#weird appalachia

[joshthewalkingtrainwreck]

I've been trying to sketch out some outlines and broader worldbuilding for some pulpy scifi/magical realism stories revolving around a concept I'm calling 'Weird Appalachia.'

Particularly in Pigeon Forge, TN, about a sideshow barker turned monster-of-the-week hunter (Professor Elias Ephram Jeremiah Jacob Stout, "scholar of the occult, the esoteric, and the mysterious"). Prof. Stout spends his time searching and investigating cursed/paranormal/unexplainable items for his 'blatantly obvious' tourist trap named The House of A Thousand Doors (Museum, Bait & Tackle Shop, & Notary Public, LLC.). The business has a garishly-psychedelic paint job on an oversized victorian-era mansion, covered in shuttered windows and balconies that do not look build as much as grown; crawling with all sort and sundry of animatronic statuettes, geegaws, and goofy art structures reaching from the building's outline and into space like mold on bread.

Asides from the usual tourist hokum, Stout gives guided tours of his collection throughout the House's byzantine floorplan ("no two tours are ever the same!") and provides tales of woe and wonder involving each exhibit's previous owners. His main motivation for all of this is towards 'memetic inoculation,' to de-cursify/soften/mitigate the reality-bending aspects of his collection by making people believe they are fake. New items, once Stout figures out how to properly contain their malevolence, are given cosmetic accoutrements like adding slightly mismatched paint, exposed wires, hidden fans, fishing line, etc to make them all look like clever art projects and optical illusions (Stout would tell you that people stop looking once they find what they think will explain it). The benign and benevolent items that cross Stout's path he returns to their original owners (his line of work has him dealing just as much with thieves and fences as he does demons and yeti) after making a replica to add to the museum in its place.

One form of help that Stout counts on occasionally is his neighbor across the street from the House of a Thousand Doors, at a perpetually-empty used car lot, operated by a Yancy Smalls. Yancy admits they are something of a complicated character, but what you see of them is a materially-compatible psychic construct; a corporeal tendril of a much larger creature reaching into this material plane. They are omni-dimensional, potentially-omnipresent ("why would I want to be everywhere at once?") omniscient (but not omnipotent), eldrich being whose physiology revolves around the concept of thoughts posessing physical properties, and can be solidified in large enough amounts. Yancy described their beginnings as "crawling out of the flaming wreckage that resulted when a bunch of awfully powerful thoughts all converged on the same point at the same time. Being the first time I had ever existed, I thought that was quite rude, but it's something you learn to live with."

Given the nature of their being, Yancy's psychic construct always resembles a face from the observer's fading memories. Yancy's form never changes to the observer, but everyone who has interacted with them would have a completely different physical discription of them from one another. Before Yancy enters these stories, they have worked over the countless aeons to have their original name as a god once worshipped as a malevolent presence to be completely forgotten. They came to regret their actions and the innocent hurt by them. while they undid the damage, a being made of crystalized thought is not exactly blessed with the ability to forget. Wilfully abdicating the throne of a god of knowledge, their time is devoted to pursuit of wisdom. To this end, they have gone across the whole of existence as something of a wanderer and monk, cleaning up the messes they had once made as continual penance to the lives they had once destroyed, which was how Yancy came to meet Stout.

Stout first met Yancy on the side of the road, as a stranded motorist with a busted serpentine belt and no cell reception. Stout was on his way to obstruct a local cult from trying to summon an eldritch horror to the material plane, and happened to get a flat tire in the same area shortly after Yancy had their car trouble. Stout, in chatting with Yancy, figures out they are the being the cult has been trying to summon all this time. Hijinx ensue.

Post-hijinx with the cult, Yancy recognizes what Stout is as well as what Stout is trying to do. Given that they wilfully limited their own powers to physically interact with the material plane (demonstrated by Yancy always having their hands full, doing sudoku puzzles, knitting a scarf, etc), Yancy offers to lead Stout to the toys they used to play with in their younger, edgier days. In return, Yancy says they get to observe other life forms and sciences up close in return. Yancy is well aware that they and Stout's adventures are in a book and will crack jokes at the author's expense like an actor breaking the 4th wall to the audience ("Sorry, Stout, this deus ain't mock-inin' today— I honestly think Josh painted himself into a corner on this plot and I wanna see how he intends to get you out of it. You're gonna be all right, though." Stout: "Thanks for nothing, Yancy." Another Character: "how the hell did a cut scene just happen?")

I figure East TN would be a perfect setting (because I grew up there, up around Cumberland Gap) because between all the secret government research in Oak Ridge at the southwest of the region, the granny witches having to shoo off all manner of cryptids out of their gardens in the Appalachian mountains to the north and east (geologically older than a lot of things, and once a part of the same mountain chain in Scotland), and the hyperconsumerist culture around a tourist town, it seems a perfect melting pot for strange events to converge.

Stout tries to get to the bottom of it all with the help of/competition from the cottage industry of similar huckster in a world requiring cryptid management consultants, janitorial agencies specializing in anomalic cleanup services, college classes teaching applied metaphysics, dimensional displacement insurance, and updates from the National Moiraographic Service and their periodic vibes advisories (like pollen count but for those with sensitivities to psychic energy).

More as I actually get around to writing it...

[intheholler]

[plaguedocboi]

Since you grew up in PA: creek or crick? Or both? (I'm a sucker for crick, haha.)

Creek but most of my native PA friends say crick

[shy-sapphic-ace]

Old Gods of Appalachia gives me the same vibes as listening to music by Lord Huron— it’s just the perfect blend of supernatural and folktales and being so deep in the woods it feels like the light can’t reach you anymore, and I am absolutely in love.

^ I mean, this is exactly what listening to the podcast feels like (at least to me)

[charcoalowl]

ok but now that poll is making me sad because like the Witch Queen and Sister Carpenter would have gotten along famously with each other. Daughter i-maimed-and-mutilated-the-millenia-old-being-of-the-dark-mountain-who-tried-to mould-me-into-his-vessel Dooley, and Mallory i-stood-at-the-banks-of-my-river-that-has-made-me-who-i-am-and-thrown-affrontations-at-my-god-because-i-am-not-his-i-was-never-his-i-will-never-be-his Glass would be actual besties if given the chance.

[dom-guilfoyle]

I just want you to know I love your work. Your absolutely wonderful at world building. The last two weeks of work have been very entertaining while binging mistholme and low city.

With that said though, do you have any suggestions of podcasts that you think more people should listen to? I need something to fill the void at work until the next low city episode.

Hi, thank you so much for listening!

I absolutely have some suggestions, here you go:

If you like the weird, somewhat unsettling twists-classic-tropes style with an ultimately optimistic and compassionate vibe, then check out Monstrous Agonies by @monstrousproductions. You may recognise the voice of the main character if you've listened far enough into Mistholme...

If you want a more unsettling and horrific folk-tale vibe, check out Old Gods Of Appalachia, which is a terrific show which doesn't need the extra publicity but deserves it anyway.

Lastly, while I haven't listened to it myself, lots of Mistholme fans came to it from comparisons to The Magnus Archives, which is a long-running horror podcast that everyone who listens to horror podcasts has already heard of- but I'd be remiss not to mention it, because while it's meaner than Mistholme it definitely has a similar niche.

Thanks again, hope these are what you need!

[kingwaino]

i have done...an absolute deep dive into blues and folk music tonight. it was 100% one of those blink and three hours have passed type of deals. worth it though.

[butnotenoughtosaveyou]

[rpgsandbox]

10. Monty Python's Cocurricular Mediaeval Reenactment Programme (Exalted Funeral)

9. Old Gods of Appalachia (Monte Cook Games)

8. Warhammer 40K Imperium Maledictum (Cubicle 7)

7. The Walking Dead Universe RPG (Free League)

6. Shadow of the Weird Wizard (Schwalb Entertainment)

5. Mothership 1e (Tuesday Knight Games)

4. Household (Two Little Mice)

3. 13th Age, 2nd Edition (Pelgrane Press)

2. Dragonbane / Drakar och Demoner (Free League)

1. King Arthur Pendragon, 6th Edition (Chaosium)

[themostdearofspaghettis]

Brainrot = Profit

[intheholler]

https://x.com/KamalaHQ/status/1815383072050671870

BRO I WOULD DIE FOR ANDY IN A FUCKING HEARTBEATTTTTTT AAAAAAAAAAH ♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️

JD VANCE AINT FROM HERE LMAO

omfg. we dont stan politicians in this house but we actually feel fond feelings for govs andy bashear and roy cooper as a matter fact, yes sir

im obsessed with the fact that he didn't even say 'he isnt from here' homie went FULL appalachia on national tv: HE AINT FROM HERE. what a delicious 'fuck you' to that fucking charlatan vance

thanks for sending this im so tickled <3333

[opens-up-4-nobody]

...

[visenyaism]

What is ur take on all those ancient black stones littered around the world anyway. Just weird Valyrian architecture or something else?

it will be revealed to me if it is important

[shadywitchfestival]

[tilbageidanmark]