Welcome to Ear Biscuits, I’m Rhett. And I’m Link, this week at the table of round. Wow, you would’ve thought it would’ve been ingrained by now. This week at the round table of dim lighting, that’s it, not the table of round lighting. Well it is round, I mean, we have a globular light, it is round. And it’s not as dim as it used to be. Yeah, I saw that there was a post, Kiko, there was a post, that somebody was taking pictures and doing different strata of screens of how Ear Biscuits has gotten increasingly less dim. Well it got really dim for a little bit, and that was because something was wrong. Well no, it started off dim because there was no video, and we had guests and we had this idea that, if you create a dark space, people are gonna share their dark secrets, and I believe that it helped. It’s welcoming, yeah. I mean, we were down in our basement, and it was just us and somebody, getting into it in the dark. It wasn’t a basement, though. No, it wasn’t. It felt like a basement, at the other studio. You’re right, it felt like a basement, ’cause there were no, all the windows were blacked out. You’re right, it wasn’t a basement. And then when we started doing video, which comes out a week later, YouTube channel Ear Biscuits, if you’re listening and you wanna start watching, and then we were like, “Man, it’s a little too dim. “We gotta make it brighter because it’s a video.” I mean, you kinda wanna see the people. But it was still dimmer than it needed to be. Because it was like, “Man, it’s…” We’ve increasingly made it less dim. But I saw that post too, and I thought that it had a temporary really dark, it was a dark time. We had a dark time. And that was just because something had been dialed in wrong, but then we fixed that, and then we’ve slowly gotten it a little bit brighter. Did you add this, there’s a pull-down projector screen just beyond this main camera here, was that added just as a reflector or was that already there? Mhm, it was added after, yeah, we decided that we wanted it a little bit brighter. Okay. Yeah, it reflects. What’d you do, bring Ben in here to have ideas? Or you just came up with this? It was kinda like a team effort with me and Ben, yeah. Yeah, it seemed like a Ben thing. So, we got, it’s a projector screen but there’s no projector anywhere, we’re just using a projector screen as a bounce. That is gratuitous. We could project something. We are high rolling, we got a projector screen with no projector, just for the bounce. That’s how high we’re rolling. That’s how large we’re living. Let’s put a projector right in between us. Let’s replace the Ear Biscuits sign with a large projector. Yeah, so while we’re doing the podcast, we can be watching a movie. I wanna watch The Mandalorian again. By the time this comes out, most all, I don’t know how many episodes there are, so I know it’s a little late, but I just have to gush a little bit, I’m still trying to get you to watch it. Oh, I’m gonna watch it, but what about what we’re gonna talk about today? Which is not The Mandalorian. Oh yeah, this week of the round table of dim lighting, we’re talking about our book. We’re gonna go into specific story points based on your questions, comments, desires. “The Lost Causes of Bleak Creek” has a lot of details and a lot of, some controversy, it appears. And this is going to be full of spoilers, so, might I suggest, and this’ll be after the break that we get into this, so if you end up, if you haven’t read the book yet, before we get into these questions, just stop this podcast and go pick it up. Or listen to it on Audible. You listen to this podcast and you haven’t read our book, well you can listen to the audio version of the book, and it’s kinda like a good replacement for Ear Biscuits, you know, for a little bit. So go to Audible, go to Amazon, get the Audible version of the book and listen to that thing. And then come back and enjoy this discussion. Now if you’re the kind of person who’s like “I’m not reading the book, I don’t care “how many times you guys say it, “I’m not a reader.” We respect that, I guess. That’s cool, whatever. I’d still push back a little bit on that and say, “Just read it, if you’re gonna read one book, “read this book.” And then if you still are like “I’m not a reader, and I’m not gonna make my first book “I ever read your book.” Then just keep listening. Then just listen to this whole thing, it’s not gonna be that, I mean we’re gonna get into a lot of things, but you know, it’s not gonna ruin it for you if you ever do go back on that and decide to read. I mean it’s, I’m gonna have a moment of gratitude here, I’m still so grateful that this novel has been created that we made it, and we wrote it, that it’s done, that it’s bound, and that it’s sitting on shelves. Oh, speaking of sitting on shelves, me, Christy, and Lando, we went to the mall, and, well we were going to the Galleria. But really, what we were doing was we were going to Din Tai Fung, ’cause it was just us with Lando, and we were like “We gotta eat at a special place.” And maybe our favorite restaurant as a family is Din Tai Fung, they got these dumplings, good gosh, you can look through a window and they’re folding these dumplings at a rapid speed, something that would be like one of those satisfying manufacturing videos that I would watch on Reddit. It’s just people working like robots, they’re just amazingly fast, and– And they will be replaced by the robots. Oh my gosh, and the dumplings are so good. Dumpling robots. I mean the wait was two hours, but when I finally got in there, what do you order from there, ’cause I order the crab and pork dumplings. I don’t know, I just order a little bit of everything. Once you eat those, everything else is– Crab and pork together? Yeah, those are the best ones. Soup dumplings, you bite the edge and soup comes out, and then you dip it in the vinegar and the hot saucey stuff. I don’t think I would enjoy eating those with you. Do you make noises like that? Yeah, I’ll put the first one in my mouth. Can only imagine you have a system. They’re not the best things for you, especially when you eat as many as I eat, so I try not to go there but once a quarter, but when I go, I go hard. The first one I put in my mouth, I was like “This thing is so good.” I close my eyes, man, I’m sitting there in the restaurant, and I’ve been transported to Shanghai. That’s Shanghai for you. And I’m just like, savoring it. That’s one of my happy places. You know when you’re going through a surgery, having a syst removed, you’re like– I appreciate your passion about dumplings, but– You need to go to a happy place, guess where I’m going, crab and pork in my mouth! You’re really easily distracted today, you’ve gotten off on two tangents. Oh, the book. Yeah, the book, that’s what we’re talking about. So we’re waiting, so we go over to Barnes and Noble, and I’m like “Oh, I bet you The Lost Causes of Bleak Creek “is here,” Christy’s like “Yeah, I saw it, “I’ve been in here a few days ago, “and it’s on this shelf right there at the front, “at the table, new fiction.” Yeah, the table that you wanna be on. I felt, I looked at it but I didn’t wanna sit there and pick it up and stare at it, like a lost child in the mall that I just found. Did you think about signing it? Christy was like “You should sign it.” I was like “I don’t wanna do that.” ‘Cause then you have to have this weird interaction with Mr. Noble, or Mr. Barnes, and be like “Excuse me sir, “why are you writing in the book?” “Well you know, I’m one of the authors of this book. “Depending on where it’s printed online, “you may not see me as the author, “you might only see Rhett McLaughlin, “because apparently there’s not enough space “to put two authors on stuff, “but I am on the front of the book, “and when you put the discounted sticker, “you also put that over my name.” So it’s a novel for number one New York Times best-selling authors Rhett McLaughlin and 20% off. I just get the short end of the stick, man. Well your name’s shorter. With the second book, my name needs to be first. Okay. Is that a deal? You just said okay. TBD. We need to figure that out. So I was a little self-conscious, and then we kinda walked away, I was like, I know what the book looks like, I’m not gonna buy it. And you know there’s escalators in there, and I just noticed when I went up the escalator that I was turning back and looking down, and looking at my book, I just couldn’t believe that, we have a novel in Barnes and Noble. Well I went to the Vroman’s, I guess is how you pronounce that. Yeah, in Pasadena. That’s my go-to. I like that as independent bookstore, and they got a lot of cool stuff. It’s right next to the Laemmle, which incidentally– Subtitled movies? No, I saw Jojo Rabbit there. Oh, why didn’t you invite me? I just took Shepherd, just me and Shepherd. What’s it rated? It’s PG-13. Okay, he’s 13. He’s 11, but I was with him, I guided him through it. Boy, speaking of tangents. Is it good? I gotta see it. Taika Waititi was also in Mandalorian! He’s a freaking droid! It’s so good, but I’m not talking about that, I don’t wanna get off on a tangent. Isn’t he great, though? He’s great in that, too. He’s even great as Hitler. I mean it’s just like, when someone can make Hitler likable. Spoiler alert. I’m not gonna give away anything, ’cause he doesn’t really make Hitler likable. If you understand what Hitler represents in that movie, okay, anyway, so… I was longingly looking at the book as I was going up to the second and third floor, but I didn’t want Christy to see me looking at it, I thought she was like “You looking down there at your book, aren’t you?” I was like “Well yeah, it’s my book, “it’s definitely, how often “do you get to look in a bookstore “and see your own book, it’s thrilling, man!” Well I was in Vroman’s, and I was like, well of course I gotta find the book, and I was actually thinking I might sign it, because last time I was in Vroman’s, one of the employees came up to me and was like “Rhett, would you mind signing some copies “of the Book of Mythicality?” Because they had that out in the internet humor section, or something like that. With all the other YouTuber books. But I was more excited about this, ’cause I was like, “Oh, our book’s “gonna be in the fiction section, “in the part of the bookstore that everybody goes, “not the internet humor that only if you’re lost “on your way to the bathroom do you find it.” It’d be good for the toilet. And so, it’s not quite as well-organized and set up as a Barnes and Noble, in that there’s also five entrances to this bookstore, and you don’t know what’s the front, there’s multiple cashiers. I love that, because it makes it easy to steal their books. You know, they gotta spread out their security, I’m rolling out of there with books. You know, Doom’s a thick book. But when you got multiple exits, you just bide your time, and you’re taking that Doom down your pants. That guy’s got a lot of junk in his trunk, shaped like a book. I’ve not, and I do not advocate stealing books. But you can put it down your pants, just pull it back out and purchase it. So, I go to the fiction section, and they have new and noteworthy, that’s what they call it, I think, and there it was. Well being as ours was new, does that mean it wasn’t noteworthy? Oh, no, it’s new and noteworthy. Oh, it’s both, not either or? And but then they had the bestsellers section, which is a nice shelf with a really nice light on it. We weren’t on that. But that was before we were technically a bestseller. No, this was yesterday. Oh, they didn’t get the memo? So, I almost, well a couple things, I almost offered to sign one, or two, there were only two left. Oh, only two, you decided not to. And then I was almost like, “Put it on the bestseller, it is a bestseller.” But, you know. So you thought about going into negotiations, you’re like “Excuse me, I’d be more than happy “to sign my novel, if you’d be more than happy “to put it under the lights.” Yeah, yeah, yeah, so we can move these last two. You could’ve just moved ’em over. But that’s a cool thing, a lot of people have been reporting that they’ve been going to various bookstores and they’re out, they’ve sold out of a number of these. There’s more on the way, there’s a second printing already. And the new printing’s gonna say “New York Times Bestseller.” Something like that, right, that will be printed on it. It’s not gonna be a sticker, but it will be over my name. We’re taking Link’s name off, and it’s gonna say “A novel from number one “New York Times bestselling authors “Rhett McLaughlin and this is also “a New York Times bestselling book.” That’s what it’s gonna say. Sorry, Link. But you know what, you’re in the back, you’re in the picture in the back and you’re standing in front of me, so, I think that makes up for it. I love the fact that you knew that before you looked at it. You know that I’m standing in front of you in that picture. Well, I knew that when we chose this picture. ‘Cause you didn’t, you’re so much bigger than me. No, I think you always stand a little bit in front of me because I’m taller, but this is like, your elbow is all the way across my belly button, in my opinion that’s just a little too far in front. My face is bigger than your face. ‘Cause not only, I think it’s the wide angle lens they’re using to take this picture with, so typically we’d be the same size, but my head looks really really small, and really far away. So it all evens out, is what I’m getting at. I don’t know if that evens out. And another thing I thought, is it’s a really cool cover, but people are putting really bright colors on covers now, kinda playing the YouTube thumbnail game with book covers. Did we lose? And I was like, I don’t know how much I would just, it’s a really cool cover, but I don’t know how eye-catching it is, when you just put it next to 20 other books. Yeah, it doesn’t have, the letters should’ve been neon pink. So, maybe the next printing, we should call them right now, go all neon. We’ll say “No explanation, it’s all neon this time.” Gotta get those clicks. Okay, we’re gonna answer some questions about the book, this is a good time for you to pause the podcast and go buy the book and read it. BleakCreek.com. But before we answer that question, we’re gonna tell you where you can get this, what do you call that, tie-dye? Hoodie. Hoodie. Call it a hoodie. Look at this, this is like turtle tie-dye. Look at that. Now I got headphones on underneath this hood, that’s why it looks so odd. And you can look this odd, too. Headphones not supplied. Go to Mythical.com, this is freshly hitting the store upon the video release. Or maybe it’s not even until tomorrow. One day, yeah. So if you’re watching this on day one, you gotta be ready, ’cause you know this thing’s gonna sell out because it’s warm, it’s hoodie-ish. And the people like the tie-dye, they can’t get enough of tie-dye things, so it sells out quick, so go over there and be part of the reason it’s selling out. Check it, check out the back. Every one’s unique, it’s like a snowflake. ‘Cause it’s really tie-dye. And we’re also selling snowflakes, ’cause it’s that time of year. Mythical.com, all types of stuff, including gift cards. I recommend asking for gift cards from Mythical.com for the holidays, that’s a good thing to ask for people to give you. Or for you to give other people if you’re not selfish. My grandma used to get me McDonalds gift cards. Christy, I’ve told you this, Christy’s parents gave us so many McDonald’s gift cards once we moved out here that we had a stack of 25. Well they knew there are a lot of McDonald’s out here in California, gotta eat. Yeah, we don’t tend to use them. Well, okay. Then sell ’em. Sell ’em on the street. We buy a lot of McDonald’s for the show, I should just bring ’em in. Mythical.com, rep your boys, be your mythical best. So we have questions from loyal listeners and avid readers, and a lot of discussions happening on the Mythical Society Discord, as well, so I think that’s gonna, we’ve read all of that, so I think that’s going to color some of our answers, and I think that, I know we should wait for the Ruby questions until the end. So, let’s save those but start anywhere you wanna start. Let’s start with a question from Mythical Cop Wife. We’ve met her a number of times, that’s why we’re in her profile picture. Very engaged member of the Mythical Community, Society, et cetera, “I would love to know more “on Whitewood’s backstory on transforming “from a seemingly normal person to the headmaster “slash cult leader he became. “What made him decide to go the route “of forming a reform school? “Was there no other way to get his Ruby back?” This is a, I think that this question represents, or is related to, a conversation that I have seen quite a lot of people having. I feel like the fact that our antagonist is revealed to have some humanity and almost might elicit some of your sympathy is something that people have kinda struggled with, they struggle with wrapping their minds around, “What am I supposed to think about this guy? “Are you guys trying to justify his actions “by explaining that the motivation is him “doing whatever he can for his daughter?” And some people are like “Obviously, I don’t care what your motivation was, “your actions have hurt so many more people, that,” I’ll just say, first thing, our intention in doing that was unlike, what was the bad dude in Captain Planet? I never watched Captain Planet. The guy who polluted, and it seemed like, the reason that the guy who polluted who was the evil dude in Captain Planet, it seems like he just got a kick out of just polluting the Earth. I’m getting a message. Your hair is messed up. I’m getting a message, look at that, you talking about that? It’s bothering you, thank you. Jen is bothered ’cause my hair was messed up after the hoodie. Yeah, I was gonna let it ride. You weren’t gonna say anything? Actually, I couldn’t tell from my angle. How’s this? But he polluted, and as a kid watching that, I was just like “This guy’s just evil “for the sake of being evil,” I didn’t even make any connection to, and I don’t know if the show did make a connection to, oh no, this guy’s committed to industry, and therefore its pollution is just a byproduct. It seems like he just was a bad dude who wanted to pollute the planet. But I think in reality, everyone who does something that is wrong, for the most part, has their own internal morality that is telling them that what they’re doing is justified, right? Most people make the decisions and then rationalize them, and we just kinda wanted something that, you take this person and you’ve got all this hate built up for them, and then you see that “Oh, actually, he has reasons.” That doesn’t excuse his actions, but the world’s a messy place. And people are complicated. It’s not justification, but it’s explanation. I mean it’s like, didn’t you wanna know? Why’s this guy doing this? He’s constructed, I mean and I guess that’s the question, why make a school, why have a reform school, and… Well that’s because that’s what he knows, he was a principal in his former life, so he has run a school before. And there was an opportunity, because with the way that Bleak Creek worked, there was a need for someone to step in and say “I can solve one of your biggest problems.” Which is, “I can address one of your biggest fears,” which is “What’s gonna happen to our children? “Are they gonna stay on the straight and narrow “or are they gonna go wayward?” You know, as a parent, there are just times when you’re struck with “Oh my gosh, how are my children gonna turn out?” And “Am I doing enough?” Am I doing enough to help them become contributing members of society, people who follow their heart, that are kind, you want, but if you oversimplify that, or at times, as a parent, you just get to, I just want ’em to act right. If I could just do that, then maybe everything else would fall into place, because if they start acting wrong, then that’s a red flag that something’s really going wrong, deeper, that I’m really screwing up as a parent. And so, I think he was smart enough to see that that fear goes very deep in a parent, so if I can tap into that and present the solution for a kid that they’re just throwing their hands up, “I don’t know what to do with this kid. “She’s pulling the pants off of mannequins. “She’s embarrassing me, she’s, “they’re interrupting prayers at the pig picking.” Then that’s, it’s a nice, simple solution. “And hey, the kids don’t even have to live with my anymore.” Well I think there’s three contributing factors, right, that kinda, the first thing was, the keeper specifically asked for kids who’ve kinda gone their own way, right, kids who weren’t falling in line. So you gotta find those kids, right? Right, that’s his problem. So, okay, and then the second thing is, is that he’s got experience with school administration, and then the third thing is, is kinda what you’re getting at, which is, early 90s North Carolina, really America in general, were still in the midst of moral panic that really started, that really kinda hit its peak in the 80s, when parents started really worrying about Satanism, I mean we remember very very clearly, there was a whole lot of moral panic around people actually worshiping Satan. We actually were told that “No, you guys, “people are worshiping Satan.” Never mind the fact that the whole Church of Satan was started as almost a mockery of the idea of religion in general. I remember thinking as a kid, I was like, “So you’re telling me that there are people “who worship Satan, which means “that they believe in the framework “that there’s a God and there’s a Satan, “and they’re choosing the bad guy.” This is illogical on so many different levels. ‘Cause you’re buying into the worldview that includes Satan and then choosing him. That’s just, I’m not saying that no one does that, but it’s not a societal problem, and it never was. We knew enough bad kids to be like “Oh, that’s a bad kid, “I bet he would like to worship Satan.” He’s not saying that he does, but. And then we were told that if you played all this rock music backwards, backmasting, we would literally go– Backmasking. Masking, yeah, we would literally go to these presentations where these guys would get up and they would play Led Zeppelin and AC/DC, and other bands backwards, and show all the Satanic messages. Whose power is Satan? That’s what Robert Plant sang in reverse on a song. And I remember that being a film from the 70s, it seemed like a 70s-ish film that was then screened again in the early early 90s for us, at Campbell University. Was a little bit behind. Well it was, they were still trying to eradicate the, Led Zeppelin was still popular. But I think this is, what I’m pointing at is, in line with what you were saying before, which is, what an effective way to manipulate people, and manipulate their behavior, is to understand what their greatest fears are, and then you can basically just begin selling them any kind of bullshit you want to. Especially within the, if it works within the framework of what they already believe. Exactly, so I’m saying, if you tell people that rock music is actually a subversive way to worship Satan, and that’s consistent with the fears that they already have about it, then you can get them to believe things like, people are intentionally putting Satanic messages into their song, because they legitimately worship Satan. If anyone actually ever did that, it was because they were playing into it in a tongue in cheek way, but anyway, so Whitewood is in a community where this is the way people think, and he’s like “This is what my experience is, “and these are the kids that I need “in order to accomplish my mission.” So you do that mathematical equation and you kinda come up with a really strict reform school that the kids have to live at, so you gotta have control. And then of course you’ve eventually gotta get some other adults to help you out, and you’ve gotta manipulate them as well. And the way you do that is twofold. One, you play a mean organ at the church. I mean, it’s hard to argue with that. He’s there every Sunday, playing that organ, you know? That means a lot. He might have made a run at being a pastor, but that takes a lot more time. And then the second thing is, you master that pit barbecue, and you win ’em over. You win ’em over. People can overlook a world of hurt, literally, they overlooked deaths, which is something that we wrestled with, ’cause it’s like “Man, once you have kids dying, “is this town really gonna let this school just continue?” Well, but that happens all the time. I mean, in my mind, it’s not that big of a leap. People let injustice fester, especially when the person who’s in charge of it seems legitimate, and there seems to be a legitimate explanation, and it’s like “Oh, okay, three kids over a decade “have died in accidents at this place.” And this is largely based on, so the reform school in the book, we had the whole thing sketched out, but then we actually, once we had outlined the entire book, we found out about this reform school. Yeah, Lance found this article and sent it to us. Somewhere in the northeast, that even up until, within the last decade, had operated, and they had found that they were doing all kinds of crazy disciplinary things on the kids, including rolling them up in a carpet. Yep, because we had written, let’s see, we, I’m trying to figure out if we knew or if we changed it, but there was a box. We had not decided what the specific disciplinary thing was, but we knew we wanted it to be something where kids were isolated, and we wanted it to seem kinda like the carpet thing, so yeah, the first draft, it was the box, and it was a wooden box that was about two and a half feet on each side, and you basically sort of ball a kid up, and you’d put them in this dark box that had some breathing holes, and then the guy would come in and kinda kick it around, and you would end up upside down and you couldn’t get turned, or it’s too small to turn around inside. But I just thought that, there’s just nothing, it just wasn’t as memorable or as visceral as the roll. So the carpet roll is a real thing they did to kids, and these kids at a certain, once they reached adulthood, if I remember correctly, a lot of them were troubled, it had residual effects, and there was a lot of suicide. A lot of them were dying, and then there was an investigation, through Facebook, “Whatever happened to my classmates,” and then it turns out a lot of ’em had committed suicide. Yeah, I don’t remember that detail, but there was a lot of bad stuff going on at the time, and people didn’t, they raised an eyebrow, but it didn’t cause any action. So it’s sad that these things do happen. A related question, Shell, thevelvethook, who’s changed the moniker to include scooter leg. That’s an homage. “You mentioned the seven pointed star “being significant, in Christianity, “the seven pointed star represents “the seven gifts of the spirit, wisdom, understanding, “council, might, knowledge, fear, and delight.” Those aren’t the gifts of the spirit that I know. Yeah, that must be NIV. It might be the message. Yeah, it must be. That’s some biblical translation humor for you. “So I wondered if this was a metaphor “for the seven lost causes in some way.” Absolutely, the seven pointed star is a metaphor for the lost causes that the cult needs to get into the spring. Well, and lemme pair this with this next question, too, from Phanto_Moose, who asked “Can you elaborate on the Latin used by the cult? “First one seems to be vita est aqua, life is water, “but couldn’t completely figure out the second one, “electus in-trot aquam sanctum, selected in holy water?” Yeah, so all the stuff that is true about the cult, like the robes, the seven pointed star, the Latin chants that are happening, just to kinda get your mind in the right place, all of this was fabricated by Whitewood as a manipulative scheme to give the appearances and trappings of a cult, or some sort of religious organization that these people would buy into. So it isn’t– The Keeper didn’t transfer this knowledge and this symbology to Whitewood, you know what the Keeper wants, he wants seven lost causes. He wants kids of a certain age with a certain oomph to them, because there’s, his fuel is associated with that. But everything else is Whitewood’s problem. Right, and the seven pointed star, yes, it was chosen because the Keeper told him, “You gotta get seven kids.” And while the seven pointed star does have significance in Christianity, it also, like most symbols, it has significance in other places including Pagan religion, and we just took it and turned it upside down so that the predominant arrow– Let’s say Whitewood turned it upside down. Was pointing down towards the Earth, towards water. Also, the triangle in general in Paganism is a symbol of water, ’cause it’s pointing down. It’s also a symbol of feminism because of the triangle. What’s that got to do with this? I’m just letting you know. It wasn’t a joke, I’m just letting you know. Now, the Latin specifically, so again, my thought process behind this was, so, when we were writing the section about the cult, I was like “Okay, well what could they chant,” and I was like “All right, well, what if there was something “that was like life is water or water is life, “and then once they get down there and they’re selecting “the specific person to go into, “put their hand into the water, “it’ll be the selected one, “or the chosen one enters the water,” and I can’t remember whether or not the chosen one refers to the person chosen in sort of the weird duck duck goose game, or if it’s Whitewood himself, but anyway, it was very simply putting the meaning into Google Translate, and going from English to Latin, until we got something that, “Oh, that kinda seems like it could be a cool chant.” And also, I was thinking at the time, “We’re probably gonna get a couple of things wrong, “maybe the tense is wrong, “maybe this isn’t a perfect translation, “but let’s not pay too much attention to it “because we’re trying to make it seem like “this dude who has no experience in any of this stuff “is going to the library and kinda coming up “with this language that wouldn’t be perfect.” The system would not be this perfectly cohesive system that feels like it has some sort of supernatural force, but it’s more like somebody creating something to fool people, and it’s gonna have some inconsistencies in it, so “I chose this, and this is what you chant.” So everything has significance but it’s not, it doesn’t have metaphysical significance, it’s just– He made it up to make sense and to manipulate, you know kinda like, you think I was gonna throw another religion or cult under the bus, didn’t you? So yeah, so the Latin, and the symbology, the star, the freaking star’s on the side of the book. Look at that, Whitewood tainted the spine of our novel. ‘Cause there’s the star, that means nothing. That’s a deception, man, we got it right there on the spine of the book, ’cause it looks cool. But it means something now. It means the lost, yeah, it means… Or else I shouldn’t have got it tattooed on my left butt cheek. Oh. So yeah, he made all that stuff up, y’all. He made it all up, so then we go back to facts like, why would a guy go through all this trouble, and so not to make, I mean yeah, I think you do feel for him, but it doesn’t justify his actions, I mean would you wanna do anything to save your daughter, to remove your daughter’s pain, to give her a full life, well, hopefully not anything, hopefully not this, but I mean it’s not just the one decision, he’s continually communing with his daughter, who’s frozen in time. And every time he goes down there his heart is wrenched one more time, so it’s like, at a certain point, he’s kind of, again, I’m not trying to justify this, but psychologically, you can go crazy trying to care for somebody, if you’ve reached a total dead end, and especially if it’s like “This is the answer, “if you just do this.” You can find yourself becoming convinced of, or justifying your actions. Yeah, so we wanted it to be a little bit messy and complicated, but ultimately, you’re still, I think if you’re normal, you’re still gonna conclude that none of the stuff that he’s doing is actually justified, it’s just he has his own reasons which may draw a little bit of sympathy from you, but not to the point that you think any of it’s justified. Just think, I mean you’ve got this poor girl who doesn’t wanna get out of her dress getting in there, “Oh my lord,” Wayne said, “It was working,” the water all around them began to bubble, Wayne began to laugh, unconcerned about disturbing anyone who might be within earshot. Ruby laughed too, “This is really fun.” She pushed off the bottom, beginning to swim. Wayne was careful not to let go of her hand. That didn’t matter, though, as soon as she dropped her face below the surface, Ruby was violently sucked down into the water. Her hand slipped from her father’s. “Ruby!” He yelled, “Baby!” Then he got spit out. Moving along, this is a question, a quick one related to the spring, Joel McCray asks, “Are the seven souls taken by the Keeper dead? “What happened to them, do they go to an afterlife “or just not exist?” So no, the seven souls that are in there are in the same situation that Rex, I mean that Leaf and Alicia were, in this book. So, in this state of stasis, which your body is not aging. There’s some things happening in your mind, of course, the longer that you’re there, it seems like the less you can kinda remember and hold onto the life that you had before. And interestingly, this, I don’t wanna get into too much into this, because I don’t like taking so much of the mystery, any of the mystery out, but I will say that the nature of the spring and the Keeper of the spring, and even the nature of this, the void and the people sort of being suspended in time, and kinda trapped in this place, every element of that is at least somewhat influenced by Celtic mythology, right, and that’s why in the book, they break out the giant book that talks about, I can’t remember the name of the book, but, that’s when they get some information about the nature of the spring and the blood and all this stuff, and the blood being the key, that’s because, some of the particular choices that we made are just things that we came up with, but the general idea of there being this sort of being in charge of a spring that represents almost a portal to a slightly different plane of existence, these are concepts that come up time and time again in Celtic mythology, which in a second we’ll, when we get to the end, we’ll talk about what does this mean about a potential second book, and where else could this go, but I will say that all of that is, it’s not completely fabricated, we didn’t just invent it out of thin air, we kinda looked and did some research on the way people thought about that, in sort of ancient Celtic times, and used that to influence us. So no, long story short, or long answer short, those people are not dead, they’re still in the void. You mentioned when we were talking about Whitewood, you said he would come up with the symbology and the Latin and stuff like he went to the library and was doing research, which reminds me of this question. Jade_iemrg, “Is the man who told Janine “in the library basement about the deaths “at Whitewood school going to be talked about at all? “He disappeared, and I have a feeling his character “has a story to be told!” Yeah, we’re working on a spinoff novel series about library dude, creepy library dude. Well first of all, you ever go to the library? There’s always somebody who, you can tell they spent a lot of time at the library. So, maybe Whitewood went there. Janine definitely went there for answers, and this guy apparently knew what she was looking for, and had a little information, but then, either he was a ghost, or he just ghosted. I mean he wanted to help, but… Do you have a straightforward answer, because I have a roundabout answer. Who is this guy? Well, go ahead. I just think that in this town, you can’t expect everyone to believe exactly the same thing, for there not to be anybody who’s more suspicious, so to me, it rang true that there’s at least somebody that you encounter in the story that, you’re not taking this hook, line, and sinker. Somebody who’s a little bit of a conspiracy theorist. But every once in a while, conspiracy theorists are right. But then not accepted, kinda like, we say conspiracy theorist with derision, and I’m sure in the town, any nay-sayer would be, who knows what they’d be scratching on the side of his car? So it’s like, “Hey, I’ma help you out a little bit, “but I don’t wanna be associated with this.” Is the simple explanation. Who is he and how much does he really know? And I would say, an even simpler explanation that doesn’t even, it’s very much, all right, she needs to do some kind of research and she needs, again, this is one of those things that in storytelling it’s like okay, well, Janine needs to learn something that the audience needs to also know in order to move this story forward. Where would you get this type of information, well you would get it at a library. What kind of town is Bleak Creek, and also, what kind of story are we trying to tell? Okay, so I think the library scene is actually pretty indicative of exactly the way we wanted to write this book, so the first thing that happens is, okay, something ironically funny. There’s a loud librarian, it’s a simple, simple joke that we got a good bit of mileage out of. And then, oh, but this is also a scary, scary thing, so she’s gonna go down into this basement, it’s gonna get a little bit weird when she says that she’s asking about the Whitewood school, and what better way to introduce a little bit of, I mean she obviously passes this guy who’s kinda following her with his eyes as she goes down and walks through the main part of the library to then go to the basement, and then what if all of a sudden he’s just right behind her, not necessarily because there is significance to this guy that will be explored later, but mostly because it’s just really creepy. Because it’s a more inventive way to get this information. You know that she’s being watched, you know that she’s being, there’s a lot, there’s increasing attention on Janine’s efforts, and so how far is this gonna go, is she gonna be harmed? And so, hopefully you’re thinking that as you’re reading this, I mean she’s lying about the recipes and that’s kinda not going too great. She kinda, I really enjoy her lies, but I’m hoping that the reader’s like “Okay, I just don’t know if that lie’s good enough, “I think she might be putting a target on her back.” Or like I said, on her car, at least. So then what’s this guy gonna do? And the funny thing is, it’s obvious by the way we ended the book, which somebody pointed out in a question, that we want the story to continue. The book ends with, okay, Ruby’s out, and this is not quite reconciled, I mean, no justice has been done to what these adults have been doing, and what’s going on in the spring, and there’s still people that we love and care about who are stuck there. Is Alicia gonna get back to normal, there’s a lot of open questions, and that was very very intentional, and I think that one of the interesting things that we’re finding, is when you ask this question about this man, well I just told you, no, there was no greater significance to this guy, he represents an opportunity to make the scene scary and he’s also indicative of just the nature of the town, and like Link said, that there’s gonna be people who are skeptical about this school. But, the cool thing about potentially writing a second book, is if we wanted there to be significance to that guy, and we wanted to make it almost retroactive, as long as you don’t do anything that is contradictory to the way that you set it up in the first book, you have the right to do that. And it’s not that we didn’t, I do think it was important with that guy that, it does also send the message that there are potential allies in this town. Everybody’s not against these kids. It’s not just, and Janine, you know? So, there’s a little bit, I’m just saying there’s a little– But I’m just saying that’s not the process that went into it, it’s not the process that went into it, but we talked about, we haven’t talked about it at all in the show– But there’s an openness to it, that’s the point I’m making. You know what, and this leads to another question, the question about Dennis, yes, read that question. Julia, which is Jula483 asks, “Was Dennis calling Janine, “who was still in Bleak Creek just a weird coincidence, “or was there something supernatural happening there? “Him calling her all of a sudden when she was in doubt “and not sure if she should stay or leave “was almost too perfect.” And a related question from gryffiest, and she actually replied, he or she actually replied to this question, “That, or I was even thinking “at the time that he might’ve been paid off “or encouraged by some or one of the cult members “to get her to leave town.” I wish I had a really awesome answer to this. But the answer is, no, it was just the best way to tell the story. It was dramatic timing. It was a little too perfect, well yeah, yeah, it might’ve been a little too perfect, but sometimes you need your characters to do something that will do the perfect thing for your story. Hey, things happen serendipitously in real life, too. Yeah, they do all the time. But, which– You wanna avoid the cumulative effect of a lot of that happening and driving the story forward. We didn’t make it, there’s not a whole lot of super convenient things that happen, but there are some convenient things that happen so you don’t have to sit through an unnecessary chapter to move the story forward. And also, it’s our first novel, I’m sure– Listen, don’t apologize. Well, but I’ll also say that I read well-established writers all the time, and I see things that I’m like “Whoa, that right there is so convenient that it’s,” and I tend to not be very judgmental about that kind of thing, but I find some things get too convenient sometimes. I don’t think this is necessarily one of ’em, but I think it relates to the question that we were answering before which was, kinda the way the intentions and symbolism, in fact I was in a classroom last week, while I was doing this tour of this place, and in the writing classroom, the English classroom, there was a, I’m gonna get this wrong, but the quote was, “I don’t know whether the author intended “what my teacher says they intended “or if she’s just making it up.” But it was a very funny way to kind of word that, and I think that… We’re just glad to be a part of the discussion. I think it may have been Hank Green talking about his book, but somebody had seen something in his book and he was like “Oh, I’d like to take credit for that, “but no, and I’m glad that you see that that way.” But I think it goes back to the process of, once you put yourself in a certain frame of mind, and you’re in a certain setting, and you’re telling a certain story, there are going to be things that, even the observation that you made about the nature of the friendship and the way that they held hands around the tree, the observation that you made in the documentary, which wasn’t, the reason we put it in the book is because, well that was what we remembered. We remembered three people holding hands around a tree and not being able to reach, and then you made the connection that this is like, well, if two people are holding hands, the other two people can’t be holding hands, and so it sorta represents the inherent tension in a three-way relationship. It’s not that that’s not true, it’s just that that wasn’t intended. People can find the meaning in that, and I think that’s totally fine, to find the meaning in something, but that doesn’t mean that all of that was there, it’s just you’re in a certain frame of mind when you’re writing, and then the person’s in a certain frame of mind when they’re reading, there’s gonna be connections made, and for me that’s just a beautiful part of the reading process, is that finding those things, and attaching meaning, even in places that it could’ve been subconsciously inserted by a writer. Doesn’t necessarily have to be intentional. I think that was the case there, because we were very much talking about the relational dynamics and, Leaf trying to confess his crush, and that being thwarted, it’s like, and then that’s the very next thing that we talk about. And you know, it’s an easy connection. Let’s move to the– Well, keeping in the same theme, this question from Nicole Tennant, sundayrain26, “Is there any significance to the blue frog?” So Ruby’s blue frog left on the bed. And yes, there is very specific significance to it, I don’t know exactly where it could go, but the reason that it’s a blue frog is of course the blue sorta represents the theme of water that we’re dealing with, and that’s why the robes are blue in the cult, but the frog is, of course, amphibious, which represents the ability to go between two different worlds, two different modes of existence. A frog being able to go underwater and then on land. And who does that? And also, the frog itself does have, once you start kinda searching, spiritual or symbology of frog or something like that, you’ll be taken to 12 different websites, and they all kinda have a different interpretation, but I did find one website that talked about, there’s sort of a spiritual analog to the amphibious nature of a frog, being that it represents the ability to kind of go between two planes of existence, both the physical world and the spiritual world. And I think that the void does represent some sort of metaphysical spiritual plane of existence that isn’t necessarily the other world or underworld, but it’s something different, and so, that is the significance of the frog. Where we’re gonna go with that, we don’t know exactly, but yes, there’s a reason that it was a frog, and that wasn’t accidental. And if you remove the r in frog, you get what? Fog, and fog is something that lingers over what? A bog. Water. Okay, Austin Reed, Reapercrew96, “Can we talk about “the very last scene when Alicia’s going down the street “and sees Ruby in the epilogue? “Is that a hint at a second book? “When Ruby got out of the spring is she still a little kid “or has she grown up the 10 years? “#earbiscuits.” She has not grown up the 10 years, she’s the same age she was when she went in. She’s seven years old. She’s seven years old. So yeah, let’s talk about that scene. Is it a hint at a second book, wouldn’t I like to know. I hope so. Yeah, it was our… A second book that doesn’t exist yet, but yeah. It was our big hint at the fact that we want to write a second book. It’s not necessarily up to us, whether or not there will be a second book, but it represented our intention that there will be. But it would be cool to have Ruby in a second book. Oh yeah. Or maybe we just forget about her, say “You know what, that’s just a dangling participle, “let’s move on to something else. “Forget about Ruby, she’s not gonna be in the second book.” Was there another question? I think, I thought there was another Ruby question, but– Yeah, there is. From Lex, “Why was Ruby the most attached to the Keeper “when she wasn’t the first kid to drown in the spring?” ‘Cause you know, there’s Timothy, who was in there, who’s the kid who, I can’t remember how many years ago it would’ve been, but basically when the spring shut down, was when he “drowned” according to his parents, according to the people in the town, the Bleak family that was running the resort, he drowned, but we know he didn’t drown, he’s been in there. Okay, so why is it that the Keeper is sorta speaking through and obviously more attached to Ruby? Again– Well his question was why is Ruby so attached to the, I guess it’s the same question both ways. Well, again, I think the answer is the most straightforward and that is, the Keeper wants more children, right, the Keeper’s made that very clear. Apparently, he didn’t have any, Timothy being down there wasn’t doing anything for him, but Ruby, because of the way it ended up working out where both Ruby and Whitewood went down at the same time, now the Keeper’s an opportunist, right, so the Keeper knows that “Now I’ve got the carrot, Ruby, “in the spring, and now I can manipulate Whitewood, “and get him to do my bidding.” And so he’s naturally going to be more attached to Ruby because she is the way that he can accomplish his purposes. Unlike Timothy, which, apparently hasn’t worked out so well. Right, so I mean, let’s shift to more of a summary of, okay, so where does this leave us? I mean, rest assured, we’ve given a lot of thought to where we’re leaving the reader, and, yeah, we’ve given a lot of thought to where we wanna take you in a followup, which, we’re not saying that’s definitely happening, ’cause we don’t know that that’s definitely happening at this point, but we certainly hope that we’ll have the opportunity to write a second book, so honestly, the more buzz that can be generated around this book, the greater the chances that we get the opportunity to write this second book, which we’ve already been working on, so. Yeah, we know where we want to go in the second book, again, it’s just a question of, will we have the privilege to do so? Okay, so in summary, where we leave off in book one. And this is, if you for some reason have decided to listen to this podcast up until this point… And now you’re thinking you wanna read it? You really need to pause the podcast, because I’m gonna summarize where it ends, so just don’t listen to this, please. There are a number of people who are inside the void, Ben, ’cause he was taken by the wave at the end, Josefina, the girl who befriended Alicia inside Whitewood. Josefina really liked that frog, I will say that. You know, I was like “Josefina,” and this is me just putting myself in the mind of the reader, “Why you keep touching that frog, “and messing up Ruby’s room so much?” That made me uncomfortable. The fact that they were getting too comfortable in that room, and then Whitewood snatched ’em up. The two kids who were thrown in during the commotion at the end of the book, so there was the crazy moments, where they’re getting Leaf and Alicia out, but there are other kids being thrown in and rejected, well Patrick Small and April Lee are two kids that are mentioned as missing at the end of the book by the sheriff, but they are in the void. There are three former Whitewood students who’ve been there for years, since their supposed deaths, that’s Richard Stanley in 1982, a 16 year old girl, unnamed. She’s the one that, Richard Stanley was the one in the oven, and the 16 year old girl was the one that was smoking next to the gas leak, supposedly. That was stupid. And then there was the boy that was struck by lightning in 1989 who’s also unnamed. That really happened. And then there’s Timothy Bleak, who’s the first kid to ever be taken into the spring, at least in the span of our story. Maybe things happened before, I don’t know. He’s been there since 1961, when he “drowned” in quotes. And that shut down the original Bleak Creek resort. Now you might do the math on that and realize that that’s more than seven kids, that’s eight kids, and again, or is that, no, if you count Ruby that’s nine. If you count Ruby that’s nine. The seven kids was just a number, the seven additional kids given to Whitewood for, again, I don’t try to put too much logic behind why the Keeper needs a certain number. But if he’s saying seven, that must mean his real number was nine. Yeah, and you could get into some numerology there, if you want, and the significance of seven and the significance of nine, if you wanna read about that a little bit, I’m not gonna say that that isn’t at least, it works out nicely. Go to the library. See who comes up to you. Oh, the library guy, don’t forget him. Now, the sheriff, Sheriff Lawson and the rest of the cult, Mary Hattoway, Shackleford, et cetera. Now Mary Hattoway’s dead. You wish, ahahaha! She ain’t dead. About to say. She’s so likable. They have explained everything to the town by saying that Whitewood was acting nefariously, kidnapping, murdering kids. They basically say that the original kids from the 80s are presumed dead, but the most recent four, which would be Ben, Josefina, Patrick and April, are just presumed missing. With Whitewood on the lam. Maybe being held someplace with Whitewood, again, I’m just giving you, this is all the stuff that the sheriff says at the end, just so your mind’ll be in the right place. And the cult itself still believes that the seven lost causes are being purified by the one below, and that they will return as the seven shepherds. Poor Travis. They just don’t know how long it’s gonna take. I mean you’re mad at Travis because he, he double-crossed ’em, but it’s just, just to use the parlance of the situation, it’s testimony to Whitewood’s ability to manipulate that Travis, a guy who’s so genuine, such a good-hearted guy, endeavor to deceive, to keep that from the kids as much as he did. Which then, is there a rereading of the scene at the river, what does that tell you about Travis? If you take another look at that scene, with the button. It’s not for us to answer, I’m just saying it’s just food for thought for the rereader. Travis is one of my favorite characters, by the way. Rex, Leaf, Alicia, and Hornhat, and all the other kids who were in the school are compelled, effectively compelled to remain quiet for the fear that the sheriff or the cult will kill their parents, do other crazy stuff. And then anybody who decides that they’re gonna say something could also be dismissed pretty easily, ’cause you got a bunch of traumatized kids that have been in this weird place that, of course they’re gonna say things about it. And then finally, Janine and Donna, they’ve shown their film, which has been interpreted by the initial audience as– A precursor to Blair Witch, in a very loose sense, I guess. Yeah, basically a mockumentary, a fictional documentary. Not a true expose. Somebody did ask the question, “Why did you make the decision to do that,” and well, it’s because we don’t want the loop to, if all of a sudden it was like “And she makes a film and everybody sees that “they’re all crazy, murderous cult members,” well then the case is closed on that, we don’t want the case to be closed. Yeah, I mean the cult successfully destroyed the most damning information, and so you’re left kinda like, I think it’s a pretty reasonable response, I think, it’s like “Ah, okay, this is a marketing ploy.” Yeah. All right, so, where does that leave us? Well, #EarBiscuits, first of all, if you wanna continue this discussion, and if you wanna join the Mythical Society or if you’re already a member, make sure you talk about it on Discord, there’s chapter by chapter Discord conversations happening. And listen, we, like Link said, yes, we wanna continue telling this story. The only way that’s gonna happen is if the book continues to be a success, and that requires the book to continue to break outside of this, the community of mythical beasts. Of course, you guys have been super supportive, and many of you have bought it, but we need to demonstrate continued interest in the fact that this thing is bigger than just the mythical beasts. So that means buying the book for somebody, encouraging them to read it, maybe they don’t, maybe you tried to introduce them to the world of mythicality before but you sent them a video where we were eating animal testicles, and that’s not their thing, we do other things, as we’ve hopefully demonstrated with this book, that I think are maybe even more accessible. So, share the book. And did you say leave an Amazon review? I didn’t say that, but you should do that as well. That’s a big help, if you’ve read the book– Or Goodreads as well. So on Goodreads or Amazon, please leave a review of “The Lost Causes of Bleak Creek,” it makes a difference and we truly appreciate it. I’ma give a quick rec, I was telling you about this right beforehand, so, shifting gears a little bit. I’ve never listened to Jim James, lead singer of My Morning Jacket, but I stumbled upon a song on his new album, solo album called The Order of Nature. The song that I listened to first was called “Set it to Song,” but this is the Louisville Orchestra and Teddy Abrams teamed up with Jim James to make this song cycle, it’s unbelievable how this thing works, but, lemme, I’ll just read the summary of this, he has so many albums in there, all so distinct, and I’ve just been introduced to the world of Jim James, so I’ve just scratched the surface, you can come along with me. “A fully orchestrated song cycle titled The Order of Nature “in which James pondered the roles of hatred and compassion “in the natural world.” Is his latest album, recorded live with the Louisville Orchestra. That’s pretty amazing. He’s on tour, too, I gotta try to see that. Well, he’s gonna be in Denver on May 15th. Let’s go to Denver. Jim James. All right, #EarBiscuits, let’s keep the conversation going, thanks for hanging out with us and for enjoying the spoilers. And we’ll be here for another, how many episodes do we have left, two additional episodes in 2019, and then we’re going to take another two week break. Be back on January sixth. ‘Cause your boys gotta have a break. And yeah, we’ll be back bigger and better than ever, actually, it’ll be exactly the same. Or will it? I don’t think it will be, actually. To watch more Ear Biscuits, click on the playlist on the right. To watch the previous episode of Ear Biscuits, click on the playlist to the left. And don’t forget to click on the circular icon to subscribe. If you prefer to listen to this podcast, it’s available on all your favorite podcast platforms. Thanks for being your mythical best.