Thread by @jacobmercy

previously, on READY PLAYER TWO:

* Halliday made a headset that makes the OASIS feel real
* There's another easter egg hunt
* Wade has turned into a mix of Notch, Elon Musk, and Peter Thiel
* Art3mis broke up with him and is now being SUPER lame
* I have wine

FUCK

he got me! he fucking got me!

I love Sonic the Hedgehog! I like this book now!

if we get a reference to Ken Penders and Julie-Su I am going to delete this entire thread like Prospero breaking his staff in the classic 1623 Shakespeare play The Tempest

girls is nerds too, go on brush your shoulders off

things that still exist in the future of Ready Player Two:

* YouTube
* parasocial relationships

getting bored so I'm just gonna bullet point this hunt for the new easter egg:

* Dr. Who
* Studio Ghibli
* Tolkien
* The Legend of Billie Jean
* Ranma ½
* Tuff Turf
*Betamax
* "the 1995 film Hackers"
* Highlander
* Grease
* Rocky Horror
* Planet of the Apes

Wade is now eavesdropping on private conversations in the OASIS so I guess we need to add Mark Zuckerberg to the inspiration list

JESUS CHRIST WADE

JESUS CHRIST ERNEST

credit where credit is due again, did not see this coming

whew, that's more like it

new clue

is this a fun reference? I don't know if this is a fun reference. I've heard of the Smiths, they're okay, not a huge fan

okay they found the shard

this puzzle sucked, you have to go to Middle Earth world and lay a Simbelmynë on Kira's grave, then use the next clue to go back in time using a calendar that appears in Kira's teenage bedroom, then play the time duplicate of Kira's mix tape

maybe it's just nostalgia (irony alert) but I feel like the original book had way more coherent puzzles, I have no idea how the fuck you're supposed to get to that from this:

https://twitter.com/jacobmercy/status/1331046863848443904?s=20

c'mon ernest you're rich just hire someone to help you with these

here's another one I can get behind

Wade is having vivid ominous dreams about pushing the button that turns off the OASIS and also this, are we just going through a youtube playlist? what is HAPPENING

becoming increasingly mad at the people who implied this was fake, and also myself

Ogden Morrow is missing

Magnum P.I. was actually a fan of the Detroit Tigers ERNEST YOU FUCKING FAKE GEEK GIRL

LAZY WRITER ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: just giving up and saying a character (in real life) looks like a movie star

sure, why not

I am roughly one third of the way into this book

#ReadyPlayerTwo

oh shit! Faisal is actually Anorak, Halliday's OASIS avatar!

uh oh

this is one of those potentially interesting moments sadly undercut by the author's refusal to get out of his own goddamn way

also the Lawnmower Man was a lawnmower man who became evil, not an AI

hell yeah get his ass

I think I'm just excited because I thought Director Krennic was fun

READY PLAYER TWO CHALLENGE: try to figure out if this evil AI is intentionally unfunny or not

Anorak hacked the headsets so now they're trapped in the OASIS

had to look this up, now I'm going to be mad if jeff the killer and slenderman don't appear

UPDATE: actually Anorak has trapped EVERY OASIS user in the system and they're going to die from Gamer Overload if Wade doesn't find the other shards

curious to see if there are any consequences this happening on Wade's watch

okay I hate Anorak now

gif of dog cocking its head quizzically goes here

HEY! NO! DROP IT! ERNEST! NO! PUT THAT REFERENCE DOWN! THAT IS NOT A TOY! ERNEST? DROPPIT!

we are spending a LOT of time trying to see if there are any loopholes to Anorak's trap (there are not)

also ha ha I'm not a Star Trek fan, make all the references you want, I don't give a shit

sorry we trapped you inside the Facebook Matrix, have some Libra coins and some lies about what's happening and how you might straight up fucking die and sign this contract that releases us from legal liability, said the protagonist of the book

Since Art3mis isn't chipped in, Anorak was holding her hostage by taking over her robot plane. She solved this by just pulling the manual-release and parachuting out, which is kind of cool

of course then Anorak crashed the plane on her head, so she's definitely 100% dead forever

the environmentalism part of this story just sort of wanders in once every few chapters and picks fights with the narrative and then leaves and I find it mildly interesting but also confusing

HOLY SHIT ART3MIS IS ALIVE

it took literally only 600 words

Halliday-9000

is he gonna get back together with Art3mis?

dude I understood you the first time, you did not need to explain it again at considerable length

who the fuck is scraeming "this is just like sword art online" at my house. show yourself, coward. i will never watch sword art online

we have now gone from absolutely fucking inscrutable puzzles to "play this game, and win it"

and you thought deep fakes were bad

Wade is playing the video game

I am pleased to report that Wade has, 1800 words later, beaten the video game

YOU SICK BASTARD

apparently the Siren's Soul is an AI copy of Kira

@ashesforfoxes

I am roughly halfway through the book and calling it for tonight. Join me tomorrow for the thrilling conclusion, where we are apparently going to check out Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Home Alone, and the Vacation films

I am, to quote the song "Sucker For Pain" from the hit 2001 DC film Suicide Squad, apparently a sucker for pain:

https://twitter.com/jacobmercy/status/1331338616476299264?s=20

* 2016, typo