Season 1 Postmortem and Q&A

An extended version of this Q&A is available on our Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/farandtalltalesHere we got together to answer your questions and celebrate a season completed! Endless thanks to everyone who contributed to the season, and to everyone of you for listening!
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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Welcome to ghost Wax, a foreignTall Tales production. The following story may
contain graphic content. Listener discretion isadvised. Hello, and welcome to the

(01:04):
post mortem Q and A of GhostWax Season one. Oh, we're doing
it. We're doing ghost claps.Is that what that is? Or spirits
figuer? Yeah? This is alsoasl for applause. Oh okay, wonderful.
Okay, So we have slogged throughforty five to fifty episodes, depending

(01:26):
on what you count an episode Patreonepisodes, little bonuses, remembrances. I
don't even know how many we've actuallydone, but that has been a wild
year and we were able to churnout that much content. Of what I
have of equality, I'm very proudof only because as our little snowball started

(01:47):
rolling along, started with with mynow husband Aaron, and I, Yeah,
thank you, sem just like makingsomething just for us that we really
wanted to make. And and thelittle little Ghost Wax snowball rolled along and
rolled along, and as we wentwe started accumulating actors and other writers and

(02:07):
other creatives, and two of thoseare here with me today, also my
cat Lily. Before we get started, I just want to make an announcement
that this is the post mortem,this is after the show. This will
be full of spoilers for the entireseries. We're not going to hold anything
back. We're not gonna tiptoe aroundanything it you know we will. We

(02:30):
will not be spoiling stuff for futureseasons, but we might hint at some
stuff. So really, don't listento this until you've listened to the show.
Thank you and enjoy, so wouldyou. Why don't you guys go
ahead and introduce yourselves and tell uswhat episodes you wrote. Well, Hello,
I'm Stephanie, and you'll if youlisten to the last post mortem Q

(02:52):
and A. You heard me ramblingat Robbie on that one. Yeah.
Also, if you've listened to anyof the shows, Stephanie my voice Pip
and have written just a hodgepodge ofepisodes, all of the big Pip ones,
Yes, I wrote, and thenthe Woman at the Piano. I

(03:13):
wrote the Final Countdown, Yeah,which I love. How device are by
far most, by far most divisiveepisode. It gives me life when people
hate that episode because I'm like,yeah, we're not taking any of this
no serious and echoes. I've writtena number of episodes and love every minute

(03:37):
of it. Ah, so happy. The other thing that you've done is
make have injected like massive amounts ofcharacter focus and character evolution, like throughout
the throughout the season. It's sofunny because some of the episodes that other
people have written, like I've injectedstuff into, but a lot of the
ones that I've written like ideas orconcepts or especially character stuff because we you

(04:02):
know, I've got a Dungeons andDragons background, so I have a tendency
to be like, well, thisis your character. What do you think?
You know? Which is is verynot typical of a lot of showrunner
shows, is that you know,you don't like have characters as like avatars
or vehicles. But we're kind ofdoing that a little bit with some of
the characters and it's paid paid somedividends. Thank you, Steph. I'm

(04:25):
so glad you're here. I hadto be here, all right. And
on my left is mister Brian.Hello, why not? Hi, I'm
Brian. I have both acted andwritten in the show. I acted echoes
and I was the one who rerecorded episode one yeah remaster. So depending

(04:46):
on when you listen to that,you either heard Robbie talking to himself or
me implying I was there from thebeginning, which I was not, and
we had we had like one Idon't remember what platform it was on,
but there was one review that wasvery like, this fucking asshole just sitting
here talking to himself, and Iwas like, it was it was me

(05:09):
talking to myself. I was allalone. How dare the pilot episode sound
rough? Hey? You know?Fair? Fair critique fans up. Then
I've written a few. I wroteSchism Slash Cold Case, and then both
my skins and I both wrote andacted in the Patreon episode Balancer, which
you should absolutely pay money to listento. Oh please please give us some

(05:31):
money, some money, we needmoney, right, And then I have
dug myself in like a tick.I've written eight or ten episodes now that
are just sitting in a drafts folder. Maybe for eventual use time, oh
most definitely for eventual years. Yeah, I have come out. This is
how we keep him busy. Ohyeah, keep it. I don't know,

(05:55):
maybe once we hit you'll get theresome day. I just want to
have me another episode, please.Yeah. It is a very fun world
to play in, so I keephaving ideas God help me. Oh yeah,
well, see the thing the thingabout the world is that I mean,
as as mister said, as misterSid said, everything is real,

(06:18):
and so like this is a fullya yes, and like we if we've
got a friggin weird idea, weare gonna make it work and make it
creepy and then like mold it intothe the cannon and make it like make
it vibe for us like that.One of one of my goals with the

(06:38):
show is like when you tune in, you're like never sure what you're gonna
hear. I really really want tosurprise people all the time, which is
why episodes like Final Countdown where youtune in and it's just like a full
like shrill comedy episode. You know. I love that idea. Oh you

(06:59):
did such a great job on mfreaking Battles, who is just one of
the absolute heroes of this season withholding down some incredibly difficult like voice voice
work and playing Margot and jeers Uhcannot wait to work more with m.
She's amazing and she's very like sheclearly loves doing it or is lying to

(07:24):
me to pad my ego, butshe's very, very into it. So
that is always incredibly energizing, like, oh and right Eron's here, yes,
okay, And the fourth microphone inthe room, no one can see
me up here. I know you'reon. I literally can't see you.

(07:46):
Yeah, the fourth microphone in theroom belongs to my beautiful husband, mister
Aaron. I'm Aaron. I voiceLuca obviously, and I don't write a
thing, but I do edit andproduce sound effects, music all that stuff.

(08:07):
So so he's the reason it's apodcast and just literally the reason that
it is. We should release ramblingsfrom a living room. Yeah, hey,
that's the show. That's what we'redoing now. Yeah, Aaron,
your folly work. Oh yeah,I've been trying to do as much as

(08:33):
I can. You know, sometimesit's just a lot easier to go into
a database and pick something out.But yeah, I've been trying to do
as much of that as I can. When we eventually get to the finale
remasters. One thing that I knowAaron was very like was really trying to
find a lot of We're Tentacle sounds. Oh yeah, that's my one.

(08:58):
I mean, I spent so muchtime I'm working on that last episode,
and then I got to the endof it, when like the Hamsa that
is von Sid comes out emerges.I just could not find like, I
mean, how do you google tentaclesound effects? Like, I don't know

(09:18):
it just yeah, it was verydifficult. What does a dentical sound?
Right? To make something for that, here's what we do. We get
a pack of uncooked hot dogs andjust like smack them together. Absolutely,
I think, I think literally wemanaged to find just like sort of drippy

(09:39):
wet stuff which but whips in there. It could go a long way.
Yeah, some hot dog sounds ifyou will. Yeah, we are gonna
we have a litany of questions thatwe are gonna have Aaron read to us
from our wonderful discord many. Itis such a great community. I'm so

(10:03):
so like proud to have, likeagain collect I feel like the collector,
you know, like, yeah,the mysterious benefactor is me just like collecting
toys for myself. But so we'regonna have Aaron read some questions from our
discord, which, by the way, come join us on Discord, come
join us on Patreon too. Wehave a bunch of fun bonus content and

(10:28):
I guess I'll just run a littlecommercial for this We are doing an expansion
season called Ghost Wax nineteen ten,which is set in nineteen ten, both
America, probably London, maybe afew other places in the world because we're
just getting working on it now.But it will star von sid Olivia and

(10:52):
Amiya and some other some other charactersthat you might find familiar. But back
at the like turn of the century, and yeah, give a little bit
of like backstory and context and likereally changed things up. The like the
resurgence of occultism, like in themid eighteen hundreds, like through the turn

(11:13):
of the century has always been sofascinating to me, this like obsession with
mediums, the way that new technologysuddenly opened up all of these avenues for
people's you know, relationships with thedead, the like the spirit photography,
which you know, it's just adouble exposure, but it gave people this
feeling that their loved ones were standing, you know, right beside them.

(11:35):
And what that does to people psychicallyand what that psychic surge may have done
to the world or what it mighthave awoken. So that's where we're going
with with nineteen ten. It's basicallythe whole the whole season is going to
be a bunch of cases like likewe've done before, but then also an
overarching sort of who done it?Or like what done it? So yeah,

(11:56):
and probably like ten episodes and that'llbe up on our Patreon. Any
level of support you get to listento the episodes, and then maybe maybe
we'll actually just like sell the seasonon other platforms. I know that sometimes
they do that. But the moremore info on that soon, and we're
writing that right now and are veryexcited for it. But so, yeah,
come join us on Discord. That'swhere these these questions came from.

(12:18):
And yeah, Aaron, do youwant to just drop some on us and
we'll Yeah. Sure. I sortof grouped them into categories, okay,
but for the most part they're justrandom. So yeah, So all these
questions are from our lovely Discord andI have pulled a smattering of them.

(12:46):
We'll see how many we can getto. And god knows, I have
already eaten up a significant portion ofour time with just rambling nonsense. So
all right, So the first oneI grabbed was how long an episode actually
take to create? From script writing, recording, mixing, editing. How
long does a thirty ish minute episodereally take? Oh? Man, this

(13:13):
is a so how long so soa couple of days for writing. I
think the longer episodes have taken mea couple of The longest one probably took
me a few weeks. That wasprobably that's episode thirty, the scene on

(13:33):
a battlefield that was that that thatis I'm very very proud of the writing
and that one that was a fullshort story as an episode. That that
one took me a long time toto like, you know, an evening,
you know, and and then afterthat then there's coordinating with actors,

(13:56):
you know, call you know,gally, some text, some emails,
getting actors down, so some coordination. Then they have to record, and
if you're recording an hour long episode, it probably takes you ninety minutes to
two hours to record it with goingback and and then gosh and then so

(14:22):
multiply that amount of couple an houror two or maybe maybe like an hour.
Multiply that by the number of differentactors then and then Aaron, if
you want to speak to the actualhow much time you know, chucking down
raw? Yeah. So yeah.So once we have cast sort of assigned,

(14:48):
we try to give you know,people who have their own like recording
setups, as much time as possibleto record and send it in, and
then local people who don't have thator just want to come over to record
to you know, get get morefeedback, get more direction. So I'd

(15:13):
say collecting all of the recordings usuallytakes. Sometimes it's fast. Sometimes it's
like three days. Sometimes it's likea week. We sort of have like
a group of people that we wereworking with on the show a lot,
that window has come down a lotnow that we have a good, like

(15:37):
you know, stable of people wholike working on the show, like you
know, doing voices, and wecan we don't have to hunt for people
so so so much anymore. Butyeah, then once I have those I
typically try to do I'll take oneevening and I'll go through each track and

(16:06):
you know, cut out unnecessary information, you know, select the read that
I think is best for the scene, and I'll do all I'll do each
character like that in an evening,you know, give or take sometimes,
you know, depending on this alsoballoons based on how many characters there are.

(16:30):
So like the finale had like twelvecharacters in it, So each one
of these steps took like twice aslong. But yeah, so typically an
evening to do that, and thenthe following evening I'll take each of those
and put them together so that thescene sounds conversational, and then I mix

(16:53):
all that together, and then anotherevening to sort of sit down and set
on track and pull and plug insound effects things like that. And sometimes,
particularly when Rob is writing the episode, he'll get through writing and be

(17:17):
like, oh, I have thisidea in here that's going to require some
sound work. So in those instances, I try to like plan ahead and
like start looking for, you know, sounds that will work, knowing that
I'm going to have to have youknow, multiple things mixed together and fading

(17:40):
in and out effects on them andstuff like that. So I'll try to
do some of that ahead of time. But yeah, I mean a typical,
a typical ghost WEX episode where it'syou know, Vonson and Luca in
the beginning or whoever, and thena reclaiming and a story and then I,

(18:02):
like, you know, Danuma orwrap up on my end, typically
takes three sessions of around gosh,two to four hours for each step,
I would say at this point,so I don't know what that adds up

(18:26):
to. Someone else can add thatup. Yeah, And when he says
evenings. Sometimes that is Okay,it's eight o'clock, we've finished dinner,
and then we're talking three in themorning. I'm like, hey, bedtime,
buddy, dragging him to bed.Particularly in that like first part where

(18:47):
it's just sitting down with each trackfrom each actor and like selecting the take
I want to use and cutting outall the other stuff that I don't want
to use. That's sort of themost like fiddly and less engaging part of

(19:07):
the process. So I will typically, you know, sit down, do
a couple of those, and thenlike watch something on YouTube and then come
back to it. Yeah, soyou cannot fry your brain by just doing
it straight. Yeah, when youlook. I've seen some people post where
they post like the audio tracks,like all the different colors and all the

(19:30):
different audio things and the music linesand stuff. And then and then you
think about like our finale episode thathad twelve different people who trained themselves to
record, sat down to do it, recorded, sent it in, it
got edited, it got mixed,it got cleaned up, it got music
put over it. Stephanie's husband Colton, wrote music for us, so he

(19:52):
had to sit and do that learnhow to play the guitar. You just
think about the amount of work.He knew how to play the guitar the
show, But I'm just like deconstructHe's just committed. He learned the guitar
and formed a band. Transition toohard. But but if you think about
like all the skill, the time, the effort that goes into it by
like a dozen people, by theend of that, it's it's a it's

(20:15):
a huge amount of work. Butif you think about it on the terms
of like one person, it's nothingcrushing. So my advice to anybody who
wants to actually do a podcast isdon't don't try and do it by yourself,
because the more like people and talentyou add into it them, like,
the less heavy the load is forany particular person. So, like,

(20:37):
you know, the ideal for Aaronwould be to have another editor who
does that, who does the doespart of it, you know, and
then he can do the fun stuff. But sorry, you can cut that
part out. But well, onething, and I am so sorry because
this might come up later. Itjust feels like that's a good time is
I've seen people ask why we don'trecord all together and why you edit it?

(21:06):
Yeah, in sections, and sothe biggest part of that is just
getting a clean recording. The morepeople you add into a room, you
know, a brings distractions. Aswe learned from our large Cat Cattle Call

(21:27):
recording for the finale where we hadlike six people over here. I'll take
turns took forever, it really did. But yeah, so that that's that's
the the biggest reason is that whenyou have one person in a quiet room

(21:47):
recording on one MIC, you justget a cleaner file from that. Now,
sometimes when we do it here,we'll have of you know, Robinson
on the couch and read the otherlines along with the person recording, so
that it feels conversational, but we'reactually only recording one part. And the

(22:11):
other part of that is that Ilike to have the clips to be able
to move around at will, andwhen it's being read with someone, there's
like timing and pacing built into that. So I like to take that sort
of out of it so that Ican put that back together in the way

(22:33):
that I want to construct it.Ironically, it can wind up sounding more
natural when you have it can ifyou're gonna edit, like because if you've
got like Brian and I are doinga take and he says line A,
and I say line B in responseto that. But Aaron doesn't like how

(22:53):
I said line B, but helikes how Brian said line A. He
probably can't split lift those two linesapart if they are really, like really
clearly connected. But so he likesBrian's line A more than you know.
But being able to frankenstign it together, I can see that. I can

(23:14):
see. I see what you mean. It's just it's just a preference that
I have, honestly, And yeah, it creates more work, but I
think that the end product comes outbetter. I mean, for instance,
we did god sixty nine plus episodesof Could Have Been Heroes and that was
you know, six hot mics inour living room, and holy crap,

(23:40):
was that a bear to edit down? You know when I want to take
out this thing that Amanda said.But Andy and Josh were talking about this
at the same time, and Roband Katie were laughing, and it's like,
where where do I cut? Youknow, Like that was the most
like crucible trial by fire? Whatthe hell were we thinking with that?

(24:02):
Like, Oh, we'll all getin a room and we'll play a dungeon
and direct, well, you know, a TTRPG together, and and then
we'll just that'll be what we did, That'll be what we recorded. And
then Aaron sit sound to edit andlike just the top of his head blew
off and hit the ceiling and likerealized when we were you know, and
I was pretty new to this specificform of like sound engineering and editing and

(24:29):
stuff like that. So you know, now I know a lot of very
helpful tricks that I really wish Ihad known then, because I did a
whole bunch of work on that thatI did not need to because I could
have had the computer do it forme. But has the problem with being
autodidactic when you teach yourselves, yougot to find the tricks all on your
own. Yeah, so christ Yeah, So the answer is to that question

(24:55):
about how long does it take amassive amount of time, But that amount
of time is put in by likelots of different people, probably less time
than the amount of time it tookus to actually answer that question. Oh
yeah, a lot of invisible timetoo, so it's hard to gauge.
Yeah, how long before an episodestarts being written? Do you count time?

(25:18):
Yep? Like how much thinking counts? Yeah? What even is time.
Yeah, Like, for example,I have been developing the like the
metaplot in nineteen ten for like amonth and a half. Now it's been
in the back of my head.I think about it all the time.
I have a bunch of scenes likelike the train, the guy on the
train who sees the eye in thehand, the arrival at the house,

(25:41):
the for seance that like, likeI have the all of these scenes like
already like kind of constructed in myhead like a little movie. So now
I just got to sit down andwrite, you know, write the first
episode and connect those together. Butthat that's taken like a month, And
this is God damn. My momused to look at me and see my
vacant eyes, my eyes like staringoff in the distance, or like with

(26:03):
a bunch of little toys in mylap or whatever, and and and she's
like, what are you doing?You're not doing anything, you know,
Or my dad would be like,why shouldn't you be doing something? Shouldn't
you go make a friend early?You know, you know, because they
just see you sitting there like alump. And but what I should have
said is I'm I'm I'm creating,like I'm creating mother, I'm creating father.
Yeah, so okay, Well butthat's okay. If it's compelling,

(26:34):
that's fine. My ADHD is fuckingus up. I'm sorry. And now
for question two. Question please,so let's get this one done because this
might be long. But oh god, who is your favorite character, either
to write or perform or just ingeneral in the story? Well, Stephanie,

(27:00):
I feel like this will be easy. We talked a little bit about
how we we've been doing kind oflike avataring, So do you want to
talk about that a little? Imean, obviously I love my girl Pip,
everybody else great, Yeah, Imean character man, when I first

(27:22):
apologized for all the horrors that we'vesubjected her too, well, I remember
this always when I you first werebringing me on board and trusting me to
create characters, and I told youabout this concept I had for a tarot
reader who could see the future buthad to act like she couldn't because it

(27:42):
was bad business if people actually foundout what was going to happen and then
just were like, well that's badanyway, and like working that in the
problem of the true truth. Andthen I had this first episode created where
she gets her throat cut and Ihad it even from then. I'm like,
and then in a few episodes,she's going to get this big necklace

(28:03):
to cover it and it's going tobe super sparkly. And Robbie just stopped
me and he goes, wait aminute, are you just creating a character
so that you can cosplay her later? Yes? And and I look you
dead in the face, and I'mlike, obviously expect. A small detail

(28:25):
that you have to know is thatStephanie is a like professional level cosplayer,
that she is a spectacular cosplayer.She has a cosplay like building crafting room
and has like has some very verygreat cosplays. And then I was just
really, you know, yeah,we were adding costume details, and that's

(28:45):
the thing. We bring what welove to the characters. But you know,
I could just visualize who this personwas so perfectly, and yeah,
I've put a lot of myself andmy own quirks in there. My job
title aboard this this crew is theuh uh general manager of Swears, because
that's what I add to the podcast. A lot of the times, Yeah,

(29:07):
yeah, a lot of the timesyou go in and you're like,
and then they got to say there'snot enough curses in this person. Yeah,
but yeah, so that would bemine, I'd say. I'd say
secondary is I love writing the deadcharacters or like the new like the people
were just bringing in because you canmake them whoever you want. And frankly,
my favorite episode is Video Horror Storyand writing those characters because again we

(29:33):
kind of knew who they were.That was. That's a collaboration with the
Just School with it, Yeah,and we were kind of basing it a
little bit on them, But thosewere my other than Pip, those were
my favorite characters to write. Awesome, well you wrote, but I was
like feeding you. Yeah, wecollaborate a lot. So anyway, all

(29:56):
right, Brian, how about yougot a favorite character in season one?
Oh Will? I really enjoyed ofthe stuff I've written that has come out
so far. I really enjoyed writingthe Balancer episode because that was an attempt.
All of my episodes that I've written, whether they've been made yet or

(30:17):
not, I've been trying to playwith something new, mostly because of my
own probable but as yet undiagnosed ADHDwhere I just have to keep trying new
things because once I've done them oncewell, that pathway worked it doesn't work.
It doesn't give me the dopamine anymore. I need new for dopamine,
right, I need to play withthe structure of this one. For no
reason, but Balancer was an attemptto make an antagonist that was entirely a

(30:42):
moral in a very literal way,not just a moral in the now.
They can be a serial killer andI can do messed up things. The
Balancer is a personification of a universalforce of attempting to balance energy, which
means sometimes they're going to really brutallykill the innocent, and sometimes they're going

(31:04):
to save the innocent. It justdepends on how things are skewed in this
situation. If things are skewed towardswhat we would call injustice, they're going
to bring justice, and if thingsare skewed towards peace and prosperity, they're
going to bring really painful chaos.It's just it was an attempt to play

(31:26):
with a character that used a verydifferent system of what was right and wrong.
And we're right and wrong. We'realmost completely meaningless words. Yeah,
And I think that's something that wehave been really playing with in Ghost Wax
a lot is the concept of likethings that are really alien to people and
that being scary, like like usrealizing that there are things about us,

(31:51):
about humanity, about people that youdon't associate with humanity, but they're in
there, they're underneath there, likethese ideas and notions that like, uh
anyway, so yeah, I thinkI think that was a very cool that's
a very cool thing, and wegot to play with that some more.
The you know, the we talkedabout about like the pattern and how like

(32:13):
things have to match the pattern andif they don't, they have to be
excized and that's not positive or negative, it just is what it is,
you know. And you know andagain that everything, everything in Ghost Wax
is a monster as a metaphor typething, and like we you know,
there are you know, difficult decisionsin all of our lives that we have
to make and we don't want tomake, but you got to. You've

(32:36):
got to make changes, and thatcan be really painful and that's scary,
like deep down, like you know, you're working without a net kind of
stuff. So okay, So obviously, uh, you know, this season
one, the main the three maincharacters uh are probably would probably would be
Luca and Pip and and von said, and so I gotta I got a

(32:58):
soft spot for my boy. Vaughan'ssaid. Obviously, you know, we
all have these sort of avatar charactersthat we love so much. But I
think I'm just massively, massively proudof that character. I think he's really
unique. I think he's he's froma book I started writing like a long
time ago. I wrote, like, you know, a third or like
half of a fantasy novel. Andthen I realized that I had spent so

(33:22):
many time writing like different like testchapters, that I'd written half of a
novel with no with no actual likeanyway, I'll just release some of those
as short story as you as canread them and see if they're they're good,
but I'll release the original, likevon said, chapter it was a
character who came in and found aperson who had been brutally murdered and cut
up and like sewed them back togetherand brought someone out of a dungeon to

(33:50):
use their power to reanimate it andinterviewed the guy after they you know,
were reanimated. And so just thisidea of someone using using neckermancy to investigate
the dead, right, I thoughtthat was really interesting. But then when
I started writing him for ghost Wax, he showed up as kind, compassionate,

(34:12):
like cares very deeply about these peoplewho have passed. And I realized
that in you know, in betweenthe time that I had sort of written
that and now you know, I'veyou know, I've processed a lot more
of my own you know, dealingwith death and grief, and you know,

(34:35):
you know, it's been a lot. You know, my my little
sister died gosh, almost ten yearsago or is it ten years ago now?
And so clearly the character of VaughanSid was like, wouldn't it be
great if we could talk to peoplewe've lost? But then, you know,
almost a decade later, it's notit's about like not trying to clutch

(34:57):
onto that and just realize that,but to try to put some sort of
piece to to that loss or whatever. So it's interesting how you're sort of
like these characters wind up his vehiclesfor for things inside of you and things
you're dealing with. And so butI think he's amazing and I love him
a lot, and I I'm reallyexcited to dig more into Luca's backstory,

(35:20):
and I have a whole bunch ofnew characters that I'm really excited about.
But the most fun. Yeah,he's he's he's like easy for me now,
Like I just know him so well. I just know what he'd say.
And so that is a cool thingto have happen, where you get
to know a character so well thatyou they become like second nature to write
or to record as Like his voiceis really easy to do now. And

(35:44):
writing monsters is fun, trying tomake them genuinely scary and not going to
like they jump out and make aloud noise or they have like, god,
it's Gary voice, but like butlike that, they're they're giving monsters
some humanity, you know, Idon't know, that's something that we've on.
I don't know. I don't know. I obviously Von said he's my

(36:04):
boy, So there there is that. It's the obvious answer. And I
think my favorite continuing character to writeabout is Luca, partly because Luca's as
as much as any character is theaudience stand in, because he is the
one, so what's going on?He's one hundred Watson, Yeah, absolutely,

(36:28):
And partly because he's got the Swisscheese soul thing going on that's just
interesting. So throwing Brian had someincredibly interesting concepting for that, and we've
we've got some really cool Lucas stuffin season two that you are, Yeah,
and I'm not trying to explain allthe holes in his soul, but

(36:49):
I think I can explain one orthree of them. Yeah, uh yeah,
I mean I very much like doingLuca. I am not I would
not consider myself an actor. Sopart of what I like about Luca is

(37:15):
it's kind of strange, but I'vesort of asked to like not know much
about him so that like just inthe moment when I sit down to record
him, I can just sort oflike make little decisions about things as I'm
like reading it for the first time. And yeah, so that's been really

(37:40):
fun. But my favorite are theMonstery characters, because that's just me sitting
down with a recording, going howcan I fuck this up and make it
weird? But then like doing morethan that, you know, doing like,

(38:00):
well, what does this sound like? And why do you have more
questions for us? Aaron? Yeah, get that clicker, like, yeah,
start clicking at us the couch.How much of this were you actually
gonna be able to use? Ihope you're all enjoying yourselves at least it

(38:22):
is like, no, I wantto go home. Okay. I liked
this one. Someone asked, doall approved practitioners of magic work for the
HAMSA? And what about folks whohave magical ability but refuse to work with

(38:43):
HAMSA? With the order? Ineed an emoji. I need an emoji
that's like the grimace face, Like, what do you guys think? What
do you what do you think aboutthat? I don't know what would have
happened if Pip had been like nah, man, fuck off, like getting

(39:04):
into the weeds. We can skipthat. It's a great question. It's
a great question. I just feellike you are the like, okay,
So I'm like, I don't knowhow about this? What do you want?
Since the official word wants to beKOI, why don't we have two
unofficial words who could both be rightor wrong? Yeah, I'm so.

(39:30):
None of our stuff's canon. We'rejust knowledgeable. Answer the question. I
like to think that it depends onthe person's abilities and what they are already
doing with it. So if it'slike I think of Pip, if she
basically said nah, fuck off,I want no part of this, what

(39:52):
she was doing before she was broughtinto the fold wasn't really affecting the Like,
yes, it's so people who couldhave magic, but they're not looking
for power. Yeah, like moneywas great, but it wasn't like I'm
trying to rule the world. Itwas just I'm trying to get by.

(40:13):
I think I like to think thehompside keep an eye on it, but
they wouldn't necessarily interfere in every singleinstance because they just have too much to
do. But if it's a pointof I have magic that I'm actively harming
the people around me for my owngain, then it's a i'm I mean

(40:38):
they obviously they would just kill them. Well, episode I don't remember which
what the number of the episode was, but the one the Shaper episode where
you know her powers are not inher control and she's hurting the environment around
her and then she winds up aspart of the Observer program at the end

(41:00):
of the episode. So yeah,that's what I think. Okay, all
right, Brian, what I wouldYeah, pretty much agree. I think
it is a question of scale.If someone at like Pip's power level was
just being uh uh boardwalk psychic,then I think they might be approached based

(41:22):
on what their raw abilities were,what their potential was, and if they
refused, fine, they'll get likepassive aggressive postcards a couple of times a
year about how we're contacting you aboutyour magic's extended warranty. You're wasting your
potential. We're just worried, yesaggressive, yes, right. And I

(41:44):
feel like even if they were goingfor just worldly power, like they used
their their tarot cards or their Crystalball or whatever their their particular focal point
is to like pull the powerball numbersto get six hundred million dollars, or
they wanted to become the resident ofthe United States and used that route to
figure out what the steps were andhow to do them. If it was

(42:06):
just worldly power, I still thinkthe HAMSA wouldn't care at all. They
would get the exact same passive aggressivepostcards as if they were earning twelve bucks
an hour reading poems. But thenas soon as one of them went like,
Okay, you know what I'm goingto do, I'm going to take
on the cipher myself, then yeah, Blade's Gold would be out at their

(42:27):
house that day. It does feelthe HAMSA, as much as they are
in their organization, is the protagonistsof ghost Wax. It still feels like
they have a level of need tocontrol everything that can be as villainous as
any of the glorious that they face. And it just depends on what perspective

(42:50):
you're coming from. And if you'recoming from the psychic version of Cat's perspective
where they want to be an independentagent and do good but on the our
own terms, then yeah, thisis just Disney buying up a little VFX
studio. Yeah, so the questionbecomes, yeah, so what would have

(43:10):
happened to Pip if she had said, you know, I don't want to
be part of this. We're thinkingthat that would be different than what if
like Adriana said, like, no, I don't want to be helpful.
I don't want to be trained athow to control my shadow. I don't
want to right, that's probably right, that sounds right. Every listener could

(43:32):
see the expression on Robbie's face,the sheer glee. Well, well,
yeah, I don't have any anylisten. I was working on a superhero
like thing once. And how theydid it is like they had classifications like
if you're a Delta or Sta orwhatever and you don't want to be part

(43:55):
of the like superhero thing that's probablynot that big a deal. But once
you get up into them them betasand alphas like, oh now you can
topple buildings and derail trains, andnow it becomes like a real issue.
That sounds right, It sounds rightto be Okay, God, all right,
So let's see, all right,this was asked in several forms in

(44:22):
one way or another. But theywant to know why are reclaimers so rare
the effort control of the practice toa select few? Yes, and then
as a follow up, what happenedto the other ones? Okay, so

(44:42):
there we actually in the show,in the canon of like of season one,
we actually talk about this a littlebit that or kind of reference it
there. Von said has some linewhere he's like, I basically admitting that,
like I want to teach necromancy tomore to people, but they don't
want us to, or the higherups of the order, the Veterum in

(45:07):
particular, don't want certain arts beingtaught to people that we can't totally control,
we can't inhabit. So basically whatthey're saying is we want to keep
certain magics within the ham saw themselves, the like the Twinned beings that that

(45:28):
are these like cosmic traveler puppeteer creatureswho have reformed themselves now inhabit living humans
with like their consent. So that'spart of it is that there's certain techniques
that like they are particularly dangerous,particularly corruptible. Historically, necromancy has been

(45:52):
one of those, like in everyfiction, in every history, raising the
dead, talking to the dead,to the dead, it's a little bit
more wiggily, but raising the dead, trying to extend or prolong your life,
you get vampires, liches, zombies, all, you know, because
it's something we all want, ismore life, and so it's something that

(46:16):
we create this taboo around that itwould be bad to have more life because
it's a coping thing. We needto be able to cope. So anyway,
however, there were so the reclaimerorder. I don't think everyone who
was a reclaimer historically has been likea specific like like necromancer, like von

(46:39):
sid Is. I think there havebeen spirit spirit mediums and channelers and other
another folks who have like basically necromancydabblings, you know or whatever. And
I and in nineteen in the nineteenten story, we're actually going to hear
where Von Sid becomes a Reclaimer.So he's a necromancer and he's been a

(47:01):
necromancer since ancient Sumeria. But hemeets a woman named Ida who is the
leader of the Reclaimers at the time, who has sort of a different philosophy
behind necromancy behind so that's where thisidea of taking their last statement as a

(47:22):
sort of like giving peace to thedead, not just as an investigative tool
or not just as a way tofight evil, which is the way that
kind of Sid has been doing itso far. He meets her and she
teaches him something and he like,you know, so the season one is
very much him as a like,as a teacher and a mentor, and
so nineteen ten is going to behim him learning some stuff. However,

(47:45):
light spoiler, something bad happens tothe Reclaimers and he winds up as the
leader of the without any more ofthem because of a trauma, because of
a bad thing. So there isa sort of a I don't call it

(48:07):
a purge because that will put thingsin your head specifically, but there is
a there is a a traumatic event, and then he's left wanting to be
able to take more apprentices and teachmore people, but unable to do so
because of the constraints put on himby the veteran who he's no longer a
part of. Because of the waythat he has his power is lessened and

(48:30):
he's crippled himself by holding on toolong to his them. But then after
season one, like, maybe that'snot the case anymore. Maybe maybe he
he takes on some apprentices in seasonin season two, So yeah, that's
that's the answer. I don't knowif you want to beep any of that
or bleep any of that out,but okay, let's see. Uh,

(48:55):
they want to know how does livingat the ardent Uh? For characters like
Charlie, how does that work?Hmm? Is it like a college dorm
situation or more summer camp style whereeveryone sleeps in one large room. Oh,
I don't remember. I don't knowthe context exactly. But there's a

(49:15):
podcast called not Another dn D Podcastor is that right? Is that what
it's called? Yeah? Yeah,not Another NAD pod? Yeah yeah,
where there's this there's this these imagescalled one Big Bed where they it's all
the major characters sleeping like in onebig bed, all snuggling. Oh that
makes me so happy and the thoughtof like I do have in my head

(49:37):
an image of von said Luca PipKat like deep like Indelia. They invited
her because no one wants to talkto her because they all think she's like
recording them or whatever. And she'sin the dark because she's a dark yeah,
Nash, and like, uh,you know, all the characters like
hanging out having a movie night andthey've all fallen asleep and it's like Christmas,

(50:00):
Like Vonsien's like watching all the kidsasleep, and like again, it
is very easy to get like trappedin the the sort of especially when they're
they're characters that are so routinely traumatized. So it's a hotel. It's like
a big, giant Art deco hotel. It has lots of rooms. Most
of the rooms don't have people inthem. It's also probably it's bigger on

(50:21):
the inside than it is on theoutside. So yeah, I think it's
like a hotel. There are commonspaces and uh yeah, it's probably got
a lot of amenities that they probablyhave put things in like a swimming pool
and movie theaters. We're gonna doan episode in season two where like someone
breaks into the Ardent and has tobe either interviewed or reclaimed like after they

(50:44):
But so we're gonna get like agood look of the interior of the Ardent
from an outsider's perspective, like themdescribing like them sneaking around the art and
trying to steal stuff. So,but do you guys ad anything, cause
I think this is a we couldlike riff on this. What is your
sort of imagination on what it's likein there? I picture lower levels that's
like not allowed, you know,you need a key card to get a

(51:08):
lot of places whatever. But theupper levels I picture of the Overlook Hotel.
Oh for sure, I definitely pictureIt's like, yes, it's there's
everybody gets their own bedroom, youknow, everything like that. But yeah,
you'll just turn a corner and likewhat the fuck is you know what?
Never mind, I'm not gonna worryabout that right now. Yeah,
the higher and lower you go,like the closer to the vault you get,

(51:31):
the more like limit all the spacesget. But also the higher you
get to the upper chamber, whichis like a huge like ceremony room where
they do the vanishings. So thehigh closer you get to that, the
more limit all the spaces get likerooms will connect in weird ways. It
gets a little eschery as you gohigher up. But yeah, the like

(51:51):
ground floor and the like first likefour floors or something are probably like it
just like a really nice art decohotel mixed with like they probably have a
library in there. Yeah, it'svery campusy, very dormy. Season two
is going to be very like campuscollegey because we're gonna have the apprentices and
they're going to be like learning stuffand competing with each other. And I

(52:12):
can't wait for Sid to like throwthem in a room with a knife and
be like, I only need oneof you. I picture. So there's
there's a lot of fandoms where there'swhere it has this flavor that I really
love. It's problematic, it isas it is now Hogwarts. Yes,
there's yes, there's uh hey,yeah, I love Hogwarts. Yeah,

(52:36):
Hogwarts has a lot to it.There's the Tartists, there's Deep Space nine.
There's a lot of Firefly fire andFirefly Spaceship. I actually so in
the last episode in the finale,I talk about how it's unmoored from reality.
That's based on my favorite, maybemy favorite horror film ever called a

(52:58):
dark song where they sort of theyhave a house and they start performing this
magical ritual and you can see outof the house. But he talks about
it is like we aren't actually hereanymore. We're sort of like between places.
And I love the idea of ahouse as like a spaceship. Almost
Constantine the comic book, Like thecharacter Constantine, he has a house that

(53:24):
can be like in a Yeah,basically basically had no continuing apartment. Yeah,
I forgot about this. My brainwent to Keanu Reeves. I was
trying to love I do. It'snot a good adaptation, but it is

(53:45):
a good movie anyway. But inthe comic book version, he has a
house that like exists in a pocket. I'm sure some comic book person is
screaming at me right now, butyeah, and it moves around and that's
where he keeps all his ship andall this stuff. Yeah, the arden,
I think is physically located in Ithink it's it's Ida's house from it.

(54:07):
So it's located like in the woodsof Philadelphia, somewhere like just you'd
be traveling through the woods. Ohmy god, there's a huge art deco
hotel here. But there are entrancesto it in New York, Boston,
Minneapolis, Chicago, Like there's doorsthat go into We didn't really talk about
this much, but there are sometransportational things happening, especially like in a

(54:34):
couple of those earlier episodes they talkabout like getting in through the hallway closet
and we'll have to take the specialmode of transportation. So like, yeah,
the world of ghost Wax is fullof a lot of like secret modes
of transportation that haven't come up toomuch yet. But right, yeah,
I just I keep picturing the buildingas very abrupt and sometimes very hard to

(54:58):
find things. I definitely for theCold Case episode, I was picturing like
a very modern hallway with a keycard door that opens up to an ancient
runic chamber carved from the living rock. Yeah, and it's not because of
a dimensional door. There's literally acarved rock chamber behind a modern door.

(55:19):
Yes, it's just that they weredesigned by completely different people who had no
communication with each other. No,yeah, and for totally different purposes,
right, Like this is a thisis a theater. We built a movie
theater and a pool and a recreationalroom. Those are to keep people from
going crazy. And right next tothat is the insanatorium, where we need
to make people crazy so that theycan see phanfasms, like you know what

(55:42):
I mean like that. So theserooms are off for different, very very
different purposes. And that's right acrossfrom the storage room, which I only
find on every other Wednesday. Ican look for it all I want,
but I only find it on everyother Wednesday, and it's always right there.
Yeah, or the the Lost andwhich you can only find by getting
very very hopelessly lost Narnia style,Nardia style. Yeah, there's a lot

(56:07):
of like Nardia, Neil Game,any like sort of ideas going on here.
And yeah, and the farther downyou go, the more it becomes
like like just columns of white stoneand an impossibly black expanse, and the
more like Moria it becomes, thefarther down you go. Yeah. Yeah.

(56:28):
There's one full time employee at thearden whose only job is to clean
the mummies out of rooms that justget found often enough that it's a full
time job. It's like where didthis mummified corpse come? There's another staff
person whose only job is putting mummiesin rooms. They're the same person,

(56:54):
they just have amnesia. Oh god, this is the kind of weird that
I love so much, and Ithink you can see why we all jive
together so well. All right,so you mentioned the new recruit characters.

(57:15):
Yeah, they want to know,on a scale of one to ten,
how gay are they? Well,Stephanie, how gay can we make?
Has anyone been straight in terms ofardent? Like humh okay? Straight characters?

(57:37):
Well, I think, I meanMargo and Nash probably are. Probably,
I don't know. It hasn't reallycome up functionally, at least so
far. Yeah. I've stated onthe discord and I'll stay here. Every
character I've ever written is canonically byunless explicitly stated otherwise. Yeah, I

(57:59):
think just everyone in the world ofghost Wax is that is probably by that
We're against no straight characters. It'sjust we right from our Yeah, that
is an entire Yeah, I don'tknow if if this has really come up,
But then this is like an entirelyqueer like we have, like like
Mark straight, You've got a coupleof straight people involved. Uh, it's

(58:24):
gonna be a good mix. We'regonna get I've got at least three new
apprentices that I know about, Likein my head that I'm like starting to
like are starting to like make themselvesknown to me mentally. So we're gonna
get some good representation in there.We need to, uh get an ace
character in there. We need toget you know, some some We're gonna

(58:45):
be as diverse as possible with orientationsand races and ideas and so we want
to Yeah, we want to keepit, keep it. Uh, it's
gonna be queer as hell. It'sjust good. Everyone's gay. They're gay.
How they're going to be in abig gay pile? I mean,
it's it's gonna happen. We willall have to stretch our writing skills by

(59:07):
writing a straight character. Yeah,okay, there's your writing challenge. Yeah
you, Stephanie, I choose youto. All right, where were we?
Uh? Oh, big gay pile? Got So this one says how

(59:30):
much direction do the actors get onthe screaming? And how fun is it
to just let it loose? Ohit's actually terrifying. I find I hate
doing it because I like feel it, like I can't help but put myself
in Like Von said's like sorry,I'm just like bringing this down and making

(59:52):
this incredibly depressing immediately, But likeVaughn said's like whail after as I was
gone, was I mean, likeI was like fucked up for a couple
like a day and a half after. I was like, ah, that's
like yeah, it's really emotionally likebrutal. And listening to Stephanie when like

(01:00:15):
Charlie cuts her eyes out, fuckingthe noises you made make bank me so
so unhappy. Uh, just justfucking brutal recording. That sucked. I
hated that so much. I meanyou feel guilty because you're like, I
guess I've am partially responsible for this, like and then you're like, well,

(01:00:37):
it's not real. None of thesepeople are real, you know,
it's it's it's tough. It's tough. I'm I'm, I'm I have kind
of a hyperactive like empathy gland.So you know, yeah, uh yeah,
I no know, steph what doyou think about that? Because the
most unfortunately, like there was somefun screaming earlier, like you know,

(01:00:57):
uh, you know, just yourbasic monster be kind of screaming, but
like the one that's very fresh andin our our mind right now is the
finale, which was none of thatscreaming was very fun. Yeah, I
was when I did when Pip subductedat the end of forty two. Oh
yeah, I record most of mystuff at Robbie and Aaron's house so they

(01:01:22):
can give direction and that I wasa little worried about your neighbors, like
calling the police because I had todo that one like that one that was
loud, Yeah, that was Iactually like kept an eye out for the
neighbors like after that one, likeif their lights came on or something.
Yeah, because that was loud enoughthat I was like, oh shit,

(01:01:42):
that doesn't you told me. Iknow, but I wasn't expecting your your
pipes. I didn't expect your yourvolume to be so high. Yeah,
that was like that did not soundlike a horror movie scream. That sounded
like a fucking like a real scream. And well, that's why I like
to do the recordings here is soI have people who can give me hugs.

(01:02:04):
When I have finished with the traumatizingstuff, literally come out of the
recording studio and like, someone hugme, and then there's usually a group
of people so fine, yeah,yeah, Okay. A few people wanted
to me to ask what jobs wouldthe cast have if they didn't have a

(01:02:24):
brush with the other side, architectand cupcake bakery owner. And that's who
all of them, all of themcolumns. They have nineties rom com movie

(01:02:46):
end up coming together anyway, andyeah, someone's design those, dude,
let's do this. This is agreat question. Top down, I think
that von sid was I think Ithink anthropologist. I think that his history
with like, well, well,oh that's actually the episode that was Pip's

(01:03:07):
fantasy. Yeah, archaeology questions awriter and writing sci fi. Yeah,
so he'd like be a writer onthe side, and and uh so like
if he were a normal human manin his like current iteration, yeah,
college professor slash anthropologist, I thinkhe'd be more interested in anthropology than archaeology.

(01:03:29):
But I got the reference. Ithought it was really fun, So
we because I think he's very interestedin people. Oh here's my question.
I'm assuming that his sci fi novelsare just absolute garbage pulp grocery store novels,
and he loves that that's what theyare. But are they published under
Owen von sid or does he havea really obvious suitedym. Uh yeah,

(01:03:52):
Luca would probably work for like probablyhave gone to like m I T or
something and do whatever people do withthat. Yeah, he'd probably have I
don't know, he'd probably be someI don't know, some sort of an
engineer, maybe like a theoretical physicist, but like a computer programmer, but

(01:04:12):
for something. He'd also have likea side job at a movie theater just
so he could watch see the moviesfor free. Yeah, maybe'd be like
a visual effects artist or something.I don't know, yeah, movie knowledge.
Oh, he'd be like there wasa NASA engineer who left NASA to
invent the super Soaker, that sortof just that would have just left SpaceX

(01:04:39):
in order to invent some much betterform of movie being. All right,
so Nash of the faradays. Sothe faradays are have been like like order
hunters for forever. They're like astoried family. And so he'd probably just
be a freaking rich playboy. You'dprobably just be a jet center. Oh

(01:05:02):
yeah, he's absolutely shot animals mostof us haven't seen. Well that's definitely
true. But so yeah, soyeah that and he's also you know that
based on a character from another thingthat we we made. And uh yeah,
so I think that's right. Yeah, Margot was a police detective.

(01:05:23):
She would have stayed a police detective. I think that that's just like built
into her blood. What was catdid? What she did probably something very
mundane, Yeah, because I feellike the catalyst for her becoming a hunter

(01:05:43):
really changed her trajectory in a waythat like maybe even some of the others
aren't. Yeah, she just workedin an office and then on the weekends
got all her joy out of justruling karaoke or something. He'd be like
into kickboxing and oh yeah, dolike iCal stuff and maybe an athlete because
she I think she's pretty strong,So maybe maybe she'd play like like volleyball

(01:06:06):
or something on the weekends or yeah, man, she would. I feel
so bad she would have had sucha like normal fun life if things hadn't
gone so sideways. How about Pipis performer. I mean she went she
got a theater degree. I guessshe had opened her shop before. She's

(01:06:28):
the brush. I feel like that'sthe brush with the other side part,
because her original brush with the otherside is her lineage, like grandma or
great grandma. So if that hadn'tbeen the case, would she have I
can't even think she'd be an entirelydifferent person. Like that's a that's a
ground up yeah, you know her, her grandma basically instilled all of this
in her since she was born.So if it was if that had never

(01:06:51):
happened, I guess there's no wayto know who that person would be.
Even in the this is this isYour Life cipher episode, She's still in
the shop. That part is unchangeable. Oh god. Well, yeah,
And if we're going just ground upchanges, I feel like the SAME's true
of Luca. Like whatever touched Lucahappened before Luca was a living, breathing

(01:07:15):
baby, So whatever holes and thesoul didn't happen when he was seventeen.
But I feel like with Luca,like if if the like nastiness around his
skills hadn't happened, and he hadn'tbeen like taken into the order, he
probably could have just like gone throughhis life never really knowing that what he

(01:07:42):
was doing was mystical in any way. Yeah, right, if it hadn't
gotten so sideways. Yeah. Well, and also depending on what got excised
out of him, did he losethings, right, things that would have
given him limits? Yeah, right, because that's like another bit that's that

(01:08:03):
like unchangeable part, because it's justyou know, who he was born to
we're parts of We're parts of Lucacarved away to limit him. That's a
massively interesting question. I wonder No, No, I just love the idea

(01:08:24):
though, that that's why they're besties. Is they just have so much stuff
in kind they do even they don'tknow yet. There's two puzzle pieces together.
Mm hmm. All right, Wellwe've been at this a while,
so let's do one last one pizzawaiting with We just got the pizza here.

(01:08:44):
So you may have noticed a distinctsuccinctness creep into some of the answers
here, but all right, welllast one here? Uh, do y'all
make popcorn on release day and watchDiscord freak out there? Nothing gives me
greater joy in my life right nowthan watching the like the Live channel where

(01:09:09):
people like pop in their their reactions, or going on Tumblr and seeing like
what people are saying or who they'reshipping, or seeing fan art. I
mean, like, good lord,my heart is very full. Every time
anybody evangelizes for us or recommends uson Reddit or yeah, that stuff that

(01:09:30):
means just the world to me.I can't believe you know, it's it's
been me and my like close friendswho have cared about the fictions that I've
made up my entire life and finallylike putting that stuff out there and having
anyone at all a click and careabout the things we're made. Stephanie and

(01:09:53):
I've talked about this quite a bit, and yeah, so yes again to
make it sappy and not, youknow, to take a fun question and
make it modeling, Yeah, verymuch. So we don't we don't make
you know, we don't make popcorn, but bust out whatever snack And but
I am always very excited because Itypically like finish an episode and then post

(01:10:16):
it and then go to bed,So I'm always very excited to pick up
my phone the next day. Itis a very a Christmas Yeah, And
I'll say I like, I've alwaysenjoyed watching people, whether I write the
episode or not, even just knowing, like you know that I sometimes I'll

(01:10:38):
read scripts ahead of time to helpproof readA stuff, and so like knowing
there's gonna be a response, whichis great. But I feel with the
last five episodes it was even moreso then than the regular episodes, because
it was like we knew what wewere doing was gonna was gonna cause emotions

(01:11:02):
seeing how early people picked up onCharlie like early, And just to be
clear, that was the plan forCharlie. It wasn't just a response to
the discord. But you guys figuredit out before I did. Oh wow,
because I knew there was I knewsome of the things planned for Charlie,

(01:11:23):
but I didn't know everything. ButI do know he was. He
was evil before y'all picked up onit. He was antagonistic before he y'all
picked up on it, But youpicked up on it before I did.
I remember Robbie being a little bitlike people already think he's bad, like

(01:11:44):
I just introduced, and I'm like, Robbie, it's because he's the only
character you've ever introduced who had notrauma, no like so happy and people
don't trust it was he was.He was trying to be positive, yes,
and that because it was him liketrying to cope with what he'd agreed.

(01:12:05):
But it just felt like people werelike, wait, this is he's
happy. We don't trust that.It was one hundred percent one hundred percent.
And and again it's not a likewho done it mystery where I like
feel like I like, oh shoot, I but you got it. You
can never underestimate how savvy consumers ofthis kind of fiction are, Like they

(01:12:30):
they know all the tropes, theyknow all the counter tropes, they know
all the they are one hundred percent. So that's why with with Charlie,
like when I introduced him, Ididn't even really when I first created the
character, I had no idea thathe was gonna be like a major antagonist
this season. I didn't know ifthat would happen until later, or if
it was gonna happen at all,But I just kind of knew that,

(01:12:53):
like something had happened before they gotto him, and and then that fester
and grew, and I was like, oh, no, it's bad,
It's really really bad. But sowhat I tried to do as I made
the character rather than I was like, oh, should I leave this in
this is going to make people suspicious, or should I leave this element?
And sho, should I clearly showthat he's being manipulative or whatever? But

(01:13:15):
then I remember, like you arehearing all the recordings together, there's lots
of other stuff that happens in theirlives, and in between these things that
distracts them confuses them. Von sidis normally very sharp but he's like not
at his a game, like rightnow, he's very kind of sick and
and so like I kind of gotto the impression where I was like,

(01:13:39):
actually, it might be kind ofcool if you to have that dramatic irony
of like you, the listener,know more than the characters in it.
It's that car crash that you seecoming, but nobody's looking the right way.
And to play with the horror,like we've all had people who let
other people into their life and yougo, oh no, that's a fucking

(01:14:02):
bad one. That's a user,that's a manipulator, and there's nothing you
can fucking do most of the time. So to play with that horror trope
of letting people kind of see like, oh no, But then what I
really wanted to do, and Ithink I did it. We did a
pretty good job. Was to eatto once you realize that he's bad.

(01:14:25):
We even put a recording of himtalking to the oversoul and being like freaking
out because he's like, I can'tdo it. I can't be the bad
guy, you know, And andyou could if you really listened, if
you really like analyzed that, youcould probably figure out who it was.
But but we I thought that itwould be it would be cool to have

(01:14:48):
a thing where it's like you knowit's coming, you just didn't know how
bad it was gonna be. Andthat was that was what the vibe is.
And I think that's something that we'lldo again in voice wax where voice
wax in ghost wax where you youyou might figure something out, but we'll
still find a way to to haveit be shocking just by its like its

(01:15:10):
intensity or depth, or we'll pullone over on you people eventually. Yeah.
We like going back to the discordthe day of I love seeing people
like speculate wildly, but when it'slike sometimes it's like, oh man,
you guys are spot on, youjust don't know. And sometimes it's like
what are you talking about? Sarahbeing like I don't know what anyone in

(01:15:34):
the discord is talking about right now. It was so and I love the
ones that are parallel where it's likeyou're right in everything but every detail.
Yeah, like that's exactly what's goingto happen, but you got every name
wrong. Oh this is going tobe tasty when this unfold. So good,
all right, folks, Well,there are a lot more questions,

(01:15:56):
but This is getting long, sothink we will wrap it there. If
you guys want to ask us morestuff, come see us on discord.
Yeah, yes, all right,anything else to add y'all? Thank you,
Thank you for listening. I've saidthis before, but I don't know

(01:16:18):
if I've said it here. Wecould absolutely do this without our fans,
but it would be really sad,would be incredibly it would feel very hollow
and very pointless. Thank you,And it is so. It is so
just damn enervating to have people whowill take this horrible pain and trauma we

(01:16:41):
put out and eat it with greatbig spoons as fast as they can,
and then and then complain about it, and then complain that there wasn't more
that said. Many of you haveasked we cannot pay your therapy bills but
you join Patreon Patreon, yes,your own give it the Patreon level free

(01:17:04):
therapy. Yeah, yeah we will. We promised to put some cozy's up
on h on Patreon, so thatthat can that can be our little like
dropping the bucket towards the therapy thatyou that you will that everyone needs.
Frankly, oh yeah, we'll justpost like cute videos of bunnies and stuff.
No, No, I mean,like, well, we'll cut episodes
that are like about nice things.Well, actually, right, the beach

(01:17:26):
day beach day episode, We'll justvideo Aaron, Robbie and myself sitting on
a couch watching movies. Yea,and call that hey look it is Yeah,
let's do a beach Adevnston definitely wearsthose like like black and white stripulators.
Yeah. Yeah, whoa, Ijust can't picture out like uncomfortable that

(01:17:51):
would be yeah, I definitely Iwant to want to echo that. Man.
That's that's just thank you so muchfor caring about our sad, doomed,
pretty little world that we're we're making. It means the world to us.
We are so like flattered and thrilledto be part of such an incredible

(01:18:12):
medium, Like there are so manypeople telling so many cool stories because it's
audio and it is an equalizer forpeople to create stories without that are indie
and also like really puts a focuson on the writing and the acting,
and boy are people stepping off tothat challenge. And I just there is
amazing shit out there and it isjust so cool to to be able to

(01:18:35):
be part of it in our youknow, small way and please join us
on Patreon. It is it issuch an you know, an awesome way
to engage with people and and toto support the show and and keep it
rolling along and expanding and and we'vegot lots of fun stuff and cool ideas
coming. So yes, thank you, and keep listening and and excelsior.

(01:19:02):
And if you can't afford to jointhe Patreon, absolutely fine, we fully
understand. Join Discord, tell friendsabout it. Yes, there is so
many ways to support support the show, and nothing is like word of mouth.
Absolutely, get on Discord and tellus we're pretty that'll be oh man,
no idea? How you have noidea? And we are pretty?

(01:19:25):
So yeah, especially especially in Stephanie'scase. Yeah, all right, well
until we made again. Goodbye,everybody, good bye. Thank you for
listening to ghost Wax, a productionof Foreign Tall Tales. Find us at

(01:19:48):
Foreign Talltales dot squarespace dot com.Ghost Wax is an independent podcast, so
if you liked the show, pleaserate and review and consider joining us on
Patreon at Patreon dot com slash ForeignTall Tales. Also give a listen to
our fantasy roleplay show could Have BeenHeroes for something completely different. Ghost Wax

(01:20:11):
is written and directed by Robert Knutsen, Production and editing by Aaron Schoenrock.
Our theme song is by Bo Hoover.