The Department of Variance of Somewhere, Ohio Somewhere, Ohio

Jasmine Control, a new hire at a shady governmental agency called The Department of Variance, went through an extended supernatural orientation that ended with her manager, Yellow Access, trying to meld the minds of every worker in the office. To save her friend Scarlet Jaunt from death at the hands of her new boss, Jasmine used her newly discovered psychic abilities to jump into the past, to a point where Scarlet was alive. She miscalculated, and now she’s stuck in Scarlet’s memories from 10 years ago.
This season picks up with Jasmine, Scarlet, Violet, and Daryll visiting the woods to see a lunar eclipse after their senior year of high school, ten years prior to the events of season one. But something else is lurking in the woods with them. Something…midwestern. The friends will have to figure out what’s going on and put a stop to it if they ever want to escape, and if Jasmine ever wants to return to her normal life.
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CREDITS:
Cast of episode 1: Cody Heath, Jesse Syratt, Em Carlson, Tatiana Gefter, Dexter Howard, Lena Garcia.
Art by NerdVolKurisu
Written, scored, edited, and narrated by Rat Grimes.
Transcripts available in episode notes at somewhereohio.com
(CWs: alcohol, food, smoking, derealization)
___
TRANSCRIPT:
ORANGE: It’s just as Green said: the stairway to heaven is always moving. I figured I was on the first step when I heard the cat in the diner.
I was heading to a little city in Michigan. I know, I know; “Orange Splice? In the field? Shouldn’t you be behind a desk at the Commission signing off on quarterlies?” But on some cases I can’t help myself. I can tell you that Red’s disciplinary report’s gonna have a lot of Orange in it. So this little city in Michigan, an industrial husk of a place. Full of slick palms and the poor souls wriggling between their fingers. I packed my bag and blew the joint. I slept in my rumbling hatchback on the way, and I ate and bathed as the great American trucker does.
As I crested the overpass bend on the final leg of the drive, I saw a city blooming with rot. Squat brick piles wheezing into the streets, oily sunlight, cars bleeding rust into the earth. Plumes of gray hovered over the place, like cotton soaked with kerosene. One little spark and the whole thing could blow. Maybe we’d all be better off if it did. Maybe we’re better off forgetting places like this. Scooping out what little’s worth saving and dumping the rest. Writing them off as a loss–another failure in the long lineage of midwestern decline. Or maybe it’s not that simple. I wasn’t going to Deerland to set it ablaze, after all. I was being led there for something else.
And so I rode up through the boiling roadkill highways of vulture county, past towns so small you could hear every single prayer on a quiet night. By antique malls decked with the heraldry of genocide. Under billboards letting you know you’re f****d before you even get there: Hell is real, and it’s about 25 miles that way.
I was going up there to find Olivia, now designated Jasmine Control by the Department. First saw her face on a milk carton, and I didn’t even know they still did that. Maybe they don’t. I slid downstairs that morning in a haze, a little box of strawberry milk I’d bought from the grocer in my hand. The milk itself didn’t last long. I turned the empty carton over in my hand, then unfolded and tore open the bottom. I held it up to my ear and listened for the ocean.
*sounds as room ambience becomes waves and various sounds*
ORANGE: I heard through and beyond the carton, through my wall and the early pink light outside, through misty pines and hundreds of miles of the big flat nothing. Through and before my life, and after too, and into a hip spot in Deerland, a coffeeshop on the corner that used to be three apartments. The tip jar on the counter was a glass milk jug filled with quarters and crumpl

After the startling discovery at the end of the last episode, the four friends venture deeper into the woods. In the sweltering night, they find an unexpected ally and a new enemy.
(CWs: smoking, food, body horror, some gore, worms)
Check out our website for more info!
Join our Patreon for early access!
CREDITS:
Cast of episode 2: Jesse Syratt, Em Carlson, Tatiana Gefter, Dexter Howard, Mystic Waterz.
Art by NerdVolKurisu
Written, scored, edited, and narrated by Rat Grimes.
Transcripts available in episode notes at somewhereohio.com

Olivia and the gang find the planetarium, where they learn more about what's going on in the woods. Green and Sterling have a chat at the airport.
(CWs: blood, gore, death, parasitism, alcohol and weed mentioned, muffled audio)
 
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Join our Patreon for early access!
CREDITS:
Cast of episode 3: Jesse Syratt, Em Carlson, Tatiana Gefter, Dexter Howard, Rae Lundberg
Art by NerdVolKurisu
Written, scored, edited, and narrated by Rat Grimes.
Transcripts available in episode notes at somewhereohio.com

Olivia wakes up after the altercation in the planetarium and learns what went down. Orange talks with the locals and does some light editing. Nadia discovers something about herself.
(CWs: mild homophobia, death, blood, body horror, high pitched feedback)
 
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Join our Patreon for early access!
CREDITS:
Cast of episode 4: Jesse Syratt, Em Carlson, Tatiana Gefter, Aubrey Akers, Saph the Something, Taylor Michaels, Meredith Baird
Art by NerdVolKurisu
Written, scored, edited, and narrated by Rat Grimes.
Transcripts available in episode notes at somewhereohio.com

Olivia, Alex, and Nadia find a mall in the middle of the woods. They suspect it's abandoned, but it turns out there's something still alive within.
(CWs: blood, body horror, organs, alcohol, food, chewing/mouth full fx [1 time], worms)
Check out our website for more info!
Join our Patreon for early access!
CREDITS:
Cast of episode 5: Jesse Syratt, Em Carlson, Tatiana Gefter, Rat Grimes.
Art by NerdVolKurisu
Written, scored, edited, and narrated by Rat Grimes.
Transcripts available in episode notes at somewhereohio.com

Orange has a rough night, but a strange new ally gives them direction. Olivia, Alex, and Nadia try to escape the creepy mall. Sterling and Green have a dinner date.
(CWs: blood, violence, body horror, alcohol, smoking, worms, derealization)
Check out our website for more info! Join our Patreon for early access!
CREDITS:
Cast of episode 6: Jess Syratt, Em Carlson, Tatiana Gefter, Rae Lundberg, Cody Heath, Maria Corcobado, Sean Pellington, William A Wellman, and Lilly Chau.
Art by NerdVolKurisu, episode promo art by Meredith Baird
Written, scored, edited, and narrated by Rat Grimes.
Transcripts available in episode notes at somewhereohio.com