S2E8 - Crisis of Confluence

Hello and welcome to behind the Locked Doors, a thing where sometimes to get us on the air, we have to do janky ass shit. I am Scott Paladin. I am working on a horny werewolf audio drama called It Takes a Wolf.

Yeah, and I'm Jack and I'm working on Unspeakable Distance, a spinoff. Sorry, wow. I'm working on as in West, a spin off of Unspeakable Distance. Hi, I'm the one on the jank setup today. My Discord on my computer wouldn't connect to Scott no matter what I did. So I am speaking to Scott through my phone and recording myself through my laptop. So we'll see how that goes.

Yeah, and Discord wasn't Even the first VoIP solution we tried. Like two failed right. In a row. It's great.

Riverside wasn't doing it either.

So we'll, we'll start with our check ins, if you don't mind.

Would you go for sure.

Mine's my.

So I am currently working on drafting the second episode of Azan West. I got on the phone with Sam last week and we talked through what we wanted to do in the second episode and hammered out like what we wanted all to fit in there and kind of what order things were happening in. So we have a really good roadmap for this episode. I'm just drafting it now. I'm not super far ways into it, but I have a good idea of where I'm going.

Good. Cool. That's. That's better than me because my update is that I have.

Okay, let's talk about it. What's going on?

So while I was working, I'm working on or my assignment was to work on the flashback episode of episode seven where we go back and reveal some stuff. And while I was working on it, I remember I was thinking back onto old behind the Locked Doors episodes and I was like, oh yeah, like a year ago. I jumped ahead to work on this episode because I knew it was going to be difficult, right. And I failed to get any progress on it. I like, I did some stuff. I didn't like what I was doing. And the reason I was thinking about that is because I have just like struggled to get something together that I like, I've tried, I've started, I've had several jump starts. I've both switched back and forth between trying to do like found footage kind of stuff versus just straight, like have the characters talk to each other versions of things. And I just don't like anything that I am working on. Right now. And I have, I am, I am broaching to the point where I'm like, okay, how much of what I have thought I am going to do do I just throw out? And I'm almost to the point where I'm like, literally everything, like everything that's not on the page right now. I'm like, kind of ready to just ditch entirely and re. Approach this from like the. Just like literally like, what have I already written? Okay, that's the only thing that's canon. And then like, what should be here?

Sure. Sure.

Is the. Is now the question. And see, which we've, We've talked in the past about the phrase kill your darlings, which I don't personally don't like that phrase. That does it as a piece of advice because it. People take away from it what the kind of. The wrong thing a lot of the times. But what it is for situations like this where, like, you feel invested into an idea. You feel invested into it.

Right?

Yeah. And you, you have this sunk cost fallacy. Like, I've done all this work for it. It's got these things. And I like, genuinely, I do like a lot of these ideas, but if they're not working, they're not working.

Yeah. When you have like, an idea that you from the beginning have known that you wanted to do, and you're like, I really want to fit this in here. I'm going to cram it in. Even if it doesn't fit perfectly, sometimes you, like, get up to that point in the story and you go, it really doesn't fit in here. No matter how bad I want it to fit, it's not going to. But that doesn't mean that you have to, like, throw it out and never think about it ever again. Like, this is a thing that could be used in a different project. It could be used in this project in a different place, potentially.

Yeah, you're 100%. And like, in fact, in the, in the, in the points in the past where I have come across this particular, like these kinds of crisis moments, usually they're not this far into a project, but where you're like, okay, I just need to, I just need to throw this entirely out. A lot of times the stuff that you throw out creeps back in in other ways where it can fit. Like, even if you're like, really, like, consciously, like, I am done with this. So it really, I mean, like, if it's, if it's good ideas and they like. And they fit thematically, they will work their ways back in they don't have to be precious about it. But yeah, the, this is the point where I just have to like sit back and take a like 10,000 foot view and be like, okay, what do I actually have? And like what do I. Yeah. Want is another one of those big questions. Like, okay, so listeners, if you have been listening to this, you may have some vague idea of what like I had been planning. If you don't, that's fine, forget everything.

Throw that all out of your brain.

Because that's what I'm trying to do right now. Jack, you're actually one of the maybe three people in the world, I think, who's read all of what I've written.

Yeah. Or at least the vast majority of it. I don't know if I did. I read the most recent chapter you completed. I might not have with the sexy sword fight. I don't think I've read the sexy sword fight chapter.

Yeah, okay. There's not. Of the stuff I have, that's the one that I feel like I'm most likely to anyway. So the fact that you haven't, you haven't read that one is not a problem. Because what I am going to utilize your brain for right now is that you have read the thing and you're not me. So you don't have all this extra knowledge about all the stuff I was. I mean, you've heard, you talk about it, you've heard me talk about it and you've listened, you've. You've seen the, the stuff that I've written and stuff. But you're not like, you've read just the scripts as well. And so that's more, that's a greater majority of what you understand to be the project. So I want to, I want to use you as a check in point about what is there. Right. Like as a sort of broad point. So I feel like I've done a decent job bringing in some amount, a certain amount of the. Using the beast as a metaphor for like a version of masculinity. Right. And specifically that the narrator treats the beast in a very particular way. Right. When, when the narrator is talking about the beast, the beast is a like wild animal. Right. Like it's treated as like venal and.

And like the narrator is always saying things like I let the beast out, which sort of implicates a certain amount of like I'm holding this animal in check at all times.

Yeah, yeah. At various points, talking about like holding it by the scruff of the neck and stuff like that. And it's often described as, like, stalking.

Up and down and snarling in the background.

Yeah. Which gives. Okay, so I've got in there the idea that, like, the. The. The character has a perception of their own, of the beast. Right. And then when the beast comes out, when the beast is let out, that's not really what they're, like, what he's like at all. Like, he's actually incredibly restrained.

Yeah. So very tough skill.

Yeah. Which I. That's a. That's a deliberate thing that I've been doing. So I've got that in there and I'm now thinking about the. The playlist that I've got for that character has a whole bunch of fucking class warfare songs in it. And I think I don't have any of that in the circle.

Oh, okay.

Does that sound right? Does that. That. That tracks with what you've, like. I don't. I don't think there's a lot of class.

Not a colossal amount. I think you were hitting it a little bit in the, like, episode where he visits the brothel, but. Yeah, otherwise there's not like a whole ton of that at the forefront, from what I recall.

Okay. Okay, then that's something that I am currently missing, that I need to look for more ways to work into and this. And sort of like, backstory ideas. That's a place where that really could be the idea of, like, I'm just a guy in the system. Right. And that there are people with more power than me. Ah, geez. Okay, so sorry. I'm thinking about, like, the major themes and everything. Right. By the way, you don't have, like, a place to be. Right. Like, we're not. Okay, good. Yeah, I'm on. I'm technically on my lunch break, but I don't have any, like, meetings or anything.

Yeah, just. Just let's. Let's talk it out. I'm not. You're not. You're not rushing me. I'm not rushing you. Speak your mind.

So interesting. Okay, so the one a. A place where some of the themes that I have established and a greater understanding of gender dynamics in the real world don't match up is the idea that in a lot of ways the. I mean, I've set up that werewolves are not exactly an oppressed class, but they definitely are not treated super. They're not. They're not a, like, privileged class. Like, they're not treated like a. Like, like they're the ones in charge. If this was a more accurate one to one thematic mapping. Right. Then, like, werewolves would Run them. Which I don't, I don't want to do because a. That would require me fucking rewriting the entire goddamn script. Not going to do that. And I'm okay with the sort of looser ideas. Like a thing doesn't have to be a one to one.

Yeah.

Element. Right. Like, you don't have to say like this is what this character is, but you can say that like this character's relationship with this other element is emblematic of, you know, you know, a gender dynamic or a way somebody might think about their own gender stuff without werewolves being men is like a 100 true thing throughout the rest of the universe of the thing. So that's okay. Okay.

Well, and also there's like wiggle room within that because, you know, there are plenty of CIS men on the earth who are not in positions of privilege because of other intersecting factors. So it works fine. I think. I don't think you have to stress overly about that.

Yeah, well, and it's something to be conscious of when like. So the protagonist's relationship to. To their own werewolves, lycanthropy is. Is something that explores a gender dynamic thematically. However, other characters. Relationship to werewolves, to lycanthropy in general and the Canthropes in particular is not the same map. Like our character has a relationship to this idea. But. And that is. And that is coded in certain ways can be the. But like when another character talks about lycanthropy, they. It's a different mapping at that point. And that's. That's totally fine. Like that's, that's not an unreasonable thing. There will be a little bit of crossover. One thing I. I need to have is like, I do want to have the pillar, the female protect, you know, our sort of secondary female lead. I like the idea that she has an appreciation for what the, for the, for the werewolf, for the beast that the main character kind of doesn't. Right. And he gets to see her appreciation of the beast and it helps teach him a little bit about what is valuable about that as well. That's a, that's a gender dynamic. Right. Like, that's a thing about like having somebody else see you and see things about yourself that you don't necessarily like, but they appreciate it and you learn to appreciate it the same way. That is the same thing. But like the fact that all of the werewolves are, you know, or these are created weapons of war or whatever, I mean, that is. I guess that's got some stuff going on too. But like the Fact that our main villain or our main. The people who run the world are all vampires and very much not werewolves is not. Doesn't map perfectly there.

You're doing class, okay?

So I need. Not there. I'm doing class, and I haven't hit class enough. So class probably needs to be part. A bigger part of the backstory than I had previously thought. And so maybe. Maybe setting all of this in the war is a bad idea. Maybe this was a thing that the war happened. Right? And it's part of the general backstory, but it's not part of the particulars of why our main character is doing interesting where instead, it's some other grievance. I mean, truth be told, there's. There's something to be said for the simplicity of. I have established in. In Lore, although this doesn't happen, it's gonna always be changed. But I have established that, like, werewolves in particular, are the responsibility of the general. The main villain of the piece, he, like, funded the whole thing. He was the one in charge of the army at that point. And if our main character has a complicated relationship with their own lycanthropy, then, like, you did this to me. You made me into this monster. Is a pretty good motivating reason, I think, at least to start with.

Yeah, it can evolve from there, but it could start at, why did you do this to me?

It doesn't. Especially because I'm planning a moment coming up, and I feel fairly concrete about this idea. This does feel like it fits, which is that our protagonist has gone through this whole thing. We reveal that this whole plan has been like, he set this all up. He's the one who's been orchestrating everything, and now he's kind of, like, within grasp of, like, taking things, you know, he's like, you know, he's. He's already disrupted the Blackwoods a lot. He's, you know. You know, he's, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah. He's got this plan. He's, like, ready to act, to action on it, and. But when he meets. When he finally meets, meets, like, the real pillar, the person, you know, the changeling beyond her, her own projection of her, the way she presents, and they finally connect, and he goes, like, immediately ride or die on her. He's like, okay, you and me were done. And to the point where I want to make a clear thing of, like, okay, this other thing. I'm done. I. I had this plan. I'm ready to throw it all away. I want to do what you want to do. And so her giving him a different appreciation of how he feels about the Beast helps feed into that. If the Be. If the existence of the Beast is why he's.

Why he's been doing all this. Yeah. If he hits the point where he's like, well, what's the use of spending all this energy on, like, basically getting revenge on this guy who turned me into a werewolf, when I'm actually kind of fine with being a werewolf at this point? Like, the pillar helped me realize that it's not a horrible thing to have this other, like, you know, thing trapped inside. Trapped inside of me, whatever. Now he's like, well, we are. We are more in agreement, me and the Beast, so I can kind of drop this other thing and work on her thing.

And so if that was. If we. If that was the angle I wanted to take of the. The motivation is just that, like, I am the monster taking revenge on Frankenstein, Right? Like, I am. I am. I am the monster you created. Then the backstory really could just be a deep dive into, like, what it's like to go through that basic. The. The, like, who this person was before, what that transformation seems like meant to them and did to them. And. And, you know, we could just do a sort of more generalized. Rather than being like a particular inciting incident, it's like, no, I just need to, like, properly explain this character's backstory and it becomes more about their experience of this up to.

Okay, so here's a question. So if you decide to go this direction, instead of the like, like, War Story and the like, Found Family werewolf team stuff, would you be like, presenting this, like, characters backstory as a sort of like. Okay, guys, look, I know we've been saying from the beginning, like, oh, yeah, I don't love being a werewolf. I feel like I have this thing on a chain all the time, and I don't like what was done to me. Are we then gonna, like, go back into this backstory and, like, as viscerally as possible, show to the camera, like, this is why it was so horrible. This is what was so horrible at the beginning of becoming a werewolf. That. Or, you know, in the early parts of it, that this person went like, all in on trying to destroy the person who did this to them? Like, you know, a little bit of the sort of scene setting, like, here's what my life was like before all this shit went down. And then here's why. It was like, literally so wretched that this person was like, I'm going to drop everything. I was Already doing and devote my life to destroying this person's life. Okay.

Yeah. So, yeah, we'd have to. We'd have to either show it or. Or really talk about it, which is essentially, I mean, like, you know, have him. Have him report all of these things. It is also, when doing that, it's also very possible to really hit on an idea of, like, the. Where the. The beast, the werewolfism, the lycanthropy isn't the problem. The problem is all of the stuff that came along with it. Right? Where, like, okay, you know, it's not like turning into a werewolf isn't. You know, isn't a big deal. It's that he was thrown into a war and that he was expected to give up a bunch of parts of himself in order to conform with what he needed to be to survive becoming a werewolf. And, like, this idea of, like, it's not the. Like, not just that he became a werewolf, but really that he didn't get to define what being a werewolf meant.

It was on someone else's terms, I think is.

Yeah, exactly. So it's like, it's not that. Like. Yeah, it's not so much that the. That the. And if that's the. If that's the understanding. Like, obviously, you know, if. If the protagonist hasn't accepted the idea that being a werewolf is different from what he's been told being a werewolf is, then helping to realize what the reality of it actually is helps ease the tension right there. And that can be something that. If this is all just a conversation that happens between him and the pillar where he's describing things and she's responding to it, then the reporting, you know, we don't have to have it just as, like, here is the backstory here. And then, like, now we reframe it, but we could actually have the. The backstory and the reframing happen over the process of a conversation.

Yeah, maybe the. Okay, okay, here we go. What if the framing device is not, like, field reports and things, but, like, him and her, like, sitting in bed together after the previous episode? And him, like. So it's basically like, you know, the. The backstory is being kind of told in the present tense, but the framing device is him being like, so this is what happened at this time. And then her being like, okay, well, let's unpack that basically.

Well, and honestly, if we're doing. If that's. If that's the way we're treating it, then there's absolutely no reason why. Why we need to split the two Backstories then. Because the two of them talking about who they actually are rather than being like, he gets to tell his, and then she gets to tell hers. And then we, at the end of it, okay, now we. Everybody knows everything. It can be much more of, like, him talking about, like, okay, well, this is what. This is the person I was before and then her talking about the person she was before and what that. How they both. How it differs and how it is more of a conversation, you know, and how, like. Yeah, and those two things can happen at the same time. And I would go. My gut says to go one better on they're sitting in bed after the whole reconciliation thing. But literally, like, there's no reason why this can't be. If I want to go back in and tear into the sexy sword fight section of it, this whole conversation can start while they're still fucking true.

Oh, that's spicy. I like that.

The tensions are high. Their emotions are raging, and so they start to reveal things about themselves. And a little bit of that. You think you had it hard. This is what I went through. Blah, blah, blah kind of stuff. And then, like, flat out, I don't. My. My intern. My artistic instinct is to say that, like, we're. We're this conversation and the reveals and maybe flashbacks weave, enter, gather between fight that then turns into, like, yeah, we're fighting, but, like, it's. Now we're really horny about it. Like, it's. It's like, you know, we're like, yeah, it's a much more of a. Of a. The subtext has become textbook fighting. And then, then, like, just straight out, they are fucking, and we are still getting their. Their processing and reveal information that's juicy.

I feel like, like, this kind of combines the. The best elements of all of the previous ideas that you've had into, like, the juiciest possible sandwich that you could make about this.

Okay. Yes. And then it also, If. If. If the. If we're getting there, the information about who these characters really are, and at the same time, it also further ties them together as really being on the same side. Right? Like, because it makes them more like just like, you know, saying, like, we can compare. Like, you know what it's like growing up with him versus what's growing up going. Going up, what it was like growing up as her versus, like, you know, they both have, you know, invasive medical procedures as part of their, like, backstory trauma stuff. They both have, like, this imposition of their.

It's so fun because if you're Starting at the point of, like, we are on opposing sides to the point where we're going to phys. Basically fight about it. And then you get into the, like, oppression Olympics, and then as they go through it, they're like, these things actually make us more the same than we are different. And also, I'm horny now because the sword fight has kind of turned sexy. Like, well, and.

And the. Yeah. And. And I. And I guess I got to make sure that it. The. Because if she teaches him some stuff that she appreciates about support of him that he doesn't, I need to make sure that he does the same for her as well. Right. Like where that. Through his appreciation of, I guess, both. I don't know which one he'd be teaching her about if he'd be teaching her to appreciate the pillar or, like, her more inner self. You know, which one of those.

Which one of those does she dislike more?

Well, I think the problem. Well, see this, like, he has. They have slightly different issues here, which is that, like, he thinks that the Beast is a. Is a. Is a separate thing that was imposed on him. Right. And kind of hates it and projects onto it all of these aspects of his own personality that he thinks are lesser than. Right. Like the sort of animalistic base ideas. Right. When that's not really true. The. The Beast is just a different refraction of him, and all of those things are a part of him. And anyway, so it's like his thing is, like, reconciling the idea that, like, this is not an imposed part of me. This is just who I am. And. And it can be good and bad.

And the circumstances of it were the issue, not the actual werewolfism itself.

Yeah. That, like, his real problem is what people have been telling him he is when he isn't necessarily that thing. I mean, he can be parts. He is those things in parts. That's not the whole of it.

Scott, let me. Hold on. Let me tell you something really quick. This is good if you're working with specifically ideas about gender identity and, you know, learning to love parts of yourself that you don't initially like because of what other people have told you. Like, when you start to transition and, like, at the outset, you swing really wide in the direction of your sort of target presentation because you're like, oh, my God, like, if I'm a woman and my hands are big, people are gonna look at my big hands and be like, okay, well, those look like a man's hands, and then tell you all these things about who you are because of what they perceive. And so you swing really hard in the feminine direction to, like, over compensate kind of. This is like a thing that I have observed both in myself and all of the trans people I hang out with. And then eventually you kind of course correct. And settle back to where you want your presentation to be because it doesn't matter to you anymore how other people are perceiving things about you because you like those things about you. And they actually don't have to do with your gender presentation. Those are just things about you. So, like, this is working. This is all working for me so far.

Yeah. Good. And. And. And the. The pillar has a different conflict, which is that she had. Whereas he's been fighting this imposition and sort of using like, kind of the beast as a. As a part. That's not like, not who he is. Right. Like, he thinks of it as something else. The pillars thing is that she has so bought in on what she's been told she is. That she's completely forgotten who she actually is, that there's any other part of her. So, like the creature that she was before the changeling, like, she doesn't. She. That she doesn't turn into that creature ever. She doesn't use its voice. She doesn't think of it. She thinks it's dead or it's gone. Right. Or never existed. And she's, like, completely subsumed into the Desdemona identity, despite the fact that that's, like, not even her original name. Like, that's not the. There was a different person.

Right, Right.

That she's been told to model after. And the. Her. Her resolution is much more about, like, no, I. I still have this other part of me as well. This thing that, like, my family and the society says I am not. I still am this thing as well, and that really is who I am. And she can. She doesn't have to reject Desdemona the pillar identity, but she gets to, like, incorporate. Like, rather. It's a rediscovery of a thing that she thought was going rather than like a acceptance of a thing that everybody. She's. Yeah. So it's a different. Slightly different kind of conflict there. But I think it also tracks to what I know about how women are treated and socialized. You know, the sort of idea that you have to, like, there's this really narrow version of what you have to be to be a woman, and there's nothing outside of that. And so I think that also works too. It's not exactly the same, but I can Definitely see how these two might interact. Yeah.

Like they're. They are not dealing with the exact same issues, but the issues aren't unrelated either. Like, they're going to be able to find common ground in there somewhere.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah. This. This definitely looks a lot different than what I had planned from the outset, which is. Okay, that's. That's. That's fine. That's how art's made. Right. Like you discover in the process, I'm the. I'm gonna have to, as I am writing it, figure out if I'm really doing full on flashbacks.

Sure. Or just a conversation. Like presenting them full on flashbacks versus just having them talk and like revealing information in the course of the conversation.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Where like I could. I can have present their voices in the presence in the present, talking about the things in the past. And that basically allows you to treat things like prose. You know, you get to describe things rather than having to show them, you know, we're treating them. But that being said, it was also. It can end up in a situation where people are sort of monologuing at each other, which. Not sure. I mean, sometimes that the limitations of trying to. Trying to present it in the. You know, like using it. Like in this case an audio drama where like, we're just going to show the actual. We're going to show, quote, unquote, we're gonna let you hear real sections of that can be a whole lot more evocative. Kind of bring people to the place where the characters are at the time. It would. The advantage of going full backstory is not backstory, full flashback. Not so much for the. Not so much for the protagonist, but for the pillar. We get to see like her interactions with like her mother and her siblings and stuff, who are a lot of people who are imposing.

Well, because I recall, right. We got from a previous episode. I feel like maybe I'm making this up, but I feel like I recall some stuff about like, members of her family being like, you know, yeah, she was totally different before. Like, she did not used to act this way or that way. Like, am I making that up or was that a real thing that happened?

I honestly don't remember if I managed to.

It might have only been in the back channel.

It might have only been in the back channels. It's a thing where it's. It's on my list of like, it's a. It's a theme I need to go back in and reinforce of like Desdemona being the young Desdemona Being, like, this rebellious kid who really was screwing things up for the family and to the point where, like, literally the family kills that person and brings in a whole new person to play act. And, like, that also means that, like, the changeling she's brought in to be the good daughter. That's her whole point. That's her reason for existing in this world. And therefore, also implicit in that is the idea that, like, if you ever act up.

Yeah. You're just do it again.

We'll just do the same thing, get somebody else. So it's, you know, very important that she toe the line and getting to sort of see that from her perspective. Because at this point, if we were going to actually go to full flashback, we can't really use the original character. We can't use the original girl. Like, it starts at, like, the moment that she's brought in, and so she's, like, kind of stepping into somebody else's role, which is. Which could be very interesting. Yeah. Okay, so then we have. I may discover this in the writing. Maybe it's better to do the talking, but I still kind of on the side of doing real flashback. Yeah. I think if you kind of have.

Interspersed them with the two main characters talking to each other in the present time, like, keeping a little bit of that frame around it, I think that makes it easier for you to transition between flashbacks and also reminds us that it's these two people having this discussion and talking about their experiences together.

Yeah. And also it means that I. This is just a fun thing, just a fun treat for me. Is that. So, like, you know, we're starting off and they're in, like, a. They're. They're fighting. Right. And so we disappear in, you know, they're. They're. Let's say they're, you know, in one room doing one thing, and then as they. As they fight, you know, they're. They're beating each other up in the den or whatever. And then we go to a flashback and we come back and, like, now they're on the roof and it's raining and, like, the implication that, like, more stuff has happened than we are seeing. We've seen the flashback, which is real information, but, like, these two people have been beating the shit out of each other and. Or, yeah.

And, like, chasing each other through the manor or whatever.

Yeah. And, like, by the end of it, it makes it a little easier for me to get to the point where, like, literally by the end of it, the manor is, like, destroyed. It's ripped. Like. Like they have Reduced this place.

We've really gone full Mr. And Mrs. Smith on this. Like that's one of my touchstones. Like I so happy. I love that stupid movie.

Yeah, yeah, no, I, I, I, I think about when setting that forward, I went down, I went and rewatched that. The, starting at the, at the dance, at the tango scene of Mr. And Mrs. Smith and watching to the end of their like destroying their house. Yeah, it's one of my, it's one.

Of my, like it's on the movie Banger.

Yeah. All time banger. Yeah, it's so good.

Yeah, I love that, that, that and.

The Mask of Zorro.

I think about that four minutes of footage like so often in my day to day life.

Yeah, it's, it's so good. It's a little bit tonally off from what I have because those two are very much like, they're not destructive. It's a little more, it's a little bit elevated. But no. Yeah, that's, that's one of those. Just as an aside, that movie, I feel so bad because that's the best scene in the movie and it comes after like a really good long extended sword fight. And then if I remember correctly, like, I can't say things. I can't really remember the end of that movie. I know that they're like, maybe they're at the.

Yeah, they're like in some underground. I don't know. I remember no details from that film except for the sexually charged sword fight. Like none of the other stuff in there mattered to me enough to retain.

It's between that and the training montage with Anthony Hopkins and Antonio Banderas, which has a banger soundtrack and is also just like one of the great training montages. So it's like those two points of the movie are really, really good. But this is like you hit that. They hit the, the sword fight between Antonio Banderas and Catherine Jones and then the movie just kind of like it's done the thing that it was there to do. Like the entire movie only exists to have this one sword fight. And then it's just like it should just have the grace.

Like they have the sexy sword fight and that is it. Like that's all we were here to do.

Yeah. So anyway, that's just my like, like it's a shame that that movie has to have another 30 minutes of boring action.

30 minutes we don't care about anyways. Mood board.

Yeah. Mood board. Yeah. So it's on the mood. That's on the mood board. And if, if Audience. If you have sexy sword fight and. Or sexy fist fight and. Or whatever, like examples, you know, if you, if you have a scene in a movie where two people simultaneously and destroy a building.

Yeah, Scott needs to know about it.

So let me know. Okay. The question, and this may. I may not know is because I sort of overall planned for two episodes because I was previously going to be splitting these backstories between them. That may not be the case now. It may go from the end of this episode straight into the climax episode, the one where they finally just storm Blackwood Tower and blow everybody.

Yeah. So if you kind of start dropping some of the flashback stuff at the end of the episode that you just finished the sexy sword fight episode initially, you may not need two full episodes to convey all the backstory stuff because you could fit a little of it on to the end of the last one and then like kind of fit the rest into the next one.

And some of what is. I mean, even if I wasn't gonna go in and tear that part of the, the sexy sword part about that previous episode already has a skip in it where like I just was like, I don't know how to get from where I am to where I want to be. So I just like dropped. So there's maybe another. So there's a point where that the, where the episode break is could be a little different. I could have a start at that point in, in the thing. And it could also just be a. I mean, maybe, maybe I have. I still do have two characters worth of backstory to throw into. Somewhere between four and, and six, seven thousand words. Maybe a little tight. So maybe it really does get split out and we just. I find a natural break point where maybe you have one full episode of them fighting and then we start the next episode and now we've transitioned into fucking and the sort of resolution and so that can happen. Or that could be a double length.

Feature film length backstory episode.

Sure, why not? I mean like, much like Mask of Zorro, this episode and. Or episodes is what this whole.

Yeah, this is what it's about, right?

Yeah, we're getting to it. And that. Yeah, it would, it would be a mistake to have that happen in episode six. And then we have three more episodes now it needs to. The fight and, and, and love and the, the Mr. And Mrs. Smithing needs to like. I need to drag that out further and bring it more into their, into their, their, Their reconciliation. That's where we're headed. That's what this whole thing's about so living in that space is really valuable and is what, what it needs to do. So I just need to, I need to figure out some of the more specifics. Like, you know, do I wanna, like there's some stuff that I have, I have thrown out. Do I want to bring back in? Like, do I want to have there be the mentor character, you know, to show like a little glimmer of what like a non toxic masculinity could be about? Or do I want to leave that out and have that and, and just have focus solely on.

Okay, yeah, so here is where I think it is so valuable to not kill your darlings, but just sort of bag up your darlings in a, in a little Tupperware or whatever and set them aside for later. Because you can kind of now go back. You've not done that work for nothing. You can go back and cherry pick from that stuff. You've already put down anything that you think might still be useful to add back in.

I think the, I think the resident, the metaphor that I think, I think most closely tracks is that you should kill your darlings, but you can, you.

Can like ransack their corpses for parts anytime you want.

Yeah, you can reanimate their corpses. That's fine. The, the. Because in a situation like this, it is important to know that like, okay, I really, I, I, I have, I have written that idea off. Right. Like it's, it's done. It is not, it is no longer.

Out of your waveform right now.

A. Yeah, it's, it's a, it's no longer now part of the story, right. Like I took it, I took it out. I cut, you know, it's on the cutting room floor. It's there. It doesn't not exist and there's no reason why I can't bring it back. But it is important to sort of, can be in situations like this, very important to sort of say, I'm done with this thing. Like I tried it, it didn't work. I'm done with it. And that lets you have the freedom of saying like, because you know, if, if saying like it does, I don't have to bring it back. I don't have to think about the way it works in. I don't have to, you know, like, I can, I can reframe what this whole thing is about without knowledge of trying to preserve these ideas and these, these, the options of bringing back, you know, a beloved character or a scene or an idea or a format. You know, there's giving up, like really giving up on those ideas to allow yourself the freedom to think about, like, what is right, what is correct for the story, like, what makes it the best thing that it can be is important. And then if it just so happens that you can bring those things back in and they will, now they fit, you know, now you can, you can, you can reevaluate.

Yeah. Now it's, that's fine.

But like, I think it is now.

It'S ingredients, now it's biomass. You can just like take the pieces that make sense and reinsert them.

Right, right. You're no longer beholden to them. You can only. And you know, if I do bring in some of these ideas, there are other parts of this. Like the whole idea of a reveal, you know, and the whole idea of like, playing with the idea of like, oh, we're showing this part of the story, but we don't know who our protagonist is within it, and then we reveal who it is. Like, I'm, that I'm done with that, which is an important part of making, trying to make this, this come together the way it needs to. Yeah. Okay. So I, I most, I think I've got the, this has been super helpful, by the way, because this has been. I, I, this is the kind of thing that can be very difficult to do.

Yeah. It really doesn't benefit from having a second brain that doesn. The things, your brain, you are poisoned by your own knowledge at this point.

Yeah. Well, and also talking to somebody rather than just like living in your own head, but like, saying the things out loud also requires you to make decisions and like, say this is. And then you hear a reaction from them and like, it's just like there's lots of, lots of. The writing and creation process can be done on your own. And then sometimes you just need to talk it out to bounce off of. So the, the thing I'm thinking about is, is a, a thread that we've left hanging in this conversation is that I need to, I know I need to look for more opportunities to bring in sort of like a class warfare idea to this whole thing. Right. Of like our main character in my, in my, like I said in my playlists, I feel very resonant with certain ideas of like, the people who rule the world need to be brought down and I am the monster that you have created. And like all this stuff. So looking for. My dogs have decided that they've heard something in the world, so looking for opportunities to emphasize that is good. So perhaps one thing I maybe haven't done enough of Is. I mean, we have one. We have one scene where we see vampires just, like, straight up eat a guy. Right. But I haven't spent much time in the story already talking about how, like, these are literal parasites living off of the greater populace of people. Right. Where, like, this is a. This is a very potent metaphor of, like, this is, you know, not only can they do they take all of your money and funnel wealth to themselves, but they literally just, like, straight up kill people in order to sustain themselves. So a. Yeah.

Without like, giving anything back to society off of which they have been feeding.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So looking for ways to reinforce that theme is an important part of all of this. Okay.

Because I think it's ambiently present in the first, like, episode or two because we see the protagonist kind of running around in the, like, you know, fighting ring, all this stuff, and then going to the manor and, like, seeing the sort of opulence in which the vampires exist and, like, you get that sort of ambient juxtaposition. But I think you could hit it harder in a variety of places.

I think it can be hit harder. And I think there's. There's something to our protagonist at some point. Like I. Like I said, I'm ready. I'm ready to throw out pretty much everything that isn't on this. I mean, and heck, even stuff that's on the page already. I'm willing to. To re. Approach. I had. I do like the idea of. Of the werewolves having been created. Created for fight wars. Right. But it's entirely possible to. Well, I guess I'm just going to. I could straight up steal from Underworld, which wasted. Wasted a good idea of werewolves being created as the daytime protectors of vampires. Right. Like, they're literally the ones who.

Yeah, they're like enforcer. Like, they're goons basically, who do their dirty work during the day.

Yeah. And if. If I just straight up steal that idea, I think that also still serves the thematic purposes of, like, you know, men. The idea of masculinity being used to create warriors. Right. Creating dangerous people. I think that still serves that. And it also brings our protagonist closer to vampires as a whole. It means that his backstory isn't about going and fighting in some foreign war. It's about, like, no, the vampires created. And the general in particular created these. These. These creatures, this class of person, specifically to reinforce the hierarchy that they have created and that they've been.

Well, and it's not to say that like, sometimes those creations don't get instrumentalized in a Foreign conflict. But I think if the, like, original conception of them was we need, you know, thugs who can go out in the daytime and, you know, beat up someone who owes us money or this or that, then I think that makes sense.

Yeah, yeah. And, yeah. To. To kill people who get out of line. Basically, anybody who challenges the vampiric order. Which means that I can tie the protagonist's backstory more closely into the. The black. Basically into the General, into the Blackwoods. Like, it's possible that he worked for them in the past. That, you know, like, that. That he has been part of this system specifically. And rather than it being a separate conflict that happened elsewhere, it's like, no, he's back in the city from some. Like, he was away for a while, but, like, most of that story happened back where the Every. In the setting.

That also, like, gives you an opportunity to, like. Yeah. Sort of sink the character deeper into this setting piece, this set piece that you've created. Like, you can really get into the flavors and details of this particular city more in the backstory.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And it does open the opportunity that if this is. If this character was operating here, then he probably has. He could very well have a. Like, he and, like, our. The pillar might have interacted in the past, or they might have been aware of each other. And that as a. As something that they then talk about during the. Their backstory reveals is also something that could be, you know, they bring themselves together. Maybe he. You know, maybe he knew the changeling before she became the Desdemona. Maybe she saw him before he became a werewolf or. Yeah, there's. There's some good opportunities. And then, like, if I just talk.

Right. And then them, like, realizing, oh, my God, we could have known each other much sooner if we had not been sort of ships in the night on all these previous instances. Yeah. Yeah, that's good.

Yeah, yeah, maybe. And. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. And. Yeah, and that brings in a lot more of the. Like, I will. I will still need to go back into what I've previously written at some point in the future. I'm going to stop myself from doing that, because that's how you can't move forward that way. But there will be. There needs to be more. I need a more thematic undercurrent of the class conflict to be. I need that theme to be strengthened. So I need to look for more opportunities to have our character talk about that and, like, show that which side of that conflict is on. He's on, and that that conflict is important. To him that, like, you know, because, like, for example, he. He goes and talks to his accomplice's mom at one point and go. So goes to, like, the slum part of the city where, like, all of the goblins have been. Have been shoved off to. And there's a. There's absolutely an opportunity for. In places like that for him to like, to make it clear that, like, yeah, he hates this system.

Yeah.

As well. Like, he, you know, it's not some dispassionate like, oh, this is just how things are. But like, he, you know, he feels a kinship to Goblins because of how they get treated and how he feels that the society has treated him. So there's more. There is more of that thematic stuff that will happen elsewhere, but I think there's some good opportunities within this episode to also do it and sort of establish that shit. Yeah, okay. I feel a lot better about this than I felt there.

You have been wrestling with the Starship Troopers episode of this show for, like, a calendar year.

Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. Basically, like, this was an idea, and this comes from, you know, the. The. Some idea, you know, some. Some other media. Like, the original thing that I wanted to do was lucky number 11. That has a reveal, that has a backstory, a flashback, and all this stuff, and you get like, this. And so that's stuff that I just ported over from a different idea with like, sort of the. The. My source material. Not exactly source material, but it's like the inspiration material that came from the mood board. You know, that was something that was originally part of this. But I think as it has gone on is that I didn't. I didn't ever re. Evaluated whether or not I wanted to do that idea. Like, you don't want to do that. But I didn't necessarily. Yeah, but I didn't if I wanted it. If it really fit as part of the story that I actually was telling. And so just stepping back and saying, okay, like, that's gone. Give it up. What does it look like? I think this version is better.

I think it's definitely going to be easier to produce.

Like, well, sure, yeah, that's. That's true. Yeah, absolutely. But it's also a. When evaluating the old plan and evaluating the new plan. Old one. For six episodes, we have been lockstep with the pers. With the point of view of our main character. We've been inside his head. We've been hearing his thoughts, we've been hearing him argue with himself. Right. And then we. So the. The story is ostensibly about, you know, his. The things that are happening in the world, but it's really about, like, living inside this guy's head. And I thought that moving outside of that character's head for an episode or two episodes would be sort of a refreshing change and like a discombobulating thing. But I think it really is just like I thought it might be like, oh, this is a fresh perspective on stuff and it will allow us to see this character more clearly. But the truth is that doesn't work. It's just a different. Like, it's just. It no longer. It makes the story not about him and this and his. And his relationship and thoughts and stuff like that. Moving into an episode that is just straight up about his. Still about his thoughts and his relationship. But then now we see. We get the second character. You know, we get. We get Desdemona. We get to see. Okay, here's a darling that I might want to resurrect. If I still split this. The. If I. If I make a. If I make a heart. A cut in the middle of the fight to fucking section where we're also getting the. The reveals. Could I have one of the halves of that be told from Desdemona's.

That's what you're saying.

She takes over the narration and we hear the same thing that we would hear for the werewolf and the main character, where she has a narrator voice and an external voice and so forth. The first time in six, seven episodes, we hear a brand new voice, a voice we. We have never heard before. Narrating and we see her perspective on the same. You know, now we've switched over and we're seeing her, the fight and the.

Okay, so here's a question. If you do it that way, would it be really important to you for her narrator voice, her internal thoughts voice to be a different actor, like a different whole voice than the speaking voice of hers that we've been hearing from the beginning?

That seems most natural to me. I'm not 100% sold on it, but I. That feels like the default decision because it. I like the fact that having two voices has become sort of a. Like a. Like a. Like a. A thing that this piece of media does, right? Like it. It makes it very clear when somebody is inside their head versus when they're outside their head. However, if we haven't established that, it could be more confusing. I don't know. It feels like that would be my go to way to do it. But that doesn't necessarily have to be the Case I'm not married on it.

Part of the reason I ask is because in the case of someone who is a werewolf and has that separate voice inside of them, that's the werewolf, like, part.

Yeah.

Would it make, you know, narrative sense for that to be present for a vampire as well? Because it seems like there's not that same, like, division inside of the person.

Well, so for the pillar in particular, not vampires as a whole, but the pillar in particular, I think it makes. I can make it work for lore in the world because she's not really Desdemona. She's the changeling. She was a character who was crafted into Desdemona specifically to fill this role. And so there was a person who was there before. And so what you'd be hearing is that person.

Okay, so we're gonna hear the internal narration is the changeling's voice, so to speak.

Yes, that's how. That's. I would do it sort of by default. I'm not. Again, I'm not. I don't feel married to that, essentially because I don't feel married to any ideas right now. Like, if you. You can't, you know, you could. You could talk me out of all of this if you could. Or I could talk myself out of all of it. I had a better idea.

Well, the reason I ask is, like, even though we've been doing that in every episode up to this point, like, it makes sense, the explanation that it's the changeling who is speaking when it's inside of her own head and then we're hearing the Desdemona voice out loud. But if the audience doesn't know that, like, if we. If we know that, but the. The average listener is not aware that the voice that we're hearing that's different than her spoken voice is this changeling character who existed before Desdemona, then it might just. Then it might seem like, oh, well, is there, like, is this just how everyone's heads sound? Like a different voice than what they speak out loud? And then I feel like you'd need a third narrator speaker combo, like, present somewhere to figure out if that's an across the board thing.

Well, you. What? You. Yeah. You'd have to demonstrate it somewhere else maybe.

Or you or not. Like, I'm not your mom. You can do what you want or you do.

No, it's a very reasonable question. Right. Of. Is this going to be too confusing for the audience? I completely with you on that one. Okay, so you could reveal the changeling before switching into the switching the Perspective.

Yes.

So we have him fighting. Then she, like, maybe physically transforms into the changeling. And we hear the changeling.

Okay. So we hear that voice speaking aloud before we go into the.

And. Yeah, before. And we're still on, you know, like, the main narrator is still the main narrator, and we're still within the framework of the familiar, the thing that we've been doing for six episodes previously. Then we hear Desdemona's voice actress gets replaced with the changeling's voice actress. And then next episode, we start with, like, we start with Desdemona's voice actress as the narrator and the changeling speaking in the outside world because the changeling is present physically. And then we either switch it back and have the change. We can do the same sort. Then I think we have maybe the. It's clear that this is related to the transformation.

Right.

Rather than it just thing that exists.

So if you were to, like, start. There's a, like, Desdemona perspective episode with Desdemona as the narrator and the changeling as the outside speaker.

Yeah.

Does that make sense if, like, we are flashing all the way back to before she was Desdemona, or should it be? It depends on the same voice.

I mean, maybe. I don't know. It depends on how quickly we get to one of those flashbacks. It depends on. And having a narrator in the flashback would make things a lot more easier to do. So having the option, okay, I don't know if this will make it in, but it would be such a sweet moment. Not sweet. Sweet as in fucking kind of twisted. So the. If she's a changeling. Right. I have ideas about what that means. I'm going to throw those out. Let's. Let's go to the idea of, like, a changeling is a creature that can be anything if people need to be. Right. Like, she could be whoever they want. So there absolutely could be a sequence where she is, like, mock, not mocking. Or like, somehow she's talking about, like, she's talking to the protagonist and is like, I can be whoever you need me to be. And then we hear her change into several other real characters that we have voice actors for. And we use their voice actors to. So she, like, she turns into the madam, she turns into the punk. She turns into maybe Arcadia or somebody. Bex or somebody. And, like, we hear their voice actor actors come in for a second and then we reveal. We go from that into changeling where she's like. And then, like, I don't know, he responds or something like that. And then she Turns into the real her and we get the new voice actress is maybe the. Right. That would be an interesting. That would be. That could be such a good.

Yeah, that could be juicy. Because, like, it would be very fun to have the voice change several times and you're thinking, like, oh, my God, wait, like, she could have been in any previous scene and we wouldn't have known. She could have just been impersonating any of these characters at any time.

Yeah, that's a. The. Not sure if that's a power I want her to have, necessarily, because although I love the idea of, like, I don't know who I am, I'll be whoever you want me to be. That feels like such a great version of who she. Of what this character has lost. Right. Like, a sense of her own identity. She's like, you know, like. And the answer is that, like, you know, the protagonist just wants her to be whoever she actually is, you know? So, like. Okay, that's. That does lead into that being said. There's no reason for her to have, like, this, like, spying power where she could, like, turn into other people elsewhere in the story. But it is a neat moment. I really like it. It doesn't necessarily mean that it needs to happen, but I love the idea that both of them are like. The idea that the protagonist doesn't understand if Desdemona or the pillar or the changeling, this other person, he doesn't know if. That if she likes him or. Right. Like, that's one of the conflicts to him. Right. Like, if she just needs. If she just needs him for what he can do or if she actually likes him. And if so, which version of him does she like? Is a really good. I like that. That question versus the. We have her looking at him and being like, he's only ever seen this facade that I've put up, and I don't know if he likes me for that facade or if he would like the real me. And there's a really. It's very juicy, the idea that, like, both of them have to take the risk. Well, like, she has to take the risk of, like, here, let me show you who you actually am. And he also has to be like, you know, like, which one of me do you really like? And her response is like, all of them. Yeah, all the parts, you know? Yeah, that's. That's also really juicy. So I do like that. You like the voice thing. I might. It could be again, but I don't know. I don't want to cloud people with the idea that she was. She could do that. That elsewhere. Well, I mean, maybe if she needed. Maybe there was a reason for her to do that. Changing. Change. Yeah.

I mean, okay, but I don't have.

A place for it.

Is there the possibility that, you know, impersonating other people is something that she would have been asked to do at some point by the Blackwoods? Like, is that a way that they could have instrumentalized her in the past?

I hadn't previously consistent thought of that idea, so I haven't laid the groundwork for that. Mostly what she's been there for is to be sort of the reliable one, the one who sacrifices. The one who keeps everybody else in line and never does anything for herself. She always does it for the family. That's her, like, role here. But certainly she could have been a.

Well, yeah, I guess maybe that.

Maybe that was something they were asking of her, and that was another sacrifice to make. Right. Like, you have to keep the ability to change. Right? Like, you're locked into this version of yourself, but that also means that you have to, you know, occasionally.

Yeah, well, okay, so I think the way that this would have to work is, like, they have to have control over her transformations to the degree where she can't just, you know, use that power to, like, sneak out or be herself again when their backs are turned. You know what I mean? Like, she would still have to be. Her will would have to be so subsumed still that the power can't help her out of her situation.

Oh, yeah, for sure. For sure. And I'm wondering if. I feel like an important part of her character is this idea that she has. She dove so far into.

Oh, I love hearing listeners. I love hearing about. Have ideas, real time. It's so funny.

Well, no, this is why conversations like this are so important, because the. The answer is that the. That the. The ability to change is something that was robbed from her by this role as the pilot. Right. Is that the creature she was before, the changeling, she could be anything she wanted back then. And that the. It's important. This was a thing that they. That the family, in order to, like, make her into what they needed. Because they don't need the infiltrator, right? They don't. For whatever reason. You know, like, what they need is they need somebody to be Desdemona. Right? They need somebody to be the reliable one. They don't need somebody to infiltrate, you know, other organizations or, like. No, they need somebody to fill this role. She needs to be stable. So. She needs to be stable. Right? And so the. The changeling had this ability before to be whoever she wanted to be, to change into other people, to infiltrate, to, you know, to play around, to be, you know, to make up her own identities even. And that was a thing that she used to be able to do. And then becoming Desdemona removes her of that ability. And so her flailing around right. Before revealing who she actually is, of, like, getting this power back is a lead into getting. Going back to being somewhat of the change. Right. Where if the reveal is like, who do you want me to be? I'll be this person. I'll be that person. And then that's not, like, something that she had done in the previous, you know.

Yeah. Maybe it's been, like, many years. It's something that she changed who she was.

Yeah. And that instead, that's something that's part of the change.

Okay, I dig that. That rules.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's not. It's not something that needs to be reconciled with her. With her identity as Desdemona the Pillar. It's a thing that is in direct conflict.

Right. It's the exact opposite of what they wanted from her, as does Dimona.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, that makes that work well, because.

Then, you know, when, like, we, the audience, and probably also the main character are like, oh, my God, wait, have you been, like, you know, changing into different people all this time? She's like, no, I wasn't able to do that for all this time.

Yeah, well. And like. Like, the first thing she might say after is like, oh, man, I forgot I could do that.

Yeah, like, I. It's been so long, you know?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's been so long, I forgot I could. I like that. Okay.

Juicy.

Juicy. Yeah. So there's the. Yeah, okay. The. This whole. This whole version of the. Of the replete throwing. You know, I threw out the. What was going on, and I come in and this new version of it has a lot more hoops and coloring to me of like, okay, there's good stuff in here. This is it. It lives more in the space of what I wanted this to be. It's not tech because the. Yeah, this is much more in line with. With the rest of the series. And what makes me really excited about. It takes a wolf. This is more of that rather than a digression from that, which is what the other one. Now, in retrospect, looking at my other ideas on this, those other ideas feel like a. A something away from what the. Sure. Actually is. This is much more in Line with. With its original. With where all of the fun actually is of a poem. It takes a wolf. Is these. Yeah. Okay. Okay. All right. We've been at this for, like. This was supposed to be, like, a quick one. It was supposed to be like. That's what we were talking about. Like, oh, yeah, we'll just jump onto a quick one. It's been, like a. It's been an hour.

An hour plus technical problems.

God, I hope I'm. I hope I'm still recording. I will. I will be.

So imagine if the last hour of this was just like, Scott talking into a microphone and no backups are running, and it's just in the ether.

That's. I mean, like, honestly, this has been super useful. So that would all be. That would all be. It's not. It's not like, we wouldn't have been here. We've been here in vain. But also, it would. It would be perfectly in keeping with how jank. The rest of this episode has been other reasons. So. Okay, I guess we're going. Okay. All right. I'm not gonna try to, like, wrap this up in a little bow or anything, because this has just been like.

Yeah, we're just working through.

We're just working through it, but we will, I guess, set some goals.

So you go first.

I'll go first. Because we've just been talking. So I have. I only have, like, a week, so I'm not sure I have any idea what this could look like in a week, but I am going to start working on this version of things.

Okay. So what it could. I don't know, like, not to tell you how to do your process, but what it could look like. One possible thing is that you, like, goal post out the different flashbacks you think you need to hit, like, broad idea of, like, the little beats that you want to include in each one and figure out maybe, like, what. Sorry, the breakpoints are.

You say that, and my initial response is. I'm gonna. I'm just gonna go with my gut here, which is to say I need to.

You need to pants it.

I need to. Yeah. Because the I. I'm coming away from a version of. Of this idea that was very. It wasn't. I had a lot of ideas about what it was supposed to be, and I want to get away from that as much as possible next week. So I am just going to start writing.

No go plus. Vibes only.

Yeah, vibes only. I'm gonna. I'm gonna just. Just go. I'm just gonna start. Start doing stuff And I'll be. My goal is to be Miami. The thing I want to do is be experimental with, because rather than prescriptivist, because I want to see what this needs to be and what feels good. Because there are absolutely the times when I have been writing and it has felt good, or the times that I go back and look at it and I go, yeah, that's fucking rocks. That's, you know, like the, the vibes at the time of writing are important to the vibes that it reads as. So that's. Yeah, thank you for saying that because it made it very clear.

Okay. Yeah. So you're gonna vibe on this version of events for the next week. I listeners will not be there next week because I have family in town from Japan. So I will be absent from the following week's recording. What I am going to try to do before I am on next is complete the draft of the second episode of AZ in West. There is going to be a section in that episode that Sam is going to write because it's a conversation between the commander, the preservation commander, and the preservation agent that's chasing them around. And I think we're gonna drop that in at the beginning as the little like opening, like pre intro credits, like sequence. Yeah, yeah, we're a little cold open. And then the rest of the episode is going to be the stowaway stuff. So I will write that and try to get that drafted out before I am on next time.

Okay, cool. We don't. I don't know when next we'll see you because we're gonna be without you next week and then I don't know when the next one's gonna be.

Who knows?

We'll just see. But yeah, okay, great. This has been super helpful. Thank you, Jack, for helping me like Midwife, both. Both hospice and Midwife, kill the old idea. Resurrect the narrative.

Right, exactly.

And yeah. And then thank you, audience, for hanging with us for an extra long episode. And we'll catch you later. Thanks for joining us. If you'd like to know more about our upcoming projects, head on over to Library Horse where you'll find like a basic website that I threw up in about five minutes. If you'd like to support the podcast, head on over to patreon.com cursedknowledge and other than that, we'll see y'all in a few weeks. Bye. Bye.