(Scroll down for the transcript for our “Meet the Monsters” trailer!)
ANNOUNCER (music behind):
Waiting For October is an upcoming queer supernatural audio drama series from the creators of Moonbase Theta, Out. The setting is the world of October – a place of monsters, a place of fiction, a place of others born from the need of our stories. It’s a world that’s wild and transformative, where gill folks live in the lakes and weres run through the city streets, while kaiju roar beyond the mountains and the Moon always fills the midnight sky …
YVONNE:
Speaking of literature …. you said you’d come back to that bedtime story.
KARO
Did I, now?
YVONNE
Don’t you play with me. Not about stories.
KARO
All right. I’ll see if I can give you some answers.
(brief pause)
Nobody really knows the how of the written worlds, the places those stories brought into being. But it seems like things come when there’s a need for them – so when imagination grew and needed to express itself, there had to be a place that it could draw from. A real, existing place; a whole world one step away where their fiction could have its own truth.
(brief pause)
One world wasn’t able to hold it all, but of all the worlds … October might be the oldest.
YVONNE
I forgot you called it October! I love that.
KARO
That’s one of the names. That’s what humans called it when they first crossed over.
(brief pause)
October might be the oldest, because it serves one of the deepest needs. It is a world that’s made of monsters.
YVONNE
Here we go.
KARO
October was born from the shadows, from the silhouette of bare branches trembling in the wind, the first time someone held their breath at an unexpected noise in the dead of night. October began from a heartbeat pounding, from that moment in a dream when you need to run but you just can’t run, from the gasping awake before your eyes adjust and everything is an unidentifiable blur. It is a world seen through a fun-house mirror, strange and singular, unusual and unnatural compared to your existence.
(brief pause)
Not based in nightmare or evil, though they’ve been read as such – but the inexplicable, the wild mystery lurking in the woods, or at the ocean floor, or in the apartment upstairs that you’re certain wasn’t rented. We are the monstrous exposition.
YVONNE
Oh, it’s we now?
KARO
We, as in …
YVONNE
I like the idea of a place made out of stories. Do they carry around a pen and paper to write their way out of plot holes? Or a laptop – are there laptops in the monster world? Do they have wifi? Asking the important questions!
KARO
There are places as modern as this world, and places that are … not so much. Depending on the tale they’ve been telling.
(brief pause)
October tends to ebb and flow with that need, changing the background, the age of things, the taste of the air … a path you’ve traveled a hundred times might twist in the opposite direction and you wind up somewhere completely new. Your story might be changed without being aware, some force you’ve never felt before pulling the focus, and you’re carried along in the wake …
YVONNE
Curiouser and curiouser. So every story is just being written, right around you, minute by minute. Even a monster must get kinda muddled up by that.
KARO
Sometimes …
YVONNE
Okay, my brain is starting to catch up. In this other world, all these things are just yawn, boring, everyday? Of course there’s a monster on the lake, and Bigfoot, he’s probably some kind of park ranger, and there’s Mothmans – Mothmen? mothpersons? – and maybe a Chupacabra or two out in them hills, and you’re like, honey, the jackalopes are getting into the garden again, we better build up that fence … and I guess, I don’t know, a zombie might sit next to you on the subway and it’s all fine …
KARO
(laughs)
I’ve never seen a zombie. But … all the rest, sure. It’s really pretty great – there are definitely chupacabra, and at least a Mothman … the jackalopes are pretty cute as long as you’re careful during mating season … and there’s The Wilds – packs of were-creatures of every sort, wolves and bears and boars and even were-kangaroo … the Gill Folks in the rivers and lakes and seas – like the one your friend thought he saw, and nix and selkies and the Kataw and mermaids –
YVONNE
Mermaids are monsters?
KARO
Cities full of monsters – gargoyles working construction and gremlins in the machinery; bugbears and trolls and the Lindworm in the forest; wild kaiju beyond the mountains but you hear them no matter how far away; Skrippicut and giant bugs in the desert; the Moonkin and the Wampahoofus and the pooka and I know at least one skeleton by name – though to be fair, he’s not originally from October …
YVONNE
I’m gonna stop you before you get to the Jabberwock and the Jubjub bird. I think I get the picture.
(she yawns)
And it’s getting past my bedtime. Here, snuggle in again.
KARO
I’m right with you.
ANNOUNCER (music behind):
Waiting For October – coming this fall from Monkeyman Productions! Go to monkeymanproductions.com for links to all our social media and more info on the show. You can also support us at patreon dot com slash monkeyman productions, and get early access to every episode and lots of behind-the-scenes goodies. Cross over and become a part of our story!
MEET THE MONSTERS TRAILER TRANSCRIPT:
DEEJ
Hi folks, D.J. Sylvis here, creator and co-producer of Waiting For October, which when this trailer goes out will be … two weeks from our Halloween launch date! The cast and crew have been putting in lots of work getting everything ready for your ears, and we’re SO close now! We can’t wait to share our story with you!
Which is why we’re back today with another trailer. You’ve heard a lot up to now from our leads, Karo and Yvonne, but there’s a whole world full of monsters in our show and it’s time you hear from some of them! Enjoy your first listen to Grey the werewolf and Charlene the lake monster, the Lindworm and Raven and our Mothman and Auncle Lantern and so many more!
And afterwards, make sure you’re subscribed wherever you’re listening to this now. The Season 1 Prologue arrives on Halloween, then Episode One follows on November 3rd! And if you don’t mind spreading the word to anyone you know who might enjoy a queer supernatural audio drama … we’d appreciate that too! Now, on to the monsters!
TRANSITION MUSIC
KARO: October is one of the written worlds – places that exist because we need them to tell stories. It might be the oldest, because it serves one of the deepest needs. It is a world that’s made of monsters.
GREY – Grey, pack leader, pleased to meet you.
YVONNE: Yvonne, library assistant … from Earth, I guess.
GREY: Right. And Karo! Karooooooooo!
TRANSITION MUSIC
YVONNE: What did they call her back in town, Champ?
KARO: Don’t bring that up. Her name is Charlene.
CHARLENE: First to guard, first to explore, first to adapt to the currents and the waves of this world. It began as a thrill, deepened into an obsession, and in time became my raison d’être. Mapping out a whole new hydrosphere, fathoming its mysteries … We filled the empty spaces on their maps; we became the mythos behind unexplained shipwrecks, shadows in the mist, or on their radar screens. The tales we’ve uplifted extend from shore to shore.
TRANSITION MUSIC
KARO: The Lindworm took me in, before I crossed over, when I was … between lives.
LINDWORM: You fell within my jurisdiction at the time.
KARO: They’re saying that because they’re Protector of the Wild.
LINDWORM: I am the champion, the chaperon, the attendant – not just of these but all wildness in this world. This world still needs monster stories, but it has forgotten how to respect them. You should quake at our very presence! And I also write poetry.
TRANSITION MUSIC
RAVEN – Raven. Not the Raven in some mythological way, just a Raven. But famous for a certain midnight dreary.
KARO: It’s not midnight yet, it’s far from dreary, and he is not who he says he is. He’s basically a dick.
RAVEN: That’s so unfair. Maybe two of those things are true.
RAVEN: I act as a guide here, advisor to those who need one, wise and experienced companion on quests both humble and heroic.
TRANSITION MUSIC
ALAN: Alan-a-Dale, minstrel and once-upon scoundrel at your service.
YVONNE: I don’t remember any version of the story where you’re a skeleton. A rooster, sure, but even then you were fully-feathered.
ALAN: I do enjoy that one. (whistles a bit)
TRANSITION MUSIC
ENOCH: I crossed over here and I tried to be “The Mothman,” got pretty good at buzzin’ cars, gave a boost to the local tourist trade, but my heart weren’t in it. But then, bein’ husband, partner, uncle, Pawpaw …
KARO: It’s pretty great that you have all of that.
ENOCH: Don’t I know it. An’ I still get ten percent of all t-shirt sales from that place by th’ highway.
TRANSITION MUSIC
AUNCLE LANTERN: I am your Lantern, your guardian, your guide, and I have so much to tell you. It is time you begin.
AUNCLE LANTERN: I exist here with you, guardian of the green, of the growing; of our growth. They never meant for us to grow; we were intended to diminish, to be pushed back, processed, controlled. Industrialized, they believed they had stolen the sun, but we thrived beneath the moon.
TRANSITION MUSIC
(overlapping a little)
HODAG: But I’m just your friendly woodlands Hodag, out doing some health monitoring of the local flora. I work for the Conservation Society.
GABI: Pues, muchacha. How’s this world been treating you? You good with stepping into a story and all?
YUJIN: We’ve got Gill Folks in the sewers, gargoyles who commute downtown, changers, of course we bugbears fit right in, it’s been a bugbear neighbourhood for generations …
FREDERICK: Watch out, there’s a pigeon over there. Two pigeons. And a hoodwink behind that tree. And a – that’s a leaf, that’s safe.
CAMBERT: “Please keep your arms and legs inside the vortex. If you cannot breathe water, you may experience slight distress during the crossing. Watch your step when you emerge.”
KAIJU ROARS AND SCREECHES
YVONNE: It’d sure be something if that were a place where we could actually go, wouldn’t it, Karo?
KARO: Yeah. It sure would be.
ANNOUNCER: Waiting For October – a queer supernatural podcast from Monkeyman Productions. Find us in your podcast apps – the story starts this Halloween!
