Get To Know The Cast & Crew: Muna & Jon

In this edition of Get To Know The Cast & Crew, Jon (writer) and Muna (producer)...bicker, mostly, but we answer some questions as well. Hope you enjoy it!

PSA: We'll badger you about this again - but you'd like to ask the cast or creators any questions about the making of the show, or the inspiration behind the Silt Verses, please let us know in the comments!

We're planning for an AMA which we hope to release here as well.

Transcript:

MUNA:

I'm Muna-

JON:

And I'm Jon!

MUNA:

- and we are the creators of the Silt Verses, and this is our ‘Getting to know the cast and crew’ Q&A.

JON:

First we want to say a huge thank you to our amazing patrons for supporting the show.

We’re just having a fantastic time working on this with everyone, and we really couldn't be doing it without your support.

So a huge, huge thank you - we think you’re amazing!

MUNA:

Indeed!

Well, the first question is from Jimmie, from his Q&A, and it is…

If you had to be magically transported away to any fictional world, which world would it be and why?

JON:

So for me, I am one of those very pessimistic people, where I think that good drama is conflict, so I don’t know if there are any utopian worlds that make for good fiction.

I guess if I had to pick a world, it’d be a sort of Bugsy Malone world where the stakes feel real, but everybody just hits each other with custard-pie guns, so there are no real consequences for anyone. I think that’s where I’d want to end up.

MUNA:

(Laughing)

So there’s tension, but no danger.

JON:

Exactly! You just get hit by some gunge in the face...and that’s it.

MUNA:

See, I think I would be the opposite. I do actually love the fact that there’d be no tension, so I would go for one of those utopian worlds - Brave New World, the Culture worlds from the books by Iain M. Banks. Honestly? Even a utopian version of the Matrix.

JON:

...I mean, I find that deeply creepy.

MUNA:

Why?

JON:

Well, because then you’re Cipher. You’re basically the villain-

MUNA:

Well, ignorance is bliss. There’s a reason that statement exists.

(Sounds of Jon grumbling disagreement in the background)

Shall we agree to disagree?

JON:

Let’s agree to disagree. So question number two!

We’re both writers - we actually met doing a writing degree at university. So the question is…

What is the worst thing you’ve ever written?

MUNA:

What is the worst thing I’ve ever written? OK. When I was...but a young girl, when I was basically a teenager, I was obsessed with angsty teenage vampire novels.

This was long before Twilight, but it certainly wasn’t any better, and there was a period of several years where I would obsessively write fanfic - several full-length novels, which were all fanfic, and they were based around the Night World, which is a series of vampire novels by LJ Smith.

(Long pause)

JON:

What was so bad about it?

MUNA:

It was all just cliches! You know, small town, vampires that you would find out they were your classmates, and you would fall passionately in love…

Was it Usher who said, he sang songs about lovemaking, and he had no idea what he was singing about? That was me. I was writing about falling passionately in love at the age of twelve or thirteen, but I had no idea what I was writing about.

It’s embarrassing, actually, thinking about it. Eurgh! Second-hand embarrassment. Moving on!

JON:

Uh, so for me, I think when I was in my early twenties, I went through a real phase of trying to figure out how I could write and be marketable.

And at some point or another I decided it’d be a really good idea to take the Romantic poets - who, obviously, you know, lots of the uncanny in their fiction - and turn them into a bunch of Ghostbusters, basically.

So you’d have Mary Shelley and Shelley as the love interests fighting Frankenstein. You’d have Keats as the surgeon and the medic of the team. You’d have Blake as, basically, Voltron (note: Jon means Zordon, not Voltron) who’s back at the base having visions. And you’d have Byron, obviously, as the comedy sidekick.

Aaand it seemed like a really good idea at the time, but it was actually a really terrible idea. Just really, really crap. So that is something I look back on with pleasure but a really deep sense of shame.

And it would be called ‘Necromantic’.

MUNA:

(Groaning)

Ohhhhh, no.

So.

If your character from ‘I Am In Eskew’ had entrance music, what would your music be?

JON:

Uhh, so my character, David Ward, is someone who’s really undercut by life at every turn.

He’s living in a nightmarish city that always wants to trip him up, to embarrass him, to make him question himself. So I think if he had entrance music, it would be either something very comical, or very depressing, which just instantly makes him stop and flinch.

So maybe it’d be like in the Simpsons, when Homer becomes a boxer, and as he steps into the ring, ‘Why Can’t We Be Friends?’ starts playing.

So something like that, I think.

MUNA:

I think for Riyo, it would be…

See, if Riyo was more like me, it’d be eighties rock, Nineties rock, ‘WE BUILT THIS CITY’ kind of music. Because it feels like fight music, but it’s still fun.

But Riyo as she is, it’d probably be Carmen Burana. Some kind of apocalyptic soundtrack as she bursts through the door, because she’s just here to burn it all down, really, isn’t she?

JON:

Very cool!

OK, next question.

What specific skill would you bring to a post-apocalyptic society?

MUNA:

Oh, God. I don’t think I have a lot of skills, other than...I’m quite pessimistic and nihilistic, so I would probably be the harbinger of doom.

You know, the person slightly offscreen, just eating peanuts, occasionally saying, ‘THE SHADOWS ARE LENGTHENING. A BLOOD MOON RISES’, and then something terrible would happen and everyone would just blame me.

JON:

I mean...but the doom’s already come, right? The apocalypse has happened.

MUNA:

I don’t know. You can plumb human behaviour and character to further doom at all times.

JON:

Fair enough.

MUNA:

What would yours be?

JON:

Probably dying, realistically. But I think if I were to survive and to excel, I think I would probably be the weasellish sidekick to a tribal warlord.

Like in Mad Max 2, you have Lord Humungous, and then there’s just a little friend he has in a raccoon cap who steps forward and speaks for him, and then gets his hand cut off by a boomerang.

I think I would be that sort of little ferrety guy, just hanging out on the sidelines. I’m with the baddies, but I’m not really a major baddie.

Something like that.

MUNA:

Mmm. Okay. All right.

If you could be a monster from the horror genre, what monster would you be?

JON:

Great question. I often think about this.

When I was a kid, I used to want to be a werewolf, because I have quite pronounced canines. And you know when you’re young, and you really want to find a reason to believe you’re special. I did a lot of thinking, and just decided, ‘Well, maybe I have pointy teeth because I’m a werewolf, actually, and at some point that’s just going to kick in.’

It’s just a rad, low-maintenance monster, right? I love watching the old Universal Wolfman films, and then the terrible remake a few years back with Benicio del Toro as well, and...there’s a lot of unearned angst about being a werewolf.

Benicio del Toro goes, “Aaagh, you must kill me now and end this terrible curse, it’s such a nightmare!” and ultimately, all that happens is...once a month, he needs to lock himself in a bedroom and he claws the furniture a bit.

MUNA:

It’s basically like PMT, isn’t it?

(Muna begins to laugh at her own joke)

JON:

It’s definitely not a particularly bad curse. It’s quite manageable, honestly.

B. already picked a werewolf, though, so I’m going to pick the banshee. The banshee from Irish mythology, which just sort of sits on the roof and howls when a member of the family dies.

MUNA:

I like that.

JON:

You’re just a cat, basically. You’re a ghost, but you’re involved in the family business, and you just...vaguely irritate people.

(Note: this is not an accurate description of what it means to be a banshee)

MUNA:

Yeah, that’s a good one.

If I had to pick a monster, I’d pick...someone immortal. In vampire novels they always talk about how exhausted one would be of life. But I disagree. I think human beings are always changing and growing, humans as a society and a species are inventing new things.

And I want to see what the future brings. There’s always more to experience, other countries to visit...space, hopefully, at some point.

JON:

You want to be a space vampire?

MUNA:

I don’t want to be a space vampire, but I would want to be a vampire who experiences space.

What is something you like that nobody would think?

MUNA:

OK, this is a bit embarrassing. But I really like 80s bro-culture movies. Tango & Cash, Escape Plan, Demolition Man.

And I love them because it’s this chaotic action, and they didn’t have superhuman action abilities, like the films from the later years. They get into scrapes.

I don’t know if you could count Die Hard in this, because he doesn’t necessarily have a bro.

JON:

He has a bro!

MUNA:

Who’s his bro?

JON:

The policeman on the other end of the line.

MUNA:

Oh. OK, so you can count it, then.

But they struggle.

And the reason why someone might not think I’d like that is that these films have horrible representation of women, most of the time - it’s a bit cringe - and they probably don’t stand up to modern-day viewing.

But I still like them!

JON:

I really like anything that features anthropomorphic animals acting out epic fantasies.

Watership Down doing The Aeneid, Animals of Farthing Wood, Redwall...anything where there are moles and foxes, but they’re fighting in some kind of endless war, I am very much on board with.

MUNA:

Nice. Nice.

What is something embarrassingly untrue that you once believed?

JON:

I mean, I still catch myself - for most of my life, I have believed that when you see ‘misled’, that is a separate word, which you pronounce ‘my-selled’.

So you can my-sell someone, or someone can be my-selled.

MUNA:

It does sound like a word that should exist!

JON:

I think it’s absolutely fine. I defend this word that I have invented.

MUNA:

Language is all made-up anyway!

This speaks to my arrogance in myself...but I truly believed that I invented brie and cranberry as a sandwich filling.

I remember I came to you a few years ago, and I said, “Babe - if you put brie and cranberry on top of each other, it’s the best thing ever!”

And you just said, “...yup. Yup, that’s a thing. That most people can eat.”

And I’ve been disappointed a lot of times, but never as much. I really thought it was my secret.

JON:

Lots of people have that. Like at university once, I remember we were writing, and I definitely at one point wrote, “Eyes are windows into the soul.”

And I was just like, “YEAH! That was really good. I can’t believe I came up with that. What an original thought.”

MUNA:

Oh, no.

JON:

OK, next question is…

What was the worst advice you ever got about your writing?

MUNA:

When I was at university, doing my Master’s, I wrote a novel-length bit of work for my dissertation, and it was all about my mum and her surviving the Somali civil war.

And it was this grappling with trauma and memory, and how trauma affects one’s memory, and...quite a well-known British author came in to do a short stint at the university, and her only comment was that I should write more about the civil war aspects, really lean into the trauma of being an African child. ‘How many dead bodies did you see? How brown was the water that you had to drink?’

And it really reduced what I’d hoped was a multi-faceted look at surviving trauma as a mother and a woman into just...stock footage of starving African children.

So I’d definitely say that was one of the worst pieces of advice I ever got.

I didn’t listen, by the way. I just did my own thing.

JON:

That’s really horrible.

MUNA:

Mmm!

How about you?

JON:

I think the worst advice I got was…

Again, when I was a bit younger and trying to figure out how my writing could be commercial, because I really wanted to be a writer, I really wanted to avoid having to do real work - I wrote a whole novel where it was a Name of the Rose-style historical mystery. Starring Niccolo Machiavelli, who is to me a really fascinating historical character.

And it made it as far as a literary agent, and she said, ‘well, I like it, but you’ve got all these complicated Italian names in here. It’s too confusing. Machiavelli. Medici. Guicciardini. Can you shorten them?’

And it’s historical fiction, you know? We’re not going to go with...Nick...Nick Smith.

JON:

Next one.

What is the pettiest hill you’re willing to die on?

MUNA:

OK, the pettiest hill...well, I can be quite petty, so let me just pick one!

I think it is completely acceptable for me to want to heat up hot drinks again in the microwave, and just return to the same drink throughout the day. I don’t see why I have to throw away my tea and make a new one. It’s a waste of tea!

(Jon begins passionately trying to interrupt)

I have a sip. I chill.

I have another sip. I think.

I do a bit of readin’. A bit of writin’.

I have another sip.

JON:

(Hurt)

No, I don’t understand it. It’s very strange.

You have a meal. You don’t have a bite and then wander off and come back to it five hours later.

MUNA:

Yeah, but that’s a meal.

(Jon continues to grumble.)

MUNA:

Anyway!

JON:

So for me, the pettiest hill I’m willing to die on is that...every movie is a Christmas movie.

There are Christmas movie purists who say that Die Hard isn’t a Christmas movie. I say it has Christmas elements.

Groundhog Day is a Christmas movie, because it follows the same basic structure as A Christmas Carol.

I - I - name a movie.

MUNA:

Lord of The Rings!

JON:

It’s always on at Christmastime, therefore it’s a Christmas movie.

MUNA:

OK, I feel like that’s cheating, a little bit…

Watership Down?

JON:

Watership Down is a Christmas movie because it contains Christian themes of redemption through death.

MUNA:

OK, so you’re just expanding the remit of what a Christmas film is to include every film.

JON:

Yeah! Pretty much.

MUNA:

(Laughing)

OK, all right.

If you only were allowed one condiment for the rest of your life, what would it be?

JON:

So I’ve thought about this long and hard. It’s a really important question.

Sweet chilli sauce. There are so many condiments where-

MUNA:

But you don’t even like condiments!

JON:

Please, let me finish. I have the floor, and my opinions need to be heard on this one.

You get some ketchup with your chips, you may not finish the ketchup.

You get some garlic dip with your pizza, you may not finish the garlic dip.

I cannot remember a single occasion where I’ve got to the end of my takeaway and seen that there’s some sweet chilli sauce left. Every single time, I’m desperately trying to get that last smidgen out of the little tub, because my gyoza or my tempura just needs that little bit more.

MUNA:

I just think that’s a really miserly way of looking at it. I want to bathe in the ketchup.

Anyway, sweet chilli sauce, it’s a name that misleads you.

Because...it’s not really that sweet, and it’s quite spicy most of the time.

JON:

OK, I didn’t realise there was a second part to this question that read, ‘Please condemn the other person’s answer.’

What would your favourite condiment be?

MUNA:

Erm…I really like condiments. Unlike Jon. So it’d be hard to choose just one.

Brown sauce.

(Pause)

Or mustard.

(Pause)

No, brown sauce. OK, let’s go with brown sauce.

What’s your go-to karaoke song?

MUNA:

Right. I do actually enjoy singing, but I think there’s a difference between singing and karaoke. Hear me out.

I feel like karaoke is a communal event. I feel like everyone should be able to join in and belt it out. So it needs to be something really beltable - like Queen, ‘Don’t Stop Me Now.’

Because everyone can just scream along with you.

JON:

Yeah, that’s a really good choice. I think with karaoke, it’s important to know your limits.

I had a friend once, who got up on stage and he decided he was going to do ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart, and it starts off straightforwardly, but then you’ve got to hit the high notes. And then suddenly he found himself out there just going,

(Imitates Bonnie Tyler, straining to hit the high notes)

‘I don’t know what to say, a total eclipse…’

(Descends into a coughing fit)

It’s important to know what you’re capable of. So for me, Carly Rae Jepsen, ‘Call Me Maybe’. It’s easy to hit, it’s basically just a big long chorus - that would be my karaoke song.

MUNA:

Good tune. Good tune. Now it’s going to be stuck in my head all day.

Anyway. Those were our questions. We are going to pick one question for the next cast or crew member to answer.

And our question is…

JON:

Our question is: ‘You have the ability to time travel. But you can’t change anything important without disrupting the space-time continuum - you can only change something incredibly minor from the past. What do you change?’

MUNA:

Ooh, that’s a good one. That’s a very good one.