Hello, Faithful Listeners. Welcome back to Spirit Box Radio.
Spirit Box Radio is a weekly queer horror podcast created by Pippin Eira Major. It follows radio host Sam Enfield as he navigates a world of ghosts, ghouls and arcane creatures to piece together the mysteries of his past before they ruin his future.
Part of the Rusty Quill network as of May 2023.
Find the show’s transcripts here
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This podcast provides examples of:
- Age-Gap Romance: Sam is 23, and Oliver estimates himself at about 5 centuries.
- Affectionate Nickname: Oliver calling Sam “magpie”.
- Amnesiac Hero: Sam can't remember anything about his past, and only has memories of the last five or so years.
- And Show It to You: Oliver has done this at least once, in order to claim followers for the Man in the Flap Cap.
- Angst Coma: Sam spends six years in a coma after the events at the old house on Baymouth Road.
- Apocalypse Maiden: Sam. Sorry, dude.
- Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: This is The Man in the Flap Cap's goal: to become one with the Arcane.
- Baby as Payment: Sam was used in Madam Marie’s deal with the Man in the Flap Cap as both the gift and the price.
- Blemished Beauty: Sam considers Oliver this.Sam: He was very good looking, despite the scars, because of the scars.
- Body Horror: Notable examples include Sam throwing up a chess piece, and a woman who gets what is heavily implied to be the One Who Walks Here and There’s black baccara tattooed onto her, and ends up having roses growing through her skin.
- Broken Pedestal: Sam originally has nothing but the greatest respect for Madam Marie, before it’s revealed just how much she lied to him, and kept from them about his true nature. Also, she was just a terrible mother in general.
- Butch Lesbian: Kitty the Investigator, who has a uniform of plaid and pleather.
- Calling Parents by Their Name: Madam Marie had her children call her by her name even when they were little kids.
- Cast Full of Gay: Pretty much every character in this show is queer in some form or another.
- Childhood Home Rediscovery: Sam eventually finds out that he used to live at the Impossible House, before their family moved due to the ritual M performed going horribly wrong. Sadly, this is not a story where the house is here to help.
- Creepy Basement: While the basement in which Spirit Box Radio is broadcast is not creepy, the second, sub-basement where Madam Marie was murdered definitely is!
- Creepy Child: Sam was like this a bit when he was a kid. (We love them anyways, though.)
- Cryptically Unhelpful Answer: Scourge excels at these.
- Crystal Ball: Madam Marie has an extremely odd crystal ball, that she often used for her show.
- Deal with the Devil: If you make a deal with the Man in the Flap Cap, congratulations! You have done this, and it won’t end well for you.
- Does Not Like Magic: Anna really dislikes the arcane, and tries her best to avoid it. This is rather hard when her baby brother has just taken over her mom’s radio show, and things sure are happening over there!
- Emotional Powers: Even before Sam realizes, their powers always tend to kick up when he’s feeling a lot of things. All those poor lightbulbs…
- Eternal Villain: The Man in the Flap Cap and Shell Suit.
- Eyeless Face: Strife, Scourge and Scarcity are all reported to have no eyes.
- Forgettable Character: Anna’s fiancé, Guy. It’s later revealed that there is a very good reason for this - her real fiancé has been dead for years, and the thing she’s living with now is a tool of the Man in the Flap Cap to keep her away from Sam and Kitty.
- Heroic Self-Deprecation: Despite all the things he’s done, and all the power he holds, Sam still thinks of himself as useless, and not that powerful. Thanks, M. Great parenting there.
- Ghost Amnesia: The Mystery Caller, and The Ghost Who Met Sam in the Garden suffer from this.
- Horsemen of the Apocalypse: It's revealed in the season two finale that Scourge (Pestilence), Scarcity (Famine), Strife (War) and Sam (the End) are the apocalypse.
- Interrupted Intimacy: It's pretty heavily implied that Anna walked in on Kitty and Indi doing something of an intimate nature.
- It Can Think: The Recording Machine for Spirit Box Radio. It is not a fan of being sentient at all.
- Koan: There’s one of these at the start of each episode.
- Laughing Mad: After Oliver leaves, and the Crystal Ball is vague one too many times, Sam breaks it. He then starts laughing extremely unsettlingly. This also happens after Sam starts laughing after some deeply traumatic events at the Impossible House - their throat was slit, and they came back with his full powers.
- Living Lie Detector: Anna has the arcane ability to tell when people are telling the truth. According to Sam, it’s what makes her such a good lawyer.
- Luke, I Am Your Father: Sam’s father is revealed to be the Man in the Flap Cap.
- Mystical White Hair: Sam gets this the more their powers develop.
- Our Ghosts Are Different: Ghosts are a quirk of the arcane, where in perfect conditions people's souls are preserved, often due to large, important emotions or traumas. Sam compares it to a body falling into a peat bog. It's later revealed that Sam and the Man in the Flap Cap can make ghosts, and those ghosts must do their bidding if they will it.
- Offing the Offspring: M was apparently willing to do this to Sam if he turned out to be too much like his father.
- Parental Abuse: Madam Marie used to lock Sam up in his room for hours on end. Sam would scratch at the door desperately trying to get out. As well, M isolated Sam from all human contact outside his family, and often wouldn't even speak to him when she was the only human contact they had.
- Parental Neglect: Anna and Kitty were often left alone when they were young to fend for themselves, because their mother got too caught up in the arcane to remember to feed them or give them money. Anna specifically says that her and Kitty “weren’t what their mother wanted.”
- Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Kitty is five foot nothing with no muscles, and can still lift a desk over her head without even breaking a sweat.
- Psychic Nosebleed: If you take a shot every time Sam gets a nosebleed, you will be well and truly drunk before the season 1 finale.
- Really 700 Years Old: Oliver Boleyn, the florist. Also, the Inconvenient Sins.
- Resurrective Immortality: Anyone who becomes a Major Arcana gets this deal.
- Shout-Out:
- While reading out Faithful Listeners' New Years Resolutions, Sam mentions a man called Jon's desire to escape the unending scrutiny of his toxic workplace.
- During Sam telling forum user Covenbabe 666 to please stop trying to organize a group seance, they mention an incident with that guy Tim and his brother, which was apparently extremely awful.
- While Sam talks about talking with Oliver about going to the beach, Oliver warns him that sand is coarse and irritating. Oliver and Anna apparently both find this very funny, though Sam doesn't get it.
- Spooky Séance: Sam attempts to contact M using the forums and his power. It doesn’t go well.
- Something about a Rose: The black baccaras are a very important object in the show, even if they aren't quite roses.
- Terrible Trio: The Inconvenient Sins. At least until Sam takes their deals. As well, Scourge, Strife and Scarcity.
- The Ghost King: Sam can command the ghosts he’s created, as they are his. He isn’t particularly happy about this.
- The Lost Lenore: Jack, a baker in the 1700s serves as this for Oliver. Wanting revenge on Jack’s killers is the reason Oliver made his deal with the Man in the Flap Cap.
- The Maze: The Impossible House is, well, impossible to navigate. Every time you think you’ve found a system to get out, it changes.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Sam delivers an absolutely scorching one to B.Sam:Stop it?! Do you have any idea–?? Do you not realise this, this whole thing, your whole set up here, what you’ve done, it was allowed to happen, it was designed! It’s all a plan, these things, they fall together at the precise moments they are meant to and maybe you think that you’ve played me because you didn’t persecute Arlo but all you’ve done is be played yourself. All these people you brought into this, who trusted you, who you betrayed? When people follow you they become your responsibility, and you lied to everyone who ever showed up at your door, and worse, worse than that, you went out looking for people, you brought them here, on the basis of what!? It’s all baseless. There’s no substance behind any of your charade, no method, just madness, and you still can’t see it. You’re too blinded by conviction to realise you’re just a pawn in this!
- Vagueness Is Coming: Become One with the One.
- Wham Line: “I am Samael Apollo Enfield, Heir Apparent to the Blood Rose Crown. I speak and will be heard.
- Who Wants to Live Forever?: Oliver considers what he’s doing “not really living” and is not entirely opposed to the idea of dying forever.
- You Are Better Than You Think You Are: While comforting Sam, Oliver invokes this trope.Sam:I just feel like I have to do so much, and I don’t know how, or even what, it is, or what it means. I have to be brave, but I’m not. I’m scared and I’m worried and I don’t know what to do.Oliver: You’re already brave.Sam: Don’t joke, Oliver, I’m being serious.Oliver: You love fearlessly, recklessly, unapologetically, in a world that gives you every reason not to. I can think of nothing braver.
