This episode is about sex and games and the libertine novels of eighteenth-century France. From Talleyrand, the Napoleonic clergyman and diplomat, through to Cindy Crawford, Peter Bradshaw and Amouranth, the Twitch streamer scandal du jour, we talk erotica, porn and those anime sex games you see all the time on Steam. Listen for the power of &apos;not for me&apos;, the uselessness of banning things, and Alexis&apos;s really bizarre description of one of Lottie&apos;s favourite games.Games / books mentioned in this episode, for your gaming / reading pleasure:- Cultist Simulator, by us- &apos;The Law of Boob&apos;, by Lottie - Fallout 4, by Bethesda - Far Cry 5, by Ubisoft - PUBG, by KRAFTON - Horizon Zeo Dawn, by Guerilla - DEEP SPACE WAIFU: NEKOMIMI, by Neko Climax Studios- LOVE³ -Love Cube-, by Neko Work H - The Ditzy Demons Are in Love With Me, by SMILE - Being a DIK, by Dr PinkCake - VA-11 Hall-A, by Sukeban Games - Subverse, by Studio FOW - Thérèse Philosophe, by Jean-Baptiste de BoyerFollow us on Twitter and sign up to the mailing list to make sure you don&apos;t miss the next episode! ♥Support the show (http://bit.ly/2JCKVEH)

Skeleton Songs

This Episode Is About Sex

Join Alexis and Lottie for a discussion of antagonists and villains! Via witches, Belgium, Simon Baron-Cohen, a charming Irish vagabond and, of course, Nazism. Alexis talks about how rubbish games are and destroys Lottie&apos;s argument; Lottie talks about five-hour Polish art films and producers stopping developers from kicking each other in the nads. Games / books mentioned in this episode, for your gaming / reading pleasure:- Sniper Elite: Nazi Zombie Army, by Rebellion- Zero Degrees of Empathy, by Simon Baron-Cohen- Disco Elysium, by ZA/UM - Gaudy Night, by Dorothy L Sayers- Batman: Arkham Asylum, by Rocksteady Studios- Bioshock, by 2K Games- "First they came...", by Martin Niemöller- "Who goes Nazi?", by Dorothy ThompsonFollow us on Twitter and sign up to the mailing list to make sure you don&apos;t miss the next episode! ♥Support the show (http://bit.ly/2JCKVEH)

500,000 Sociopaths

What's the connection between the Labyrinths of Night and the Bright Ditches? This question and many more we don't really answer in this episode on mazes, labyrinths and game design.Meet labrys, the lesbianic double-headed axe. Leave kittens in mazes and form human chains in swampy MUDs. Learn Alexis Kennedy's First Law of Narrative. Cake. Also, Lottie gets cross about a pretend man 'buggering off with a sex witch and having a baby'. So there's that.Games / books mentioned in this episode, for your gaming / reading pleasure:- Cultist Simulator, by us- The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, by The Astronauts - From Dusk Till Dawn, by Robert Rodriguez- The Garden of Forking Paths, by Jorge Luis Borges - Firewatch, by Campo Santo- Dragon Age: Origins, by BioWare- Fallen London, by Failbetter GamesFollow us on Twitter and sign up to the mailing list to make sure you don't miss the next episode! ♥Support the show (http://bit.ly/2JCKVEH)

Twisty Little Passages All Alike

Skeleton Songs season two, baby! This season's all about GAMES, but not as you know 'em. Join Alexis and Lottie as we discuss genre via Aristotle and Wittgenstein, cyberpunk and film noir, the Berlin Interpretation and, er, fish genitalia. Also there is an odd bit about tortoises in the rain but perhaps Alexis's medicine was wearing off then. Games / books mentioned in this episode, for your gaming / reading pleasure:- Cultist Simulator, by us- Cyberpunk 2077, by CDPR- Skyrim, by Bethesda- Neuromancer, by William Gibson- "Lycidas", by John MiltonFollow us on Twitter and sign up to the mailing list to make sure you don't miss the next episode! ♥Support the show (http://bit.ly/2JCKVEH)

Are Panthers Chairs?

Ragnarok! Gotterdammerung! Armageddon outta here! In the final episode of season one, we talk eschatology, chocolate, fake news and the bloody gothness of Old Germanic literature. Sexy zombie apocalypses and millennial doomsday cults make an appearance too, because of course they do. And even though we say &apos;everyone&apos;s gonna die&apos; a lot in this episode, we realise it&apos;s small acts of everyday niceness that really save us. Nawwww.Games / books mentioned in this episode, for your gaming / reading pleasure:- Cultist Simulator, by us- The Road, by Cormack McCarthy- The Fallout series, by Bethesda- The Apocalypse of Paul- The Cthulhu Mythos, by H. P. Lovecraft- The Prose Edda, by Snorri Sturluson- The Ecclesiastical History of the English People, by the Venerable BedeFollow us on Twitter and sign up to the mailing list to make sure you don&apos;t miss the next episode! ♥Support the show (http://bit.ly/2JCKVEH)

Endgame

Maenads! Who are they, what do they want, and how do they wear their fox-skins? Kittens! How can they be so cute and so murderous at the same time? Join Alexis and Lottie as they discuss why frenzied Bassarids and Cutie McFloofcat are both the same Gothic trope of violent comeuppance. Via boring werewolves, Nosferatu and beautiful, naughty Clodius, of course. Also, there is a surprise storm half-way through.Games / books mentioned in this episode, for your gaming / reading pleasure:- Cultist Simulator, by us- BOOK OF HOURS, by us- True Blood, by HBO- 'A Case of Murder', by Vernon Scannell- 'The Squaw', by Bram Stoker- Dracula, by Bram Stoker- 'The Black Cat', by Edgar Allan Poe- Nosferatu, by F. W. Murnau- Cat People, by - The Secret History, by Donna TarttFollow us on Twitter and sign up to the mailing list to make sure you don't miss the next episode! ♥Support the show (http://bit.ly/2JCKVEH)

DIONYSIAN NO PICNIC

Join Alexis and Lottie on a deep-dive into WORLDBUILDING. Why it's menacing to be told to start with a timeline, how Twin Peaks' BOB came to be, why you must never call pulled pok 'flesh-spicing', and why the architect of the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao probably didn't start with the toilets. Alexis, unsportingly, refuses to get cross.Games / books mentioned in this episode, for your gaming / reading pleasure:- Cultist Simulator, by us- Fallen London and Sunless Sea, by Alexis Kennedy & Failbetter Games- The Silmarillion, by J. R. R. Tolkien- Beowulf, by ???- Gormenghast, by Mervyn Peake- Hard Times, by Charles DickensFollow us on Twitter and sign up to the mailing list to make sure you don't miss the next episode! ♥Support the show (http://bit.ly/2JCKVEH)

An Inheritance of Stones

This week we take a break from literature and talk about the weird stories in our own lives. Join Sheep-Stealer and Big Head as they introduce you to Great Uncle Gilbert, the teenage flying ace and real-life Great Escape artist, and David the contract officer for the Sultan of Oman who brought a wolf to tea. All shot through with poisonous headwear, what Britain wants for Christmas, and gentlemen flying kites.Follow us on Twitter and sign up to the mailing list to make sure you don't miss the next episode! ♥Support the show (http://bit.ly/2JCKVEH)

Top Hat, Flight Guy & Tales

Can you really trust anyone? Join Alexis and Lottie as they roundly conclude that you can't. We talk unreliable narrators via toilets, relevance theory, echoic mentions, the four levels of Star Wars canonicity and Lovecraft being surprisingly confident that his monsters were real.Games / books mentioned in this episode, for your gaming / reading pleasure:Cultist Simulator, by usRimWorld, by Ludeon StudiosPrison Architect, by Introversion SoftwareLolita, by Vladimir NabokovThe Luzhin Defense, by Vladimir NabokovChess Story, by Stefan ZweigAspects of the Novel, by E. M. ForsterThe Turn of the Screw, by Henry JamesAs If: Modern Enchantment and the Literary Prehistory of Virtual Reality, by Michael T. SalerSoldier of the Mist, by Gene WolfFollow us on Twitter and sign up to the mailing list to make sure you don't miss the next episode! ♥Support the show (http://bit.ly/2JCKVEH)

(Un)reliable Narrators

Madness, blood and ladies! We talk all things bloody, from Freud to Pliny to the Red Grail to Queen Elizabeth the First to murdering an entire hive of bees. The Madonna / whore complex? Check. Horrible Norse mythology about men being scared of ladies, and gods being made out of spit? Check. Etymology that devolves into single entendre riddles about vegetables? We gotchu. Also, Lottie gets increasingly cross.Games / books mentioned in this episode, for your gaming / reading pleasure:- Cultist Simulator, by us- Natural History, by Pliny the Elder + John Healey- The Joy of Sex, by Alex Comfort- Paradise Lost, by John Milton- Various Norse mythology, which Kevin Crossley-Holland translates excellentlyFollow us on Twitter and sign up to the mailing list to make sure you don't miss the next episode! ♥Support the show (http://bit.ly/2JCKVEH)

Women, Bloody Women

Join Alexis and Lottie for a run-down of forbidden knowledge: the type that's ipso facto dangerous and the type that's dangerous because of what you can do with it. We discover Christopher Marlowe was definitely a spy, nuclear codes are modern occultism and everyone's neighbour Mrs Thrumb writes a very boring diary.We skim past Papist plots, diabolical monkeys, why Lovecraft is like watching a snake getting dressed and conclude that if you can't poke something with an umbrella it's probably bad news.Games / books mentioned in this episode, for your gaming / reading pleasure:- Cultist Simulator, by us- Fallen London, by Alexis Kennedy & Failbetter Games- The King In Yellow, by Robert W. Chambers- The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus, by Christopher Marlowe- Different Kinds of Darkness, by David Langford- 'Green Tea', by Sheridan Le FanuFollow us on Twitter and sign up to the mailing list to make sure you don't miss the next episode! ♥Support the show (http://bit.ly/2JCKVEH)

Forbidden Knowledge

From ancient Egypt to modern web comics, döppelgangers haunt us all. Join Alexis and Lottie as they discuss the ins and outs of these look-alikey ghouls, from Scottish fetches to Capgras syndrome via Dostoyevsky, Silent Hill 2, neuropsychology and scary mirrors. All with a sprinkling of gothic literature.Oh! And if you run into a doppelganger in a graveyard, pray that it's the right time of day.Games / books mentioned in this episode, for your gaming / reading pleasure:- BOOK OF HOURS, by us- 'The Screwfly Solution', by James Tiptree Jr.- 'Liking What You See: A Documentary', by Ted Chiang- The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat, by Oliver Sacks- 'The Entrance', by Gerald Durrell- Through the Woods, by Emily CarrollFollow us on Twitter and sign up to the mailing list to make sure you don't miss the next episode! ♥Support the show (http://bit.ly/2JCKVEH)

Doppelgängers, Fetches & Ka

Panthers, dragons, monoceri, yales, wendigos, hell-hounds and pigs! This isn't an occult incantation, this is a half-hour deep-dive into our favourite spooky beasts from medieval bestiaries, epic poems and early 20th century ghost stories.Whether you're into shapeless bear-cubs, dirty bonnacons or being grumpy about Elizabeth I, there's a feast of beasts here for you.Games / books mentioned in this episode:- BOOK OF HOURS, by us- The Faerie Queene, by Edmund Spenser- The Wendigo, by Algernon Blackwood- The Willows, by Algernon Blackwood- The Medieval BestiaryFollow us on Twitter and sign up to the mailing list to make sure you don't miss the next episode! ♥Support the show (http://bit.ly/2JCKVEH)

The Terrible Tale of the Yale

Vampires, vampires and more vampires! From the Malay 'polong' and 'pelesit' to the soucouyants and empousai of Cultist Simulator, Alexis talks the history of the vampire myth before Lottie jumps in with a rendition of Carmilla. Then she embarrasses herself by wishing everyone a spooky day.Games / books mentioned in this episode, for your gaming / reading pleasure:- Cultist Simulator, by us- Interview with the Vampire, by Anne Rice- Carmilla, by Joseph Sheridan le Fanu- The Vampyre; a Tale, by John Polidori- Varney the Vampire, by James Malcom RymerFollow us on Twitter and sign up to the mailing list to make sure you don't miss the next episode! ♥Support the show (http://bit.ly/2JCKVEH)

Vampires, As You Don't Know Them

A games and literature podcast all about stories, from London-based indie developers Weather Factory. Forgotten myths, fantastic sources, gothic tropes and ghoulish tales. All with a list of the games / texts we talk about at the bottom of the episode summary, so you can go away and play/read to your black heart's content.

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Skeleton Songs

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