Speaker 1: Hello, friends, and welcome to Theme Party the podcast. I'm
your party host, Moretta mos In case this is your
first time listening to a TPTP episode, here is what
we're doing. Every season, I pick a theme and our
team comes up with their own ideas for an audio
drama that somehow fits that theme, even if it only
fits if you ignore what the one out of ten
dentists actually recommends. Once they have made their episode, I
invite them to talk about it. I am thrilled to
be here with my party guest, Jada Mendoza. Jada is
a person trying to do her best. She is a writer,
a voice actor, and just generally a storyteller trying to
make her way. Given the chance, she would do storytelling
for the rest of her life. Jada, please say hello hello. So,
as part of every single episode so far, for our interviews,
I have been describing what kind of party I think
my guests are Jada. For you, I think because of
the storytelling element, I think you would be a murder
mystery party, no real murders involved. Again because of the
storytelling element, and I know how much storytelling has to
do with your whole life. The elements of trying to
parse out motivations for each character, filling in their backstory,
hinting to the audience about your love of fan fiction.
I feel like that would be a big element of
trying to solve the mystery before the end of the party.
Do you agree that this would be your kind of
party or an I agree?
Speaker 2: I've never been to a murder mystery party. You must,
I should, But I've been listening to the other episodes
and I was trying to think in my head of
like what party I thought I would be, And in
my head, I was like, maybe a book club meeting
or something like that.
Speaker 1: Okay, that was my first thought, and I was like,
that feels not wrong, But I don't think it's quite
on the nose in my opinion for what I would
assume would be your personality, because I feel like sitting
around talking about it, maybe having a glass of wine
or something. Sure, that's fine, that's a good time. But
knowing how much you're into fandom and how much you
like coming up with details of characters and just story building,
having a story to build off of, reminds me more
of you as a person than just sitting and talking
about somebody else's story. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2: That makes a lot of sense. The reason why I
said book club or something to that effect is because
I love discussing media. And one of my favorite things
to do with friends is if we're companion reading or
if we go to watch a movie or something. I
love going somewhere to eat after and talking about what
we just experienced together.
Speaker 1: Totally.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Whenever we get together for a movie, me and
my friend Melissa, I'm Melissa, we love to talk about
the movie afterwards, whatever movie we saw. I think one
of my favorite conversations was one that we had after
watching the second Sonic the Hedgehog movie.
Speaker 1: I've seen it. My kids love those, so I've seen them.
Speaker 2: They're good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they are. I Yeah. It feels very much like
it scratches an itch that those of us who grew
up loving Ace finura because it's got the Jim Carrey
and it kind of with a similar character profile that
he has done for some of his more wacky movies.
And it's good.
Speaker 2: But I can with the idea of the murder mystery
party thing because I think I'm addicted to story building
because it's something that I just do in my spare
time with my sister, Like me and my sister will
play a game. Recently doing is just like making original
characters in the SIMS. And we have all of these
groups of characters and they all interact with each other,
and they all have their own backstories and personal histories,
and we made like our own Wikipedia document essentially of
like everything they have going on, and now they all
have kids. This took place over a couple of months,
but we're still developing the story. Now we're in like
the second generation lineage of the characters, so that makes
a lot of sense. I love story.
Speaker 1: I will confess that I the only SIM game that
I have played was SimCity back in like what was
that the nineties, So I'm not super like I'm familiar
with the SAM games enough that I get it, But
I don't know do you have to do anything beyond
like introduce the characters and give them a place to
interact in Like, Like how much how much are you
directing what is happening to the Sims versus I'm just
interacting with each other.
Speaker 2: It's not a lot. Actually, I think the good thing
about playing a game like the SIMS and building your
own story world in a game like the SIMS is
the fact that spontaneous things will happen without you manipulating
that much. And then oftentimes we let these things happen
and I will incorporate them into the canon lore of
the world. So you may expect or you may want
two specific characters to want to get together, but then
they'll interact with another character and you'll realize, wait, the
dynamic is better, or you like these two characters and
how they look together better than what you intended. And
I think that's a good practice to have, like let
the story unfold as you create it, rather than trying
to dictate too much on your original ideas.
Speaker 1: So gotcha.
Speaker 2: Basically, I'm saying you should use the SIMS to make
your own stories.
Speaker 1: It's sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's the same thing as like in actual play
D and D campaigns, where the dice will often dictate
what happens in the story. Right, that element of randomness
gives like the story a very specific flavor, or it
adds like a perspective that you wouldn't have expected.
Speaker 1: Are you planning to do anything with the storylines you're
developing the SIMS or is it just like I'm just
watching the Petri dish and then whatever comes out of
it comes out of it.
Speaker 2: I do plan on like writing these things out, but
not for for profit was the first phrase. Yeah, No,
it's mostly for my own enjoyment, just because I feel
that I have been writing a lot and like putting
it out into the world versus writing for myself, which
is what I used to do as a kid a
lot of the time. And that kind of goes back.
It's like my fan fiction writer background. I suppose. I
think for now it's just for me, and then if
I decide later on that I want to put it
out into the world, than I will. But right now,
it's just a me and my sister.
Speaker 1: Gotcha all right? I love the collaboration behind that too.
That sounds like a really fun sister activity.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I'm basically the writer, and she does all of like
the art and like stuff and blender, Like she'll pose
the characters from the sims in Blender and she'll make
pictures and stuff like that. Wow, we want to make
our own compendium for these characters essentially, but yeah, that'll
just be for us.
Speaker 1: Sure. I love that. Oh that's gonna be so fun.
As you guys get older, and stuff and like can
share it with more people. M m m. That's cute.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Moving along, the theme for this season is family traditions.
Did your story the theme?
Speaker 2: I think so?
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Interestingly enough, when I hopped onto the show and you
presented this idea of, like the theme is family traditions,
I didn't have an idea like set in my mind
to write. I think I just went to an open
Google doc and I was like, let's write some ideas
on what I could potentially do. And I knew that
I wanted to do a fantasy story because at the
time I was reading a very famous Fay Fairy book
series that a lot of people on book talk were
talking about, and I wanted to put my own spin
on that genre. And so I was like, hmm, how
could I make this about family traditions? What if I
did a parent child strange relationship And through that I
kind of came up with this idea of, Okay, there's
like a lineage of monster hunters, and this parent and
this child don't necessarily see eye tie. I ended up
injecting a little bit of my own parental experience into it.
Not that I had like an exceedingly horrible relationship with
my parents. But I think as we grow up and
we sprout into adolescents, so to speak, there's a lot
of things that can happen between you and a parent.
I wanted to sort of offload it a little bit,
because when you write something, the writer's experience is like, oh,
write what you know.
Speaker 1: Just planting that seed and embellishing it a little bit
and then processing whatever comes from that.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 1: I like how you incorporated your own I don't know
if you could call it traditions. I suppose it is
kind of a tradition for parents and their kids to have,
like some strain in the relationship at at least some
point as people grow up.
Speaker 2: I feel like in the episode, the family tradition, so
to speak, is the passing down of the role of
being a monster hunter. Yeah, it's a little bit of
jamming together of jigsaw puzzle pieces, but it's more of
a familial expectation rather than a familial tradition. Even though
you can kind of lump the two in the same
VENN diagram.
Speaker 1: And I do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it works specifically, it's what we're saying.
Speaker 1: Yep, don't question it too hard. On that note, could
you please read us your log line and your tagline. Oh,
before we get into that, your episode title is monster,
and I will be bleeping it out every time we
say it.
Speaker 2: Okay for the interview, just some more.
Speaker 1: People can listen to it. Yeah, this is our first
episode of the podcast that has so much adult language
in it, and that is fine. No, no, no, no no.
We're not exclusively a kids show, and we put the
warnings on there and everything, so it's fine. And I
just am curious to know from our audience what they
thought of that and if it added to the story
in people's opinions, or if it was not a big
deal at all, or because I know that we talked
about it a little bit, but it was kind of
one of those for us that maybe use adult language
every day in our lives, it's not that big of
a deal. But I don't know how other people feel
about it, So I'd be curious.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think i'd be curious about it as well,
mostly because before the episode actually released, I was wondering, Oh,
is what I've put in the script too much? Is
the title too much? But I think at the time
when we did have those conversations, I was very firm
about the title because of how I guess important you know,
the word is to the lore of the story, like.
Speaker 1: The impact of that harsh of a word being involved
in the title.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and just the idea of like you're a monster,
like it conveys the sort of social history of the
greater story of the piece. Yeah. It also is like
a very shock value title, I suppose.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's basically a slur, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, pretty much. Yeah, so I think it's only acceptable
in this case because it's not a real slur in
the real world.
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, And we do. You do use the word
quite a few more times throughout the episode, I'm not
in the slur context rather.
Speaker 2: To your point. Also, everybody swears every day. It's either
that or I have the mouth of a sailor. Apparently, like, well,
the word is used as you know, an emphasis indicator.
I don't know. I hope people are okay with it.
Speaker 1: I would be surprised if too many people were completely
turned off by the use of it. But I also
have the mouth of a sailor, so maybe I'm I
don't know. We'll see, we'll see what the numbers say.
I guess. People are free to download and listen if
they want to, but I hope they do all the same.
Could you please read us your log line and your tagline.
Speaker 2: My mother, my monster, and me and a prejudiced monster
Hunter sets out to stop her rebellious daughter's elopement with
her monster boyfriend.
Speaker 1: Very nice. Jada's roles in making Monsterfucker include writer, assistant director,
casting director, production coordinator, producer, and voice actor. Let's listen
to a sample of your episode.
Speaker 3: I wouldn't be surprised if that's where she was headed next.
I can point you in the right direction for a pride. Uh,
you're sure on my parents' graves.
Speaker 2: I kind of ship them, Fiona. What they're kind of
made for each other. Two rogues led astray by their
graying morals. Maybe they'd be good for each other.
Speaker 1: That's not what this story's about.
Speaker 2: Whatever. Anyway, you were saying, she's been a single mom
raising her daughter for over twenty years. She's touch star, Fiona.
What a little drama ever heard anyone?
Speaker 4: Anyway, the interaction didn't end the way you would think, Amilio.
Speaker 3: I'm okay, h I just need a moment.
Speaker 1: No, you're not.
Speaker 4: You've been in this form since graduation this morning, and
you're anxious. It's making it worse. Just be yourself, please.
You shouldn't have to.
Speaker 1: Do that, Amelia. Get away from that thing.
Speaker 4: Mom, I've been lying to you. Garrett isn't my boyfriend?
Speaker 1: Amelia? Are you sure you want to do this?
Speaker 4: Please?
Speaker 1: So God, Demon, I knew it. How did you choose
the names of your characters? And did you try doing
it another way that didn't work for you?
Speaker 2: Because I am or I identify as a writer, I
love coming up with names for my characters, and I
have in my phone a list of character names that
I like that I will use for games or stories
or whatever. I feel since you know they're human names,
I can usually come up with some on the spot.
But for the demon folk names, I remember I was
having trouble with it because it's not something that I
normally do or something that I would normally think about.
So I did use one of those like fantasy name generators.
Speaker 1: I can't imagine you've got a zulgeiaf logged in your
in your document?
Speaker 2: No, of course not. But yeah, I love coming up
with names for my characters. I feel like I gravitated
towards names that end with an uh, sound because it's
like Gemma, Amelia, Fiona. I don't know if that's like
a familial naming convention that they do, but it just
ended up being that way.
Speaker 1: How about. I know, as we were going through you
writing your story, I got really stuck on Trevor Stabbington. Yeah,
the no spoilers, but the assassin sent to kill Jemma. Yeah,
but Stabbington just calling to you as the name of
the who doesn't even stab anybody by the way, right, Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean, if you think about it, the bad guys
are named very literally. I think Ernest Goodman is one
of the ones that I really wanted to use, just
because first and last name. Yeah. First of all, the
fact that he's a con man and his front name
is like Ernest Goodman is really funny to me. There's
like sort of a double meaning thing going on there.
But Trevor Stabbington I kind of just liked, and I
did kind of take it from somewhere. Oh in Tangled,
there's two twin thieves in that movie, and I think
somewhere I read because I do have the art book
four Tangled, I think their last name is Stabbington or
they're considered the Stabbington Brothers, so really, yeah.
Speaker 1: I did not know that. Uh oh, don't sue us,
Disney hopefully not.
Speaker 2: But yeah, when the name for an assassin came up,
I was just like, it would be really funny if
his name was something very standard like Trevor and his
last name was Stabbington. And I think everybody in production
really loved that because I kept hearing comments about it
as we included more people, and Tyler, who plays Trevor Starbington,
I think he got a good kick out of that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Tyler did an excellent job as Trevor Stabington. Sure. Yeah.
Could you please tell us which character you most identified
with and why, or alternatively, as you were making your episode,
did you have someone or something specific in mind as
inspiration for a character.
Speaker 2: I definitely identify most with Amelia. I think Amelia is
the character that I based most off of my experience
growing up and feeling sort of like a black sheep
wanting to do something creative with my career, so I
definitely relate to her. But I also relate a lot
to Fiona, who is the character that I play, mostly
because I based Fiona off of myself as a teenager
and I think that's evident in the fact that she
ships these two characters, the two bad guys together, which
is something that I still do to this day, even
as a twenty seven year old. Yeah. Yeah, But I
think there's an aspect of Fiona that I hope people
caught up on. But when I was a teenager, and
I think this is a common experience that everybody has.
But when you're a teenager, you think you know everything,
and you think you're right, and you think you're maybe
a little bit morally above everybody else. And so you know,
she speaks her mind about the politics of the situation
with the statue of her grandmother, and she learns to
better understand people and to dig deeper and be a
little bit more empathetic and give people the benefit of
the doubt before judging people super harshly. And I think
that's a lesson that I've learned as I've grown up
and grown into my late twenties. So, yeah, Amelia and
Fiona are the two that I most relate to.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Fiona starts out with a little bit of that
do your own research energy at the beginning of the episode.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, which is something that I also always do
like I love reading Wikipedia.
Speaker 1: Yeah, since you identify most with Amelia out of the two, currently,
what was it about her that you felt mostly mirrored
your experience.
Speaker 2: I think coming to an understanding of who her mother
was as a person and sort of taking the energy
and the time to sort of emotionally understand her mother
a little bit better, because obviously at the beginning of
the episode, Jemma is very prejudiced towards these people, and
I think if you grow up with your parent and
sort of budding heads a little bit politically, there's going
to be some disagreement there. But also it was important
for me at the end of the episode the second episode,
for her to reconcile with her mother and sort of
accept her and readopt her, especially since there's this huge
confrontation where she's like, ah, I wish you were dead,
like she tries to kill her in effect, but can't
do it. I really wanted her to come back and
sort of say, no, I'm not getting rid of you.
I still want you to be a part of my life.
It's something that has been really important for me moving
into adulthood, is realizing, oh, I am not my parent
and I don't have to make the same choices, and
you know, I don't have to live my life by
a rubric of societal expectations or parental expectations or anybody else.
And of course I'm still working through that. I'm still
you know, you struggle with things, and progress is not
linear and all of that sort of stuff. But it's
been important to me to be like, even if we
may have different opinions, we're still a family and I
still love you very much. Right, It's a complicated thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I have found as I get older that I
had the expectation as a younger person that older people
know things and eventually, someday I will unlock whatever it
is that adulthood has in store for the youth, that
I'm going to know how to pay my taxes, I'm
going to know how to fix my car, and like,
you know, things like that. But also emotionally speaking too,
and I don't know when that happens. It feels similar
to having a kid and you just get to go
home with a kid and it doesn't come with a manual.
It's like, I'm sorry, I thought there were going to
be instructions at this point. When are those coming?
Speaker 2: So, yeah, actually, I'm going to flip the script. I
want to pose a question to you, because you, in
effect are the main character of the two episodes, So
I wanted to ask how was it for you playing
this character who is a mother but also doesn't make
very good choices, Like how is the experience of acting
that out and getting into character and all of that stuff.
Speaker 1: I will say that it was really hard to say
some of those things because I could never imagine having
that kind of an interaction with my kids to that extreme. However,
I do try to be aware of minor versions of
that in my interactions with my kids. So I have
one child who is just very naturally gifted at school,
I don't really have to do much for them. They
do their own homework without being prodded. They get good grades,
like I know, they're very responsible at their age. And
the other one is a bit of a fibber sometimes
and will stretch the truth in order to be done
with the task that they don't want to do. And
they've just got some bad habits that we're working through
and trying to give them better habits to help serve
them later on in life. And working through that is
a constant struggle to continue to use kind language and
not like make what voice I am using now be
on repeat in their head as they get older. But also,
you know, I'm also human. I get frustrated with things,
and I you know, I can only have a conversation
about washing your hands in the Year of Our Lord
twenty twenty five so many times without being like, you're
you're this age now, how are we still? How are
we still having to remind you that it is important
to wash your hands thoroughly, and just like you know,
things like that. Their personality is such that they if
it is not interesting to them, they have a hard
time focusing on it and sticking to it even if
it is important. It is not to the degree at
all that Gemma interacts with Amelia at any point in
this story, but I think the exaggeration of it in
the story is important to kind of see the big,
blown up version of it. While it is not the
same impact, it's to a degree, would have similar results
over time if it compounded, I think in real life.
So so just being aware of that is a.
Speaker 2: Chore, No, it's It's something that I have thought about,
because you know, as the years go on and I realize,
you know, there's a bioclock thing happening for me, as
you know acist woman. Essentially, Yeah, I think about these things,
and I think, as I realized that I do want kids,
I want to impart this understanding that I have learned
with my parents that it's like your parents aren't perfect
and a lot of things that they do aren't on purpose,
and they are trying their best. And it was really
important for me, especially writing the strong female character, it
was important for me to have this aspect of depth
and have them make mistakes and not have them be
the perfect idea of what the character should be. Jemma
making mistakes, the most important part of it being the
fact that she takes accountability for those mists and tries
to do better is really the point of her character
arc that I wanted to focus on, and I wanted
in the future for Amelia to understand that. I want
to celebrate the fact that she turned around, like she
did everything that she could to develop understanding for these
people who she was prejudiced against and to offer that
kindness to her, because you know, I will be mad
at my parents for saying specific things or acting in
a specific way towards me. But at the end of
the day, I do recognize that they are a person.
They're human, and they're not some figure of authority.
Speaker 1: I mean, there are definitely one, very valid reasons for
people to disregard their parents and cut off ties with
their parents and whatnot. Absolutely, And I think I think
Amelia probably had a pretty good a pretty good argument
for never wanting to see Gema again and probably would
have been very justified in disappearing into the vast woods
and saying that unbothered. Yeah, but I do like the
dynamic of Fiona kind of being exactly what you said,
the teenage version of Amelia also and kind of sticking
and needling on the points of life. But see how
bad she was. Why are we okay with this? And
it's like, well, yeah, people are people, monsters, monsters are monsters,
and people are people absolutely, and sometimes people are monsters.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. Yeah, who's the real monster at the end of
the day. Yeah, And I think this is becoming a
very long answer, but I will say the reason why
I wanted that reconciliation at the end, because I think
there is a trope in literature and TV and other
media of a main character parting with their mother in
some way, and that's the only way that they can
be their own person. And I sort of wanted to
subvert that trope that I knew about and sort of,
you know, have the mother's still be there, have them
be a part of their story still, so there is
some element about it in their right hope.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So yeah, all right, Well, now that we've had
our therapy session for the middle of the episode, what
was your biggest challenge or obstacle with making this episode.
Was it working through just like the emotional side of it,
or was it puzzling through the logistics of how to
make the story.
Speaker 2: Work or I think it is a little bit of both.
I think as a person who's been writing for a
long time, I do have a love hate relationship with
the writing process because it is so difficult and obviously
channeling those emotions and like writing them and trying to
convey them with themes and characters and setting and all
of that stuff is really difficult. But the logistical process
of production is something that I was very scared of
at the beginning of this because I knew that I
wanted to be heavily involved. So that's just generally the
process with theme party, that's what you take on when
you come onto this show. But yeah, it was something
that I was afraid of because you know, wrangling everybody
together for a live directs is really difficult. The scheduling
is really.
Speaker 1: Hard yep especially with the size of cast that you
had in the scenes that had so many characters in them.
Speaker 2: So yeah, yeah, when I released the cast list, I
was like, oh no, what have I done. The fact
that the episode is two parts, I think also speaks
to that. But yeah, yeah, it was difference.
Speaker 1: We wanted to keep the episodes as close to twenty
minutes as possible, like we did tour with the idea
of releasing it as one. I think splitting it into
added some intrigue and extended our season a little bit more.
And I like it. I think it's fun.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I also like it. I like where we ended
off in the first part. That Cliffhanger is really good.
I was like, wow, good job, me wrote.
Speaker 1: Agreed. Yeah, I like that splitting in a two made
us come up with a made you come up with
a creative solution for like, how am I going to
make people want to come back to listen to the
second half of this rather than just like here's the
middle chop, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and obviously like that was more of something that
I had to tackle with after the fact. I wrote
the whole thing as essentially one feature leg strip, I guess,
and then it just so happened that, oh, there's like
a natural endpoint where it is like where the divide
is now in the episode. So yeah, I just got lucky.
There's a lot of cases with the logistics of the
production where I got really lucky. I feel very lucky
with the cast that I got, and I did right
to specific actors within lengthy tangent because we have a
great roster of people that we work with.
Speaker 1: We do have a great ross people that we work with.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I'm also really thankful to Henry, who is
the director of the two episodes, because there was kind
of a logistical issue with the original roster of production roles,
and Henry ended up taking on like two huge episodes,
and he was also like a nice guiding light with
trying to talk to people about scheduling, getting people last
minute to do live directs and stuff like that. So
I'm very thankful to Henry for helping me with this process.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Henry has been incredible for the group in just
mentoring people through different parts of production, specifically directing, but
you know in other aspects too. He's got a good
ear for acting, he has a good ear for like
marketing and things like that. So yeah, Henry is an
invaluable resource and we love him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he plays Jeeves and he's pass.
Speaker 1: He has some wild characters in his back pocket. And I,
oh gosh, I would love to do an oops all
Henry episode where he doesn't write it, but we all
write characters that we want to hear him do, because
he's also an incredible storyteller, an incredible writer in his
own right. But I think he's so good at just
seeing exactly how a character sounds in his mind and
just spitting that out for you to enjoy. And that
might be a fun game for us to do in
the future.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I will say I originally wrote Ernest
Goodman for Henry.
Speaker 1: Oh. Interesting.
Speaker 2: I did write Ernest Goodman for Henry to play, but
then I heard Jonathan play Ernest and I was like,
oh my gosh, he's really really good. Yeah, And then
of course Henry, I think he auditioned for Jeeves, and
I was like, wait, you give this character a flavor
that I didn't even expect the same with Jamie as
King b Striker too, because yeah, I originally envision King
b Striker as more of a King George from Hamilton character.
Oh okay, yeah, I think that was in the original pitch.
But Jabi gave b Striker a little, dirty, nasty little
thing that I love.
Speaker 1: I think of the word lascivious whenever I listened to
that performance, just like, yeah, very opposite of Gus in
Peculiar Radio.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, and I think it's the same guy. Yeah,
his ability to have that range is really incredible. Can
we just also like highlight the acting in this, because
first of all, you were amazing.
Speaker 1: Oh I'll cut that part out. That's weird.
Speaker 2: Okay, No, you can't.
Speaker 1: Thank you. I am forcing myself to accept more compliments
as they come. Thank you, Jada, I appreciate you should.
Speaker 2: Okay, Yeah, but you brought such an amazing depth to
Jemma that I really really love. And the time at
which we were so uncomfortable with the time in which
we're recording this interview is Part two hasn't come out yet,
but I'm really really excited for people to hear what
you've done with the character in part two because it's
a very raw, very vulnerable performance that you've given her.
And Caroline as Amelia is just amazing.
Speaker 1: Well, now that we're not talking about me, I can
gush about Caroline all day. Caroline is so good at
imbuing character. Like I know, I was talking about how
good Henry is it just taking a character and running
with it, like Caroline, when you put out the cast
and call for somebody who could play a child version,
a teen version, or a young adult version, and an
adult version of the same character, hoping to get the
same actor to do the voice for all the parts,
so there was the continuity and it didn't sound like
different characters every time. And Caroline nailed it in her audition,
like it, I don't know how people do that. Yeah,
it's incredible.
Speaker 2: I scouted out Caroline because we worked together in Peculiar Radio,
like in the Raider's Room, and I knew she did
good work. And I was like, hey, can you try
like submitting for this role, and she was like, yes,
of course, thank you for thinking of me. She uploaded
her audition and I listened to it. And I was like,
that's Amelia. Whoa she is Amelia. So I was just
really personally very toughed at the fact that I was
able to scout that out. But yeah, also in part two,
she gets really really really wrong and aggressive, which is
exactly what I wanted.
Speaker 1: I love that combination of desperate and aggressive at the
same time, like just like really wrestling with what is
happening in the scene.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure, she was in it, and I cried
during that live director. It was very amazing. So yeah,
mm hmmm. Yeah. And also Anthony did a really good
job too, I did incredible. Yeah. I did write Zulgarrith
with Anthony in mind, because in LTM they do the
voiceover workouts and I had been in a voiceover workout
with Anthony a really long time ago, and I remember
he did a script where he showed a lot of
emotionality and vulnerability and I was like, hmm, interesting, and
I kept that sort of in the back of my brain.
And then when I was writing this, there was a
part of me where I was like, I think this
is for him, and so you know, I reached out
to him, and of course he was very kind enough
to submit for this. I'm very proud of the casting
lineup that we managed to get, even though it is
a huge cast.
Speaker 1: I think it was worth it though it turned out
so well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm proud of all of my actors, and I'm
glad that I was able to act alongside them in
a way.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I wanted to ask about it or decision
to use some interspersed modern vernacular with the fantasy speak
that was in this episode. To my ear, it sounded
like it especially came through the Fiona character. Did you
do that intentionally or is it just your writing style
to throw in like because especially the word shipped being used,
I don't know that that appeared in the lather rings. Yeah,
like shipping the two characters, not just like a boat.
Sorry audience, if you.
Speaker 2: Were confused about that, I'm very sorry. It wasn't something
that I was consciously thinking of. I think it just
ended up coming out in the writing process. Interestingly enough,
I looked back at the original Monster documents that I
had when I was brainstorming and developing the idea, and
that scene between Ernest Goodman and Trevors Dabbington wasn't in
the original script.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I.
Speaker 2: Don't know if you remember, but it was in one
of the writer's room. So we were giving back feedback
and somebody was like, where did the assassin go. Oh? Yeah,
because in the original King b Striker mentions him and
then he comes back all the way in the end
to sort of kill Gemma in a way, and we
needed a scene where he reappeared and sort of instilled
his role in the story. And so I wrote that
scene between him and Ernest Goodman. And in my mind,
because of the way that the story is framed with
Amelian Fiona sort of meditextually telling the story to the audience,
I was like, I do ship them. Even as a writer,
I do shift them, and so I wanted to impart
that in Fiona's character. And I don't necessarily think of
these anachronistic ideas when I'm writing this. I sort of
just write to what feels right for the story, what
feels correct for the story, and sort of just do
whatever that way. But yeah, I don't know. I think
when you're writing things it can be very flexible. You
don't really see the rest of what Mortallya has become
in the years since the original story takes place, so yeah,
I don't know. Maybe they have AO three or fan
fiction net in there and this is a common thing.
But yeah, anything goes. I'm the creator of this world.
Speaker 1: I guess that's exactly right. Well, I think it really works.
Speaker 2: Thanks.
Speaker 1: Yeah, of course, Jada, in your experience, what has been
the biggest hit that it's time to leave her and
a party.
Speaker 2: When I'm tired. Generally, when I want to go home,
I'm like, okay, bye, everybody, I'm leaving, so.
Speaker 1: Like an Irish goodbye, or like, actually, do you take
the time to go around and say goobye everybody? Or
do you just like whoever's closest. Do you just kind
of wave and walk out.
Speaker 2: I'm a very introverted person, so I'm not the type
of person to like go out and have parties on
the regular. Sure, when I'm going to an outing, it's
usually like a family thing, so in that case, I
have to go around and say goodbye. But also in
that case, if it's a family thing, I'm usually one
of the last people to leave anyway, especially if it's
at a family member's house or something like that. My
uncle and my dad they live next to each other,
so I grew up with my cousins living right next
door to me.
Speaker 1: That's so cool.
Speaker 2: Yeah, when I tell people that, they're like, are they okay?
Is that I don't know. I guess people are like
siblings not getting along or something like that. But yeah,
for my whole childhood, I've lived next door to my
cousins until you know, they moved out, had their own
families and stuff like that. But if I have gone
to a party next door, I can usually stay until
the point where I'm like, I'm tired, I'm gonna go,
and then I take the five second can walk to
my parents' house.
Speaker 1: I'm very interested that people ask if everything's okay because
of living next to your cousins. It's my understanding that,
like this is not a universal rule, obviously, but for
most people, the cousin relationship is on another level from
like siblings because like, you know, they're not your brother
and sister. There's that extra element of it, like you
know everything about each other without having the having to
sleep in the same house.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know, it's that's a support system in itself, Like, yeah,
having family very close by, literally next door. But yeah,
when I've said it to people, I think they're usually
referring to like my dad and his brother being like, oh,
is everything okay that you live next that they live
next door to each other, And I'm like, yeah, I'm
pretty sure that's fine.
Speaker 1: You don't have to buy a house next to your sibling.
If you're struggling, you can live somewhere else.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, Yeah.
Speaker 1: I would think that would mean it's really good if
they chose to live next to each other.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think mostly the case for it was
the fact that my grandma, who is my dad's mother,
she would go next door to cook for my uncle's house,
like she would cook their dinner, and then she would
come back and cook our dinner, because you know, they're
all working and doing their own thing. So I think
that was more of the logistics behind it. And I
think because I'm Filipino back in the Philippines, you usually
live in a neighborhood where all of your family are
very close by, So I guess that was the logic
behind it. I've always lived next door to my cousins.
Speaker 1: If I bought a house next to your dad, would
your grandma come and cook dinner for me? Because that
sounds like a dream.
Speaker 2: I mean, maybe if you like Filipino food, maybe it would.
Speaker 1: Hell. Yeah, the place that I started working at sells
chicken enchilada Lumpia there now, and they're so good. We've
got a place here in Wisconsin that makes the specialize
in Lumpia, and we just carry one of their varieties
at the shop, and I want to make the pilgrimage
to their main location so I can buy more and
keep them in my freezer. But it's a bit of
a drive to just go pick up food. Yeah, but
someday I will assemble a team and we will go
and stock up on pia for sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's so interesting. I love when food fusions come
out of that, just because you know, there's such a
mosaic of people living in the United States and Canada
where now these kinds of foods are accessible. Yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker 1: What is your favorite Filipino food that your grandma makes?
Speaker 2: My grandma doesn't cook that much anymore, just because she's
like eighty five now and she deserves a Actually, yeah,
of course, recently she cooked spaghetti, which is.
Speaker 1: Not necessary Filipino food.
Speaker 2: Well, there's this thing called Filipino spaghetti. Yeah, it's spaghetti
that is normal, except the tomato sauce is a little
bit sweeter, and it has hot dogs in it. That's
basically all that's different about it. I feel like Italian
people are like a writing in the streets right now.
But it's good, and I grew up eating it.
Speaker 1: I would eat it having never seen it and having
never tasted it. I hope this isn't offensive to say,
but it reminds me of like a food that would
come from a cookbook that you give to kids to
like get them started in the kitchen. Probably, you know,
like here, make some spaghetti noodles, put some sauce on there.
You can't brown ground beef yet, so why don't you
cut up some hot dogs in it?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean like in this version it still has
the ground beef, there's just hot dogs in it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, I was picturing it incorrectly, obviously fascinating. Well, yeah,
I'll have to I'll have to see if I can
find some of that.
Speaker 2: If you have a jolly Bee near why they sell
I don't, Yeah, figures.
Speaker 1: I've heard such amazing things about I should find one.
I'm not that far from Chicago. Maybe they have one. Probably,
what would you recommend If I am able to find
a jolly Be, what would you recommend I get?
Speaker 2: So I would obviously recommend the Filipino spaghetti, just because
it's something that you got to try. Sure, the fried
chicken is always really good at jolly Be.
Speaker 1: I love fried chicken.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you're feeling very adventurous, I would recommend that
you get Pala book. It's like you know Vermicelli noodles.
It's like that and has like an orange sauce. It
has ground poor and normally when you get it from
like a catering thing, or if somebody makes it at home,
they'll have like hard boiled eggs in it. But I
don't think the jolly Be version does. How do I
describe the taste of this? Actually it's just good, It's
very savory.
Speaker 1: What is the orange sauce? Maybe that is going to
crack this far?
Speaker 2: I actually don't know. I feel like it's This is
a question that I always ask my mom because she
knows how to make Pila book. But people use like
shrimp in it. Sometimes there's also maybe a nato seed
is probably an ingredient in it, and that's probably what
makes it orange. Sure, but other than that. It's a
mystery to me. I feel like I'm constantly asking this
question to my parents about like what's in Pala book?
Why is it orange?
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have to I am an adventures eater, so
I would definitely give that a try.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's good.
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, I will keep an eye out for a
jolly Bee. Maybe jolly Be would very kindly put one
here where I am so I don't have to go
chase one down. Thank you.
Speaker 2: This is a campaign.
Speaker 1: This is now a campaign. I am asking you once
again to put a jolly Be in my neighborhood. Thank you.
Speaker 2: Well, we'll get a petition to get there. Something is
going to.
Speaker 1: Have I'll pass it around for signatures, for sure. I
think it ties in nicely to what we've been talking about.
What is the most memorable party you've ever been to?
Speaker 2: The most recent one is for my my maternal grandmother,
who I went to see back in the Philippines six
months ago. Because she essentially was the first person amongst
her siblings to turn eighty years old. Like all of
her other siblings died before eighty years old, she managed
to live to that age. They did like a big
party at a banquet hall, and it was much bigger
than I expected, because normally with parties in the Philippines,
you know, you have it in your backyard or whatever,
if you're rich enough to have a large backyard for
an event space or whatever. But we went to a
banquet hall and I think about one hundred people came wow,
and there was also an EMC with a soundboard, so
that was pretty wild. And then people went up to
say stuff to pay tribute to my grandma because she's
a very important and influential person in the community. I'm
very cherished by her friends. And then the other thing
that made it memorable was me and my cousins we
had to go up and say something, which is not
what I was expecting. I knew that I had to
dress up for the occasion, and I knew that we
would be taking pictures and doing all of that stuff.
But the MC came to our table while we were
eating and he was like, so you're gonna say something
to your grandmother in a couple of minutes, and we
were all like what, Like, we had not prepared anything,
and we ended up drawing lots for the person who
was gonna go up and say something, and of course,
with my luck, I was the person that ended up
drawing the lot to go up and speak, and I
was like, this is fine, I'll just improvise something I
did an improve in the last year. I can come
up with something you've.
Speaker 1: Been training for this exact moment.
Speaker 2: Exactly, and I just sort of went up there. I
said a lot of ms and us, but I ended
up speaking from the heart and it's very emotional conveying
your love for a person who lives across the world
from you and who you rarely ever see. But then,
as another testament to my luck, everybody else in the line,
all of my other cousins ended up saying something anyways.
So I went up first, and then I ended up
passing the mic down and other people ended up saying
stuff too.
Speaker 1: So I think that's probably for the best, like your
luck made you break the ice for everybody else, But
I think it would m hmm. I think it probably
was the best tribute to your grandma to have everybody
say their own thing, rather than your cousin's getting away
with a diddo off stage.
Speaker 2: You know, Yeah, so true. I don't know. It was
a little awkward for me, just because even though I
am Filipino, I don't speak to Gallog. So my entire
speech was in English, and I was saying to my
parents after the party was over, it's like, do you
think everybody understood what was going on? And they were like, yeah,
I I think everybody understood. So in any case, like
all of my other cousins ended up speaking in English
at some point anyways, So yeah, it's fine, It's probably fine.
Speaker 1: There was nobody obviously that was offended by you only
speaking English and your speech, and if they didn't get it, like,
I'm sure the looks on everybody else's faces conveyed what
you were saying anyway, and your grandma understood what you
were saying, and that's what's important.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely. It was funny too, just because there was
a soundboard during your speech. They played sentimental music and
there's like sound effects if you say something funny, which
was really interesting for me to experience.
Speaker 1: I just imagine you saying something really heartfelt and the
DJ going for for for fair.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like that's that's literally what would happen. So my god,
it's really comedic and funny.
Speaker 1: So I aspire to be like your grandma when I
am made it. That's incredible to have.
Speaker 2: I think you will. You think so based off of
the stories I've heard, of course, I think that will happen. Okay,
well through all a bit goodhall party for all. It's
like morettas. We'll all go up and improvise a speech.
Speaker 1: I look forward to it. Start your or sim storyboard
for how that's gonna go.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, I'll make a Canva whiteboard not sponsored.
Speaker 1: Hashtag not sponsored every episode. Now, of course, I think
you may have already covered this with the last question.
Could you briefly describe a party you've been to that
relates to this season's theme or to your episode story overall?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess I kind of answered it in the
last question, just because I think that was the biggest
party that I've been to in a while, or at
least something that was so elaborate that directly celebrated familiar
lineage in a way. I don't know. I feel like
because my family are made up of immigrants, and we
live very far away from other family members who live
literally across the world, it makes you really hard to
have those kinds of celebrations and have them be as
big as they would be but I'm always happy to
even gather with my nuclear family and celebrate something. And
I like eating good food.
Speaker 1: So I'm here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's usually a big part of get togethers and
stuff like that. Food is a love language.
Speaker 1: Are you ever responsible for bringing any of the food
or making any of the food for the get togethers?
Or are you just a consumer of the food? I
shouldn't say, justin are you privileged to be a consumer
of the food.
Speaker 2: I feel privileged to be a consumer because usually when
I go to a party, I get to eat really well. Yeah,
but if I'm bringing something, because I became very famous
amongst my family for baking a lot during the pandemic,
as I'm sure a lot of other people will attest to,
I usually bring dessert. I remember during the pandemic, for
my uncle's birthday, the uncle that lives next door to
my childhood home, I made a cheesecake based off of
the Cheesecake Factory recipe. So I made like a big
cheesecake and I decorated with the jammy strawberries and whipped cream,
and I decorated it. And I like baking. I like
doing the cake decorating thing, even if I only get
to do it a couple of times a year. It's
something that I enjoy.
Speaker 1: To your own desserts committee, all right, yeah, I love that.
But something that's bittersweet is that we are at the
end of our episode here, Jada. It has been a
pleasure chatting with you. But before we go, could you
please tell the people what you're promoting or celebrating right now?
Speaker 2: Well, I am celebrating the release of Monsterer on Theme Party.
That's gonna get bleeped.
Speaker 1: Yay, so many bleeps this episode.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Other places you can find me, I write a substack. Wow. Yeah.
My substack is retrospective, but without so it's retrospective.
Speaker 1: I guess we can like it in the show notes.
Speaker 2: And I usually write about monthly media or the media
that I'm really excited about. And yeah, you can read
about all my artistic opinions on the internet. I think
that's it, all right. I'm excited for the next season
of Theme Party.
Speaker 1: Wow, me too. I'll talk about it a little bit later,
but I'm excited to have you back writing another episode
for a season two.
Speaker 2: Hey, I'm excited too. We're gonna Trauma Dumb again. Hooray.
Speaker 1: Hey, Trauma dumbing, get it all out. Did you have
any other socials that you want to throw out there
where people can find you, or do you only want
to be found on substacks.
Speaker 2: Generally, I'm trying to like cut down on my social
media usage. I don't really use social media that much anymore.
But on Blue Sky I'm retrospective the same thing without
the eye. On Tumblr, I'm also retrospective the same thing
without thought.
Speaker 1: Good job getting that cross platform handle.
Speaker 2: Yeah, But on Instagram, my handle is JD M and
DZ with two underscores, and you could follow me there.
I don't really use it, but sometimes I post on
my Instagram story if I have something to promote, like
substack or theme party or anything Lengthy Tangent related.
Speaker 1: Heck, yeah, yay. Well, all that just leaves me to
thank Jada for coming to my theme party. Thank you
also to bad Machine for making our shows music, and
to Alyssa Esteban for our show art and for story development.
Another huge thank you to Jada and everyone else involved
in making Bonster Figger. If you want to learn more
about the episode and all of our shows, you can
visit our website Lengthy Tangent dot com We've also got
a Patreon. Patre everything from lengthy tangent, so pop on
over there to see what we've got to offer. Be
sure to follow us on social media, subscribe to you
don't miss an episode, and rate and review if you've
enjoyed the show. This is our final episode of season
one of Theme Party the Podcast. We're already in production
for season two, as Jadea and I have discussed, so
be sure to watch for updates. The theme for season
two is going to be The Stranger, so we've got
some great stories getting cooked up for that already, and
I will let you know when they are going to
come out. We don't have a release date just yet.
Once again, our theme for this season has been family traditions.
I've been moreta moos and this has been an interview
episode of Theme Party the Podcast Celebrate Creativity.
Speaker 2: Oh man, that's a long one.
Speaker 3: We'll just edit that part out like the dang