Shogun AudioLog Series

## Transcript

### 12

(JR) Hey there, Shogun. You're famous within the Discord for your creative and powerfully emotional characters so I thought it would be useful to go over a few that make it into the various creations of Farrago Fiction. Probably the most visible of your creations is the nameless empress, since she both wanders Sburbsim creating chaos and is the first empress of wiggler sim. What can you tell me about her?

### 1

(Shogun) Well, for starters, she's from her own... from, like, from her core design point she's meant to look like the single most metal motherfucker you'll ever see.

(You get a slight sound of JR laugh there)

(Shogun) That's like the basis of everything about her, I suppose.

(JR) Hmm.

(Shogun) Like, when you see her, your first assumption is, "oh, fuck! I'm fucked."

(JR) Yes.

(Shogun) Essentially--but like, as with most things, there's more to it than just looks, I suppose. Like as you get deeper--if you, like, read deeper into it or just kind of, I suppose, know the people who wrote the character--

(They both chuckle at this because they are in the know. You can chuckle all you want, doesn't mean you will be too.)

(Shogun) --you kinda figure out that, like, there's more beyond, like--

(JR) Ultimate power.

(Shogun) Yeah. It's--it's more beyond ult--it's like there's--it's not exactly (???, then goes?) into ultimate power it's... it's pretty--it's a pretty base goal really. Just a really fucking metal concert.

(JR) Hmm. So--

(Shogun) That's all she's fuckin' concerned with.

(Laughter and scene)

### 7

(JR) So when she's going around in the session, she's collecting all those weird blood samples. Can you talk a little bit about that?

### 2

(Shogun) Uh, she collects the blood samples, like, initially you think it's something to do with her being empress--

(JR) Hmm.

(Shogun) --but the more likely result is that she just wants it for effects for her fucking concert.

(JR does a laughter) Which is why they're highblood, because that's extra scary.

(Shogun) Yeah, that's fucking spooky as shit, like, if you just see, like, this giant fucking sword-wielding motherfucker, like, "alright, I expect, like, lots of, like, pretty basic and common blood." You don't expect fountains of, like, fuckin' purple blood to show up, y'know? You don't expect that.

(JR laughing.mp3) She's the baddest ass around.

(Shogun) Yeah, exactly, that's entirely her goal.

(JR) Hmm.

(Shogun) Just to assert raw dominance.

(They yuk a little)

### 10

(JR) So, do you have anything you want to say about how she's also the first empress of wiggler sim?

(Shogun) Oh yes, um. This was sort of--it wasn't something I initially planned but as--as stuff was sort of created it made sense. And it was also just kind of like a good (???, communication? implementation?) to sort of cross the streams I suppose.

(JR) Yeah.

(Shogun) Like cross--like Sburbsim, sort of big bads crossed wiggler sim and cross the--well it's like--is it--is it Farragnarok or is it like--

(JR) It's Farragnarok, yeah.

(Shgoun) Yeah, it's just--it's not even got a name like that, it's just okay yeah.

(JR laughs)

(Shogun) It was like a good way to kind of tie those together--

(JR) Mmm.

(Shogun) --in a sort of--it--it's not really like a sort of out there way but it is sort of something you can tell if you read into it about.

(JR) Mmhmm.

### 5

(JR) If I remember right it was KR who suggested to--to import the nameless empress in because the original wiggler sim empress had just been nameless empress and you--you--

(Shogun) Yeah.

(JR) --you were very insistent that your empress didn't have a name. She was just, "the empress."

(Shogun) Yeah.

(Guffaws from the two of them)

(Shogun) 'Cause I didn't have, like, the creativity at the time.

(JR) But it worked! Like we both--

(Shogun) (???) fucking (???)--

(JR) --we both--

(Shogun) Me being a persis--

(They both just kinda break down into gligglefits)

(Shogun) It just worked.

(JR) Yes. Alright, so the human equivalent of the nameless empress in Sburbsim is, of course, the Grim Reaper. He's extremely iconic given his complex motivations between killing all the players and helping them breed a new universe. What can you tell me about him?

### 9

(Shogun) Fuck, what can I tell you about him? Uhh, well, for starters he is--to put it simply--the culmination of everything I liked about the different depictions of the Grim Reaper.

(JR) Hmm.

(Shogun) Like, you get things like the Grim Reaper from Billy and Mandy--

(JR) Mmhmm.

(Shogun) Uhh, the different Grim--the different Reaper characters from Grim Fandango.

(JR) Mmhmm.

(Shogun) And, like, Uncle Death from--I think Uncle Death's influence is the most apparent in his design alone.

(JR) The radicalness, yeah.

(Shogun) Yeah, like the whole--the whole radical, like, out there fuckin'--like, just kinda like (???, incessant? in essence?) fucking wacky--

(JR) Hmm.

(Shogun) --I suppose would be good.

(JR) But it also works--

(Shogun) But like--

(JR) --it works with the fatalism of GlitchFAQ where, when everybody's dead, what you do is bike stunts, y'know?

(Shogun) Yeah. (Laughs) Bike stunts. Like it--it works it sort of--

(JR) Hmm.

(Shogun) I can't really explain much about him. (Laughs) He was just a fuckin'--

(JR) Hmm.

(Shogun) --he was fun to design, he was fun to create and he's just a fun character all around. Like--

(JR) "Hey there kid, you wanna see a dead body?"

(Shogun) That literally is what he is; "hey kids, wanna see a dead body?" But, like, it works too because--no matter what happens--at the end he wins so he doesn't have to be, like, much of a threat anyways.

(JR) Hmm, he is--

(Shogun) He doesn't have to be ominous or spooky. He can be whatever the fuck he wants and what he wants to be is cool.

(JR) Yeah, 'cause, like, you can't stop death.

(Shogun) Yeah, you really can't. He wins no matter what and that's, I think--I think that's basically the crux of his entire character.

(JR) Hmm.

(Shogun) He's already won so he's just having a laugh now.

(JR) Yeah, if, I mean--either--either it's a total party wipe or they breed the frog and he gets a whole new universe of people to die.

(Shogun) Yeah, like, he gets his--he gets to do his job where he gets further job security.

(JR) Mmhmm.

(Shogun) Like, really, he wins.

### 11

(JR) So I didn't actually think about the fact that he only shows up in human-only sessions at first when I suggested he visit LoMaT, the Land of Mists and Trails. So it'll be interesting figuring out exactly why he's also the--the Grim Reaper of lamias and not just humans.

### 3

(Shogun) Ah, would be interesting. I think, just from pouring from out of my fuckin' head here, if I would just do somethi--if I was something to do with the amount of death there, y'know?

(JR) Hmm. Hmm. Right.

(Shogun) Like, this is how some--how some of the lands seem so focused around death as a concept.

(JR) Well that's so--

(Shogun) It would definitely...

(JR laughs) Well--also, I mean y'know, spoilers--but the lamia are, y'know, in with some timelines, the death of everything.

(Shogun) Okay, yeah, no there's--that's no fucking wonder he's there then.

(JR laughs) I'm glad we figured that out.

(Shogun) He's just there to see what the fuck's causing it.

(JR sighs contentedly)

(Shogun) He's the Sans of LoMaS.

(JR) Gonna have a bad time.

(Shogun) Fucking--I can't even do the first words of Megalovania--

(JR) No.

(Shogun) --we'd get copyright strike.

(JR) Ohh, naw, actually--if I remember right--we have, like, three Sans' of LoMaT, don't we?

(Shogun) God, yeah, we do.

(JR's laughs crawl on your back)

(Shogun joins her) Oh fuck. Toby Fox please.

(JR) There are too many blue-eyed skeletons in that game. Alright--

(Shogun) Whenever you're making skeletons--whenever you're making skeletons of any kind, like today at least, there has--there is gonna be like a Sans or Papyrus reference.

(JR) Hmm.

### 8

(JR) Alright, so the last question I had for you--and this is one the caretakers have been bugging me to ask--what's up with prince Steven?

(Shogun) Alright, so I'm not even gonna try and act ominous here.

(JR laughs)

(Shogun) Whenever I started playing wiggler sim I had--I--I c--I found this beautiful fuchsia child called prince Steven and I thought, "god, I can't get enough of this man." So I manually edited my save to have several thousand copies of him.

(JR laughs, the sequel)

(Shogun) I then continued to fuck with the HTML. Like inspect element shit, just to fuck about.

(JR) Hmm.

(Shogun) And then--whenever I discovered, "hey, time-hole exists,"--I started, like, creating--just putting Stevens in the time-hole and seeing how far I could get with it. And then you elected to give me--like how we described--the keys to the car.

(JR scores a laughter hat trick)

(Shogun) And I sort of went fucking rampant with it.

(JR) I Wasted you, it's true.

(Shogun laughs) Yeah, prince Steven's a fucking hero.

(JR does a mini-laugh) And at this point there's a whole bunch of different castes about him.

### 0

(JR) Now I know you've made some art implying that having a prince Steven in every timeline is key to something and I'm sure that's off-the-cuff bullshit but you wanna bullshit some more about it?

### 4

(Shogun) Uh, yeah. I sor--it sort of, like, okay. So you know the way whenever you're, um--if you're, like, sewing something, alright?

(JR) Mmhmm?

(Shogun) It's sort of like--the prince Steven just sort of like the needle on the thread and they go through everything and when you pull it, it all comes together.

(JR) Hmm.

(Shogun) You just gotta, fuck--like every--the point at which every Steven exists is sort of a continual line for every timeline.

(JR) Excellent.

(Shogun) There's--that's really all there is to it. It's just a consistent, single fact. I don't know what the fuck's gonna happen with it, I don't know what the fuck the point of having that consistent single line is but it's there and if someone wants to do something with it, they can, I guess.

(JR) I mean that sounds valid to me.

### 6

(JR) Well, thank you for this interview.

(Shogun) Ah, it's no trouble. So when do I get out of the attic again?

(JR finds the concept of Shogun leaving the attic laughable)

(JR) Well supposedly I was in the attic for a month until--until the thirteenth, or was that when it started? The point is, I got out of the attic so what are you doing in the attic?

(Shogun) I don't know.

(They laugh, as bewildered as I am)

(JR) Well at least you're not having to try to run Sburbsim anymore. I don't--I don't think--I don't think, uh... I don't think your character enjoyed that very much.

(Shogun laughs) No. That was--that was a fucking wild month, I'm not even gonna lie.

(JR) Mmmmmm.

(Shogun) Least I got something out of it.

(JR) Mmmm. Ahh, yes. Alright, I'm gonna stop recording.

(Shogun) Alright.