Hello everyone and welcome to a special, uh, I guess a bonus episode here on the procrastinators channel Today me and my airmanos are going to be talking about a little story. You might have heard of called the triflers That's right. It's the the world famous earth shattering book by our friend, monkey Jones here and We're gonna we're just gonna talk about it I just read it on the plane from anime expo and I finished it and I'm bursting with things to say about it and points to make and brilliant Bits of rhetoric to expunge for my being so that's why I'm here. I don't know what their excuse is for being here And I'm also monkey for book sales for book sales, of course, of course.  Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Jesse just read it last night I also just read it last night. I uh, mm-hmm. I bought it like months ago. I read 10 Like 10 pages. I got a little like to the part where like dawn gets locked in the freezer And that's where I stopped and like I just like 10 pages to have I couldn't pick it up, but I couldn't pick the book up anymore because I just hate monkey so much But right um last night Because Nate had posted about it on Twitter. I'm like, oh god everyone's still reading that damn book I better finish it too and then uh, it was it was said that we do a podcast today And I was told that you know, we might we might get a new member of the procrastinators and I had to put a stop to that Because every time we have a guest on the show he becomes a real procrastinator That's how I ended up with monkey in the first place. So no more no more new procrastinators I had to put a stop to it I said god damn it if it'll stop someone else from being on this podcast I will read the book tonight and that's what I well now we're gonna start all these rumors We might as well save who this mystery man was who we wanted to prevent It was our it was our good friend and horrible collaborator the mysterious rhinoceros Grace of God there but for the grace of God goes a new addition to our merry bruise So I stayed up all night today reading the book I pulled a Mario Quintanilla only instead of teaching. I was learning We should say that Tom wanted to be here, but he's out of town right now. So we couldn't that's true He was actually you know in all fairness.   You're right. I totally forgot because you don't matter Right, but Tom's the first real person. He's the first real person to read it Well, okay, so we're all up to speed.   It seems on Twitter real quick before you start. I do want to say that since I was a young boy My dream of being an author was to like go on book tours and shit But now just sitting in my bedroom with three of my Friends online my stomach is in knots and I feel physically So maybe I'm not maybe I don't have what it takes to go on a book tour with all these fucking people Well, that's what Maddox was like right during his first book tour as I remember in some interview But then he became the God we all know today, so don't worry about it This is all it's all part of the growing process as long as my fall from grace is 15 years out I think I'll be fine You know, you know what in all fairness I should say monkey is there any sort of preamble you want to give anything we should say before I don't know Diving into it just since you're since you're the main man I mean, I guess I'll just say we're gonna go into heavy spoilers probably but really Too much and if you've already read it, then you should especially enjoy the podcast And yeah, I'd say if you can I'd say go read it before listening to this If you can go buy it and then read it and then come listen to this in that order that would be best But if you want to listen, hey, you're gonna you're gonna get some interesting shit out of this anyway, so Okay, so so right off the bat It's it's very interesting the way that you've structured the book You know, and I'm just going with a super basic details here But the way that you structured it from from the perspective of multiple different protagonists They'll count as protagonists, right? Is that is that accurate? Is that the book lingo to use here? Whatever doesn't matter. The point is you've got you've got dawn You've got Mason and you've got Mario as as the main guys who who are speaking here So you've got Mario the school shooter Don the sociopathic manipulator evil character and Mason kind of the didn't do nothing good guy Genki Yeah, you should be sorry. This is professional work.  So it's not like that's a spoiler or anything We know he's doing the shooting. It's just building up to that point and so it's kind of learning backwards how things got to that point and really really what Mario might have done it regardless of what happened.  I mean, I don't know if I relate to any of the characters the story in the slightest Mason's a totally normal kid. I mean the fact that's got severe depression the one who I Felt like I understood the most was probably dawn though because of the twist at the end well because of the twist at the end it's hard to say because It's hard to say how much of what she portrays about herself is actually what she's like Like the character that's portrayed in her story Felt like someone I went to high school with but like a a more clever and more sociopathic version of that person But like seeing the big twist at the end Kind of puts it into this perspective where she has to be a lot smarter than the character she portrays because I think that The character that that I was reading out of dawn some of the stuff She would focus on in her letter. It's like you have to be a fucking retard or some kind of weird autist to like Like focus on these things, but then you see at the end Well, okay if it's all for a purpose and maybe she was doing that just to fuck with people, you know Well, see that it's interesting and I could tell that what Mumki was going for was was trying to make dawn At least in her own eyes seem like she's the smartest dude ever and that she's got all her bases covered But I actually made a I made a list of all the ways that she is weak and has made mistakes and all her failings Because I got a spreadsheet of her failings I did because I have great I have great hope at the end of the book that dawn is not nearly as smart as she thinks she is and so You know just just I mean the big question That's if the story that she wrote is like mostly true that she definitely is not as smart as she thinks she is Well, I'm aware that it's entirely possible Literally everything she wrote was a lie or fabricated which I found very interesting and I suspected that from the beginning when she Insisted that everything is 100% true because nobody ever is I don't know She's too smart to realize that she isn't coloring things with her own bias So that stands out to me immediately as as like a Something notable.  That's the thing Is literally retarded wait, isn't that the whole point of the book is that every character is literally massively retarded? Well, there are plenty of mental illnesses to go around But I think only Truman descends into actual like much much dumber than the average person the thing is about this book is that all the characters really did remind me of people I knew in high school like and Him especially like I like I had like a face I could put to that guy Yeah, like I I hear I read Truman's lines.  Okay, so I mean we're going all over the place here So eventually we'll get you know, we'll probably flesh out the plot more but at the end after Mario has has gone off to do his shooting spree and And Don has kind of She's gathered the trifle is the day afterward for a meeting like the way she is described and like this is why I don't think she This is I'll go through my list, but this is one of the many ways I don't think she's as that smart as she as she pretends to be or she thinks she is because like It according to her letter the day after a school shooting You know Chow's uncle Tao brings home a fucking dude for them to do their evil human experiments on and it's like How could he possibly think that was a good idea? And of course it's all a cover for smuggling out Truman and and explaining how people died and not and you know Pretending that it wasn't her. I mean, it's yes I remember did she pointed out almost immediately when I went to his house the first time like that's the plot of a Serbian film Don is clearly writing out the plot of a Serbian film because it's even the same name Yeah, the the guy who he captures is Literally the main character of a Serbian film like it's the it's literally that character is written into her story So she has like that's why I'm inclined to believe that that's the only part of the story That's like an outright lie because of the fact that she's basically just borrowing from a movie. She saw like, you know It's just so blatant that like which which leads me to believe that yeah She's not as smart as she thinks she is because right this one little chunk of story is so Incongruous with everything else that sounds realistic right and then this part just sounds completely batshit insane And also it's named after a movie character Which surely the police could figure out before too very long and and you know That's totally in cut in character with her because at the end we see that in her notes She's thinking of just naming herself after Lily which is Mason's little sister So obviously she is she is just pulling names for things.   Well, I don't connect with nascent personally at all He was another one I could put a face to from my high school years because like there was always Like that guy who hangs out with kind of the freaks and we're who? Not And of course Mario would be monkey, of course, of course, yeah, well, I imagine Mario looking like munchie actually But uh wait that cut out looking like who like munchie but like a short short Half Mexican. Yeah, it's the whole thing but anyways Mason, you know, I knew a new kids in high school who kind of like hung out with the freaks and weirdos because their life Wasn't really like normal, but they it's not that they thought the same way, you know Like Mason doesn't he's he's doesn't have any like mental disorders. He just has a shitty home life So like he connects with these people who are much weirder than him because he doesn't feel normal Because his home life so shitty but like the way he actually acts is not like these other people who are all like You know actually crazy so right but like as you go through I kind of got that point at first like learning about his home life And stuff I was like, okay, you know, I've seen this I've seen this story before I know people who've been through this But that was the point of the character and then eventually it gets eventually though It kind of starts to get to like, okay I get Mason like he's because he doesn't really have a goal the way that Mario and Don do like does by the end Baby. Yeah.  It was by far the best most disturbing terrifies me to my core.  Just well not for a moment. Okay, so I wrote this down So forgive me if I'm if I'm just reading off my page here The content of her letter what utility is served by Dawn sending the letter Why would she do it ego and nothing more she's still human and has weaknesses now I'm aware that they're of the list of the list that is composed by Truman there are there are exactly four reasons given to why she would do it And I divide them into two categories one emotional reasons that add risk to her doing so and And add nothing other than fulfilling her own ego and those are freeing mason and taking credit for the riccardo fire Why in the fuck would dawn do something that in in any way makes her life more risky Just to help mason it doesn't make sense But but putting that aside, there's also two good reasons to do it factor. I thought it was being implied Especially through truman's dialogue at the end of the book that dawn actually did like mason Like she's actually in love with them. I thought unacceptable. There's no way that this if she loved him She okay, I mean That is unfathomable. I think she any feeling she has cannot be equated to love.  Monkey. Do you want to pitch in on this? Do you have an opinion? I thought the I mean, of course I do have an opinion because I know what happens, but I I don't like to answer questions in terms of uh people trying to like translate the book or are Interpretations because I mean it ruins people's interpretations. So I'd rather sit out on that one That's fair. Well, okay. I guess we'll just have to have a disagreement there But I don't see either of those interpretation that you had not even thought of though like Is the possibility that don is in love with him intentionally written into the book as a possibility Even I'll concede there's a possibility I just find it ridiculous because I think a lot of the last part of the book is clearly Throwing in lots and lots of implications so that you can come to different conclusions But without it being ever, you know, like how much of the stories lie how much of this and that there's deliberately no answer But there's lots and lots of implications that could drag you in different directions And I just thought there was a lot of implications suggesting especially in what Truman was saying about dawn writing the letter That she is in love with mason And won't admit it because she's too proud What okay, here's the thing though. I literally don't care about the answer to that question Whatever her whatever her feelings are. I were we're done with her feelings. Her feelings don't matter anymore Not interested. She has done these things. I'm just trying to explain that this is why I mean I'm not saying it was a good idea for her to this is why what this is why what what's the relevance here What's the relevance? I'm saying this is why she incriminated herself It's not that it was a good idea to do so But she wanted to get him off the hook because they're already after her like one way or another She's outed as the bad guy But so why not just stack the extra allegations on herself while and let jason skate if she like the mason skate if she likes him Well, that's fine But she is now she is now unleashed what she must have known would be at the very least a vindictive agent Someone who is not going to be too thrilled about the shit that just went down I don't think she's all her fault.  I mean that's obvious. She has these kind of flaws and I just it just gives me hope It just makes me happy about the ending because we've got I forget what the guy's name was uh grimes The crime guy That's the uh the true hero of the book the only character who I found remotely relatable Uh, special agent ron clacker the great clacker. He's he's there to he's there to bring justice to the world That's all he has. He has a lust for justice. He's going to take her down in the sequel written by me I can't wait. I can't wait I actually would kind of love a trifler sequel written by jesse About like mason and that agent trying to take down don He teams up with truman sinclair who was the real mastermind all along He was he was playing that bitch for a fool the whole time now. He's just you know, he's just using her Now he's got this hot blonde girlfriend. He just wanted her to be blonde the whole book That was a whole plan and that was the gambit He's portraying himself like a humble beta orbiter, but in truth.  Yeah same same kind of shit there Um, yeah, so so I read the ending as uh, I mean personally I don't feel I need a sequel at all because in my mind I now know that um, I mean it was it was clear all along But I know that don has flaws and that there are two hot male heroes on the case to take down this weak Cowardly woman and if ronda rousey can't take jesse then we know then we know that don cannot handle these two men Dude, I would kick don breckins ass.   You just reframe it as though Exactly, you know and she but she does that so much that it's obvious that she doesn't really have any control Like, you know, she finds out that mario's doing the thing. She's like, oh, well, um, you know, well, okay, that's fine I can plan. Uh, it's actually like this. Oh, no, actually this all works out No, this is fine. This is exactly what I had in mind.    He's basically a monkey jones fan is what he is He's monkey's entire fan base in one wretched body Well, you know the the thing is the even though i'm fascinated by dawn The the great thing about that is is that uh, and this is kind of the the reason I even wanted to do this And I was tweeting about this before as I was reading like the first half Dawn is pure evil and is basically irredeemable by her own account You know, maybe she could be maybe she's you know was talking herself up She's not actually such a sociopath, but according to her account She she's not changed at any time soon. She is a constant evil force mario on the other hand That's something that we can do something about mario is someone who could have been saved by society and uh, and and that's why Well, stick with me. I'm just saying that all the so dawn frames herself as like So at the end of the book she talks about how uh, there's a passage about how what were the trifles What makes a trifle or a trifle and she thinks about oh, were they all lonely? Uh, did they all have the same fascination with the macabre? No, it wasn't any of those things It's just that they were manipulable by me and I agree that that was the real problem here These people had so psychological vulnerabilities that she exploited And so the way we can help that and and we can talk about mario specifically because he's obviously the biggest one Um, though truman's no uh truman's no spring chicken either. He's a bit of a murderer himself Um, uh, yeah, like that's what opened them up to this shit to being able to be manipulated by things that we cannot change We cannot change what's going on inside dawn's head.   I'm learning I'm getting better. Um, I watched that video beforehand and uh, the the the it was the two Questions that he brought up at the beginning of that. Um, why did this happen and how can we prevent it in the future? Yes, that's pretty much what was running through my mind the whole time thinking about mario I mean obviously mario is based on elliot roger and Of course, you know this the parallel is obvious. What were you saying jesse?  That's no one else's fault. I mean I think it's um unrealistic to say like, how do we help these people? Oh, we gotta we gotta go we gotta find the the weird little depressed people who are mean to everyone And who suck and just be friends with them so they'll be better.  Some people just suck and they're evil Well, even if the answer is that we can't do anything about it until we have some sort of I don't know brain scanning psychopaths technology And then we can know ahead of time what people are going to do Even I I would just like to know if there's anything we can do and I haven't and you know, you're you're right You're right because uh, especially the way dawn frames it and I I love the way in this book the way, um There are different Accountings of different events and that the way like dawn I I love how mario goes into detail about like all the conversations he had with dawn about like Oh, how I want to like massacre everyone in the school and dawn was totally like, yeah I want to fucking, uh, you know hang them up by meat hooks and carve out their innards or whatever it was But dawn leaves that out of her story entirely Clearly framing herself.  That's that's that's really great.    Damn it. That's not good enough I I kind of a I kind of agree with jesse because like we wouldn't know like a guy like this It's like like jesse just said we can't just like find a depressed guy and be like oh, i'm gonna be your best friend now We've invented anti-depressants and you can debate about you know the Ethics or the value of anti-depressants, but they don't make an anti-depressant for stupid There's no anti stupid look look it's like but but He clearly illustrates several several points in the story where I mean we're just going from his words here Obviously, but there were ways that things could have get better mario was never even on medicine at any point There's ways that things could have gone differently But no one could ever possibly recognize that like there's no way When the doctor in the when mario talks about how the doctor just blew him off and didn't take him seriously And said just go talk to your general practitioner or whatever. Yes, mario should have followed up with that But there were there were moments where things could have gone differently if the system was more You know like the system's always imperfect and that's the the problem with all this stuff is that they try to fix them Yeah, well But the the thing is the problem isn't that nobody helped mario the problem is that the system itself Needs fixing like it's not that he needed fixing.  You know and stuff like that.  I think you know I mean, I see what you're saying I don't know if I necessarily agree Yeah, there were times where I I thought I don't think anybody was a little bit harder I don't think anybody who commits a school shooting is a funny guy Because funny people have friends and it won't happen that What if well, but that's that's part of the but that's part of the delusion is what if the joker committed a school shooting Yeah, I'd be all smiles. I don't know if the joker is actually a funny guy Like is the joker ever actually said like a joke that makes you laugh Well, I would put a more camel and caesar amaro in the funny category of jokers But that we're getting off on a tangent about with jokers They're rating the funniness of jokers I feel that like the point of the joker is not so much that he's funny to other people But that what he himself finds to be funny is you know, uh, Terrorism, I guess whatever he does. What what does he consider? Uh, I think joker is a terrorist. I mean in the animated series He's a crime lord, but he's also in a mass murderer Yeah, all those things all those good things Well, uh, yeah, yeah, all right. That's fair. That's fair. You know, I'm pretty good at just diving into something And this is probably a negative on myself as like a critic I'm pretty easily able to get absorbed in worlds.  You know, it's like can I Like like like monkey himself is better at English and in creative writing than the characters that he's portraying Even though he sometimes is trying to portray the story like Sometimes he tries to write like a retard and sometimes he writes clever and the two can compete is what I mean to say You know, I the only time I really felt like that was with Truman I mean unless I never got the sense. This character was actually retarded I I definitely took me for a loop got the sense that um that that monkey had stumbled upon a great scheme Of making his book impossible to criticize because it's written from the perspective of three terrible writers Yeah, true But that's and again, that's what I mean when I say that sometimes the writing was too good Like it's it's it's just inconsistent where sometimes it's like It's clever and funny and it feels like a dark comedy Which is how it kind of builds itself and then at other times it feels like you're just looking into the like when Again when Dawn goes into like everything about her work routine It was so fucking unnecessary and I thought that part of the book was completely boring because it it's not um It's not funny. It's not really relevant.   That's really funny.   Oh, yeah.   What did she do? She did nothing. She did nothing wrong.  Okay, all right Go ahead.  He's every internet commenter in the world and every redditor in the world They're all over the place.  We need to take them out.  Yeah, it's the evil fast food chain in good burger. Yeah, that's right. That's right I haven't seen good burger in 15 years Can we just talk real quickly about do you think it is I was just wondering about this so nobody at any point ever Like provided evidence, uh, besides dawn's written word that there was actual like human experimentation that happened in that basement With like the first guy, we know the second guy was fake obviously But the first guy I found myself re-evaluating whether or not that was even true And if so because this goes into like why uh, she even wrote this letter like why give them all this material to like Look into the fact that yes, I am a super Psychopathic monster. I want you to know about the fact that I've committed these atrocities Like what what good is served by that other than just ego if it's just ego We can just write it off. Well that part is corroborated by mario's part I mean a lot of what dawn says is can be called true because yeah mario did say that they started doing that He said something about that. Yeah. Yeah, the uh, the fbi even brings it up.  That was two deaths.  How many of uh, how many of the the kids's videos had you guys seen because I'd seen one man one jar before So that was a that was another interesting aspect of the story is how much of it is just real like well sometimes you It's interesting because some of them monkey made up and some of them are real videos So um, and it's because I've seen some of the real videos that it actually enhanced how disturbing the made up ones were Because like because I can't tell I can't tell how many or things I just haven't seen before So as I was reading this book probably the part that like disturbed me the most was just monkey describing Video tapes that the characters were watching because that was extremely.  Thank you. Yeah, it's it's on like porn sites, but yeah, it's Like just just knowing that that was real and then thinking about like, okay.   Did she deserve that?    She's just a mom Yeah, my mom is a saint and I always feel bad when I complain about her Yeah, well, that's good. You see you can shout out to jesse's mom and jesse's mom. Yeah Household is nice.  Baby Groot as he is the real hero of every book Yeah, he's gonna be a central character in my sequel It's gonna be a buddy cop movie with uh special agent dale cooper from twin peaks and baby groot and they're gonna take down They're gonna trap her in the black lodge where she belongs. I gotta watch the new twin peaks.  So Have you been watching it jesse? I have been watching it Okay Victor was just telling me that he just marathoned all of the original and then it's very very slow and very Methodical and they're really taking their sweet time with everything that you want to see but I wouldn't call it bad Like the people on the the people on the twin peaks reddit board are all of course kissing every episode's ass and calling me genius I'm not like I can see where they're coming from. I can also see where people would say what's boring, but I don't know. I'm invested I like it To be fair to be fair. I thought that the original series has a lot of moments where it drags and gets pretty boring I thought so too. Victor said he just like completely loved the entire thing Like both seasons all the way through the whole franchise is something that you just like you stick through the bad parts because the good parts Have enough trying to make up for it All right. Well now we're reviewing something like that. Well, yeah now we're on the twin peaks. All right We're off. All right. We're off that now. We're off that now. Uh, let's talk about Let's talk about mason just just to see what we can get out of the character of mason So it was interesting to me that you said did you that you couldn't really relate to the guy Because to me he was painted to be basically the normal everyman. Well, I'm not a normal everyman.  I'll do whatever is necessary to make the world better for everybody and um so and and you know mason just as like the Maybe it's just that my connection to him as like this guy being you know, strung along by dawn I don't know dude.  We understand I I have such deep fear of the of the real power that women have socially over men and it haunts me It haunts me all the time. It doesn't you know why it doesn't haunt me Because I'm not a rapist That was he a rapist was here rapist jesse.  Here's an accusation.  It's still proof She she she literally could have gone into the bathroom after he jacked off and rubbed it on herself There was no proof that he actually did anything. No, that's ridiculous. That would never happen It's it would never happen would never happen Incidentally by far my favorite thing that happens in the book is uh, it's really rubbing come all over herself Let's talk about that That's a shitty meme. That's a shitty meme. Look the incident is fine Uh, it's it's cool that people bring up that as like an an interesting outstanding moment Uh, it's just me. It's just me who brings it up all the time because it's Well, what I consider to maybe it is just you I mean when I sell the book to people I tell them there's an 11 year old rubbing come on herself Okay, see a thousand times more interesting to me than that is just the fact that a man is being destroyed for having done Nothing wrong. Well, sure. That's that's the emotional that's the emotional content of the book That's not the cell that's the intellectual content rubbing come on your body. It's not intellectually interesting. It's viscerally interesting I don't know if I agree that uh, I don't know if I agree that mason is totally Innocent or totally like a nice guy not bad at all. I mean, he's not He's not as evil as the other two, but He's pretty annoying. Yeah, and he's complicit in a lot of which is Block him up.    It's clearly painted in the story that everything he did.  I mean, I never said I wanted to watch that video or that I enjoyed it in any way. In fact Oh, but you're just strong alone by society.  Yeah, I mean like he I don't want to keep him out of my eyes. Look, he got played. I will fully admit. He's weak.    Why do you keep putting words in my mouth, Nate? You just paid it that you just paid it that way Like I was his only concern When did I say that? I did not say that I said that he's so worried about it. He's so concerned about it.   He's admits himself.  Um, I Uh, well stop stop. It's like you're putting him on the same level as the other people. I'm not. I'm not Okay, we're talking about look, let's put him on a scale. All right.  And you got mario kintanita and he's like the asterisk war bad And then you've got you've got mason and he's like re zero bad, you know, he's re zero bad But they're they're just a sky whale of a human being Masquerading as a man. I legitimately think it's unfair to call mason a bad person.  I just want to be like if you're saying that he's guilty I think you'd have to say that like I question whether I think he I question whether he's also a sociopath like mario and dawn I mean, you could almost call the book two sociopaths and a psychopath I think I think dawn is the psycho, but I but I you know mario's obviously a sociopath.  He doesn't really a teenager dude.  How can you argue that he doesn't care about I'm not arguing. He doesn't I'm just saying I wonder I'm saying I wonder I'm being well here's some proof to the contrary. All right fine I I just and and and for what it's worth the second that lily did something Of her own accord that that you know, he completely turns on her like that Yeah, as soon as she takes those like pictures that he starts sounding exactly like mario Oh, yeah, yeah, he was mad at her and then he got over at the next entry.  Why do you keep blowing this way out of proportion?   I'm going for normal person here worse things happen to mason than he deserved But he's not a great guy.  Yes Nobody I well, okay.   I don't agree I disagree that his chapters are boring.  Of course.  What I agree. Thank you. Thank you. I mean, that's objectively true I mean again Like it's just that his problems are all real stuff that most of the people I know have gone through and like it doesn't it Most people don't Go through most people who are in that situation don't then get put into a far worse one like he does And most people don't become a vigilante superhero at the end of their story Um, but you know comes and mason's mason's will smith Mason's problems were stuff that I was like, okay. Yeah, this is what most of my friends were going through in high school They had shitty home situations.  So mason to me was like, yeah, I know this guy I know this story, but he's not my friend. So I don't care about him the way I care about my friends, you know I agree He had the least interesting things to say up to when things turned But the the point of the character is that he represents normalcy. Yeah, and of course that's not going to be fascinating Relative normalcy.  Well, sure.   Did he really protect her though? Or did he just get her beaten up more? Oh Whatever, let's move on. I we know the answer to this question Uh What else is uh, how about how about uh, my dorain? Uh, dobson, I believe was the male name, right?  I've seen I mean, it's I'll tell you man. Monkey you portrayed an obnoxious sjw pretty accurately with that character like In the name. I think was dorian and donovan. It was donovan dorian Donovan was like I want someone to make a dobson joke as in the little, uh, blue bear guy I mean, it's it's easy enough to make fun of like a, you know, sjw's and stuff and and and save Okay, they're all obnoxious pretentious shitheads, but like it's not even that I think there's plenty of sjw's who are like fine this person though. I have this is exactly the type Who gets on you on tumblr, you know, like this is the the the portrait of the stereotypical sjw But they do exist. There are real people like that and well, you know, this is the character I This is the character.  Uh, don't like them. They're totally real like they are real and And and I thought he did a good enough job of like making it. It didn't feel like um It didn't feel like just a parody because of the fact that he addressed the backstory that that she that he became this way That that he wasn't always like this but like now that he's learned the rhetoric of this movement of the social justice movement He's developing these feelings.  Like, you know, he's still hanging around But he's trying to like convert them to his new age like beliefs and stuff And I thought that was totally believable. Like I've seen people make that transition before That is very interesting and that no pun intended Right, true. It kind of shows the character's like deference to power in that, you know, once once, you know Because in her life, obviously she's following trends. That's that's what she's all about. Um Which you saw like, oh, I can get attention if I'm trans. So I'll do that I mean just not that ultimately like that, but that's what this character was and and Not to distract from you too much. Sorry, but Um, I actually thought I felt the hand of monkey perhaps too much Just in the fact that the characters like like dawn goes on this whole thing about how she's like, you know Oh, I don't have any problem with trans people. It's just the way that this character has to do That's weird. I did feel that that felt a little too defensive Where I was like, why not just make her hate trans people or something or like mario when he I think he has a part where he Does something like that with either trans or like blacks or something.  He's already a school shooter, you know It did kind of grade on me after a while and annoy me that all the characters sort of talk in youtube videos Yeah, like they'll be like in the middle of a conversation and dawn will just lapse into like an editorial on You know mario does it too and you know, it's like I said before about not really being able to criticize it because I don't know if that's intentional or if that's just the way that like dawn writes, but doesn't actually speak I mean it felt a little too true It really felt a little too editorially at some parts. I agree. There were I noticed that in moments and um Yeah, like she would literally in her dialogue suddenly transform into a youtube video sometimes and I think that's I mean you can defend it all you want. I think it's clumsy writing. Monkey was 20. That's how 20 year olds, right?  Yeah You swayed me. I'm gonna blame. No, he too the one time. Yeah, it was definitely during the the Don't get me wrong I'm saying that because if you go read my light novel that I wrote when I was 20 that happens all the time Characters will lapse into an editorial because I was used to editorial writing So, you know, like in the middle of a conversation a character will like psychoanalyze himself to explain to another one Um, so you should be nisei oisin.   Uh, the the only whatever I don't it's silly to go back to a boy I'm just gonna finish my point anyway.  There you go. That's just the character Uh, how about how about I mean there's not a lot to say about chow or chow's uncle Because chow's uncle first of all, um, but the more interesting of the two Uh, just like a war vet who got a taste for blood wants to kill people Thinks it's really cool. Those two also fascinated me in a way and I have to ask monkey Did you have asian friends like that before?  Yeah, yeah, did you have asian friends like the the two the the brothers? Uh, yeah, every single person in the trifelers is based off of one of my high school friends Yeah, I I figured because that particular brand of asian household is familiar to me of like, um The the kids the you know the the younger generation of the household just being super Disaffected because their parents are from a completely different culture and they just don't even know what's going on with their kids Like there's a level of disconnect like you can tell the mother It just literally does not understand her children because they are american and she's not You know and so like she just tries to be the default mother because she does not understand what the hell Well, what one's her brother, right? Yeah, well, yeah, but the brother brother is younger than her I think by a by a good amount and he he being ex-military He kind of reminded me of like a an evil version of um My my friend my asian friend don son who has a cousin who lives with them Who's who's like that age and he's like similarly a very like physically active outgoing guy you know mostly kind of quiet but like Watches a lot of movies and does a lot of travel and like lots of interesting random weird things and like this The the you know the older guy, um kind of reminded me of that Uh a little bit like it they just everything about the way that house was described and the way the kids act and everything I was like, yeah, I've been in that house before And to some extent like not that exact one, but it's like an accumulation of different asian households I've been in and I totally got it Um, I thought it was cool because the whole time I was picturing, uh this veteran chow's uncle as rambo You know the returning vet. He's back. It's really bad enough case to open up back.  Yeah, that's uh, that's my rambo impression. That's um I don't know I was picturing like like imagine You know that scene where don walks into his room to like tell him like hey Let's start experimenting on people Imagine like rambo in the corner just like sitting there all bunched up just like uh, I love his laptop I love that she pretentiously criticizes him for having a pulp fiction and fight club poster That really stuck with me because I would totally have Those you know like I it it it was Yeah, that's what that guy would have of course he would you know like yeah, he's gonna have two Good hyper masculine films and his fucking, you know, well one's a hyper masculine film at least, uh And the other one's comparable like yeah, why wouldn't he it just A lot of the character details in this book really definitely resonated with me like every character felt like somebody who I kind of knew And you know, uh, I feel like mumke's high school friends are probably not dissimilar from mine In in that case I do want to mention about chow was that his character was an experiment on my part to see Uh, how full fledged of a character I could create who has zero lines of dialogue in the whole book Yeah, I was going to comment on that. Yeah, I was gonna see if you guys even noticed that you didn't say a single word But only towards the end like there was a moment where I suddenly was like This guy's never spoken. Has he like, uh, yeah, I thought you did a pretty okay job Like I mean he's obviously like the least interesting character because of it But I felt like I understood his character in spite of it I sort of like Spaced out his entire existence in the story. Yeah, like I thought like the chow's uncle was just a guy called chow's uncle It's isn't it fascinating though that the the more active interesting character there would be referred to as chow's uncle Well chow was just a non-entity in the in the situation And I I will I one moment that really stuck out to me was when uh, when after the meeting after uh, she and and tau You know the the uncle talk, um And they they announced their plans to the group and chow just looks bored. Yeah very very interesting very interesting Response and I want to know what's going on with this guy.  I mean I I feel again like I've known I've known people who are kind of like I I assume he's probably a pretty smart guy who does well in school And like but but doesn't give a like has no particular opinions about anything just doesn't care Just lets life pass by because he doesn't he has no aspirations and and no Nothing to care about he's just letting the people around him control and he hangs out with these with the triflers because Probably his options are hang out with asian kids or weirdos Because you know as an asian kid You're probably not going to hang out with like jocks and all the like white kids or whatever You know so you're going to end up hanging out with like the either the freaks or the other asians and he ends up hanging out with the freaks You know Yeah, I love casual racism. Chinese people can't do anything being racist I'm anything being sympathetic towards This is what like towards towards the weaker race of asia. I mean I understood my group of friends I mean I was the freaks in high school, you know and like That's who are you saying that asians are the freaks of society? I'm saying that oh no like for instance My friend Brandon Tolentino he hung out with this guy arne pretty much exclusively because both of them were filipino And so they hung out together even though they weren't necessarily friends They just hung out because they were the filipino kids and that's what you just end up gravitating to people who are your race My high school is extremely mixed So we had like probably half the school was black half the school was white and then and you know Some percentage of other ethnicities and like the black kids all hung out together and the white kids all hung out together And the ethnic kids all hung out together and the only group that was like super mixed Like you know, they're they'll be mixing here and there, but it was the freaks and weirdos who was A true multicultural group because we're internet denizens and stuff.  We don't feel like we're part of our race. So that's how a kid like that ends up with a group like that I think Yeah, yeah, he was in a bit of an enigma to me. Um Well, shit, uh What else we got have we talked enough about mario specifically because I feel like we we might have Glazed over him a little bit in our in our rush to talk about other guys.  Unfortunately. I think the the best thing about mario In his presentation in this book is that this book shits on him in a big way Like because I know he's based on elliot roger and monkey's done.   I think was a lack of self-awareness and even when done Clearly every school shooter is a lack of self-awareness.  So Man, what about that american hero who tackled mario and wrestled the grenade out of him and blew up? That's brice brice. Whatever. Yeah.     That's literally what what terrorism is and um uh Like you have to view people as part of a collective because he's just Mario had specific targets, right? Of course, but mario didn't care to like look into their stories And and you can see this clearly that he was not even interested in diving deeper when he starts painting people like marissa This angel who gave him a chance and was such a wonderful person to him That he did everything wrong to and destroyed his own chances with he says like I would have loved to have killed her too But she's not at this school because it's all about him and how he's the sad one and how you know, uh The why hasn't life been nice to me exactly what elliot roger was like that.  Yeah one day. He'll have sex and that's unacceptable That cannot happen.   You know what you want to hear us talk about about your book Uh, no nothing specific I was just gonna say I've been waiting over a year to hear people have an actual conversation about this And I thought it would like when I was writing and I thought it would never happen I thought nobody would read it So this last hour has been like pretty fucking great for me Like even even the parts where you're shitting on some of the writing i'm thinking Yeah, finally somebody is acknowledging what I did That's great. That's great. All it takes is a hero like Nate bestman to read your book and bam instant Well, I instant celebrity. I mean I talked to monkey about some of my issues with it back in march But I again Wanted to hold off till more people had read it because I was literally the first person to read it because I got an early copy Um, so I didn't want to like air any of this out and like, you know When people get it in their heads that they're gonna read it that way like if anyone listen to this podcast before reading the book They're going to now read some of our criticisms into it But uh, but they'll also read our more in-depth analysis into it. So, you know I just want to say that I'm uh, I'm immensely proud of you monkey that you Actually wrote this book and published it yourself and that you have An actual like a real novel under your belt.  I guess this thing was an absolute page turner And uh consumed it, uh voraciously and and loved reading it and it was really really good I will say I read this book at a night because I was trying to read it before monkey got to my house Um, incidentally, I read the entire book while non-stop listening to slipknot corn and maryland manson Um, and I would highly recommend you do the same so you can get into the school shooter mindset But uh, I read the entire book listening to the stone cold steve austin podcast talking about wrestling Um doing it for the working man. Give me a hell. Yeah, I will say that I think the early part There's there's like this book has a lot of build-up and I do think it's probably longer than it needs to be Um, I think that the midsection is the weak point when when we get to dawn working at the ice cream place Like up and like when she gets locked in the freezer pretty much everything from that onwards is great Like that's where the book really takes off is after after she gets out of the freezer and all of her schemes from then on All of that is fantastic.  I work at gerry queen. I like to be mean to people and torsion people.  Uh, I uh I wanted to say that I yeah, like I I loved reading this I tried my best to finish it in one sitting but uh, I am a genius, but I could not finish it in the four and a half hours of my first flight So I took till I came home from from the trip I was on Uh, it was it was wonderful. I I was thoroughly entertained the whole way. I I did not find uh the The like I I was in hard enough by the point where she got to that Where I was I was totally willing to to take the journey that dawn was providing me of like Exploring her workplace because I knew that it was leading to something and and when the place burns down And you you get to think about all the all the details that you gave us all going up in flames I enjoyed that immensely and uh, I don't know. Maybe I had more patience or something for better or ill Uh, I was I was disgusted on deep levels, but in the right ways I was I was provoked.  They are You really got down to the deep issues and I could it seemed to me, uh, uh that a lot of it came from You know not not to Go crazy with conspiracies here, but like like you you really understood You know like the the the motivations that would go for a character like mario and and the way that you're able to construct this You know not not like a complete ripoff of elliott or anything, but like this new character You know having all the the just a real clear understanding of why someone would be driven to this point I thought was fascinating, especially as someone who has probably never had anything close to clinical depression For me it was a very educating experience to just kind of dive down into this world and and see what it's like down there and uh And to to I don't know maybe hopefully be able to use this experience to do what I think you want people to take away Think about how to actively avoid this shit in the future and and see what we can do, but uh That's that's where i'm at. It was great. I loved it to summarize my thoughts.  They've written all the time I usually can't make it past the first paragraph or the first page This is from people who you know tout themselves as writers like People who really think oh my god.  I would say, you know weak parts aside It's still a really interesting book lots lots to relate to lots to connect with and for what it's worth I'm extremely excited to see where you'll go later because Writing unlike any other medium is not something that anyone is a master at young There's never been a like world famous author who got world famous Before their 30s like everyone has to work up for that. What about the famous author harry potter? His series of autobiographies sold up trillion copies Yeah, I think the only outlier would be esse hilton who wrote um the outsiders when she was like 16 But otherwise you're pretty much right. Yeah authors authors never blow up huge when they're young It's one of the only mediums where like you really have to study at it for for a long time And so to be putting out something impressive enough that three relatively harsh critics mind you, uh, are I mean, I at least I am a relatively harsh critic if this wasn't interesting. You'd know Yeah, you would definitely know me. I'd let you know so to have written that at 20 I can't wait to see what you will be writing by the time you are 30 if you're still writing fiction Um, and if you still have ideas that are at least, you know, half as interesting as this one Um, I can only assume you'll get better as a writer as time goes on. So yeah, I you know I think I'm with digi on the fact that I think simplicity might be key for your next work So when you're writing that and you say goodbye cruel world and you're heading off to that rope hanging in your closet That uh, you know, just just leave it at that, you know, just leave it at that I'm saying kill yourself Closer Nailed it. I think we should all agree that next week. We'll come back together and review that anime snobs book in the same Uh Someone should read that and let me know how it is though. I was told it's an autistic version of dune Okay, that sounds like what he would write. So i'm not surprised at all by that When did he write this? When did he write it? No idea. Hmm. All right. It's like a year ago Oh, we should have had him on this right now to review the book. What were we thinking? Did he read it? Hello everyone, it's me. I came in for the last part of the podcast.  All right, everybody go buy the triflers on the link in the description if you haven't read it yet and you'd like to um Written by monkey jones. He's proud of it. We're proud of it. So uh, you know And we're not just saying that because he's uh, and maybe someday we can be proud of him too. Yeah Sounds good. That's the whole point of my life is to make my parents proud I haven't done it yet, but hopefully someday Well, here's hoping thanks for listening everybody. See you next time. Bye