Don't test Mike; he might.

My initial experiment was if I started playing a file, it wouldn't stop ever. So I was like. I was like, okay, I guess Riverside is just playing all 40 minutes of this episode now, so I don't know if this is the right one or not, but I guess find out live.

Excellent.

Hello, and welcome to behind the Locked Doors, a guest bedroom podcast sometimes, which is apparently what I'm doing right now. I am Scott Paladin. I am working on a horny werewolf audio drama called It Takes a Wolf.

Hi, my name is Sam Stark. I'm not lucky enough to record in my bedroom. That would be amazing. Or even a spare bedroom would be so awesome.

You have an actual booth, though.

I know.

Sometimes it's not so awesome. I wish I was in a spare bedroom.

When.

When.

When you're recording a podcast with your buddies, though, like, I feel like the. The correct way to do that is, like, on a couch or, like, in your bed or something. And I'm like, the vibe. So professional. But anyway. Yeah, but anyway, I do stuff. I do editing and things right now that are not as in west, which is the project that I'm supposed to be working on right now, which is a spin off of Unspeakable Distance.

Yay.

Yay. I'm Jack, and I'm also supposed to be working on Unspeakable Distance, but actually, what I'm doing is preparing for a bunch of art markets in the summer, so.

Yay.

I'm busy with that.

Yay.

But that's okay. We can still talk about it. Okay. So, Scott, you were, like, in the group chat with Evidence that you've been doing your homework, so I want to hear about all of that.

Yes.

So the. I'm working on the rough cut for episodes one and two, and the assembly for episode one is now done. Every audio file. Every voice. Audio file that is going into that episode is done. I guess I didn't do the intro and outro stuff yet, but I got to figure out what that's going to look like, so. But, like, all of the actors and stuff are in there, and I need to do a timing pass and all that stuff still. But I've made more progress in the last two last week than I did in the previous six months, so we're going to call that a win.

That is totally a win. Absolutely.

Yep. How about y'? All? How are you doing?

I've. I've done really good on the stuff that I. What was my homework last time? Was it, like, finishing a book or something? I hope it Was. Yeah, probably because that's what I did. So that's what I did. That's what I did. I. I finished a book for a Kickstarter, and so it actually gets to go out on time for the backers, so that's nice. Yay. I was actually just doing. Just now I was doing the final edits on it, and then I completely forgot that we were recording today. So I'm glad you. I'm glad you.

Discord.

It's all good.

Well, yeah, we're on the off week because we. Last week, we're all like, can we get an extension, please?

Yeah. Everybody is like, teacher, I have another week.

Yep.

Yeah, yeah. And we are all the teachers. We were like, yeah, we can.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's.

That's it for me. I did all the stuff that I said I was going to do. Whatever. Whatever it was.

Whatever the hell it was, it got done. What I said I was going to do was support Sam, and I don't even know that I did that, but

I. I'm here just existing, Jack. You support me by just existing.

That's. That's support.

I'm preparing stuff for Tafcon, so I'm, like, doing productive things that are not working on as in west right now.

Yes.

Apparently, sitting on the bed is, like, how he behaves. Normally, he would be crawling all over me, but now he's just, like, sitting nicely.

He's just sitting.

You discovered the trick. You pull the key.

The unfortunate thing is that this is the guest bed, and now he knows that he can get on it. I don't know if he knew that he could do that before that was allowed, but he's learned, so I think I'm gonna find him down here a lot.

Aw.

Yeah.

That's what pretty boy does. If we ever tell him, like, if I ever let him get on the couch, then that couch is now free reign forever.

That's his couch.

And so, like, you come downstairs and he's been sleeping on that all night. But whatever.

That's what.

That's what. That's what the. The couch that the previous owners of this house left us is for.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Oh, yeah, Absolutely. That's a dog couch. 100.

That is for sure a dog. Yeah, it's one of those big sectionals with, like, the Shayla Shay's lounge on it on the side. And it's just like, yeah, this is. This can get covered with dog hair. Nobody will care.

100 dogs. I need to get a sectional couch so bad because Daphne Always wants to be laying on the couch with us, but facing the same direction we are.

And she's.

Because she's a dog. So she's like, you know, how do I arrange myself so I can, like, look the same way you guys are looking? And we're like, I just need to get you a sectional that you can lay on.

Yeah.

So bad.

I. I was such a proponent of having, like, a dog couch and a human couch when we first got our

dog, because Such a great concept.

I mean, thank you. Thank you for validating my feelings. But, like, our dog is not super shedy. She's got, like, short hair. She's. She's not that bad. And we have a lot of cats. And so everything is covered in cat hair. But I know that a couch is, like, different. A couch is. If the dog is going to lay on it and roll around on it and stuff, not only is it going to be hairy, but it's going to be pretty dirty. And I would just don't have the kind of couch that's very easy to clean. So when we first got our dog, especially when she was a puppy, I was like, can we please, please, please keep her off the couch? And so I did a pretty good job of keeping her off the couch. She didn't on the couch when I was around. But then I would come downstairs and everybody was sitting on the couch with the dog. So I was like, okay, you guys. So I've. So I.

This is a team project. We have to all be on the same page.

And so then when we were getting ready to go, I think it was like a funeral or something. And both my partner and my youngest daughter sat on the couch and stood up, and they were covered in dog hair in the back wearing their black. And I was like, I just want to take this moment to say. Not say, I told you so, because that would be a thing that only a jerk would do. So we had to, like, roll them and everything. So now we've made a compromise where we do have a sectional couch. And so, like, there's one. There's one part on the couch where it's like Erza's cushion and she can sit there.

The dog zone.

Exactly. And we put, like, a blanket on it and stuff. And it's so much nicer now because it's like, she also has, like, the gland. Like, the gland.

The butt gland. Oh, my God.

Yeah. We call it butt juice. And so, like, sweeter. Yeah, she'll, like. She'll, like, lick and she'll, like, clean it up. But when she cleans it on the couch, she gets it on the couch. And so, yeah, the stank does not come out.

It's like a terrestrial fish.

Fish forever. So now that we have it sort of contained, it's way easier to control it.

But yeah, so like, yeah, Daphne will juice her butt on any soft surface. She likes to do it on my nice rug. She likes to do it on the rug by the back door, like our couch, wherever. And I'm like, girl, outside, go in the backyard and juice your ass out there. Like, why do you got to do it on my couch?

Damn. Sorry for that interlude. Actually, I love.

I love them, but they're so gross.

They are gross. They're really gross.

The percentage of this podcast that is just us talking about animals is not zero. And that's a feature, not a bug.

Yeah.

As far as I'm concerned.

You're welcome.

Yeah. That's the content they crave as well. I'm sure they're sad that it's not a video podcast so that I could. We can turn the cameras.

Wish you could see Twig. I wish you could see him. He's so cute.

He's a little speedy. Yeah. So I didn't bring up topic like we normally do. So unless you guys have something that you wanted to cover or questions or whatever, then I will. We will move on, I guess. I don't know.

Good question.

We could talk about. Since Tafcon is coming up, we could talk about con things. Because I just did a bunch of cons.

Yeah, please do.

And like, I. I would love to just discuss like at least your guys thoughts on attending a con that has to do with things that you're. I don't mean Comic Con. Comic Con is like, you know, huge. And it has all like this really popular stuff. I'm talking about like smaller cons that are like, specific to like your niche interests. Because I just did a very small local, like sci fi fantasy convention, and it's mostly tailored to writers and like, I guess mostly writers of all kinds of things. And then there was HorrorCon, which is also. It's way bigger, but it's still really niche technically. And like going to a con as a. Like a. Just being there as a con goer as opposed to being there as a guest or a panelist is so different. And I just. What are your. What are your guys thoughts on like, conduct or whatever? Because there I am. Okay. Conduct is the wrong word. I'm sorry, what are your thoughts on like, people that do panels like, when you go into a panel at a con, you expect the panelists to like, at least have some idea, like some experience in what they're talking about. So, like, what is.

Yeah.

What is.

Presumably.

Yeah. What is the level of experience that you. At least. I don't want to say required. That's kind of a shitty word. But like, what, what do you like to see when you look at a. You're like, oh, this is a cool sounding panel. And then you look at the panelists and like, what do you like to see people like, what. What kind of panelists do you like to see? Basically?

That's a really good question. The. Well, so I'll caveat by saying that I haven't been to that many conventions. I haven't. I've been to a couple of. I think I went to a couple of paxes and I've been to a couple of smaller ones. The. So, so my, my experience is that whenever I look at panels, unless it's something like, specifically that I'm going for, like, oh, this is a, this is the people from a show that I know that's something like that. I mostly it's what I'm looking for is the content rather than the panelists, because usually the.

What.

What will draw you in is, you know, the tagline, what the description is. And then the times that I have been disappointed in panelists is not usually based on anything to do with their credentials, but rather, do they have a point of view that is interesting, which is not like a thing that you can like. Like, even somebody who's written a ton of books may not be able to talk and communicate properly.

Oh, yeah. So there's.

Yeah, so there's like almost nothing about, like you could. That you could look at a resume or anything about the person. Wikipedia. Like, nothing about a person will tell you whether or not they're a clear communicator unless they're doing that as a, as another job. Like, I guess by that, by that logic, a YouTuber or a podcaster probably has a better con panelist panel presence than somebody who is just straight writing or something like that. Just because there's a little bit of performance and communicating live, that's different. And so it's always been kind of a crapshoot really, about whether or not somebody's going to be good or not. Because again, it's mostly about like, do you have something interesting to say and can you communicate that? Like, well, and that's just something that, you know, like, that's like an Almost an X factor in that way, you know.

And can you take turns and can you, like, hold a discussion with other people? Because I've had it happen, I think, where you go in a panel that has, you know, three or four or five people on it. Oh, my God, Mike is here.

Mike. Hello, Mike.

Hello. Yeah, sometimes you go into a panel with three, four or five people on it, and maybe there's like a moderator and several people being kind of interviewed or whatever. And some of those people you can tell, they're really good at, like, giving, like, sort of succinct answers that will lead other people into their talking points and, like, sharing space and sharing time in that way. And then some people who would just plow on ahead talking about themselves indefinitely until another panelist or the moderator is like, okay, and let's move on to the next thing. So I think there's some amount of, like, knowing how to, like, answer those questions in a more collaborative way or in a more like, discussion based format than just like, if you were being interviewed solo. Do you know what I mean?

Yeah. Mike, my question. Well, not really question. It was just I wanted thoughts on, like, when you go to a con and you, like, see a panel that you're, like, super excited about, or really it doesn't have to be a con. It can be anything. And if you look at the, like, details of the panel, what are you looking for in, like, the panelists or does it matter? Or anything like that also.

Welcome.

Hi. Hi. Hello.

Hi.

Hello.

I'm very sorry I'm very late.

No, you're totally. It's okay.

This is the High Chaos podcast. It doesn't matter.

Who gives a fuck?

We're glad you're here.

At any time.

Yeah, you're here. That's the important thing. That's great.

I'm grateful to be here. Yeah. I want to chime in and say, kind of like the thing I look for most at con panels and stuff is the ability to ask not a question, but a statement in at least five parts whenever I. As long as I can do that and make it about me, then that's fine.

Perfect. Then that's fine.

So you are exactly the panelist that we do not. We were just talking about that. We don't want to see.

Yeah, yeah. Is the format such that every person who goes up to the mic is auditioning to be on the panel themselves? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Terrific.

It's where I want to be.

The reason why I asked the question is last year. So, like, actually more than a Year ago now, because we just had the. Coming in, we had a influx of, like, people that wanted to be a panelist really bad, but didn't have any experience in the stuff they were talking about. Which, again, Scott, you made an incredible point. If you can hold a good conversation and you can ask good questions, who gives a shit? But we had, like, this weird, just, I don't know, probably 20ish panelists, just people that came in and just really wanted to be part of the, like, panelists community, which is. There's nothing wrong with that. But if you're gonna come in and sign up for fan fiction panels and you've never written fan fiction, that's sort of weird. I get weird. Yeah. I get like, being really into it and loving fanfiction and knowing all the tropes and understanding, like the, the, the community and stuff. You. You can totally be a. You can totally be a moderator if you do that, because you can ask the panelists all the questions because you understand the industry. But the fact that we had a bunch of people that had never written fanfiction before in the fanfiction track, being panelists was very odd.

Yeah, okay.

Yeah, that kind of thing.

That never even would have occurred to me that someone would sign up in that way. Yeah.

And so that's strange.

Yeah, that's what I was talking about. We had a bunch of people, and it wasn't just fan fiction. It was just people that were signing up to be on the panels because they, like the thing and they wanted to talk about the thing in front of people. And a couple of them worked out really well because they, again, like Scott said, were great at talking with people and being in front of a crowd and asking great questions. But we had so that, like, would just sit there and then, like, answer the questions that were asked of them and give very sort of two dimensional, weird, like, I've never actually done this before answers. So it just drove me crazy. And that's wild. And then of course, you have the other side of that where you have also what you were talking about, Scott, where you have people that are actually very experienced in the thing. I was on a couple of BDSM panels and the actual, like, I don't think she's the track lead, but I think she's one of, like, the biggest voices in it. She's very experienced. She's a really wonderful person, very sweet, but she, like, she would just sort of let the panel meander and she wasn't a very good. She was a very good moderator. Like, she didn't keep it going with questions and stuff. So it's. There's like a spectrum of this.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

This is, this is maybe one of the few places because most of the times I would think of an, of a pre interview period being almost useless. Like there's like a job interview. I don't think you actually get anything out of a job interview because that has nothing to do with the job. Yeah. But seeing if they can communicate with, in like a conversation about the thing might be a litmus test that might actually be applicable here because you could get them to do the thing they're actually that you actually need them to do. And you could find out, oh, in

front of an audience, right?

Yeah, yeah.

Well, I'm like, I feel like you could almost tell in five minutes, right? Where you just be like, you don't even need to schedule a long thing. You could just be like, hey, like, let's get on a, on a zoom call for a couple of minutes and you know, and just be like, let me ask you about your experience. And then what you're. You're not actually caring about their answers in the terms of like, the content as much as, like, are they actually communicating well? Do they like, pass off? Do they just ramble? Do they try to bull you over stuff like that? What might be actually be useful? And this is like one of the few cases where that might actually be the case.

Yeah, yeah. You might actually want to interview potential panelists, especially if they don't have experience paneling or don't have experience in the field. That's actually so bonkers to me that someone would go, I want to be on a fan fiction panel, but I don't write fanfiction. I could see it maybe if you have like a panel of several people and you have most of them are writers and maybe you have one really dedicated reader in there who's like, there for a different perspective point. That's one thing. But if the whole panel is people who don't write fanfiction. Now I'm confused. What are we doing?

It wasn't like the whole panel, but we had like two people on a four person panel that had never written before. And then another one was the slash panel, and it's like the history of slash and it's really interesting. And we had one person on there that writes fan fiction, but not slash fan fiction. And I was like, that's a kind of a different thing.

What?

Why are you here?

Yeah. What is happening?

That's crazy.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's one of those, like, how did you think this was a good idea?

And I understand loving a thing so much that you want to, like, get up in front of people and talk about it. About it. And obviously, all these people were extroverts. They just wanted to get up and talk to people.

Yeah, that's. That may be the real thing.

Yeah.

And. But, like, if you don't have any actual expertise, and really, I say expertise very loosely. I'm talking, like, have enough fan fiction, you know, that kind of thing. And it's not. I was also on the Frankenstein panel, and, like, I don't have, quote, unquote, experience with Frankenstein. Obviously, I'm not, like, a scholar, but I. I was in the. What the. Regarding. Refrain. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so I played a character in a production of it. I've read the book several times. I've watched all the movies. So I can at least come to it with, like, I have performed part of it. I've had to really kind of think about it deeply. That kind of a thing.

That's experience. Like, that's like.

That's experience.

Okay, cool.

Not only did you have you read it several times, but, like, you had to engage with it in a way that was different than maybe the other people on the panel because you were focusing on a particular character and how you would perform it and stuff like that. And that's. That is a very different perspective than trying to write a Frankenstein story or being a scholar of, you know, Mary Shelley or anything like. And so, like, no, that.

That.

See, like, this is what I was talking about with the. The phrase I used was point of view, where, like, you had a point of view on Frankenstein because you were involved with it, you had something to say about it, and your perspective. And that point of view is unique because it's yours, but also because you did something different than the other people might have done. And I think that's great. That's a very different kind of thing than, like, experience or credentials. Yeah. Like, you want somebody who has, like, something to say about it and can offer something that other people wouldn't. Necessarily a different perspective.

I think. I think the Frankenstein panel is a really good presentation. That's not the word, but example. It's a really good example of. Nobody on the panel was, like, I directed a movie of Frankenstein or, like, I wrote part of it, or, you know, whatever. We were all just lovers of Frankenstein, and we had the science guest of honor for the con, actually, as our moderator. So she was very organized and she was really just super smart, good questions, and everybody just had a really deep love of Frankenstein. And so that's like, a really good example of a bunch of people who speak well in front of people and might not necessarily be, quote, unquote, experts in the thing we're talking about. But at least we asked good questions and we had a fun discussion and we had, like, audience participation and stuff like that. So it can go both ways. Yeah, I just, I'm so. I'm a little bit frustrated with how, like, the. The cons in at least my area of Washington, like Seattle. Ish area, are just sort of like, yeah, whoever wants to come and do a panel about whatever, that's. It's great, it's fun, and it's sort of.

Well, I think it's fine to, like, market it as a fan panel. So you're saying, like, everybody who's up here doing this are not, like, experts. They're not, like industry professionals. They're just here to talk about a thing they like with other people who like the thing? Yeah, that's a different thing, right? Than being like, we're doing a fan fiction panel that's about writing fan fiction. And also, the people sitting up here don't write fanfiction. Like, yeah, I'm hung up on that. That's just bonkers to me.

And you can go a long way just by setting expectations correctly. Like if.

Yes, yes.

If the. If the panel is promised as this is a fan panel, this is a bunch of people who love this thing who are going to talk about it. It a. The phrase that came to mind, which is now going to curse My Brain, is an acoustic podcast, Then. And then that's what the audience is signing up for, then great. You know, and if it's advertised as here are industry professionals talking about ins and outs of, you know, minutia about, you know, insider baseball, about the. About an industry or something like that, then, like, you want to have people that actually do that. You know, it's the. As long as the panel itself is. Is. Is. Is presented correctly, then there's nothing. There's no right or wrong answers. But definitely the audacity of somebody to sign up for a thing that was like, I don't do it. I don't have anything to do with it, but I just want to talk about it.

That's so funny.

You get. You get stuck in list panels. If you do that too much, you'll like, you. You come into the panel and the description is, like, taking apart the tropes of Pregnancy in Horro was a great panel. But if you, if you don't have people that have ex. That either have like, you know, knowledge of horror movies or they either have not been pregnant or know somebody close to them that's been pregnant or something like that, they don't have any experience in pregnancy in any way. Like, you don't. It's probably not the panel for them.

Yeah.

So I don't know. It was just. It's.

People are notoriously bad at self selecting.

Yes. Yes.

If you've ever run auditions for an audio drama, you're aware how bad people are at self selecting out of.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, like, there's the combination of, like, some people are too self selecting. They think to themselves, oh, I'll never be appropriate for whatever this thing that I want to actually volunteer for, even if they would be good. And then you have the people who are like, I'm just gonna sign up for everything because I feel entitled to do all of it. I guess.

I don't know.

That's probably being very uncharitable to the people who, especially our auditioners who I've always encouraged everybody to do audition for everything. So I don't want to.

Not in our specific circle of productions, but in audio drama generally, as a. I have noticed, like, and like, heard from other friends who are in the space, like, CIS white straight men do be signing up for everything, like, including the roles that are like, we need a black woman. They're like, great. That's for me. Did you read?

No, no, they did not. Absolutely not.

People. People don't read. You just have to assume people don't read.

That's true, they don't.

Okay, well, real quick, let's. Let's check in with Mike because.

Yeah, Mike, how are you?

You weren't here when we did our check in.

It's fine.

No, no, but like, we want to know, did you.

Did you.

Have you. Have you. How are things going for you? We're in a not great place. When we talked before, but I want to. I want to hear from you now.

Yeah, yeah, I'd. I mean, I don't know. I've been on so many panels recently, like, it's very hard to kind of keep track of what work I'm doing, you know, like. Yeah, like, you know, like, you know, like, you know, like places where me as, you know, as a white, mostly straight, CIS male have been representing the PFC community and just taking it upon myself to make sure their voices are heard

recently.

Yeah, yeah. It's just very difficult.

It's rough out here.

Yeah, I'm never gonna be on a panel ever. But that means there's more time to write. And lo and behold, there has been time to write. I have a time of recording. Written about five episodes of a thing.

Oh, my God, you're zooming.

Yeah.

Structure is gonna be a little bit of an issue just because, like, everything isn't quite landing exactly where I needed it to. Like, the big flashback I was hoping to include in episode one has turned up in episode four.

Funny how that happens.

Yeah, it's kind of weird. Kind of weird. So there may be a lot of kind of going back in and kind of going, okay, where is the actual start and end point of these episodes in a way that makes them feel, you know, whole and, you know, satisfying rather than just a stream of consciousness?

Can I propose one single 10 hour episode?

Oh, my God.

At the moment, that is not out of the bounds of possibility.

Heck yeah.

Like, do this crazy thing and Mike's like, don't test me. I might.

Yeah. Like, I'm barely in control of this trainer. I can keep the engine going, but it's on tracks that I do not control. So it's very

Tracks down on the train.

I love it while it's grommeting this bitch.

So we'll see where it turns out. But, you know, like, the momentum is good. Like, when I'm writing stuff, it feels natural. It feels I can kind of get into the groove quite quickly. And then a couple of hours have passed and I've put down like, you know, four or five thousand words and it's kind of, hell, yeah, it's good. So I'm aiming for about 40,000 as like a whole. And then I'll go back and trim and divide and hopefully that should get me somewhere between kind of like 10 or 12 episodes that I can. And then work on getting him into a state where I can produce them. But yeah, so yay. That's so thinking two months maybe from now I might be in a position where I can start properly editing and getting an idea of the shape of the thing.

But that's so great. Yeah, I'm excited.

It's fantastic.

Yeah. At the moment it's fun.

So that's the important thing that you're having.

Like, that's the actual. Only part that matters is that you're

getting a good time, that you're not like dragging yourself as a slog through something, but that it's actually like that in a. That's always the best. That's great. I'm jealous of you in that. In that regard.

Yeah. It happens all too rarely. I'm just trying to make hay while I can before kind of see.

Yeah. Absolutely.

Yeah.

He crushes me.

You gotta. You gotta be there. Strike while the iron is hot as it were.

Right?

Yeah. So cool.

Yay.

Okay, we're gonna. I'm gonna do a clean break here so that I can edit this out if it doesn't work. But do you guys want to hear like five minutes of episode one of It Takes a Wolf Gun?

Because I want to so bad.

If it starts at the beginning, then this is the 40 minute file that I may not be able to stop. So we'll find out if this works or not.

Okay?

We're gonna find out.

There was a hooch cart up this lane and I ducked under its lean to privacy wall, planting myself on a seat as another pair of stevedore boots clattered by outside. Behind the bar was a man of perhaps four and a half feet and a sword of perhaps seven. One hung on two pegs taking up nearly an entire side of the cartoon and one polished the bar. The man was squat and had the broad, powerful build of an old iron tanker, but the full beard and eyebrows that no self respecting tanker would have abided.

What can I get you, handsome?

I arched an eyebrow at him and pointed at my just been used to break some guy's fist face.

Handsome? Really?

He shrugged.

I make my money in tips, so I'm making some assumptions about what's under the swelling. So what can I get you, presumably handsome?

I spared a glance out onto the street.

How much of a tap can I run if I promise to die before I can pay it?

His ale brown eyes narrowed and flicked out at the commotion starting to rise in the night market.

Good.

Who you running from?

Baleful admirers.

With a face like that, I'm still assuming. I bet you have to beat them off with a stick.

Where I come from that's typically a task for bare hands. Maybe some lotion if you're fancy.

He smiled at that. It was a good smile, easy and practiced. He must have made a killing. His eyes turned conspiratorial. A glass was set before me and a slug of clear liquid was poured into it.

If you're gonna die anyway, might as well take some of this with you.

The good stuff

for you. Absolutely not.

Good stuff's wasted on me anyway.

I tossed the drink back and let the fumes singe my sinuses from the Inside out bathtub rotgut. White as the moon and raw as a honeymoon night. The beast happily drank the alcohol straight from my stomach. I set the glass back on the bar. My eyes fell on the sword that hung behind it.

Him.

Seven feet long and nearly a foot wide from hilt to tip. It seemed impossible for anyone his size to wield it. Below there was a little brass plaque.

Who's Guinevere and is she a giant?

The look on his face was of a man whose memories were the stuff of roses and gold over hell of

a lot of Wonder Woman.

And then his face turned sour.

My ex wife.

Wait, you got her blade in the divorce?

She left it to me in her will. One last insult on my manhood from the grave.

Well, if she was still concerned at the end, then at least your manhood made a lingering impression.

At the end of the cart, the outline of a wall of soot and muscle appeared. They were not looking in here. Not yet. I tried not to glance that way, but the bartender's honey brown eyes smiled at me.

Look, friend, if you go out that way.

One smooth motion of his broad hairy hand indicated the other end of the cart, which appeared to be blocked by one of the night market walls.

Hug the wall a dozen yards to the right, there's a gap even a big lad like you should be able to squeeze through. Put you out in the shadow of the old town church.

Already I was on my feet.

Okay, thank you and thanks for the drink.

He waggled the bottle at me and winked.

If you're willing to make this poison disappear, you can come by anytime.

I tapped the brim of my cap in silent salute and slipped into the gentle cacophony of the city street. No stevedores in sight. I stretched the muscles of my neck, already starting to tighten like old boat ropes from the beating I'd taken earlier, shoved my hand into the pockets of my stolen coat and took myself for a walk into the dampening night.

Oh, you successfully stopped the file.

It actually did.

It was the right one. It was the correct one. It wasn't the 40 minute full episode.

40 minute one. Okay. Bless bless yo. That sounds good so far.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Still needs some trimming and I've got. I actually have some rerecording to do because I've got. I realized my beast voice doesn't work at the moment, so some stuff like that. But yeah, we're making progress. I'm. I'm making progress again after six months. It's great.

What?

Yeah.

What. What kind of soundscape Are you going to have. As this conversation is happening, there's just like, bar sounds.

Yeah.

So it's going to be distant street noise because they're inside of a small. Like a small tent. Yeah, like a tent. And then probably some rustling and noise. The big question is, actually I still haven't figured out if I'm going to try putting music underneath a lot of these scenes. So I'm going to have to try it both ways. And then if I do end up doing that way, I'm going to have to pay for licensing and stuff like that. But I think with as, you know, film noiri. As, all this is some, like, jazz and horns and stuff like. Or sad piano would also really work well for some of this stuff. So, yeah, that's the. That's the big question is whether or not there's going to be music. But I have the soundscape pretty well in my head.

Do you plan on doing any sort of. Because obviously when you have voices that are having conversations inside of a bar as opposed to like on the street, there's different kinds of reverb and stuff you got to do. What are you. What are your settings for your beast voice? Like, your narration voice? Like, is it going to be like, back up kind of in your head, or is it like. Like, where. Where are we doing?

So. Okay, well, there's. There's two.

The.

The.

The voice you heard just now in the script is called the narrator.

Yeah.

And that's the. The narrator voice. So that what you hear there is pre. Not. I'm going to say it's. It's mostly what it's going to be. It's. I'm mostly relying on the presence effect from this mic right here. And so you get that real close in. I'm gonna have to do a bunch of cleanup to remove some breath sounds and stuff. But that and a little bit of EQ tweaking. That'll have no reverb or anything. I'll be really clean. Okay. The. The beast voice itself is the same vocal register for me, but I backed off the mic before when I didn't recorded it. So it's the same voice, but you lose some of the, like, deep. This part right here when you Back. When you back off, you. It's the same voice, but you don't hear it off mic. And when I. When I've heard it now in the cut, the. It. The beast doesn't sound big enough anymore. When. When it.

When I do that boy up, when

I lose the presence effect on this Voice right here. And I back it off a few, a little ways is you. You lose a lot.

That's so funny. It sounds like a whole different size of guy.

You're so right. Yeah.

And so I'm, I'm. I have not yet figured out what I'm going to do for when the Beast is. Is out yet. I'm either just going to have to re record it with the presence back in and then use reverb and maybe EQ it a little differently to give it that, that, that.

Could you double your own voice?

Oh, just like. Yeah, just drop a, A, A second

copy, duplicate the track and, and do. And.

Yeah, and I was messing around with that. The. Not, not in the section we played today, but the, the section with the muscle, which Ari was nice enough to record for me for her voice. I was, I was, I was playing around with some like, monstery effects on top of it. Like, you know, drop an octave, double it, do a chorus, flanger, stuff like that. Really screw at the EQs and stuff. And a lot of that ended up sounding really artificial. So I'll probably only end up with a, with a kind of a clear cut on that one. But there are options that I can play around with. When I get to the. To the Beast part, I think I'm probably just gonna have to re record it with the, the presence effects and then EQ it and probably put some

reverb pitching down, pitch it down like the teeniest, tiniest little bit because then it'll be offset to the other voice and it'll give a weird little one of those kind of demonesque sorts of things.

Sure. I might also, I might try like, the narrator voice is very like, it's low and it's growly, but there's not any roughness to it really. So I can also change my vocal posture a little bit and try like going for more of a growl.

That would be so easy to differentiate.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was one of those things, like I had an idea in my head the whole time and then when I, when I recorded it, I recorded it all in one go and I wasn't listening back. So when I finally have heard them all together, I'm like, ah, yeah, this is. I need to retweak it. Which is fine. That's, that's, that's how you discover these things.

This project is a lot of like, separate parts that get recorded separately. And then when you put them together, you go, oh, I have to pay attention to like, how these relate to Each other, as well as how they sound on their own.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I have to do so much like, where are people standing in the room in two, three, six, all the time? And I have so many. I have so many different settings for reverbs for, like, where people are. It's ridiculous.

Yeah, yeah.

There.

Yeah.

When you. And if you're gonna get into reverbs, I've done this a lot where you. You put all the. Put the whole scene on a reverb. The very last thing you put, you pipe everything into a bus and then run a reverb on that. And that melds the sounds together and makes it feel very much, you know, in situ. It makes it feel like a. Like a recording of the. Of the location. I might actually avoid doing some of that here because this is so. What's the word? Because it's so narration heavy. If you were switching back and forth between what is almost an audiobook and what sounds like a recording in a space, I might want to keep it a little bit more ethereal off. That will be something I'll have to discover when I get into the edit, the actual sound design part of it, but. And leave it a little bit more abstract where it's, you know, you can kind of tell that these are, you know, voices being recorded is fine. And especially if there's music under it. If there's going to be music under it, then I need to make sure my voices are super clear because I don't want those clashing.

Yeah.

So that will. That will depend a little bit on how those on and how. How the sound design edit gets. And I'm. I'm a little ways away from that because I'm going to fully assemble and then do timing cuts on both one and two before I get into the sound design, just so that I. I'm still in the one mode. Yeah. Before I go back on. But. Yeah.

Have you. I can't remember because I know I've about this before. Have you actually listened to the Penumbra podcast?

No, I am. If there's an audio drama you can. That exists, you can assume that I have not listened to it.

Okay.

I'm so bad about listening to other people, other projects.

Yeah.

I think that the Penumbra, they're also noir, like futuristic noir, and they do a pretty good job of differentiating the narration with the actual. When the main character is speaking and. And the voices aren't different, so it's pretty much all reverb and sound design stuff.

Well, and in the past, Just doing that mic. The positioning switch, which I've done with other narration stuff in the past that has all worked. Usually worked great. It's this one. I was like, oh, this interacted in a way that I wasn't expecting. It's toy this one time. Oh, yeah. Hello, Twig.

Hi, Twig.

He's. I don't know what he's wanting, but he wants something now.

Like, I would just.

I would just. With the. Bringing it back in close to the mic to do the beast, I would be so careful because it's going to be really obvious because nobody else is up close to the mic. It's going to. It's. It's not going to bother. It's not going to bother 95% of people. But, like, people who do sound design are going to be like, yikes.

Yeah, I'm pro. I'm going to have to. I'm going to have to play dad.

Dad. Dad.

Dad is poking Scott with his paw. Like, yo, dad.

Hello. Did I. Have I not.

Have I.

Have you? Is it. Has it been too long since you've eaten or pooped or something? What's going on?

He just wants attention.

Yeah.

He just loves you.

He's realized that maybe there are people on the screen. Is that what it is? Oh, no. You want to smell my breath?

Okay.

All right, well, that, I think, is an episode. So let's set some goals for two weeks from now, and then I can feed my dog. Okay, perfect.

All right, we really need to switch to video, you guys. The audience needs this. Yeah.

Okay. The first of May. All right, cool. I should be good from two weeks from now.

Okay, first of May. No, that'll be June.

No, sorry, June. Yeah, you're right.

Yeah.

Okay.

I was just like, this is May,

whatever month we're on, you know?

I don't fucking know, brother. No, no, you're right. It's the first of June.

No, it's okay. I just was like. I had a moment of like. Oh, crap.

Oh, wait.

Yeah. Is that me? Is it me? No, it is the children who are wrong.

Okay.

Yes. All right. Yeah. So let's see. Let's go in regular order. Ish. So I'll go first. My goal will be to have completely finished the assembly of episode two, which is, I think, reasonable now that everything's set back up and I'm making progress again. And then start. Either make good progress on timing cuts, too, where I actually fix all the little weird gaps and get everybody's conversation stuff all work together. Oh, and. Oh, no, actually More important than that is rerecording the stuff that I need to rerecord. There's a couple of narration bits that are. That were recorded not in the right location and so they sound all weird and stuff like that. And try the Beast again and. Yeah, that's actually probably the next thing I'm going to do then.

Next base tab. Okay, cool, Cool.

Sam, how about you?

I am going to compile casting info for the paranormal folks, the writers, because we have a casting call all going out probably next week. Ish. And I need to read all of my rough drafts that I have received already.

Cool.

And another narration, of course, because that always. That's always happening.

That's always happening.

Always happening. Jack, how about you?

I'm just doing like market prep and con prep, so I'm preparing tafcon prints right now. And that's my big project.

Yeah.

Mike, how about you? You wanna set a goal?

Yeah. I'll say that. I'm gonna aim for another two episodes. I think by the time we record again.

Yay.

Excellent.

Yay.

That's probably a good goal.

Zoom in. We love to see it.

Yeah. I just gotta. Just gotta keep it up. Just gotta keep it up. Just get past. I can get past halfway. Then it'll start to feel like a real thing and I'll actually.

It'll feel like you're going downhill.

Yeah.

Yeah. Well, yeah, it's always the way. But yeah, if I can get to get to a point, I can trick my brain into thinking I'm actually gonna make this sometime this year, then that would be nice.

So.

Yeah, we want that for you so bad.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Okay, cool. Well, then we will catch the audience in two weeks. Bye.

Bye.

Bye.