The Amelia Project - Episode 29 - Mai-Linh

Episode Date: November 9, 2020

“That’s what’s landed me in this cluster fuddle: I’m just way too good!” Episode 29, Season 3. With: Alan Burgon, Julia Thorne, Julia Morizawa, Tuyen Do, Andrei Zayats, Alexander Mercury, Lory Martinez, Arturo Tovar and Marianne Jonger. Written by Oystein Brager. Story editing by Philip Thorne. Directed by Philip Thorne and Oystein Brager. Sound design and music by Fredrik Baden. For full credits see our website. The Amelia Project is an audio fiction series. We recommend starting at the beginning. Congratulations. You’ve reached the content warning. The Amelia Project is about death, mishaps, mayhem and misfortune. And cocoa. If you’re not comfortable with this, stop listening. Now. The Amelia Project is part of the Fable & Folly Network. Find and support our sponsors at: fableandfolly.com/partners Check out this episode’s sponsor: Kitty Poo Club: Get 20% off your first order when you set up auto-ship by going to KittyPooClub.com and entering the promo code AMELIA. Website: ameliapodcast.com Transcripts: ameliapodcast.com/transcripts Twitter: @amelia_podcast Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/ameliapodcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Summer's here, and you can now get almost anything you need delivered with Uber Eats. What do we mean by almost? You can't get a well-groomed lawn delivered, but you can get chicken parmesan delivered. Sunshine? No. Some wine? Yes. Get almost, almost anything delivered with Uber Eats. Order now. Alcohol in select markets. See app for details.

Cold tapes. A gripping crime story that will chill you to the bone. You know, life on the base means, well, it's close to six months without light. That does things to people that study that he was doing to watch us and then set off us like mice around this special little experiment how many people are on this base 16 on this one someone amongst them is our killer experience cold tapes the murder mystery podcast game start your investigation where you get your is our killer. Experience Cold Tapes, the murder mystery podcast game. Start your investigation

where you get your podcasts. Today's new episode is dedicated to Sophie Leveso. A heartfelt, cocoa-slurping, Malteser-munching, Verve-clicquot-clinking thank you

from the whole Amelia gang. Verve cliquot clinking thank you from the whole Amelia gang. God! God! Calm down, it's just turbulence. God, I wish you were flying, Amelia. They were right, though. We couldn't risk being seen.

It's safer back here. I would have liked seats, though. I'm not a cargo plane. Gotta hold on tight. I couldn't have done anything about the turbulence anyway. Still, it would have made me feel safer. Maybe we should call him. Let him know we're on our way. You can't make phone calls from planes.

A short phone call isn't going to kill us. Are you sure? Yes, relax. Okay, I'll call. Congratulations, you've reached me. If you're a client, try our other phone, you cheat. If you're Alvina, no, I haven't read the case file and I'm not going to. If you have a cocoa delivery, come straight in. If neither of these apply, please leave a message after the beep. Toodle-oo! Hi there. We just wanted to let you know that we're on our way.

Oh dear. If we survive this wretched turbulence, that is. Amelia and I should be landing in Russia shortly. Joey, Salvatore and Kozlovsky aren't with us. I'll explain when we get there. See you soon. G you soon Mother of all Relax The Amelia Project. Created by Philip Thorne and Ostein Braga. With music and sound design by Frederik Baden. Episode 29.

My Lynn. Listen to that, Oleg. Isn't it amazing? I can feel my migraine lifting. Now, let's really put this pen to the test, shall we? Yeah. Ready? Yeah.

Okay. Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. A peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked. If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers, A peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked. If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers, why is Peter Piper's peck a pickled? Did you write down everything? There. And could you hear a single sound?

Yet. You see, I told you. This is the most silent fountain pen in existence. Now I won't have to listen to your incessant typing anymore. Bliss. What the devil? What? You're here. Get in.

Who is this? It's your next client. This time Boris expects success. Boshamoy. After kniggy night at a museum. Why are you typing on a laptop whilst walking? Hello? Sorry, I have to get this chapter finished in the next 60 seconds or it all goes from pudding to poop real quick. Haruka is clutching at the cliff with her bare hands, her heavy armour dragging her down, the sharks circling below.

Above her, the white knight points at her with the tip of his sword. He laughs and says, What will you do now, Haruka? Die? And publish. What are you writing? A cliffhanger. Literally.

And I finished it with four seconds to go. Four seconds before what? People start dying. Literally? Literally. Your writing is literally keeping people alive? Yes. Is it magic?

Not magic. Addictive. I see. And if I don't deliver, there's seppuku across the board. Seppuku? Harakiri? Melange? Suicide? Yeah. My fans are threatening to kill themselves unless they get their regular fix of Haruka. Stuff me stiff and call me Norma. Tell me more about Haruka.

Haruka is the heroine of my book series, The First Female Knight. She's like Lucy Liu meets Wonder Woman meets Arthur from The Sword in the Stone. Sounds fierce. She's an eastern princess who finds herself in a fantastical medieval Europe where she has to kick scrawny white ass. It's quite big. How big? It's inspired a whole new genre, femme fantasy. You found yourself a funky niche.

If you call 120 million readers niche. Well, grate me like a gowder. 120 million? I know, right? And they're all threatening to kill themselves. Not all. Just a few thousand. Unless you... Publish a chapter every 20 minutes. Can you kill me before the next deadline? Which is in 20 minutes? Yeah. Listen, um... Mylin. Mylin. 20 minutes is normally the time I need to assess if a client is a mealy or material. Not the time to pull off an entire disappearance.

20 minutes is all I've got. You do a print run every 20 minutes? Don't be silly. My books aren't printed. Have you heard of DigiTales? Something on the googly. It's an app. A new way of publishing fiction.

You get short installments of a novel every week, every day, or in my case, every 20 minutes. Well, you'd better get cracking. 18 minutes left until your next deadline. If I write one more chapter, I'll... Yes? Die! I thought that's what you want. I mean, for real, of exhaustion.

You do look rather stressed. Don't get me wrong, I love doing this. But did you know I haven't slept for two weeks? Why? I told you, if I don't publish a new chapter every 20 minutes, my fans start dropping like flies. How did this happen? I'm just way too good.

Too good? That's what's landed me in this clusterfuddle. I'm too damn good at cliffhangers. And is this one of them? Well, come on, give me some details. At the end of every chapter, Haruka faces death. I drive the readers crazy. They have to come back for more, and each week they get another fix.

If my cliffhangers weren't so good, my readers wouldn't be so addicted, and I wouldn't have this problem. Wait a minute. You said you have to write a chapter every 20 minutes. Now you say each week. Which is it? It changed. When? Why? We don't have to go into all of that. My, there's always time for a story. Right. Here goes. Strap in. Right. So, I was on my fifth Haruka novel. The first one, Long Day's Journey for a Knight. Knight spelt with a K.

Right. Kick-started my career. The sequel, Knight in White Satin. Knight with a K again. I see. Earned me a Webby Award. The third book, Knight at the Museum. Knight with a K.

Right. That one wasn't that well received. But then, Welcome to Night's Veil. Night with a K? K, yes. Got it. That one really took off. It became the most read digifiction in history. Impressive. The problem started with my fifth Haruka novel, Goodnight Haruka.

Night with a K? Yes, I got that. I had this amazing cliffhanger at the end of one of the chapters. A poisoned arrow heads straight for Harukauka's heart that arrow broke the internet the fans went crazy with theories how was I going to get her Ruka out of this one then this guy in Guinea tweets a picture of himself putting a knife to his little finger saying if I don't release the next chapter in two days, he'll cut off his pinky. Oh.

I thought it was a joke. I even retweeted it, Dong-woo. It wasn't? A few days later, I received a small package. A severed finger. Rampant rabbits. He did it? Oh, he did it.

Then he started posting photos of his four-fingered hand. Hashtag more Haruka. You should have gone to the police. I did. But they said there was nothing they could do. It was his finger. He could do what he wanted with it. Including sending it to you?

Apparently. Well, I'm assuming that wasn't the end of it. No. The hashtag Morharuka caught on. In a matter of days, hundreds of thousands of people tweeted asking me to publish twice a week. reposting the picture of the four-fingered hand. Finally, I gave in. Publishing twice a week worked fine for a bit, but then the hashtag came back. This time, it was a lady in Lisbon with a crate full of vodka and a saline drip. If I didn't publish my next chapter within 24 hours, she would spend her whole workday hooked up to a steady alcohol infusion. Well, that doesn't sound too bad.

She was a heart surgeon. Ah. I couldn't let those poor patients suffer, so I contacted the Lisbon police. I got an email back. A video of the Lisbon police department handcuffing themselves to a radiator, refusing to let themselves loose

unless I released my next chapter. In the next 24 hours if only they reduced it to 12 hashtag moharuka did you cave either that or lawlessness in lisbon of course i caved what absolute cretins sorry those rotten rascals pestering you like that hey that's my fans you're talking about. Huh? Don't badmouth my fans. But they're holding you ransom. You've got to see it from their side.

You think? To some people, Haruka is like a sister. No, Haruka is their life. And who am I to deprive them of life? You think you owe it to your readers to publish whenever they want? I created the demand. Now I have to supply. But Haruka is your character. Shouldn't you be in control? Listen, I write her life once. But in the minds of my fans, she lives 120 million times.

I'm outnumbered. You're saying an author isn't the owner of their creation? I'm saying it's symbiosis. Does the hermit crab have any right to be annoyed at the seashell? Well, as far as I remember, hermit crabs outgrow their shells and go looking for new ones. Well, perhaps that's what's happening to me. Every time I increase the frequency, they increase their demands. Publish every six hours, or a park attendant in Panambang pulls out his toenails. Poor man. Every three hours or a professor from Peshawar plucks his parakeet. Poor bird. Every hour

or a woman in Wollongong whacks a wombat. Poor marsupial. Finally when this schmuck from Surrey suggested a suicide pact the shit hit the fan. The shit being batshit and the fan being my fans. They went absolutely batshit crazy. Now I have to publish every 20 minutes. This was two weeks ago. I haven't slept a minute since. I've just been writing.

Haruka climbs onto the horse. Haruka jumps onto the horse. Haruka flings herself onto the horse. How many goddamn ways can you mount a freaking horse? I don't know. 247. Over the course of the first female knight series, I managed to find 247 unique ways to describe mounting a horse.

That's how good I am. And it's killing me. I know how you feel. You do? I do. I've often wondered if there's any point myself. You have? Here I am, the best in the business, but nobody has any respect for my artistry.

Boris just marches in here saying, Make this person disappear, Make that person disappear. You'd better have it sorted when I come back. Rude! He's like an Alvina with a Russian accent. Who's Alvina? My colleague. You'll meet her soon. She's on her way. She's like, read the client reports, drink less cocoa, do more cases, spend less money.

I already hate this, Alvina. Oh, by the way, I'm sorry for not offering you any cocoa. But the one from the prison canteen tastes like dishwater. Don't worry about it. You know, my Lin, you've inspired me. I... I have? Yes, you have. That's great!

It really is. I'm quitting. What? Yes. All these clients with their unreasonable demands. Kill me before I get shot out of a cannon! Kill me before my funeral! Kill me in the next twenty minutes! I mean... Wait a minute! Kill me before my funeral! Kill me in the next twenty minutes! I mean... Wait a minute! Kierkegaard said, people settle for a level of despair they can tolerate and call it happiness. Well I won't do that anymore, Søren. I just won't. But I need to die in less than ten minutes!

I'm sorry. Tell Boris I quit. And please turn off the lights when you leave. I'm going to roll up in a ball and just breathe for a bit Hey, listen here, you can't do this, I need your help You heard me, I quit Anyway, it's impossible Impossible? It's not impossible, not for you Oh, but it is Say we went with suicide.

Once the fans hear you've pulled the plug, they'll follow suit. Fail. Murder, then. We could pick a saucy one from the Haruka books. Let life mirror fiction. Oh, too dramatic. It would also tip the fans over the edge. What about an accident, then?

No, too sudden. Same outcome. You need a death that evokes pity and remorse. One that will diffuse the situation, not aggravate it. Which means we're looking for... A sad death. And I don't do those. Back when I was a death faker... You mean 20 seconds ago?

I specialised in exciting deaths. Death by runaway tram car. Deathised in exciting deaths. Death by runaway tram car, death by random trap door, death by ravenous tramp. That's just a few on the combination R and T. If it was a really exciting death, I could perhaps consider it. But you'll never get me out of retirement for a sad death. Listen, I get it. In the Haruka books, the deaths have always been magnificent. Cruel king killed with contaminated candy. Samurai slain with silver sickle.

Magician murdered with mosquito. I appreciate the alliteration. What if my death had alliteration? Would that help? Maybe. For a sad death, I guess we're looking at an illness? Probably. Writer wilts from whipworm woes.

Ha ha. Scribe subsides to sudden sepsis. Closing chapter. Cliffhanger Queen croaks from common cold. Or D-list celebrity dies of diphtheria. D-list? I beg your pardon? Wait! I've got it!

You do? Yes! Diarrhoea! What? Diarrhoea! It's tragic and funny! You want me to die from... We don't have any time to establish a history of hereditary disease,

nor to have you hospitalised for weeks. We need an immediate, tragic death with no chance of recovery. Diarrhoea? Diarrhoea. Violent, bloody and sudden diarrhoea. Sustained whilst doing research for your next chapter in a Russian prison. Guess I shouldn't have eaten in the prison canteen. Ha ha, exactly.

That's ridiculous. Yes. My fans. They won't know what to do with that information. Precisely. Their favourite writer dying from food poisoning whilst undertaking risky research for their benefit. It's good.

It's good. What do you think? I love it's good. What do you think? I love it! Good! There's no way they can kill themselves after learning that. Splendid! Just one thing. Yes?

Why am I in a Russian prison? I write medieval fantasy. Why on earth am I doing research in Russia? Well, I can't come up with everything. I guess you'll just have to write that into your next chapter. I was hoping I wouldn't have to write another one. Oh, go on. It'll be your swan song. Very well.

Whilst you write, I'll talk to Boris to get your replacement corpse ready. Russia. Russia? Russia. At this point I'd normally suggest a toast, but... Why would she be in Russia? Russia. At this point I'd normally suggest a toast, but... Why would she be in Russia? Or is someone else from Russia? It seems like you're busy. Got it! Haruka looks up at the white knight. I know what to do, she smiles.

And with a soft kick she lets go of the cliff. Haruka falls and falls towards the hungry sharks below, when something suddenly grabs hold of her and pulls her up through the clouds and out of view of the stunned white night. I knew you'd come, Haruka shouts. I knew you'd come for me. Of course, the bird replies. The two-headed bird. Her old friend Byzantine. The king of the wind.

The Russian eagle. So, how did it go? Shh. She's writing another chapter. You failed? Again? All part of the plan. Now listen, you need to get me a replacement corpse of Mylin's height and build, but thinner. Preferably sickly looking.

Then one of your agents needs to access the Golovine sewer system and get us four liters of runny poo. Sorry? She's going to die from diarrhea. This is how you're killing my favorite... I mean, famous writer? Trust me. It's the best possible death under the circumstances. Timely, tragic, and most importantly, baffling.

Consider me baffled. Well, chop-chop. Time is of the essence. I'll get the corpse and the... Pooh? We'll have to see if Mikhail approves. Mikhail? Who's Mikhail? The man you need to impress.

Sorry? I'll be right back. Right in Byzantine's eye. He falls from the skies, the two of them tumbling towards the icy mountaintops below. the skies, the two of them tumbling towards the icy mountaintops below. Now we won't reach the prison after all, and we won't get to save Byzantine's family from the evil Russian Tsar. Haruka sees the mountains below coming closer and closer and closer, and I'm done. Publish, with 17 seconds to go. Goodie. By the way, we haven't discussed your reappearance.

How would you like to live your new life? No more writing, I suppose? Oh, I'd love to try my hand at poetry, actually. Poetry? Then I can keep the alliterations, but I won't have to bother with cliffhangers. We'll get you set up as a struggling slam poet in Brooklyn. Wear some dark-rimmed glasses and a beanie and you'll blend right in. Thank you. How can I ever repay you? I believe the Russian government is already taking care of that.

Free room and board. Why are they keeping you here? I don't know. Yet. Well, there must be something I can do for you. Oh, I have an idea. Why don't you name a character after me? In the last ever chapter you write about Haruka. The last ever chapter?

But I thought I just wrote the last chapter. Well, you have to wrap up the story. You can't let your readers go without an end. That would be cruel. I guess in the throes of death I could still squeeze out some final words. Exactly. I'll get to it then. No, no, relax. You have plenty of time. The final chapter doesn't have to come out yet. In fact, it shouldn't be discovered for at least a few years. I think I see where this is going.

Then one day, some papers will appear at Sotheby's, with your handwriting on them. I guess those papers will come from a collection of a certain gentleman in a three-piece suit. Exactly. It's a deal. Good. So, what is your name? Why is it so bumpy? We must be landing in a field.

Finally. What a flight. I can't wait for some Borscht and black tea. Or Solenka soup and vodka. I'm all for the vodka. Bienvenidos. Con cuidado. ¿Cómo les fue en el vuelo? Um, bien, gracias. Perfecto, sígueme. Gracias. Gracias.

Why is the ground staff speaking Spanish? Amelia, look at that forest. Yes? There are an awful lot of palm trees. Sabana, deprisa! Nos esperan en el cuartel general. Relájate. Apenas acaban de llegar. Yo solo estoy pasando un mensaje.

Déjenlos tranquilos. Tenemos que esconder el avión de todas maneras. Los muchachos se ocupan Leave them alone. We have to hide the plane anyway. The boys take care of it. You just get the woman in the car. Stop giving me orders. I'm the boss here. I don't receive orders from you. Don't be so hard on me. Now, turn on the engine.

Why don't I take you? I don't know how to take you. Seems like everyone here is speaking Spanish. Thank you. Seems like everyone here is speaking Spanish. Amelia? Yes? We're not in Russia, are we? Thank you. The story continues in two weeks. In the meantime, if you'd like to meet Amelia herself, news in two weeks. In the meantime, if you'd like to meet Amelia herself, the next Coco Corner video live stream Q&A will be hosted by Julia Morizawa on the 15th of November. If you want to participate,

go to patreon.com slash Amelia podcast. And by becoming a $5 patron, you can join in next Sunday, as well as watching all other Coco Corner sessions on replay. This episode was written and edited by Einstein Breger, with story editing by Philip Thorne. It was directed by Einstein Breger and Philip Thorne, with music and sound design by Frederick Barden. The episode featured Tu Yundor as Mai Lin, Alan Bergen as The Interviewer, Julia C. Thorne as Alvina, Julia Morizawa as Amelia, Alexander Mercury as Oleg, Andrei Zayats as Boris, Valentina Alexeva as The Prison Guard, Laurie Martinez as Savannah, and Arturo Tova as Diego.

The episode was recorded at the Bridge Writing Studio in London, Studio Ocenta in Paris and LSI Lutz Produktion in Oslo and engineered by Billy Halliday and Steiner Borgen. The Amelia Project is produced by Imploding Fictions with graphic design by Anders Pedersen. Thank you to all our patrons who make this show possible, and a special thank you to Jem Fiddick, Angel Acevedo, Sophie Levezo, and Sophia Anderson. Today's epilogue is another listener voicemail which we recently received. Our lines are still open, so if you have a disappearance request, email us an audio clip, or find our number and leave a message after the beep. Amelia, you've got to help me. So, this is an embarrassing story, but one I also need to escape

from immediately. We were warned about internet safety as children of the 2000s, but things on Twitter have gotten completely out of hand as of late. I just joined this year after lockdown put a complete halt to my work and social life, and I thought that I could connect with other artists and activists, and that has worked out well, but now I need to disappear and begin again. My account, at Fernald Lilly, had only a few dozen people I know well enough in person to call friends, and most of my followers are people I've amassed based on what I post and the attitude or image I've tried to cultivate, basically one that is professional and serious about the issues I post on. Unfortunately, that has all gone down the toilet. One evening, when I may or may not

have had too much screen time and too little attention to my bodily needs, I came across a post on Twitter from comedian Mike Birbiglia. The post was a one-sentence riff on streaming platforms that also made reference to pee, I saw the pins lined up and immediately sought to craft a reply that would knock them down. And I didn't think about what would happen if that succeeded. Now my legacy on Twitter has been reduced to a sentence that got positive attention from Mike himself and quickly gained traction among his fans, although few of them are my followers, it seems. It might not be too late to salvage my online image.

We just need to fake my death as soon as possible. Virtually. I know this isn't your usual deal, so I'm just hoping you can help me. Time is certainly of the essence. Thanks, Lily. The Fable & Folly Network, where fiction producers flourish. Well, hello there. Dr. Charlie Tuggett here. You know, rumor was Spaceship Oz-9 was intended to take a bunch of rich folks to a new planet

since, you know, we pretty much used up the one we have now. But, you know, since it's looking more and more likely the ship might be humanity's last stand, let's take a quick look around. Are you telling me the four sacred tokens are all aboard the Oz-9? Remind me again why we're doing this? Allegiances are too muddled on this ship. MCC ACEC is a normal institution of higher learning. Ah. But if you pull back the outermost layers...

I'm from Minnesota, where we like our lives as neat and as open as the inside of a freshly caught and cleaned walleye. Do you know, I am now the only assassin aboard the ship. What are you doing, Elaine? I want to know what side he's on the only assassin aboard the ship. What are you doing alive? I want to know what side he's on when the ship hits the fan.

Are they the most ridiculous people I've ever met? Fetch that annoying bunch of trespassers so we can bring Pluto to heel. The new order starts today. Well, however this all plays out, The new order starts today.