This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] Will Champion: Tim Slurry and the Spooky Season Spark Notes.

[0:30] Maddie Murphy: You know what really fucked me up? The Sandlot forever scene.

[0:34] Will Champion: Forever. I- At what age?

[0:39] Maddie Murphy: I think I- Too old, like 12. I think I like pissed my pants once at a friend's house.

[0:45] Will Champion: Oh no!

[0:45] Maddie Murphy: It's so scary!

[0:47] Will Champion: It's like the most harmless goober in the world scene forever. I guess it's a big scary dog if you don't like big scary dogs. It is forever.

[0:57] Maddie Murphy: You don't get to choose what frightens you. There's an ep- Have we seen Pingu in this house?

[1:01] Alex Murray: Oh my god. Hey everybody. Welcome back to Ale! And Well Met. A Twenty Sided Tavern Podcast.

[1:07] Alex Murray: It's me, our Alex Murray again. Maddy, give us an intro song.

[1:11] Maddie Murphy: It's Ale! And Well Met. The Twenty Sided Podcast. We're talking like friends. Don't get your pods casted. Don't get your pods casted.

[1:21] Maddie Murphy: Shoo-ba-do-do-do-do-do. Nat 20.

[1:24] Alex Murray: Nice. Thank you.

[1:25] Alex Murray: That's good. Will Champion, what's up? Say hello to the people.

[1:27] Will Champion: Hi. What's up? Hello to the people.

[1:29] Alex Murray: You guys know Will and Maddy and me and we're back and we're talking about shit, but also Will just said something incredible which is you don't get to choose what scares you. Say more please.

[1:36] Will Champion: Well that's- I was providing my own, you know, tempered example. Pingu. It's a- a- a claymation penguin.

[1:43] Maddie Murphy: Oh yeah.

[1:45] Will Champion: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Doesn't he like teach you math and shit?

[1:48] Maddie Murphy: No. He mostly just like fucks up his parents' lives.

[1:51] Will Champion: Also like his mouth is scary. I remember that.

[1:53] Maddie Murphy: Yeah.

[1:53] Will Champion: He'd go like-

[1:54] Maddie Murphy: So he makes really funky expressions and then they had one episode. I will never forget where I was when I saw it. He has a nightmare sequence about a large walrus that breaks through the ice and it is the- it's a walrus with human teeth and it's the single scariest thing I have yet to-

[2:08] Will Champion: I heard Justin Long start- start in that. Yeah.

[2:12] Maddie Murphy: Do you know about the movie?

[2:13] Will Champion: I don't- I don't understand the joke.

[2:14] Maddie Murphy: Justin Long is in a horror movie called like-

[2:17] Will Champion: Oh, Tusk.

[2:18] Maddie Murphy: Tusk.

[2:19] Will Champion: Yeah, it's a Kevin Smith joint.

[2:20] Maddie Murphy: There we go. You know what else really scared the shit out of me?

[2:24] Will Champion: Please.

[2:24] Maddie Murphy: And it- I still- I don't think I've ever recovered. The whale from Pinocchio.

[2:29] Will Champion: Oh my god!

[2:29] Maddie Murphy: Well that's supposed to be scary.

[2:31] Will Champion: I mean he's supposed to be scary. Like he-

[2:33] Maddie Murphy: Also teeth.

[2:35] Will Champion: I mean he like represents- he's like an archetype for like the thing that will come and kill you if you don't obey your father.

[2:41] Maddie Murphy: The great boogeyman.

[2:42] Will Champion: Yeah, dude. He's- he's goddamn Jonah and the whale and all this nonsense.

[2:46] Maddie Murphy: But to this day, precursor to me seeing Jaws is I think the reason why I am scared of the ocean. I'm just like, big ass whale.

[2:52] Will Champion: Yeah?

[2:53] Maddie Murphy: Big ass whale.

[2:54] Will Champion: Jaws did it. Jaws messed me up butt good.

[2:58] Maddie Murphy: Like-

[2:58] Will Champion: Butt good?

[2:59] Maddie Murphy: Butt good. It messed my butt up and it messed my- the back of my knees.

[3:02] Will Champion: No!

[3:02] Maddie Murphy: And like I- it's bad. I mean like my butthole clenches every time even my tootsies get in the ocean for a minute and I have to like talk myself through it and I have to look at it and I have to cuss out Poseidon for a minute. I have to be like, Poseidon, I don't respect you. You're a bitch. You can release all the krakens on me you want. I'll fight you.

[3:19] Will Champion: That's traditionally a bad idea doing that.

[3:21] Maddie Murphy: Yeah, I've also-

[3:22] Will Champion: He's a wiener. He's a wiener.

[3:24] Maddie Murphy: I'm glad that you addressing your fears as you actually trying to infuriate a god. Like this is the most- this is some masculine ass shit where I just go like, I'm gonna touch the wah-wee.

[3:34] Will Champion: Except I don't fuck- I don't- I don't jump in swimming pools alone.

[3:41] Maddie Murphy: Why?

[3:41] Will Champion: Because!

[3:42] Maddie Murphy: Because what if the secret door opens and the shark's coming?

[3:45] Will Champion: The vent at the bottom of the pool opens and there is a snake in there!

[3:49] Maddie Murphy: 100% anaconda-ruined pools for me and I just- anytime people are like, hey Maddie, you want to go swimming? I was like, not really, but if I have to, I'm never ever swimming alone. Are you kidding? I sink like a fucking stone.

[4:01] Will Champion: Sure.

[4:01] Maddie Murphy: That's anti-Murphy matter right there.

[4:04] Will Champion: I've learned something new today. You should probably stay away from Final Destination 3 or the final- there's a whole pool sequence that involves the vent at the bottom of the pool.

[4:13] Maddie Murphy: I'll only watch Penultimate Destination.

[4:15] Will Champion: Have you seen Carrie 2? This is a very good spooky season episode of podcast right now.

[4:19] Maddie Murphy: Have you seen Carrie 2, The Reckoning?

[4:22] Will Champion: God, say that I have.

[4:22] Maddie Murphy: It is so bad. It's like an early aughts. It was- I think Devin Sawa was like, I don't even think he was making a comeback. He was just in it as the like, as the like, evil jock, right? So like, he was just like an evil jock and it was one of the London twins was like, the like, love interest or whatever that like- so it was Carrie's granddaughter, same madness is in her, but it's like 2004 ass- and like literally the same plot and they like, they set her up to be popular and then they mess with her and at a like, high school graduation party, big party, instead of like, uh, instead of prom, it's at like the party, she gets nuts and she decapitates some people with some CDs.

[5:04] Will Champion: Okay, that is a good early 2000s weapon.

[5:08] Maddie Murphy: It's very good. And then-

[5:10] Will Champion: Spoilers for Carrie 2, The Reckoning.

[5:11] Maddie Murphy: Yeah, oh man, the whole like- there is 60 minutes of movie that who cares about and then 30 minutes of carnage at the end to make it worth it. She also, uh, she also kills somebody with a fire poker, like levitates a fire poker through somebody and then, then she shoots Devin Sawa's nads off with a spear gun.

[5:33] Will Champion: Where was this? Where'd she get the spear gun?

[5:35] Maddie Murphy: All rich people have spear guns in their houses.

[5:38] Will Champion: This is another reason to fear the ocean.

[5:42] Maddie Murphy: Because of the millionaires that sail upon it.

[5:44] Will Champion: Yeah, that sail upon it. You must fear the ocean, always.

[5:48] Maddie Murphy: She shoots Devin Sawa's nuts off and he falls in the pool and then he's trying to get out of the pool and then she telekinetically closes the pool, like, uh, like, over him.

[5:57] Will Champion: Like I did to my Sims once upon a time.

[5:59] Maddie Murphy: Yes, yes, I just take the ladder out. Or have the light fireworks inside.

[6:04] Will Champion: They can't get off.

[6:05] Maddie Murphy: They can't get off.

[6:05] Will Champion: No, they get exhausted.

[6:06] Maddie Murphy: Oh, Sims love to get off.

[6:07] Will Champion: There's a way you can, you can have children with the Grim Reaper in one of the games and that's a great way to bait it into happening. But by doing that, you're essentially becoming the, like, the entity that haunts Hill House, right? You become the problem there.

[6:21] Will Champion: Sure.

[6:22] Maddie Murphy: Once I stopped, once I used all the cheat codes and finished decorating the room, I was functionally done with that family. They were, I was done with them.

[6:29] Will Champion: I don't need anything from you anymore.

[6:31] Maddie Murphy: I don't need anything. Maybe...

[6:32] Will Champion: Starve you aesthetically used up husks.

[6:36] Maddie Murphy: No, and then I, and then I tried to be humane by killing them as quickly as possible.

[6:40] Will Champion: Yeah.

[6:40] Maddie Murphy: No starvation or sleep deprivation. Just hop in the pool and uh-oh, the ladder went away. I am drowning.

[6:45] Will Champion: You don't need the kittens anymore.

[6:47] Maddie Murphy: If you don't have...

[6:47] Will Champion: Throw them in a, in a, put them in a pillowcase with a bunch of rocks.

[6:51] Maddie Murphy: If you don't have the physical strength to hoist yourself out of a pool without a ladder...

[6:54] Will Champion: You shouldn't be here.

[6:55] Maddie Murphy: You shouldn't be here.

[6:57] Will Champion: In the Sims, notably.

[6:58] Maddie Murphy: Are we the whale in this case?

[7:00] Will Champion: Maybe.

[7:00] Maddie Murphy: Are we the whale?

[7:02] Will Champion: No, I think you're the angry god who sends the whale for the Sims.

[7:06] Maddie Murphy: Oh, 100%.

[7:07] Will Champion: Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's what Sims is all about, right?

[7:09] Maddie Murphy: Yeah.

[7:09] Will Champion: It's about, it's just essentially you being like, yeah, hold your piss, you slave.

[7:16] Maddie Murphy: Oh no.

[7:16] Will Champion: I feel like at this point, Sims, somebody tell me, can you just have a whale now in Sims?

[7:21] Maddie Murphy: I feel like that's a thing.

[7:22] Will Champion: You should if you can. Somebody's modded it and I'm sure if they haven't officially programmed it.

[7:28] Maddie Murphy: Sims under the sea.

[7:29] Will Champion: You know what's another? I finally just remembered the other thing that still makes me do a jump scare.

[7:31] Maddie Murphy: You're talking about Carrie 2.

[7:33] Will Champion: You're talking about, I haven't seen Carrie 1 and won't because I am a wimp.

[7:36] Maddie Murphy: I, there are certain movies that I've forced myself to watch because I think it's important.

[7:40] Will Champion: It's not that bad.

[7:40] Maddie Murphy: Like The Shining.

[7:41] Will Champion: Yes.

[7:42] Maddie Murphy: Yeah, sure.

[7:42] Will Champion: Right? But I just...

[7:44] Maddie Murphy: Because it's cinema.

[7:46] Will Champion: Cinema! Kubrick!

[7:48] Maddie Murphy: That's me the whole time, just screaming Kubrick.

[7:53] Will Champion: But I just like...

[7:54] Maddie Murphy: Stanley! Stanley!

[7:56] Will Champion: Stanley!

[7:58] Maddie Murphy: That's any good scene, I just scream Stanley.

[8:01] Will Champion: But Hocus Pocus, when they're back at the house and...

[8:05] Maddie Murphy: Okay, this is not where I thought this was gonna go.

[8:08] Will Champion: Hocus Pocus, when they are back at the house, they're like, we did it! And he thinks his sister's in bed and he pulls back the cover.

[8:13] Maddie Murphy: And I think Sarah Jessica Parker or Bette Midler, one of them sits up and goes like...

[8:18] Will Champion: It's just, they're there.

[8:19] Maddie Murphy: Yeah, horrifying.

[8:20] Will Champion: And that room is fully lit.

[8:22] Maddie Murphy: There's like nice music being played and I'm still like...

[8:28] Will Champion: I'm a sucker for jump scares.

[8:30] Maddie Murphy: You know what kills me the same way?

[8:34] Will Champion: So bad.

[8:35] Maddie Murphy: Every time Marlon turns around and finding Nemo and Bruce, the shark is right there.

[8:40] Will Champion: Oh, Joel.

[8:40] Maddie Murphy: Just that jump scare.

[8:42] Will Champion: I know it's coming, but my balls jump all the way up into my throat every time.

[8:46] Maddie Murphy: I'm just like, oh, big shark!

[8:48] Will Champion: Maybe that's the Jaws thing.

[8:49] Maddie Murphy: Again, it all comes back to the ocean.

[8:52] Will Champion: Yeah.

[8:53] Maddie Murphy: It does. Terrifying down there.

[8:55] Will Champion: Will, what's the scariest thing you've seen?

[8:57] Maddie Murphy: What scares Will Champion?

[8:58] Will Champion: Scariest thing I've seen? I'm trying to think. This is such a cliche answer, but I remember my high school buddy, Calvin, and I, there was one night we were like, you know what we're going to do? So the very beginning of Netflix, right? Netflix had just started to move away from the DVD and there was like a digital client. We're going to find Hobbes and we're going to go down a hill in...

[9:16] Maddie Murphy: Okay, I'm sorry.

[9:18] Will Champion: We decided we were going to watch The Exorcist for the first time. And it was in my relatively well-lit living room in suburban Massachusetts, but in the dead of night.

[9:30] Maddie Murphy: Nope.

[9:31] Will Champion: And that scared the living shite out of me.

[9:34] Maddie Murphy: Yeah.

[9:34] Will Champion: I remember we were sort of right in the back end of the film in the, you know, the heart of the actual exorcism. And my mother comes home, keys jangling in the door. And the pair of us about levitated, just left our bodies behind.

[9:47] Maddie Murphy: I have, I went on the Wikipedia page to read about the plot of The Exorcist and couldn't sleep that night.

[9:54] Will Champion: Sure.

[9:54] Maddie Murphy: This is what I do when I want to be a part of conversations. I'll read like I did. I also did it.

[10:00] Will Champion: I'm with you.

[10:01] Maddie Murphy: You fucking Sparknotes-ing spooky sister.

[10:04] Will Champion: I also recently did it with Hereditary at 2 p.m. in the afternoon. And guess what? At about 11 p.m. that night, I started going, Hereditary. And I did not fall asleep until 3 a.m.

[10:15] Maddie Murphy: Over a movie I have not actually seen.

[10:17] Will Champion: That's the, that's the movie that from you, before you watch it to after you watch it, something changes.

[10:21] Maddie Murphy: Henceforth, no longer can you hear and be okay.

[10:27] Will Champion: And for those of you listening who've seen the movie, you know what I'm talking about.

[10:29] Maddie Murphy: Oh, there's tons of, you know, shh, shh, shh.

[10:31] Will Champion: Yeah.

[10:31] Maddie Murphy: Oh, that's great. Like, oh, it's great. But like, there's a, you've seen, was it The Others with Nicole Kidman? And like, she's possessed and stuff. Time is on Your Side by The Rolling Stones features prominently. And that was one of those where like, it messed us up. And then, I don't know, we were sneaking into, I grew up in a world where I could like sneak, I could go to my friend's houses and like, stand under their windows and make noise and shit at them. Just like on a Tuesday night, because the suburbs.

[11:03] Will Champion: Right, right.

[11:04] Maddie Murphy: Like, you could just do that. You could just drive over to your buddy Jeff's house and get under his like, window at like, 11pm and be like, time, and just like, wait for him to freak out.

[11:14] Will Champion: Oh my god, we would, we would ghost ride the whip.

[11:17] Maddie Murphy: I'm sorry.

[11:18] Will Champion: Run it back.

[11:19] Maddie Murphy: Do you not know what that is?

[11:20] Will Champion: It is, what a, what a timestamp.

[11:23] Maddie Murphy: I cannot, I can also.

[11:25] Will Champion: You've actually done it?

[11:26] Maddie Murphy: Yes, because we were born in the Illinois suburbs.

[11:30] Will Champion: So it would be 10 o'clock at night. Twin Sided Tavern does not endorse ghost riding the whip.

[11:33] Maddie Murphy: Do not endorse ghost riding the whip.

[11:34] Will Champion: It also sounds scary.

[11:36] Maddie Murphy: It's not.

[11:36] Will Champion: So here we are in my good friend's 1996 Buick. So it's basically a pontoon.

[11:43] Maddie Murphy: Yeah, a boat, sure.

[11:43] Will Champion: It is a boat. And I live, my mom still does, lives near a forest preserve. So you drive a mile and you're by the forest preserve. There's very few cars, whole thing. And we thought we were cool. And again, bored. And ghost riding the whip is when you take the car. It's in drive. Okay.

[12:01] Maddie Murphy: Sure.

[12:01] Will Champion: You all open, you blast music. In our case, Lady Gaga, Poker Face. I'm, again, dating myself. You blast the music and all of you get out of the car and dance alongside it as it's idling down the street. If you're really brave, one of you will hop on the hood of the car and continue. And then you eventually get back in the car.

[12:22] Maddie Murphy: And then you.

[12:23] Will Champion: And then it ends.

[12:24] Maddie Murphy: And then we drive.

[12:24] Will Champion: You're playing chicken with yourself. And then we drive to Wendy's and buy a single Frosty because that's all we can afford. And that is Friday night, baby.

[12:34] Maddie Murphy: Oh, God, the visceral memory I just had of everybody reaching into their pockets for change so we can get a Frosty and a Dollar Frye.

[12:42] Will Champion: Yep.

[12:43] Maddie Murphy: No way. It was a rap song, wasn't it?

[12:46] Will Champion: It had to be.

[12:47] Maddie Murphy: But my 16-year-old ass in a giant Buick that has a turn radius of about 80,000 degrees is truly just.

[12:57] Will Champion: And I just imagine the nice lady who loves living by the forest getting.

[13:01] Maddie Murphy: For like six months, she was like, God damn it. They just stopped planking on everything. God.

[13:06] Will Champion: And this was my phase when, like, I would straighten my hair and had a little part and definitely tried to wear Lacoste polos. Just a disaster. Through and through.

[13:14] Maddie Murphy: Oh, backpack girl.

[13:19] Will Champion: So that's ghost riding the whip, William.

[13:21] Maddie Murphy: I've learned something today, certainly.

[13:24] Will Champion: Nope.

[13:25] Maddie Murphy: Nope.

[13:25] Will Champion: Too many questions, too little time.

[13:27] Maddie Murphy: Wait, can I bring it? Can I bring it back to the spooky scary?

[13:30] Will Champion: Yeah.

[13:31] Maddie Murphy: Okay. Because this came up at yesterday's show actually was ghosts. And I want to know. Do you guys believe in ghosts? Is that where we're at? Belief in ghosts, but also have you ever had an unexplainable encounter?

[13:46] Will Champion: I want it too bad. This is my problem. Is that like I know they're out there and I'm aware and like there's interaction sometimes, but like those fuckers know that I want it too bad. I'm never getting a full corporeal anything. Because they're like, nah, dude, you're too thirsty for it. You bitch.

[14:01] Maddie Murphy: And I'm desperate. I will. And I were talking last night. So I'm like, I don't want to believe in ghosts. I think that the concept of a disturbed spirit that cannot attain peace that is living in some paradoxical. That's not what I think that they are. But we could get into that if we want.

[14:17] Will Champion: We could.

[14:17] Maddie Murphy: But I would like what is what is your unexplainable experience?

[14:21] Will Champion: I mean, I have too many to sit with right now because this is I'm becoming more public about this. But this is something I've been going through since I was eight. There was an incident that happened on a long drive home in the north of England that changed my perception of things. And I have had a number of encounters since then. But the easiest one to talk about here.

[14:39] Will Champion: In college, I went to school in upstate New York, and there was this big road that ran out to the suburbs, and there was this branching avenue off the side of the road. I can't remember for the life of me what it was called, but where these two roads diverge... Scary fucking ghost avenue. Essentially, yeah. Spoopy, spoopy lane. There was a big red house with a lamp post right out front by its traditional white picket fence. I'm already out. You've already lost me. I'm reading the Wikipedia page about this. It gets so dark in upstate New York in the winter and so bitingly cold that even on this very well-traveled sort of party street, it can get eerily quiet and heavy. People from cities do not understand.

This is my wife who was born, grew up in Philadelphia, and lives in New York now. When we're at home in my parents' fucking cul-de-sac, she'll be outside and she'll be like, why is it so quiet? That's the way the world is. I'm like, babe, this is not scary quiet. You'll know scary quiet. Scary quiet is fucking scary quiet. It is. It gets dark and you go, if I don't have light, I am... This is the end. Without electricity, I am gone. If an actual predator shows up or something too, if there's an owl around or a dog and you feel everything go... so bad. So this is probably about to happen to you. So yeah, well, this one, this red house had this sort of lamppost on its property and that bright light was the main light for this corner of the road.

However, I don't know whether that was the beacon for this guy or whatnot, but what became clear to me, I thought I was dealing with a very belligerent neighbor because I lived just sort of across the street from this house and this guy would stand by the light and fucking yell at me for getting too close to the house at night. He would yell and yell and yell. He's like, get back over the gate on the other side of the road. And it wasn't until later in the year, because I lived in this house for just over two years, that I saw another family fully moving into the house and then kept seeing that guy at the light, kept hearing him yell at me when I realized that I don't think he knew that this wasn't his house, his street, or his place anymore.

And I would just remember this family had two young kids that I would always see playing in the driveway right next to this lamppost. And I always wondered if they had felt anything, if they were feeling scared. They didn't seem it, but this guy didn't like people in his house, didn't like people near his house. Wild. By the time I left college, he was still there.

[17:12] Maddie Murphy: Maybe he was okay with them.

[17:14] Will Champion: Maybe, yeah, yeah, truthfully. So I had two ghost encounters that I can't explain. One, my sister was present for. Real quick, there's this concept of orbs, ghost orbs. So once my sister and I, we grew up, we never moved. My mom still lives in that same house. But hold on, hit us with the concept a little bit for a second first, in case people listening aren't spooky assholes.

[17:36] Maddie Murphy: Sure. Again, and this is also me, who's purposely not done a lot of research into them, because again, I am trying to remain in abject denial. And ghost orbs, there's a concept that they can come in different, they are functionally these roving orbs of light, and they can be different colors. And there's different theories about what the colors mean, but they're spectral forces, they're forms, they're ghostly. Well, in my experience, they have velocity, momentum, and weight. And we were in the house that my mom still lives in, I still go there, and there has always been an addition to the house. That was spooky, partly because it's just not lit. Like when the lights go down, it doesn't have ceiling lamps.

And we would always, as kids, the last one upstairs has to lock up and turn off the lights and sprint up the stairs. And the study was always the worst, always, the study that my mom works in. And Ali and I are sitting in our living room, which is adjacent to the study, like we always do every night. And we're just minding our own business. And the TV is right in front of me. And I'll never forget, in my peripheral vision, I see a black undulating orb of light zip out of my mom's study and kind of just out of the corner of my eye. It's in the corner. And all of a sudden, it shoots past my face. I'm sitting in a chair, there's a plant next to me. That plant, I feel the wind pass my face. I feel the plant rattle.

It like just misses me, and it zips out the room. And I remember holding stock still. I'm not breathing. And in that moment, my brain is like, it was the cat. The cat just jumped at laser speed past my face and hit the plant. That's what it does. And then I, like a wooden doll, creak my head towards my sister and see that he is equally open-eyed. And she just goes, did you just see a black orb of light? And I go, I saw a black orb of light. We have our flip phones. My mom is out somewhere. So we call my dad. And we're like, dad, you got it. And he's like, what do you mean? And we're like, there's an orb of light. So that's one. Which part of fucking haunted orb do you not understand, dad? And to this day, we both saw and experienced the same thing.

[19:48] Maddie Murphy: My other one, again, in the study was it was that night that I was going to lock up everything. I'm the last one in the house. You got to turn off the damn, that stupid lamp that's deep in the study. And once you turn it off, you're in complete darkness. And you need to go. And I do that. And I'm trying to be brave because I'm like, Maddie, you're 17. You're 17. You're a woman now. You just waltzed out the study. And the house I've grown up in my whole life. And I'm about to step out of the study. And it's like somebody is holding a radio next to my ear. It's static. And they're turning the channel. And it is loud as can be. Someone is holding a radio to my ear. Static channel changing voices.

And I, again, go, OK, maybe I left a window open. And there is a car outside of the house. Maybe that's it at the stop sign. And I glance out the window. Windows are closed. There is no car. And I'm hearing the static get closer to me. And again, I bolt. To this day, still can't. Can't. But I do not go in that room in my mom's house at night. Once she told me to sleep in there. And I absolutely did not. Fuck right off. Bye-bye. On the sofa. Bye-bye.

[21:00] Will Champion: Is the house old?

[21:02] Maddie Murphy: She is old. And she's a benevolent house. Like, we grew up in there. It was great. But there's been, my sister also had a different encounter. I mean, it doesn't sound like those orbs were messing with you guys. They're just around. And you, like, don't want to mess with it.

[21:08] Will Champion: See, this is my problem. Because my ass would be in there with fucking candles. And I would be like, I want to talk to it. Let's be friends, dude. Here's what it is. My mom's basement is also unfinished. Like, there is a staircase that leads down to it. It's the temporary staircase that is so not up to code. I hate those things. But it's like, you go down there. And there is definitely a sense of things. This house has been here a long time.

[21:32] Maddie Murphy: Sure, yeah. Well, that's the, so, like, I used to have to close my bar that I worked at till 2020, when I was 30, however many years old, six, seven. And I would have to close. It was just me by myself. But it's like being in a church or a theater by yourself late at night. It's just scary when there's been that much energy in there. Like, especially that much energy all day. And, like, you're just in a place where, like, people have heightened emotions all the time and are going through big stuff. And, like, that leaves stuff. And, man, I mean, every time I would, like, turn off everything, turn off the last lights. And, man, the, like, negative space behind you, right? I would turn off the last, this bar was like a garage.

So there was, like, a tunnel and then a courtyard. And then, like, an open garage thing. I'm in the Wikipedia page. I'm gone. But, like, you get all the way out. And there was a light switch right next to the door all the way at the front, right? But, like, I would, like, every night I would go, okay, here we go. Here we go. Here we go. Here we go. Light off, outside the door, slam the shut, lock the door, put on the thing. And, like, pull my back against it and be like.

[23:00] Maddie Murphy: Did you also think, I thought that there would be a time between teenagehood and adulthood that I would stop being so scared?

[23:04] Will Champion: No.

[23:05] Maddie Murphy: It gets worse. And then, and I.

[23:05] Will Champion: You keep seeing shit.

[23:06] Maddie Murphy: You're like the old ass house. No. I'm also collecting weird fucking energy all the time. And now I'm more, all the more aware of all the things I don't want to lose. But I thought there would be a time where I wouldn't be afraid of the dark. That I'd be like, nope, this is fine, la la la. And it's like, absolutely not. No, we got the internet. We got, I know what happens in the dark now. The curved irregular stairs that lead from the basement will forever be scary. That's just the way that it is.

[23:30] Will Champion: Yeah. Because they're curved and irregular.

[23:33] Maddie Murphy: Yeah, and the only light switch to turn the lights off, inexplicably, is at the fucking bottom of the stairs.

[23:40] Will Champion: Bottom.

[23:41] Maddie Murphy: Yeah, it's because Herbert Hoover, like, in the 50s told everybody that we need to scare the shit out of everybody forever or whatever. And we were only putting light switches in the bottom of the stairs. Unacceptable. You know, it's also the weird moment of adulthood. So I have nieces and a nephew who are little, and I have had to learn to be like, oh, sometimes you got to be the brave adult, even though you truly are scared.

[24:02] Will Champion: Right.

[24:02] Maddie Murphy: Case in point, though. And it's things like, oh, you got to be brave and teach them certainly life lessons short. No, I'm talking about the simple. I'm still scared of the dark. Yeah. But my nephew who sleepwalks will wake, you'll wake up and he'll be standing. No, fuck that. And be standing over your bed. I'll punch my six-year-old nephew in the face. I almost did. But he's sleeping. And a child. So I have to be like.

[24:26] Will Champion: No slack, John.

[24:30] Maddie Murphy: I love him so much. But I truly was like, this is the creepiest thing in the world. And I will drop kick you. And that happened once. I was babysitting overnight and I woke up and he's there. And I'm like, and then I have to be calm and guided through this dark house back to his scary room. Come on, buddy. There's something that happens when you're like, all of a sudden you're like on a mission.

[24:52] Will Champion: Right.

[24:52] Maddie Murphy: You're the dad in the quiet place and you're like, this is scary. But like, I'm locked in. I have to get it. I have to go. Somebody's got to go on. Not me. Not Hermione.

[25:03] Will Champion: Yeah.

[25:04] Maddie Murphy: So you're like, OK, I can't be scared. I have to go fight Voldemort or whoever. Yeah. Or it's better yet. It's like, I am so scared. I still have to guide this child I love more than anything back to bed. Even though if it were anyone else, I would drop kick them and defenestrate myself. The only all-purpose exit route is throwing yourself out of the window.

[25:29] Will Champion: Just through self-defenestration.

[25:32] Maddie Murphy: No breathing. Don't give a fuck. If it's the Orbit, I'm leaving.

[25:40] Will Champion: Oh, no. Gotta get out of there, dude. Yeah. I mean, I feel like that just too many stories for too many years that match up the exact same details from everybody else's stories for all time. You want to call that collective hallucination? Sure. But like the fact that you can go to look up ghost orbs and have essentially your own experience shared with you and your sister described back to you from, like, God knows how many other sources you have to put some kind of weight in that.

[26:06] Maddie Murphy: Yeah. I mean, do you know what a Tulpa is?

[26:11] Will Champion: A Tulpa is that like a physical manifestation of a demon that is like brought about by enough people believing in something.

[26:20] Maddie Murphy: Yeah. There are people that are like there are a lot of people that is a school of thought that thinks that this is what cryptids are.

[26:26] Will Champion: Yeah.

[26:26] Maddie Murphy: We like believed in them long enough to that like they manifested. Well, I'll tell you that I think I've said this to you guys before, but the only way I have ever been able to find my own sort of solitude in dealing with these experiences over the years is saying, OK, the things that I believe will help me and protect me in these situations, if I truly believe they will, they end up having an effect. I mean, like you go like, all right, it's my thing with the like with like Poseidon. I'm like, all right, if like that's it, if all I got to do is be like, hey, guy, I'm coming in here. Don't worry about it. It's just me. I'm announcing it's like announcing yourself to an angry dog at a house. You're just like, hello, may I come in?

Yes, I'm coming in here. And then you're like, yeah, man, if you're a ghost and you're an orb, then also this crystal fucking works. So get ready. So eat my ass. Go for it. Just eat my ass. But that's it, too, where I think I do. I do like I do love the idea of like I do think that Alex and I have talked about this like energetically and vibrationally, you attract to you kind of what you put out there, right? Where it's the same like if you're negative secret, that's the secret, baby. So my whole thing, too, is I was like, you know what? This weird shit. I don't it's I find it frightening. But at the same time, I think energetically I'm putting out there. OK, so maybe that's just a cool ass ghost or maybe that static ghost wanted me to hear.

Something cool. I'm not in a place to receive it, my guy. I don't want it. Go to my Wikipedia page. He's just trying to hang out. He's trying really hard to be like, hey, Maddie, what's going on? You seem chill. Do you want to eat popcorn? But like you don't speak Casper. So it just goes out like, I will eat your flesh. You're like, no, no, it just came out. And I was like, OK, thank you. No, not today. Not not interested. Thank you. No, ma'am. But yeah, I think I think you can also attract the good the good good to you as well.

[28:20] Will Champion: Yeah, I am one of those. That's kind of like what I ascribe to.

[28:22] Maddie Murphy: Sure. But I think that ends up the doors are open. You know, I mean, if you are.

[28:28] Will Champion: I think both have to exist at the same time, right? If you're going to open yourself to attract good vibes and good energy, positivity, you're open. You're open.

[28:36] Maddie Murphy: Yeah, that's just the channel has been open that way. I've hung out with enough like hardcore mediums.

[28:44] Will Champion: Yeah.

[28:45] Maddie Murphy: You know, so like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like I have a friend who reads Akashic Records. And that's holy does like rip open everybody's past life and like lock you in and then put themselves like into you. And so they they they make themselves one of your past lives so they can root around and like talk to you from like, you know, the voices beyond. And it is a ton. And then also, like, I have I have watched her read for somebody and like get locked in and then just go, oh, God.

[29:18] Will Champion: And the Spooky Season Spark Notes.

[35:19] Maddie Murphy: Bill, you'd be like no. No, I'm not. I'm not that I can't handle it. If people give me the Alec with a C, I'm like no I rebuke that different name be gone. That's a whole other name.

[35:31] Will Champion: Yeah, Alex Alexander, that's all fine. But like if or like like Maddie with Maggie, Maggie, I'm like, no, that's not me. No.

[35:41] Maddie Murphy: Yeah.

[35:42] Will Champion: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's like that's that's not me. You have no control over me if you try to use that name. However, if somebody hits me if somebody, you know, we all know we all know our mom. It's the full legal like the mom name. It's the Rumpelstiltskin power like Alexander Murray, I like Oh God here. Here's the goal and I don't want your kid and I'm out.

[36:03] Maddie Murphy: Oh, I'm I don't have a middle name. So if I got Madeline Murphy, I was truly I was like, I'm gone.

[36:11] Will Champion: My sisters do many sisters they ran out of middle names.

[36:18] Maddie Murphy: I guess I'll get Madeline Murphy a middle name. No, no time. We're fine. We're going home. I got sauce on the stove. We gotta go.

[36:30] Will Champion: Truly is yet. Yeah, mom and dad take that feel bad.

[36:34] Maddie Murphy: Feel bad about that.

[36:37] Will Champion: It's okay. I got settled with two.

[36:40] Maddie Murphy: Oh, I know one of them. What's the British? It's no, they're not it's it's essentially my grandfather's name just sandwiched in my name.

[36:47] Will Champion: Okay, so it's William Donald Gare Champion. Gare dogs. Okay. Yeah, that's my my mother's family name.

[36:56] Maddie Murphy: Champion my very bestest friend. That's a good one though that you sound you sound evil.

[37:04] Will Champion: I do most days anyway.

[37:10] Maddie Murphy: No, not because of the British accent here in this neck of the woods. I'll take it.

[37:20] Will Champion: I mean, yeah, that's a lawyer who will absolutely foreclose on an orphanage.

[37:26] Maddie Murphy: Yeah, yeah you definitely chopped down the town's oldest tree.

[37:31] Will Champion: No, to build a Starbucks.

[37:36] Maddie Murphy: Yeah, but that's when the town gets haunted off.

[37:38] Will Champion: Down the tree you let out you let out Tim Curry the like.

[37:43] Maddie Murphy: Yeah.

[37:44] Will Champion: Pollution that's it. Your full name is evocative of ghosts. So we just have to keep calling you Will. Great, great.

[37:48] Maddie Murphy: Yeah, that's we hamper it down. How are you? Are you learning? It's got to be you have to be pronounced the right way. It's got to be the right syllables and all that to like hit you and it just.

[37:52] Will Champion: You have you?

[37:53] Maddie Murphy: Mm-hmm.

[37:56] Will Champion: Yeah, I mean, it's a weird thing that we do at the show every night. Like it's a big part of the magic that we do is like we get the names from people. We don't know who anyone's called and think about like how much of a whack that has on the story.

[38:05] Maddie Murphy: It really does. You know what last night? This is again spinning it back. We had ten crits, which is a record in TST wild. I think nine of which eight or nine of which were twenties and only one majority 20 and what it was though is I truly believe we summoned it because we started the audience started chanting ghost 20.

[38:25] Will Champion: Which because because last night we had started where we were afraid of ghosts we'd had an encounter with ghost.

[38:30] Maddie Murphy: Yeah.

[38:30] Will Champion: And then ghost 20 became the summoning chant and at least twice it worked on the decider our biggest dice on a death-saving throw. Go 20 brought forth 20. You can't argue with it.

[38:42] Maddie Murphy: You cannot argue talk about a thing that like has had so much energy pumped into a Priya and I were talking about this the other week like the thing that has had so much just yeah focus energy put at it. That's so many people willing like it to do a thing.

[39:03] Will Champion: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, the decider is battered never say just yeah charged battered bruised and charged pumped full of thousands of people's ambitions.

[39:10] Maddie Murphy: It truly is probably the most magical item and yeah.

[39:14] Will Champion: Certainly near us.

[39:19] Maddie Murphy: Yeah. Yeah. I mean that's how like, you know, that's how we do it, right magical. That's how we we make things mean things.

[39:22] Will Champion: I can almost guarantee like should be if there was knock on wood somewhere but like should the entire theater suddenly collapse in a dramatic, you know fault line incident. What are you doing right?

[39:32] Maddie Murphy: The single thing.

[39:36] Will Champion: The fucking circle yet man.

[39:39] Maddie Murphy: Shit no, but it is you inexplicably that giant D20 that would be alone unscathed in the rubble. I firmly believe slightly melted.

[39:49] Will Champion: Yeah, but melted together control sealed. In fact, yeah.

[39:54] Maddie Murphy: Yeah. Yeah.

[39:56] Will Champion: What's inside of it Tim Curry?

[40:00] Maddie Murphy: Tim Curry made out of our blood.

[40:08] Will Champion: I'm made of your blood. Here I am. I'm inside. I'm inside the decider. It's pretty good. Do you want a natural?

[40:16] Maddie Murphy: What you guys can't imagine how hard his eyebrows are working right now. They are fully art. It's a lot.

[40:22] Will Champion: How I'm a part of it is making your mouth open crazy big.

[40:35] Maddie Murphy: Nigel Nigel hit me.

[40:38] Will Champion: Smashing.

[40:42] Maddie Murphy: Not not Tim Curry, but Nigel Thornberry lives in me.

[40:48] Will Champion: Yeah, absolutely.

[40:50] Maddie Murphy: Yeah. Yeah.

[40:52] Will Champion: And then as we've established I do a perfect English accent. So I don't know show it off now. Nope you do now.

[40:57] Maddie Murphy: Oh God it's the orb the orbs back. It's talking.

[41:01] Will Champion: Oh, I can't do a good demon voice though. This is can you like scary stuff? My mom can't won't let me in the house and do it do this.

[41:09] Maddie Murphy: William.

[41:14] Will Champion: No.

[41:19] Maddie Murphy: She left the door.

[41:21] Will Champion: You realize what's happening now is what you just said into this microphone is being sent back X many years. It's just you speaking to yourself with the static and the in the study.

[41:27] Maddie Murphy: Yeah, that's what.

[41:34] Will Champion: This whole time.

[41:39] Maddie Murphy: And then my parent a cue my mom right now finally somehow finds my birth certificate and there's a smidge on it and she brushes it off.

[41:45] Will Champion: Madeline.

[41:52] Maddie Murphy: That's what the credits roll a 24 re acid erected.

[41:56] Will Champion: Absolutely. Hell, yeah, I mean, let's roll the credits on this shows here then too.

[42:03] Maddie Murphy: Yeah, what a great spooky episode. Happy Halloween.

[42:07] Will Champion: Yeah.

[42:08] Maddie Murphy: Hell, yeah.

[42:10] Will Champion: Well, you know, you know where to find this nerds come hang out with us on the discord. Come see the show. We're doing it all the time. It's Maddie and it's Will and it's me. We're stage 42.

[42:21] Maddie Murphy: Yell your socials into the microphones, okay.

[42:24] Maddie Murphy: Hey, I am at mad dot mad dot Murphy on Instagram and that's it. But I would also like to promote at high-stakes productions. It's high-stakes Chicago on Instagram. That is a improv company in Chicago that I co-found and I think you should also check that out, baby.

[42:41] Will Champion: I'm at will the champ on Instagram and then at bars of New York is the D&D stream that I'm currently DMing for.

[42:50] Maddie Murphy: Hell yeah, I'm at our Alex Murray and you know what the R stands for now if you listened close enough nerds. Yell all my names at me and see if you could make me dance for you.

[43:01] Will Champion: Hey y'all, come and view our decider with your good good energy come bring your energy into our weird haunted bless Tim Slurry.

[43:09] Maddie Murphy: God thank you Tim Slurry.

[43:14] Will Champion: Friends until next time.

[43:20] Maddie Murphy: And well, this is the outro music but up but up but but.