Transcribed by Raina (Twitter: @Raina_MoonSage)
## Intro
Rhi: Hello everyone. We have a very short intro today. This is the Season 4 Q&A episode. Huge thanks to everyone who submitted questions. We had a lot of fun thinking back over the show as a whole. Because our Patreon is currently paused, this episode also includes the full Season 4 Blooper Reel after the Q&A. I hope you enjoy all of the bits and goofs that didn’t make it into the episodes.
Our Featured Charity is The Lilith Fund which provides funding for Texans who need abortions and can’t afford them. In light of the horrific anti-abortion law that’s recently gone into effect in the state, we encourage you to donate as well as to contact your representatives to express support for the Women’s Health Protection Act which would provide national-level protection for abortion rights.
Over the next few months we will be posting blooper reels from other seasons and bonus episodes that were previously only on our Patreon, and as always keep an eye on our Twitter at @Clever_Corvids for updates on our new show.
## Q&A [0:01:09]
Rhi: Hi everybody and welcome to the Season 4 slash post-series Q&A. We got a ton of great questions from Twitter, and one via email. We actually got a lot via email from one person, but I’m sorry, Kevin, I had to whittle it down.
[laughter]
Rhi: Otherwise a third of the episode would just be going through yours. For once I don’t actually have—Usually when I do these Q&As I have a question prepped to ask everybody else, but I don’t have one this time. I couldn’t think of anything. Do you all have something you want to ask me? I feel like…
Josie: Um… not particularly?
Rhi: I’ve put you all on the spot in past Q&As. I feel like it’s only fair.
Josie: For prospective viewers, you’re getting this a while after we’re recording it, but we’ve already cried our eyes out and thrown feelings at each other and stuff.
Rhi: Yes. Yeah.
Josie: So I’m pretty good on asking things.
Rhi: [laughs]
Kim: I have a question for you, Rhi.
Rhi: Yes.
Kim: What do you think Rigney’s favorite item on the menu on Panera is?
Rhi: …
Josie: [laughs] Does Rigney go to Panera?
Kim: He does now.
Rhi: He’s a small business owner. He’s a man on a budget.
Kim: [laughs]
Rhi: I think that he enjoys a broccoli cheese soup in a bread bowl.
Kim: Excellent.
Minna: He’s extremely valid.
Rhi: Are any of those things readily available in Duskwall? No, no they’re not.
[laughter]
Josie: But Panera is.
Rhi: But I think that’s what he would like if he could go to a real Panera.
Josie: I appreciate the pain in your voice.
Rhi: [weakly] Thank you.
Kim: [smiling] Now I’m picturing just Panera in our Duskwall just exists somehow outside of the physics in space and time where the food that doesn’t exist in Duskwall, like, it doesn’t exist anywhere except this Panera.
Rhi: Yeah, it’s just a dimensional rift.
Kim: It’s one thing that happened when the world broke is that Panera just… it remained the same.
Rhi: Yeah. [laughs] John Harper, I’m so sorry.
Minna: Panera transcends space-time.
Rhi: Of all the restaurants.
Kim: I don’t know.
Josie: Yeah, we’re not even big Panera fans. That’s just… Kim just stuck it in there.
Rhi: No. No, we’re not.
Kim: I am.
Minna: I’m a Panera fan.
Kim: Thank you, Minna.
Rhi: I mean… [laughs]
Minna: You get free French bread with your soup.
Josie: I mean, I do enjoy that.
Rhi: Alright. I feel like for the most part if you’ve made it this far you probably know who we all are, but for tradition’s sake let’s do a quick round of introductions some almost four minutes into the episode.
Josie: Uh-huh. We’re professionals, it’s fine.
Rhi: Yeah. So, I am Rhi, pronouns are she and her. I was the GM of The Magpies and will be the GM of Project Bluejay… and I am managing all of the boring administrative financial stuff for Clever Corvids because I like spreadsheets.
Josie: Hi, I’m Josie. I use she pronouns or it pronouns. I was playing Minx, and I’m gonna be playing again in Project Bluejay and also maybe some other stuff. Shh.
Minna: [giggles]
Rhi: Ooh-hoo-hoo.
Kim: My name is Kim. I use she/her. I played Blaire Culhane on The magpies and on Project Bluejay… who knows.
Rhi: We know.
Minna: [giggles]
Kim: We know, but y’all don’t.
Rhi: But we’re not revealing those secrets yet.
Kim: No.
Minna: I am Minna. I use she/her pronouns. I play Myra on The magpies, and… [mumbles, clears throat] on Project Bluejay.
[laughter]
Rhi: Insert redacted noise here. Alright, so as I said, we got a whole bunch of questions, a lot of them just kind of about the scope of the show as a whole which is gonna be fun as we all kind of scramble to remember four years’ worth of stuff.
Josie: Uh-huh.
Kim: Jesus.
Rhi: But, I’m gonna start off with a question from Sophie Lagace, and I apologize deeply if I just mispronounced your name. How do you feel your respective play and GMing styles have evolved over the course of the show?
Kim: Hmm…
Josie: When I first started I know I was still—I was about a year off of playing almost exclusively D&D and Pathfinder at that point, so I was still kinda getting into more different kinds of games. I always wanted something more narrative, but I was still getting used to it. I had been playing Masks and Monster Hearts, but that was about it.
So, I think just in general my attitude of what I want out of an RPG and how fluid I am about things has opened up a lot. I can definitely roll with the punches a lot more than I use to.
Kim: I think for me I just in general got better at playing tabletop games. I know that’s a really generic answer, but you have to understand I’m still very much a tabletop RPG newbie.
Josie: You’re the babby.
Kim: Yeah. I came into this four years ago having only played Fantasy Flight’s Edge of the Empire before, and you know, just this much, just a teensy-teensy bit a taste of D&D, and that was it. So, over the course of the show I just got better at improvising and thinking about my consequences, especially since Blades is just a very consequence-heavy game.
I’m still not great about thinking about things mechanically, because that’s not where my interests lie, but I certainly feel as though I have just gotten a lot better with thinking on my feet and thinking in my character’s shoes and stuff like that.
Minna: I have to say I find it a lot harder to go back to games that aren’t Blades now.
[laughter]
Rhi: I’ve ruined you!
Minna: If I’m in any game where I have to choose my equipment ahead of time, I’m like… I would rather die.
[laughter]
Josie: Yeah.
Minna: Which is sad because I very much enjoy Edge of the Empire, but you do have a set equipment, like, set of equipment that you have. A weird thing that this game has especially helped me with is we’ve been trying to remember to help each other get the spotlight and support each other’s arcs, and it’s really interesting especially with Myra because she’s a very… ended up being a very supportive character, so it’s been fun playing that role more.
Rhi: Yeah. I can say from the GM perspective that, like… I don’t mean this as you all were terrible coming in, you all were really good roleplayers at the start, but you all just really improved as roleplayers and performers so much over the course of the show and it was just very cool to see.
In terms of GMing, I also kinda struggle a little bit with games that aren’t Blades now. [laughs] It’s really hard for me to do intensive prep for systems that are more GM-driven than player-driven, because I’m just like… You want me to… I have to make maps? And I have to plan out all these encounters? Okay, I guess…
Josie: Well, see. I say again, you could not and say you did, and then everything you do looks intentional but you’re really just making shit up.
Rhi: [laughs] I do a fair amount of that. I think that’s kind of what has evolved the most for me over the years is that I have gotten a lot better at improvising as a GM. It was something I really struggled with when I started trying to run games. It was something I struggled with to the point that I just kinda gave up trying to run games for a few years.
Josie: Aw.
Rhi: To be fair, you know, I was a baby DM for Dungeons & Dragons which is a very, uh… there’s a heavy workload put on the DM in D&D. You have to do a lot of stuff. I also didn’t have those skills of improv, so if my players went off the path that I had planned I was just like [nervous stammering] I don’t know what to do now.
Josie: Mm-hmm.
Rhi: But yeah, now I’m just kinda like… I don’t really make solid plans, I’m just kinda like yeah, you’ll all probably end up over here… maybe. I’ll wing it.
[laughter]
Rhi: But yeah, it’s definitely been interesting thinking back where I was four years ago in terms of GMing. I feel much more confident in it now for sure.
Josie: And now you’re running games off maybe a paragraph of notes.
Rhi: [deep breath] Yeah.
Josie: [laughs]
Rhi: I could. If I were so inclined—like, I wouldn’t do this for a podcast recording, because I need more. For a podcast we have a narrative we’re trying to tell, so I do a little more planning there, but for a Blades game with players that I knew, I could run a game with zero prep at this point. I can say that with confidence.
Kim: Wow.
Rhi: I could walk into a Blades game and be like “all right, what do you wanna do?” Maybe we’ll do that for the podcast someday… just for the chaos of it.
Kim: That would actually be pretty fun.
Rhi: The next question we have is from The Crumpit who asks—
Josie: Hi Crumpit.
Kim: What’s up, Crumpit?
Rhi: [laughs] Why did you decide to have the story go along the vigilante take down the bad guys route rather than continue climbing the underworld ladder?
Kim: We were really bad thieves.
Josie: Yeah, we were really bad at it.
Rhi: [laughs]
Josie: It seemed like none of us were really playing assholes.
Rhi: Yeah.
Josie: Like, we ended up making characters with very strong senses of justice, so it just eventually kind of stopped making sense that we were in it for our own personal gain. I don’t know about y’all, but we were fresh into the big orange Cheeto, so like, you know…
Rhi: Yeah…
Josie: Stuff like that was on the brain.
Rhi: Yeah.
Minna: Here’s the thing. I didn’t even make Myra as somebody who sought justice, but then she was with this crew and I guess Myra got radicalized at some point along the way. [laughs]
Josie: Uh-huh.
Rhi: Yeah. I know Phin had a huge impact on the crew going that direction in Season 1.
Minna: Mm-hmm.
Josie: Yeah, because Minx wasn’t quite radicalized either. Eh, I don’t know, second episode I did kill a person who was mean to a girl, so never mind I guess.
Rhi: Yeah. [laughs] It didn’t take much.
Minna: Yeah. Minx was doing a great vigilante thing. Phin was doing a separate vigilante thing. Myra credits Phin with her vigilante turn. I think the crucial thing is that when we turned to the vigilante playbook we were just using the mechanics to define something that was already there.
Kim: Yeah. I know when I was first coming up with the character concept for Blaire I also did not come at it intentionally with a social justice slant, but with her background with the work that she does with ghosts and how much compassion she has for the dead, and Blaire just in general having a really big heart, I feel like that just lends itself to activism. It was a natural path in hindsight, but it was something I was not aware of when I first started.
Rhi: Yeah. That’s what I was thinking with Blaire. When you were like “yeah, I didn’t build her with a social justice bend” I’m like what are you talking about. She’s out here fighting fucking—Because in some ways ghosts are not a good one-to-one for any marginalized group, because a lot of ghosts are in fact very dangerous, so I don’t want to draw that comparison.
Kim: Right.
Rhi: But yeah, she had so much compassion, for sure. And yeah, so many of the characters had kind of lived through the oppression and marginalization that… yeah. I did not have really much of a plan to steer them that way. It just kinda happened. Yeah, like Minna said, when we switched to vigilantes it wasn’t a change in the narrative at all, it was just updating the mechanics to reflect what was happening in the story.
Josie: Mm-hmm.
Rhi: All right. So, our next question is—I combined these two. They’re from two different people but they kind of thematically fit together. Kevin Brown asks: Which was your favorite villain to fight? And then Dey Dey asked, for me: Which antagonist did you most enjoy playing?
Josie: People might take it for granite that my favorite villain to fight was Lord Mora. That was a really rocky battle, and…
Minna: [groans]
Rhi: [under her breath] Oh no… here’s where we’re going.
Josie: I had to be stone-cold through the whole thing.
Rhi: [exasperated] Yeah, okay…
Josie: But no, for me it was the Tesslyn stuff, because that was so overwrought and dramatic and was a big turning point.
Rhi: Yeah.
Josie: And Rhi did a really good job at just tearing my heart out and stomping it into pieces afterward. [laughs] So I enjoyed that part.
Rhi: You’re welcome?
Josie: [laughs]
Kim: I think for me… My answer is actually two-fold. Narratively, I think my favorite fight has to go to the Setarra showdown because that was just so fucking fun to do and we planned it for ages. Couldn’t have been happier with how that ended up. But mechanically speaking, and eh, this is kind of a technicality because it wasn’t necessarily a fight, but something that was a confrontation was at the end of Season 3 with the interdimensional being.
Rhi: Ooh, yeah.
Kim: How Rhi resolved how trippy that was. I really enjoyed that.
Minna: Yeah, I really liked that as well. In terms of specific villains, honestly, Lady Drake was really fun. [giggles]
Kim: Yeah…
Rhi: [wistful sigh] Who was my favorite to play…? I think for me it’s a toss-up between Lady Drake and Setarra.
Kim: Ah.
Rhi: Lady Drake just because she was just so smarmy and smug and arrogant, and that’s just kind of… For me, playing villains is like I’m setting up targets. I’m the person at the bowling alley setting up the pins. So I want to make it really fun for the players to knock them down.
Josie: [laughs]
Rhi: So just having somebody who was so confident that she was untouchable and so confident that she could manipulate the crew was fun because I knew she was going to get her comeuppance and it was… yeah. It was very fun to play her and very fun to watch her get taken down.
Then Setarra was… I don’t know if I wanna say “fun.” [laughs] But just kind of… I think having that unfold throughout Blaire’s arc and having that relationship deteriorate… The speech that she gave in the Season 3 finale, I’d had that written for years.
Josie: Aww, yay.
Rhi: Yeah. Having villains that have a long relationship with one of the main characters is always a really interesting and cool dynamic to play with.
Kim: Totally.
Rhi: The next question is again from Kevin Brown, and the question is: The statue Kevin comes to life and writes a tell-all book, ‘Stories from The magpies’ Nest.’
Josie: [giggles]
Kim: Oh God…
Rhi: What funny story does he tell about each of the characters, as a group or individuals?
Kim: Holy cow.
[laughter]
Rhi: What things has Kevin seen?
Kim: What hasn’t he seen?
Josie (as Minx): Well, one does not develop such a perfect sense of fashion like me without a bit of practice.
Josie: So, I think Kevin writes about all the ridiculous outfits Minx has gone through, like the ones that just weren’t suitable.
Rhi: [laughs]
Minna: Okay, but how many times has Minx done a little mini fashion show in the living room of the Nest?
Josie: Oh, all the time. If they’ll let her, she’ll do it.
Minna: This is me and my friends every time we get new clothes.
[laughter]
Minna: I feel like Hex has stolen at least one thing that we really wanted back that he really didn’t want to give back.
Kim: Yep.
Rhi: Yeah…
Kim: Probably snatched some food.
Minna: This is drawn from life of the scariest the cat has ever been is when he stole a steak and did not want to give it back.
Rhi: [laughs loudly]
Kim: Oh my God, the noises.
Minna: He was half the size he is now. He made terrible, terrible noises at us.
Josie: [laughs] What if he stole Eyeball Friend one time?
Rhi: [delighted] Oh no.
Kim: [smiling] God…
Minna: Batting it around the house!
Kim: Yes! Like a little hamster ball.
Rhi: [shouting] “That’s not a toy!” Just rolling around. I love that, mostly because I just…
Kim: You can hear it, like the glass rolling along the floorboards.
Rhi: Mm-hmm. Ends up under a couch. This ancient powerful relic used as a cat toy. I love that. That makes me really happy. Get dunked on, Kotar.
[laughter]
Kim: I think Kevin has seen lots of glowing lights and maybe some faint screeching noises peeking out through the cracks in the doorframe of Blaire’s room, but that is all he knows. Because he knows and respects the nobody in Blaire’s room rule.
[chuckling]
Rhi: Yeah. So, our next question is from Professor Screamwick. How mad is Setarra going to be when she eventually breaks free and discovers the three-to-four hundred years’ worth of graffiti mustaches that have been drawn on her face?
Minna: Not my problem.
Rhi: [laughs]
Kim: That was not going to be included in my fan fiction, but now it will be. Thank you.
[laughter]
Rhi: Honestly, I think she’s gonna have other things to be mad about in three-to-four hundred years. I do feel, though, that there’s a non-zero possibility that Scurlock has her moved into, like, not his Duskwall estate but his secret hideout out in the Deathlands and just uses her as a coatrack.
Kim: Ha!
Josie: They’re gonna fucking kill each other.
Kim: That’s actually really excellent.
Rhi: Uh-huh. Yeah. But Scurlock figures he’s got a few centuries to plan on how to deal with her before she breaks out, so he can use her as a coatrack in the meantime.
Kim: That’s so good.
Rhi: Alice Kyra asks:
Players: Hi Alice!
Rhi: Yes, a friend of the show, long-time listener, has sent in three questions. The first question is: What’s an area of Duskwall you would have liked to spend more time exploring?
Kim: Ooh…
Minna: The Lost District.
Rhi: Hmm.
Kim: Yeah.
Josie: Ooh, yeah.
Kim: We could have done some cool world building with that.
Minna: Mm-hmm. But we did have a very good episode there.
Rhi: Yes. You did burn some stuff down.
Minna: We also met a harvester.
Rhi: Yeah…
Josie: Mm-hmm. We set it on fire.
Minna: And I think I had to X-card my one and only time in Magpies. [laughs]
Rhi: You set it on fire and that didn’t help.
Josie: Clearly I wasn’t using enough fire.
[laughter]
Minna: Okay Myra.
[laughter]
Josie: I don’t know. I kinda wanted to… Weirdly, our side of the city. We spent a lot of time in Nightmarket which is kind of over there, and then Charhollow and The Docks, but we didn’t spend a whole lot of time in Six Towers or other parts of the city.
Rhi: Yeah. [laughs]
Minna: Mm-hmm.
Josie: Yeah. We specifically chose Six Towers for The Nest because people wouldn’t expect us to be all the way over there.
Rhi: Yeah.
Kim: I think Whitecrown would have also been cool, but for story purposes I understand why we never went there.
Rhi: You went there a couple times. The episodes where you broke into the Archive of Echoes was up in Whitecrown.
Kim: Oh yeah.
Rhi: But I think that might have been the only time you went up there.
Kim: Yeah.
Rhi: I’ll say, for me, one that I would have loved to spend more time in was Tangletown.
Minna: Oh, yeah!
Rhi: I think you went there once. It’s a little area in Crow’s Foot that is this shanty town built on the wreckage of a half-sunken leviathan hunter. What makes it interesting is that it is explicitly neutral territory for all the gangs in the city. Gang violence is not tolerated there. It’s just… I don’t know, it’s a real interesting concept and I think we only went there once and I wish that we’d had more reason to visit.
Kim: Yeah. That sounds really cool. I have no memory of that.
Rhi: It was… You went there in the episode where you were investigating who was trying to assassinate Bazso.
Kim: Oh.
Rhi: You met up with somebody in Tangletown.
Josie: Mm-hmm.
Rhi: Next question from Alice is: Did you make some changes to the rules of Blades while you were making the show or did you stick more or less rules as written? Oh boy… [laughs] I can say that from the GM’s side, yeah, I more or less completely abandoned the entanglement rolls as part of downtime, because I didn’t need them. After the first two episodes the crew was generating enough problems on their own without me needing to help it along.
Minna: [giggles]
Rhi: I also… A lot of it was rules that I just kinda dropped, that I didn’t feel like they were working for us. I barely used the faction system in terms of the, you know, +3 means they do this for you… I kept track of the crew’s relationship with different factions and what the factions would do for them, but I didn’t really use the number tracking.
There’s one other thing that I… Oh! The war mechanics. We used them for part of Season 2…
Josie: Yeah.
Kim: We did?
Rhi: And I didn’t like it. I don’t think anybody liked it.
Josie: No.
Rhi: Because effectively you all were at war with the Circle of Flame the entire run of the show.
Kim: Right.
Minna: But the actual war mechanics were deeply unpleasant. [laughs]
Rhi: Yeah. I get… I think that if we had been running a different type of game, the war mechanics would have worked better. I think the war mechanics are meant more for if you all had been fighting the Lampblacks. [laughs]
Josie: Uh-huh.
Minna: I think they’re also more for if you have a temporary war instead of a four-year vendetta.
Rhi: Yeah. Also, there’s also kind of an assumption, because vigilantes are not part of the core rules. All of the core gangs or crew types rather can have gangs. So like, part of what’s assumed that’s happening if you’re in a war is you’re sending your street toughs out to fight with their street toughs and they’re brawling in the street. But you all were just the three of you at that point.
I know it’s on record that there are several points where people were like “can we do this by the rules” and I was like I don’t know but it sounds cool so let’s do it, which… my opinion is that the rules should be always in service of the story and if the rules are getting in the way of it, change the rules.
Josie: Although we are hoping to flex some of the rules coming up. Some of the rules we didn’t use.
Rhi: Yes. Yeah, I have… Yeah, there’s a few systems that didn’t get touched on in Magpies that we’re hoping to dig into a little bit with Bluejay.
The last question that Alice has which I think is probably the most important one that could be asked: How’s Kay doing?
Kim: Probably good.
Rhi: Yeah. Kay is doing great. Kay is continuing to live her best life. In an alternate reality where I get comical amounts of money, after I use that money to fix the world’s ills, some of the leftover would go towards a comic book series or a graphic novel of Kay’s adventures as a Hound with Shrimp as her hunting pet.
Josie: Oh yay. [giggles]
Rhi: And just having, you know, a good weird time in Duskwall, continuing to be tall and hot and tattooed.
Josie: Mm-hmm… hmm.
Rhi: [laughs]
Josie: Kay is one of those NPCs where I don’t think it’s possible to dislike her in any way.
Kim: Yeah.
Rhi: Yeah, Kay’s the best. We were talking about this earlier. We’ve heard from some fans that Kay seems to be our most swiped NPC in that Kay keeps showing up in other people’s Blades in the Dark games, which I love. [smiling] That’s wonderful. Please feel free to take her and Shrimp and drop her into your version of the Gondoliers as well. Yeah, she’s just great.
All right. So, the next question is from… Oh, screen names, the bane of my existence. Arcaian?
Minna: Yeah, I would say Arcaian.
Rhi: Arcaian. Okay. Again, I apologize if I pronounce that wrong. Asks: Across the entire show, what single moment did your characters most regret or wish had gone differently? Is that the same as a moment for you as a player?
Kim: Things that we regret?
Minna: I have an answer.
Rhi: Something that your… Yeah, something that your character regrets, and is that character regret different than a player regret.
Kim: Hmm.
Josie: I mean, Minx most regrets the Tesslyn murder, or rather Nyryx witnessing it, because that was pretty traumatic. Me as a player, I don’t regret that at all.
Rhi: [laughs] We planned that shit.
Josie: Me as a player, I can’t really think of a specific instance, but it’s just all the times where I could have gone harder into a bit or description or something like that and then didn’t. That’s usually a regret I have sometimes. Oh, I missed this perfect opportunity to say something or go further into this or something like that.
Rhi: Yeah.
Minna: For Myra, I think her regret is pushing Ojal off that cart.
Rhi: Oof…
Minna: And leaving her for dead. Because that did not… It wasn’t a good thing in the moment and it really wasn’t a good thing afterwards, and the way it ended was fairly awful also. Like, Ojal got peace, but… you know, after literally having her spirit enslaved to Salia.
Rhi: Yeah.
Minna: Also because she was probably the closest thing Myra could have considered to a friend for a while before Jeren.
Others: [sympathetic sounds]
Minna: They weren’t friends, but Ojal was not as awful as the others.
Josie: Aw.
Minna: I don’t know that I necessarily regret that as a player. I think it made for a really interesting story and it really intensified how awful Salia is, which I think was great, and also just having the Terminator come after you is really fun as a narrative thing.
Rhi: Yeah.
Minna: So I think we did good things with it, but boy, that was a decision that got made in a split second that really had some consequences.
Rhi: Yeah.
Minna: For me as a player, I think what I regret the most is there’s definitely sessions listening back that I can hear that I was in the middle of combat or something and my brain just switched off, which happens for me a lot in combat especially. You know, like… How many guys are up? Who needs help? And I’m like I could have been more engaged there. [laughs]
Rhi: It happens.
Minna: Yeah.
Kim: I think for me something that Blaire regrets the most was during her recovering ghosts long-term project when she destroyed that work in progress spirit that she was working on.
Rhi: Ah.
Kim: That was really hard on her. For me as a player, one thing that I wish I had done differently is that I think I could have built up the reveal of the ability on her sheet, the… oh God, I forget what it’s called, but the one where you can shoot lightning out of your hands.
Josie: Tempest? Yeah.
Rhi: Yeah.
Kim: Yeah. I wish I had foreshadowed that a little bit better instead of just dropping it right in the middle of the episode out of nowhere, which kind of was my plan from the beginning, but I wish narratively maybe the episode before in a downtime scene I could have set that up so that people had some hint that it was coming. Instead of having it come out of nowhere and also having so little time left in the show to actually use that ability.
Rhi: Hmm. Yeah. I know that every time I edit an episode I’m always like “ugh, I should have picked a different consequence” or I should have done this or that. I am my own worst Monday morning quarterback. But you know, by that point it’s recorded and done. I think the thing is, yeah, we’re all our worst critics in that sense and a lot of the stuff that we’re like “ugh, we could have done that better,” yeah, it probably could have been better sometimes, but nobody’s ever gonna know. What we put out is what’s out, and folks seem to like it, turns out.
All right. Next question is from Kyle Latino who asks: What would have happened to Duskwall if the Magpies didn’t exist?
Kim: Oof.
Josie: Hmm.
Minna: I think other people would have done things. We have the unions going. We have other people who are trying to build the best. I think they made a big change, but I think that other people would have emerged who also did these things. I mean, they’re always finding allies in it as well.
Josie: Mm-hmm. Although, would the Circle still exist and would they have been stopped from getting the Relics of Kotar?
Rhi: Yeah…
Minna: That’s true.
Josie: What were they really gonna do with them, Rhi, if they got them?
Rhi: Well… so here’s—I mean, like… They kind of knew what they did individually. They knew that if you got them all together it would give them a lot of power. I don’t know, have I told you what would have happened if you all hadn’t interrupted that ritual?
Minna: No?
Kim: I think so.
Josie: No.
Rhi: Okay. So, it would have been very bad if you had let that ritual continue forward, or in this hypothetical question if the Circle had gotten their hands on it, because what would have happened is that it would have summoned Kotar back from whatever crack in the afterlife he had found his way into as a spirit and he would have immediately possessed somebody nearby at full pre-Cataclysmic sorcerer strength and then just gone on to wreak bloody havoc on the city.
Josie: Geez.
Rhi: So… [laughs] That’s why I telegraphed very loudly to all of you, you need to stop this.
Kim: Yeah.
Rhi: But yeah, if the Circle had gotten all of them, probably…
Josie: Same thing?
Rhi: Yeah, same thing. But I’m thinking about it now. Well, you know, several of the Circle members probably would have gotten killed in the initial ritual, but they also had a demon there, so it would have been a mess. It would have been very bad. A lot of people would have died.
Kim: I think if the Magpies haven’t done what they did, the clinic would still be running business as usual.
Rhi: Mm-hmm.
Kim: The Docks would still be running business as usual… Yeah, those are the first two things that come to my mind.
Rhi: Yeah. Those are the things that came to mind for me too with this question. I think Minna’s right. There’s lots of other people that are fighting for a better Duskwall, but there are specific personal connections that the Magpies have that, because of those specific connections, those changes wouldn’t have happened without the Magpies. So like the clinic, the dock ward free zone, The Red Lamp being turned into an employee-owned operation. There’s specific things in the city that made huge differences that I don’t think would have happened without the Magpies. I’m proud of you all. You did good.
Minna: [pleased hum]
Josie: Yeah~
Kim: Woo.
Rhi: [laughs] All right. Our next group of questions are from Dey Dey. The first one is: What is your favorite thing that another player, Rhi included, has done? This is really hard.
Minna: How do you choose?
Josie: Picking one thing?
Rhi: Yeah. Let’s say what is a cool thing. [laughs]
Josie: Okay. I’m gonna say a cool thing was Minna coming up with Myra’s whole arc, because I had no idea about Salia until later or the stuff with Myra’s mom and stuff like that, and I just thought Myra’s arc was really powerful and good. I enjoyed it a lot. And Kim, for giving us… Kim for immediately seeing one of the fundamental premises of the setting and being like “my character is against that. I’m a ghost rights activist.” And I’m like, yes!
Kim: [giggles]
Josie: My secret favorite thing is—not to keep bagging on Kim, but…
Kim: Oh no.
Josie: Remember the Whitehall episode where Rhi goes “and handlebar mustache” and you’re like [weakly] no!
[explosive laughter]
Josie: That noise you made and that silence we had afterward.
Minna: [fighting through giggles] I think Kim just left.
Josie: [smiling] I’m sorry, Kim.
Kim: [chuckles] No, I try not to.
Josie: We can cut this out if you want. It’s just… I don’t know, it was such a good moment, and that was an adorable sound.
Kim: Listen. I know Rhi didn’t even walk into that intentionally. I just have an unfortunate thing… and she said a descriptor, and my brain made a false equivalence.
Rhi: [laughs]
Josie: To be fair, they made a younger hotter version of Colonel Sanders, so that’s not too off-the-wall now.
Kim: They did. They did.
Minna: Kim, have you seen that movie?
Kim: What movie?
Minna: isn’t there like a Lifetime movie?
Rhi: It’s a video game.
Minna: Oh, it’s a video game?
Rhi: It’s a dating sim.
Minna: What was the movie…? There was like a Lifetime—Anyway. We’ll come back to that some other time.
Kim: Oh Christ. Okay.
Josie: That sound was adorable and it was just sort of like, we’re good friends.
Kim: [laughs] We are.
Rhi: [drained] Oh God, there was a movie.
Minna: Yes! [giggles] Thank you.
Kim: There was a movie?
Minna: I knew I wasn’t imagining it.
Rhi: A Recipe for Seduction.
Kim: Oh my God, there was.
Josie: Oh.
Rhi: It was a Lifetime film.
Kim: What is KFC marketing on?
Rhi: I’m not clicking on any of these links. I just googled it.
Josie: Okay…
Rhi: Okay. We have to move on.
Josie: Uh-huh.
Rhi: [laughs] For the sake of our sanity and this episode.
Minna: Yes. Anyway. Ooh, favorite things.
Kim: Oh, we’re still answering a question, aren’t we?
Josie: Yes.
Rhi: Oh yeah, yeah-yeah-yeah. We’re saying nice things about each other.
Kim: We sure are. It’s like Thanksgiving dinner. I think one thing I loved about Minx was her relationship with Nyryx.
Josie: Aww.
Rhi: Yes.
Kim: Every single scene was just so adorable, so sweet.
Minna: Mm-hmm~
Rhi: That’s one of my favorites, too. Yeah.
Kim: And such a good core of Minx’s character, especially something that fuels her retirement, too, and wanting a better life. It was just [kiss sound], so good. Chef’s kiss.
One thing, also tangentially, I think Myra’s relationship with Phin and how just ironclad that was, short-lived as it was, it was still just really foundational not only to Myra but to the magpies as a group as a whole. It was just super cool.
Minna: That one kind of emerged later. We didn’t plan that before the show started. Madge and I talked after the show started and decided that was how it was.
Kim: Yeah.
Minna: Man, the time when I didn’t realize I could talk to y’all out of character about character arcs. [thoughtful hum]
[laughter]
Minna: Gosh, I can’t even… Trying to figure out where to start, and I wanted to start with Rhi because I feel like we haven’t—I do love how Rhi has taken… like, we all came up with backstory characters and brought them in, and I love how Rhi beautifully embodied all of them so they really came to life.
Josie: Mm-hmm.
Kim: Yeah.
Rhi: Aww.
Minna: I don’t know what you guys told her about yours, but like, I don’t know how but every single backstory character I gave Rhi she played perfectly. [laughs] Like exactly how they were in my head, and I don’t even think I gave her that much.
Rhi: [laughs]
Minna: Like Jeren, all of the apprentices, Salia… it was great.
Josie: Here’s the thing. I gave Rhi basically nothing to start with, which is atypical for me.
Minna: Mm-hmm.
Josie: Usually I make a lot of longwinded edgy backstories and stuff, but Minx started out very, very simple because she was originally made for a one-shot. I had, okay, here’s my positive contact and here’s my negative contact, and we were childhood friends, and I want to get rich now. Go.
Minna: [smiling] Oh my God, and they were so good.
Josie: And then shit just kind of developed from there. Uh-huh!
Minna: I just want to call out how beautifully layered everything between Nyryx and Minx and Bazso is. It’s just… I love it, so much.
Josie: Mm-hmm. Rhi really brought that shit to life.
Minna: Yeah.
Rhi: Aww.
Minna: So that’s Rhi. For Josie, I just… I adore how extra Minx is but also that you kind of slowly got to see her unfold the softer core of her.
Kim: Yeah.
Josie: Aw, thank you.
Minna: And I just love… Blaire is so… She just, she always has such a strong point of view. You know exactly what she’s gonna want out of a situation, and it’s great. Secret favorite, though. [giggles] That one time that Blaire just tried to play it off that Minx and Myra were her moms and we just rolled with it.
[laughter]
Josie: yeah!
Kim: Oh yeah~
Minna: I still think about that!
Rhi: Looking for your lost dog.
Josie: Sometimes a family is…
Rhi: That was just… I had to cut so much of my hysterical laughter for there, because Kim just going “let go of my moms!” and we all just lost our shit!
I think my favorite—a lot of you have already touched on things that were some favorites, but I think my favorite moments as a GM were when I wasn’t doing anything, when two of you or all three of you were just having these really awesome, emotional, deep, in-character conversations about your relationships and the things that you were doing and the things that were happening.
I would just sit back and listen, and the fact that you were so connected to your own characters but also just had such a solid understanding of their relationships to each other that you could play those out was so cool. Those are some of my favorite scenes to listen to, when you all just dug real deep and had the characters just talk.
Minna: Mm-hmm. All the times we cried on mic.
Kim: Oh yeah.
Rhi: Pretty much. [laughs] That’s the nice thing for me is that I can just mute myself and nobody can hear me.
The next question: Which character’s development, PC or NPC, surprised you the most? I think we kinda talked about this a little bit in the last one.
Josie: Honestly, I think it was kind of… No, it was Rigney.
Minna: [agreeing hum]
Kim: Rigney surprised you?
Josie: Not just because of the surprise betrayal, but just because we knew very little about him starting out aside from what kind of person he was.
Rhi: Yeah.
Josie: So just where he ended up was all very surprising to me.
Rhi: Yeah.
Minna: Kind of Bazso, also.
Rhi: Bazso is mine too. Yeah.
Kim: I was—Yeah…
Josie: Mm-hmm.
Minna: I think for me the answer is all the ones who kind of came round. Jeren a bit as well. The people who came around to kind of being on our side, like actually, and it was like you never expected those people to be there.
Rhi: Bazso is still confused about how he ended up where he is.
Josie: [laughs]
Minna: Confused. Frustrated.
Rhi: He’s just a permanent grump and I love him.
Kim: I think in a sense Kay also is a befitting answer just by the sheer factor of we were not expecting her to not only stick around but become such a favorite of both us as performers and as a group and also just of the show. She became such a staple when, you know, in the very early episodes where Rhi just made her up on the spot and we all just… We all went “hot buff lady, awooga,” and now she’s here.
Minna: [laughs]
Rhi: yeah, basically. Literally, I put this—and literally, she was just supposed to be there to give you one piece of exposition information, like just some random Gondolier, and I put a little flavor on her of tall buff tattooed lady, and you were all like we love her, with all of our hearts. Then the next time you went to go talk to the Gondoliers, like “is the tall buff lady there?” and I was like yes she is, and I’ve given her a name.
[laughter]
Rhi: And now she’s here forever. Which I’m super glad about, because I love Kay and I’m very glad you all latched onto her. Yeah, I think for me, Bazso is probably my biggest surprise. I did not… I expected him to stay pretty firmly in the antagonist camp, so the fact that Minx, and Myra, really, went to the effort of befriending him and winning him back over after… You all fucked with Bazso a lot in the early seasons.
[laughter]
Minna: Mm-hmm!
Josie: Uh-huh.
Kim: We sure did.
Minna: Even as late as that time we hid the fake Hand.
Rhi: Yeah! Yeah, you all, like… You instigated a war between his gang and the Circle of Flame. You stumbled across his secret forgotten god rituals. Yeah, it was like… [laughs]
Josie: I have kind of retroactively justified Minx’s decisions there as she’s always thought of Bazso as the more competent one and doesn’t think he can actually suffer bad consequences.
Minna: If he’s got a whole ass gang.
Josie: Uh-huh.
Rhi: Yeah. I remember you talking about that a little bit in the episode where he was like “somebody’s trying to fucking kill me and I don’t know who and I need your help,” where Minx was just like, oh… shit. You’re not untouchable. Oh no.
Josie: [laughs] But also, yeah, I was really surprised everyone else latched onto Bazso and brought him around, because I was expecting the arc to be like we sort of mend a bit but then just kind of agree to not be in each other’s lives, but I guess that’s not true.
Rhi: Yeah. Yeah no. He helped you and Nyryx move in. He carried a mattress for you.
Josie: Yeah.
Minna: Uh-huh!
Rhi: That is a deep amount of devotion. [laughs]
Minna: He watched you flex for Nyryx quite a lot.
Rhi: Mm-hmm.
Minna: Also, I don’t think you should be surprised that I latched onto Bazso because he is unfortunately Minna bait. I made Myra off a similar template because I am very into that kind of character.
[giggling]
Rhi: Ah, my cranky gay son.
Minna: [laugh-sobs]
Josie: Mm-hmm.
Rhi: Someday in the future he’s gonna show up at Minx and Nyryx’s place in just an abject panic, and once they calm him down enough to talk he’s gonna be like [terrified] “someone asked me out on a date.”
Kim: Ah!
Rhi: “And I like him? And I don’t know what to do!”
Josie (as Minx): Well dear, what you say then is yes.
Rhi (as Bazso): What do I say if my response was to just run out of the room?
Josie: [laughs]
Rhi: Nyryx just goes to get a bottle of alcohol.
Minna: [smiling] You’re a big bad gang leader, Bazso.
Rhi: [smiling] Yes he is, and he is also a gay disaster.
Minna: We love him.
Kim: As he should be.
Rhi: Mm-hmm. So the next question from Dey Dey is: What part of the Blades in the Dark setting is the coolest?
Kim: The Deathlands.
Rhi: [giggles]
Josie: I think for me it’s leviathans. I just love oceany shit and big tentacled Lovecraftian monsters are wife material, so you know.
Rhi: [laughs]
Kim: Bonk.
[laughter]
Minna: [smiling] The Cataclysm.
Kim: Yeah~
Minna: All the weird cosmic, like… the fucking stars move! I’ve had that nightmare. Like, we’ve observed recently, I’ve had that literal nightmare.
Josie: Oh no.
Minna: Just like, how weird and broken the world is, I enjoy that.
Rhi: I like the fact that the moon doesn’t work right.
Kim: There’s some shit going on with the moon.
Rhi: There’s weird shit happening with the moon and I like that.
Minna: Something’s wrong with the moon. Something’s wrong with everything.
Josie: Moon’s haunted.
Kim: Moon is haunted.
Rhi: [laughs] Moon is haunted. Well, moon is haunted. Moon is on the other side of a vast crystalline dome that surrounds the world. Who knows?! Who’s to say?
Minna: That is still my favorite theory about this.
Rhi: Moon is getting closer every year.
Kim: Yeah.
Rhi: That’s another thing that’s happening with the moon.
Minna: What? I forgot about that.
Rhi: I like that the moon is weird. Yeah. Yeah. You all… Secretly Blades in the Dark is also the Majora’s Mask universe just very, very slow.
[laughter]
Minna: I don’t think the moon is a moon. I don’t think the moon is the moon.
Rhi: Oh yeah, you pitched this theory. You pitched this theory. I remember.
Minna: I literally have a weird note somewhere that’s just “is the moon a moon?” [laughs]
Kim: It’s a space station.
[laughter]
Minna: How dare you. [grinning] But maybe? Or like, something weird that’s approaching that’s not a moon. [whispering] It’s fine. Don’t think about it.
Rhi: Yeah, don’t worry about it. Our last question from Dey Dey is: What is one thing that you’d hoped to achieve during the magpies campaign, either with the characters or the show, that you weren’t able to achieve but you’re hoping to in the next campaign?
Josie: I don’t…
Rhi: I have an answer for this one.
Minna: Ooh.
Josie: Okay. Yeah.
Kim: I have an answer too, and I think it’s the same answer as you.
Rhi: My answer is… As I have mentioned, probably at nauseam at this point, I love Leverage with all my little heart.
Minna: [whispering] Rashoman job! Rashoman job!
Rhi: Well no, it’s not… I mean, kind of that, but really more it’s y’all need a Sterling.
Minna: Oh! Yes.
Rhi: You need a rival, and this is happening next series. I have plans. I want to give the crew a dedicated rival who neither of you can ever really stop the other. You interfere with each other’s plans but never to a point where you destroy each other, and at least one of you has some sexual tension with them. They’re hot, they’re gonna have a dark backstory, and at some point at least once you will be forced to work together against a greater threat.
Josie: Yes.
Rhi: It’s happening. I love that particular rival character trope. We just didn’t have one in Magpies, but we’re doing it next time.j2 Such a good beat.
Rhi: Because I am going to force that character into the narrative.
Josie: Yes.
Rhi: So that’s me.
Josie: I don’t know…
Kim: I know. I feel like, me personally, I achieved narratively what I wanted out of Blades with my character, so the things that I’m aiming to do with Bluejay are also things that I want to do but I don’t think would have served magpies, if that makes sense.
Rhi: Yeah.
Kim: I think it’s more tailored to the setting.
Josie: Mm-hmm.
Rhi: Yeah, you’re doing different… You achieved all that you wanted to with Blaire.
Kim: Yeah.
Rhi: And… yeah.
Josie: I guess in the future I just want some amount of more scheming and to actually let myself not be a big plan-maker. Because I feel like we all contributed a lot and I spoke up a lot during making plans and stuff like that, but like… I think in the future I definitely don’t want to be a leader or like the main planner. I definitely want to be a little bit of a follower next time. Minx was not that. Minx was very much not that.
Rhi: Yeah. [laughs]
Kim: That makes perfect sense.
Rhi: Yeah! Yeah.
Minna: I want a vice that causes me problems. I really didn’t lean into that with Myra. Myra’s too… She keeps her vice too compartmentalized.
Rhi: [smiling] We have been having some conversations in that direction already, and I promise, Minna, it’ll cause problems.
Minna: [smiling] Yes~
Kim: Get her a trauma.
Minna: As an aside, that’s an obligation? I don’t know what that is. You know… we’ll figure it out.
Rhi: Yeah, we’ll figure it out. Our next question is from Violet Wren who asks: What is the biggest lesson you learned about creating an RPG podcast that is informing Project Bluejay?
Josie: For me it’s okay to not be in the spotlight for a long time.
Rhi: Mm-hmm.
Josie: Because you kinda just gotta flow with what works and let people play out what they need to. I know I can kind of force my way into things sometimes, but I think I’m slowly learning to be like… you know what, I don’t care if this scene between two other people is long, I’m just gonna sit it out and let them play it.
Rhi: Yeah.
Kim: I think for me, and this is more of a performance thing, is I’m trying to make a more conscious effort to speak more slowly. Because there have been times where I’m listening to an episode and I notice that I’m speaking really fast, and I can understand what I’m saying, but I hear that and it’s just like whoa, slow down. People need to, like… you know, yes we have transcriptionists, but people need to be able to understand what the fuck I’m actually saying.
I know sometimes I just get into it and forget, but yeah, I’m just gonna try to make my voice more radio friendly.
Josie: Excellent.
Kim: Yeah.
Rhi: Yeah.
Minna: I think just how much you really… you gotta be a fan of every character in the show, I think, to help. It’s not just one narrative. It’s helping push all of each other’s arcs and be fans of each other’s arcs.
Kim: Yeah.
Josie: Mm-hmm.
Rhi: Yeah. I think a lot of… Some of my stuff is a little more logistical. [laughs] Sort of figuring out scheduling and world building and making sure people have a chance to play around with character stuff. But you know, some stuff that… There are some more specific things I would say that are, you know, they’re not lessons that I would necessarily apply to “all” RPG podcasts. I definitely have some of those lessons, but for this one it’s more like…
One thing, I’ll share this. Josie kind of teased it a little bit earlier. One thing that I really want to do is lean into the turf mechanic more, because every crew in Blades starts off with turf, which is a very small area, like a few blocks, that is supposed to be where they initially start working. We didn’t really do that. From talking to other people who play and run Blades, that tends to be a mechanic that isn’t used very much.
One thing that I’m aiming to do with Bluejay is, like, we’re gonna figure out the crew’s turf and just really dig into that neighborhood and focus into that area a lot. I also want to—kind of also going off of something that Minna said—I want to lean into vices a little more, have the vice purveyors be bigger players in the characters’ lives, people who can cause more problems. You know, just some different approaches.
I also have a much clearer idea of what mechanics in Blades I want to use and which ones I’m just gonna ignore. [laughs] I’m not gonna bother with the war mechanic at all. I know that I’m probably not gonna use the factions mechanic.
When we actually get to building out the crew sheet there are some points where you’re supposed to set up relationships with different factions and it’s probably gonna be more like who do you have a positive relationship with, who do you have a negative relationship with, and it’ll be less of the +1, you know, +1, -1 numbers thing.
I guess I could sum that up as, you know, again, kind of identifying what mechanics work for the story that we’re telling and moving the rest out of the way.
The last question that we’ve got is from The Coffee Robot who asks: How far in the future is the setting of Project Bluejay going to be? Will we have cameos of the elder Magpies, Legend of Korra style?
Josie: [intrigued] Hmm!
Rhi: So, I think we’ve settled on it’s about 40 years in the future. I don’t think that in Bluejay itself we will have Magpies cameos. There might be little callbacks and references, but it’s very important to me that somebody who’s never listened to the magpies can come into Bluejay and not feel like they’re missing out. It’s not a sequel series.
That said, we have definitely talked about—and this is not a promise, this is not a guarantee, this is a thing we’ve talked about that we would like to do—but we have talked about at some point doing a one-shot where we go back to Duskwall and the Magpies, who would be in their 60s at that point, where they all have to get together for one last score in the 1920s version of Duskwall. I have no idea what that would look like, but I hope that we’re able to make it happen, because I think it’d be fun as hell.
Kim: Yeah.
Josie: Yes. We should get Madge back for that.
Rhi: Ooh, yeah.
Kim: That would be super fun.
Rhi: Just Minx in those fashions is just… [mouth click] so good.
Josie: Oh, she’s got a fur boa. Don’t even worry about it.
Kim: Yes~
Rhi: Oh yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
Josie: She has one of those fluffy jackets with a huge poofy collar and one of those really long cigarette holders.
Rhi: Yeah! Yeah-yeah, exactly.
Kim: You’re essentially describing Cruella de Vil, but I’m here for it.
Josie: Yes. Yes I am, but like…
Minna: Yes.
Josie: But less evil and more lesbian.
Minna: [laughs]
Kim: Yes.
Rhi: Yeah. But yes, so to answer that question, the Magpies are probably not gonna show up in Bluejay proper, but I think we’ll probably end up checking in on them at least once because… Oh! Okay. One other idea that we had talked about was that there’s a silent film made of the Magpies’ escapades and then the older Magpies are going to see it and are just heckling and critiquing everything that’s wrong. Throwing popcorn at the screen.
Josie: Excellent.
Kim: Do we have popcorn?
Rhi: That’s a good question.
Josie: We can have it now.
Minna: Oh, it’s probably not a cheap snack, though.
Rhi: Popped mushroom?
Kim: Oh, that sounds nasty.
Rhi: I know. It sounds bad. I don’t like it. I didn’t like it as soon as I said it. I don’t like mushrooms in general, though, so…
Minna: I feel like it’s fried eel strips or something, something that’s fairly plentiful.
Kim: Ooh.
Minna: Or maybe—Ooh, like seaweed strips.
Kim: Crunchy.
Rhi: Mm-hmm. But yeah, that is our…
Josie: We did it!
Rhi: …final question for this Q&A. Thank you to everybody who sent in questions. We got a lot of questions, so we had to do a little weeding to keep this at a manageable episode length. But thank you all for sending in questions, thank you all for listening, and uh… you know, keep an eye out on our Twitter, @Clever_Corvids, for news on when our new show will be starting.
Josie: We love you.
Minna: I know~
Kim: Thank you.
Rhi: Bye everybody.
Players: Bye~
## Blooper Reel [1:02:49]
Minna: There’s gonna be a fun surprise for you in the audio which is that I knocked over the microphone and probably made a horrible noise when I was getting back here.
Josie: Oh no.
Kim: I didn’t hear anything.
Rhi: [laughs] That’ll be a me problem and I will see the monster—
Minna: Well, it’ll be a really big obvious waveform.
Rhi: Yeah. I will see the monstrous waveform and just delete it before I have to experience it with my ears.
Minna: Yes. [laughs]
—
Josie: It is literal actual law that you do not talk to him until he has had coffee.
Rhi: Mm-hmm. Yeah. He’s beaten people to death who broke that rule.
Josie: [laughing] Geez.
Kim: To death?
Rhi: I mean, they got dumped outside and nobody really checked on them, so they might have been able to crawl away. He says he’s beaten people to death. It helps with the mystique.
Josie: [laughs]
Rhi: Bazso’s not a good person, y’all. I want to remind you.
Minna: He’s not. He’s not. He’s not a good person.
Josie: No.
Kim: None of us are.
Rhi: But the three of you are somewhat morally better. So anyway.
Kim: Are we?
Minna: [laughs]
Rhi: Yeah. Bazso would not have saved Six Towers from the horrible monster that he summoned. Bazso would have been like “ha, I seem to have fucked up. Time for me to leave the city. Goodbye.”
[laughter]
Rhi: “I have fucked up in a way I cannot recover from. Farewell.” Start over somewhere else.
—
Rhi: I will say, I think probably in talking to the Gondoliers they’re like “we can do a shortened version of the ritual. We’ll go fast.” [laughs]
Josie: Okay.
Kim: We’re gonna speed-run this ritual.
Minna: How long is a ritual speed-run?
Rhi: It’s probably still gonna be a couple hours. Normally it would be an all-night thing, but you know, they will try to go quickly.
Minna: And hope the Father of the Abyss—
Kim: Hey y’all, welcome to Forgotten Gods Done Quick.
[laughter]
Rhi: If you angle your gondola just right you can clip through the canal wall.
Kim: Yup.
Josie: Gotta build up your de facto speed.
Rhi: [laughs]
—
Minna: My terrible, terrible brain is telling me “Water is super effective against Ground-types” and that’s not how demons work.
Rhi: [laughs]
Kim: No, it’s not. It is remotely not.
Minna: [giggles]
Kim: It’s like Fighting and something—No, for Ground-types? It’s Grass and Bug I think are effective against Ground-types?
Minna: I don’t know. Whatever. I got mixed up with stone. [laughs] My brain is trying to use type effectiveness and type effectiveness doesn’t work on demons is my point.
Rhi: Yes. That is correct.
Kim: Oh! Actually, Water is super effective against Ground, so…
Minna: Oh hey, my time as a Water Trainer has benefitted me. But not in this game.
Rhi: [laughs] Nope. He is specifically a demon of earth and steel, are his… or not steel, metal. See, you’ve got me talking in Pokémon terms. Earth and metal.
Kim: Oh! So I should be looking at Steel-types instead is what you’re saying.
Rhi: Oh my God! We’re not playing Pokémon.
[laughter]
Rhi: I know that we all really like Pokémon! Focus up!
Kim: Fire, Fighting and Ground are effective against Steel.
Rhi: Kim! [laughs]
Minna: [delighted] I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.
—
Josie: Not to wreck you again, but I just imagined Rigney’s inner monologue was like “from the minute he walked into my bar I knew he was trouble.”
Minna: [laughs breathlessly]
Rhi: Yeah, pretty much.
Josie: “Scruff. Scruff for days.”
Rhi: [giggles]
—
Rhi: You worked with her— [cackles] Sorry, Myra just—or Minna just sniped me.
Minna: [laughing] I tried to do it over voice, but I don’t think anybody heard me.
Josie: Which Eliot is this?
Minna: Eliot Spencer.
Rhi: From Leverage.
Josie: Oh, right.
Minna: I can say it on mic in case you want it.
Rhi: Yeah, so one of his catch phrases… Eliot has a mysterious and checkered past and very often something will happen, they’ll see something or someone and he’ll be like oh yeah, it’s blah-blah, like something super specific, and everyone’s like how do you know that? His response is always “it’s a very distinctive…” whatever.
Josie: Uh-huh.
[laughter]
Rhi: It’s a very distinctive watch. It’s a very distinctive walk.
Minna: And it’s always just like, it’s a very distinctive… yeah, just something as vague as that.
Rhi: Yeah. It’s a very distinctive sound. Like, yeah, I think one of the earlier ones is he identifies a super specific type of gun off of hearing a gunshot. “It’s a very distinctive sound.” Everyone’s like okay~ But yes, no, that’s basically what’s happening here. So!
—
Kim: It’s almost as if we play this game a lot.
Rhi: Almost like that, yeah.
Kim: It’s almost as if we do a show using this system.
[giggling]
Josie: Don’t worry, y’all, we’re part of the way through Season 4 and we are going to fully learn the system.
Kim: Wasn’t that a Patreon tier for me? I was gonna learn the game?
Josie: [laughs]
Rhi: Don’t make—Yeah, $1,500 a month, Kim will learn how to play Blades in the Dark.
[laughter]
Kim: To my credit, I’ve gotten better. I know some rules now.
Rhi: You have!
Minna: You have.
Rhi: You have~ Maybe by the time we finish the next show.
Kim: Yeah, I’ll finally learn the ins and outs of this system.
—
Minna: Still need to gunpowder plot a blue tooth— [splutters, laughs]
Kim: A Bluetooth?
Rhi: Yeah, a Bluetooth device.
[laughter]
Minna: [fighting giggles, deliberately] A Bluecoat station.
—
Rhi: [syncing audio] Three… Sorry, I burped.
[laughter]
Kim: Blooper reel.
Minna: Please put that in the blooper reel.
Rhi: Yeah.
Josie: Three, two, one, [fake belch]
Rhi: Basically. All right, ahem. … Three, two, one, sync.
Kim: Sync.
Minna: Sync.
Josie: Burp.
[explosive laughter]
Kim: What? What’s funny?
Minna: I’m sorry about the shuttering laugh you can hear very faintly on my recording probably.
Kim: Oh, I didn’t even hear it.
Rhi: Josie said burp instead of sync.
Minna: I was trying really hard.
Kim: Oh.
Rhi: And I was working so hard not to start laughing during the ten seconds of silence. Phew…
Josie: [smiling] I’m glad it had the intended results.
Rhi: Yep. Phew. All right. Ahem.
—
Rhi: That collided with a bunch of other dice and therefore does not count. Aw, my d30 moved.
Kim: Why do you have a d—
Rhi: I don’t know why I have a d30 but I have one. So, Waffles, last year for either my birthday or Christmas, sent me a bunch of gaming stuff and it included a d30. I was like cool, a d30, I’ve never seen one of these, and they were like “I didn’t send you a d30.” So I think just whatever store they ordered from just sent me that as well.
Minna: [laughs]
Kim: Huh.
Rhi: So now I just have a d30.
—
Rhi (as Kit): Kit Sutton. I’m with the, uh… Void, Northern—What is it? The Society for Northern…
Minna: [laughs] The Society for Northern Void Sea History. SNVSH. {snivvish}
Rhi: Thank you. I’m never gonna remember that.
Minna: It’s SNVSH! [laughs] It’s the only reason I remember it now. Thank you whoever did that.
—
Josie: Also, is it just me or has this Gratitude episode been surprisingly horny?
Kim: A little bit horny.
Josie: Like, not just flirtatious, like actively horny.
Minna: [laughs]
Kim: Like 10% horny.
Josie: Yeah, like not maximum, but…
Kim: Right. We could be hornier.
Rhi: Yeah, it’s a little more than our usual episodes, I’d say.
Kim: This is Josie using 0.1% of her power.
[laughter]
Josie: Yeah. If me and Kim take off our weighted training clothing, then…
[laughter]
—
Rhi: Okay.
Kim: I want y’all to know that I T-posed during that sync and silence.
Rhi: You what?
Kim: I T-posed.
Rhi: [laughs]
Josie: Thank you, Kim. Someone had to.
Rhi: Wonderful.
Kim: [giggles] I just felt like it. It felt right.
Rhi: Ah… yeah. You know, sometimes that’s just what you gotta do.
Kim: It feels right to T-pose while we sync in silence.
—
Kim (as Blaire): [grumpy] Well good thing I’m not human.
Rhi: You are human.
Kim: She’s Tycherosi.
Rhi: [laughing] You’re just Tycherosi. That’s still human!
Kim: Is it?
Rhi: Yes!
Kim: I thought Tycherosi was like its own thing.
Minna: They’re like human variants.
Rhi: No. You’re demon-touched but you’re still human.
Kim: Okay, then never mind. Let me—I did not say that.
Rhi: Yeah. Yeah-yeah-yeah. Yeah, that’s fine.
Kim: Blaire was not built different, dear listeners.
[laughter]
—
Kim: [giggling] Y’all, I’m so sorry Blaire has so many issues.
Josie: [laughs] Blaire read Frankenstein and was like “no, that’s good, you did a good thing.”
Rhi: Yeah!
Kim: Blaire would also feel very bad for Frankenstein’s monster and want to smooch it.
Kim (as Blaire): Yeah, I’d be mad.
Josie: I mean, that’s fair.
Rhi: [laughing] The lesson she took from it wasn’t Victor Frankenstein fucked up, it’s Victor Frankenstein didn’t go far enough.
Josie: [laughs]
Kim: And also Victor Frankenstein is gay.
Minna: Victor Frankenstein didn’t love his child and that was the problem.
Rhi: Yeah. Anyway. [deep breath]
Kim: [quietly, rushed] Victor Frankenstein, gay.
Rhi: [caught off guard, giggles]
Josie: There you go.
—
Kim: I could not believe that I could fall more in love with this awful person.
[explosive laughter]
Josie: Now that is staying in.
Rhi: Oh my God.
Kim: No it is not!
Rhi: Yeah…
Josie: That has to stay in.
Rhi: Oh Kim… Kim.
Kim: [giggling] Stop. Don’t look at me. I don’t know why—
Rhi: You know you’re being recorded.
Kim: I know! But I can’t control myself right now!
Minna: If Myra looks—
Kim: This is the most ridiculous Freaky Friday shit that we’re doing right now.
Rhi: Yep.
—
Rhi: Before I start talking out my ass here, [typing] how tall do oak trees grow~?
Kim: [musically] They grow and grow and grow.
Rhi: Wow! They grow between 50 and 70 feet!
Kim: Yeah, they’re tall. Tall boys.
Minna: They’re big.
Rhi: Wow! Oaks are… Oak trees are amazing! [laughs] Okay, that helps.
Minna: There is one in my dad’s front yard that is taller than the house.
Kim: Nice.
Rhi: That’s awesome. I love trees. Anyway. [laughs] I haven’t been outside in a long time.
[sympathetic sounds]
—
Kim: How have we, throughout the course of this entire show, never made a joke about sickly little Victorian orphan boys?
Josie: I don’t know.
Rhi: I know I’ve referred to some street urchins.
Kim: “Please, sir… I would like a Baja Blast, sir.”
[laughter]
Minna: What?!
Rhi: [coughs]
Kim: That’s exactly the sound they make.
Josie: “May I have some more gamer fuel, sir?”
Minna: No!
Kim: Oh fuck. I forgot I was wearing eyeliner today and I’m tearing up.
Josie: “Oh Oliver, I knew you were always my little pog champ.”
Rhi: [delighted] Ugh…
Kim: “Mommy…”
—
Rhi: Yeah, I have a lot of goofy syncing bits in the blooper reel. The blooper reel for Season 4 is a lot shorter. I’m not sure why.
Kim: Oh, but we’ve been—Our goofs are still as good as ever.
Josie: We’ve been up to serious business.
Rhi: Well, for what it’s worth, I think I’ve left a lot more bits in the episodes.
Josie: Mm-hmm.
Kim: Oh… Oh, I haven’t been caught up on my listening. I wonder what that bodes for me, what embarrassing things I’ve said that made it into the public.
[laughter]
Rhi: [coughs] Kim, one fear.
Kim: Yes!
Rhi: Oh lord. Okay.
Kim: Nobody can… Everybody who listens knows.
Rhi: Yeah, I was gonna say. Kim, if you don’t want anybody to know, you shouldn’t have said it on a podcast with a listening audience of at least a thousand.
Kim: Yeah. No. People know. I… [stammers] Eh.
Rhi: People know. It’s okay.
Minna: It’s okay.
Kim: [laughs]
Rhi: Yeah, it’s okay. This is a judgment-free space.
Kim: Listen. If people are allowed to simp for Resident Evil mommy milk, mommy milf, uh… I’m gonna shut up now.
Josie: [laughs]
Minna: You realize that we are recording right now?
Rhi: Have you all seen the Markiplier video?
Kim: Yeah. [laughs]
Josie: What Markiplier video? It’s been a long time.
Kim: I have seen the Markiplier video. Yeah.
Rhi: I’ll post it. I’ll post it the next thing. It’s six and a half minutes of him having an absolute meltdown over the Resident Evil lady.
Josie: [laughs and claps]
Rhi: Like… literally, he’s like “none of you told me. I just ran up here after learning about this two minutes ago to record this video.” You get to watch him react to the trailers live and unvarnished. He’s never seen them before. It’s glorious.
Josie: Wow. I usually don’t think of Markiplier as a very horny person.
Kim: Oh, he’s horny. Markiplier fucks.
Rhi: Well, he says… At the end he’s—At one point he’s like “this isn’t sexual. That’s not what this is about. It’s not about pleasure, it’s about power.”
[laughter]
Minna: How is that less sexual?
Kim: Yeah.
Rhi: There’s also I think one of his earlier lines is something that I think is probably my favorite bit. “You know me. I want a woman who can crush my head between her thighs. Any part of this woman could crush my head! And I know what part you’re thinking of, and that’s just one of several options!”
[laughter]
Josie: Wow! Mark.
Rhi: It’s so good. I’ll find the link and share it when we’re done recording. It is just six and a half minutes of a man having a horny meltdown on the internet. But it’s a really respectful horny meltdown.
Kim: Yeah.
Josie: Yeah, because Markiplier’s a good guy.
Kim: yeah.
Josie: He drinks his respect women juice.
Rhi: He is the embodiment of…
Kim: “I’m simping respectfully.”
Rhi: Yeah. He is looking respectfully.
Josie: Oh my God, Markiplier is a himbo.
Kim: Yeah.
Rhi: Yeah. Yeah.
Josie: He’s absolutely a himbo. He fits every definition.
Rhi: Mm-hmm! Uh-huh! Yeah. Okay!
Josie: All right then.
Kim: Sorry for that tangent.
Rhi: [laughing] We’re now three and a half minutes into the recording! Great! Now the blooper reel will be longer! Let’s go. Back into the fight. Jesus Christ.
[laughter]
Kim: You’re welcome for my service.
Rhi: Yeah. You paid for this, Patreon listeners. Thanks.
Kim: You asked for it!
—
Rhi: Minna’s just over here providing color commentary on this scene.
Minna: [smiling] I’m sorry that I’m just MST3K’ing at this point.
Rhi: [giggles, sighs]
Josie: [laughs] Please, I love it.
—
Rhi: This is a very poorly done spam text.
Kim: Oh?
Rhi: Okay. Parentheses, Pay*PalHelp, all one word.
Kim: Okay.
Rhi: Your on-line, with a dash between on and line, has been *compromised*, in asterisks. See here, extremely suspicious-looking link.
Kim: [laughs]
Rhi: No thank you.
Kim: Hang on. Hang on. That reminds me…
Rhi: Let’s delete… Delete. Delete.
Kim: Hang on… So, please put this in the blooper reel, but my work phone has been getting some very amusing spam texts recently. I have one saved that is my absolute favorite spam text that I’ve ever gotten. I probably shouldn’t have—I should probably just delete this, I shouldn’t have it saved on my work phone, but it’s just so god damn funny. It says: Chances are that if you have problems with erection strength all the time or occasionally and you go to a doctor for help you’ll likely use with a prescription erectile dysfunction supplement to Cialis. Cialis? I don’t know. While both of them do work extremely well, call here, and there’s a phone number. Support 24-7, call now, phone number here, for free… [stammers] consultancy?
Rhi: Consultancy?
Kim: Consultancy! Thank you. I can’t read.
Minna: It should be a consultation, though.
Rhi: It’s a weird word!
Kim: So if you have problems with erectile dysfunction… I’ve got a number for you. [laughs]
Rhi: It’s the strength is an unusual… That’s not—
Kim: Yeah! [laughs] Erectile strength.
Josie: I mean, it’s not erectile dysfunction, it’s just the estrogen pills. I mean…
Kim: Ahh!
[laughter]
Rhi: [drum crash]
Minna: I have gotten so many texts addressed to my father asking to buy his house, and I’m like… no. Stop.
Rhi: [laughs] For many reasons.
—
Rhi: I’ll also mention because it’s Friday night I have been drinking with dinner.
[intrigued sounds]
Kim: I also have wine.
Rhi: Nothing especially exciting, it’s just this really good hard cider that I can never find.
Kim: Oh nice.
Minna: Yum!
Rhi: I will forgive it for having… It’s good enough that I forgive it for having a name that is both a pun and a really aggressively hetero—
Kim: Really?!
Rhi: It’s a pun and it’s a very heterosexual pun.
Josie: Oh dear.
Kim: Wow! It must be a really good cider.
Rhi: It’s so fucking good! It’s called Right Beside Her, or Right Be Cider.
Kim: Oh, that’s kinda cute though.
Rhi: And the thing is like, boy meets girl, boy makes cider to woo girl, now he’s right beside her… heh.
Kim: Eh…
Rhi: To be fair, if someone were to—
Josie: But we can make that gay. We can do that.
Rhi: Right. Yeah. It’s also a very good cider. To be fair, if someone were to make hard cider to woo me, that would be effective.
Kim: Heh.
Rhi: That would work on me.
Kim: “Are you trying to romance me?” Yes. “It’s working!”
Josie: Scribbles notes.
Minna: Honestly? Same. Aww, the packaging is really cute, too.
Rhi: Yeah. It’s just, like…
Minna: It looks so yummy.
Rhi: It’s a local Chicago thing. They have a cute little bee logo and it’s a hard cider that’s got honey in it. It’s so fucking good and I can…
Josie: Oh, that’s a double pun.
Rhi: Yeah. It’s many layers deep and I forgive it because it’s so good.
Minna: It does look delicious from those marketing pictures.
Rhi: This episode is not sponsored by Right Bee Cider, but if they wanted to just send me boxes of it I’d accept that.
—
Rhi: Yeah, like a lying liar who lies.
Minna: We’re lyin’ like a large feline from Africa.
Kim: [hums Africa by Toto]
Rhi: [sighs]
Minna: [laughs] I feel like that moment right there is such an encapsulation of at least three of us!
[laughter]
Kim: It is!
Minna: I make a bad pun, Rhi sighs, Kim sings.
Kim: [laughs]
Rhi: [sighs] This is gonna be a long fucking recording session, huh?
Minna: [smiling] No! We’re just on-brand.
—
Josie: Hi Rhi. I’m just here to record some lines, but first I just wanted to let you know that if we were doing a Magpies harem anime AU, instead of Blades in the Dark it would be Maids in the Dark.
—
Josie: Hey Rhi. Before I start this audio I just want you to know that if the Magpies were working to break into a sunglasses hut the game wouldn’t be Blades in the Dark, it would be Shades in the Dark.
—
Rhi: I know Minna has actually stepped away right now, but I just wanted to say that so I have it on the recording… and now we will wait.
Kim: Hello future Rhi. How are you doing today?
Rhi: [sighs contemplatively]
Kim: Don’t answer that, Rhi. That’s for future Rhi to answer. You’re present Rhi.
Rhi: Future Rhi… get water. You’re not drinking enough water.
Minna: Apologies to future Rhi who has to listen to my groans of pain as I lean over the bed to try and get my…
Rhi: [laughs]
Minna: I don’t know why my body hates me this much today, but I very nearly threw my back out trying to get the dice off the bed. [laughs]
Rhi: Oh no!
Kim: That’s just being in your mid-20s, baby.
—
Josie: I need to know her likes and dislikes.
Rhi: Ooh! Okay. Likes: money, power.
[laughter]
Josie: Uh-huh. Right. I was thinking like hobbies.
Rhi: Yeah! Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know.
Minna: Filling out a dating profile for Lady Drake.
—
Rhi: I can’t tell if you’re saying blink or clink.
Kim: She definitely said blink.
Josie: That time I said plink.
Rhi: Oh, plink that time.
Josie: This time I said plink with a P. Last time I said blink.
Rhi: Oh, okay.
Josie: And y’all said clink, so I have to think of something different next time.
[laughter]
Rhi: Rhyming dictionary…
Kim: You could say jinx.
Josie: That’s true.
Minna: Wink!
Kim: Tink.
Rhi: Um…
Kim: Think.
Rhi: All right, so…
Kim: Mink.
Rhi: [with finality] Let’s—Okay.
Minna: [giggles] We’re good.
Rhi: [smiling reluctantly] And the bit is done.
Kim: Link.
Rhi: Kim.
Kim: I’m done.
Josie: [laughs]
—
Kim: Massachusetts deserves. It’s what we deserve.
Minna: Hmm…
Josie: I don’t like it.
Kim: I like it. Mega-chusetts forever.
Rhi: It goes… Chicago is now in Massachusetts.
[laughter]
Minna: Is it really?
Rhi: Yeah!
Kim: Massachusetts all the way to California!
Rhi: Just punch straight on through.
Minna: Florida is exempt.
Rhi: We’ll make Long Washington and get Florida in that, just diagonally the other way across the country. Anyway!
Minna: It still wouldn’t hit me.
—
Rhi: What is the name of this restaurant?
Kim: Waffle House.
Josie: No.
Rhi: Absolutely not.
—
Rhi: Myra just is writing a lot of pamphlets.
Minna: That’s a 4. Yeah, she’s writing several anonymous pamphlets and having them distributed.
Rhi: Mm-hmm!
Minna: Like, “the Magpies did nothing wrong! Trial exposes new wrongs that the Magpies averted.”
Rhi: [laughs] The Magpies have never done anything wrong in their life, response pamphlet.
Kim: We know this and we love you.
Rhi: Yeah. We know this and we love them. Both written by Myra.
Minna: There’s probably another one detailing all of the juicy details that came out in the trial about Lady Drake.
Rhi: Yeah.
—
Rhi: Hang on. Give me one moment. I need to dial up the Aussy accent.
Kim: Hmm.
Rhi: I’ll stay on the mic this time. You can hear. This is the thing that Allie has me practice with. I think she does this for any dialect lessons. It’s this ridiculous—It’s not really a poem, it’s just this ridiculous thing to sort of practice sounds.
Kim: Right. Yeah.
Rhi: So, let’s see if we can…
Kim: Aussy, Aussy, Aussy.
Rhi: [Needle’s voice] One hen. Two ducks. Three squawking geese. Four limerick oysters. Five corpulent porpoises. Six pairs of Don Alverzo’s tweezers. Seven hundred Macedonian warriors in full battle armor including Colin Farrell. Eight brass monk—
[falls into regular voice] Agh, I’m still too far forward.
[Needle’s voice] Eight brass monkeys from the ancient sacred secret crypts of Egypt.
[regular voice] There we go.
[Needle’s voice] Nine apathetic, epileptic, diabetic old men on roller skates, with a marked propensity for procrastination and sloth. Ten lyrical, spherical, diabolical denizens of the deep who stall around the corner of the quiff of the quo of the quay, and all at the same time. There we go.
Kim: [smiling] That is so excellent.
Rhi: [laughs] It’s ridiculous and I love it.
—
Rhi: Madge, I want to ask you to go last so it can be a big reveal that you’re here to our listeners.
Madge: [devious giggling]
[laughter]
Kim: Just a gremlin laugh.
Rhi: It’s so good.
Kim: It’s evil.
Madge: It goes perfectly with my tiny baby Elmo icon.
Minna: Yes!
Josie: Yes, I enjoy it a lot.
Kim: It does.
Rhi: Yes. [laughs]
Kim: Elmo flames is forever iconic.
—
Rhi: Listen. I’m just setting you up for hurt comfort, okay?
[gasps and giggles]
Kim: Noted! Thank you, game master.
Rhi: Listen. I know what we’re about.
—
Rhi: I apologize. I have to go into a little bit of NPC theater here while these two talk.
Kim: I’m so excited to hear it.
Josie: Why do we need to seal her away? I’m so gay.
[laughter]
Kim: I know. I know. She’s so pretty.
Rhi: There-there, Josie, there-there.
Josie: [whines]
Kim: I’m right there with you, hun.
Rhi: [laughs] Comforting pats.
—
Rhi: So, I’m very confused. It is dark outside and there’s some very confused bird just meeping away. It’s bedtime, bird. Go to sleep.
Minna: [giggles]
Kim: No, I must scream.
Madge: No.
Kim: For I want some fuck.
[laughter]
Josie: Becky’s a hoe.
Rhi: [sweetly] It’s dark… It’s dark outside, little bird.
Kim: [southern voice] Becky loves blue.
Minna: Birds in the Dark.
Rhi: [giggles] Alternate name for the—
Madge: My brain just buzzed with that AU!
[giggling]
Rhi: Oh God! It’s the Root, Magpies crossover.
Minna: Oh my God!
Madge: [yelps] That would be so good! They’re all vagabonds.
Rhi: It would. Yep.
Madge: Oops all vagabonds.
Rhi: It would be very cute.
Minna: Does that make the Circle of Flame the Eyrie?
Madge: Yeah, I think so.
Rhi: Yeah.
Minna: Anyway. [laughs] I have overindulged.
Madge: And Seeks! Seeks is part of the lizard cult. Seeks is part of the otter or the lizard cult.
Rhi: [laughing] Lizard cult.
Madge: It’s gotta be the lizard cult for Seeks.
Minna: Absolutely lizard cult.
—
Rhi: Three, two, one, sync!
Kim: Sync.
Josie: Sync.
Minna: Myra.
[laughter]
Rhi: Okay, we’re gonna have to do that again.
Minna: [giggling] I’m sorry.
Josie: No, thank you, Minna!
Rhi: It’s okay!
Josie: Thank you for doing that, so much.
Rhi: The stinger for this episode is just, I’m just gonna clip all of these syncs.
Minna: Yes, yes, yes!
Josie: And you just said it so deadpan and clearly. You were just like “Myra.”
[giggling]
Rhi: Phew. You just sniped Josie from across the country. You just got her.
Minna: I’ve been planning this since the last sync.
—
Rhi: Three, two, one, sync.
Josie: Blaire.
Kim: Piss.
Minna: Sync.
Rhi: [smiling] I heard Blaire.
[laughter]
Josie: I wasn’t sure if Kim was gonna do it.
Rhi: But I heard something else.
Kim: I said piss.
Rhi: Yeah, that’s what I thought. I am gonna have to require that when we start Project Bluejay we go back to “sync” so as not to confuse the new person.
Josie: Okay.
Minna: Yes.
Kim: For a while.
Rhi: At least for a time.
Minna: We can do the right thing for a few times.
Josie: We can work them into our nonsense.
Rhi: Yeah… Yeah. Oh my God.