Kaina spent several hours combing all eight books for keywords, mostly god names, and the result is a PowerPoint so deranged and conspiracy-board-coded that the FBI will be sending recruitment letters anytime now. By the end, she had a moment best described as "holy frickin' shit, I think I figured it out." Buckle up buttercups.

We start with the promised family tree, and it is exactly as disturbing as you'd expect from a pantheon where the mother of all gods is a “mom-wife” to a real asshole that is sexually attracted to bacon. Old gods, new gods, incest, and lots of cold-blooded murder. Game of Thrones vibemaxxing much?? 

From there it's a full genealogy breakdown: who begat who, who cursed who, who banished who, and who is currently being sponsored. There is a mysterious third child in this family tree that nobody's paid much attention to until now, and once Kaina lays out the clues connecting a certain fan favorite character to the Scavenger storyline, Tyson does not so much agree as have his mind blown. We won't spoil who it is, so tune in to hear all the dirty details.

We also take a sad swing at the Geyrun murder mystery, still hopelessly unsolved after several books — and not for lack of clues. Plus, a full rundown on Apito, Hellik, Ysalte, Chachi, and a couple other notable deities as we head into the 12th floor.

All of the deep dive PowerPoints, including this one, will be linked below for anyone who wants to review the receipts at their leisure.

SPOILER WARNING: This episode contains spoilers for all currently released Dungeon Crawler Carl books, through book eight.

• Deep Dive PowerPoint Archive: https://drive.google.com/drive/u/2/folders/16PE1Rk3_ahu7zfkB5gt9NpnG2uM67dhJ
• Intro Music: Synthetic Prayer by JKN Music
• Fan Art: @goddess_of_fate on Discord | @avaryll.rain on Instagram
• Tune into future episodes on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts!
• Follow Kaina on TikTok @cosmerecat for more Cosmic Donut Holes content!
• Business email: [email protected]

TRIGGER WARNING: Sexual assault — this episode also touches on transphobia, antisemitism, gun violence.

After months of talking about it, we finally delivered the episode discussing cancel culture. Buzzword alert, don't get triggered. We start with a warm up question: name someone who got canceled and came all the way back versus someone who never did. The gap between those two answers says more about power and privilege than anything else.

Then it's rapid fire time with ten real cases and three answer choices: cancel, not cancel, or complicated. Cait Corrain faking reviews to sabotage rival authors. Kanye's antisemitism. Alex Jones and Sandy Hook. Kaepernick and the NFL's convenient cowardice. The Sydney Sweeney ad discourse. Conor McGregor headlining UFC after a civil sexual assault verdict. JK Rowling. 

From there, why any of this works on us: moral outrage addiction is a real researched dopamine hit, and social rejection lights up the same brain regions as physical pain. We get into tribalism, the Pew data showing Americans can't agree what cancel culture even means, and a 2024 study showing people's verdicts track their political team way harder than their stated values.

We draw the line between cancel culture and the quieter call-in version (Tyson's James Gunn example, old tweets resurfaced, he owned it, survived it), then ask the harder question: does canceling even work? Michael Jackson and R. Kelly's listenership went up after documentaries detailing abuse. Chris Brown just got a Grammy nomination. Verdict: it punches down way harder than it punches up.

We close in the literary space, drawing a hard line between book banning (dangerous, always) and the newer trend of accusing indie authors of using AI based on detection tools that flag real human writing constantly, tanking careers off an unappealable percentage score, which is especially rich given every major AI company is currently being sued for training on stolen books.

Comment your own cancel or not cancel verdicts. Fight amongst yourselves.

• Intro Music: Synthetic Prayer by JKN Music
• Fan Art: Samantha done by @lcleanforheichou on Reddit 
• Check out our sister Kari's art (and tattoo work!) on TikTok: @markari.ann
• Tune into future episodes on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts!
• Business email: [email protected]

Tyson is filming this one in from the field, with boots on ground at the Gaylord Hotel in Grapevine, Texas for QuakeCon's 30th anniversary, and Kaina's holding down the home base for a very special episode: why do we actually love gaming?

We start with a trip down core memory lane. The twelve hour Minecraft marathon that counts as the start of Kaina’s obsession. The Wii era. City of Heroes back when Atlas Park was basically a hangout spot and nobody had jobs to get to. Half-Life and Left 4 Dead. Tyson's Apple IIe childhood running Oregon Trail and Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego on five and a half inch floppy discs, because if it wasn't educational, it wasn't allowed in our cult childhood. And obviously, the sacred memory of getting absolutely destroyed by Tyson playing Princess Peach in Super Smash Bros after talking so much smack about her.

Following that, we get into the actual why. For Tyson, gaming was survival math and a safe place to land in the post cult years, and also somehow the thing that made him better at real life along the way. For Kaina, it's the same reason she loves fiction: life is a lot, escapism is necessary, and a good open world game is basically a book you get to live inside. And since these two don't get to see each other often, slaying hordes of evil together has become an avenue of quality time and staying close over distance. 

Current rotation talk: an extremely detailed Vermintide 1 vs. Vermintide 2 breakdown (methodical tactical slaughter vs. chaotic satisfying slaughter but with incredibly amazing voice lines either way), Tyson's 683 soul crushing hours in Rocket League, the Baldur's Gate 3 run that's been stuck in Act One since the podcast started, and Kaina's nightly Red Dead Online ritual of riding her horse around while collecting wildflowers and listening to one of her lil audiobooks. 

And then there's QuakeCon itself, which sounds amazing in every way. A cat room and a dog room both run by local rescues. An atrium that looks like Jurassic Park. Real life Rocket League with remote control cars. Multiple new games discovered mid convention including an RV survival sandbox where someone fell off a bridge and died (RIP Nick) and Windrose, which Tyson describes as Valheim except everyone's a pirate, which led directly to drinking loads of rum so he and friends could "properly" play it.

We close out hyping the games on the horizon: the new God of War Laufey (and the exact kind of guys mad that it centers a woman's story), Witcher 4, 1666 Amsterdam, Dragon Twin, and the Fable reboot. Plus a very real plan brewing to livestream a Vermindtide gaming session as its own episode, so keep an eye out for that.

Comment your gaming origin story below. We want to know what got you hooked and why you love the hobby.

Note: This episode is a candid, humorous exploration of intimate media and cultural attitudes. Viewer discretion is advised for explicit language and mature themes.

• Intro Music: Synthetic Prayer by JKN Music
• Tune into future episodes on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts!
• Follow Kaina on TikTok @cosmerecat for more Cosmic Donut Holes content!
• Business email: [email protected]

The Ballad of Falling Dragons picks up everything we loved about the first book and then turns the emotional dial up all the way. Kaina ugly cried multiple times, and Tyson maintains that all of his crying was quite beautiful. In this episode, we dig into all the dirty details about the series that is now one of our god-tier romantasy reads, despite being unfinished.

Book Two of the Moonfall series (and fall they did) is an action-packed wrecking ball with no brakes and no mercy, and we are equally feral about the spice as we are about the uniquely beautiful writing style of Sarah A. Parker. We spiral through the reveals that broke us, the theories we're clinging to for dear life, and the questions that are going to haunt us until the trilogy completes…which, given Sarah A. Parker's timeline, may be a while. Which is just totally, absolutely, FINE. Not like it’s gonna consume our every waking thought until then.

Also: why Tyson has a bone to pick with the Fate Herder's name, the silver ribbon theory that might connect more characters than we initially thought, whether Grimm and Ahra are gonna come through to save one of our favs, Rave's journey through icy trauma, and the devastating realization that Essie's butterman loaf involves way too much work and we just simply do not have the range.

Rule numero uno going into book three: NEVER assume anyone is dead ever again. 

• Intro Music: Synthetic Prayer by JKN Music
• Fan Art Spotlight: @redmurphy.art & @ekilateral.art 
• Tune into future episodes on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts! 
• Follow Kaina on TikTok @cosmerecat for more Cosmic Donut Holes content!
• Business email: [email protected]

⚠️ FULL SPOILER WARNING: All eight books, plus kinda sorta REALLY major spoilers for Mistborn Era 1 and The Stormlight Archive at around minutes 24-25. Cascadia voice — Sorry bout that. 

YO! DADDY! What the actual frick frack snick snack did that coming out party mean?! 

A Parade of Horribles contained a significant lore dump about the true nature of the dungeon, primals, and the history of the universe more than any other book thus far. In this episode, Kaina & Tyso walk through all of it: what happened to the primals, what the macro AIs actually are, The Eulogist, The Apothecary, and more. From there we get into the current state of Daddy Primal — what it controls, what it can't control (the gods…for now), as well as what the out-of-dungeon version of the nine-tier attack (I REPEAT, THE OUT OF DUNGEON VERSION) is already doing to the broader galaxy. Kaina also breaks down her casual crack theories about Lamashtu the donkey as a metaphor, the nature of subjugation, and what the Ascendancy winner will be able to do…to which Tyson responds, “So the prize is a quarter-powered donkey? Congrats.”

Then, we touch on the Outside Intelligences — macro AIs assumed to be dead by the Mantids that yeeted them into stars. Speaking of…those weird bugs deserved everything they got. Some of these OIs are already on the playing field and vying for the Ascendancy, and Tyson has a rather curious theory about who they might be (if we’ve even met them yet). As we close, Kaina shares a theory that’s been living in her brain rent-free. It revolves around the myth of Scolopendra, another of its kind, and what it might mean that Carl is a primal in a story where a primal AI is carrying out the nine-tier attack on the universe. And for the record, Tyson has now been fully converted on the importance of Carl's primal race. 

• Intro Music: Synthetic Prayer by JKN Music
• 🎨 Donut fan art (slides) from the Dungeon Crawler Carl Wiki 
• Tune into future episodes on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts! 
• Follow Kaina on TikTok @cosmerecat for more Cosmic Donut Holes content!
• Business email: [email protected]

We're alive!! Welcome back to Cosmic Donut Holes.

It's been a few weeks since we've recorded, and since then, Kokaina moved to a new city, went to Puerto Rico for a birthday, survived a wedding weekend, and is now back to cosplaying as a sourdough baker that totally has their life together. Tyso fell hopelessly in love, went clubbing more than a few times, ate fried cheese, and received the most adorable coke spoon in a mystery vending machine box.

We catch up on all of it — Tyso's new relationship and the balboa dancing origin story, the Berlin club experience that has no American equivalent, Kaina's first (sort of) international trip and Puerto Rico's ongoing water crisis that nobody in the US is talking about, the upcoming family reunion, festival plans, and the absolute nightmare that is moving across states. Also, we touch briefly on our ongoing TBR crisis, roller skating, and tent soup.

This one is all over the place. Enjoy our chaotic lives as ✨content ✨ and our regular programming shall resume soon! 

• Intro Music: Synthetic Prayer by JKN Music
• DCC Fan Art: Joe Schlottach
• Tune into future episodes on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts! 
• Follow Kaina on TikTok @cosmerecat for more Cosmic Donut Holes content!
• Business email: [email protected]

After realizing a single deep dive into book 8 would’ve been approximately 8 hours long, we decided to turn this into a series — because too much happened in A Parade of Horribles to cover in one sitting, and we refuse to half-ass this.

Vol. 1 is crawler character arcs. We start with Donut's two prophecies, digging into her motherhood arc, the cost of her insane level of power, as well as what her title (Champion of Nekhebit, Harbinger of Doom, Assassin of the Great and Feral Sekhmet) is setting up for the 12th floor. Then Carl: the five-sided coin, the tree-and-abyss prophecy, his dark side getting harder to keep in check as the pressure builds, the Bedlam Bride still lurking, and his primal race — is it just a label or does it actually mean something in the context of what we now know about Primals?

From there we move through the remaining 12th floor crew: Ellie's four seasons build finally coming online, Imani's reason to survive now more than ever and whether that makes her more or less likely to make it out, Pony's incredible arc and his Midnight Epicure connection, Florin's possibly sentient shotgun, and the ticking time bomb that is Lucia. Over in Sheol, we check in on Louis — including a Matt Dinniman interview answer that reframes how you read him entirely — werewolf Chris, and Britney, whose worsening condition and cryptic message to Carl have us very suspicious. We also touch on the Pineapple Cabaret crew and Katia at the Kinder facility, who is still very much on our minds. 

And then Sexy Scolopendra, of course. We both arrived at a fun theory before the episode even started, and it means Carl will probably fuck a centipede. Plus her paramour biscuit stats, class potential, and what the Donut dynamic is going to look like…mortal enemies, or girl besties?

Vol. 2 + more are coming. The AI deserves its own episode after “coming out”, and Kaina is going to have a whole god family tree diagram for us to unpack very soon. Stay tuned, Donut Holes!

⚠️ FULL SPOILER WARNING: Everything. All eight books. Every death, every lore reveal, every prophecy. If you're not caught up, go read and come back. We'll be here.

• Intro Music: Synthetic Prayer by JKN Music
• 🎨Fan Art: @the.doodlemancer on TikTok | KatiBeast on Reddit
• 🎨 All slide fan art from the Dungeon Crawler Carl Wiki except the Scolopendra art by high_stream on Reddit
• Kaina’s Samantha shirt: https://www.highart-apparel.com/ 
• TikTok shoutouts: @valgoworth (Beatrice theory) & @dis_pat (Scavenger’s Daughter theory)
• Tune into future episodes on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts! 
• Follow Kaina on TikTok @cosmerecat for more Cosmic Donut Holes content!

Business email: [email protected]

We have opinions about conspiracy theories, and Tyson wore his Illuminati shirt for the occasion. 

This week, we are running through a stack of conspiracy theories — mainstream, weird, plausible, and deeply unhinged — and rating each one on a scale of Nah, Hmm, Actually Though, and I Need to Lie Down. With a special bonus category Tyson invented on the spot: I Just Really Want This to Be True. Before we get into the bingo, we spend some time on the bigger question of why conspiracy theories are so compelling in the first place. Having grown up inside a high-control religious group, we recognize the machinery of them more than most. The need to feel like you have special knowledge nobody else does. The us-versus-them certainty. The way any evidence against the theory somehow becomes proof of how deep it goes. These are familiar concepts, and they make us both more skeptical and more curious than the average person. 

Then we get into it. The Simpsons predicting the future. The moon landing (hell nah…just stop). The JFK assassination…although Umbrella Academy did clear that one up. 9/11 as an inside job. Chemtrails, which turns out to be more documented than Kaina expected. The Illuminati, the lizard people, and Denver International Airport, which we both agree, leaned into it brilliantly. Government alien cover-ups and the congressional hearings that made this one significantly less fringe. COVID19 and vaccines. 5G towers, which Tyson dismantles completely and correctly using electromagnetic wave science so we can all sleep better at night. Epstein didn't kill himself (obviously). The Wayfair furniture listings and how Jeffrey Epstein’s emails give it more weight. Birds aren't real. Chuck E. Cheese pizza. Zuckerberg as a lizard person (compelling evidence: his face).

We close with the ones that stopped being conspiracy theories because they turned out to be true: COINTELPRO, MKUltra, Operation Mockingbird, the tobacco industry's cancer cover-up, and Purdue Pharma's very intentional opioid crisis. The pattern we keep coming back to: the theories that turn out to be true almost always involve money and power protecting themselves. The ones that don't tend to require increasingly elaborate explanations for why there's no evidence.

Moral of the story: never let your certainty get too strong. Approach everything with curiosity, not your self-righteous ego. Mainstream media is failing us and a lot of what fills the gap is garbage, but some of it isn't. And just remember folks, if the government could – they would, and they probably are.

Comment your favorite conspiracy theories below. We want to know.

⚠️ CONTENT NOTE/TW: This episode contains discussion of child abuse networks and related conspiracy theories. 

• Intro Music: Synthetic Prayer by JKN Music
• Fan Art: Willow Roxas | Ekath Art
• Tune into future episodes on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts! 
• Follow Kaina on TikTok @cosmerecat for more Cosmic Donut Holes content!
• Business email: [email protected]

Picture this: a 15-year-old girl walks into a high school cafeteria for the first time, sees everyone already deep in their friend groups, and quietly takes her lunch to the bathroom instead. That girl was Kaina. And yes, we're blaming homeschooling…at least partially.

This week we're doing something we've never actually sat down and done before: comparing notes on what our homeschooling experiences were really like, why they were so wildly different from each other, and what the long tail of that looks like 10-15 years later. Tyson had engaged parents, a solid curriculum, science kits, Lincoln Logs, and regular homeschool co-op meetups. Kaina had a computer, unsupervised hours, and quickly discovered that if you get about 80% of the answers right, nobody notices you cheated. The gap between those two outcomes tells you almost everything you need to know about what homeschooling actually is: a mirror of whoever's running it.

We get into the cult years: how joining a high-control religious group at young ages respectively transformed homeschooling from an educational choice into an instrument of sheltering. The books disappeared, music had to be pre-approved, birthday parties were a hard no. We also dig into why, despite all of that, Kaina still wants to homeschool her own kids someday, and what doing it “right” would actually require. Then we turn to the public school system, which is not exactly offering a compelling alternative right now. We cover the data: 30% of 12th graders who can't demonstrate basic reading proficiency, teacher burnout at record highs, seven hours a month lost to behavioral management instead of instruction, a dwindling Department of Education that is becoming a political weapon. Neither option is clean. So what do you actually do?

Moral of the story: both options kind of suck in different ways. But intentional parenting is the variable that matters most in either one. Do your research, unpack your own stuff before you pass it to your kids, and for the love of everything — tell them why.

⚠️ CONTENT NOTE: This episode contains candid discussion of growing up in a high-control religious group, disordered eating, and the long-term effects of sheltered upbringings. Discussed openly and honestly, not gratuitously.

📚 RESOURCES MENTIONED:

• Barbara Oakley: Learning How to Learn
• StarTalk Podcast with Neil deGrasse Tyson (fluid dynamics / parenting bit)
• Intro Music: Synthetic Prayer by JKN Music
• Fan Art: Dominik Broniek | Steve Argyle
• Tune into future episodes on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts! 
• Follow Kaina on TikTok @cosmerecat for more Cosmic Donut Holes content!
• Business email: [email protected]

⚠️ FULL SPOILER WARNING: If you haven't finished Book 8: A Parade of Horribles, SCRAM. SKERDADDLE. We’ll see you after you've recovered.

Still here? Good….NOW WTF WAS THAT?!

After the early access version Dungeon Crawler Carl Book VIII on Matt Dinniman's Patreon left us reeling, we decided to open up the recording studio, pull up our Kindle highlights, and just…ramble at each other in a state of delirious awe for an hour while we recount all the best (and craziest) moments. This is not our deep, intelligent, fully theorized breakdown — that one is coming — this is the book hangover episode. The "wait, I forgot THAT happened?!" episode. The "oh god, thanks for reminding us this is a tragedy Matt” episode.

We cover the chaos from Donut absolutely dismantling Chandra in chapter one (she will never recover), to the Scolopendra twist that had us screaming at our Kindles, to the glorious ending that was classic Carl & Donut. We dig into the Eris coin and why Mordecai's prophecies have us stressed, revisit Dong and Corcunda's final charge (RIP), mourn the group getting smaller, make fun of the Maestro, try and mostly fail to pronounce Chachi's full name, and spiral into the early workings of theories for the next two books. 

We also shout out the Soundbooth Theater Audio Immersion Tunnel experience for anyone who thinks the regular audiobooks can't be topped (they can, go listen), remember why the karaoke bar fight scene is peak DCC, and make our best guesses about what the Ascendancy Battles on Floor 12 are going to look like.

Also, don't pirate Matt's books, you absolute jerks. His Patreon link is below — give the man his well deserved coins.

SPOILER WARNING: All the spoilers. Every single one. For all eight books.

• Matt Dinniman's Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/dinniman
• Intro Music: Synthetic Prayer by JKN Music
• Fan Art: phantom_nisnow on Instagram (DCC) & Andrew Mar (DCC)
• Tune into future episodes on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts! 
• Follow Kaina on TikTok @cosmerecat for more Cosmic Donut Holes content!
• Business email: [email protected]

Note: This episode is a candid, humorous exploration of storytelling, pop culture, and two people attempting accents they have no business attempting. Viewer discretion is advised for explicit language, mature themes, and crimes against the Russian language.