Transcript - The Big Final QnA (Part One)

00:03:55 - Favourite episode and scene of all time?
00:22:00 - What does 'family' mean to Carpenter and Faulkner?
00:26:30 - Does the Trawler-man have dominion over frogs?
00:29:45 - Were there scenes or moments that made you unexpectedly emotional?
00:38:00 - Who would win in a fight between Carpenter and David from I Am In Eskew?
00:41:10 - How much of the overall story was planned from the start?
00:44:50 - Any headcanons or hot takes about the characters?
00:55:10 - What's the main lesson that you'll take away from the show?
01:01:50 - What's the deal with schnapps?
01:30:45 - What is the main message you take away from The Silt Verses?
01:13:20 - Marta, what was it like playing Val?
01:16:21 - What's the one line you'll always remember?
01:26:13 - What visual medium would you like seeing TSV in, and what scene?
01:36:50 - What moment was most important to your character?
01:47:15 - Why is Carpenter the world's baddest bitch, and why is Faulkner Like That?
01:51:45 - To everyone (but especially Jimmie), how did you feel about your character's arc? Would you change anything, looking back?
02:07:16 - TELL US ABOUT SIBLING RANE

We hear running water, and the cries of birds.

MÉABH DE BRÚN (CARPENTER):

From the rich sluggish silt of the White Gull River to the glass crucible bell at Black Crow Incorporated. From the buzzing flies around the mozzarella at Hallowed Hoagies to the knotweed and elderwort of Acantha’s garden.

White shimmering moorland. The bright and gleaming city of Nesh. The Peninsula. The Linger Straits. Glottage. The Paraclete’s Gulch.

Prayer-marks. The First Book of the Spoiling Craw. Water tanks and the Drowning Song. Neckties, scooters. The Grindinglord's 24-hour cool cruising mix.

Dark fantasy horror. An unrelenting critique of the inherent dehumanization of capitalism. The myriad forms of family. Two cultists traveling upriver together.

“Because a God must feed.” “I'm going to make you a saint.” “What's the opposite of a sacrifice?” “My blood will not ripen their soil.” “Marco.” “Polo.” “This is the place.” “These are the Silt Verses.”

The sound dies away.

MÉABH:

My name is Méabh de Brún, and today we're going to discuss the best recipes for banana bread.

(Pause)

No, I'm joking! This is in fact the final Silt Verses Q&A!

Applause! Some light jazz starts to play in the background.

MÉABH:

As I said, I’m Méabh de Brún. You may be more familiar with my voice sounding a little grumpier, a little wearier, and most likely with some form of grievous injury. I have had the pleasure and privilege of voicing Carpenter on the Silt Verses, but today I am delighted to host this Q&A session-

B. NARR (FAULKNER):

(Stunned and impressed by the entire preceding monologue)

Oh my God! Miss “I didn't prepare anything.”

MÉABH:

(Embarrassed by the praise)

Oh, good! I just really wanted to set up, like…where it's like the final thing, I suppose, that's going to be released about the show.

So I was like, “let's do something encompassing”, you know? “Let's go!” Like, I just really want to hit how much of a world has been created, basically, so, incredible stuff-

B.:

We knew, don't worry! That was brilliant, that was brilliant.

JON WARE (WRITER):

Before we begin just a quick roll-call! So we have Méabh, of course, and the amazing B. who plays Faulkner. We have myself, Jon Ware, and Muna Hussen, the creators and producers of the show. And we have a wide variety of Silt Verses actors, including Jimmy Yamaguchi who plays Hayward, Marta da Silva who plays Val, Lucille Valentine who plays Paige, Sarah Griffin who plays Shrue, and a couple of guest stars as well.

We weren't unfortunately all able to record in the same time period, but we have stitched it together and hopefully it should be pretty seamless.

(Pause)

Hopefully.

MÉABH:

All right, let's kick it off! So we are going through questions that listeners have submitted to the show to be answered. Burning questions from the deepest part of their hearts, so we'll start off with number one. This one was asked by a whole lot of people - what was your favorite episode and favorite scene of the show?

MUNA HUSSEN (PRODUCER):

I think this is…this is a really hard one to choose because obviously we're talking about four...almost four years of work! I am…I'm going to massively cheat and pick a few different scenes and episodes. Season 2 episode three, Hayward at the dinner party-

MÉABH:

Yayyy!

MUNA:

That one is one of my favorites because it is such a tense and gruesome episode with quite an ambitious undertaking, and I think it came together really beautifully! I have a huge soft spot for Hayward as a character, because I think Hayward's character did such a period of growth and such a brilliant arc.

And then the final episode - episode with Hembry, which was…again, this was such an ambitious one and I remember before we put it out Jon was very tense, very nervous about it. I thought it would do well but I didn't actually think it would do as well as it did with the fans. Whereas Jon was absolutely convinced it was the worst thing he'd put out. And I'm sure he will…I'm sure he will chime in here in a moment, but yeah, he was very nervous about it!

But what I loved about it was that it was, you know, completely different to anything else we've done. And it remains completely different to anything else in the entire show, but the fact that it was so ambitious is once again proving to me that the audience must be respected.

JON:

The Hembry episode was a really interesting one, I think, because I do have a small nervous breakdown about pretty much any episode we put out, but certainly it's a more marked effect whenever we're being a bit playful or we're trying something different.

Early on in season 2 we just started to introduce more characters, we were bringing together Paige and Hayward which felt like a bit of a risk, certainly - the two secondary members of our main cast up to that point. And we were going to unite them, one of whom was the ostensible antagonist of the series, and take them on this journey together. That felt like a big leap! It felt like a bigger leap to have an entire episode that was taking place as this metafictional piece of theater, with a character we never encountered before.

I was certainly terrified that it would become very obvious what we were doing 5 minutes in and then become tiresome to the audience. I'm thrilled that it worked. I don't want to overegg how nervous I was about that episode, cos the truth is…I'm nervous about every episode.

MÉABH:

I just wanted to say that in terms of the episode with Hembry…

…again, like, it's absolutely like that, playing with format is just so fantastic. Because I personally love that in my media. I love media that plays with structure, plays with format, time jumps, has a random musical number, you know what I mean? Just such an interesting and experimental way to present the story.

And I think you're dead right, I think that audiences react to that. They react to a new way of presenting things, but it's also demonstrative of how little, maybe, a lot of the people who are in charge of the big-box stuff that gets made today underestimate people's willingness and their want to experience new and experimental forms of telling stories.

But, yeah, I thought that was a fantastic episode and it was - again, it was a completely different way of presenting the whole thing and done very cleverly in the context of a show that was already using the monologue format but kind of flipping that on its head. I thought it was brilliant.

But also very quickly to flag Hayward's arc - like, everyone has these fantastic character arcs but what I love about Hayward is that he gets softer and more vulnerable. Like, he starts as this cop character and by the end he's like, “I just want everyone to be safe and happy”, you know? And I think it's, it's very revolutionary to have that, you know? Like they say things like, “the punkest thing you can do is to be kind”, you know and that's really Hayward's arc to me. He becomes like a softer, kinder character over the course of the show, which is incredible.

But if I was to actually answer the question we've been asked, um…so it's interesting because again as Muna said, I mean, look, we've done so many episodes, so many incredible voice actors, so many scenes…

I will say that, well…I wouldn't say this is necessarily my favorite episode or scene, really, but it just really hit home for me. I think one of the things the Silt Verses does very well is capture the absurd horror of capitalism. Like, it's the late-stage capitalism right to the fore there. And it's there from the start, but you know, I think it starts off quite big. Like the sacrifices at Paige’s workplace, or the sacrifices for the Saint Electric, but then when it hones in on these individual instances and really hammers home how ridiculous and horrific it is, it really hits.

So for example I think in episode 39 there's the protest against the sacrifices and that's people going like…

(Annoying voice)

”okay, fam, like it's kind of like, that's just ridiculous, you're being very idealistic.” Which is very much how it feels to be, you know, protesting capitalism today! People are like,

(Annoying voice)

“this is just how it is you know and you just need to calm down and kind of cop on a little bit; can you just like get a bit of sense.”

But for me it was the episode where Shrue went to the summit on how to deal with the rising anti-sacrificial protests, how to deal with that. That, for me, I was like…oh my God.

So it was…I mean, it was a small, an absurdly hilarious situation, and it just really hammered home, the world in the show is a reflection of the world that we live in. So you've got…you're scooting on over to the meeting, grab an energy drink, enter the Imagination Suite, and ignore the Ideas Conduit which is this guy strapped to a chair in the corner who was actively in pain!

And I was like, “...oh, God, it really is that corporate disconnect from humanity and here it is right there in front of us.” I just thought it was really effective; I thought it was really well done.

And actually I would like to ask Jon - um, the imagination Suite. Was that inspired by…what do they call the Imaginarium in Disney?

JON:

It's actually a lot less grandiose than that. I've never worked in a Disney-style highend corporate environment; I have worked in a lot of bottom-feeding marketing agencies that tend to follow the trends.

One of which is, if you want to have a big creative strategy meeting, you go to a dedicated conference space which is filled to the wall with mini fridges and foosball tables, and that is the place where if you only write enough Post-it notes and come up with enough um strategic pillars you will somehow luck your way into a winning strategy.

I guess for me in terms of favourite episodes, what is interesting when you're trying to pull this entire thing together, especially in the last two seasons, where we have more and more storylines spreading what I have the most affection for is the episodes that are the connective tissue the episodes where...actually they're not going to go down in history or be the ones that get the most audience response or love, but they're the ones where - hey we got character A to B, where they needed to be.

It's the episodes where really we're setting up the really juicy stuff for later, and where we managed to do that effectively; those are my favorite parts, cos you can really feel how that then brings the, the rest of the show to life.

So with that in mind, I think my favorite episode is probably one that no-one else would ever agree with and it's the season 3 episode where Carpenter, Hayward and Cross hijack the high adjudicator's plane.

If anyone remembers that episode, it's probably for the death of Sibling Rane, but it's sandwiched between two very heavy plot climaxes.

But I love the episode so much because we were facing the insurmountable challenge of distance. We'd established that it takes most of the season for Carpenter and Hayward to get to Glottage in the first place and now suddenly very quickly we needed to get them back for the climax so that they could be in the same vicinity as Paige and Faulkner.

I really didn't want to do some kind of time compression thing where, you know, we cut to a month later and somehow nothing's changed. And so I was really stuck.

And then it occurred to me - well, they can just hijack a plane and, in fact, why not hijack the high adjudicator’s plane? And suddenly this very kind of nuts and bolts narrative-necessity episode became tons of fun to write and record and indeed to sound-engineer, because this was something we'd never done before.

So I'm really, really fond of that one because I think it makes the banal business of getting the characters to where they need to be a lot of fun.

B.:

I mean, I have to echo everything y'all have said! I love the, like the bottle episodes, because I think they do show this really vast world that exists around the characters and the way you can play with format. But I have to say…like this is…is it cheating if I say the first one?

Because of how it drops you into the world with no explanation. It expects you to just come along. There's no like, “Here's where we are, here's what's going on,” It's just like - “You're here. Deal with it, this is what's happening.” And it's so much more immersive and I don't see a lot of things do that without couching it - like really intensely couching it - in every every format.

And obviously, like, M's opening lines live rent-free in my brain-

(With terrifying emphasis)

- in my brain -

(Normally)

And yeah - it's true, they do! It's fabulous! It's like such a cool intro, it's a really strong bold intro to a show. Like I said, there's no couching, there's no handholding, it's just like, “we're going to get weird with it, y'all! We're going to get so weird with it.”

MÉABH:

Yeah, yeah! But I would…because on that note, it's kind of like…”listen, it's either your vibe or it's not. So… hey, hang out, we're going to do it more and do it harder if you stick around.”

B.:

Exactly! Exactly.

SARAH GRIFFIN (SHRUE):

I um…I have a confession. I am a voice actor who has made the majority of the notoriety that I have - if any - in sci-fi and horror. I do a lot of sci-fi and horror.

But the problem is…I'm a small squishy bean and I cannot listen to horror. So I actually can't listen to Silt Verses! I genuinely…and like I've tried. I'm in Ethics Town, I literally had a panic attack listening to an Ethics Town episode.

I can't listen to my own work - or worse, the work of people that I know and love, and I know and love so many people in this industry because we all become friends and we get to know each other, and then I hear them getting hurt and dying and I just…I can't.

My little heart can't take it. So I've literally never listened to a proper episode of Silt Verses.

JON:

I guess an alternative take on that question could be…did you have a favorite episode or scene that you worked on?

SARAH:

(Thinking)

I have two answers for that! Which is fine, cuz I didn't have one for the last one. So that's fine, I'm making it up by having two for this one.

So the most fun to record, hands down, was the seafood buffet restaurant - getting to be so blandly ineffectual whilst ordering murder, and simultaneously talking with my mouth full whilst not knowing that I was the clown! Like, just the the levels of the mundanity of horror in that scene as a clown were such a fantastic challenge to play and that was so much fun to do.

And then going after Carson, just absolutely for the entirely opposite (reason) - it was such an immediate and visceral and human response. I think your writing is so deeply human and detailed that these are fully realized individuals, and that makes it something that in many ways feels effortless to perform. Because it isn't performance, it's just actually living through the emotions as they sit on the page. That confrontation with Carson was so uh completely legible within something that is so extreme. And getting to be that human in extremis is really liberating.

MARTA DA SILVA (VAL):

Everyone who's listening to that episode, you can always tell when it's happening, cos there's like a cheer - “Yes, get him!” I just…poor Carson.

SARAH:

He's (Rhys Lawton) so good at it! That's the problem, it’s that he so fully is exactly what that character needs to be.

MARTA:

Yeah this is an interesting one isn't it! Favorite episode…I, yeah.

I had a weird thing with the show as well, cos I’m kind of like you, Sarah - except I don't mind psychological suffering. Love a thriller, love things like that. But it's more the body-horror, gory stuff that I can't really deal with.

So I remember when we started recording I was like, “...oh, I don't know if this is going to work.” (But) apparently I don't mind it if I'm the one doing it! Just in audio, not an issue. And then listening back, also not an issue. I guess it's the visual aspect of it that really affects me, but I can listen to it no problem!

So the finales are highlights, because every season ends so well and it's so hard really to stick a landing, and I think you did well for every single season. It's always like that, you know, holding of breath, so I really like those.

Going back…what was that episode? Uh…

(Spitballing)

The child! The girl! Eliza, was it? The girl that was alone. The lonely Saint, and Carpenter. That was like, “ugh! My soul!”. And then everything with Carpenter and and Nana Glass, and that that thing of her going home and repeating the night, and all of that. Carpenter, I mean…she's MVP.

But yeah. there's so many! So, like, Val’s scenes. I know I did them, but they're kind of…I mean, they, yeah, they slap. They're kind of amazing.

And Faulkner! Especially like in the beginning, he's just this annoying little brat and then at the end it's just Greek tragedy levels of sad.

LUCILLE VALENTINE (PAIGE):

Oh God, you can't ask me my favourite child! Especially because, like, my memory is terrible and so everything is just…like, season one is one giant blob, and season two is one giant blob and season three is one giant blob.

So, uh, divvying them up into the episodes is hard, but, like, favorite scene…

…I really fucking like the end. This is going to be the answer to a lot of questions, I feel like, but I really fucking love the last couple of scenes with Paige and Hayward.

Like, that's…I'm one of those people that likes it when things hurt me. And that hurt me so much that I was…I was legitimately sobbing during those recordings. And I'm pretty sure we had to cut out some of the lines because like the audio was just fucked from me crying so hard! So like…that, that scene is probably my favorite scene.

JON:

That scene is really interesting because, we did end up trimming the final conversation between Hayward and Paige down a fair bit! We'd written quite a significantly longer scene and the thing was - both of you, Lucy and Jimmy, you you just maintained this incredible amount of emotion.

It was just a pair of extraordinary performances, and then you get to it and you go, “This is…in real terms, this is a solid five minutes of two people crying.”

And I think you've…it doesn't matter how good the acting is. You've got to be so, so careful with this. Bong Joon-Ho, the Korean film director, in some of his films - The Host is the one I'm thinking of - is so good at demonstrating how if you hold on crying for a little bit too long it stops becoming tragic and moving and it becomes funny instead.

And so I was so determined to get the length exactly right and not screw up these two incredible, very intense, performances by letting it linger on a moment too long.

So, yeah, nothing to do with the audio at all, actually, which was absolutely fine. It was simply trying to be aware of…there is always a moment where tragedy rolls over into comedy, and trying very hard not to hit that.

JIMMIE YAMAGUCHI (HAYWARD):

So what was my favorite episode or my favorite scene in the show? Oh, I don't think I have a favorite episode but I do have a bunch of scenes that really, like, stick out in my mind.

One definitely is the tractor scene where I had to barf into a pan. I pulled a bunch of moss from outside to make it sound realistic…I actually really liked doing that! Where we birthed the god, where we're all singing sea shanties, as well. I had a lot of fun with that episode.

MÉABH:

Okay, next question! Leah asks, “Méabh and B. Over the course of the show Carpenter and Faulkner come to view each other inextricably as family. What do you think family means for both of them and do those meanings have anything to do with how they can never seem to break away from each other?

B.:

That's a good fucking question! Méabh, do you want to take this first? I have thoughts but I want to hear your thoughts.

MÉABH:

Yeah, no, uh… I think, yeah. Let's do that and let's meld our thoughts then at the end like a delicious ice cream swirl. So, like, the first thing I thought of when I read that question was…

…do you know that internet meme where it says like…it describes something and then in the brackets afterwards it says (derogatory)? So I was like, yeah. “Carpenter and Faulkner, found family (derogatory).” But like, it is really, I just think…it is so interesting to me though because it is a very unique relationship. I mean, like, they're not related! They're not. They chose this.

And actually I can rephrase that. They did this to themselves. Actually, you know, that's a much better way to phrase that. Yeah, but it's so interesting…because, you know, you can laugh! It's kind of comedic but it's also fascinating.

Because what usually ties, say, toxic family members together is the idea that…”Oh, we're blood, we're family, we’re all of this.” Whereas these are two people - it's not even the case that they've known each other since childhood or anything like that! They've met relatively late in their lives.

But, you know, in usual, actual family situations it's presented as an obligation, kind of imposed by society. This idea that, oh, your family is your family, and all that.

Which is why I think that found family is usually presented as being this heartwarming trope within a narrative. You know? Why would you choose something that ruins you?

But then Carpenter and Faulkner have this level of commitment to one another that we usually only see when it's imposed as an obligation. But they just continue to choose to be bound by that, even when they're actively making each other’s lives quite difficult.

And there's something very darkly beautiful about that. Like, can I say it's in the best interests of either party? I don't know. But this idea that they're still bound by one another and consider themselves bound is incredible.

I think for Carpenter, family in the first place has never meant ease or support or or much of anything positive in that realm anyway. But I think to her it does mean…”loyalty” is not the right word, but it's certainly…there's something about second chances there, something about extending grace.

You know? Like, that's your people. So you hold out your hand and you say, “OK, let's try again.”

B.:

That is lovely! And I did…I think that absolutely makes sense with Carpenter and I think that weirdly enough Faulkner’s on the other side. Like it's very similar, very similar, but it's shifted a little bit because he's never really - quote unquote - had people. Like, he's had immediate family but they've always been kind of unreliable, and so his idea of family is an ideal rather than what is extant.

And it's like…it's love without expectation and Carpenter's the only one who's offered this to him in a long time - maybe ever.

But I don't think he realizes this consciously. I don't think this is something that he could, like, articulate. But I think it's something he feels and then gets caught up in his own ego and this really toxic cycle. That Carpenter, every time, puts out her hand again and says, “Let's try again, I know you can try again,” and he's like, “Yes, I would love to try again!” and he can't actually follow through with that.

MÉABH:

Oh, something something something being bound by the patterns of tragedy.

B.:

Yeah! Oh, exactly. Like they have this weird vicious cycle going on, because of the way they love.

MÉABH:

That's what they say about tragedies, isn't it? They're like…the core element of a tragedy is that it could be, it's stoppable from the outside but unstoppable from the inside. It wouldn't have happened if the people had made other choices but if they had made other choices then they wouldn't be themselves.

B.:

That's beautiful! Exactly that.

MÉABH:

OK, next question from Hyla: does the Trawler-man have dominion over frogs?

(Furiously pounding the table)

The people want to know!

MUNA:

Do you know what? In my headcanon there is another Silt Verses - the Silly Verses, maybe - where the Trawler-man is just…he’s just a river-shepherd, you know?

MÉABH:

Just chillin'.

MUNA:

He's just having a great time with the otters and the beavers and the frogs and just kind of harvesting the lily pads, and just having a great time.

(More seriously)

No, in the world of the Silt Verses, I would think that the Trawler-man does not have any interest in having dominion over frogs.

JON:

I get such a sick, perverse thrill out of being asked a really fun and lighthearted whimsical question and getting to respond with just a…a stultifyingly serious answer. It’s some real Colin Robinson energy vampire shit.

From an authorial point of view - because this isn't really for me an ecosystem question - the question is, “are frogs weird enough? Do they have sufficient weird potential to be included in a piece of weird fiction slash horror?”

The sad truth is, I don't think they are, but also I don't think that's fair. I think like Muna says, very strangely, even though frogs are weird as hell they have somehow been appropriated as wholesome and cute woodland critters. Blame Wind and The Willows if you like, blame Aristophanes, but we've done something to them! We have rendered them into no more than members of Sylvanian Families.

It's deeply fucked up, because frogs ought to be weird! They are weird animals! And yet if I try to convey the image of a colossal frog monster with its throat bulging in and out, you wouldn't recoil in horror. You’d just shrug. That's something that Shrek would fight.

Funnily enough, there is one attempt that I'm aware of to make frogs the subject of horror, and that is by the poet Seamus Heaney who was a large inspiration for the Silt Verses.

If you read some of Heaney’s bog poems, which are about the landscape bringing back up the corpses of old human sacrifices, these beautiful and horrific relics of violence, scapegoating, and factionalism which we're never quite rid of, which rise up again like hauntings, I think you can clearly see the influence.

But in his first collection, Death of a Naturalist, the titular poem is about…it is about a boy feeling horror at the sight of some frogs. Even then it's comedic! There's lots of beautiful language about plopping and farting and mud grenades. It's a very very funny and a very good poem, but, yeah - that's the only example I'm aware of of frogs being successfully used for, for horror purposes.

MÉABH:

Okay, incredible!

OK, next question. Kate asks, “were there scenes or moments that made anyone - actors, writers, literally anyone - more emotional than they expected?”

B.:

I mean, I can go! Because it wasn't anything I did, it was actually listening to Méabh’s final monologue. Literally felt like being at my own funeral. I've, like, literally never felt like that before in my life, it was crazy!

And I, I mean, I think it's because Méabh is like a phenomenal actor and put a lot of raw emotion into this scene, and really made it feel like this eulogy for this show that got - you know - all of us involved in this. A character that I'd spent four years playing, and because of that got to meet the loveliest people I've ever met.

And it's just…it was, it was super raw and, like, I knew it was going to be intense but, like, I don't always get to hear Méabh’s monologues in-person synchronously. Like, a lot of times I get to see all of this after, because we do a lot of this asynchronously. And getting to see it live? Like it was a personal theater performance. I was like, “Jesus Christ!” So, yeah, that's…yeah, that was mine.

JIMMIE:

Uh, yeah! There's the scene where Carpenter and I stop outside of my mom's apartment. And I started doing the scene and I actually started to actually get choked up when I was doing the scene thinking about like my own mother if this was the case.

And I think Muna even mentioned that I was (acting emotively). Like, “No, that was real! That was a real thing!”

LUCILLE:

I cried the entire, like, last episode, dog! After the episode, I saw a lot of people talking about it and I was…I just need to say, that wasn't acting, y'all! I was for real sobbing big tears; tissues in the fucking recording booth.

It was bad, it was nasty.

MÉABH:

I have…I have two moments. And one was…I'll start with the first one which is earlier in the chronology, but it's when Carpenter is trapped in her memory loop.

But it was because I knew her backstory. I'd known what had happened to her brother and her grandmother but because I hadn't had any scenes in her past life, it all felt a bit theoretical. But then in that episode, she's stuck in her looped memory, and she's saying, you know, “you're dead and gone, and Em is never coming home because he's dead too.”

I mean it's just…it's just an amazing script but I did actually…I started crying delivering the lines! Because it was the whole episode, and the trauma really pinned me down and that line was kind of really what got to me. It was like, that hit!

And then, yes, we literally had this conversation with Jon when we were recording - so myself and B. recorded our last scene together, and then I did record the monologue when Carpenter is letting Faulkner's body go into the river.

And B. and Jon were there, but we had a whole conversation about, like…

(Mocking playground voice)

“It's the last recording session, are you going to cry?”

And we were like,

(Tough and emotionally invulnerable voice)

“No!”

And then…I was bawling. I just started crying and…absolutely having B. there 100% made a difference, because we had just recorded that scene together. We just recorded Faulkner and Carpenter’s last scene together. And then to go immediately from that into, essentially as you said, essentially recording the eulogy! It was incredibly impactful and I didn't expect it at all.

But I fully was bawling to the point where I was actually worried about the sound quality! I was also worried about…cos, like, I was fully crying! So I was getting kind of snotty and I was worried like I would sound really nasal as well but I was 100% crying and I didn't…ike yeah it's a sad scene, but it definitely, it hit harder!

I had just performed with B., and yeah, B. was there and it was…yeah, it was really effective.

SARAH:

I did not expect it to hit as hard as it did the first time I had to record a phone message to my wife and not know whether or not she was alive, not know whether or not my family was real. That is…it's such an abstract thing to try to do! That when I was able to connect with it on a much simpler level of…I don't know, I guess “existential fear” - um, yeah, that's a simple emotion, right? But like, just genuinely, that feeling of, “well, what if the things that keep me safe aren't real?”

I think that is something that we all can feel, and connecting to that the first time was like “oh, shit,” which was again a gift! Because that's what you need, it's got to hit sometime.

MARTA:

I mean…was I surprised by it? Because I was like, “yep, I get it, I get it!”

But I think when we got to the “and she remembered who she was” line. It's one of those things where you know where you're going and then the emotion kind of shows up, and you're like, “oh! Oh, that's…I didn't, I didn't realize all of this was there.”

And it would come right at this point, but yeah, I think my first take you can definitely hear it. So that one, I think, really caught me by surprise. I had expected that to sort of show up maybe in other points, but yeah, for that final thing it really was so fucking sad, and kind of joyous as well, you know? It's like hope personified in that moment. So yeah, I think that that would be my pick.

JON:

It's hard because - as the writer, somehow it feels unreasonable to get sad over the characters that you yourself are killing off. It feels a bit like the joke about the FBI tweeting out, “Just because we killed MLK doesn't mean we can't miss him,” you know? I am the one doing this. I kind of have to take responsibility for that.

And you end up looking at it from a very mechanical, rational point of view of, you know, “how can these characters meet their end in the most fitting and appropriate way possible?”

So I think in the the runup to the final episodes, lots of the voice actors were emailing us going, “oh, my God, I'm going to cry so much,” and I think I said to Méabh, “you know, obviously I'm Robot Boy so I don't think I'm going to cry, but maybe I can put my hand up to my face and look devastated and try and give the impression I'm crying, just so it doesn't seem like I'm completely heartless and soulless.”

But then as we were recording them I did…I don't know if I actually teared up, but I absolutely found myself overwhelmed. And it wasn't so much the characters were dying or characters were having these ending moments.

I think it was the sudden weight of how long we've been doing this for and hopefully how meaningful it's been.

We are a semi-amateur enterprise; we do this in between our day-jobs, the actors do this in between their day-jobs. And you certainly hope and feel very grateful that the cast members care, but that doesn't need to be a necessity. It can just be a bit of extra work they're doing on the side, you know?

But when we started listening to these astonishing final performances from Lucy and Jimmie, from Méabh and B., from Rhys and Marta and Sarah…it just really hits you like a wave.

“We have been doing this for four years; these amazing, talented actors have been a part of our lives for four years, and they really do give a shit about what we created and what they're a part of, these characters that they've brought to life.”

We get to hear them doing these send-offs and just…the, the passion that they put into those final performances, the, the emotion that rose up in them…I just felt incredibly fucking grateful and that hit me in the face like a brick.

So, yeah, that's…I didn't think I would feel a thing, and I really, really very much did.

MÉABH:

Sheesh, aren’t we great?

Okay, all right, okay. Next question from Kylie - “who would win in a fight between Carpenter and David from I Am In Eskew?”

Can I just take this one very quickly? Can I take this very quickly? Okay, listen. Hey, listen, Kylie. Listen, I need you to know. Like, you are so beloved and this is a safe space and there are no stupid questions, but…what are you talking about? What are you talking about?

She is going to kill that man. She is fully going to murder him. “Oh, have you met the smear of blood and bone on the ground that is formerly David Ward?” He's like a skinny office man and she's a woman with an axe.

MUNA:

I have to say I agree. He is someone who is utterly, you know-

MÉABH:

I mean, God love him, like, listen. Big fan, yeah-

MUNA:

-but he is buffeted by life and she is the wind that is buffeting him.

JON:

I want to…I want to stand up for David, because someone has to.

I'm not claiming obviously that he'd do well out of this encounter, should it happen. I do not think he's going to win. The one thing that David has going for him is he is is literally beloved by an all-encompassingly powerful nightmare city that will not let him die.

And that in its own right can be quite a powerful thing. Carpenter of course is also very much beloved by The Narrative, whether she wants to be or not. But David is the chew-toy of the city of Eskew, and so it's almost like Rincewind in the Discworld books, where he's not going to win the fight, but it is just possible that in a very slapstick and undignified way reality will keep recomposing itself to ensure that…

…oh, you know, he slips on a banana peel, hits his head, a bucket of poo goes over him, but that means that Carpenter's axe just goes right over him. Then he falls down the stairs which happened to throw him into a garbage truck which then moves way down the street.

So again I'm not trying to claim a victory, I'm not trying to claim a victory for him in this matchup. I'm just imagining that there could be some scenarios where he does a little bit better than we're expecting him to. That's my case, that's what I'm saying.

MÉABH:

But it's like…in what circumstances would she even fight him? She's just…look at him, he's not having a good time at all!

I truly think, I think Carpenter would look at David and go like, “oh, wow, okay. Yeah, you're having a worse time than I am.”

That's…that is gas, though. I read that question and I was just like, “oh, no, she's going to break his nose at a minimum.”

Incredible! Okay. Fantastic, Kylie, thank you for the questions and I just I hope you know you brought me great joy in the asking of it. It was fantastic to think about.

Okie-do, Damien asks: “To Jon and Muna - How much of the story did you have planned before season one, and how much of the foreshadowing in the first few episodes was intentional?

MUNA:

Um…I have to say and I know Jon will agree and he'll expand further on this question, there was very limited planning from the beginning! I have to say, we sort of just went with it. There was a lot of accidental foreshadowing and setup that happened that we could then refer back to in the later seasons. But yeah there was no…there was no planning to it whatsoever.

I think you know, by the beginning of - by sort of the first third of season one, maybe we knew what was going to happen at the end of it. But we certainly could not have said or predicted what was going to happen at the end of season 3. Things like the new characters, like Val, the war…we knew we wanted it to be more expansive as the story went on, but how it grew and how it changed I would say is very very organic.

JON:

When we were making season one, our priority was making it to the end of season one…or sometimes to the end of the very next episode, you know?

When you're creating a serialized podcast, especially one where you've gone from it being basically a self-sustaining startup where you're doing all the work to suddenly an enterprise with moving parts and and voice actors and therefore a need for a sustainable budget, you… certainly in our case we weren't confidently thinking, “Well, we're going to set all of these plot strands in motion for a three-season spectacle!”

We were trying to tell the best story we could within a single season and hopefully leave some space to expand from there if people liked it and people wanted to keep working with us. Which thankfully they did!

So, no. I do, I guess, take it as a huge compliment that there are listeners who have asked or seemed to think that maybe we had a plan all along. And the truth is that we didn't have a plan, but maybe there were just enough narrative strands that we've dropped over the last four years that we were able to pick them up and bring them together at the end and make it feel like actually there was some kind of master plan behind it all.

MÉABH:

That's incredible, and I suppose I would ask…to expand on that a little bit, was it a definite decision to maybe go back and look at season one to see what breadcrumbs could be expanded upon or what specific plot points as you moved into even season two? Was it like “let's build on what we've established in season 1”, or was it like “let's launch into a a whole new branch of the world?”

JON:

Definitely it was conscious - I think in season 3 the big obvious one is not just the conflict between these two nations, the CLS and the Peninsula that we’d been building up over the series but the introduction of Val as this saint or angel of a god of rhetoric.

Which was something that we teased back in season 1 but hadn't really taken anywhere! And so coming back to that, not just because it felt like something potentially very powerful and explosive for the final season, but also trying to bear in mind how we could keep adjusting to make the show as good as possible for our audience.

We knew that in season 2 there were some people who found the cinematic focus a bit more of a turnoff. There were people who didn't want big action scenes and they missed the the monologues. And so it was a little bit of a cheeky idea to go, “well, how about we create a villain that kills people by monologuing?” So we can have this very grisly SFX-heavy rendition of what we have just heard being described moments before - will that then keep everybody happy?

MÉABH:

Right. So. Ramona / James Loveless / Corinne / SJ ask - “For everyone EXCEPT Jon: do you have any headcanons / hot takes about the characters you want to share?”

B.:

Um, we'll…we can popcorn! I think Faulkner fully had a situationship with Joe Quaid. Like a full ass situationship. That really happened.

MÉABH:

(Mock-outraged)

That's canon! That's not a head-canon, that’s text! That's there! That text ain't even subtext, that is there. Joe…Joe Quaid situatiionship.

B.:

You know this, you know this!

MÉABH:

No, yeah, no, 100%. But it's kind of hilarious to me that he has this arc to high prophet of his religion and dies and all that. It's like, he's fully like, what, 12?

He never even had a mature relationship in his life! He's never had…it's fully, it's teenage weird eye contact and looking away.

B.:

Yeah!

MÉABH:

My…my head-canon is that Carpenter is actually very familiar with Irish colloquialisms and slang and drops them into conversation. So I fully believe in season 1 there was definitely a point where she turned around and said, “you know what, Faulkner? You're some gobshite.”

Just dropping them in, you know? "You're a gom. You're an absolute gom.”

JIMMIE:

Yeah, yeah, I have a head-canon. That we're all getting our beach episode!

(Bereft)

That somewhere, somehow, we're all having the beach episode and I got to go to get my haircut and not talk and be fine with it.

LUCILLE:

I have two. Well, not like…one of them is only about my character. one is about Hayward. The one about Hayward is like…

So I love Hayward now. When Hayward was first introduced I hated his guts and I did not want him around! I was like, “if they keep this fucking loser cop like around for, like, more than a couple of episodes I'm going to be so mad.”

And then you know, smash cut to me just like totally bawling in the recording booth in the last episode.

And then my last one is actually also about Hayward, but it's also about Paige, and that is I think that they were having a lot of really weird sex about what was happening and not talking about it. Like, I don't think it was like a romance thing. I think…I think Paige and Hayward go beyond that, I think they're like soul-tethered to each other.

So I don't - I think it transcends romance, but I do think there was a lot of weird sex happening that no one was talking about.

JON:

So that…that was actually almost canonical, Lucy.

LUCILLE:

(Shocked gasp)

JON:

It was! It was in the first draft of the script for the episode when we're introduced again to Paige and Hayward and their people in the Grace.

I'd written this whole thing about how obviously they're performing this public persona for Paige which is very much based in romance tropes of the Great Lost Love. So, yeah, the Widow of Wounds has lost her great love and that is the motivating factor behind this desire to put an end to all the horrible sacrifices in the world around her.

But then I wanted there to be this, this very grandiose myth that they're building but then also in the background they've just maybe had some kind of…fine, some kind of mediocre inconsequential sex. And it was good! Neither of them had a bad time, but it doesn't necessarily mean anything, and for that just to kind of be there-

LUCILLE:

How dare you tell me this, Jon! I can't believe this.

JON:

Honestly, I ended up cutting it because it felt like we were being introduced to some really weighty stuff for Paige, a lot of new background lore, a lot of character growth for Hayward, and I really didn't want people to come away from all of that very chewy drama going, “uh, sorry, no, I missed all that. They've been fucking???”

So yeah, it's…I think it's still there very much in the background. So I am with you on this one.

SARAH:

I think Shrue is demi. I just think they never figured it out. I think they were like, “no, I'm really busy! That's it. It's…I just don't really have the time to…no I'm really focused on the job, right? I got some things going on.” And maybe they just genuinely never sat down with themselves and went-

LUCILLE:

-wait, question. Did we ever figure out…

I might have missed it, there was a lot happening in the Silt Verses towards the end there! Did we ever figure out whether or not Shrue’s family was real or not?

JON:

No, it remains horrifically ambiguous.

LUCILLE:

Yeah, what do you…Gryph, do you have a theory on whether or not that the family is real?

SARAH:

Okay, I do and I feel bad about it, but I absolutely do. I think they never existed.

LUCILLE:

Oh that's painful!

SARAH:

I really don't think they do, and I think that because it's worse that way and I think that’s why it has to hit. Like, I think, I feel like Shrue is a character that I was interested in 100% because they are a bad person and then they figure out that they don't have to be. And they have to start as somebody with a lack for that to be the case, and I feel like it is so warm and comforting to think but they were loved…and actually, no. No, they never were.

Cause it's worse! That's why. Genuinely it's 100% why I believe it. Cause it's worse. Genuinely, this is for me the tragedy of Shrue. Beyond any pain and suffering that they inflict on the world - and let's be clear they are responsible for quite a lot of pain and suffering - that it is only when they were starting to become a human being that you could care about and that you should care about that they died. That's their tragedy, it’s that they were stepping into their own genuine humanity and that's what we lost.

LUCILLE:

I think that the - the observation you made about Shrue being a character who’s not a good person but realises that they can be, I think that applies to so many of the characters in The Silt Verses, and so many of the characters who end up dying!

Because it’s like, it happens with Val. Val starts off as a literal weapon of mass destruction and then turns around at the very last second. Paige is complicit in the deaths of so many people, and then she becomes one of the primary catalysts for the whole fucking end of the show. Even Hayward - loser cop who decides he doesn’t want to be a loser cop! - hooks up with Paige.

So many of the characters we know and love are those people.

MARTA:

I don't know if I have any head-canons! I know there's a lot. There's a big community on Tumblr who are very…who would have loved Val and Shrue to meet, and they ship them together and all sorts of things which I find fascinating. I'm like, “...wow, that would be a fucked-up relationship.” Um-

LUCILLE:

I feel like Shrue and Val would get into some real freaky BDSM shit, honestly! Like, you guys were talking about the power dynamics, the control and lack of control everyone has - yeah, I dunno, there’d be something going on.

MARTA:

But yeah, she is so divorced from her humanity, especially at the start, that a lot of these things just never even entered my mind. Like there's no point figuring out, you know, if she had relationships or the type of relationship she had. Because none of them matter anymore, except for the one tether she still has, which is her mother.

I did sort of play it in a way when I was…it always felt like she was divorced from reality by being able to shape it. So, like the world had become a game, like an RPG game, that she had been plucked out of. Now you get to make choices and you get to change things, but you don't get to be part of it anymore. You have to have this separate disassociated perspective to understand the implications of everything and make these choices.

So she's very, like, separate from everything, and I think throughout the show what she's doing is, she's walking towards inhabiting herself and inhabiting the world once again. And the minute she starts doing it it starts to affect her and she starts to care and she starts to feel.

So it went from being like a fucked-up child playing with dolls to, you know, someone who who then found herself to be in it.

MÉABH:

It's one of those things where I was kind of thinking about other characters and it was like, “I feel like I'm picking up toys I don't own.” You know?

B.:

(Clapping for emphasis)

That's the point of a head-canon and hot take, Méabh!

MÉABH:

Well, I don’t know - I just feel like there is great…what's so interesting about Val's character in particular is the amount of power she has and how she uses it. And then, you know, and then the kindness she exhibits at the end.

What kind of small things does she do? You know, I kind of feel like, I feel like Val is doing very small harmless things that just make her life a little bit nicer or whatever as she goes around the place.

I don't know. I'd be like, if I stepped in a puddle, I'd be like, “I didn't step in that puddle! you know my socks are in fact dry and just out of the dryer and they're so warm and comfy you know.”

MÉABH:

Olivia asks, “What's the main lesson that you think you'll take away from the silt verses and apply in future podcasts or other creative projects?”

MUNA:

Um, from my perspective I think - I've mentioned this before at other Q&As - I think for me it is about being ambitious enough and respecting your listeners or your readers.

I do find that sometimes it's easy to look at what else is successful out there and think, “I need to replicate the same format or the same type of themes because this is what people are really enjoying listening to or reading at the moment.”

And I think what has been really inspiring for me to watch Jon do is - it was the same with I Am In Eskew, you know. He got to the end of it and he was done, you know? Lots of people wanted the show to continue but he finished it.

And it was the same with the Silt Verses. Lots of people wanted it to continue; people have asked whether there's going to be an expansion, whether there'll be spin-offs and things like that, and at the moment the answer is - no, you know, we might come back to that in the future.

Because I find that's quite a brave way of doing things, completing things, but also a way that's very respectful of the readers and the listeners.

MÉABH:

That's incredible, and I suppose just to comment on…because you said earlier, you were talking about the move away from season one into season two where you changed up the format slightly and maybe some people didn't like that.

But at the end of the day it is you guys who have to work on this production and if you're not doing something you enjoy…like, you should be doing it for you, and as you mentioned if you didn't…if it wasn't wrapped up when you felt the story was over, you wouldn't be doing it for you anymore. You'd be doing it for the audience, and at that point…

…you know, at the end of the day particularly in this economic climate, you know, you're…doing it for yourself if you're doing it for anyone.

MUNA:

Although I do…I have to confess that I tried very hard to get Jon not to kill Hayward as a character.

So I tried and tried and tried. I just kept saying to him, “but the baby wants Hayward to be okay!” and he would just…

And this was, this was obviously while I was heavily pregnant, and he would just be like, “stop using our unborn son.”

So, yeah, and this is…this is what I mean by “he really sticks to his guns”, you know? When he is done with a story or a character, he is done, and not even his heavily pregnant wife could make him change his mind.

So. There you go.

MÉABH:

I, I mean…massive respect for using the card, though. Play that card if you got it. Incredible, 100%. Incredible.

JON:

I guess my learning is - it's about pigheadedness, really. Something that I spend quite a bit of time thinking about is the audiodrama production model, and I think certainly if you are looking to create one and you start soliciting advice online you'll see lots of people who - you know - very sensibly propose doing something very similar to a TV production model or a a novel writing model. You know, get all the scripts written then do your casting, then do your production, ensure that you are never in danger of running into crunch time.

Which is entirely reasonable except for the fact that we are not - we are not the television industry! We are a model where success can only come once you've got the show underway and support tends to drop off as soon as a season of the show or the show itself is finished, you know? This is an engine that runs on momentum. And so I think if you were attempting to make a show that is as big and ambitious as ours and you're going to wait until you've got the scripts finalized, then do the casting, then do the production you are going to find yourself two years down the line, having run out money and having spent a great deal of time working towards nothing.

So the way that we've always, out of necessity, done it has been: get, say, half the scripts written for the season. Start distributing them while working on the next set of scripts, start recording while you're working on the next set of scripts, start production while you're recording. Inevitably it has been a model where we have been trying to do as much as possible as quickly as possible, to ensure that we are getting a product out that people are listening to, and are excited about, so that we can then afford to continue making it.

That's a messy reality for me of this kind of production. I think very few people have the privilege to wrap up a whole show without risking running into their own deadlines.

But this season, this was when it really hit, I think, just how impossible a task that is. We were obviously…we found out we were were pregnant a little way into production, we had to make some - you know, some changes to our lifestyle, we had to find a new place to live, and so we found ourselves really starting to fall behind, starting to struggle with the workload

that was on us and the deadlines that were upon us. And that hits really hard, you know, and and I think I often found myself trying to push through, trying to - say - set a deadline for next week when in fact I could really have done with a month! Trying to say, “it's okay, we'll get this out in the next 3 days,” when in fact I should have given myself a fortnight.

So I think that's a big learning and it's not necessarily an entirely fixable problem - but for me, learning to be good to myself, to pace myself to try and ensure that I'm not driving myself into the ground just to get the show out consistently is so, so important.

Because the truth is, it is…again, it's very good practice and very sensible to try and ensure that you are putting the show out in a regular consistent basis, but the truth is people are still going to be listening to your show - hopefully - a year from now or two years from now.

And they won't notice if an episode was 3 weeks late. What they will notice is if the show stops abruptly because you had a complete nervous breakdown…which, you know, it felt

close to at times!

So the learning very much is about: pace yourself, trust that people will continue to be excited for the show no matter what, and try and set as reasonable deadlines as possible without burning yourself out.

MÉABH:

This is a silly one: what's up with schnapps? It gets mentioned almost every time a character drinks, and I've never really considered it a common drink in our world.

JON:

So the idea behind schnapps was - I wanted there to be a drink that was in regular circulation that spoke to the world. It occurred to me that the Silt Verses is this fragmented setting where, for the most part, until the big companies start coming in with their lager lorries, you're probably going to be relying on a drink that is brewed locally.

Equally, I'm pretty sure that if you order a pint or a large glass of wine in the Silt Verses world in a bar you've never been to before, that's a pretty good way to wake up the next morning tied to a post in the middle of the river being sacrificed.

So it made a lot of sense to me that there would be a harder liquor that people tended to drink - a drink that they can just shot-drink quickly. There's no…there's limited risk involved in enjoying it.

So kind of a frontier spirit going on, basically. But I didn't want it to be whiskey cuz that's too obviously the Old West. I didn't want it to be vodka because that speaks too clearly to Eastern Europe and Russia.

Schnapps felt like an odd drink - as they mention - a drink with limited cultural baggage and associations that we could use to really stand out and actually just be a little piece of the world.

MÉABH:

I love how that was a silly question, and that was actually incredible, it was a brilliant look at the worldbuilding and the thought process. Fantastic!

All righty, then! ok. Bats asks, “The Silt Verses is a rich, many layered work, but if you had to choose one thing you’d like the audience to take away from listening to it, what would it be?”

MUNA:

I…I can be a bit of a nihilistic pessimist, you know? I used to think that change was possible on a macro level as long as you maybe elected the right, you know, person or people in into government and they will do what they said they would do in their manifestos, and they would put people ahead of profit or themselves.

And maybe it's the last sort of 8 years, 10 years, that we've all gone through but I feel that's less and less likely to happen. What I do think I've taken away from the Silt Verses is that there are individuals in that in the story who have tried to make change on a macro level - so for example Paige, Hayward and Carpenter try and do that with the Woundtree, but they realize - or at least particularly Paige realizes - that that's not really that possible. You can't use the same tools.

But instead what they try and do is focus on community, so that group as a community walks away and decides to focus on taking care of each other and giving each other as much kindness and care as they possibly can.

And the way I would want to take away, the audience to take away, from that is even if it all kind of feels a bit hopeless, maybe sometimes it's important to think about…what are the micro changes that can happen? What is, what are grassroots movements that are happening in the world, that are enacting change, no matter how small it is? And just look at those moments and have a little bit of hope that people and projects are trying to change things, even if it's in a very small way.

I hope that's not too…I guess, trite of an answer! But yeah.

MÉABH:

Yeah, well, I was honestly going to say, like…no, I don't think that's trite, I think that's exactly the same thing that I would have taken from it.

Because I think what's so effective about the show is that it is set in this, I mean, near-apocalyptic, certainly dystopic horror-based late-late-late-late-late capitalistic society, you know? And still you have an…you kind of go, “oh my God, how could you live like that?” and you see how you live like that. And it is with in certain cases being - predominantly in our main characters and in other people as well - with, you know, as much kindness and grace as you possibly can.

And the message I think that I took away from the Silt Verses was that…okay, did the characters sort of save the day? Was there a triumphant ending? No, but they were kind to one another. They tried to save each other.

Or not necessarily…”kind” is not necessarily the right word, but they tried to be good to one another, and they tried to…they did try to be there for one another. They tried to connect and stay connected and move forward together.

Did they achieve that goal? No, but that's not the point, the point is that it is the trying that matters and that in and of itself is all that should matter. You should do it because it's worth doing.

JIMMIE:

Change is possible. Change is possible and yeah, it might suck, yeah, it might be hard, but change is possible and sometimes it can be for the better.

JON:

It's funny, cause in some ways we are a fairly didactic show. I think that very careful listeners may have spotted that we weave a kind of subtle anti- capitalist message into the worldbuilding and the narrative.

I don't think we've been shy about making the politics of the show clear, but then for that I don't know if I believe that we have a singular message that we're trying to convey. For me it was always about a question, a kind of maladaptation of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre tagline.

“Can we break away, and if we do what will be left of us?”

So looking at the ways that, whether it's the old religions and the old traditions and the old power structures which have fed into the geopolitical environment in which we now find ourselves, whether it's our family structures or our childhoods that have made us who we are, the near-impossible task of disentangling ourselves.

As I think Hayward says out of nowhere - he's talking about his fake wife back in episode 5 - the difficulty of pulling ourselves out of the barbed wire and becoming something new without losing ourselves in the process.

But then, of course, the alternative being to remain in the clutches of something else and changed only according to its…to its will.

So for me there was…there's no real hard message, so much as an attempt to play with that and explore that and hopefully find something meaningful in that for the characters, and for listeners.

MÉABH:

And also it…what another part of it is is the fact that, I suppose, a lot of the characters as well…

Obviously it's much more tragic in Faulkner and Carpenter's case, but you know, in a way - like, Hayward got to watch Paige walk away with her group, you know, and that was…he was fundamental in getting her to that point, that they could do that. And he was triumphant in that, you know?

And similarly, like, you know it is Carpenter and Faulkner, it's a much more tragic version of it, but Faulkner saw that Carpenter was still alive and that she was…and then he did make the decision. “I want to walk away with her.”

You know, the circumstances of the characters are bad but the mindset, the mental states and where they are in their decision-making and how they are in their final moments is actually overwhelmingly positive…if you kind of take away the actual circumstances of the event, you know! But they are choosing…they're either triumphant or they're choosing to move forward.

Or, you know, even in Faulkner's case he does choose to, he says, “I want to be with Carpenter, I want to go with Carpenter.” No one in that finale is saying, “humans are the virus, burn it all down.” They're saying, “No, I want to be with you.” Which I think is…that's what you take away from it.

B.:

“Despite everything, there is love,” is kind of the takeaway that I felt.

That despite all of the horrors each individual person is grounded in love for someone or something. That is very powerful and there's something kind of nice about that. Even if this person is deeply corrupt, they’re still a person and maybe they can still choose someday to act with…act in respect to that love that they have for someone or something.

MÉABH:

it's like when you try and recommend this podcast, it's like, “OK, so there's this river god. Crabs. But also The Human Condition.”

B.:

Yes, what if the Human Condition also just had a lot of crustacean overtones?

MÉABH:

Yeah, crab nuke! OK. All right now. Red asks, “post-canon, would Faulkner be remembered in the Silt Verses?”

B.:

Oh, man. Okay, so I think so…but not in the way he would want. Because he's not the one writing them anymore. Like what that one Katabasian called him, like a stupid selfish child or something like that? I think that's what he'd be remembered as.

Because he only got remembered in the Silt Verses the way he wanted to when he was the one writing them and so if he's in there at all I don't think he would like what gets written later.

He killed everyone who would write something nice!

MÉABH:

That's so true, yeah.

B.:

Every single one. He fucked up!

MÉABH:

Oh, my God, yeah. I suppose until…unless there was some sort of massive PR overhaul where they just rewrote the entire thing entirely and they needed a scapegoat.

MUNA:

That is the way I'm leaning. Whichever way he ends up being written, it would be…he would be another tool.

MÉABH:

Yes, that's…that's so true. Even if they wrote him into the Silt Verses as a prophet they wouldn't actually believe it. He wouldn't actually be getting the adoration that he has always wanted.

Ooh. Ah, that boy. You'd call him unhinged but there isn't even a doorframe.

OK! Okie-doo. So, uh, all right. Althea asks, “To Marta; How was playing Val? What were the hardest and easiest parts?”

MARTA:

So I…Val, Val is a…quirky character! Because on paper I feel like it's one of those where you expect (it) being like, “oh, it was so difficult and it was so harrowing and you know she does such terrible things and she goes through so much strife.”

I genuinely found her quite easy to play, and honestly, I will admit to this, it's not on me. It's

because from the very beginning, from the audition piece that I sent in, all I've ever done with Val is simply say out loud what I hear in my head when I read your writing, Jon. That's what she always sounded like to me!

So I think we just found ourselves in that lucky situation where your vision and my interpretation kind of overlapped really well. So there wasn't really much hardship or much of a challenge in actually playing her because it's like…”yeah, I can…she's fully realized. She's complete. I totally get what this character is and what they sound like in my head apparently is what she's supposed to sound like. So yay!”

My main thing was not so much with Val as a character but with the nature of the show and the structure of the show. Obviously there's a lot of very long monologuing and people just you know going on these lyrical journeys - and for me as an actor that is something that I can struggle with if I don't put in the work.

So it's about finding the flow of the writing and then breaking it, and not getting comfortable. Cos it's very easy to read - Jon, you know, your writing is like, it's very easy to say it's very easy to read. So if you don't want it to become a lullaby and…you know, put people to sleep it's about finding those places where you can get variety and sort of raise the stakes and try to keep Val and the audience on their toes with unexpected shifts and turns.

And I told someone that I was purposefully trying to make her sound weird - even though it came quite naturally to me. It’s not…you know, she doesn't talk like I talk on a day-to-day basis! So that was the main thing, I think, that I had to kind of focus on and I would say was

hard.

But everything else…yeah, was quite easy, which is…I don't know what that says about me as a person considering what she does in the show!

But um, yes, that's what it was like playing Val - not as difficult as one might expect.

We were very lucky as well, cos I was this close to not sending in an audition for this particular role. I think I sent in three for a couple of the siblings or Katabasians, and then Val was one of those where I was like, “I will never get this role! There is no way in any universe I am getting cast as this super-cool godlike character.”

But I read it and I loved it; I thought, “oh,” this sounds so cool; I'm just going to record it for me and if it's not literal trash on fire I might attach it to the email,” and I ended up doing it.

I'm so glad; this is a very good lesson for everyone out there. You already have a ‘no’ and if you don't…if you don't put yourself out there and try, you never know!

So if I hadn't had that moment I wouldn't have played Val…which would have been an absolute tragedy for me personally. So, yeah, I'm…I'm very glad I decided to sort of be brave and go with my gut.

MÉABH:

Juliana asks, “What's the line that you think you will be able to quote from memory perhaps forever?”

JIMMIE:

It's from the very first season. I can't remember the line 100% but it was basically…I roll up to the guy's house and I knock on the door and we start talking and it gets to the point where I'm like, “listen, if there are gods here and you've been lying to me I really am going to be very annoyed.”

That and Carpenter's sweet air guitar solo!

SARAH:

I don't know if this counts or not! So I don't have aphantasia, I can imagine some things sometimes, but…they always come in little flashes.

I can't hold the picture of the apple if that makes sense. But in order for me to make sense of the monologue where Shrue is describing the building that was built and then partially torn down and then partially was damaged and then…

…in order to make that flow in a way that was intelligible to somebody outside of my own head I did have to make a kind of movie of being in my head.

Washington DC in a car, in the rain driving around the capital, noting the way that the different buildings interacted with each other. And that for some reason has stuck with me! It’s being in a car that I was never in, in a city where I never was, in a car driving through a rainstorm that never happened, in order to make sense of the histories of all of the buildings that stand around me as testaments to the ways that we failed.

LUCILLE:

I know what mine is. Yeah, mine is…in the last episode, the part where Paige is like “Dennis Duplass helped” and then, “Hayward. Dad. Carpenter. I'm leaving you all behind. I wish I didn't have to.”

That is something that like I think about a lot and breaks my heart every time I fucking do. Cos it's just…it hit hard, and I think that, I feel like that's such a very human…it's a human experience of having to lose people either to death or just to circumstances.

But Paige was pretty fortunate and that she saw it coming and kind of had a chance to say goodbye, where like most of us…we don't know that we're going to be like seeing or speaking to someone for the last time.

And it’s just like…we just kind of get a really shitty voicemail, a phone call someday, or we just end up stopping, like not talking with people anymore or not seeing anyone anymore.

And so I think that it is a very…that is like the fortunate thing about Paige's situation is that she was given the chance to say her goodbyes and whatnot.

But that's the line that I'll always remember, cause it makes me cry every time.

MARTA:

“These were the Silt Verses.” “The river rises” “The Last Word tells me…” which I now use online a lot every time I want to be like, “oh this is cool.” I'll go, “The Last Word tells me this is great, so it is great, we all agree.”

I really like “people should be kinder than the gods that eat them”. I feel that one stuck with me as well. And I have…I have a bit of an embarrassing admission to make.

When I started recording, I'd only ever listen to bits of the show, I’d never listen to a whole episode and so I didn't realize this was meant to be somewhat set in contemporary times!

I always thought we were like in some past period of time, so I played it for most…I mean all the entire show. I always, in my mind…I don't have aphantasia. I see full-on full-length movies in my head constantly. All the time, about everything, it's a lot.

But, yeah, I had a very specific image that…does not match, apparently, the world. And only when I saw fanart with people dressed in modern clothes I went, “hang on a minute, what do you mean?” and then, “oh yeah, they have cars and phones and technology.”

Whoopsies.

JON:

(Confused)

What I love so much about that, Marta, is…your first appearance and your first recording with us, you steal a motorboat and then you dial into a conference call. There’s…there’s really not much ambiguity there!

MARTA:

Maybe that helped also make Val feel very other, because she was genuinely in a completely different setting to everybody else!

So yeah, that was…that was a funny little thing. Not a line, but, yeah. There you go.

MÉABH:

Oh, I mean, it's…here's the thing. I'm like…I feel like this is playing into a stereotype or something at this stage, but like it's got to be

(Carpenter voice)

“Hey Charity, tell me more about your god! I want to know whose house I've

Wrecked!”

Like, I just loved that. Especially for me because it was the first time I feel like Carpenter burst out of that weary cynical persona from the beginning, you know? It was really the first time she was having fun with it, you know.

And I did…when I performed it I was like, “this is fantastic!” You know? It was so great, it was just this massive burst of like violence and energy and color and character.

And I absolutely adored it, and it was incredible to see a lot of people respond to that too. so I think that one's that one's engraved on my brain, you know?

I was trying to think…even as I like, I read the question, I was like, “oh, should I try and find something a bit more poetic?” You know, because In fairness - now, listen, Jon's good at the aul writing, like there's a lot of good lines in it.

So I was kind of thinking, “should I find something more meaningful and more poetic?” and I was like, no. It's got to be that line, man.

I mean, I hope I'm saying that at conventions when I'm 50. I hope people are coming up to me and getting me to say it and recording it and making it their outgoing voicemail, I don't know.

B.:

Can you make it my outgoing voicemail? That's great, what the fuck. Oh, my God.

MÉABH:

B., what's yours?

B.:

Like, okay…I know you said yours was like a little trite, maybe. But mine's just as trite cause the fans latched on to it. But it's, “I'm not going to hurt you. I'm gonna make you a saint.”

That one! That was the first time I got to kill a guy - which was awesome!

I mean, and it's so…it was so fun to do, it was so fun to d,o and it's engraved in my brain forever. Because it also was like, I was like, “oh, this boy is unhinged.”

MÉABH:

Oh, no, yeah. Like, less hinges than a hole on the ground.

B.:

it was - it was the moment I was like, “aw, hell yeah, here we go! Here we go!” So it's that one.

MÉABH:

And it's such a great line too, because it…it encapsulates so much of the worldbuilding of everything, you know what I mean? Because in our world, “oh, I'm not going to kill you, I'm going to make you a saint…”

(Reconsidering)

I mean, that's still quite weird and threatening. But in that world it's like…that's actually a fate worse than death, possibly, you know?

So, yeah, no, it's and and in of itself it's incredibly unsettling and threatening, and yeah, 100%. And it is again, that’s Faulkner's character turn to…to the prophet we all know and love.

B.:

Oh, oh no. Get shrimped.

MÉABH:

Get shrimped! That's my favorite line.

Actually that…I say that, that’s my Iine-

B.:

Oh man, I remember the day you recorded that-

MÉABH:

Yeah, you know, in the episode-

B.:

Yeah, I could tell you the minute mark!

MÉABH:

When I put on sunglasses and I go, “Get shrimped.”

B.:

Oh, my God. Muna do you have one?

MUNA:

Again, like Méabh said…I mean, there are some brilliant, brilliant lines.

I think for me I'm going to choose one that was very, very recent and…I think it was because - I don't know, again, maybe pregnancy hormones - but this was just such a moving scene. It's between Val and Carson right at the end, and it's when Val says, What did you

want to be when you were small? No child wants to become a thing like you.”

And I just…I just love that because it's so unexpected, that moment where she suddenly reaches out for and gives him a moment of connection, you know? Because he's just frantically trying to stop himself from being killed and it's the beginning of just the kindest, saddest scene.

Yeah, so I would say that one I will probably remember forever. But, yeah I mean they're all great. The lines you both chose of your characters, I can hear that in my head, because you both delivered it just so powerfully. So, yeah, they're all…they're all amazing lines.

MÉABH:

I mean, there's like…there's some bangers, you know what I mean? There really are. There's a lot of stuff you could put on a t-shirt, you know? It's, it's great.

Okay. All right. Winona asks, “If the Verses were in a visual medium, which scene would you be the most excited seeing? Bonus points for telling us if the verses would be best as an animation, live action, or something else entirely.”

MARTA:

I need a game. I need a full-on, high-quality RPG. I need Larian Studios to get on this show and give me that game because I think this would fucking rule as a, as a really immersive narrative-led, character-led, horrific, incredible game.

I think it would be phenomenal and an animated series as well.

LUCILLE:

I think…like a Fallout-style game like set in this universe and everything would fuck hard! I also think that a stop-motion animation would be amazing for The Silt Verses.

JIMMIE:

I really want the Verses in video game format, and I would love something like The Wolf Among Us or The Walking Dead video game series where it's almost like a Choose Your Own Adventure thing.

I think that would be phenomenal! Because then you could do the artwork and the animation and then you get to have the characters and the voice actors. It would be so cool to see.

SARAH:

But what I need is the comic book. it's not a specific scene; I just need the comic book, because it's such a visual script, it's so easy and clear.

And particularly - I don't know if these words are going to make sense - graphic, and I don't mean in like the kind of blood and gore sense, I mean in the sense that all of the pictures have black outlines. They are so clear that I…feel like it would absolutely lend itself to a comic book.

B.:

I really want to see the magical dump Paige ends up in on screen. Like, this reality-warping dump. I want to see that done somehow because that was so vivid in my head and it was so weird and so cool.

Like, I would…please, somebody. Please. Please.

Also, the crab angels! What do those look like? I want to see those things moving around, dude. I want to see it! I want to see all of them - like all of the angels and saints actually just in general. Conceptually I would love to see that like done in a visual medium.

MÉABH:

To me stop-motion is the creepiest form. I love it but it is unsettling and I - you know, I don't think it would particularly suit the Silt Verses from start to finish, but when I thought about the creation of a saint and thought about it happening in stop-motion.

You can do some weird stop stuff with stop-motion! So, you know, that was definitely the most unsettling medium I could think of.

For me, I think this is…it's not necessarily, it's not the scene so much, but I just think the worldbuilding in the Silt Verses is so incredible. I just would be so excited to see what could be conveyed through visuals. Because I think when you're telling a story, you know…it's because the Silt Verses has been so, so carefully written for audio and it's made to be - at its peak it's made to be told the best via audio currently - you'd want to change that up.

Because it's like, “right, we're not working in audio anymore. We're working through visuals. What's the best way we can convey this story through visuals instead?” And I absolutely love TV shows again that really mix things up, and I kind of…I've referred to it, I haven't found what the official term is, I refer to it like “scrapbook media” where there - again, there are flashbacks, jumping in time, things like that.

But what I particularly love is things like in American Gods when they had the intros at the start that showcase, you know, a different god or a different event or certain folklore, how they exist in the world today, things like that. And they were all shot in very different styles, too, it was kind of in a contrast to the main thrust of the show itself.

But I would think that would fit the Silt Verses extremely well. Because it has such a wide, huge world, you could have these little vignettes at the start just showing people going about in their ordinary lives. You could have advertisements for the different products, you know, in-world advertisements.

Just…there's such scope for worldbuilding there that I just think is absolutely incredible - and again, because it is such a strange story and the structure of the narrative is quite broad, there's a lot of opportunities to do something like the Hembry episode where you play with structure, play with format, play with breaking the fourth wall, things like that, you know? So I think I would be very excited to see how it could be adapted for a visual medium.

JON:

I think it’s one of those things where…I feel very happily resigned to the fact that nobody is gonna want to make an adaptation of the Silt Verses. You’d be stupid to try, we are not big enough and we are far too screwy and weird. Which is nice, y’know?

I think…I don’t like having to deal with people at the best of times, I certainly don’t want to have to fight with some very well-paid production executives who think that Faulkner should be played by Jared Leto. I don’t wanna have these conversations.

And so accepting that and being very happy with that means I get to almost do fantasy casting in my head and feel like I have authorial control over the universe.

The other day I saw an article about Keira Knightley, and I thought to myself, “If Keira Knightley wanted to play Carpenter in a live-action adaptation of The Silt Verses, I would simply tell her, ‘No. You’re not right for the role.’

Which is a joyful thing to be able to do, y’know.

I will say that Méabh introduced me a while ago to Scavenger’s Reign, which I very much enjoyed, and I think I felt a kind of kinship with that. Where it’s a very screwy, very good, very out-there and quite grotesque adult animation that inevitably was cancelled after a single season despite rave reviews and a cult following.

It, it almost feels like the streaming landscape has become supposedly cutthroat and pragmatic to the point of absolute irrationality. It's no longer a situation where difficult programming made by auteurs is getting ditched, it's a situation where perfectly mainstream, accessibly plotted shows with real talent behind them are nevertheless getting ditched at the very first hurdle.

It feels very much as as mysterious and inexplicable as the the whims of any dark god - Netflix canceling Kaos or whatever.

I'd almost feel offended, a little bit, with that in mind if the Silt Verses ever were adapted for TV and then renewed. You know? What…what went wrong? Where did we compromise?

And so I think I…if they ever did have to adapt, I would love to see something made by the

Scavenger’s Reign team, a wonderful weird little masterpiece that would absolutely be canceled after eight episodes. That would feel like a badge of honor.

In terms of which scenes I'd love to see…I think it's the ones that could develop the the worldbuilding beyond what is possible in audio. The scene that I've always had in my mind is just a silent scene of Carpenter and Faulkner's road trip and either one of them is in the passenger seat, just daydreaming out of the window and for a split second in the fields we see worshippers dancing around some kind of Wicker Man-esque monstrosity.

And then we just…we just go by and we have no idea what was happening or what was going to happen.

The real problem with audio is when you're trying to do this kind of background detail, it comes with a cost of time. Méabh mentions advertising - we have so many adverts that we started to cram in, particularly into season 3, just cos I loved doing them so much!

But each one you have to go, “well, this is actually adding another 2 minutes - and is it hurting the pacing of the important things that are happening by asking the audience to just sit and listen to a little bit of a a background joke for 120 seconds?”

Whereas a visual medium, you can cram as much of that in as you want and it remains background detail for those who want to enjoy it.

I think there were probably also a couple of episodes where I'd love to revisit them and do some things that I think just aren't as possible within the medium that we’re working with.

One example that comes to mind is the episode with Faulkner's dad in season 3. We did actually have someone who contacted us and I think very fairly criticized us, saying it didn't feel right that Faulkner's dad has this moment of coherence and cogency and has this heart-to- heart with Faulkner and then just neatly vanishes into the night.

Cos…caring for a loved one with dementia is very much not like that. You might have these moments of clarity that feel climactic that feel as if, “hey, they've recovered their old self!” But it's a passing moment and it's a trick and they will continue to deteriorate.

And like I said, I think that's absolutely reasonable. It really was just the challenge of - how do you round off this story as efficiently as possible? And it it felt in the moment like we had no choice but I think in a visual medium, where you can have time passing in montage format, you can really silently show that things are changing without having to do a hard cut to, “oh, gee, Dad now it's three months later.”

So I think I would love to be able to revisit a couple of our episodes with the new possibilities of a different medium and see how much better we can make them and how much more honest we can make them.

LUCILLE:

A scene that I would like to see - there isn’t a particular scene that I would be most excited to see, but anything that would lend itself to the grandeur of some of the horrific things that are going on. I feel like The Silt Verses animated series would have a lot of very wide-angle shots of scenery and cities and horrific monsters that are showing up, the saints and the angels and everything like that.

And so those are the things that I’d be really excited in seeing.

MÉABH:

Okee-doo! All right. Arian Wells asks,

“What's the moment of your character to you? The most important, the one that invoked more emotions than any other?”

So it's I suppose it's not necessary that it invoked emotions, cos I think i' I've touched on that but for me this was a…I mean, yeah, no it did, it did invoke emotions, it was definitely a scene that felt like it really brought who Carpenter was into even sharper focus for me because I did…

…I do feel like I had a handle on her from the outset and I've loved playing her every single second, but this was kind of when it was proven to me that I was correct.

But it was the episode with Eliza and the axe murders, and it just showed to me off the bat that Carpenter at her core is reluctantly kind and while she plays the the misanthrope, that she actually cares very deeply about people and their well-being and protecting the vulnerable and she wants to help and to be useful, but…

…then you have this contrast with the fact that she was an attack dog of the faith, you know? She's a monster of the old ways and she sort of tries to apply those skills to that situation and while it technically goes well, at the end of the day she learns that it's…it's a big turning point, I think, because she realizes that this violence and this self-righteous justice where she doles out, you know, horrible deaths to people that she thinks deserve it, it’s not the answer, it’s not even a short-term answer. It doesn't accomplish anything at the end of the day.

And again it's kind of coming back to the core message of the show which is that it's helping people, actually, it's the deeply kind of unglamorous work of rolling up your sleeves and making connections and helping one another (which) is actually what's going to save us all.

But also, actually, I have a second one and it is when Carpenter is in Bellwethers and it's when she's just after being found and she's digging up dirt because they're trying to find the earth that will propagate food. And it's just before the sky-saint hits, so it's that episode. But it's when she's working in that (field) by herself and she's digging things into the wheelbarrow.

And I actually went back and I got the stage direction that's included in the script, because when I read it, it was like I was punched in the chest and it continues to punch me in the chest.

And I'm just going to read it for anyone who hasn't. So this is when Carpenter is is digging dirt into the wheelbarrow and the stage directions read, “She takes a moment then hefts the barrow again and begins to roll it onwards. She enjoys this stuff.”

And I was like, “...oh my God.” You know, this woman who has been used by her religion and

raised in this horrific violence and, you know…and she's just really enjoying digging in a garden. And it was just so simple and such a content moment and this idea, you know?

Like, she really enjoys that. And I was reading it and I was like, “...and she'll never get to do it again.” So, yeah that, definitely.

(Rethinking)

“Or will she?” So yeah, so those two, now - they're just these moments, you know. These scenes and moments that really added that depth, that 3D element of the character, absolutely.

How about yourself, B.?

B.:

This is cheating, because it's a whole episode but it's the entire episode with Faulkner’s dad. I legitimately cried a few times - like, real-ass tears in the monologues and in recording with Steve.

I was recording with Steve Shell who plays Faulkner's dad, I like…I knew, Jon kind of like mentally prepped me, he said, “this is a whopper, this is a big-un,” and I was like…I read it

and I was like, “this is going to be a lot.”

And I didn't…like, no matter how much I had prepared myself for it, it was still a very deeply emotional episode to record. Yeah, real-ass tears. Steve I think also really cried, which was a little validating and also I was like, “oh no, we're both crying.”

Because it's, like, this completely different side of Faulkner that we get to see and also it was just very touching personally. And there are these levels of like…I don't know, there were all

these different levels to it, of getting to see the really mundane shit that normal people in the Silt Verses world are doing that aren't, you know, turning people into saints all the time or

trying to start their own religion.

It's stuff that, like, a regular working person - a regular living human being, they're living in their house, they're trying to survive - is doing all the time.

And it was very jarring to get to see. Oh, they're just talking about the game, they're just

getting groceries. Like it's…and there is still this really deep love between them despite all of the neglect and getting to…

Oh my God, it was just…yeah, it was really good, it was really good.

MÉABH:

That is a powerhouse of an episode, yeah. Yeah, it's lovely and actually I feel like that mirror is kind of what I was saying about Carpenter's time-loop episode. It is stepping back into the background, and it is actually very affecting to see-

“Oh, okay, this is why you are how you are,” a bit. And then, you know, it does really inform the character and you know yeah. It's very interesting!

SARAH:

I feel like with Shrue I can't give you one most important moment. Because the way that I read Shrue was not as a person that has definitive moments but rather as a person who is constantly making choices and each one of those choices brings the next choice.

So they don't have a freaking plan, or if they do, it doesn't go the way they want it to! But I feel like the moment that sums up their journey most completely is when they begin to repeat the information on the radio the second time, just before they pass.

Because they are a person whose horror in the world has been that they did not resist and that they did not believe in their own ability to affect change. And in that moment they know they're dead, so what they can do is give the information to try to save the people that they can, and be the example that resistance must continue. Even when you know you will lose, resistance must continue.

So that moment, that active repetition, becomes the entire about face of their character

yeah Shrue just like going apeshit was like a truly amazing moment for them I loved that I think they deserve it I think they deserve to live in that moment forever.

LUCILLE:

Well I've already talked about how emotional I’ve gotten with this entire thing, but…I think that a thing about Paige that always gets me…

…again like the whole “Dennis Duplass helped” thing um and like her saying goodbye. Like, Hayward and Carpenter she loves dearly. Her dad she fucking hates. But at the end of the day she still loves, despite everything.

And I think that is kind of like…a core tenet of Paige's character. How much she rides for the people that she cares about. Because this all started because someone that she cared for deeply, a friend of hers, was killed. That was what caused her to, you know, renege from everything! And then that just kind of…that is just followed through the entire series, all the way to the end.

It's always about helping out other people for Paige, and even though I'm not going to say Paige is entirely unselfish in any of this - because no one is entirely unselfish - but Paige is very motivated in, or very motivated by, helping the people that are close to her.

And I think that's a very important aspect of Paige to me.

JIMMIE:

Talking to Paige on the radio at the end. Those tears are real. The screams were real. All of it was just…it came so naturally I… we had to do it twice! We normally do it twice when we record, but I completely forgot to check my gain and turn it down, because I was screaming. So it broke and distorted and…I was just in it when I was doing it! And that scene was very, very powerful for me.

LUCILLE:

Yeah and…I don't think you had joined yet, but…we were talking about earlier, I was talking about how I like fucking hated Hayward at the beginning! I was just like, “when is this fucking awful, terrible little loser cop going to be out of my show so I don't have to deal with him,”

And, like, he became one of my favorite characters and a lot of that - like a lot of that has to do with your performance and just what you brought to the character.

You're like…I feel this way about a lot of the actors in the show, but especially you because I feel like I worked with you more than any of the others! But I do feel really honored to be able to work alongside and across from you during so much of the show.

MÉABH:

Red Canary asks, “I actually have two questions if that's okay. Question number one-” and let's just start with this one “-what inspired you to make Carpenter the world’s baddest bitch?

(Pause)

B. just lost it. That's incredible.

JON:

Um, what inspired me to make Carpenter the world's baddest bitch? I think it was partly coming from I Am In Eskew, which had obviously the world's wettest, most passive, reactive protagonist - the need to do someone who was a little bit more active, had a bit more agency, was perhaps capable of holding their own an action scene felt a little bit alluring.

And I think a huge amount of it came down to the person playing the role. That there was a lot of confidence that grew over the different episodes listening to Méabh’s, you know, incredible performance. You start to go, “oh, this is an actor who people will believe as an action hero in an audio drama medium, yeah, it is.”

You fundamentally start out without much faith in - “can we deliver a big action sequence? Can we deliver like, a car chase or someone burning a church to the ground in the woods surrounded by monster dogs?” because it's all just scavenged foley.

But the commitment and the intensity that Méabh brought to Carpenter very quickly - you start to realize, people will buy this. People will buy that Carpenter is an absolute fucking badass and that that gives you so much freedom and liberty to write whatever you want with the character.

And probably, you know, towards the end…she survives a plane crash, she does a lot of kind of action movie shit. There was a little bit of just, like… “I'm going to turn the dial up on this because it's such a joy to write this character who gets to be a badass and I'm going to have fun with it and go a little bit wild.”

So that was why - effectively to be very different from what I've done before, but also just out of confidence in the person who was doing the performance.

MÉABH:

That is incredible. That's incredible. Thank you so much, but I mean, I'd like to flip that back and say, I mean, I was just performing what was on the page. At the end of the day, you know, I was just bringing what was already there.

So I mean, you had the character written, it was ready to go…and I had the joy and the privilege of bringing that to life. But I definitely will say it, it 100% has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life as an actor.

Just to get these scripts and just to see the confidence you had or just the assumption that I would be able to do these things was just fantastic.

That…you know, it was incredible just to be like, “oh, okay, I guess I'm climbing over a chain-link fence and then getting run over by a Jeep today,” you know? And it was brilliant. And it…I definitely have done so much more in this role than I've I've ever done in any role previously. It's been a joy.

Incredible, thank you so much. Um, and now the second part of this two-parter question: “why was Faulkner like that?” Just…just, just the all of that.

JON:

Before I go…B., you've got obviously incredible insight into the character. You want to try and have a pitch at this one?

(Accusatory)

Why was Faulkner like that?

MÉABH:

(Annoying voice)

Hey, B., what's wrong with him?

B.:

He's never done anything wrong ever in his life and he knows it!

MÉABH:

Faulkner was right, actually.

JON:

Faulkner was right.

B.:

I'm going to clip that legally.

JON:

That's…that's fair.

There's, there's no solid reason, I think? It is quite funny looking back to see that I basically made the ultimate antisocial introvert’s wish fulfillment fantasy. Where Carpenter, who doesn't care about anyone and doesn't really want to have conversations or deal with people ends up with community and friendship.

And Faulkner who just wants people to like him ends up alone and bereft and abandoned by everyone.

So I don't know. Something psychologically coming out of that? A bit of…

(Darkly)

”Wanting people to like you ends badly.” That's it. That's the overall thesis.

MÉABH:

Oh that's it! That's great.

I mean…I will say though, that I feel like with Faulkner, it's not even that he…

I mean wanting people to like him is one thing. I'm pretty sure he wants them to worship him.

JON:

Yeah, I think it is. it is a world where it is about, I guess, the insecurity of divinity, right? That the the gods only have this power - the gods have incredible power in the world of the Silt Verses, as they do in many religious texts, many myths - but they demand worship because of insecurity and Faulkner is almost the human embodiment of that.

He could have it all, but he needs to have an audience, and it's his need for an audience that ends up limiting him and reshaping him and ultimately killing him.

MÉABH:

That's incredible.

OK, all right! A question from Tammi: “To all the cast members, but especially to Jimmie Yamaguchi. What did it feel like playing a character that changes so drastically from when we meet them to where they end up? Looking back, would you have changed something in your portrayal?”

JIMMIE:

I'm really glad Hayward changed. I ended up really loving Hayward by the end of it; he just became so awkwardly genuine and kind. And I think his life before was just cold and bitter, and I ended up loving who he became.

Would I…would I change anything about my portrayal? You know what, this kind of inspires me to go back and relisten to everything and see what I would change, and then I could get back to you.

MÉABH:

We actually ended up talking about Jimmie's portraying Hayward at the start of this, because we were talking about…Hayward has such an incredible arc, but I was talking about how interesting it is, in terms of the arc these action heroes or what-have-you protagonists normally have.

Hayward just gets progressively kinder and more understanding and, you know…and it's incredible. I was saying, it’s…there's that phrase oh the punkest thing you can do is to be kind and Hayward is just really out there in this near-apocalyptic horror fest going. like, “I'm going to be so nice and I'm going to make breakfast for everyone, and I'm gonna…”

It's an incredible character, really, like…the arc he goes through, and Jimmie obviously just knocks it out of the park.

JON:

I mean it's funny that you mention action hero arcs, because a big touchstone for us - throughout the show really but especially in season 3 - was Mad Max: Fury Road and how it handles its character arcs and its ideology of heroism, in particular its contempt to the notion of a hero's duel or hero's confrontation.

Blockbusters have of course just completely bypassed what Fury Road had to say and gone back to a model which is very familiar to all of us, where the hero's journey is about - through learning self-belief or through the power of friendship or through relentless self discipline or just through getting angry enough - the hero getting to the point where they are at the power level that now they can overcome the villain and defeat them.

Fury Road very accurately understands that this is a false fascist-adjacent narrative that is used to exploit us. Like, that is the ideology of the War Boys, the idea that your whole life

is building up to this moment where if you can only be courageous enough in your heroism in defeating a particular foe, who is your chosen foe, then you will be remembered as a hero

The movie denies this, absolutely. Even when Furiosa gets her revenge, it's not for her own sake. She knocks past the villain and the object of her hatred in order to rescue someone. And that same principle - actually, genuine heroism is not about some big confrontation with a baddie.

The strongest character in Fury Road is this hulking brute who is objectively stronger than everyone else and is never defeated by anyone else. But the moment he is denied this big violent encounter with the heroes, he has a massive childish tantrum and instantly implodes

while screaming his own name which is…you know, which may as well be “dead penis.”

Like, the film is very, very explicitly trying to come up with a new code of heroism which is about looking out for each other, the help that we can offer to one another, and it finds that that is what is daring, and courageous and worthy.

And so every character's arc really follows that model - where the acts of heroism are what we do in service to each other. No one gains some kind of apotheosis by facing down the end-boss of capitalism. Yeah, we were…we were very explicit with that! The end-boss of

capitalism happens to be on a plane that the heroes get onto and he dies, presumably, offscreen without ever being acknowledged by them.

It felt very important to our our philosophy of narrative that we have these moments where - as you say, Méabh - Hayward gets kinder, Hayward becomes more human, and when he

dies he dies in service to the people he cares about and the cause that matters.

It almost…I was almost worried about it this season. Like, “is this going to stop feeling like actually a consistent point of view and start feeling like a trope?”

Because even though we have this reputation for being a kind of a dark, bleak nihilistic show…a lot of fucking people get redeemed, you know? It got to the point where I was a bit worried that maybe more people should get worse.

Hayward gets better, Val gets better, Shrue gets better, Gage gets a little bit better in season two.

We keep having these examples of characters making the choice to do the human thing!

And thankfully it didn't seem to lose its impact with the audience but I was always nervous that it would.

But yeah, the Silt Verses were a very warm-hearted, found-family show. Tell your friends.

MÉABH:

Yeah, you're like, “this is slander, actually; we are hopepunk, I didn't know if you knew this.”

But it's so funny you bring that up because I literally mentioned that when we were talking about “what's the show about?”, and I did say - regardless of the circumstances the characters end up in, they all do finish in positive moments of growth and realizations of like their need for connection with other people and the will to move on or triumph, you know?

And so it's really interesting that the characters do end up in those places, as you said - like they all do actually get better and realize that connection and community is what will ultimately save us.

So yeah, actually, the Silt Verses is super positive, and it's a really hopeful joyous celebration. It really is.

JON:

I'd be interested to know with you, do you feel like your characters changed as substantially as TammI has said?

Because for me, I feel like both of you - Carpenter, a lot changes for her but she holds on to the Integrity of who she is. And maybe she learns some things, she changes some things about her life, but actually her resolve and her stubbornness stick with her.

And Faulkner is someone that he really wants to get away from this kind of nub of ambition and desire to be this kind of great man that he's got in his head. And he wrestles with it, but ultimately always keeps coming back to it. So in some ways these are two characters that really don't change. How do you feel about that?

MÉABH:

Well, for me when it comes to Carpenter I think you're right; in that it's not so much that she changes, but it's more that she accepts some things that I think she's been fighting for a long time.

So for example, we - I mean we do see her when she’s starting out. She's obviously in this position where she is questioning her faith, she's questioning her place in the faith, and that's obviously something she's been struggling with for a very long time.

And then I think she moves then into the fact that her role in society, or how she's always viewed society or how she's always behaved, is not necessarily how she wants to behave going forward and is not necessarily effective or appropriate, or it doesn't actually necessarily achieve anything.

Which we touched on earlier when I was talking about the episode with Eliza and the Axe Murders. I mean, it's very, very, very cool - extremely cool - but as is subsequently almost immediately pointed out to her by Brother Boil (Wharfing), “what exactly have you achieved? What longterm change have you made? Whose life have you made better? You know? You've doled out a lot of self-righteous justice and it felt good while you were doing it but it's not done anything.”

And that's when, you know, she comes to the realization about (being) the attack dog of the

Faith. So I think it's less that she changes who she is, and it's more, I do think, it's a lot of coming to terms with things she's probably suspected and not wanted to believe are true.

And I do think that is wonderful, to see her embracing that, because to me Carpenter is…um, she's like a non-practicing misanthrope, you know? She…it's like, she's like, “oh people are the worst and everything is terrible and you can't trust anyone,” but then like three seconds later she's running into a burning building to save someone's life.

You know, she talks the talk but…the walk is walking directly to help someone.

B.:

Oh my gosh, I love that so much.

I think that's…it's very similar. Like, Carpenter is this non-practicing misanthrope and Faulkner is actively fighting his own character development the entire show. Like that he has been given all of these opportunities to be a better person, and sometimes he does take them, but he's like, “no, I can't! I refuse to be a better person! I refuse to be the bigger man! I have to do this,”

And I think that's what makes him end up…back where he kind of started but not really.

Like it's…he could have made all of these decisions but like Méabh has said before, if he had made better decisions he wouldn't be the person he is.

So there is that, and so I think there is character development and there is negative character development! But I think it's because he's only gotten the…it's only because he has gotten these opportunities to be a better person and actively rejected them about 50% of the time. And when he doesn't reject them, it goes so badly he's like, “well, I gave it a shot! I tried and therefore no one should criticize me.”

MÉABH:

Exactly! That's fantastic. And I was just…touching on “looking back, would you've changed something in your portrayal?” I really felt like Carpenter came to me as such a fully formed and fleshed out character. I don't think I would change anything, but also I'm glad I didn't know about the future because I think I wouldn't want that to inform my performance.

Because I suppose you're playing the character as they are at that point in time, and what you know about them is what they know about themselves to a certain extent. So I think…I think I'm okay! I think I'm okay with it.

B. :

Oh, my God. Same, dude. I think not knowing where Faulkner ended up helped me not telegraph it too early.

Cause, like, this was my first role! I was learning how to act as we recorded, and not having all of this preloaded information about where we were going to go helped me not be like, “oh, God, am I supposed to telegraph this?”

Like, we just had what was in front of us and so I wouldn't…I also wouldn't change anything about that because I think it helped.

MÉABH:

Yeah, no, because I mean, I still see people who are listening to season one go like, “This Faulkner, what a baby.” and then they're like, “holy shit!”.

So you definitely don't want to telegraph anything.

B. :

Oh, yeah, you can't! You can't! It'll ruin the surprise in episode 2 where he says, “I want to murder everyone, including this woman who's with me.”

MÉABH:

Yeah!

MARTA:

What does it feel like? like running a marathon and going back and being, “...fucking hell, I did it. We got here. We made it.” You know like anyone who does sports or performance or anything that requires a lot of preparation and then a…a sort of moment of intensity and then a kind of release. The feeling of having that journey I think is incredibly satisfying.

Not something you always get when you're performing.

Not every character is written the same, not every story has the room to do that. The fact that there are so many characters in the Silt Verses that get to an entire journey throughout three seasons is no small feat. Genuinely, as a writer, that's pretty impressive.

So yeah I just…it feels very satisfying, yeah. You know if you were hungry, and you have a great meal; if you were thirsty and you have a sip of water…that kind of feeling.

For me that's how it feels to have been able to do that, I suppose. And would I change something? No, no; that's the great thing about performance. You just do it. You're in the moment, you get it done, and it is what it is and you just let it go.

SARAH:

Okay. Can I…can I just say one thing for Shrue? Shrue is fucking funny, okay, guys. And I feel like that gets overlooked. Shrue is really fucking funny.

Um, and I just…I don't think I would change anything because I feel like if you look at your end in your beginning you become…you become one-note. It gets really boring.

And I really like that I cannot put a finger on a moment when they decided to be a different person, I think they just made the next choice in front of them within the context of what they were doing.

But I feel like it is a gift as a performer to be given the trust with, “we know you can get this person where they need to go.”

And I feel like the the sheer fact that you can ask every character’s actor, “hey, you did a huge about-face; what did that feel like?” is proof that we've been given an opportunity to do something really special here because you don't normally get that.

LUCILLE VALENTINE:

Yeah, I really relate to the feeling of satisfaction that you were talking about. Because there's nothing that's more dull as a voice actor than playing a character who is just kind of the same person the entire time. It just kind of feels like…you know, it feels like you're stagnating through however long the character is around.

And so just…it really is really rewarding to be able to play a character that's so different at the end of the show than what they were at the beginning.

In terms of like…if I, would I have changed something in my portrayal? Uh yeah honestly! But that's just because I…like, I started to understand Paige a lot better towards the end of it.

As most, like…I feel like that's pretty normal for voice acting. The more you stick with a character, the more you start to understand them. And it's the thing of - like if I had known, or understood them better earlier, then I could have changed some of the delivery

And also I'm just, like, really critical of my own performances, and stuff like that. So I'm always like, “damn, I should have done that again; I should have done that a different way.”

Jon, if you ever want to do like a remaster or anything of the Silt Verses you have to fucking let me! Like, I will…I will jump on that like no one's fucking business. Like, you have no fucking idea, dog!

MÉABH:

Pinky asks, “I would love some additional info about sibling rane, I don’t even care what it is, what’s their shoe size? Do they like bananas? Did they get back pains from carrying Faulkner legacy? I must know – sincerely, Sibling Rane’s number one fan.”

…I like that Pinky has thrown the gauntlet down. There are a lot of Sibling Rane fans out there. You might just have put a target on your back.

JON:

So I actually went straight to the source for this one - I spoke to HR Owen, who plays Sibling Rane, and I asked them to answer these questions from their perspective. So hopefully these are are helpful to you, Pinky.

H.R. OWEN (SIBLING RANE):

Hello, Jon, and hello to my beloved Rane-iacs! I hear there are literally dozens of you.

Before I answer I want to be very clear that everything I'm saying is absolutely canon. You are free to have your own interpretations, but just know you are wrong.

So Sibling “Purple” Rane’s shoe size is 12. And two, they get through about eight tins of Taylor of Bond Street’s Herbal Aroma Moustache Wax a week.

And they had never actually tasted a banana until they escaped Faulkner's murder attempt and swam away down the river to open a tropical beachfront cocktail bar where they first encountered a banana daiquiri. They thought it was nice but a bit too spicy for their tastes; it was another 5 years before they discovered they are in fact allergic to bananas.

Finally, they have no back pain at all from carrying Faulkner's legacy, because they never skip back day or leg day or arm day or chest day or wrist day or ankle day or any of the other days.

You can imagine they're basically a very large crab-themed muscle-daddy. I hope that helps.

JON WARE:

…oh, no they, they made it canon. They made it canon. There's nothing I can do, my hands are tied.

OK, so - confirmed Sibling Rane did in fact survive. I hope that makes you all very happy.

We're going to take a break here, but tune in soon for the next half of this Q&A. Thank you for listening.