Ep16 | Thoughts On Thoughts - Columbus, You Basic

Welcome back, intrepid explorers! We've come a long way together, and it feels like a good place to begin wrapping up this leg of our journey. We've spent a lot of time over the past year chasing down a myriad of "wonderful human beings", seen new friendships bloom, and learned far more than we ever could have hoped for along the way. A long voyage like this deserves time for respite and reflection, so this will be our final episode for this season of Reality Quest. While we can't make any promises as to what the next creative endeavor will be for us, one thing is certain; this won't be our last foray together.
We're hoping you read the title for this episode and anticipate that this will be a more freeform discourse than usual. You'll just have to listen and see where all the Christopher Columbus shade is coming from. We've both had a lot on our minds over the past few weeks after tying up all those loose ends on our deep dive into XR intimacy and porn. By the end of this recording, we'll lay down a veritable smorgasbord of tasty tangents. We wade through the speculative worlds of interactive storytelling and gameplay, the colorful humans in the loop of every virtual creation, and share a healthy dose of reflection on our learnings thus far.
We hope you'll enjoy listening to this final dialogue as much as we enjoyed making it. If you manage to finish this episode and are still hungry for more, keep an eye out for bonus content we'll be releasing soon. As always, thanks for listening to Reality Quest!

**Show Notes**
- Paul McCartney's "Scrambled Eggs" (performed by Paul McCartney & Jimmy Fallon): (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGtixkey4_U)
- Billie Eilish on Howard Stern: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnTHwzCxxyA)
- Bartle's Taxonomy of Player Types: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartle_taxonomy_of_player_types#cite_note-43)
- Half-Life: Alyx (VR game): (https://www.half-life.com/en/alyx/)
- Life is Strange (video game): (https://lifeisstrange.square-enix-games.com/en-us/games/life-is-strange)
- Journey (video game): (https://thatgamecompany.com/journey/)
- Hamlet on the Holodeck(book): (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B014DXC05M/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1)
- Christopher Columbus: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Columbus)
- Erik the Red: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_the_Red)
- Leif Erikson: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leif_Erikson)
- Gloomy Eyes* (VR game): (https://store.steampowered.com/app/1111620/Gloomy_Eyes/)
- Warm Bodies (a zombie love story movie!): (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07s-cNFffDM)
- Stephen King's *The Stand* (book): (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stand)
- Sleep No More* (immersive theater show): (https://mckittrickhotel.com/sleep-no-more/)
- Shelter 2 (bobcat video game): (https://youtu.be/Tk-1M1wNVDY)
- Colors of Noise: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colors_of_noise)
- Disoriental (book about Iranian Revolution): (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B079P59631/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1)
- Persepolis (graphic novel about Iranian Revolution): (https://www.amazon.com/Persepolis-Childhood-Pantheon-Graphic-Library/dp/037571457X)

Get full access to 🧠 Brain Stew 🥘 at brainsstew.substack.com/subscribe