're horny, but the horniness is suddenly cut through by a sudden, pervasive, inexplicable feeling of fear.

Okay, like the darkness around them, Yeah, like the darkness around them is somehow evil, and we get this great passage shivering.

She pressed closer to Raoul.

How could darknes feel wicked?

She didn't like it?

And if that made no sense, Katerina didn't really care.

Something evil had happened here.

So here's where we get that's got the magic in her.

I was going to say, this is where we get like a bit of supernatural.

They're just in this room.

Nothing seems to be wrong.

But the hairs on the back of her neck start standing up, as instinct is taking.

As if the evil that was here is somehow staying, is like per it's like permeated this area.

So they look at the cat.

He was a spooky little creature, clever to near human degree.

Did he play cat games with them?

Katerina's instinct said no.

But if not that, then where was Amadeus leading them?

Okay, so they pry, They pry their way into another interior chamber, and this is where they find the cat has led them to in the shadows, and so they're starting to think maybe this is where the thieves are stashing their loote that's this, So like the cat's leading us to, oh, maybe maybe that's what's in here.

But they break in.

There's nothing.

It's just how did they describe it exactly?

There wasn't a jewel or painting in sight, only a clean swept floor and a cat with a puppet trotting over to sit besides a large water stain.

So you're playing games with us after all.

I think I'm glad for the letdown.

They're like happy they didn't find a body because they're like, what are we going to find a fucking body?

That I was what I was expecting that they would find.

Genevieve's that there's but she's her body's not in there, and she doesn't know that Raoul found a finger because he hasn't told her that yet.

Yep, so Raoul is probably even more thinking we're going to find a body in here, but no, no body, no, and no stashed loot.

And they're like, well, let's just get the puppet put it back, no one will ever even notice.

And then Raoul regards the cat as he spoke.

For no reason.

He simply stared at a fixed point, thinking about what Katerina had said a moment ago.

She was right, something evil lived in this room, so she told him about her evil premonition.

He sensed it too, and he didn't even believe in such things.

Let's go, he said.

It's getting quite suddenly, and with no forewarning, he started his heart banging hard against his ribs.

He caught back a tight breath that he prayed Katerina didn't notice, and struggled to keep his body from betraying him.

Raoul, what's wrong?

So she noticed immediately nothing, he lied, It's getting late, that's all.

It's time we left.

Why the sudden urgency, And then she follows the line of his gaze to the floor and the cat and the stain that resembled a splotch of paint.

My god, Raoul, she whispered, staring down at the same paralyzing manner that he did.

He didn't prevent her from inching closer, Raoul, that's not water, it's booed Ian saw the puppet first, and then the mark dried but unmistakably copper blood.

They do another smash cut.

They have left the room, They have left the stain, and it is cat Povy.

No, it is Ian Pov in the room.

You see the puppet.

He has seen the puppet, the blood, the cat, and also that the place has been pried into.

He found those those boards that they pried up earlier.

Unsteady fingers reached for the little puppet.

So many problems flooded Ian's mind, not the least of which was a growing concern for his own life.

But no, the person in charge needed him.

Ian carried out all the bothersome little tasks that he refused to do.

You deal with petty matters.

That is your job, the puppet Master told him, endlessly, and always in the same derisive tone.

I think you act.

I am in control of this theater and this fully upper.

She had no faiattack.

I hope the puppet Master ends up being a supernatural puppet.

Dude.

I want him to be a supernatural puppet, so fucking bad.

I don't think he is.

I think he's human.

But so Ian gets mad.

Monster, he accused through stiff lips.

Butcher fiend, how could you do something like this, poor Genevieve.

Oh bravoan.

A voice behind him applauded, you.

Show anger at glass.

Tell me do you hate me?

My god, he's so Palpatine.

So slowly Ian turned to the doorway, and the puppet Master followed him.

In your flow, let your hatred flower.

Stake me downing in and become the puppet.

Master Jesus Christ.

Okay, so the puppet Master has fucking creeped up on him.

Ian is like, yeah, I do hate him, but I'm not going to fucking admit it.

I questioned the necessity of killing Genevieve.

He said nothing more.

Hard, eyes grew harder, still.

Cloudy, and left the letter to me, and I did not wish the authorities to see.

Genevieve found it.

She read it.

I killed her.

It's that simple.

That's a bit of a backtrack, because he said earlier that he he's like, I loved doing it, and I fucking did it because practically because I wanted to.

So it's that simple.

Almost sounds like him backtracking, like he's like, I mean, I shouldn't push it.

She was a problem.

Yeah, let me just try and make it seem more clinical.

I'm going to lay off the whole.

I come when I call you, lady.

It is kind of a weird choice, So I wonder if that will be right.

I guess I think that Ian getting mad.

I think he does need it, so I think he just backs.

I might be pushing I might be pushing him too hard.

Got it?

And so then they find the break in and they're like, whoever broke in here, whoever broke in here?

The person in charge maintained is etherly extremely smarter or uncommonly stupid.

Ian frowned.

I don't understand, oh, idiot.

He snapped her.

Of course you would not to leave the balls dislodged.

It's not something that would be likely to go unnoticed for any length of time.

Therefore, the person who removed them either saw the blood and ran in fear, or saw the blood and deliberately left the balls down, knowing that I would see this and become concerned, perhaps even panic.

But I assure you this last thing will never happen.

I will find that troublesome person and I will kill him.

Oh, and I promise you it will not be a painless death.

No, not painless at all.

Geez, Okay, were you backed off, but then you right right back.

Right back up.

Very fool he said.

And oh no, this is Ian, very foolish, he said in a pitying tone, his fingers tightening about the puppets, wooden body.

Sorry, the puppet master has left, and now Ian is looking down at the puppet and picks it up and holds it, and he's like a single ray beam of light from above like hits him, and he's like, oh, oh, I lament.

Very foolish, he said in a pitying tone, his fingers tightening about the puppets, wooden body.

You shouldn't have let him know you were here.

You should have covered your tracks.

He turned from the blood.

He hoped that pain was something last night's intruder enjoyed.

So then then we cut back to Katerina and Ian Katerin I sorry Katerina and Raoul okay from Ian, So we get so they're doing this little cinematic thing where we we see them in a place, and then we smash cut to other people finding the evidence of them being there, and then we smashed cut to them gone somewhere else, probably like breathless and like uh okay, So again using very cinematic like I could see this shot at Lifetime movie camera, or better, I mean the silence.

So the silent mystery of the night wrapped itself around Katerina.

She lay on her stomach on the floor of her apartment and looked out at the living room.

Off the living room window glow at the glowing city.

Then she looked at the painted puppet stage Luther had given her a million years ago, when the things that mattered most in her life were hot Bennyet's stories about the Bayou and Papa's promise that he would take her to Paris.

A.

Holding a quassall in her mouth, she picked up one of Luther's soft bodied puppets.

She wished his This dark haired man was Raoul.

She wished he were here.

But he wouldn't come.

He thought coming on her would endanger her life.

No, what, oh, oh, he thought coming in her wouldn't go He thought coming at her would.

He thought coming to her would endanger her life.

He wanted to come on her.

No, he wanted to be with her, but not in the vault and not in her apartment either.

Katerina rolled onto her back, munching her croissant inside Okay, and then she sits and thinks about like she's picturing the blood.

She's like, oh my god, what do I do with this knowledge?

Yeah, they call the cops.

I don't know, some shit see some shit.

No, they'll just go and find the blood and they'll fucking connect Like because recently she's talking about how the police finally were like, huh, so somebody killed Claudia in this theater and then like another chick kind of like missing from that place.

So like apparently the cops have like just started to like come zeu.

So they but what they decided to do because they're like, listen, if they find the blood here, they'll just be like, whoever we think killed Claudia killed Jenevieve yep.

So they'll just tack it onto his tally.

Which is a the big problem in in detective work from what I understand, is that you you're incentivized to lump crimes together to get more clearances, and like you see patterns like oh, this this guy is a bad guy and a bad thing happened in his neighborhood.

He probably didn't, you know, Like those kind of connections are just impossible not to make without the proper training and so okay, so they decide.

So what Raoul decides is he's like, we're gonna leave evidence we were in here, and then they'll find it, and then they might make him go crazy, and that might make them make a mistake.

And also, I'm gonna keep driving Babet insane, so move more puppets.

He does also, I am gonna keep fucking with Babbet because she seems she seems to fucking be cracking, And he's like, I think that might shake things up and we might get and get hurt of spell.

She could also just be murdered.

I think Raoul is willing to take that risk.

Oh my god, dude.

He's like, well, yeah, well we'll leave evidence we were there.

Oh yeah, we're gonna keep moving puppies in the museum.

Oh my god, I will do no more tours, Babbat shouted at Ian yesterday.

Oh no, we're talking about how Babbat is fucking in going nuts.

The puppets will not stand in one spot to see for your safe.

Jojo all the way sits to I'm not those left, but today Jojo is on the right.

Jojo not fucking Jojo the Jester Cloud.

Jojo I added extra jojo that motherfucker Ian sounded weary.

Someone's playing games, babats, that's all.

And just now, she demanded in a frightened whisper, And just now, does this someone make Sylvian Sylvan's wings move even as I wench.

Now it's the coast, I tell you.

He punishes me, He tries to make me lose my name, and he will soon come for y'all.

I can't wait until we discover a little motorized battery pack on the back of Sylvan.

Right, because it's the modern era and you animal's products are very much of pin wheeling them like pin.

Wheeling the wings absolutely simple mechanics like the little imagine like what you get lego sets that have like motorized bills.

A little connector yeah, it's just one of those.

So Ian is like, keep your voice down.

This is guilt talking.

Oh so this Katerina overheard this clandestinely for hiding behind a stone pillar, which was delivered in a little bit of an odd way.

I kind of was like, wait, what is this a flashback?

Flashback with ages within the dialog?

Okay, this is guilt talking, bad bad, nothing more.

And I would advise you to stop talking before the puppet master.

Here's any more about this.

This isn't the Middle Ages.

Puppets don't move by themselves.

Middle Ages shut up, and ghosts don't do it for them.

Oh yeah, they did, which.

Is funny because it's the modern era, which means puppets moving on their own is much more plausible.

Yes, because of the science we had.

Children have the science in their poy chests.

The memory dissolved on the floor of her apartment.

Katerina flung her forearm over her eyes.

Images swam in her head, thoughts of blued and puppets and moving queens, Philip's face and rabus.

A groan rose in her throat.

There is no contest between these men.

Philip's features were hazy, raus darker ones were clear.

Oh so Philip.

Pambleton is already like fading in her estimation.

When she thinks about him, she like, it doesn't.

Even really who is that?

Guys, that fucking blonde cock?

Fuck him so good, cooky little.

Fuck keep reading what what had Jeanne said to her in the vaults?

He's pondering, how can I solve this crime with the no evidence that I have?

What had Jeanne said to her, in the vouts, the answers are in the LEGIOND.

She should concentrate on that.

On Giovanni's LEGIOND puppets of wooden, cloth and strings.

She mum murmured, I'm really okay.

This is the part where I'm like Katerina fucking losing it.

In the last two chapters we have had Raoul have a full mold fell out, and the fucking Katina is now tumbling.

Yeah, girl is tumbling.

I mean her proximity to the mold has also been high.

As l.

She will not stay above ground.

No, dude, eighty percent of the story has taken place under the ground easily.

Puppets of wood and cloth and string, puppets of flesh and bone.

Mignon was a puppet, so was the Italian merchant.

In the strictest sense.

Giovanni wasn't a puppet, and yet in another that's exactly what he was.

Everything that happened he allowed to happen.

So yes, he was a puppet of sorts.

God, this is confusing.

Yeah, what the fuck, girl, what are you talk about that?

Hit the back button and listen to that shit a couple more times.

See if you can clock it all right, Giovanni was a puppet, so Bebetinian and everybody else.

He's being controlled by the puppet master, and cruelty controls the puppet master or madness both.

But how does that tied the legend?

So she's so drunk right now.

She's making connections where they do not exist.

No, she's like a weird Disney adult who's like, how does the Little Mermaid connect to Sleeping Beauty?

And how does Maleficent control Pinocchio?

Pinocchio is a puppet?

Do that have something to do with the Peppet theater?

And is jeppetto a pedophile?

Is he in the Epstein files?

He probably is, So her mind is going a mile.

Also, you took another drink there right as I said pedophile.

I thought maybe I'd get you with that one.

Nope, not today, not even pedophile, not even.

Petophile, Joe Peto the pedophile.

Holy shit, new T shirt.

I want one that says Joe Peto file.

No you are not, we are not.

I'm going out in public and shit that says Gimpeto file.

I'm a I'm a i'm a my kin kiss puppets.

They're of little girls, i'mophile.

Okay, it's just the iconic image.

It's so beautiful and.

It just says ptophile.

Shut, said Gippettophile.

Oh fuck, ruining it for million, And it's like it's probably I'm sure there's like an old medieval wood carving of the Pinocchio myth as public domain that I could just do whatever I.

Want with, and that that sat g Pedophile.

Well, when Robbie opens his own shirt shot.

It just has one shun pedophile dot com.

Fuck now, fuck, we're almost done, your moms done.

Okay.

So so Ketterinea is fucking falling to pieces, cranked out, drunk as hell, and then she's just like she picks up a little puppet no dark hair from Lucius's puppets, and she's like, I wish you were right.

Beautiful dark haired man puppet watched her back.

I'm not making that up.

I'm not making it up.

She's imagined it.

She's like, and literally she laid down on her stomach, her head resting on her folded arms, and regarded the colorful puppet stage.

The beautiful dark haired man puppet watched her back.

In her mind, she made him Rau, the man she loved but could not have no, not now, maybe not never.

So the flashback is over.

We're back in her apartment where she's been gazing at her personal puppet stage.

And she's like that hot man puppet over there, that's right, I wish it was.

She stuffed it entirely up her ass.

The hospital was like, I tripped and fell.

Fell on my man puppet, and they're like beautiful darts.

You gotta tude twenty Another je penophile over here, fucking oh my god.

That's yeah, because puppets are so popular in this universe that they actually have a kid very problem with.

People always putting these twats and assholes jamming him down their throat.

These fucking ge pedophiles are fucking everywhere.

You've got a code G gotta code G twelve.

G twelve is that the ass you have to ass again?

It reminds you made him.

We already did that.

And then she put him on the butt.

Katerina fist clenched, her muscles tightened because of how it was upper butt.

She wanted to strangle the monster who murdered women and destroyed lives.

Yeah, all right, so this is the part where they talk about how the police have finally put fucking one and two together.

They're like, oh, maybe the disappearing chick has something the dude with the murdered chick from the same building whoa mm hmm.

So Raoul is thinking about Katerina and how he's gotten her involved in all of this ship now the cops are swarming all over the place again m hm.

He lifted Vignette's tiny arm for a moment and thought of Katerina.

So literally she is sharing.

Some were staring at a puppet wishing it was him, and he's somewhere staring at a puppet wishing it was her.

And they both are putting these puppets in there because they're pedophiles.

His love and look what he'd done lured her into the vaults, and which, by the way, he did he fully, like phantomly operated her.

Yeah, definitely, he played that music intentional, her.

Fully immersed in a murder mystery.

Yeah, which is dangerous.

Yeah, she now saw She now sought to help him in doing and in doing so, endangered her own life.

An icy chill invaded Raoul's booty.

What if the puppet master knew about her?

He's fucking her?

So yeah, it's Philip.

He straightened from the case, staring at his reflection and the strain apparent on his features.

Act Raoul.

His mind told him make it right.

Damn the puppet master to a fate worse than.

Turn him into a puppet with Giovanni's puppet magic.

Katerina expected eccentric at the Saint Louis.

Oh wait, not the big one.

This is the one before.

This is the one that she already that we already got the scene from.

Oh no, that was a backstage party.

This is the big party.

This is the one with Louise is going to.

At every party they talk about the next party.

Yeah, there's three parties.

One has happened.

We're in the center party, and then the finale party will be the masquerade Louis.

That's the part where we are right now, probably in the play.

But the big No, the big one is the I.

Think it's the hamdblebone ball is a mask.

That's a masquerade.

This is not a mask party.

She's talking about how people are wearing costumes at this one, even though they're not.

It's not really part of it.

So I think no costumes were required.

Yet a full one third of the guests one at least she hoped they did.

Toga's in black vampire capes, Cleopatra gowns, dramatic makeup and masks.

They were all here and move and then she and Philip discuss our mom's daughter and Julie, who is in a sequinatorio door pants and jacket red cape.

She's a very seductive magic door, Katerina observed.

And then she starts to get like kind of hot because it's kind of hot in the building, and Philip has his like hand like under her elbow and it's sort of like cradling her arm, and she's like she pulls away from him, and she's like, I only pulled away because he's hot and it's too warm in here.

It's hot, so because it's hot, yes, She's like literally like I'm not pulling away from him because I am obsessed with Raoul, even though I say that to myself all the time, how I'm obsessed with Raoul.

I'm just pulling away because it's hot in here.

So she's like, I'm fine, she's emotionally almost completely done done with him.

Yeah, you know that part of the relationship where one of them is done with the other one but the other one doesn't know.

It's oh, is very sad to see.

And I would never know what that's like.

It's never happened to me.

So and then and then they started.

She starts realizing, like, fuck is like Babbett and mean her here puppet master somewhere in the building, like fun, could I be standing right next to him?

Um, But no sign of Louise and pre okay, they wonder if Francois will come, and Babet's there's just a group of the theater people talking, and Babet is like he is inside in the room with the vet, velvet, cartains and the brocade.

He's in his vampire layer.

He's in his vampire layer.

The candle room, Philip translated, what's a candle room, Katerina asked.

A dumb bitch, It's a room full of candles.

It's right in your fucking it's right in the namee.

All right, you are Babet, because Babet goes stupid fair though with candles.

Be yeah, what's a candle room?

Maybe a room where candles come to life?

Katerina said with that defense, her gay is constantly swept over the room.

And then I wrote you okay, girl, she's like descending into a like like dementia delusion of magic world.

So she's like, maybe the candles come to life.

And then Babbett gets super pisk because she's like, oh, you mean, like, how I think the puppets are coming to life?

So but but uh so she's super pissed.

She's like, because Giovanni's ghost does not concern himself with things made of wax, only puppets moved his commanded dumb asstumb ass, you bitch.

She tries to cut her.

Katerina saw Ian walking toward them.

On him, A black tux looks brown?

What the hell does that mean?

I have no idea, just like a really nice black suit looks like brown, crappy brown suits.

I don't know shit about what that means.

Blax talks looked brown, Aaron, if you want to google that for us, that would be fucking swell, because is that an old expression or something?

I just I wrote just a bunch of question marks in my book after that.

On him, come a black talks looked brown.

That's it.

That's it, that's it.

It's difficult to know if he'd heard but wow.

Yeah, no connection anyway.

Uh So, uh Ian is like, uh, our hosts want to talk to you.

Arman wants to talk to you.

Talk to the people from the theater and they're like okay, so we are uh oh to ba Bet and they're like, oh, he's gonna take her up there and show him, show his rim brand itchings.

His little pants puppet.

And then Katerina is like, what's the scam here?

What's the what's the thief play?

Katerina forced a smile, but her mind had become a tangle of questions.

Was that how it would be done?

Use Babet as a diversion to keep on mom sharing arendun Ma occupied while someone else robbed Ama Luis Arma mind or would be Bet surreptitiously make off with his rembrandt etchings.

It was hard to say, but one thing seems certain.

Security or not these people were on the puppet Master's hit less Oh yeah, yes, which was fortunate, really, Katerina acknowledged with a chill that reached into her bloodstream.

Better to be a robbery victim than one who fell victim to the blade of his knife.

Woo.

And this sends the darkened tapestry of Babets and the world.

So yes, so the plot thickens.

It's as thick as a hot I find.

The dead body remains and the blood stale.

We get a little bit more insight into possible supernatural things happening with this, like the both rab Wool and Katerina feel evil around and it's like that could just be mystery writing color, but we've had quite a few other little notes there might be magic things happening.

So I hope and pray that we are blessed and highly.

Favored and highly hydrated and bye bye, we just gotta let's just be done.

Let's be done done.

Thank you for listening to Passages.

Passages.

Passages is an independent podcast, so please pretty please like, review and subscribe.

Production and editing by Aaron Schenrock rock hard music produced by Hobin Media.

I'm hoping, hope.

And comedy by us.

If you yearn for more, follow us on Instagram at Passages Podman

Tal