Watch the full Q&A: https://youtu.be/5qBNx7vZuF0

Support on Patreon: kakosindustries.com/patreon

Transcription by Nicolette Bell:

So hello and welcome to the Kakos Industries Q&A livestream. So, I collected questions from everywhere I could think of or that I remembered people asking them; I tried to get you guys to submit them in a couple specific places that didn’t always work out.

So anyway, the first question. Anonymous on the internet asks: “Where do you get these crazy ideas?” And I think that’s in general applied to the whole podcast. So, I guess – you know I had these to look at and now I’m still, like, drawing a blank, (laughs) this is why I script things. So, you know, when it comes to writing Kakos Industries the way that I typically do it is I just sit down, and I, well sometimes, you know more recently I’ve tried to think of what’s a big theme that I can explore and then I, you know, go from there. Maybe not a big theme, but what’s going to tie the episode together because some of the earlier episodes, they were a little bit difficult to title (laughs) because it was like nine or ten separate ideas. So I try to come up with something, and usually it’s in the form of dialogue or a, you know, a guest appearance that I can kind of tie in throughout, and a lot of those are influenced based on what’s going on in my life and what’s going on in the world and I’m sure you guys have noticed that the world has been strange to say the least recently. But it’s almost been so strange that I can’t write about it because it’s just unbelievable in fiction.

So, anyway, next question from another anonymous person somewhere on the internet. “What’s it like in my head?” (laughs) It’s a scary place, I wouldn’t recommend it, it’s not for the faint of heart. Isn’t that what people always say when they ask, like “what’s going on in your head?” like ‘oh, you want no part of this, man.’ But yeah, I, you know, I tend to run things over and over again in my head and that helps for writing sometimes, other times not so much.

So this is one that multiple people have asked me a lot about, “how should I go about making my own podcast?”, and you know there’s a lot of tutorials and I’m, you know, not going to get into this one in a whole lot of depth but you know, just looking up information on how to, you know, edit audio and record audio, but really the thing that I try to get across when people ask me this question is that you should just, you should, don’t worry about the how, just do it with whatever hardware, whatever software you’ve got, making all the mistakes, just write them into what you’re doing. It’s just, it’s such a good time for people to do this sort of thing right now, you know, there’s just such an appetite and it’s still a growing community, you know, there’s a lot of shows but if you’ve got something to say then I think it’s getting pretty easy to get recognition for that which I think is good. You know, most of the people, like this was something I found out, some of you guys probably took that survey I put up a while back and I thought okay, how many podcasts do people listen to in a given week and I set the upper number as ‘10 or more’ thinking that would give me enough areas in between to kind of, to work with and it turns out that I was very wrong, that it was more than half of the people who listen to Kakos Industries listen to ten or more podcasts so that wasn’t enough stratifications or gradations or something. But that just goes to show that if you are interested in making this sort of content then you definitely should.

Anonymous sent: “do you rewrite during recording?” I thought that was a good question. Oddly enough I don’t do that much rewriting while I’m recording but when I do it’s usually something that, like, why didn’t I notice that before in writing, or rewriting without recording. You know, people sometimes ask for outtakes or things and you know, I’m not going to say anything too silly or do anything too strange when I’m the only person who’s going to hear it when I edit it myself and do all that. So every once in a while something will sound really strange when I say it, like I’ll have repeated a word too many times in close proximity or sometimes I just say something and it finally when I’m in that mindset of recording and listening to it then I go, oh, you know that might, someone might hear that a different way than I meant to do it, and that’s usually something I’ll change on the spot or record it a couple different ways and then when I’m editing I’ll pick the one that I think works the best. It’s probably not a perfect process but I think it does okay.

Okay, next question, see we’ll get through these, oh jeez. So anonymous on Curious Cat asks, “research has shown that penguins are 47% more evil than they were thought to have been in previous years. When will Kakos Industries form a penguin army and who will in charge of the Division of Polar Escapades? (Or DOPE for short.)” You know, I feel like maybe you’re just not aware of Kakos Industries’ working in the polar regions already, and that work may already include penguins and maybe you’re just supposed to know yet. (laughs)

So, here’s the next one which is “why are your shipping costs for merch so high to the U.K?” So I guess I should say anonymous on Curious Cat asks “why are your shipping costs for merch so high to the U.K?” and that’s because I had to, like, set the shipping rules myself when I was tweaking that website and it’s, you know, they cover a wide variety of international shipping and if you’re looking to make a purchase in the store and you go ‘oh my god this shipping’ just send me an email and we’ll see if I can fix it once I know that somebody needs something or if it’s the right price which a lot of times it probably would be maybe I can still cut you a deal somehow, so, you know, just email me with what you’re trying to get and maybe we can work it out. But again, I’m not a specialist in this sort of thing and the benefit of that is more of what you spend in the store actually goes to the show and making it because I’m not paying anybody else to make it look less foolish (laughs).

Okay, another anonymous person from the internet asks: “when you bring in new characters what comes first the desire to add a character or a desire to work with that voice actor?” You know, sometimes it’s one or the other and I, you know, I’ve definitely done both where I’ve thought ‘oh man I need to fill a gap and I need to bring in a character who does this and this and this’ and you know, that’s the way it goes, you know, I’m writing and I have a need of a character but more often than not recently it’s you know I think about who I have access to and who I know and usually, you know, if I start spending some time with people and hear voices or their voices and I start to get an idea or I’ve had an idea for a character for a while but I didn’t really know what I wanted to do with that character until you know I met the person. Because a lot of my voice actors are my friends but some of them are people that I  met other ways you know I know a lot of people really loved Kristen DiMercurio’s part as the pirate queen who has to become king of Evilon – Dorothea that’s it – that idea definitely took off once I had decided I was going to ask her to do and had kind of pitched her the idea and she said yeah and I went ‘alright’ (laughs) and I have this, you know, just, impulse that as soon as someone agrees to do a voice for me that I’m like, ‘but what if they regretted it’, not in the sense of I’m worried that they’re going to regret but what if I do something to make them regret and then, you know, the parts tend to be (laughs) a little more over the top than maybe, than if I had written it with nobody in mind, it then becomes ‘can I make my friend say ‘young pussy’ over and over again?’. Can I get Kristen to just be this maniacal man-hater, which was fun to write and also she just killed it, so that was pretty great. But I like that question, that’s a good question.

Okay, back to the list. Oh shit (laughs), you guys really didn’t waste any time in between asking like normal questions and then just sending me the most absurd things you could. So, anonymous asks, I think this was on curiouscat. Anonymous on Curious Cat asks: “do you ever feel like a plastic bag, drifting through the wind, wanting to start again? Do you ever feel, feel so paper thin like a house of cards one blow from caving in? Do you ever feel already buried deep, six feet under, scream but no one hears a thing?” So, I had to look this up. And those are the lyrics to Firework by Katy Perry. Uh, and the answer is yes.

Next question, okay, “so what’s the lowest paying job I could get at Kakos Industries and is there a U.K. branch of the company?” Well to answer the second part first, Kakos Industries is everywhere, Kakos Industries is multinational, so there is some form of Kakos Industries that exists in the U.K.. And then what’s the lowest paying job you could get at Kakos Industries. I would say probably canonically, you know, being a labourer in hell (laughs). Labourer is probably the lowest paying job where not only are they not paying you but they’re extracting resources from your body (laughs) so that you’re at a negative from where you began. Trying to think, the lowest paying job apart from that… you know I think Kakos Industries probably has that dichotomy between some people they don’t pay at all because they’re forced labour in hell and then other people it’s probably like, here’s like a living wage or whatever, just to make the forced labour seem even worse. So (laughs) I’m not sure that’s canon but that’s what I’m saying right now.

Okay, I think this was another anonymous one on Curious Cat which is: “WHERE CAN I GET SOME DARKMEGACAINE? YOU KNOW I’M GOOD FOR IT.” And the answer is you’re going to need a time machine or a certain baking recipe that you would already have if you were a Patreon patron of the $3 or $5 level or higher, $5 level or higher. Oh yeah, this livestream, brought to you by Patreon patrons, so please support the show on Patreon if you are in a position to do so, I would appreciate it. You can go to kakosindustries.com/patreon or patreon.com/kakosindustries. One redirects to the other. But apart from that, don’t do DarkMegaCaine, that would be bad for you. Just half-assed moralising at the end there, sorry (laughs).

So some of these questions if you are listening to this in the podcast afterward, it’s possible that I’ve cut some of them out and also there’s some with a visual component so if you want to see that you should go to youtube.com/kakosindustries.

Anonymous from Curious Cat asks: “I don’t know if this goes into spoiler territory but what the fuck happened with Perplexity?” (laughs) Well it was a spoiler when they asked the question, however that was two months ago so (laughs) I think we know somewhat what happened with Perplexity now and if you’re watching this without having listened to the most recent episodes then I’ll spare you the spoilers but you can actually listen and there’s an explanation in episode 85. You know, whether that satisfies you and whether you believe it is up to you, though.

Anonymous from the internet asks: “If advertisers wanted to be a part of Kakos to sell speciality mattresses or underwear would you be interested or are you trying to keep this out of the hands of the corporate slaveholders?” (laughs) There’s a lot in there. You know, I’ve never been crazy about advertising, you know, I mean, what do they say ‘nobody likes advertising until they try to sell something’? (laughs) But I especially don’t like advertisements that I know people who listen to podcasts have heard a thousand times and where I would basically just be signing up for a program where they don’t pay me until somebody clicks on the link cause then it’s kind of cluttering up my episode and I’m not really crazy about that. You guys can already tell, probably, that I even put news and stuff in separate episodes so that when it’s no longer relevant and then anyone who comes by in the future doesn’t have to find out about a meetup that happened four years ago or something like that.

“How much of the show do I have planned out in advance?” The answer is there are some things that I planned out very long ago and there are some things that I don’t think of until I start to play with the story and see where things go, I try to leave things open in a lot of areas so when I do decide to write about those things that I can, there’s plenty of space left to do that. So, you know, some things I’ve got planned out, a lot of the things that people like to ask me about and all of the questions that I skipped because they were spoilers (laughs) you know a lot of those things are planned out so, you know, just be patient if you can.

Anonymous from the internet asks: “would you be interested in making a Kakos Industries game or is podcast format the only format for Kakos Industries?” You know, I like games and I like playing games and I think that I would like creating games. I am not a programmer, I know a little bit about programming but not enough to really get all the way through a game. I’ve been playing with Twine a little bit, probably not something that would be a Kakos Industries game but probably a similar tone because I’m writing it still. But yeah, I would like a Kakos Industries game if somebody wants to volunteer their time for a share of the profits (laughs) hit up that inquiries@kakosindustries.com. And as for podcast being the only format, I would really love to see Kakos Industries in a lot of different formats. I would personally love to see a Kakos Industries television show, but you know I’m not in charge of what gets to go on TV so… (laughs)

I’m not sure how this is pronounced but I think it’s Sadjhu on Patreon asks: “Why did you choose the name ‘Kakos’ for the company?” So this one’s got a real simple answer which is that Kakos is the Greek word for evil (laughs). You can comment with the mind blown gifs if you feel like it (laughs) but yeah, it’s the Greek word for evil, I have a friend who was a, what do I want to say, he majored in the classics in college and I hit him up looking for something that would have some kind of deep and ancient meaning to it or something like that. You know, we came up with a whole bunch of stuff, creating almost new words out of, you know, old things but when we actually sat down and looked at it we went ‘Uh, you know, Kakos Industries is pretty great, it flows a little better than a lot of the other stuff,’ it does have the downside that the spelling isn’t completely obvious when you look at it, or when you hear it, but you know, that’s why I insist on saying k-a-k-o-s like nine times every credits.

“If Corin Deeth III was a burger what kind would he be and with what toppings?” Uh (laughs) you know I had all day to think of an answer, I mean it took a while to set this up but (laughs) uh let’s say, you know, the beef-fed-grass-fed beef if I’m remembering a joke I made on the show a while ago. And then toppings…  truffles, gold flakes, and grilled onions, why not (laughs).

Okay so Chante on Patreon asks: “what was your inspiration for Kakos and Corin specifically? Also will we see Corin in an arc where there is real danger to Kakos?” So to answer this question, let’s see, my inspiration for Kakos, you know, it kind of came from a lot of different places, I think that the idea of evil corporations is very ingrained in us at this point but, you know, the evil corporation in Portal and Veridian Dynamics on Better Off Ted are some examples although they’re not overtly evil, they just do evil whereas Kakos Industries was kind of spinning that on its head because I thought it would be interesting to have, just a company that’s just pulling back the curtain, no it is evil, here’s the evil inspiration we’re doing evil on purpose, deal with it. Because then you get to kind of say anything, you get to acknowledge anything and say that you did it on purpose which is what a lot of companies won’t do because they won’t admit that they did something on purpose it’s always like ‘oh, I’m sorry it was poor judgement’, like no, it wasn’t poor judgement it went through eight or ten different people before it got to the point where it was a reality and then you just didn’t stop it like you were supposed to so (laughs) yeah, that was kind of freeing. And for Corin specifically, I think the character of Corin just kind of evolved. I think I thought of Corin Deeth I first, you know, they were going to be, short films originally, but the budget was going to be astronomical so it was going to be more in the brash and with bravado kind of stuff that Corin I would do. But then, you know, I needed a contrast to that so I wanted to make somebody who was kind of thrust into a situation without necessarily the most preparation. You know, he was prepared his whole life for it but showing that sort of that weakness and that discomfort and the learning process I thought was interesting. And will we see Corin in an arc where there is real danger to Kakos? You know I guess I kind of need some further explanation on that one. How do you define real danger to Kakos? I mean, I burned the building down, I mean then again I can’t remember when this question was asked so it might have been… no, I think it was after the building burned down. But you know, I had the building burn down, I had, you know, it was taken over by a usurper, Melantha almost did something to it, yeah so I don’t know what you mean by ‘real danger’. Is ‘real danger’ defined by the consequences or is ’real danger’ defined by how real the danger feels before you find out what the consequences are? I don’t know, I don’t know the answer to that one.

Jessica on Patreon says: “I’m just hoping you’re as much as Corin is.” Uh, well I am terribly sorry to disappoint (laughs) okay, I’ll let you guys answer that question actually (laughs) in your own hearts.

Okay, here’s another weird one. Alright, Dorkpool on Patreon asks: “Does Kakos Industries exist in the Cars universe? And if so, is it called ‘Carkos Industries’?” Sure (laughs). And also, what?

Chante on Facebook writes or asks: “Do you have any dream guests for Kakos?” Sure! Probably a ton of guests that I would love to have, you know really, there’s a lot of people who work on other podcasts and then also just a lot of actors and voice actors out there that I might not actually go out of my way to ask them to be on the show but you know, if they sent me a message sometime going ‘hey, I heard your show and I want to do a voice’, I’d be like ‘Okay, I’ll write something tonight’ (laughs). You know, like, there’s a lot of actors and musicians probably, I don’t know of anybody who’s like a ‘dream guest’ I don’t know anybody who would really like, just make the podcast for me. Having Mike Rugnetta on the show was pretty cool when that happened, you know, and Philip Haldiman who played Denny in The Room, those were both really fun ones to do. Yeah, there’s a lot of people, there’s just too many that I would just love to have on the show.

Alright, next question, Iain on Patreon asks: “If Kakos Industries made video games what genre would their games be?” I think the answer to that is probably all of the genres (laughs). They would probably do evil in every single genre from, you know, psychological horror, first person shooters, to a lot of visual novels if we’re being perfectly honest (laughs). That was one idea I had when I was trying to think of what to do with a Kakos Industries video game when the last Kickstarter was up, that was probably about a year ago, and I know that Sayer had just done a Kickstarter and they offered a dating simulator and I was like ‘damn’ cause that’s probably what would need to happen at Kakos Industries like even if there’s like another plot like ‘oh you gotta get from point A to point B’ but like, there’s gonna be options in between for who you want to romance because of how the show is and all that (laughs).

Another question from Iain on Patreon: “Which podcast would you kill to be a guest on, fiction or nonfiction?” I like this question, it’s probably not the right answer but I would really love to be on Song Exploder cause that would mean some piece of music that I wrote has become very successful and popular (laughs). Um, but you know, I’m very open to being on a lot of the other fiction podcasts and there’s a lot of them I like, but I don’t necessarily think like, ‘oh man this would be better if I was on it’, you know I’m not quite that egotistical. Close, but not quite.

Okay, so Iain on Patreon asks: “If an animal species gained super intelligence and became our overlords, which species would you not mind in that position?” Oh boy, um… like maybe sloths or something? (laughs) you know, anything that, it being an overlord doesn’t really get in the way of my day to day life because I can move faster.

Alright, another from Iain on Patreon, we’re getting through them, we’re getting through them. “What are your favourite of crisps or chips as Americans call them?” You know, I don’t actually eat a whole lot of chips or crisps. I’m partial to sour cream and onion, I like salt and vinegar, I eat a lot of tortilla chips with salsa because I live in the southwest and tortilla chips with salsa is amazing.

Okay, and then Jessica on Patreon asks: “What’s with the numbers?” I’m sorry, “what’s up with the numbers?” I don’t know, Jessica, you tell me. (laughs) You know, I feel like you just gotta look real close and think about it real hard and just search your feelings and look deep inside your heart and then you’ll know. You’ll just know what’s up with the numbers.

Okay, and also Jessica on Patreon: “How the heck do you come up with all the Wheel of Misery torments?” Well, you know, the Wheel of Misery is real and if you spin it it’ll land on a space that’s already there and I don’t actually have to come up with anything because the Wheel of Misery is real (laughs) but otherwise it would probably be using a random word generator on my phone to kickstart the creative process cause sometimes I end up in ruts with some of that stuff where I’m not, where I’m kind of like saying the same things over and over again as I’m just sort of bouncing ideas off in my head and once you’ve said the same thing over and over again or it’s been a couple episodes without having a real great idea, just hitting up random adjectives until something clicks and then expanding on it or modifying it if it is something I do, I think, you know, getting randomness in there is a good thing sometimes, to break you out of your creative ruts. But it’s real and I don’t do that.

Iain on Patreon again asks: “If Corin were to take part in the Olympics, which sport would he play?” I did think about this one in advance, and I think the answer is dressage.

Steven on Facebook asks: “If I do evil to someone else doing low-quality crap evil am I helping or hurting evil?” You know, it just kind of depends on how crap their evil is and how good your evil is, you know, if you’re doing a great job at doing evil or you just hit them with some premium high-quality gold star evil and what they were doing before was like, littering, then you could definitely help evil in that sense. You know, if their crap evil is better than or is at least more numerous than your high-quality evil then you know it might kind of cancel out, so you gotta be careful cause doing evil to evil can sometimes be good. (laughs)

Alright and this is the last one I have from people online before you guys start putting stuff in the comments and Patrick on Facebook asks: “How much does Kakos stock sell for on the market?” And, well, you know, you can’t sell it. I mean, I guess Kakos Industries can sell it but, you know, it’s always going to be more than you can afford to pay, but somehow you’ll end up paying for it.

Okay, so guys, thanks for joining me, I had a good time answering the questions, I really appreciate you asking them, I appreciate you guys listening to the show. I’ll do the little plug here if you made it, then, hey, maybe if you like Kakos Industries you could consider going over to patreon.com/kakosindustries if you feel like throwing any money my way for making the show and stuff I appreciate all of it, again I really thank you guys for hanging out and for listening, you’re the best and I’m so glad you guys listen to this madness (laughs).