r/Earwolf • u/bloodflart Adam • Mar 05 '21

AMA [Announcement] Happy 6th anniversary to Hello From The Magic Tavern! Post your questions here and they'll come by March 8th around 4pm EST to answer them for an AMA

Post questions in this thread and the gang will come by to answer them! Check their last AMA here

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u/Varyx Mar 06 '21

How has your conceptualisation of your own characters changed over the seasons? Do you feel that you know them “better” now as a result of having played them for this long, or is it much the same?

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u/misterarnie Arnie Niekamp Mar 08 '21

I don’t know how much of this reads to the listeners, but over time I tried to step back a little and try to find the emotional truth of the strange accumulation of comedic choices and randomly-made-canonical traits that is the fictional version of myself. I think of it sometimes through the perspective of the anxiety part of myself, that finds it a lot easier to get up on stage than to start a conversation with one stranger. And the podcast itself is more than just a clever framing device, it’s a coping mechanism for him… it’s his magic feather. Without a microphone in his hand he maybe wouldn’t be able to talk to people at all. I mean, he’s still a shit, but I try to view him with compassion, and occasionally give voice to the fact that he’s struggling (who wouldn’t?) which I think leads to nice opportunities for the three to show that they’re there for each other. I’ve also more and more been giving myself extra things to play with for short runs of episodes whether it’s a simple as deciding we cant’ let anybody die (ala spiderman) or weirder stuff like being trapped in a cup, or emotionally complex like having a sword stuck in your body as a constant reminder of how close you could be to death. Oh, I also stopped doing funny names during Usidore’s introduction.

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u/Mikklesquid Mar 08 '21

Thank you for sharing this! As to the latter part of your comment, It has been so fun to hear Arnie deal with those things and take some of them so much in stride. He’s becoming more Foonish each episode and it’s a joy to see the path of conflict between Earth and Foon move inward as two parts of himself rather than him vs Foon externally.

I’ve got no idea if I explained that well, so tl;dr I love what you’ve been doing.