4.19: Juno Steel and the Clean Break (Part 1)

Doctor Palomine Aurinko made a career out of changing people. A behaviorist, in his mind, should be a sculptor of the soul: a set of firm hands to grasp and pinch and mold a person into anyone -- or anything -- he desired.

Palomine is long dead now, but his ideas live on without him. The sculptor's hands continue to mold... and Juno Steel is about to find out what happens when those hands start changing someone very close to him.

Welcome to the Penumbra, dear Traveler. We hope you enjoy your stay.

(Trigger warnings can be found at the bottom of this episode description and at the end of the transcript.)

-------

You can find all of our transcripts here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1OLddnnYamZuglgZc8pM2gqToPOwEBccM?usp=sharing

Transcripts will come out along with the public release of the episode.

On staff at the Penumbra:

Alice Chuang -- Head of Design

Ginny D'Angelo -- Head of Merchandise and Outreach

Melissa DeJesus -- Script editing team

Ellison Estephan -- Promotional artist

Harley Takagi Kaner -- Co-creator, Head of Episode Development, Director, Sound designer

Joelle Kross -- Transcriptionist

Noah Simes -- Production manager

Grahame Turner -- Script editing team

Kevin Vibert -- Co-creator, Head of Operations, Lead writer

Ryan Vibert -- Composer and performer of original music

Recorded by Mertz at The Bridge Sound & Stage

--------

Attribution: Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license.

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcode "Kind of Girl" by Jeris, featuring spinningmerkaba

“horror ambience 76 einde bosch parade” by klankbeeld https://freesound.org/people/klankbeeld/sounds/241329/

“LETTUCE_SNAP_CRUNCH_XTRALONG_001.wav” by JoelAudio https://freesound.org/people/JoelAudio/sounds/135468/

“SciFi Alarm x3.wav” by Cell31_Sound_Productions https://freesound.org/people/Cell31_Sound_Productions/sounds/388824/

---------

Trigger warnings:

- Drug use

- Addiction

- Violence and threats of violence

- Incarceration

- Medical abuse

- Depiction of execution

- Self-harm

- Abuse of authority

For early and ad-free episodes, production scripts, commentary tracks, blooper reels, livestreams with the creators, and much more, you can find The Penumbra Podcast: SPECIAL EDITION at: https://thepenumbrapodcast.supercast.com(In old episodes, you will often hear us mention Patreon, which was our old platform and is no longer live. Please feel free to ignore!)

For tickets to our live reading of If Memory Serves: A Juno Steel Mystery on November 21, 2026, visit: https://therockwell.org/calendar/the-penumbra-podcast/ Join us at The Rockwell, home of our first two live shows, in Somerville, MA, for Joshua Ilon's one-night-only reading of an excerpt from our Juno prequel novel to be followed by a Q&A with Harley and Kevin. We can't wait to see you there to celebrate the release of the full audiobook!

We are also currently running a subscription sale on our Supercast and Patreon subscriber platforms to celebrate the conclusion of our first full season of Thirst. Visit https://thepenumbrapodcast.supercast.com/ or patreon.com/thepenumbrapodcast to get 28% off all tiers!

---

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.