SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hello, dear travelers. Evan here. As promised in my message from the Dark Woods last week, I'm excited to share a conversation with you that I recorded with one of my best friends. The man who inspired the character of Jason Argyle. When I originally set out to make today's bonus episode, I intended to fit our entire conversation into a single session. But as I started putting it together, I realized there was simply too much good material to condense everything into an episode under an hour. And I'd hate to deprive you of any of it, especially after you've been waiting so patiently. So today's release will be part one of two, with the second part arriving on Friday, September 11th. It's been a real joy crafting this supplemental material for you, and I've got even more in store during the rest of the hiatus before our season two premiere on Halloween. Thank you, as always, for traveling this strange road with me. It's an honor to share the journey with you all. And with that said, enjoy part one of season one's questions and answers. It is your host, Evan Okuna here. I have returned briefly from uh sojourning in the woods and communing with spirits during this hiatus before season two. But if you are listening, I assume that you have heard all of season one of Signed in Blood. And if not, you're gonna want to go back and hit episode one and play through because this episode is going to be a question and answer session, and it is going to be very spoiler heavy. So you have been warned. Now, as a treat for all of you patient, faithful listeners who have been waiting for me to um I don't give you anything during this break, I figured today would be fantastic if we could bring in one of my best friends in the world who is actually my inspiration for Jason Argyle. His name is Chase, last name redacted to protect and his family's privacy. So with all that said, I will leave it to my best bud Chase. Take it away.

SPEAKER_03 3:12

Hey everybody. I'm very happy to be here, very happy to be able to support Signed in Blood in any way. I'm very honored to be any inspiration to anyone at any time, but the fact that I genuinely enjoy Signed in Blood, that I genuinely want to consume it. And like you, I'm sitting here waiting for episodes when they come out, um, very excited to consume it. And also just to be able to have a conversation with Evan. You know, as we get older, as life is full of responsibilities, time together becomes more and more precious, and so I'm glad to have this opportunity.

SPEAKER_01 3:53

And that is no joke, ladies and gentlemen, and non-binary friends, because by the time you hear this, Chase here will be the father of another newborn.

SPEAKER_03 4:06

Aaron Ross Powell This is true.

SPEAKER_01 4:07

Yeah. So his lady is uh set to be induced was it the 20th of August?

SPEAKER_03 4:15

Some things have jumped around since then, yeah. But no later than Friday. Uh so yeah, very, very soon. We are on full baby watch.

SPEAKER_01 4:24

Wow. And with that said, a big shout out to Christine, the first big donor on the show. And um, you know, practically my sister. We've known each other for oh my god. What has it been 15 years? Something like that.

SPEAKER_03 4:41

So you met her in 2005, the night that I met her at a 18 and older club.

SPEAKER_01 4:50

Twenty-one years, oh my God.

SPEAKER_03 4:52

Yeah. I I had gone out to dance it out because I had found out that a high school girlfriend was cheating on me. And I met her three days before she moved halfway across the country. It was actually her going away party.

SPEAKER_01 5:07

Aaron Ross Powell And they say that uh meet cues don't happen.

SPEAKER_03 5:11

Yeah. This is you know, just when cell phones were starting to take off. No apps yet. You know, Facebook was in its infancy, so the only real distraction we had, I think, was uh MySpace.

SPEAKER_01 5:24

So yeah, we've dated ourselves um pretty pretty heavily.

SPEAKER_03 5:28

Right.

SPEAKER_01 5:29

Uh for all of you younger viewers or listeners, I should say. Yeah, this gives up the ghost. We are both ancients uh walking the earth. We do both remember what it was like when Abraham Lincoln came to town. Right. We were all after.

SPEAKER_03 5:44

Man. Yeah, it's really weird to look back on some of that. Recently, some media has popped up in letting me know that songs that I thought came out five years ago actually came out twenty-five years ago. Uh so it's a great feeling.

SPEAKER_01 6:02

And now what you're hearing, folks, is both of us just taking a second to stare down the long corridor of time and facing our own mortality, which has been a pretty big theme in Sunday Blood season one. Absolutely. Yeah. This is basically what got me started was confronting feelings of aging, getting older, looking back and seeing how far I've come as a person, seeing how far my friends have come. Chase was a new father at that point. And, you know, I was checking in with him and I started thinking, like, oh man, I might never be a dad. How do I feel about that? So the whole story sort of erupted from there. Yeah, you guys are listening to a soon-to-be middle-aged man processing his feelings about fatherhood.

SPEAKER_03 6:51

Aaron Ross Powell Yeah, having those discussions is really interesting. Both of my parents were very young when they had me. Circumstances were different. You know, we lived in different parts of the country, but I'm the oldest of five, four by blood, one by marriage. And yeah, you know, if I had had kids when they had kids, I think that my life would look very different. I think that things would be much more chaotic in the circumstances that I was in at the time. And those are the discussions we have too. You know, our parents have age disparities between the two. Our parents had circumstance disparities between the two. And so you know, when we have these discussions, even though we've known each other for a really long time, you know, we have some differences in our background that, you know, make the conversations where we both relate really heavily to each other. And then also we have experiences where we listen and and we're supportive, but the circumstances being a little bit different, it's harder to fully grasp um how each feel.

SPEAKER_01 8:01

I mean I think we've done all right. Oh yeah. Yeah. With that said, shifting into the story and into the plot and how season one went, we're going to uh just freestyle it for a bit and see see if we can preemptively answer some questions that might be uh swimming around out there in the ether.

SPEAKER_03 8:24

Well, I have a surprise for you in that I know some of your listeners personally. And so I reached out and I do have questions from our listeners.

SPEAKER_01 8:39

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_03 8:40

All right.

SPEAKER_01 8:41

Well, uh yeah, I color me surprised.

SPEAKER_03 8:45

Yeah. I I didn't know when to throw that in there um or in the uh discussions we had about uh you know sound and levels and whatnot beforehand. So I'm just like, you know what? I'm gonna do it live, see how it goes. And uh yeah, we have some questions from two different individuals. All right, fire away. All right. So we have uh a small set of questions from a listener who wanted to identify himself as ATM in Southern California. Uh initials ATM. So he said, be they scripture, religious, etc., can you share some of your inspirations for some of your story elements and characters? He knows that some of the demons that you cite are existing in lore elsewhere. For example.

SPEAKER_01 9:36

Yes. Yeah. Okay. Very good one. So the demons, as um, many listeners will be able to identify Stolis, uh, mostly from the success of Hell of a Boss. I hesitated to add him and some of the other Goeichian demons. So for those who aren't occult nerds or haven't been to a hot topic in the last two years, the Arsgoesha is a portion of the Lesser Key of Solomon, this very old arcane text uh talking about uh demons, demonology, foundational to demonology, and the Arsgoesha, the Goetic demons, are a big part of that. And Stolis is one of them. I specifically made him an antagonist because in actual magical workings, he is the nicest guy. He's super kind, he's super understanding, he's just very um erudite. He's very much about, you know, knowledge for knowledge's sake, and that aspect of the character I kept. But anyone who works with that kind of magical practice, they're always advised to, you know, start off with Stolis, because that's, you know, baby's first demon, right? There are no real bad consequences to working with him, or so I'm told. I don't work with these demons personally. And then Markosius also comes from that. Lamashtu was an addition because I was looking for specifically a female demon. And the Arsgoisha, I believe, are all males. Any of you TikTok witches out there that are champing at the bit, saying I'm wrong, fine. Like absolutely I am that's not my area of expertise, but don't add me.

SPEAKER_03 11:23

Maybe maybe male presenting in the the media you've consumed.

SPEAKER_01 11:29

Yeah, yeah, maybe. But yeah, like Arsgoisha was an inspiration, but I wanted to make sure that it's well understood that my stolis is different than the uh Vivzi pop hell of a boss stolis. And then a lot of it was growing up Catholic. I consider myself a recovering Catholic. I I don't, I'm not offended by, you know, I'm not trying to offend any practicing Catholics, but it is one of those like, you know, even though I left the church myself, it is a very sticky ideology. It is it is something that like sort of colors how you look at the world. And I do like to joke that it is sort of the best best way to get involved in chaos magic is to start as a Catholic, because nothing primes the pump more than the Catholic Church when it comes to magical working.

SPEAKER_03 12:19

Yeah. Do you have any instances from growing up where demons were ever part of any kind of scripture discussion or any kind of discussions you might have had with your parents?

SPEAKER_01 12:32

So my dad. Yeah, it was my dad's side of the family that uh was Catholic, very Celtic family, uh Irish mostly, but a little Scottish and Welsh thrown in there for fun. And he let's see. Like Catholicism was like strong with my grandma, who was a force of nature. Um, God help us all, when Grandma Kay came to town. But my dad was very much, by the time that he'd had me, I don't think he was as fervent a Catholic as maybe his parents would have liked him to be.

SPEAKER_00 13:09

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 13:10

And uh I do remember like my first experience with performing came from like watching him read scripture in church. You know, he'd get up uh in front of the the whole church and and read passages, and then I would do that in Catholic school. But like my dad wasn't really I guess the term is God fearing. I and nowadays, like it's always thrown me for a loop when when people will use the term God fearing like it's a compliment, like that's a good thing, you know? Like, why are you scared of your God, man? That sounds like a problem. Get help for that.

SPEAKER_03 13:46

Yeah, the uh the idea that one footstep out of line for some people is eternal damnation. And you would think it would be a little bit more of a nurture vibe.

SPEAKER_01 14:02

Yeah, yeah, and again, I can only speak to my religious experience with the church, which I don't know if any of you picked up from the storyline wasn't the greatest. But that said, I mean, my sister is sort of like pivoted uh hard back to the church. If that's where you find peace, absolutely fantastic, you know, so long as you're not hurting anybody. Like I'm totally cool with it. But yes, my dad did not drive the fear of demons into me. In fact, my first communion where I took the uh the body of Christ into my being, I actually choked on the wafer, and my dad was right next to me, you know, and I'm like coughing and like trying to breathe and everything, and he's laughing, thinking it's the funniest thing.

SPEAKER_03 14:47

I was hoping you would say that because knowing him personally, I'm like, this could have gone one of two ways. And I really hope it was the laughter out.

SPEAKER_01 14:59

Yeah, no, he was laughing about it, which you know was an omen in multiple ways.

SPEAKER_03 15:05

Yeah. It was like the other being maybe him muttering a curse under his breath. Um Another question that came from our listener in Southern California is if Jason Argyle had a favorite cocktail, what would it be?

SPEAKER_01 15:22

Oh I think it would just be straight bourbon. I do not think that he I think liquor for Jason is an indulgence, and I think he's the kind of guy that like I think when Alicia was alive, he would have maybe had a Manhattan or something like that. But um ever since he hit the road, it's just that this is this is uh utilitarian. This is to get me to a place and I am not gonna beat around the bush to do it.

SPEAKER_03 15:56

Yeah. And honestly, knowing how certain alcohols affect you and at what volumes, I mean, we're talking about a man on the run here, you know. So the idea that he's going to spend half a day going to fun cocktail hours and themed events and things like that, I can imagine he's probably very much like the this is a tool, I am using this, I am taking an edge off, and also keeping my wits about me at most times.

SPEAKER_01 16:24

Yeah, and that sucks because it's one of those like I owe my characters a huge debt. I think about this sometimes. Like I have put this family through hell, literally. I think about this because like my partner, she is very much identified with Kat and is very sympathetic to Kat's cause. So the run-up to the finale, she was threatening me about like you know, you better not hurt that little girl. You better not hurt that little girl, right? And I was like, oh man. Um I don't and I've known where the thing was going for pretty much the whole time, right? So I was just sitting here going like, okay, um, all right, so see uh uh uh chapter 20 is live, and I just want you to remember that I love you very much. And then uh yeah, sure enough.

SPEAKER_03 17:29

Wiley coyote style. That's exactly it.

SPEAKER_01 17:32

It needs to be roadrunner style, but yeah, and then she wouldn't talk to me the whole afternoon after she'd like heard the thing. She was like, okay, it was beautiful, etc. And just do not talk to me. I told you not to hurt that little girl. So all that to say, like, I want Jason to sit down and have a nice cocktail. As far as I know, it's not gonna happen in hell. But hey, I haven't written the whole series yet, so I'm not just trying to torture these people for the sake of torture. I'm not that awful a sadist. I do think about him, I do think about her, I do think about the things that we've that they've gone through so far and what they're about to go through. And I remind myself, a story without conflict is a pamphlet.

unknown 18:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:14

And I think about this, the dark stuff that we all have to go through. And uh Yeah. Sorry guys, it's gonna get darker before it gets better, if it gets better.

SPEAKER_03 18:24

Oh yeah. The circumstances of the world in which they're in, it makes sense that there's not a lot of moments of levity.

SPEAKER_01 18:34

Yeah. And also I do want to add that I do want to make sure there are there is some levity because otherwise it's just a slog, and I don't want to do that to you, the listeners.

SPEAKER_03 18:45

I was re-listening to an episode recently where Jason tells his brother-in-law to fuck himself while laughing, and I thought that that was just chef's kiss beautiful. Like every time I've I've heard it three or four times now, and I have laughed out loud every single time.

SPEAKER_01 19:03

Shout out to Jade Solzuberi, who I met during my time as a professional dancer and uh dancer in the I I hate saying this, the underground street dance world because it sounds very step up, but it's just black dance culture. But Jade, he fought me on that one because he was like, what's with this like toxic male aggression, man? And I'm like, I argue that fuck yourself is a term of endearment because that's how me and my best friends show love to each other. I've folks, the the amount of times I've told Chase to go fuck himself in the exact same tone as I tell him that I love him, too many to count.

SPEAKER_03 19:39

If I heeded his word, I would have no time for anything else. Um it happens that often. So no. And yeah, as a point of personal privilege, I want to break up the questions from the listeners real quick to ask. I had I had written down something about Jade, and I was wondering what is the process like of having a sensitivity reader and in that exchange, did anything surprise you?

SPEAKER_01 20:08

I fully believe in accountability, right? I started in the uh the dance world as a student of the footworker King Charles. He impressed on me on an early age because I was one of the first white people to take part in that dance style outside of Chicago. And he he was very it was very important to him that you know I realized like, hey, this is this is something that's been going on for generations. You're gonna be one of the first people to be making money off of this, like teaching, performing, battling. It's really important that you understand what that means because there are people who have been doing this most of their lives who have not seen a dime from it. Being respectful to the culture, not just using it for personal enrichment, but like giving back to it is very important. And I took that mentality with me with writing outside of my lane. It's funny too. I've had certain friends, certain people in my circle of the Caucasian persuasion who were like, Why do you need a sensitivity reader? This episode was fine. There was no problem with it. I'm like, yeah, because I hired a sensitivity reader, and what you're hearing is the final product. I'm a white guy, right? There are gonna be blind spot, and it doesn't matter how many uh black friends I have, it doesn't matter how long I've spent in the culture as a guest. I was raised a white kid in Iowa, right? There are gonna be things that are gonna slip past my radar. There are gonna be things that I'm just gonna be not thinking about. One thing in particular uh there was a part where Shanice is talking to Jason, and I wrote that she laughed bitterly, right? When he was getting his whole spiel about how she couldn't possibly understand what he's going through. And she gives a bitter laugh. And Jade is like, Yeah, man, like I know what you're saying, but the word bitter towards black women has been weaponized so much that it's not it's not a good look, right? We can find other words to convey what you what the meaning is, but it's just this weaponization. And I'm like, Yeah, you know, and I wouldn't have even considered that. And it sucks too, because like if anybody has a right to be bitter, it is Shanice in this situation because A, her sister, who she loved very much, was killed. B, she wasn't there to protect her and had to run for her life. And C, she has her brother-in-law, one of the few living ties she has to the memory of her sister, doing this whole woe is me bullshit when he's supposed to be protecting his daughter, her niece. If anybody has a right to be bitter in that situation, it's that woman. But um, yeah, just little things like that. And I told Jade when I proposed this to him to come onto the project. I was like, I need your help in protecting my black characters from me.

SPEAKER_03 23:11

Um that's the way to think about it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:16

I haven't been able to do work with them a ton on this episode, like on this season, but that's sort of the goal. It's because I I want to make sure that I'm paying my collaborators like proper rates, and that's one of those things of we're in indie studio, we're just starting out. It's gonna take some time before I'm able to make them the kind of money that I that would allow me to hire them full time and hire a full like a full cast and collaborators for writing and all that. But that is the goal, folks.

SPEAKER_00 23:42

So that is like when you hear me say, Hey, any spare dollars you want to throw my way, it's gonna go to a good place, I promise.

SPEAKER_03 23:49

Absolutely, yeah. And I think that that's something that speaks a lot to you as a person is wanting to use the experiences you've had outside of this particular piece of art that you're producing that it's going to be the the first touch point for a lot of people to Evan Okuna, right? You don't talk about it in in your show notes or anything like that, but you know, you come from a place where you have participated in black spaces, seeing black joy hard work, you've seen people who have made livings off art, and then you've also seen, you know, people who try to creep in on the edges and either take advantage or sell some things off as their own, or people who just don't fully grasp how much has gone into specific things, you know, in the dance world. And so I think that says a lot about your character as a person that not only do you want to have these sensitivity readings, but that you want the people doing the work to be compensated for their work. It would be very easy to be like, oh, I talked to somebody, so everything's great, right? But recognizing that that takes work, not only time, but emotion. It takes, you know, looking inward, it takes reflection, and it's not always necessarily going to be to great places. So yeah, I I think that that's fantastic that that has happened, and I hope that you get to work with Jade more.

SPEAKER_01 25:22

Yeah. No, I mean he's uh he's a fantastic artist and uh storyteller and writer in his own right. He does a lot of scholarly work in the fields of uh anti-racism and and trying to uh break down a lot of these um cultural strongholds that keep these systems of power in place. But yeah, just because I'm working with them, it it doesn't mean that I have you know that I I've completely washed away any any semblance of like my privilege or my uh my blind spots in listening back to episode eight. The amount of times and I didn't catch this until it was already published, the amount of times that I have described Shanice as calm, as like not freaking out, right? I overcompensated a little bit with Shanice, and that's just sort of the the nature of the beast in terms of like storytelling and wanting to be fair.

SPEAKER_03 26:18

Yeah. Well, I think you know, recognizing it and then having that moving forward. I I hope that we get plenty more of her. I I loved her interactions. I I love that there's a fun a fun dynamic with her niece, and then also like you can tell that there was a little bit of maybe back and forth before anything happened to Alicia, and I would really love to be able to explore that further and and hear more about that that pre Alicia's death, spoiler alert, um, a relationship with Jason.

SPEAKER_01 27:00

Yeah, I aim to get into that, and that's yeah, we'll we'll see where the story takes us. Because while I knew where season one was gonna go, now I'm sort of out in the wilderness. So we're gonna see where that takes us.

SPEAKER_03 27:16

Yeah. We have a question from somebody who posted as Miss Chris Kitt in the Pacific Northwest. She said, knowing that you're from the Midwest and recognizing some of the elements in Signed in Blood, how much of your personal experiences have you put into an otherwise fictional tale?

SPEAKER_01 27:39

Okay. So yeah, very good question. And Miss Chris Kitt, I do recognize as one of the people who answered the call for leaving a review, so thank you very much for that. Looking forward to fleshing out your character, your named character in season two. But yeah, the the things that I bring from my own personal experience, obviously, you know, my coming up in the church, um my traveling. Travel's a huge part of not only the story, but my experience as a human being, my experience in murder and exorcism, of course. Yeah. Um, yeah, there's certain things like we can cut that, right? No. Oh yeah, no. I'm I'm cutting most of this in post.

SPEAKER_03 28:30

You talk about travel. Uh we've spent a lot of time road tripping over the years. I mean, we've gone what, northeast, southeast, and we've gone west together, you know, some of it multiple times. So if anybody's gonna write about time in a car, I feel like Evan O'Kuna's the guy to do it.

SPEAKER_01 28:48

Yeah, I've had more than my fair share. Not complaining. Some of the stuff that uh Jason experiences, those are stories from my own family. The Argyll house in Manchester was actually my father's family's house with the dinner bell. Like I saw the dinner bell at one point when they they took me back a few years ago as the house was being um remodeled and and and sold, but that dinner bell was still on the side. And uh yeah, they'd they'd laugh about uh you always knew when that family was meeting for dinner, because if if the kids, you know, the bell would ring through the whole neighborhood, and if the kids weren't back, you know, in time it'd be a whooping. Oh yeah. And then just little things like that, stories recycled from my father, my experiences growing up in a small town, and the you know, the the sort of I don't know, inherent hopelessness that um that you're just sort of like born into in the Midwest. You know what I'm talking about, man. It's a it's a beautiful town. There's nothing wrong with it, but good God, let me out of here.

SPEAKER_03 30:03

I can definitely see some inspirations. I mentioned the oh yeah earlier with the dinner bell, because I too grew up with the dinner bell attached to the side of the house that you could hear, you know, you'd be hanging out at a neighbor's house, you hear it ringing, and then you're like, okay, I have like 10 minutes to get home. We're not farmers.

SPEAKER_01 30:20

We're not farmers, but we're very much like farm adjacent, and we are raised like livestock.

SPEAKER_03 30:26

I mean, yeah, we were surrounded on all sides by fields, but you know, we grew up in a town. I don't know that a modern version of Pleasantville as made famous by Reese Witherspoon and Tobey McGuire. Um, you know, uh uh a version of that. You know, Fridays, a lot of people go catch the high school football game. There was a college in town without a lot of jobs and a lot of people ended up, you know, revolving in that orbit. And the square in Ardent Hollow. We grew up in a place that had a functioning town square. It was restaurants that have been there for decades. It was little shops that, you know, you're like, this has been open since I was born, and I've seen like two people go in, you know, that that kind of vibe. And then places, you know, there was a an old sundry where people would go after school, people would ride their bikes up there. It actually had like kind of a soda jerk kind of vibe.

SPEAKER_01 31:26

That's exactly that was the inspiration for the morning star was the corner sun.

unknown 31:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 31:32

Yeah. So uh stick out.

SPEAKER_01 31:37

Oh yeah. Ardent Hollow is definitely the town that you and I come from. And the, you know, everybody's in everybody's business. That feeling of the oppressive gaze. Like I'm watching, you know, I'm watching all these people rebel, rightfully so, against flock surveillance towers and like tearing, you know, destroying those cameras, etc. I mean, I get it because I've been living in the surveillance state since uh as long as I can remember.

SPEAKER_03 32:04

This is low tech. You know, sometimes people know your business before you do. Yeah. Small, small Midwest Town, you know. Woof.

SPEAKER_01 32:15

The cold shudder that just ran up my spine.

SPEAKER_03 32:18

It's fun to go back and visit and to see these things and to see, you know, what's the same and what's changed, but also there's generally kind of two types of people that grow up there. You know, it's the people who they instantly put down roots, you know, the moment they're done with college and they're super into it, and they kinda keep the towns from shuddering. And then you have other people who they bounce and they bounce hard. And uh we are both of the bounce ilk where I get to go back every few years and I enjoy seeing my people, seeing my family, but also yeah, it it's also an interesting feeling. You remember some of those feelings of growing up in a small town, everybody knows your life inside and out. And if you don't fit in super well, those feelings of I need to get out of here that you had when you were like middle school and a teenager, some of that comes back a little bit, and then some of it keeps you right there. So Ardent Hollow felt very lived in for me.

SPEAKER_01 33:25

That is exactly the town you and I escaped. And like I go back for my mom. But if if she ever moves away from there, the entire place can go the the way of the real Ardent Hollow, and uh I'll be okay with it.

SPEAKER_03 33:39

I mean, I like going back. There are a couple places that I I always have to hit up, and you know, a good deal of my family's there, but there were some people who had a rough go of it. There's some people who just had some aspirations that could not be fulfilled there, and uh I get it. Yeah. Yeah, that's fair. Yeah. So Miss Chris Kitt also was wondering: music is a large part of setting expectations in the overall mood of signed in blood. How did you go about choosing music for your story? And then what spoke to you about the music that you've chosen so far?

SPEAKER_01 34:12

Oh, fantastic question. So the main music, the theme, Suspension by Anna Dagger and Hannah Ekstrom, I found as part of like a membership site. Because I was like, I really want to make sure that this first track hits. And I heard that just randomly. I'm like, oh, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. That's it. That's the investment. The rest of it is all by artist backdrop, who puts their music out for free. And I donate what I can to them. It had started with the hundred windows, which is the closing theme that I came across, and I was like, oh, this is nice. And then I started looking through the the rest of their catalog, and it was just so consistently good that I was sort of astounded that they were just putting this out for the public for free use. I was looking for something more tonal. I was looking for something that wasn't going to draw too much attention away from the dialogue, but be there and be like supporting. And for all the audio nerds who have been listening, I know for a fact you're listening for the quality of the story and not for the engineering, because I've basically been doing this entire thing on my iPhone just to peel back the curtain. Like it's all done on GarageBand Mobile, because I don't have a computer. So season one was just a blue Yeti mic hooked up to an iPhone 15 Pro.

SPEAKER_03 35:37

Can't stop the artist.

SPEAKER_01 35:38

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 35:39

Yeah, I was like, we'll we'll get better equipment, we'll get, you know, I'll get a full thing someday, but uh for now, this is this is what needs to happen to get the story off the ground.

SPEAKER_01 35:49

But a backdrop's music, the more I was using it, the more I realized, oh, there's certain themes here that sort of repeat. Like there's this forlorn nature to a lot of their stuff. There is a almost a sentimentality too to some of those tracks. Like the track that was playing during Jason's sacrifice at the end. That track had been playing like throughout my head for weeks after I first heard it. And I just sort of knew just from this little this little sad piano part in the background that I'm like, oh yeah, that's the one. That's the one that's gonna do it.

SPEAKER_03 36:28

Yeah. Your choices so far as a listener who's not in your head have been spot on. I don't think there's been anything that's been disjointed in any way. And I like what you said about the finding stuff that's tonal because a lot of music comes with our own value judgments too. First episode, you mentioned Britney Spears. Um we we are setting time and we are setting place like a lightning bolt, right? And you think about it, and people have a visceral reaction to certain artists, certain songs, certain genres, you know, like bringing up specific people does specific things that can take you out of the story. So I think focusing on a lot of the things that are tonal, a lot of the things that are more, you know, we're going to use notes to pull something out of you rather than being like, hey, I'm gonna give you this Nirvana song. I'm going to give you this Ben Fultz 5 song. You know, like you you're hitting them with something that they're not necessarily familiar with, but also buttresses itself against the words and dovetails uh really smoothly.

SPEAKER_01 37:43

Well that and I'm very broke, so I can't buy the write any of those awesome songs.

SPEAKER_03 37:50

Uh you know, the buy me the coffee link next season we will find a way to get Skater Boy in there.

SPEAKER_01 37:56

Oh, yeah, no. I'm gonna get Father of Mine by Everclear.

SPEAKER_03 38:00

There you go.

SPEAKER_01 38:00

I actually did look up because I had that, and now that's what I call music volume two, is the tape that's in their tape deck. So I did I did own that at one point when I was a kid in middle school. So I'm like, oh yeah, well, here we go.

SPEAKER_03 38:14

Yeah, I think our neighbor and mutual friend Austin had that, and it was the was so much for the Afterglow was the name of the album. Anyway, getting off track, uh Deer Travelers. With with memories from a small town central Iowa. So another question that came from Miss Chris Kitt, because I didn't give him a limit, was your characters are very this is me uh leading in. Your your characters I think are very distinct. I think that they have distinct voices. I think that you do a very good job of making them individuals. She asks, which of your characters do you wish was a real person walking amongst us the most?

SPEAKER_00 39:08

Ooh. Damn.

SPEAKER_03 39:11

That is a good one. You have a version of Jason as a friend. I do not know magic, and my child is much younger, but you have a version, so maybe other no, just kidding.

SPEAKER_01 39:28

Yeah, I mean Jason's an easy one just because he's a mix of you, me, and my father. I really like Stolis. I think he's a scene stealer. Just a thousand thanks to all of my English listeners who didn't shut the program off uh with my bad English accent. But uh I really like characters who are devious and charming and um a bit of uh just a bit of a dick, but also like he actually does genuinely care for the Argyles. He's just really twisted in how he goes about showing it.

SPEAKER_03 40:07

I bet about uh I cannot wait to see where that goes.

SPEAKER_01 40:11

Yeah. Um but I'm actually I'm I'm very excited about Marcosius as well, because he is the polar opposite. Unlike Stolis, who values cunning and wit and a clear, sharp intellect like a blade, Marcosius is just happy to be here. He's just happy. Like he does not see the point in dancing around the subject. He will charge straight through and he will bludgeon you with it. Sometimes literally. But you folks haven't you'll get to meet and really meet and really settle in with Marcosius for season two. And uh you got some exposure in episode five of season one. You got the Grant Entrance finally with the deal being fulfilled in chapter twenty, but you've yet to see like the the depths of this guy, and I'm very excited to show him to you.

SPEAKER_03 41:08

It's very exciting to get more of that, to get more of the supernatural within the story. If you replace the order and you replace the Jamies with the law, it would still be a fantastic story. But I think it's the the horror elements and the fantastic elements that I find myself wondering. Will you be venturing more into the lore of the order of King James and the Jason's previous role within it? Is there going to be anything touching on backstories of Ella and Gene? And then I I just can't get enough of the demons personally. For anybody who may be across the pond and have notes on tone and accent, I don't know enough to say anything, so I just know that I'm like this guy. You want to be around him, but also like you are completely screwed if you trust him with an inch. You know, and it's it it's almost like a seductive like Tim Curry kind of vibe where it's I saw an interview once where the interviewer said that if you were the devil, I would pay to go to hell.

SPEAKER_02 42:25

And I'm sitting here like, yeah, right.

SPEAKER_03 42:30

Yeah, Tim Tim Curry does credit, he's like, I'm adding that to my resume. But um for for myself, anytime that Stolis is around, I'm like, I I it it's seductive. It's I and not in like uh, you know, wanting to necessarily bed him way, but more in like a why not? I mean, you know, it it remains to be seen. But um But I'm sitting here just like I I want another sentence. I want another like give me a little you know, when when he's first talking to Kat, and then she compares him to the very first demon that we meet, and you can tell just like a piano string busted in his head where he's like, How dare you? Like, I'm a prince of hell and he's a bottom feeder. But also just like the the comportment and the holding back because he's got a goal, you know. I'm like, oh that you can feel that tension, I want more of it.

SPEAKER_01 43:27

Oh yeah. Well, for those who enjoy him, you won't have to wait too long. And yes, regarding the lore. There is a lot that I figured out for myself. There are things that I'm still learning in regard to how how far back some of these people are connected. But it is always a trick of this lore is fascinating to me personally. But also, if I ramp too much of it into a story, it's gonna drag everything down. And podcasting is not a very fascinating. Forgiving medium when it comes to tedious audio. So I do my best to like, if I am dropping something, it is to advance the plot, it is to advance the thing that we're on, it is to add a necessary handhold, I guess, on the climbing wall.

SPEAKER_02 44:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:18

But I am experimenting with certain ways of doing little bonuses for people who are really curious about the lore. I the season one was slapped together last minute haphazardly. And again, another peering back behind the curtain, almost every episode was written within the span of a week, and then I had another week to engineer it and mix it and et cetera, all on my phone, and then launch it that Friday. And sometimes it would be like down to the wire. I was finishing mixing 30 minutes before it launched. And that's I don't like that that's been my creative process for all of season one. I think that the ADHD diagnosis couldn't have come fast enough. And I am really hoping to get a lot of stuff, a lot more stuff done early before the thing drops the before season two drops on Halloween, so that I can actually make more of those like lore-centric bonuses for y'all and release that at um you know other times. And give give you folks some rewards aside from just my chaos magic blessings at the end of every month.

SPEAKER_03 45:31

So the idea that you are doing this in less than a two-week span, you are writing, editing, producing, performing. You are dealing with technical difficulties, you're dealing with life in general as somebody with a nine to five job, and you know, somebody who has to sit in traffic and go to post office like the rest of us, mere mortals. Um I find this deeply infuriating. And uh no. Uh no. I think that speaks to the story seems to be bursting from you and having it mapped out, at least for the first season where you wanted to go, is you know, it it feels like there was a definite direction that you were going in. And now that it seems like the path is a little bit more ambiguous, it makes it all the more titillating, I think. It feels now like we are on the journey with you. And it's going to be really exciting to see what's in store for all of our favorites.

SPEAKER_01 46:30

Yeah, I hope so. I'll do my best to uh continue to cash those checks I've been writing. But yeah, I think season one was very much about inevitability. There was a like I knew where it was going, I knew the second that I that the idea coalesced to how it was going to wrap up for the season. And this one, now that Kat, now that Catherine has uh stepped up as the protagonist, you are going to be on that journey of discovery with her, as am I. And the road is less clear moving forward. And I think that's that's a challenge. It's exciting. I'm looking forward to seeing where it goes. I have ideas of where it might go. I have places where I hope that it ends up, but we're just gonna have to we're just gonna have to put foot to road and see what happens.

SPEAKER_03 47:28

Yeah. Which seems like a a natural progression, right? You know, Jason has experience not only within the order, but also then as a magic practitioner. And now his daughter, who's just now entering her teen years, who may have more of a natural inclination, may be getting a little bit more from the the mother's abilities. She doesn't have the backstory. She doesn't have the organizational knowledge, she doesn't know the players, she doesn't know the history because he held so much back from her that now the idea that not only is she navigating the earthly struggles, but then she's going to hell with a demon.

SPEAKER_01 48:16

Yep. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 48:17

And she is uncertainty is so exciting.

SPEAKER_01 48:22

And she's managing just a ton of crippling grief and horrendous trauma at watching her father die in front of her. A huge, again, a huge debt I have now opened up to my my creation, my character. Like she, you know, she's basically my daughter, and I've done this to her.

SPEAKER_03 48:41

Yeah, it it's incredibly exciting when you think about it from the kind of babe in the woods mindset where she's not helpless, obviously. She's not coming from a place of starting at zero. But at the same time, the I think who do you trust and when do you trust? When do you doubt? When do you have your hackles up? You know, that's all hard for people who work within these realms. But then to be just a young person who, yeah, you know, mom's gone, dad's gone, and now I have to go to this impossible place to do this impossible thing with people who I don't know if they're gonna stab me in the back the first chance they get is just incredibly heavy stakes.

SPEAKER_01 49:30

Yep. Yeah. I mean, I'm I'm rooting for her. I think she's gonna I think she's gonna figure it out.

SPEAKER_03 49:37

Now I think I'm even more on the side of your partner. We're like, please do not just uh do not hurt this girl.

SPEAKER_01 49:44

Yeah. And I mean it's weird too because like Jason is the age that you and I were when I started writing him. Kat is about the age that you and I were in the year 2000. She's like a couple years behind us. So 42. Yeah. Yeah. So it's just like watching.

unknown 50:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 50:10

It is not only like me working out my feelings about fatherhood, but it's sort of me remembering what it was like coming of age in just a weird time. Oh, yeah at the turn of the turn of the century, turn of the millennium.

SPEAKER_02 50:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 50:26

And we had such high hopes for what we thought was going to happen, what the internet was going to be, what our generation was going to do and accomplish. And woof. Yeah, yeah. What has actually transpired in the 26 years since Yeah, I I don't have alcohol in front of me, but best believe after this interview is over, I'm just gonna step off.

SPEAKER_03 50:57

I can't remember if it was Hemingway or Whitman who said woof. No. Yeah. The stakes just keep stacking themselves up against this incredibly amazing character, and seeing where she goes is just going to be I I'm not predicting anything. I want it to be completely organic in my brain, but also, you know, I think it's going to be one of those things where I'm going to be waiting with bated breath for those drops to be like, hey, the episode's out. It's like bam, I don't care what I'm doing, like stop and go after it. Because it's an incredibly compelling story. And and knowing you as a person, having read things that you've written in the past, the fact that this is a departure from your typical form. You uh to date have been a novelist and a short story writer, and then also telling art through stage, song, dance. I've seen you do stand-up slam poetry. Doing the podcast fiction horror narrative is something new to you, too. And so I think that I'm really excited, knowing you personally, um, what that discovery is going to be like for yourself as well as you continue down this path of signed in blood. It's very exciting.

SPEAKER_00 52:21

I appreciate that, man. Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 52:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 52:40

And thus ends part one of season one's Questions and Answers. Join us in two weeks, dear travelers, for part two of this discussion as we delve into the joys and challenges of fatherhood and find out what the real Jason Argyle hopes for his children. Until then, travel safely, my friends. I'll be waiting for you at the next stop.