S1E21 - Insert Funny Title Here

All right. Hello and welcome to behind the Locked Doors, a self motivation trick that we've just dressed up and put on an RSS feed. I am Scott Paladin.

I am Sam Stark.

I'm Jack.

All right. And as always, we're going to check in on our projects. I am. I'm working on my horny werewolf project, which is in the sort of the horny zone right now.

And you have been doing the fucking work. We've been seeing it pop up in the discord.

Yeah, I'm. It's one of those things, like sometimes you're like 15,000 words into a thing and then you make up lore that you should have done before you started and you're like, well, at least it exists now.

Yeah, well, and because you're not like releasing as you go, you can go back and feed that stuff back in later.

Yeah, I have the. I have the luxury and curse of being able to like sit there and revise and make things good or. And unfortunately that aims at the. Like, perfection is the enemy of done. So I'm. Yeah, I'm. I've made some progress. You guys have seen some of what I've posted in the Wolf Den and I made a big ass relationship diagram of all of the characters. Yeah, you made the shipping chart.

Thank God.

Yeah. Yeah. So that's my progress. I don't think you guys had any goals for yourselves this week, the last two weeks, right?

We did. Yeah. We didn't set really any goals because I didn't think that we were going to do anything. But I did actually sit down and. But Big Giant. But I did sit down and write just some kind of skeletal things for the first episode because I realized that if I didn't actually start putting it somewhere that it was always going to be this sort of floaty, weird idea that didn't have any structure to it.

Yeah.

And so I just threw some stuff on a piece of paper and it got my brain a little more focused on specific things because I guess now I'm at the point where I just really want to nail down the. Oh my gosh, help me with words, guys. The relationship, the actual tone of the characters. And for some reason I started it out with as being the complete straight man. Just like. Absolutely. Like we have a thing we need to do. What the fuck are you doing? And I don't know why, but west is just ADHD brain. He doesn't even have adhd, so I don't know what's happening.

No, he's a Muppet man. I think we talked about this a little bit. Yeah, he is so, like, it's. I think it's good and fun if west kind of starts out as a Muppet man, so that when he, like, locks in and gets serious later on, it's like a really stark contrast to the way that he was in the beginning. I think that's gonna work out just fine.

Yeah. Yeah, that can totally work. Where you, like, you know, it gets serious when the silly person gets serious.

Exactly.

Right.

Yeah.

And we did a little bit of talking.

I don't think that that.

Go on, Sam.

Sorry. You're fine. I don't think, though, just wanted to say real quick, I don't think that's going to mean that Az is going to switch to the Muppet man later. So we're not gonna do that.

I mean, they're both gonna have Muppet moments at least.

Oh, yeah. Muppet moment. Muppet moment.

There's a amount of single brain cell energy between the two of them.

Yes. Yes, absolutely. I'm sorry, Jack, what were you saying?

No, it's good. I was gonna say we also talked a little bit about the reveal that needs to happen later about as finding out that west was the one who cut him out of the fallen engine and how we were trying to figure out how far ahead of that time west realizes who Azariah is. Because I was thinking, like, well, okay, if you're a paramedic and you rescue someone who's unconscious and you don't really speak to them, and then you see them In a Starbucks 10 years later, you're not gonna who they were. So I think it makes sense for west to.

Not necessarily.

Yeah. So, like, it makes sense for me that he doesn't remember that this guy. And also, as probably looked and sounded different at that time on account of the transgenderism.

Yeah, totally different.

So, yeah, I think it makes total sense. They don't.

And also. Yeah. And west took. I mean, maybe not hundreds, but probably dozens.

Hundred.

Ish people. Yeah. Out of those things. And so it'd be really. It'd be kind of incredible if he remembered, actually. Remember. So that's another thing that we're gonna have to do is I'm gonna have to. We're gonna have to put together something that, like, makes it absolutely undeniable that, yeah, this is one of the people that he took out of those things. So we're probably. We're probably gonna. I don't know, we're probably gonna have to find some records or we're gonna have to, like, see some sort. Because as can have the scar on the back of his neck. And we already know that he was a part of that. Like, that's the thing. But we don't. We don't. We're not. We don't know that west is the physical person who took him out of the thing. So it's like we're gonna need some sort of documentation or some sort of visual, something that's gonna be like. West is just gonna be like, oh, oh. Oh, shit.

Oh, shit.

Yeah, I mean, like the other.

I was gonna say. And this is. Obviously, this isn't my project, so I'm speaking out of place, but, like, we want your idea.

Literally, the point of this podcast is.

For you to tell us. Do it. Do it.

I was just saying I love the idea of an audio of a past audio log from west during that time, like doing a visual. I'm thinking about the medical examiner reports where you have the person taking dictation or whatever. And do you actually see that moment? You could actually put it on screen that way. Because an audio log is going to be the same as.

One of the things that I was thinking and I wanted to run this by you guys, is spoilers. Yeah, Big spoilers.

The show is all stuff that hasn't come up.

What the show is.

It's all spoilers.

So I've already casted in my head basically everybody for this show.

Oh, yeah.

Unless people that just crop up. I'll be like, jack, do you have.

Somebody for this person?

Anyway, one of the very, very important characters is going to be this Preservation soldier. I think we decided he needs to be some sort of higher sergeant. Anyway. He's the sergeant that sort of shows up in the very first episode, and he's on vacation and he sees them and he's just. Basically, he's gonna be the guy that's chasing them the whole show. Oh, cool. He's going to be very pivotal because he's going to change his alliances kind of towards the end. So he's going to be that classic Star wars bad guy. That's not really a bad guy.

Joshua Good comes quick.

He's gonna be played. Yeah, he's gonna be played by Michael Fremantle, and he's basically just gonna be Val from In Better Light, but with a British accent. But I had this idea that he is going to get a little obsessed with the things that are happening. And when he finds out what's going on with Hypatia. Yeah, he's gonna. Cause he's very this Charact loyal. He's very like. He's very much like the Preservation Soldier. He's, you know, but he's a good guy. So when he finds out that the, you know, the terrible corporation that he's working for is very evil, he's like, ah, everything I know. Exactly. And so I was thinking that it would be really interesting to have a lot of the things that are happening, the big, huge twists that are going to happen with, as in Wes storyline may be seen for the audience through him. Oh, that's because he's gonna have all the information that west and as really want, because he is Preservation.

Yeah, yeah.

So he could have all those documents, he could have those video logs, and he's just doing research on the people that he's chasing. And he comes across the. So the audience could actually know before Azen west does about the whole thing.

So in that case, is he a POV character or is he bringing this information to.

Yes, he will be a po. He's gonna have his own episodes.

Okay, cool.

And so he's gonna have like an episode where he's gonna get his mission and he's gonna. And he has a little bot, like in. Is it Portal?

No, it's the Destiny bot.

You're playing Destiny. That's the game. Yeah, it's like the Destiny bot, like the Peter Dinklage bot. And. And the bot's really sassy. And the bot is also gonna be sort of like a compass, like a moral compass, even though it's a bot. And I love when you can humanize robots.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

So that has to be in my podcast. But I'm not saying that I want him to be the view that the audience sees the whole time.

Sure.

It would just be really cool for him to stumble. Cause it just makes sense for him to have all of that documentation. It makes for him to see it and find it. And then that is a way that Azen west could get their hands on it at some point. But that is still in the very, very beginning stages of things. And I have to, like. I have to, like, put things on paper and have to, like, actually do it.

There's a thing where. This is the thing I've been thinking a lot about in with my project too, where it's like, I call it collapsing the waveform. Where you have ideas in your head and you have, ooh, if I did this, then it has all these other implementations, and that's a cool idea. And I could do this and this and this. But if I did this other idea, well, that's also cool for different reasons because it would allow me to do other things. But until you write it, until you make a decision between what the actual form it comes out in, you get the very self indulgent thing of getting to play in all of that space mentally. And unfortunately, at certain points, you just have to collapse the waveform and you have to just say, no, I don't get to live in the space where all of these things could be true. I need to just make a decision. And keeping in mind, of course, you can always unmake a decision later if it's not working. Unless you've built it into the bones. I mean, nothing until you release it. Everything's up in the air. So, like, there's something really valuable about, like we talk about, you know, like when you're just sitting around thinking about an idea that, like, that is work and you gotta do that. That's a kind of writing. But at some point, yeah, you just have to put something on paper in order to, like, make it real enough that then you can make further conclusions about it and make other, you know, start choosing those paths. So for sure, writing just like, even if it's not like a draft, it's just like, I'm gonna write a thing, some of these ideas on paper and make them real. There's a thing where Adam Savage talks about coming to these kinds of decisions in the artistic process, where you're like, the thing he talks about is a sculpture. And he's like, I don't know what to paint this sculpture. It's a thing. It needs to be a color. I don't know what color it should be. And he's like, okay. So the thought process becomes, what is the worst possible thing I could paint it? Like, what is the obvious?

The bad color, Wrong decision.

Okay, it'll be yellow and purple candy stripes, right? And then you do that, you paint it that way, and then that helps you concrete be like, oh, no, now I understand now that I've done the wrong version of it. So even if you choose wrong, even if you choose wrong deliberately, it can also help with figuring out, like, what your actual answer is and stuff.

Yeah, yeah, no, that makes sense. I do that a lot with dialogue. I'll have two or three ways that I want a conversation to go, and I'll have all of them really, really structured in my brain. And then when I write them, I have to start making decisions as the dialogue progresses. And I've had a lot of instances where I have like, two or three ways that I want it to go in my head. And when I finally get it on paper and I start axing stuff, I end up with none what I had in my head. So it has to be organic for me.

People talk all the time about how, like, you put the characters on the page and then they just kind of get away from you.

Yeah, they just do stuff.

Absolutely. Yeah.

That's real.

That absolutely happens. Yeah. The thing I'm. I don't know if struggling is the right word. I keep thinking to myself, I wish I had put more points into witty character dialogue and my character build for myself because I keep like, I am. I don't know that I'm a particularly dry writer, but I definitely don't have, like. I tend to write very self serious stuff. And I. But I'm like, I'm trying to make a thing that's not that. I want characters to be like, fun and flirty and stuff. And I'm like, it's not something I'm good at, like, naturally. So I find myself, like, staring at the, like, character name, but there's no dialogue written yet. Thing in, fade in. And I'm just like, okay, be funny. I need you to be funny now. Okay, Brain, make a thing that's funny. Okay. Can I. I need this character to set up the next character to be funny. And, like, it's like the tone's all wrong. Like, brain's just like sitting there, like, pressing my fingers in my forehead, being like, okay, let's do this.

Yeah, funny.

Yeah.

In the book that I published, was it. Oh, my God, is it two years ago now? I don't remember. I discovered when I was writing it that I am very good at text conversations. I didn't know that that was a thing that somebody could be good at writing. And then I was like, oh, wait, this is funny. And then I showed it to my partner and he was like, oh, my God, this is really funny. And then when I had beta readers read it, they were like, the text conversations are so funny. And I was like, wow, hidden talent.

Who knew? Okay, well, I know, Scott, we've talked about for you before, like, consuming medias that have, like, witty banter and like, flirty dialogue in them. And I still think we need to watch Farscape. I'm still of the opinion that we should sit down and watch Farscape.

Probably. I. Yeah, I just. I know that I can't do it unless I have, like, an assignment for it.

Oh, my God.

I don't have the Room in my life.

I gotta Farscape rewatch files. I gotta. I gotta assign you like Farscape Machete order or something. Just the horny episodes only.

Just the horny.

It could be like a segment. It could be like a segment of this show. Be like. Okay, let's talk about our projects.

All right.

Ten minutes for Farscape.

Go. What was the assignment for this week for Scott's machete order? Farscape walk.

Oh yeah.

Okay. This was the episode where the ship got some sort of like aphrodisiac gas released into it and all the characters are trying to fuck while they're also trying to repair the ship. This is real things that happen in Farscape. I'm not making this up.

Like that sounds right. Okay, can I ask Yalls opinion about a completely separate project?

Yes, of course.

So I've already. I've got all the uploads for let's Get Weird about. They're all queued the rest of the season, which is only two more episodes. It's Jack and me talking for three hours about Starship Troopers and then me and my wife talking about wolves. So I'm already thinking about season four. And the problem with season four is that I have a mild obsession with the weird stuff that happens on the Internet. Like the strange art that bubbles to the surface when you let a bunch of weirdos onto a DeviantArt website and stuff.

Yeah.

And so I cannot get out of my brain that I really want to cover shit like the Zootopia abortion comic. Oh my God, the Mo cislack. I can fix some suicidal ideation comic that is animated and amazing. Weirdly, I don't understand. I just need an opportunity to wrap my brain around these things. But it feels mean to be like. Not mean, but it feels weird to be like, okay, who wants to read the most dyslexic ideation comic with me?

Or like, who wants to watch? Who wants to watch like five or six of those? Like Jane from Tarzan and Captain Amelia from Treasure Planet kissing each other on the mouth that somebody lovingly made and put on YouTube?

Yeah, that's another one. The other one is like Lasagna Cat, which is like. That's a slog because I think it's got like one 12 hour video in it, for example.

Oh my God.

Something like that.

So I don't know. And then like there would. That also gives up the opportunity to talk about like just cool shit. That's like unequivocally cool. Like kill 6 billion demons or something like that or other good web comics or something. So I'm willing to take initial thoughts. Just like your initial reaction to the idea. If you're both like, eh, I don't care, then I'm down for okay, that's just me being weird.

Well, I think you'd have to find the right other person to discuss with, because I bet there's someone out there who is leaping up and down in their seat like, oh, my God, I want to talk about the Zootopia abortion comic so bad. You know what I mean?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's about finding the right people. Yes.

Another thing that might be interesting is I bet that there are others like myself who have maybe watched one or two of those things or maybe seen one and liked one of them or saw a single panel thing or whatever are familiar with. Yeah, exactly. Familiar with some of them very intimately. And then others you're like, meh, but what if you did an episode of like a Round Table? What if you had several people? I know it's a little bit harder to control and like, but people do it all the time. They have podcasts where they have like five people. And if you keep the conversation kind of controlled, you could have four or five people talk about it and then you can cover more things. Because again, I bet there's people like me who have definitely watched the Lasagna Cat and have watched the crazy Zootopia abortion, but haven't watched other stuff. Yeah.

One thing that I would be doing in this idea is it would be much more like, here is a description of what this thing is so that you do not need to go looking for it if you don't want to see it. Much more of a. A journalistic rundown of what this thing is and where it sits in society. Like the fact that the Zootopia abortion comic gets remixed all the time into memes and stuff. A discussion of that kind of stuff. So it might be. That might also be the angle. This is, I hate to say journalistic, but maybe more journalistic of a sense of like, here is.

Dude, dude. No, that's book talk, man. That's like, I read the Fourth Wing so you don't have to. That's like what they do. I freaking love book talk. I can go onto YouTube and learn about a book that I don't really have time or really the desire to read, and then I know all about it.

Yeah. It gives you the context so that when you see the things, you're like, oh, this is what this actually is.

Yeah. Especially if A bunch of people are talking about it online or in your social circles or whatever, and you're going, I know I'm not going to enjoy the experience of consuming this piece of media, but I do want to know what the hell all my friends are talking about. You know what I mean?

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Same thing. I know that, like, some of that's already been covered. There's people who've done amazing videos about like, Maya Mortal and stuff, which again, another kind of outsider art.

Yeah.

Okay, cool. Yeah, that gives me. That concretes my thoughts a little bit, that I definitely think that treating it like a journalistic enterprise of like, okay, this is not about, like, you guys have already seen this thing. It's more like, here's. Let's us talk about it so that you can. You don't have to go looking for it if you don't want to.

Yeah. So you don't have to.

We are gonna have a whole season subtitled, so you don't have to.

The problem. Okay, I'm sorry, but unfortunately the phrase so you don't have to is too tied to Doug Walker and the fucking trash fire that his Channel awesome to me, I can't break that association in my head.

Oh, that's totally fair.

Yeah.

I just think of Book talk.

Yeah. I mean, like, that was a weird hell. You could almost. I mean, there actually have been people who've covered that one, but you could almost cover a bunch of that shit too because, like, Channel awesome was so formative for, like, later YouTube Internet, and yet also is like a terrible trash fire in and of itself. That's really fascinating because, like, it's the place where, like, half of the, like, alt right atheist people came from. And then also Lindsay Ellis and Kyle Kallgren and like a bunch of like, bread two people. It's crazy interesting.

I have actually not heard of this.

Yeah, it was that guy with the glasses.com and it was like the Nostalgia Critic. That was his main draw. And then he started hiring a bunch of people to be on his website. It was very strange. It's an interesting breakdown that would take a very long time to go through down to. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't have time now.

We're not doing this right now.

We're not doing this. Okay, so we've. We've talked about our projects and we talked about other shit now too. Let's set our plans for the next two weeks. Again, we're veering a little bit away from the word goals, but what's our target?

Yeah, Just our general plan. So, first off, I want to say I will be out of town until the end of this month, starting from the end of this week. So I won't be available to record two weeks from now, and I will also be traveling.

Yeah, that's fine. Sam, you and I, we can talk maybe the week after next. And if we feel like we're gonna meet or not, you know, like, if we have a lot to talk about, then we'll just catch in. Otherwise, we'll be without again. You guys need to do one without me. Like, I've done one. I've done these episodes with each of you.

We need to kick Scott out for one of these.

Yeah. Yeah.

Well, probably in the next couple months will be a really good time because we have to do a whole bunch of discussion about Knives and West.

Oh, yeah, sure. Might as well record it if you guys want. Yeah, if you. If you want to make, like, logs like that, where you just, like, jump on and start recording and then send me the files and be like, you know, edit this and send it out, then that's totally cool, too. Yeah, absolutely cool.

That would be awesome.

Yeah. Yeah.

Because I kind of wish. Oh, fuck. I kind of wish we had recorded the discussion that we had with Mike. Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah. Well, I mean, we could always, like. We could always do one with us and Mike.

Yeah, exactly.

That would be. Yeah.

Cool.

I definitely am at the point where I can be setting goals for azenwest now. Yay. I.

Oh, could we lose Sam? They have Snake. Snake.

Snake.

Oh, no. We're always a bit scuffed.

He's, like, frozen, like, gazing off into the distance.

At least it's flattering. It's a very flattering image.

Yeah. Cause every time I get fucking frozen, I look like shit.

Wow. That was. That was ridiculous. All right, I'm recording again. I'm back in here. The fan is on. I'm sorry.

It's all good.

Let me see if I can. Let me see if I can pick up back up my train of thought. Okay, so what I was saying was. Yes, I am definitely in a position where I can set goals to finish Az and West things.

Yes.

So I'm going to. For two weeks from now, I'm gonna set. Wow. I'm gonna set a goal for two weeks from now that I will have a completed outline of the pilot. The first half of the pilot episode. Hell, yeah. Because it's probably not gonna have the dialogue that I want. It's probably not going to have all the bits and pieces and bobs and stuff like that. But I will have an outline for the first episode.

Cool.

I also really, really want to maybe for the two weeks after that. I know this is a lot in advance, but this is how I have to do my breakdown.

Please.

Whatever works. I might need to do another one of those breakdowns of the whole season. And maybe not episode by episode, but story arc.

Sure.

Cause if I don't think about where stuff is going, I'm just gonna go. And it's gonna go probably not where I want it to.

Sure.

That's what I'm gonna try and do. Cool.

And then, Jack, you're gonna be traveling, so I will be.

Not here.

That's your thing. You're traveling.

I will be driving to Baltimore is what I will be doing.

I am. I've got the section that I'm working on now, the sort of this little sexy fight scene thing that I'm doing.

I love your sexy. I'm gonna have that very sexy, sexy fight scene.

Okay, good. Yeah, I'm gonna. I'm gonna. That will be. That should be done in two weeks, that section. Which means I can start working on the rest of that episode in which I think I'm gonna get. We're gonna meet the fuck up properly, and he's gonna get his explanation, and then probably drug trip is where we're going with that. All right. So I'm just gonna keep chugging away. So I know I'm gonna have that one part done. I should have a certain amount of starting on the next section as well.

Okay. Which number episode is this for you?

I am. As things currently stand right now, they're on episode four of eight.

Okay, nice.

Nice.

Yeah. Yeah. So. But I kind of. I've reached the tipping point, knowing that when I. When I go back to do draft two, it's gonna be more restructuring than I currently. Than I previously thought. So that kind of stuff may all change around in the future. But currently, as it stands right now, I'm at four of eight.

And because you've been going in order, that means you have about half of your stuff on paper at this point, right?

Yeah. A little bit less. Yeah. A little bit less than half.

Okay, nice.

Because I'm a little bit less than halfway done with episode four.

Okay, Got it. Well, that's exciting.

Yeah, it's good. Yes, it's good. All right. Well, that is us. We will catch you all again in two weeks. Bye. Bye. Bye.

Bye.

Bye.

Thank you for joining us for behind the Locked Doors, a library of cursed knowledge production podcast thing. I don't know if you are interested in any of these projects. You can head over to Library Horse, which will eventually redirect to a webpage once I make it. You know, if you want to support the podcast, we do have a Patreon. It's patreon.com cursedknowledge See y'all next week. No, wait. See y'all in two weeks.