0:14

Hello, everybody. Welcome,

0:17

welcome, welcome. It's still playing. Well, it's playing music

0:19

for us, not for them. Thanks

0:21

for thanks for breaking kayfabe there,

0:24

Canner. Hi, everybody.

0:26

Welcome. This is our series

0:29

finale. Q&A. This is

0:31

the last stop, everyone.

0:34

We are finally here. Juno

0:36

and Second Citadel are dead

0:38

and today we dance upon

0:40

their graves. We laugh because

0:46

otherwise we would cry. I'm Kevin Vybert. I

0:48

laugh because otherwise I'm crying all

0:50

the time. I'm joined here today by whoever would

0:52

like to go next. I'm

0:54

Harley Takagi Caner. I laugh because

0:56

it's so cute. I'm

1:00

Joshua Elon. I laugh because Harley and Kevin

1:02

pay me to. And

1:05

I'm Melissa DeJesus because I have just such

1:07

a wonderful laugh. I can't stop laughing.

1:10

Very true. So

1:12

we are going to jump into

1:15

our Q&A in just a minute.

1:17

We have a couple of announcements

1:19

first. Number one, very, very brief

1:22

management thing that I will take and then we'll get on to

1:24

the festivities. So

1:26

everybody who is here is

1:28

on Patreon. Those of you who

1:31

are hearing this on the feed after the fact are

1:33

not. So you may not be aware that we put

1:35

up a Patreon post a while ago about some foolishness

1:38

that Patreon is getting up to. And

1:41

long story short, Patreon is has

1:44

demonstrated that their priorities are

1:46

all about profit and they really don't

1:48

care if they screw us over. So

1:50

as a result, we are moving

1:53

to a new platform. That's the idea. We are we

1:55

can't announce the details just yet. We had hoped we'd

1:57

have that ready for you today. We do not. We

2:00

will in the very near future. The

2:03

quick and dirty version is we specifically

2:06

are pretty sure, we're pretty locked in

2:08

on this platform because they are going

2:10

to make transitioning over for you as

2:12

painless as possible. And

2:14

we should be able to upload literally

2:16

all of our Patreon bonuses up there.

2:20

So we've had a couple of people who've been

2:22

sending us messages asking what's going to happen to

2:24

all the Patreon bonuses after the show is over.

2:27

They're still going to be there just in a new place. So

2:30

details to come, but we wanted to let you know. And

2:33

then we have an announcement that we've been hyping

2:35

up for a long time. Do you want to

2:37

take this, Harlan? I do. Before that, we have

2:40

an announcement that is just logistical that we

2:42

have not been hyping up for a long

2:44

time, which is that there are two dogs

2:46

around and about and they

2:48

might happen. And

2:51

that'll be that. Do you have any questions for the dogs?

2:53

Too bad. Chat. There's

2:56

also a human being who is not

2:58

one of the four of us sitting

3:00

in this room, literally sitting in a

3:02

chair, eating popcorn, watching us, which I

3:04

just thought would be fun information for

3:06

everybody. No, I'm not going to specify

3:08

who it is. You

3:10

don't know them. But

3:14

to move to the announcement that we

3:16

have been hyping up a lot, we

3:20

are going to be announcing

3:23

our next project

3:26

at the end of the stream. Thank

3:29

you very much, Harlan. And

3:33

with that, we're ready to take questions from you all. And

3:35

no, we will not be answering any questions about what that

3:37

is. You will have to

3:39

wait until you've suffered

3:42

appropriately. So put your questions

3:44

in the chat. Joshua and Melissa

3:46

are going to help us pick

3:49

out some questions for everybody. As promised,

3:51

I grabbed a few from Patreon for people

3:53

who couldn't make it. So we will throw

3:56

those in there as well. And this is

3:58

me vamping, waiting for the questions to come in. If

4:00

no one asked questions, can we get the announcement?

4:02

No. If no one

4:05

asked questions, we sit here in stoic silence

4:07

for 50 minutes. Question,

4:09

did Director W ever find out what

4:11

happened to her little sister? Yep.

4:16

So here's the deal. Harley and I were talking about

4:19

this. Not Director W specifically. That would be weird. Harley

4:21

and I were talking about this specifically because we know

4:23

that a percentage

4:26

of the questions that are going to come in

4:28

are ultimately going to be what people might call word

4:31

of God questions in terms of unanswered

4:33

stuff in the show. And

4:36

my policy on it, and Harley, you can add

4:38

something if yours is a little different, is

4:41

that the show's over now.

4:43

The text is out there. It's done. It's

4:45

outside of us. So, you know, we're not

4:47

going to pull what certain

4:50

extremely successful fantasy authors are famous for

4:52

doing, which is

4:56

supplying in-world

4:59

text outside of the fact because that's, Kesca

5:02

say, cheating. That sucks. So we're not going to do

5:04

it. What we will do

5:06

is if you have questions like this, we

5:08

can tell you what we suspect. But I

5:10

would not be surprised if you and I

5:12

disagree because some of this is stuff that

5:14

we've not talked about. And so

5:17

ultimately all we can give you is

5:19

a perspective of people who have thought

5:21

about these imaginary people obsessively

5:23

for eight years. So

5:26

did Sasha ever find out what

5:28

happened to Annie? I

5:32

don't think so. What about you? Oh,

5:35

yeah, I do think so. Yeah. Because

5:38

I think that Dark Matters has

5:41

a way to figure out absolutely anything except

5:43

when we specifically need them not to be

5:45

able to. I

5:49

think for me it's that I suspect

5:52

she would have chilled out if she had. Do

5:54

you know what I mean? Like, I feel like

5:56

there's a burning engine in her of the, like...

6:01

of that emotional turmoil

6:03

being unanswered. Do

6:05

you know what I mean? Speaking

6:07

as someone who has not once chilled out ever, I

6:11

don't think that, like

6:14

I think once you're on that train it goes. Yeah.

6:20

We have any other questions? Yeah. So

6:24

Cam Shouter is curious that if you could live in

6:26

either the world of Juno or in the world of

6:28

the second Citadel, which would you choose to live in?

6:30

Oh, we should all do this. Oh yeah, for sure.

6:34

I've got the mic, so I will say, I

6:37

would live in an Iberian city. That seems like

6:39

a really cool place to be. As

6:42

Juno? As

6:44

Juno? No, probably

6:47

not. He has a really

6:49

hard time. I would just be like a guy out

6:51

there. They

6:53

all seem to have a much better time than

6:56

Juno did in general. So yeah, no, I think

6:58

I would live in Iberian. I

7:01

mean, my answer is very similar and exactly the

7:03

opposite, which is that I would live in second

7:05

Citadel and I would be like

7:07

Quani, but like me Quani,

7:09

like slightly toned down, a little

7:11

bit less on

7:14

all the time. So I could have like days off. Like

7:16

I feel like Quani doesn't take days off. If

7:21

it weren't a narratively

7:23

doomed, I would live in

7:26

Silver Shore 100% easily. Find

7:31

a hot monster dude and start a

7:33

family. Like, I mean, come on, there's

7:35

nothing better. But

7:37

given that it is narratively doomed, I live in the Western

7:39

wastes, 100%. Yeah. Yeah,

7:43

I think I would also live somewhere in the world

7:45

of the second Citadel. I

7:49

think there's something about it. I think maybe

7:51

just because it is in many ways like

7:57

easier to explore. You

8:01

know, everything in the Juno Steel universe

8:03

feels like very colonized, you know, like

8:05

it's been done. So

8:08

there feel like there are more frontiers in the world

8:10

of the seconds at all. Yeah. Got

8:15

anything else? I've

8:17

got another question. Harpy Raven asks, question,

8:19

what was your favorite heist to create?

8:22

And I'm picking this question because I goddamn love

8:24

heist. Do

8:28

you have a strong feeling about this yet, Erli? What are the heist? So

8:31

this one lists Train

8:33

From Nowhere, Zillow Miss

8:35

Gala, you know, environmental

8:37

planning of... I,

8:44

you know, actually my

8:46

favorite was the, I

8:48

actually don't think we ever gave this place a name. It

8:50

was the lockbox that the Cure Mother

8:52

Prime was being kept in. And

8:55

the re- I can tell you exactly the reason,

8:57

and it's because one

8:59

of my favorite things to do with descriptions of

9:01

setting is when setting is also characterization, right? When

9:04

setting tells you something about the people who own

9:06

or make the space. And the

9:09

like entire system

9:12

for that place was kind of

9:14

built around our backstory that you

9:16

have these five pharmaceutical megacorporations that

9:18

are on their own. It's

9:21

astounding. And he has this like

9:23

unbelievable tenderness that like,

9:25

lamb for me on the page, I was like,

9:27

I get it, you know, he's an interesting guy

9:29

with a background. But something about Stu's voice like

9:32

completely brought him to life for me and I

9:34

got really hooked. I do

9:36

think one of the most impressive things about

9:38

Stu's performance is that it's very much part

9:40

of the style of both Juno and Second

9:42

Citadel, that you have these like massively cartoony

9:44

over the top, capital V voices.

9:47

So whenever you get someone who talks more or

9:50

less like a guy, it's

9:53

a hard sell. It's a hard sell to like to hang in

9:55

those scenes. And he's never once been

9:57

swallowed up by the scene in that way. I've

9:59

always been really impressed by that. I

10:03

feel like I can't really answer this question because

10:05

I have such a different relationship to the script

10:07

than all of you. I kind of only know

10:09

the characters after they're done. Okay.

10:19

In other news. Do

10:23

I have any questions? Oh, okay.

10:25

I always like questions like this. As StummyHort asks,

10:27

did you know what the different arcs were gonna

10:29

be like from the start or did you kind

10:32

of meet the characters more as the show went

10:34

on? So the specific example they give

10:36

is, Nureyev's motivation, is that something you had in mind

10:38

for a while? But I think it's a great question

10:40

kind of generally because it's such a big show. So

10:43

obviously you didn't know all of it from the beginning.

10:46

Do you wanna go first, Harley? Do you want me to? Yeah, go ahead.

10:49

So generally the way that we've

10:51

gone, right, is, and we've, I think we've said

10:53

this, we may have said this in literally every

10:55

Q&A, but it's because it's been a kind of

10:58

guiding star for us forever, is

11:00

that if you raise a mystery, if you

11:02

raise a question, you have to have an

11:04

answer ready then. And however, at

11:06

that point, you are allowed to trade up. If

11:08

you find a better answer later, you can totally

11:11

swap it out. You have to do a lot

11:13

of kind of internal testing and discussion to make

11:15

sure that new answer actually works and does not

11:17

just sound cool. But you

11:20

are allowed to trade up. And part of the

11:22

reason for that is because I do think there's

11:24

this misconception creatively that the

11:26

most, the kind of

11:29

superior way to go about a work is to sit down

11:31

and create a perfect plan all the

11:33

way and then just enact, right? But

11:36

the flaw with that is that then your plan

11:38

is only as smart as you were on that

11:40

day, that's it. Whereas if

11:42

you allow yourself to be a little flexible,

11:45

you get to use your kind of peaks

11:47

of creativity over

11:50

the years to supplement what you've got. And

11:52

if you think that, I

11:54

do think it's a little naive to assume that on

11:56

any given day, you will be as good as you

11:58

could be over the course of. eight years in some.

12:00

Do you know what I mean? So

12:05

the short version is that we have had big

12:07

things like character beats planned out from the beginning.

12:10

If you want kind of evidence

12:12

that slip has

12:14

been a thing for a very long time, an

12:16

early version of that character is on

12:19

Patreon in one of an

12:21

old, old post. That is the

12:23

the early versions of Angela Brahma, right?

12:25

The character was called K then and

12:27

then we changed the name because we

12:29

were doing the Arthurian Knights thing in

12:31

Second Citadel and we thought it would

12:33

be confusing. So we switched it around.

12:37

But that aspect has been in the chamber from the

12:39

beginning. Episode by episode though,

12:41

we do kind of, you kind of the math that

12:43

we do is like, okay, we know the character arc,

12:45

we know that we want Juno to be roughly here

12:47

at this point. What situation can

12:50

we set up that is going

12:52

to get Juno there, right? So

12:54

it's sort of building in

12:56

an individual story as a tool that gets

12:58

the characters where you want them to be.

13:01

But we, you know, largely

13:03

have the arc of where they are at any given moment figured

13:06

out ahead of time. Is that fair to say? Yeah,

13:08

I mean, let us keep in mind that when we started,

13:10

we didn't even know this was going to be a podcast.

13:13

So there's no way that we had almost

13:15

nine years of material

13:18

planned out. Oh, right. That couldn't

13:20

be. But also, I'm

13:22

just yeah, I'm very chill with the fact

13:24

that to a certain extent, if you want

13:26

to have an ongoing show, you just plan

13:29

it as you go. And like, were there

13:31

things that we knew we wanted to get

13:33

to at some point and a way

13:35

that we a vibe that we wanted for

13:37

the ending and things

13:39

that we wanted to achieve before we got

13:42

there? Yes. But do we have every aspect of

13:44

it now then? Absolutely not. And good

13:46

for us. Yeah, because we're so

13:48

much smarter and better than we

13:51

were when we started and and

13:53

not just as artists, but as

13:55

people. And you wouldn't think it

13:57

because I still say douchey things

13:59

like that. But, you know,

14:01

like we couldn't have dreamed

14:03

of this stuff in 2015. So

14:05

I'm really glad that we let a lot of it

14:07

just develop as it came. You

14:10

know, I knew that I

14:13

think we knew that we wanted at some

14:15

point for Nureyev to be

14:17

kind of the antagonist. Right. That was

14:19

something we knew probably in

14:22

season one. Right. That we

14:24

wanted to have some segment where that was

14:26

happening. And we had we were

14:28

like, oh, we want Sasha

14:31

Wire to be the antagonist. I think we

14:33

probably knew that once we were like a

14:35

couple episodes after day that wouldn't die when

14:37

she left. We were like, oh, maybe eventually

14:39

we were like, what does happen to her?

14:41

And we were like, oh, what if she

14:43

went bad? You know, what if she was

14:46

successful but turned bad? OK, let's hang on

14:48

to that. We'll bring her back later and

14:50

she'll be a major antagonist of a season.

14:53

And so, you know, we would like put a

14:55

pin in it and be like, we'll just we'll come back to that

14:57

later and we'll get there. However, we

14:59

get there. Yeah.

15:04

So Melissa, True Heroes 58 asks us,

15:08

what was your favorite character moment of Juno and

15:10

Kwani, specifically Kwani for you? Yeah,

15:13

there's so many. I mean, the death

15:16

scene is so good.

15:20

Like not to, you know, go

15:23

directly right to it, but it's

15:25

so good. And

15:27

her whole I mean, the the

15:29

arc of like being unbelievably powerful

15:31

and then having, you

15:34

know, this lovely relationship that changes the

15:36

way that you see your role in

15:38

the world and your relationship to your

15:41

capacity for power. And then like

15:44

letting that and letting the love

15:46

for like Olah and for Caroline

15:49

change her expectation of what like literally

15:51

reality was going to be. It's just

15:54

so beautiful. Yeah. I

15:57

mean, I also love Evil Kwani. I could Evil

16:00

Kwani. all day so like that's fun as hell

16:02

but after spending a good chunk

16:04

of time really evil having the

16:07

swing back was really fun. Just

16:10

to jump on the back of that I don't think

16:12

I've said it to like either of you yet. The

16:15

second set of Elfenale was so good. It

16:17

was so good. Like I really really love it. It

16:19

made me realize that I did not like

16:21

the ending of Disney's Robin Hood because

16:24

it should have ended like that.

16:26

No just like yeah

16:29

Mark and Tal riding off doing the same thing

16:31

like I didn't like the ending of Robin Hood

16:33

because like he's not Robin Hood anymore but this

16:35

ends with the anyway so

16:38

my favorite Juno moment was the second

16:40

Citadel finale. So

16:44

it's I always like the moments

16:46

that Juno gets to put down the load for

16:48

a second but those

16:50

are kind of more story moments than character moments

16:52

so my gut answer is anytime he's with Mick

16:55

and we just get to see the

16:58

Juno who was once like six

17:00

years old in old town and is also 30

17:02

whatever but

17:04

I think the things that I had the

17:07

most fun doing were whenever

17:09

Juno does

17:12

an impression of one of his friends like

17:15

he does a Nureyev at some point he does

17:17

a buddy and I've got a head candidate like

17:19

while everybody else is working on the carte blanche

17:21

he's like just sharpening impressions of

17:23

everybody else. So

17:26

he's like working on his jet. So those

17:28

are easily my favorites. While

17:35

you guys look for another question I do want

17:37

to give Harley credit for that final Juno

17:40

and Mick scene in the

17:42

finale in the sense that I brought you a

17:44

first draft that you threw out

17:46

rightly because it was it was

17:49

it was kind of another one of the Juno-Mick

17:51

conversation we've always done right it's the... I was

17:53

so sick of it. I know.

17:57

To your credit and or detriment. You've

17:59

been sick of it for years at

18:01

this point. And I like him,

18:04

I like him, I like to do him. But

18:06

at that point I was like, no, you're right.

18:08

There's no place for wise fool McMurkury at this

18:10

point. This is, and

18:12

your whole thing was we just need to

18:14

see them being buddies. And that is absolutely

18:16

right. Which is why, yeah.

18:18

Yes, it was. It was

18:20

absolutely. Don't, the

18:23

cable, Kevin! Kevin,

18:25

be careful! This

18:28

is why I don't compliment you as

18:30

a general rule. No

18:32

one ever should. Yeah,

18:35

no, because I mean, especially in the

18:37

finale, there's always going to be a

18:39

tendency for it to get cheesy,

18:44

especially for us. That's

18:47

always the direction it goes. And

18:50

every ending of anything, an

18:52

episode, a season, and certainly

18:54

a series, always severe danger

18:56

of it becoming cheesy. And

18:58

it probably did anyway. But

19:01

there were already so many goodbyes that had to

19:03

be done and so many wrap ups and so

19:05

many callbacks. And I was like, we cannot do

19:08

this. We cannot do

19:10

this. Like, we already did

19:12

this the first time that we met Mick. Like,

19:14

he has that lovely conversation with Juno at the end of day

19:17

that wouldn't die. And I was like, let us not do this

19:19

again. And you were like, well then what? And

19:21

I was like, maybe they just have a nice time.

19:23

But then you wrote one of the funniest

19:25

scenes. I've

19:27

ever listened to. Super briefly,

19:30

because I did say this in the commentary for that episode,

19:32

but not everybody heard that commentary. That

19:35

scene is taken not word for word, but idea

19:37

for idea from an actual conversation I had with

19:39

my grandmother in which we were both Mick. And

19:43

I loved getting to show that to everybody.

19:47

Was it at rehearsal or at recording? It

19:49

was at rehearsal. That

19:51

was lovely. I never get to do that. Anyway.

19:57

Some people are asking me to say this, so

19:59

I am gonna just say. Junot Steel, five years

20:01

old. He's

20:05

back. From season one

20:07

outtakes. I've

20:11

seen this question a couple of times in the chat

20:13

and I don't know what it means, so I really

20:15

hope Kevin does. Kevin,

20:18

why did you use White Wedding

20:20

for Nureyev in the playlist? Oh,

20:24

I do. This was a... Do

20:26

you remember? I think it might have been the voting thing

20:28

that we did and we sent personalized... It

20:32

was something that we did where we sent

20:34

personalized gifts to individual people who won a

20:36

raffle. Carly's

20:39

like, what are we talking about? Carly

20:43

just woke up, okay? There's

20:46

a white wedding in my face. I

21:17

don't know. I

21:42

have a lot of favorites. Well,

21:47

I mean, this one is kind of just like a

21:49

Melissa's thing. Junot's mom.

21:52

Mostly because I'm obsessed. Okay,

21:56

and chat, I'm not joking right now. I'm

21:58

freakishly obsessed with Kiki's face. the actress who

22:00

plays you in a long time. She's not

22:02

joking, can't confirm. For like a long time.

22:05

Sometimes I'm at parties and she's there and

22:07

I like lose my mind. I

22:10

think Melissa is visibly shaking a little

22:12

bit right now. Yeah, a little bit.

22:14

Like, Kiki is amazing. Just like as

22:16

a performer, as a woman, as an

22:19

actress, just like as

22:21

an athlete, like, okay. No,

22:24

I'm sorry, someone else. I

22:26

can report, not to call you out, that I

22:28

have literally watched you engage in a conversation with Kiki

22:30

and lose the ability to speak. I

22:33

get so weird around her. One time, okay,

22:35

so I'm gonna tell you just about to

22:37

use one weird story. So she was in

22:39

a theater company for a while and they

22:41

did this fundraiser where you could purchase different

22:43

things and it was an afternoon

22:46

with one of the actors and she did,

22:49

you could go shopping with Kiki

22:51

Samko and I bid the

22:54

highest and I won,

22:56

shut up. And I won, but

22:58

then you had to like reach out to her

23:00

to schedule it and I never did because I

23:02

got too scared. So I still am owed a

23:04

shopping day with Kiki Samko and someday I'm gonna

23:07

be there, but not yet. I was

23:09

like a decade ago. Okay,

23:11

bye. What

23:16

was the question? Do

23:19

you have some Sarah Steele as your friend?

23:21

Cool. If

23:24

it's not a cop out to say Tristan the Cold, I

23:26

loved playing Tristan. I loved listening to Tristan.

23:28

I thought Tristan was a really cool type

23:30

of bad guy that we didn't really

23:33

get in anywhere else. And so

23:35

that's mine, but if I

23:37

had to choose one that wasn't me, I'm gonna say Ramses again.

23:40

Because Ramses is a real kind of

23:42

villain. Like there have been Ramses

23:45

O'Flaredes before and there will be Ramses O'Flaredes

23:47

again. And

23:49

just so well done. I

23:53

love Pilot and the

23:55

Piranha. I love them

23:58

together. I love them separately. And

24:00

they definitely both get

24:02

the chance to shine separately. I

24:06

think Pilot

24:08

was very funny because we tried to go

24:11

as over the top as we possibly could

24:13

and then kept being like, oh

24:15

wait, like the mayor of Fall

24:17

River or whatever just like did this actual

24:20

thing. We

24:24

were unable to exaggerate at

24:26

all. And that was great. But

24:29

also, you know, Reina

24:31

has such a sexy

24:34

gravitas about that voice.

24:39

So yeah, loved Pilot, loved playing

24:41

the piranha, also loved handing over

24:43

the piranha to Marge in

24:46

the live show. She was so, so

24:48

good as the piranha. And

24:51

we write a lot

24:54

of sexy,

24:56

tough women for

24:59

whatever reason. Yeah, there's

25:01

still time for me to quit. We

25:07

write a lot of sexy, tough women, but it

25:10

was very, so it was very fun to have

25:12

one who was just horrid. Horrid.

25:19

I have two answers. I will say

25:21

that answer number one with the bullet is Ramses.

25:23

Ramses is in my top three favorite characters I've

25:25

ever written. I think the other two are probably

25:27

Juno and Caroline. I could not

25:30

rank the three for the life of me. But also

25:32

part of the reason that Ramses is that, and

25:34

you know this Harley, right? I've referenced before in

25:36

Patreon content that I have a couple of what

25:38

are sometimes referred to as trunk novels, things that

25:40

I wrote just to practice that we'll never see

25:42

the light of day because they're bad. And

25:46

Ramses was the, one

25:48

of two of

25:50

the only good things of the book

25:52

that he originated in. So

25:55

we just took him wholesale. So

25:57

part of the reason I love Ramses so much

25:59

is because because we got, or I

26:01

got two shots at him. And by the second one,

26:03

I felt like I really had him figured out. And

26:06

I also got to use a lifetime of

26:09

stupid trivia about the Walt Disney Corporation to

26:11

flesh him out, which

26:13

I loved. And my other

26:15

answer, which I don't think is a,

26:18

is more of a personal preference thing than anything else and

26:20

is a different kind of answer, is

26:23

I am extremely attached to Galahad in

26:25

a way. In

26:27

that I don't care about his internal

26:29

world, I don't care about

26:31

him as a character in a sense, but I

26:33

really, really do like the way that he

26:35

is set up as an

26:38

inevitable outcome of the society of

26:40

the Citadel. He is a,

26:43

this bomb was gonna go off eventually and this

26:46

is just the guy that it went off with.

26:49

So I think that it's

26:51

less that I like Galahad as a character, of

26:53

course I love arena's performance, it's incredible. It's

26:56

so, so good for just like a

26:59

pure evil, like real,

27:01

real nasty, nasty person. But

27:05

more, I think that Galahad is perfectly

27:07

slotted into that story. That story does not function

27:09

without a Galahad. And I think that he makes

27:12

it much more interesting and that's why I like

27:14

him so much. Even though him as a character,

27:16

he's admittedly flat, but that's kind of the point.

27:18

You know what I mean? Yeah.

27:24

I can grab another one. Go for it. All

27:26

right. Let

27:29

me see. Harley,

27:32

this question's more for you and me. This

27:35

is from CrispyBacon. Did

27:37

you always plan to have only two stories running

27:39

concurrently as opposed to rotating cast to shorter one-off

27:42

stories? And if so, at what point was

27:44

it decided they would both come to an end at the same

27:46

time? I think we've answered the former but not

27:48

the latter. I don't remember

27:50

when we decided. So

27:53

we, there are a

27:55

couple answers to this.

28:00

that I've been thinking about a lot is when

28:03

we first started with the Juno series,

28:05

we were kind of thinking about

28:07

it as like, you know, there are stories

28:10

about detectives that the series goes on essentially

28:12

forever, right? You could write Sherlock Holmes stories

28:14

forever. And I mean, after Conan Doyle died,

28:16

people did, right? Like that character can go

28:18

on forever. You can write Hercule

28:20

Oparo stories essentially forever, Colombo stories,

28:23

etc. But the thing

28:25

is that as soon as we hit season two and it

28:27

became clear that the point of this series was Juno's growth,

28:30

I do think that to an extent,

28:32

once you introduce growth and change, you

28:34

also introduce mortality, you introduce an end

28:36

because you can't grow and change forever.

28:40

So part of it was that

28:43

as soon as kind of season two hit and we

28:45

realized that's the direction that we were going, the

28:47

clock started ticking. And we've

28:49

also been very aware of the fact that like, you

28:51

know, to be direct, we started this series with a

28:53

group of people who a lot of them aren't

28:56

actors and don't really want to act anymore, right?

28:58

They acted when we first met them when we

29:01

were in college, but it's not the direction that

29:03

they're going. And we do

29:05

have to let them go at some

29:07

point, because this is not what they

29:09

want to do. So

29:12

there's always a time limit in that sense. And so

29:14

we hit a certain point, I think around season three,

29:16

where that time limit became very,

29:18

very clear. And we were looking at both series

29:20

and we were like, could

29:23

we do theoretically do an extra

29:25

second Citadel season? We

29:27

could. But there's

29:29

an awkward amount of stuff left to say.

29:32

So I don't know that we could without

29:34

like introducing a brand new thing. And at

29:36

that point, what are we doing? Right?

29:38

Like, why not have a climactic moment

29:40

for both? Well,

29:43

and I think also just logistically, it

29:45

would have been weird

29:48

to continue second Citadel after Juno

29:50

was done. It would

29:53

have completely messed up our

29:55

like production pipeline. And would

29:57

we have that had

30:00

to come up with another series that would,

30:02

you know, be interspersed with that one. And

30:04

we were like, forget it. Let's just end

30:07

them both at the same time. And we feel like we have enough

30:10

material to get us through whatever it was that

30:12

point, two more seasons, but not too much. And

30:16

you just have to let it go at

30:18

a certain point. You know, we were just

30:20

talking the other day about how we really

30:24

respect sitcoms.

30:27

Yes. But I, at

30:29

least, was I think was the same for you, could not

30:32

write it. Like would not have

30:34

the patience to write something where

30:36

everything just returned to zero at

30:39

the end of the episode. Right. I

30:41

mean, when we were talking about this, I said

30:43

to you that I'm fascinated by the design challenge

30:45

of The Simpsons. I think that being

30:48

a writer on The Simpsons is at this point,

30:50

partially because their reputation isn't as great as it

30:52

once was, it is that has to

30:55

be one of the hardest writing jobs in the business

30:57

because people are going in expecting not to like it.

31:00

And you have a set of

31:02

incredibly restrictive rules in terms of how the

31:04

story gets told, being

31:06

able to bring out something that

31:09

is even remotely entertaining and functional under

31:11

the, I like, I

31:13

may not make myself incredibly

31:15

popular with this, but I, I

31:18

don't like crossovers

31:21

between the two. So I don't, I

31:23

don't like that. It just, it makes me

31:26

feel yucky. I don't know why. So

31:28

I'm going to abstain from that question.

31:34

I think, uh, Jed and

31:36

Caroline would get

31:38

along really, really well. They're both really

31:41

business first. Uh, they, they'd find

31:43

a common language and they'd hit it. I

31:46

think really it comes down to like, there's certain

31:48

characters from both series that would get along with

31:50

absolutely everybody. So like Mick and

31:52

Angelo would be pretty cute together. Um,

31:57

Oh man, pretty much jet. I feel

31:59

like could jive. with almost anybody. I

32:03

did see someone in the chat ask who

32:05

in each series would hate each other and

32:07

without going to too much depth, I do think

32:09

it's pretty funny that Juno

32:11

and Caroline- I was just thinking that. I

32:13

do. Murder each other.

32:15

Juno would spend an entire season trying

32:18

to destroy Caroline, 100% and

32:20

I don't know who would win. Actually,

32:22

you know what? A little bit of Quan

32:24

Yee Rita would be amazing. It

32:28

would be so chaotic. Someone would

32:30

die. Yeah, but we'd

32:33

have a great time. No, somehow someone

32:35

several miles away that neither had ever

32:37

met would die. Quan Yee would love

32:39

it. Rita might be conflicted, sorry Rita.

32:45

I have, I do every once in a

32:47

while want to intersperse these questions from people who could not

32:49

make it. I want to

32:51

go through this one very, very briefly because I think it's a

32:53

funny story. Caroline Mercy asked us, how

32:56

do you feel about the Penumbra podcast being shortlisted

32:58

for the British Fantasy Society Best Audio Award? Which

33:02

is, we're very, very excited. The

33:05

reason that we never announced

33:07

anything about it is because

33:10

they never contacted us. So we

33:12

found out from, I think you were Googling. Yeah.

33:16

Yeah. I was just

33:18

seeing if there was anything recent about

33:21

the Penumbra and that came up

33:23

and I was like, oh, no one told me. This

33:29

is a very cute question to ask. How do

33:31

you feel about it? Because imagine if we were

33:33

like, we hate it. No,

33:35

we're very flattered. No,

33:37

I mean, it's like, no shade to them.

33:39

I'm sure that they're extremely busy and stuff

33:41

falls through the cracks. It's literally just like,

33:44

because we never got official confirmation of

33:46

it, it felt so weird to brag

33:48

about it because it felt like we

33:51

were gonna do that and someone was gonna contact and

33:53

be like. It was a mistake.

33:55

We might get different names. It's just so

33:57

beautiful for that. Right. Yeah,

34:00

exactly. Terrifying.

34:03

We have

34:08

anything else from the chat for me? I

34:12

did have one and then I accidentally scrolled past it. Great.

34:18

I love questions like this. What character did you not

34:20

expect to love as much as you ended up loving?

34:23

And what made you love them so much? This is from True Heroes 58. Oh,

34:27

Vespa. Vespa

34:29

with a bullet, actually. When

34:31

we started season three, I don't

34:34

rank my children, but Vespa

34:37

was my least favorite. And

34:39

it was just because I didn't know her. I didn't really know anything

34:41

about her, right? And then over the course

34:43

of writing Shadows on the Ship, she

34:47

was like, you know, she slowly started

34:49

climbing in the ranks until she became

34:51

one of my favorite voices to write.

34:55

This is a Patreon-only thing, but we

34:57

did do a in-universe

34:59

short story that's from Vespa's perspective.

35:01

And I loved writing that. That

35:04

was so fun, even though almost nobody is

35:06

ever going to see it. And

35:09

it's just, I don't know, it's like getting in

35:11

her head. I loved, I mean, one of the

35:13

things that I always really like to do as

35:15

a writer that I always find really compelling is

35:17

when someone's internal voice and external voice are very

35:19

different, the distance there

35:21

I always think is kind of fascinating. And Vespa

35:23

has one of my favorite examples of that in the

35:26

entire series in general. There

35:29

will never be a Q&A where I don't bring this up, but it's always

35:31

Jet. Jet

35:34

Zekuliak, my son. I love

35:36

him so much. And

35:39

I do, I think if I'm

35:41

remembering correctly, at some

35:43

point you were like, let's bring in

35:45

Jet Zekuliak, who we had just mentioned

35:47

as like a throwaway name in Train

35:49

from Nowhere. And I was like, we

35:52

don't have to do all that. Like

35:56

we don't need to connect everything, like we don't

35:58

need to follow up on every single... name drop

36:00

we've ever done this is not necessary and I

36:02

loved him so much. But what if we did?

36:05

Yeah, I love him so much.

36:09

Do either of you have a feeling about this

36:11

one? Well actually I was just remembering from

36:14

my script writing experience or script

36:16

editing experiences I didn't

36:20

particularly think Lamb was gonna hit for

36:23

me but then something about

36:25

uh who voice left? Stu. Stu

36:28

is astounding and I he has

36:30

this like unbelievable tenderness that

36:32

like lamb for me on the page I was

36:34

like I get it you know he's an interesting

36:37

guy with a background but something about Stu's voice

36:39

like completely brought him to life for me and

36:41

I got really hooked. I

36:43

do think one of the most impressive things

36:45

about Stu's performance is that it's very much

36:47

part of the style of both Juno and

36:49

Second Citadel that you have these like massively

36:51

cartoony over the top capital V

36:54

voices so whenever you get someone who talks

36:56

more or less like a guy um it's

36:58

it's a hard sell it's a hard sell

37:00

to like to hang in those scenes and

37:03

he's he's never once been swallowed up by

37:05

the scene in that way I've always been

37:07

really impressed by that. I

37:10

feel like I can't really answer this question because

37:13

I have such a different relationship to the script

37:15

than all of you I kind of only know

37:17

the characters after they're done. Um.

37:23

Okay. In

37:27

other news. Um. Do

37:30

I have any questions? Um. Oh okay.

37:32

I always like questions like this as Stummyhort asks,

37:34

did you know what the different arcs were going

37:37

to be like from the start or did you

37:39

kind of meet the characters more as the show

37:41

went on? So the specific example

37:43

they give is Nureyev's motivation is that something you had

37:45

in mind for a while? But I think it's a

37:47

great question kind of generally because it's such a big

37:49

show so obviously you didn't know all of it from

37:52

the beginning. Do you want to go first Harley? Do

37:54

you want me to? Um. So

37:57

generally the way that we've gone right

37:59

is And we've, I think we've said this,

38:01

we may have said this in literally every Q&A, but it's

38:03

because it's been a kind of guiding

38:05

star for us forever. Is

38:08

that if you raise a mystery, if you

38:10

raise a question, you have to have an

38:12

answer ready then. And however, at

38:14

that point, you are allowed to trade up. If

38:16

you find a better answer later, you can totally

38:18

swap it out. You have to do a lot

38:20

of kind of internal testing and discussion to make

38:22

sure that new answer actually works and does not

38:24

just sound cool. But, but

38:27

you are allowed to trade up. And part of the reason for that

38:29

is because I do think there's

38:31

this misconception creatively that, you know,

38:33

the most, the kind

38:36

of superior way to go about a work is to sit

38:38

down and create a perfect plan all the

38:40

way and then just enact, right? But

38:43

the flaw with that is that then your plan

38:45

is only as smart as you were on that

38:47

day. That's it. Whereas if

38:50

you allow yourself to be a little flexible,

38:52

you get to use your kind of peaks

38:55

of creative of creativity over the

38:57

years to supplement what you've got. And

38:59

if you think that I

39:01

do think it's a little naive to assume that on

39:03

any given day, you will be as good as you

39:05

could be over the course of eight years in some.

39:08

Do you know what I mean? So

39:13

the short version is that we have had big

39:15

things like character beats planned out from the beginning.

39:17

If you want kind of evidence

39:19

that slip

39:21

has been a thing for a very

39:23

long time, an early version of that

39:25

character is on Patreon in one of

39:27

an old, old post. That

39:30

is the, the early

39:32

versions of Angela Brahma,

39:34

right? The character was called Kayven and then we

39:36

changed the name because we were doing the Arthurian

39:38

Knights thing and second Citadel and we thought it

39:40

would be confusing. So we switched it around. But

39:44

that aspect has been in the chamber from the

39:46

beginning. Episode by episode

39:48

though, we do kind of, kind

39:51

of the math that we do is like, okay, we know the character

39:53

arc. We know that we want you to know to be roughly here

39:55

at this point. What situation can we

39:57

set up that is going to get.

40:00

Juno there, right? So it's sort

40:02

of building in an individual

40:04

story as a tool that gets the characters

40:06

where you want them to be. But

40:09

we, you know, largely have the arc of where

40:11

they are at any given moment figured out ahead

40:13

of time. Is that fair to say? Yeah,

40:16

I mean, let us keep in mind that when we

40:18

started, we didn't even know this was gonna be a

40:20

podcast. So there's no way that

40:22

we had almost nine years

40:24

of material planned out. Oh,

40:26

sure. make it

40:28

a little bit more of a conversation in a way that I think is a

40:31

much more exciting way to learn that stuff. But we had ideas about

40:33

how magic worked before then that has been

40:35

kind of the, the, the

40:38

foundational text for me for the quote

40:41

unquote rules of magic. Given,

40:43

you know, given the fact that in the second Citadel

40:45

universe, one of the main rules of magic is that

40:47

magic does not like to abide by rules. I

40:51

there's so much good stuff in that

40:54

episode. I'm actually just remembering because there

40:56

was one of those moments

40:58

of serendipity when you figure

41:00

something out and because we were puzzling over

41:02

how are we going to get these two

41:04

to fall in love,

41:07

we need them to fall in

41:09

love post haste, and

41:11

they are not well set up

41:13

for it, because he just kidnapped

41:15

her. And

41:18

then we were like, a song

41:20

that's always, that's always

41:22

how it works. Right.

41:25

You sing a song together, and then you're in

41:27

love. And it's not because it works that way

41:29

in real life. It's because it's how we understand

41:31

it to work in fiction. And it

41:34

did work. And then there's

41:36

that beautiful part where she

41:39

says that he's where RM

41:41

says, Oh, music is magic. And she's

41:43

like, No, music is math, but it's

41:45

both. I

41:48

love that so much. I

41:55

got one that I can switch into two. So there's

41:57

two questions that can be squished into one. Cool. What

42:02

lessons did you learn from working on the

42:04

Penumbra that you think will influence your future

42:06

work most? That's the first one. And the

42:08

second one is, if you could tell your

42:10

season one or season two self anything, what

42:12

would you tell yourselves? Those

42:15

are good questions. I

42:18

don't know about lessons learned. That

42:22

one I have to sit

42:24

on, but if I could

42:26

tell season one me anything,

42:34

it would be enjoy it. I

42:40

mean, I think I have already

42:42

been ruminating about this stuff in the last

42:46

few commentaries. So this is a little bit

42:48

of a rehashing of it. But

42:53

not everyone's going to like it. That's

42:56

fine. It's normal. It's not

42:59

possible to make something that everyone likes. It's definitely

43:01

possible to make something that's popular, but

43:04

it's not possible to make something that everyone likes. And

43:06

the people who don't like it are always going to be louder.

43:10

And more than that,

43:13

it is inescapable that some people are going to be

43:15

incredibly mean. And

43:17

that just is what it is. Like,

43:19

I'm not saying it's OK for people

43:21

to be really mean. It absolutely isn't.

43:23

Don't. But like, given that I

43:25

have no control over what people do, people are going to

43:27

be really, really mean. And you

43:30

get a little better at handling

43:33

it, but it never doesn't hurt.

43:35

I mean, hopefully if we continue

43:38

to work in

43:40

a public space, it will continuously

43:42

get easier. But it's never going to feel good

43:45

when people are really, really mean. But

43:48

it's just going to happen. And

43:50

that is what it is. And

43:53

so all you can come back to over

43:55

and over again is make something that means

43:57

something to you and to the people that

43:59

you respect. and care about and know in

44:01

your real life you can't chase

44:03

approval from people you've never met

44:06

that's unrealistic and

44:10

you should not you

44:12

should not cave to outside

44:15

pressure if it doesn't feel authentic to

44:17

you because public opinion will change and

44:19

culture will change and the only

44:21

thing you're gonna be able to hew

44:23

to forever is well this is what

44:26

felt authentic to me at the time

44:28

and if you weren't authentic to yourself

44:30

that's gonna feel bad later so

44:33

I think that has been very important to me do

44:36

you have an answer Melissa yeah

44:41

I haven't fully formulated this thought but

44:43

um I think

44:45

I wouldn't really have any advice from

44:47

my early self getting involved with the

44:49

penumbra except for I mean

44:52

kind of what you were saying the enjoy it

44:56

I feel this unimaginable gratitude

44:58

for the opportunity

45:00

to do something

45:03

creative with my skills and talents

45:05

and work with people I respect so very

45:08

very much who are also putting a lot

45:10

of energy and effort and thought and creativity

45:12

and and honestly our

45:14

own emotional journeys into

45:17

something together it's

45:19

it's a it's an opportunity I

45:21

think almost no one gets

45:24

to be in a room with people

45:26

that you really love and respect and

45:28

and admire and like

45:30

hanging out and getting dinner with and

45:33

see them do the things that they care

45:36

about and that they love so I mean I guess

45:38

that's my my only advice for

45:40

people is if you can find ways

45:42

to make things with your friends it

45:45

is the most transformative experience you can

45:47

possibly have it's completely changed me

45:49

as a person I brag about it to anyone who

45:51

will listen I I love

45:54

this show it's it's

45:56

such a boon that I have had

45:58

this in my life I

46:00

think all of my professional and creative

46:02

and just like emotional journey after this

46:04

is deeply deeply affected by

46:07

the penumbra. So I've

46:14

been I've been stewing on my answer and I'm

46:16

realizing I need to twist the question a little

46:18

bit because this is something that I It's

46:21

not something that I figured out, but I know it's the next

46:24

thing I'm Working on

46:26

I guess which is that like I've something

46:28

that I that I've needed to learn to

46:30

balance that I still haven't completely Figured out

46:33

is that I think I am by a

46:35

clinical definition It

46:44

took you this long No,

46:48

I I think that I mean I know that

46:50

I'm a By literal

46:52

definition a workaholic like I

46:54

am I

46:57

am addicted to working. I can't stop and

46:59

so it's you know, it has I've

47:03

had several mental breakdowns over the course of

47:05

this show minty bees I had to go

47:07

to the hospital last year right like it's

47:09

you know, and those are things I

47:11

do to myself right and The really challenging

47:14

thing about it that I've had to come to terms

47:16

with is for example in the ramp up to writing

47:18

those Finale ease I was working, you

47:21

know On the weekdays

47:23

I was working eight to ten hours every day on

47:25

the weekends I was working four to five hours every

47:27

day and I for like a month

47:29

and a half straight and just never ever ever

47:31

took time off and As

47:34

soon as that was done. I got incredibly sick

47:36

for weeks because my body

47:39

just couldn't handle it anymore and

47:42

But the thing that I need to reckon with is the fact

47:44

that To a very

47:46

real extent those six weeks of

47:48

destroying myself are some of the

47:50

happiest I've been in the past

47:53

year And so I

47:55

kind of I need to figure out how to

47:57

balance this like in a very practical way so

50:00

when we recorded that last episode. And

50:02

I did not finish the series until

50:06

right before part one of

50:09

the last episode came out. So I timed it really

50:11

well. But it was,

50:13

it made

50:16

it feel like I was, I

50:19

mean, it's this weird thing where I think I've

50:21

said this before, but whenever I

50:23

would listen to an episode right after it

50:25

was released, all I could really hear was

50:27

the process. I heard what

50:29

we all put into it. I heard, you

50:32

know, I remembered lines that had been cut out

50:34

and I was surprised that they, I like forgot

50:36

that they weren't in there. I heard the things

50:38

that Harley had done. And I heard like, oh

50:41

cool, they did this this time. They changed my

50:43

timing up here because Harley

50:46

is like the second voice actor for every

50:48

character because they're so like editing makes

50:50

a show. So

50:54

there's so much of that. Is that offensive by

50:56

the way? As an actor, like, I mean, you

50:58

know, too bad. I'm gonna keep doing what I'm

51:00

doing, but like, but

51:02

just curious, like, if you know that you did

51:04

something a certain way and then you hear it

51:07

and it's like completely different from how you delivered

51:09

it, is that like, hey, why

51:11

did you do that? There were times that I

51:13

definitely heard a thing that you did and thought,

51:15

eh, mine was better. Wrong.

51:18

No, no one

51:20

will ever know. But yeah,

51:23

in listening all the way through having

51:25

pretty much finished recording the show, I

51:29

could just hear the show.

51:32

I heard the story. I got the

51:34

full line and it made

51:36

it feel so much better to close

51:39

off because I actually had a feeling

51:41

for not the process, for the

51:43

actual thing that we were finishing. And

51:47

so, you know, I'm sure many of you have

51:49

heard this story before. The last thing that we

51:51

recorded in a scene was saying goodbye to the

51:53

Ruby Seven and the last thing

51:56

that we recorded in the show altogether

51:58

was Juno's final monologue. And

52:01

I had not read the final monologue until

52:04

that day because we did not have a

52:06

rehearsal version of it We

52:08

had all of it up until that last monologue and

52:10

it was just like a note in the script that

52:12

said I'm gonna get to This I just haven't gotten

52:14

it yet. So There

52:16

I think that one at least part of the

52:18

recording that made it into the episode was My

52:21

first time reading that excerpt from the simple

52:24

art of murder and all of that and

52:26

so it was like a nice surprise To me I got

52:29

to actually see the ending of the show in real time

52:31

and I got to experience it So this is a really

52:33

long answer to a really simple question But

52:36

it it was the right thing to do

52:38

and it made me appreciate and treasure those few moments

52:40

so much more Thanks for asking So

52:44

Harley this one's this one's more for you and me.

52:46

Sorry But

52:49

I'm part of the reason I'm curious about this

52:51

question is because of what I

52:53

said before about our

52:56

Feeling in our relationship with Word of God questions

52:58

because this is a thing that you and I

53:00

have spoken about obliquely But we never came to

53:02

an answer and there's a reason that we never

53:04

came to an answer that I think is interesting

53:08

which is How

53:10

did Damien and Tristan get the power to do

53:12

miracles? Was it actually st. Damien like how Ola

53:14

saw Ferdinand at the end or was it the

53:16

universe doing magic like Kwan Yee or was it

53:19

something else? Part

53:25

of the reason that I think this question

53:27

is interesting right is that? Is

53:42

that actually you and I talked a

53:44

lot about writing religion in this show

53:46

Partially because neither of us are at

53:49

all religious and neither

53:51

of us were raised Religious in

53:53

any way either you read a lot of stories

53:56

that had like a strong kind

53:58

of Christian underpinning to them I

54:02

once scared the hell out of my dad when I

54:04

asked him for the Bible for Christmas and

54:07

he got me the Illustrated Beginners Bible and

54:09

was just like sitting there and he the

54:11

way the way he

54:13

tells the story the

54:16

way he tells the story he was like spent

54:18

the whole time after he gave it to me

54:20

going like if if this kid becomes a priest

54:22

I do actually need to start believing in God

54:24

like that is that is the thing and

54:27

he eventually asked

54:29

me he just

54:31

asked me very curiously like so what'd you

54:33

think of it and apparently my like five-year-old

54:35

answer was I don't get it seems

54:39

fine I just it's alright I prefer

54:41

Daler's book of Greek myths but

54:45

one of the things that we talked about is that

54:48

like you know so to an extent we are reverse

54:50

engineering religious feeling right and

54:52

my understanding is that part of it is

54:55

faith and part of faith is faith

54:57

only counts if you don't have direct confirmation

54:59

or answers so for me part

55:02

of the magic of the magic of

55:04

the Saints is that

55:07

it's raining the spirit is

55:13

here but part of it for me is that

55:15

if you in your even in your fantasy

55:27

world you come to a clear concrete answer

55:29

of how religious belief works in the power

55:31

that it gives you works you

55:33

have destroyed the concept of

55:35

faith right does that seem reasonable

55:38

so that's part of the reason that you and I have

55:40

never come to a final answer although we I think we

55:42

do each have gut instincts Oh,

56:00

okay. Thank you for saying hello. Would

56:03

you like to give your answer about how you think it works? Yeah.

56:06

So, okay, something that was, I guess,

56:09

important, especially since we're not religious, is

56:11

we're not going to write something where

56:13

we're like, and religious people are dumb,

56:15

right? So, like, that was off the

56:18

table. And so we weren't just going

56:20

to have it be like, he's

56:23

misguided, and none

56:25

of this is real, especially because we

56:27

already have magic. Right. That

56:30

would just be rude honestly.

56:32

So we knew it wasn't going to

56:34

be that. But also, it's not very

56:36

interesting to just be like, and that

56:38

is just all true and real in a

56:41

way that makes sense. So it wasn't

56:43

going to be that either. So really

56:45

the place that we landed was

56:49

kind of a mix of ambiguity,

56:52

of it's within you,

56:55

it's it

56:58

is real, but in a more

57:00

abstract way that has to do

57:02

with the way that the universe

57:04

is generally magical. And

57:08

so that's why when

57:11

you hear the

57:14

saints, they

57:16

are always in the

57:18

voices of the people who

57:20

are talking to them. So

57:23

when Damien talks to

57:25

Saint Damien, it's Matthew voicing both.

57:28

And then when Ola La

57:30

talks to Ferdinand, it's Marge

57:33

voicing both. And

57:39

I don't really know. I mean, I guess the

57:41

most concrete answer is just that the

57:43

magic of the universe is real.

57:45

And that certainly contributes to

57:47

the power of miracles. And we

57:49

know that the universe likes stories.

57:54

And so it certainly could

57:57

imbue someone with miracle

57:59

type. power if that would tell a good story. And

58:04

if the framework for

58:06

somebody is to

58:08

attach it to these particular guys

58:11

who some version of them existed

58:13

once, then fine. That's

58:16

just what works. And in

58:19

some ways, I guess in like a

58:21

very removed way that maybe is my

58:24

some version of my take on religion

58:28

of like yeah,

58:30

there were some people

58:33

who existed who we think of as prophets

58:35

now, but they were some guys and

58:38

like probably had plenty of misses

58:40

because nobody has only hits. And

58:43

if they mean a lot to people and

58:45

if their traditions have been carried down and

58:48

if you know, that's a way

58:50

for people to if that's

58:52

something for people to use as a framework to

58:54

see the magic of the universe, which

58:56

is a real thing. Then

58:59

fine, you know, just don't

59:01

like institutionalize it and torture everybody because

59:03

that sucks. So

59:07

I think I think maybe that's what we

59:09

were trying to say. Two

59:12

more questions. Someone

59:16

did ask, I

59:18

had it pulled. When

59:22

did you decide to realize that the Ruby seven was going

59:24

to be a full on character instead of just a car?

59:28

Do you remember the answer to this? Oh,

59:30

okay. I do. Not

59:36

in train from nowhere is is the short answer. You

59:40

and I had arguments over the course of

59:42

years because we we did. We did think

59:44

fairly early on that we wanted to bring

59:46

the Ruby back at some point. And

59:50

you and I argued for years

59:52

about whether the Ruby was some

59:54

kind of extremely complicated AI or

59:57

an alien or neither. your

1:00:00

point, which is very good, and I do think, you

1:00:03

know, I do think it's something that people

1:00:05

don't always think about when they're

1:00:07

creating a science fiction universe is that if you

1:00:09

introduce the concept of completely sentient

1:00:11

AI, or you introduce the concept

1:00:13

of, you know, thinking, feeling alien

1:00:15

life, you are that has

1:00:17

massive implications on everything in the universe, right?

1:00:20

So if we were going to do it,

1:00:22

we had to make it work. We

1:00:25

I we did know what the

1:00:27

Ruby was up to by by

1:00:29

the first

1:00:32

episode of season three, and we started

1:00:34

seating it as early as shadows

1:00:39

on the ship maybe a little earlier than that tools of

1:00:41

rust. Yes, yes, because in tools of rust, the Ruby leaves

1:00:44

the carte blanche without anybody telling it

1:00:46

to. So we were

1:00:48

being very intentional about that throughout that season. Okay.

1:00:54

I have a question from quintessence. Is

1:00:57

there a really fun, lore tidbit that you know

1:00:59

that didn't make it into the show? Any kind

1:01:01

of like little backstory thing that we kind of

1:01:03

never find the time to talk about, but you

1:01:05

feel like it's kind of cemented in your mind

1:01:08

as part of the

1:01:10

reality of the Penumbra? You

1:01:14

keep dragging that out. Well, I mean, if neither

1:01:16

of you are going to answer, I'll just vamp

1:01:18

for a little while. Okay.

1:01:22

There are other things I can talk about.

1:01:24

I have topics. Oh,

1:01:27

you know what, I do have one. We

1:01:30

haven't talked about this in years is why I forgot about

1:01:32

it. And we actually we may have referenced it in one

1:01:34

of the reader minutes. I'm not sure. But

1:01:36

a thing that you and I have

1:01:38

come back to periodically is the fact

1:01:41

that Rita is almost certainly

1:01:43

originally from Earth. And

1:01:46

her mom was almost certainly

1:01:48

a terrorist like her mom

1:01:50

definitely built bombs and use

1:01:52

them on probably

1:01:55

innocent people. We I'm pretty

1:01:57

sure we know about the bombs from a

1:01:59

Rita No. This,

1:02:03

like, I don't know if this is true

1:02:06

because it was an idea that we tossed around and then

1:02:08

didn't do anything with, so it might or might not be

1:02:10

true, but there was some version in which she

1:02:12

had a sister with the

1:02:15

same voice. Oh, that would- For

1:02:17

like a long time. Sometimes I'm at parties

1:02:19

and she's there and I like lose my

1:02:22

mind. I think

1:02:24

Melissa is visibly shaking a little

1:02:26

bit. Yeah, a little bit. Like,

1:02:28

Kiki is amazing. Just like as

1:02:30

a performer, as a woman, as

1:02:32

an actress, just like as an

1:02:35

athlete, like, okay. Ryan

1:02:38

has made a total of three hours,

1:02:41

34 minutes and 33 seconds of music for

1:02:44

the Penumbra podcast. Honestly, there's probably some

1:02:46

unused stuff too. Right. Yeah.

1:02:49

That's a lot of time. In terms of audio,

1:02:51

Harley, would you like to know how much you

1:02:53

have done? Yes. Okay. If

1:02:56

you were to listen to the entire Penumbra

1:02:58

podcast from the beginning to the end without

1:03:01

sleeping, because you would need to sleep,

1:03:03

it's that long, it would take

1:03:05

you three days, 23 hours and two minutes. Almost

1:03:10

four whole days. Oh

1:03:12

my gosh. Yep. Then

1:03:15

in terms of the scripts,

1:03:19

just the Juno series comes out to 1,852 pages, which

1:03:23

is 647,957 words. The

1:03:27

second Citadel series is 1,295 pages, which

1:03:31

comes out to 453,134 words, making

1:03:35

the total plus all of the one shots,

1:03:38

3,284 pages and 1,123,947 words. So

1:03:47

that's like 11 bucks. Yeah,

1:03:50

I mean, at about 100,000 words a book, that

1:03:53

is like, well, actually it's not 11, it's

1:03:55

actually 12. 12

1:03:59

bucks? Right, because there's the, you

1:04:01

know, there's the actual book that we wrote.

1:04:03

We wrote a few years ago. Oh,

1:04:06

that book. Right, the novel, the Juno

1:04:08

Steel novel. The Juno Steel novel. Right,

1:04:10

which we released and everybody knows about.

1:04:12

Oh. What? Um,

1:04:18

so, Travelers, we have a little

1:04:20

bit of a surprise for you, which

1:04:23

is our very, very

1:04:26

next project, uh, is going to

1:04:28

be a, uh, audio

1:04:30

book of the Juno Steel novel,

1:04:33

which has been written for a

1:04:35

few, maybe like four or five years now. We

1:04:37

were writing it during season three.

1:04:40

During season three. Right. Um, it

1:04:42

is called, uh, If Memory

1:04:44

Serves, a Juno Steel mystery. It

1:04:47

is about Juno's first cases as a private eye.

1:04:49

Um, and we have a little snippet

1:04:52

of it to play for you,

1:04:54

right? It's like, well, actually it's not, it's not

1:04:56

11, it's actually 12. 12

1:04:59

books? Right. Cause there's the, you know, there's

1:05:02

the, um, the actual, the actual

1:05:04

book that we wrote. We wrote a few years ago. Oh,

1:05:06

that book. Right. The, the,

1:05:08

the novel, the Juno Steel novel. The Juno Steel

1:05:10

novel. Right. Which we released and everybody knows

1:05:12

about. Um,

1:05:18

so, Travelers, we have a little

1:05:20

bit of a surprise for you. Uh,

1:05:23

which is, uh, our very,

1:05:26

very next project, uh,

1:05:28

is going to be a, uh,

1:05:31

audio book of the Juno Steel

1:05:33

novel, which has been written for a few,

1:05:35

maybe like four or five years now. We

1:05:38

were writing it during season three.

1:05:40

During season three. Right. Um, it

1:05:42

is called, uh, If Memory Serves,

1:05:45

a Juno Steel from the

1:05:47

first section of If Memory Serves. When

1:05:51

you're as unpopular as I am, checking

1:05:54

your mail is a dangerous proposition. Opening

1:05:57

big, bright pink boxes that have clearly been

1:05:59

tampered with. with borders on death wish. I

1:06:02

did it anyway. To be fair, I

1:06:05

did take the necessary precautions first. Rita!

1:06:08

I called through the door. I'm gonna need you to step out

1:06:10

of the office for a few minutes. We

1:06:12

argued about that for a little bit. Why do I

1:06:14

gotta leave? To get something. To get

1:06:16

what? I'm not sure, but you'll know when you

1:06:18

see it. Until eventually, I heard the door slam,

1:06:21

and I knew I was free to blow myself to

1:06:23

pieces in private. But

1:06:26

the box didn't explode. Because this

1:06:28

isn't a ghost story. Except

1:06:31

in all the ways that any story about the loose

1:06:33

ends people leave behind is a ghost story. When

1:06:36

I decided what I was seeing inside the box

1:06:38

didn't make any sense, I

1:06:40

looked in it again. Then

1:06:42

I closed it, opened it, looked

1:06:44

again. And when that didn't do anything, I decided

1:06:47

it was probably time to read the letter that had

1:06:50

come with the box. The one that said,

1:06:52

Read this first in big letters

1:06:54

across the envelope. I don't

1:06:57

like being told what to do. Juno,

1:07:00

my cover's been blown and I don't have time to

1:07:02

catch you up on everything. I know

1:07:04

you don't like being told what to do, but I need

1:07:06

you to follow these directions exactly. Just

1:07:08

like when we were kids. Shut up. Think. Act.

1:07:13

The sharp angled handwriting was enough to make my stomach

1:07:15

do flips. Those last four

1:07:17

words signed the rest of my guts up for gymnastics,

1:07:19

too. I gave

1:07:21

the package once over for any other

1:07:23

heart attacks, but there was nothing on

1:07:25

that box besides a shipping label from a

1:07:27

place called Post Away Limited. And a

1:07:29

whole lot of really intense pink.

1:07:33

Then I called through the door again to make sure Rita was gone, and

1:07:36

when I was sure, I took two ice blue

1:07:38

tablets out of my filing cabinet. I

1:07:40

felt bad hiding my nemazine in there because

1:07:42

Rita had bought me that filing cabinet. Along

1:07:45

with this office and this entire

1:07:47

second chance at life. And I knew

1:07:49

she didn't like when I took the pills. She'd

1:07:51

been my secretary back in my cop days and dragged

1:07:54

me to this PI gig like I was a stray

1:07:56

kitten she'd rescued from a storm drain. And

1:07:58

the one time she caught me tripping down memory

1:08:00

lane she said come on mr. Steele that them

1:08:03

them to see and stuff is dangerous it's the

1:08:05

sad old people who ain't got nothing to live

1:08:07

for you're sad young

1:08:09

people buzz we got a

1:08:11

business to build cases dissolve you

1:08:13

got plenty to live for so you can't just stay

1:08:15

stuck in the past all the time I should

1:08:18

probably mention that she was crying when she said all that

1:08:21

a lot and I did promise

1:08:23

her I'd never take the Nemezin again so

1:08:28

but come on if you'd lost

1:08:30

as much as I had in one week if

1:08:32

you went from the youngest police captain in the

1:08:34

history of Mars to washed up nobody

1:08:36

with big debts and a bigger pile of wedding

1:08:38

invitations to shred then you'd need a

1:08:41

little help too so

1:08:44

I took the Nemezin picked up the

1:08:46

letter again and enjoyed some light reading while I

1:08:48

waited for the past to catch up with me

1:08:51

the contents of this box are vital they

1:08:54

took me months of undercover work completely off the

1:08:56

books but I know I found something really big

1:08:58

here that's why you're getting

1:09:00

this box you cannot bring it to

1:09:02

the hcpd there are definitely cops in

1:09:04

on this the people behind it

1:09:06

have connections everywhere I don't know how far but

1:09:08

as soon as I started I could tell that

1:09:11

this went deep I followed

1:09:13

one route thinking I was investigating a tree

1:09:15

now I'm here and I can tell it's

1:09:17

a forest this is huge

1:09:20

so this stays in your apartment until I come pick

1:09:22

it up understood there's only

1:09:24

one box and it's in your

1:09:26

hands now do not give

1:09:29

it to anyone unless they know my name

1:09:31

and my sister's name and know to say

1:09:33

both the contents of

1:09:35

this package are dangerous keeping them safe is

1:09:37

the most important thing I've asked you to

1:09:40

do Juno don't let it out of your

1:09:42

sight shut up think

1:09:45

then act I'll

1:09:47

see you soon Sasha

1:09:49

wire don't

1:09:51

let it out of your sight I read out loud

1:09:55

I looked back inside the box it

1:09:58

was empty I

1:10:03

looked up from the letter to see my office folding

1:10:05

in on itself. My

1:10:08

crusty carpet and cigarette-colored window dripped

1:10:10

away like wet paint, and

1:10:12

underneath them lay a different office, brighter

1:10:15

and whiter than mine. The

1:10:17

view outside twisted green smoke into green

1:10:20

bushes and hovering benches

1:10:22

and kids in trainee uniforms far

1:10:24

below. The air traded

1:10:26

the stink of dead rats for the

1:10:28

stink of flowers, and once

1:10:31

my office had been completely replaced

1:10:33

by the Hyperion City Police Academy's

1:10:35

meeting room, the huge filing cabinet

1:10:37

beside me pinched inward, frayed its

1:10:39

top into black tin fringes, painted

1:10:41

itself in skin and heat and

1:10:43

breath, and finally opened

1:10:45

its eyes. I can't believe I let

1:10:47

you talk me into this, Sasha Wire said. I

1:10:50

had never gotten the knack for controlling which memory

1:10:52

the Nemezine brings me back to. The

1:10:55

present always leaves its thumbprint on what part of the

1:10:57

past I get to see. Usually

1:11:00

that paid off pretty well because usually I was

1:11:02

thinking about the happier life I'd demolished a few

1:11:04

months ago, but this memory,

1:11:07

this one, I didn't want right now.

1:11:10

What did you think this would accomplish exactly?

1:11:12

Sasha said. Sneaking into the flight control tower

1:11:14

for target practice? You idiot. Come

1:11:16

on, you make it sound like I was shooting at a

1:11:18

bunch of cop cruisers mid-flight, I said. But

1:11:21

I only shot at one, and that

1:11:23

was to see how good the range on my blaster was,

1:11:25

and sure, the ricochet went a little wild, and that bird

1:11:27

probably didn't like it, but she

1:11:29

tried to slump back into her seat. But

1:11:32

Sasha never was the champion slumber I am. She

1:11:35

was too poised and too pointy. The

1:11:37

best she could manage was to cross

1:11:39

her arms and let her oiled crow hair

1:11:41

curtain her eyes. Everything

1:11:44

with Sasha always felt like a performance because for

1:11:46

the most part, it was. She'd

1:11:49

grown up with just as much nothing as I had. In

1:11:52

the same dirt-poor, man-eating district I did. But

1:11:54

she always felt like if she acted like

1:11:56

a rich kid who knew everything, she might

1:11:58

go into a cocoon and- For

1:20:00

example, when you have very

1:20:02

exciting news and you

1:20:04

start speaking very

1:20:07

slowly, we would like to thank everybody who

1:20:09

supports us on Patreon, but especially our $30

1:20:11

patrons such as Orphan Peddler, Sylvia Chu, My

1:20:13

Penumbra Hyperfixation is back at 100% power, The

1:20:15

Corn Eye and

1:20:18

the Lonely Ghost, Zeez here, Jonathan,

1:20:20

The Wilkes Wilkes, Juno

1:20:22

Steele and the Costco hot dog, Hi my

1:20:24

name is DJ and I love this podcast,

1:20:27

Ari Berry and Intrepid Lilac, Andy Bell, The

1:20:29

Werners Wishing Well for Juno's Journey

1:20:32

or to Juno's Journey, KCO, Bettina

1:20:34

Trevino, Fozzy, Alim Muktadir, The Emerald

1:20:36

Eight, this podcast, haha, Tony the

1:20:38

Owl Bear, Noray Keira,

1:20:40

Jack M Cohen, Paladin of Gawain,

1:20:42

good boy of the Citadel, Girl

1:20:45

in the Midnight Sky, Adrian Cadena,

1:20:47

Thank You Pronumbra Team for your

1:20:49

amazing work, Braylon, Hello

1:20:51

Quintessence, it's been a while,

1:20:53

Hannah and Leah's Adventures in Gender

1:20:56

Shenanigans, The Lady Guinevere and the

1:20:58

surprise name drop, Sydney bids a

1:21:00

tearful goodbye to the Juniverse, guess

1:21:02

what Sydney? Jammy, Osepete, Laura, Diana

1:21:04

Kha's, SCP Khloe, Desert Willow and

1:21:07

the final Rachel Howard, Jun

1:21:09

Goshoku, Skyfire Forever, The Lady has

1:21:11

claimed another one, Jay Hall, James Evelyn,

1:21:14

Thank You Juno Steele, Liv Allen, Alice

1:21:16

the Time Lord, In Memory of Spiral

1:21:18

Opal, Eden the Gay Bookworm, Pride and

1:21:21

Thanks the Penumbra Podcast for getting her

1:21:23

a girlfriend, Michael David Smith, Nicole

1:21:25

Cundiff and I'll miss you Mr.

1:21:28

Steele, Kiki's

1:21:31

Podcast Patronage Service, Amy Thist, Caroline

1:21:33

Sideman, Shura, Radius Elna, Raine and

1:21:36

Pippin from the Glen Dimension, Dr.

1:21:38

B, Karen ZH,

1:21:40

Genetic, Kortu, Minchowski, Ash

1:21:42

and Angel Acevedo for

1:21:44

your incredibly generous contributions

1:21:46

per episode, Thank You.

1:21:50

And with that we have one

1:21:53

final announcement. So

1:21:57

what happens, I mean so here's the thing right, we

1:21:59

said