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Hey, Jeffrey Cranor here. I wanted

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to present to you an excerpt from our most

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recent bonus episode that we have

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over at our Patreon. We do

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these bonus episodes four times a year for

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Weird Scout level and above. Two

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of them are behind-the-scenes episodes,

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like this one is, wherein we answer

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questions from our Patreon members about

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Welcome to Night Vale. And then the other two bonus episodes

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every year are fully fictional

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Welcome to Night Vale bonus episodes. We

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do a lot of other really cool stuff over on

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our Patreon, like director's notes for each

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and every episode, twice-monthly

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essays by me and Joseph. They may be

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about writing, they may be about the show,

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about our lives, things like that. And we also

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do monthly hangouts on Zoom, me and

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Joseph, with our Patreon members. So, it's

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a lot of fun. So, if you've thought about joining our

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Patreon for Welcome to Night Vale, it really

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is the heart and soul. It's

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what we need to keep the show afloat. So,

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it's really important and really helpful, and we love our

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Patreon members so very, very much. So,

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give this excerpt a listen. See if this is your sort of thing.

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You want to be part of these bonus episodes in the future.

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We're over at patreon.com slash welcome

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to night Vale. That's patreon.com slash

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welcome to night Vale. Check out all the cool levels and

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benefits. We hope you enjoy. And

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hey,

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thanks. Jess says,

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Kosek was in the show for almost a decade before

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we found out his backstory. Was that always

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part of his lore, or was it something you came up with

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later along the way? No, we didn't.

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When we introduced the cat in like 2012, we

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didn't have a long meeting. We were like, okay, let's figure

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out what human being this cat used

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to be before. That's

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something that Jeffrey just brought.

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I don't even remember if we had a conversation

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beforehand. We might have. You

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might have come to me with like, hey, I'm thinking of doing

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something with Kosek. I don't remember.

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But I discovered

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that backstory when I edited that

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episode, kind of going through the script. That

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was how I learned that story. And I think the

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two parts were written separately.

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separately and said to me separately. So I had

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the exact same cliffhanger as you. I didn't see

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the second half of the story until Trevor wrote it. Yeah,

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that was kind of during a part where I was really

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interested in having other characters

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do whole episodes. It just seemed kind of fun.

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And that was when I think the only thing

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I told you that I was doing was playing with the backstory

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of Kaushik being something more than

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just Kaushik. That was may have been the extent

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of how I explained it. Ollie

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asks, what is your favorite role

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you've come up with for the Night Vale universe? Not

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necessarily a law of the town itself, but

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world building roles. That's

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a really good question. You

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know, the overarching rule when we

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first started writing the

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show together after Joseph had written the pilot,

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we got together and we're like, yeah, let's do this. And

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we started talking about what we were writing and how to do

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it. And Joseph said it was just most important

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and said we could do anything with the show that we want.

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It was just really important that we followed strict

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continuity, meaning characters

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age. And if we say something happens, then this other

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thing has to happen. I mean,

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that's such a broad rule, but

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it's such an important one. And I love

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it because it separates what we do from

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something like The Simpsons, right? Like where Bart

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is always in fourth grade. Maggie is always a baby.

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Every episode,

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the timeline resets. And I love stuff

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like that. I grew up loving The Simpsons. But

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yeah, being able to have

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people age in a certain way is

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in a real world sort of way is really

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beautiful. Like it just makes writing it

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really rewarding when I get to think about how

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much Tamika Flynn has aged since

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we started the show. It's just it's really

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fun to think about. Yeah, I think

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one model for what we're doing here is

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the comic series Love and Rockets, specifically

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the side Love and Rockets has two

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artists who write two stories. And so the side

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written by Jaime Hernandez is

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about these two women who when

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they were introduced in the 80s were like teenage

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punks

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in suburban Southern California.

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But they've aged in real

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time with

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the comic strip and not comic

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strip, it's their comics as in

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like they come out in issues. And

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so at this point, they are like well

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into their middle age, their working

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jobs, they like they've had life

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and disappointments, their bodies are different, you know,

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they've grown and aged.

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And it's really affecting reading

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Love and Rockets the way that you

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can really feel the time start to weigh on them.

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It feels very real and very interesting to

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watch these characters age the same

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way we do. And

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so I think that's something I really wanted to try

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was

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I want the years to start to weigh on these people

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and then for them to change in that gradual

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way we all do.