Absolutely No Adventures

@noadventurespod.bsky.social

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A fantasy (un) adventure audio drama podcast. Breads, pies, cookies, cakes, and absolutely NO adventures. Necessary Evil miniseries dropping October 7th! https://noadventurespod.com/ https://ko-fi.com/anapod

Cover for the Mazed and Confused Special
Cover for the Mazed and Confused Special
Tink Media's Audio Delicacies: Podcast Treats From 2025 An Image of the cover art of The Bardic Hearth "The delightful anthology storytelling keeps things fresh while sneakily breadcrumbing important lore that rapidly becomes relevant as the underlying story comes to a head." -Destiny Howell
Cover for the Mazed and Confused Special
When we did the table read for the last episode of Necessary Evil and Blythe busted out her Disney Princess voice, I was so thrown by how good it was that I asked her to tone it down. But then I listened to it and I was like, "No you were right the first time actually, go fully Giselle on this."
I got in another stealth Beauty and the Beast reference in episode 4 when Sibella says, "Well my morning just freed up and you did just save me from Adelaide's ridiculous machinations so *be my guest*."
The final episode of Necessary Evil was supposed to be called "A Change of Heart" but I couldn't resist the chance to have episodes called "The Lesser Evil" and "The Greater Good" back-to-back.
"I think I'm close, but there's something strange about the spell. Like a knot in the thread I'm trying to unravel." Necessary Evil: The Greater Good
One of the original concepts for ANA Season 2 was a season where Sig ended up embroiled with villains against his will. I eventually ended up totally spinning off the concept which is how we got Necessary Evil!
The jokein ep 3 of Necessary Evil where Sibella forgets Hexwell has 3 houses exists because, when I wrote her line, I actually briefly forgot that fact even though Toad House is by far the most prominent house in the series. Whoops. Sorry Bea.
A friend once told me about the concept of peacebonding weapons at cons for safety reasons and I thought, "Oh man, that's such a cool word. I have to use it in something." I finally got to use it in Necessary Evil episode 3!
Episode 3 of Necessary Evil almost had an Oliver cameo. He was supposed to be reading the trivia questions. But the episode was already running long so, alas, it wasn't meant to be.
Before it was named, I was mentally referring to episode 2 of Necessary evil as "The SpyXFamily episode". Also, it initially had a completely different premise but I couldn't get it to work. Once I switched angles, it was a snap to write and it actually ended up leading into the next episode a lot better!
When I was in middle school, I spent a lot of time on TV Tropes which led me to the Evil Overlord List which is probably the first step in the chain of causation for Necessary Evil existing.
Alt: For Sibella and Casimir's relationship, I took a lot of isnpiraion from Frank and Sadie from Beyond Belief. That was always my favorite part of that show and I wanted Sibella and Cas to have the similar vibe of always enjoying each others' company and always being on each others' side.
The following text over the Necessary Evil Cover. "I just have to look perfect. I haven't seen some of these people in years and presentation is everything." Necessary Evil: The Lesser Evil.
Sibella, being clever and married to a beast, is of course named after Belle from Beauty and the Beast. Other options consideed were Jezebel and Belladonna.
Happy was originally going to be a straight up demon, but I didn't feel like dealing with the cosmological implications of introducing demons into the world right off the bat so I invented Aberrant Ones instead and leaned into the eldritch angle.
Happy doesn't use contraction which I remember most of the time but, occasionally, a "we're" or "can't" slips through. Shout out to Karsten for always catching that and giving me the line with the contraction taken out!
The Body Swap episode exists solely because,during the recording on season 1, my cast said, "his would be so funny, please write this." They were correc, as usual. That was maybe my favorite table read ever. It ws a bear to write though becuse I kept messing up the dialogue tags!
I was originally picturing Sterling as being more stoic and serious but Jack (his actor) brought such try-hard loser energy to his audition that I was like, "Actually yeah, that's who this character is now," and it was absolutely the correct choice.
Morrigan (Bea's annoying Direbeak classmate from season 2) is named after a Direbeak NPC from a Hexwell one-shot I wrote for my friends on a trip (which is one of the crowdfunding perks!). When I had to name her i thought, "You already made up the perfect evil name. Just use it again."
The reference track I gave to our composer when making the Necessary Evil theme music was the theme song from the American Version of the show Ghosts. I really love the quirky but spooky vibe. I found him because he also did the theme for "Good Morning Evildoers", a show that I really love and was listening to right after I wrote the Necessary Evil scripts.
The following quote over the Necessary Evil castle logo background: "OK, we need to get our stories straight before we get back out there." Necessary Evil: Better to Have Hated and Lost
When I was first writing ANA, I made a big list of all the classis fantasy stories/tropes I wanted to ref (eg: Magic School, Wizard of Oz, Sword in the Stone) and The Chronicles of Narnia was on the list because that was one of my biggest gateways to fantasy! But I couldn't work it into season 1 so I made sure to get it into the wedding special.
In the wedding special, Ana's name is a double reference. First off, it's the abbreviation for the show which I thought was fun. But mainly, she's named that as a reference to Anastasia, giving a hint to her origins.
I had a really solid plan for certain beats of Season 1 but I didn't plan for Isadora to have a whole wedding arc until I was writing it and then I was like, "Oh duh. What did you learn in your Shakespere class? Comedies end in weddings!" It was a great way to bring everything full circle and also give Sig a big exciting project to work on. It also meant I got to write the wedding special which is my favorite episode of the series!
I don't think I've ever taken a longer walk to get to a joke than revealing the origin of Sig's name in episode 9 and it's my favorite joke in the entire series. From the concept to the title of the episode, it all came to me in one burst while I was riding the bus to work and then I shaped the entire season to get there. I don't know if I'll ever be that funny ever again.
Even though I lived in NYC for three years, I've never actually had a cronut--let alone an official one from Dominique Ansel's bakery. I have had his kouign amanns though and they're sooooo good.
Jack Malban, who plays Sterling, actually makes two appearances in ANA before he appears as Sterling--Once as the knight in the trailer and again in the post credits of Episode 6 as the mailmain that Luxe mugs!
I started writing ANA right after I saw Wicked for the first time and the episode Wicked Lost ia a direct response to that. Funny enough, I wrote Necessary Evl in a week right after I saw Wicked Part 1 in theaters!
A quote over the Necessary Evil cover: "Queen. I'm the queen of the realm. And I think you'll find that it's doing quite well under my watch." Necessary Evil: The Liar, the Witch, and the Warning
"Name one indegrdient that we use here on a regular basis that's still alive when we put it in the batter/yeast" might be my favorite throwaway joke in the entire series.
The episode "Vampire Weekend" isn't so much an homage to the band as it is an homage to one of my favorite episodes of Beyond Belief from Thriling Adventure Hour. I basically wrote the plot to back into the title!
Luxe holds a knife and peers into a magical orb which contains a pie being handled by sig with oven mitts. In the bottom left is the title: ANA Presents Mazed & Confused. In the background in a maze pattern.
"Toroids of Dimension and Despair" being cronuts are an inside joke referencing the time my high school BFF and I tried to make cronuts from scratch and they turned out so badly that we just ended up eating icing from the tube. The despair was palpable.
Bea is partially named after Beatrice from the Divine Comedy. That way, Sig has a "devil" on his shoulder in Happy and an "angel" in Bea. Not that Bea is any less prone to drastic action than Happy!
Happy originally was going to be named Sunny. I ended up using that name for the Aberrant One character we meet in Season 2.
Isadora is named after a character from the first TTRPG campaign I ever ran. It was a Power Rangers Hyperforce Campaign and I think the character was some kind of Amazon-Style warrior. We never finished the campaign so I re-used the name for this!
The covers of Absolutely No Advetures and Necessary Evil. ANA S3 Crowdfund Oct 1! Necessary Evil Premiere Oct 7!
Oliver Community Cat News OK, so this is a super cute podcast about cats hosting a news show about local cat issues like how to train your humans and weather reports on when the dreaded vacuum is touching down. Adorable, right? Here’s the thing. Oliver is *CONVINCED* that this is a real news show hosted by actual cats. And it’s not like he doesn’t understand the concept of a fictional radio broadcast. I showed him Welcome to Night Vale. He gets it. He just thinks that this podcast specifically is 100% factual and made by actual cats. And honestly, I’m not even trying to convince him he’s wrong because (1) it’s funnier this way and (2) the fact that I even know a talking cat I can get into arguments with means the chance that this is a real cat news show can’t be 0%. What do I know?
Signature Eats (and friends) Audio Drama Recs! For the 2025 Fiction Podcast Zine Festival
Cover of Necessary Evil
The Absolutely No Adventures cover art next to a laurel that says "Official Selection: Sydney Web Fest 2025"
mood board showing: cronuts, a star chart, cracked eggs in a mixing bowl with a whisk, scrolls, an apple pie and apples, a sword stuck into the ground next to a crown in a field, a rolling pin with dough, a closed sign, and baked goods in a bakery case
Warlock Cover art.
Cover for Necessary Evil which features a dark castle with thorns and guards and a lightning bolt striking a parapet.
Casimir--a well dressed beast man--smiles up at Sibella who he is holding on his shoulder. Sibella, sitting on Casimir's shoulder, smirks as she steadies herself with one hand on Casimir's mane and uses one hand to cast a spell. Xander, distressed, is held upside down in the air by Sibella's magic.