Old Gods of Appalachia - BONUS: Season 2 Q+A Retrospective: Part 1

Episode Date: September 2, 2021

Steve and Cam answer your burning questions about Season 2 and more! Hosted by our dear friend Jordan Shiveley of Dread Singles fame (@hottestsingles).LEARN MORE ABOUT OLD GODS OF APPALACHIA: www.oldgodsofappalachia.comCOMPLETE YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA RITUAL:FacebookInstagramTwitterBlueskySUPPORT THE SHOW:Join us over at THE HOLLER to enjoy ad-free episodes, access exclusive storylines and more.Find t-shirts, hoodies, mugs, and other Old Gods merch at www.teepublic.com/stores/oldgodsofappalachia.Old Gods of Appalachia is a production of DeepNerd Media and is distributed by Rusty Quill. All rights reserved.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/old-gods-of-appalachia. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Right about now. Hey, everybody, family that might be out there in the darkness, Welcome to the season two recap of Old Gods of Appalachia. Question and answer. I'm here with Steve Shell and Pam Collins, the creators and writers. And I am Jordan Shively, another writer on the show. We're going to be answering some questions that you have sent in. And they may or may not give us the answers.

They may give us cryptic replies that have been whispered to them from the darkness. Cryptic replies are a specialty. And Jordan Shively is not just another writer on the show. Jordan Shively is of Dred Singles fame on Twitter, master of void merch and a million other cool products and things that they have done. So put some respect on your name. The rent makes me do it. I know, but put some respect on your name, family.

That's all I'm saying. Don't be shy. Okay. So should we just jump right into these questions, y'all? All right. So the very first question on this list of great questions is from Sarah in Havallop, North Carolina. How did the addition of cultural sensitivity consultants help shape this season's final episodes? I'll start on that. We have since the beginning of the show, wanted to make sure that voices that have not been carved into stone in Appalachian history.

Because Appalachia, everyone, when you think of Appalachia, if you're not from here, and even if you are from here, no, it's a pretty white and homogeneous place in a lot of stretches. But there are black folks here. There are brown folks here. There are folks from all over. and small pockets sprinkle throughout this region. I'm here to tell you that the 1970s, people would not have survived in the coal boom without doctors from Iran and Pakistan and places that came over during that migration. So there are, Appalachia, while not like openly diverse,

has a lot of stories that don't get told. And we wanted to tell those. But we also wanted to stay in our lane culturally. I can not, like, I'll use Barlow for an example. I can tell the story of black miners murdered by a mining company, but I can't point of view right from like a young black miner coming to Appalachia writing about what that's like because I culturally have no idea what it's like to be a person of color. I am a white cis straight dude. I am a white cis dude who grew up in Appalachia with every golden ticket I could have punched. So I can't assume to know what that is. So for a long time we wrote about the things. that happened to these people and we tried to give as much agency as possible, but we never wanted to assume the mantle that we could write about what it was like growing up, black in a rural environment or anything else.

So when it came time that we knew we wanted to introduce the Underwood family, who had been kind of in the works for a little bit, I knew I had the ideas for the abilities and we had talked about what they were going to do. But writing, we didn't want to assume writing that voice. So I reached out, I come from the, as a. Some people know, I come from the slam poetry community and spend many, many years, which is primarily a very queer, very POC space, especially in the South. It's almost, there's like three white people. It's like me, Justin and Adam, and that's it. So it was a matter of, I had a deep well of writers and friends who, if not necessarily Appalachian, could talk to me about small town life as a person of color or as a black person. And we reached out to two DJ Rogers, who is an educator and a scholar of black history and as a master of these things in the Durham Chapel, Chapel Hill area.

And Catalyst Alcender, who is a slam poet I've been friends with for a long time. And also both these guys are just black nerds extraordinaire in terms of like represent, like knowing how to operate within those cultures. And Catalyst Alcindor, an amazing poet from New Orleans. we brought them in and ran script points by them, ran story notes by them, ran tropes by them, things we wanted to avoid. And they did a fantastic job of just, number one, being patient and open and letting us be vessels for their knowledge and also letting us pay them. Because nobody does emotional labor for this show without being compensated. And it really helped inform, Tim, if you want to talk about the thing we actually talked about, We were just at dinner talking about this the other night about the mama versus mother thing that Kat and DJ took us.

Yeah, one of the things that they pointed out to us when they were kind of looking over our scripts was there's a scene where when Melvin first meets the Underwoods. And Ms. Underwood's daughter is like, do you know who that is? that is my mother. And when we had originally written it, you know, we had written, that's my mama. And they kind of walked us through it and explained,

there's these, she's taught, you know, this is the matriarch, this is the head of this family, someone, you know, she treats with the utmost respect. And she's talking to a stranger, not just a stranger, but a white stranger.

She's not going to say, my mama. She's going to say, my mother. It's going to be much more formal, much more respectful. And that's something that as, you know, as white people, it's not, you know, we don't really have that. We had no way of knowing that.

And that's just one example of the ways that, you know, they were able to help us and explain things and make what we wrote in this, in this case in particular, just a little more authentic. And, I mean, it was just so, so helpful and just informative. Down to word choice. Down to word choice. Mysterious. We used the word mysterious at one point, and they're like, yeah, that's just a red flag for the magical Negro trope. You all need to re-word this. And we did, and it was a better script for it, ultimately.

Yeah, DJ especially took us through a lot of, like, there are things that that black folks are looking for when they're seeing their culture written about by white people. They're like, are you going to do this? Are you really going to, oh, you did that. You know, ooh, are you going to really, are you going to describe us this way? Oh, you did that. And they really helped us work around that. And DJ, I know is submitting a script for Porchlight, which is still coming on Patreon. And I really hope Cat will as well.

I can't wait to see. I can't wait to see those. Yeah. And we are actually working with, and I can say this out loud, that if you guys enjoy Dr. Ray Christian in the finale as Brother Bartholomew, we're actually in the process right now of working with Ray Christian Jr. We like to refer to them, Ray's child. And they are submitting a script for Porchlight. and they are a person who has grown up in Boone, North Carolina, home of the law practices of one Dougie Walker,

and has just finished their degree in creative writing from Appalachian State. So I'm super stoked to work with them and to get that story produced for Porchlight when that series is ready to launch. It's a great story. I'm really excited about it. I love it. We are always, we are still not accepting open submissions, but we are always open to meet and discuss with horror authors. of color, particularly if you are a person of color, black person, brown person, just not a generic folk like us specifically from Appalachia or with ties to Appalachia or rural America in general. If you go to, if you, you know, holler at us, you know, info at old gods atapalachia.com, we'd be happy to talk to you.

Like I said, we're not opening for submissions, but we are looking, we all are always looking to connect with writers with writers of color of these backgrounds because that's, it's a very unique story. It's different than being a person of color or a black person in just the south. Appalachia is its own unique thing, but rural life is rural life in a lot of ways. It's a

story that we can't tell, we shouldn't try to tell. And also just to point out that DJ and Catalyst were amazing, amazing help and we appreciate them so much and any mistakes that we've made in any way that you know, we fucked up.

All those mistakes are our own. They were no way to blame. They were wonderful and very kind and helpful. So I hope that answers that. I think it does very much so. Moving on to the next question, this came from multiple shadows in the dark. And they all want to know in their whispering chorus,

which episode was your favorite to write slash perform? Hmm That's like asking me to pick my favorite child That has betrayed me Yeah I always just say It's the next one I mean Which episode would you like to sacrifice

Upon the altar of this being recorded forever And thrown in your face probably I can't name a favorite But I can tell you the particular things that I loved In terms of writing And I'll pick one that I wrote And one that Cam wrote You can do the same thing.

So my favorite stuff that Cam wrote this season was definitely what we internally code as the murder ballad arc, which was the Coralie arc. I wrote one little segment of that, but Cam created this world of just, I can feel the cell that Coralie was in when they were holding her. I lived in that room. I could feel that caught. I could feel everything about that and how Dougie is brought in and how Dougie is brought in, and how Dougie is is dealt with. I enjoyed creating Dougie's voice, but there is just something,

that entire art just to me feels very lived in, that church and all of that feels very, just feels very real. Out of ones that I enjoyed writing and creating out of this season, I have a deep, deep love in my heart for the scene with the Underwoods and Melvin, but my, if I had to choose, the Death Island arc,

though that's my childhood. Like, we just put out the shirt that has the boys names listed on it. You know, Archie and Kurt and those... Yeah, a group of boys going out and getting into some creepy adventures is such a good. So, some of multiple people, and I'm not saying like,

yeah, me, but it's called it like an Appalachian stand by me and I could not ask for higher praise. I mean, that's like, you know, that kind of coming of age stuff. And a lot of, and those characters, with the exception of Cowboy and Floyd, those are invented characters for the story. Archie is based on a real

friend of mine, so is Curtis. Dallas is my cousin Dave, if he's listening, Hey, buddy. And I'm Shane Shepard. I try to write myself as not a flashy part, but a funny part at least. And those are the group of us. There were a few others, but those were the main group. And Sam, the dog, the best boy, the goodest boy, was a real dog. That's my cousin Dave's dog.

And he has tons of merch with Sam on it that we sent him as a thank you for his help. He lives up in West Virginia and serves as a West Virginia consultant. So y'all really like would sneak out and go fishing? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That was the guys that Archie and Kurt were based on, I would wake up and they would be like in my bedroom because we never locked our doors and be like, hey, man, we're going to Dunganan, you want to go? And sometimes I'm like, no, that's a, because that's not over the hill. That's a 45 minute drive to a river. I don't even like fishing.

I like hanging out with you. It's three in the morning. I've got, like, you know. So, like, they would sneak out. They would go fishing. I would just sit at the lake and just hang out with my friends. But Death Island, as we know it now is underwater. the redid a dam to where all of that is underwater now.

But that was our place. Whenever we wanted to get away from everything and swordfight or just be, you know, play or do whatever, we always thought, oh, man, more teenagers. We're going to come out here and party. You don't do that. That lake's not for that. The cops don't give you any opportunity for that. But it was.

So Death Island lies slumbering. It does. It wasn't William Island. But it was Death Island. And it was like described in the story, it's like a little. Slaughter Peninsula with water on two sides, but when tide went up, it would connect to where there was just one little strip leading into it, coming down a hill. So you would have water all around you until you went back to the walkway to climb back up. So it felt like an island when you were a kid.

But I have a special love of that. And in fact, the laughter that is in the episode where they start joking about Dirk Rockbone is a sample. Some of that laughter is my cousin Dave laughing into his cell phone. He has this ridiculous, cackly laugh that I grew up with. So I, and I, it felt good after. I haven't seen that dude and we've talked and stuff, but I haven't seen that dude in probably since 2008, 2007, on tour with my band, was the more close to him.

So if we do this, there's a potential con appearance, if Delta doesn't shut everything down, that we might do at Marshall University in West Virginia, which I hear is 20 minutes from his house. So maybe we'll get to, we are like opposites in so many ways. It is best that we only talk about best home in the show, back home in the show and things that we love because we are very, very opposite in a lot of ways.

But yeah, so that was what I love. Cam, what about you? When it comes to your episodes in story arcs, although kind of similar, you and I collabed on the seizure pleasant evenings, but the railroad, you know, the railroad man and friends is definitely my favorite.

I love that character, and I also love the work that Yuri and Corey did as voice actors. So yeah, that would be my favorite. That was, that was really fun. And that's a, that's such a lovable villain. Yes, smooth talking evil is such a good trope. It is.

It is. It's the best. Everyone loves a dapper evil that like, you know you're in trouble. But, yeah. My favorite thing is, my favorite thing is I wrote, is when I, out of that, him, sorry to interrupt, but when I wrote, uh, Yuri essentially being like, oh, We're going to do it the old way. And he switches into like the Eldridge.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. But never loses the smarm. Never. He never, he doesn't like become like, I will stay, read this stately. He is just like, well, I will devour your infants and burn your house to the ground for capitalism because that's what I do. And what was your favorite? What was your favorite thing that you wrote?

My favorite thing that I wrote. Well, that's a kind of a complicated answer. I'm really proud of the work I did on the murder ballad story arc that writing about Coralie's experiences was it was challenging. It was hard. I didn't want to make... I wasn't going to do just gratuitous violence where you see this woman be physically abused. But, you know, I couldn't entirely avoid it. And so wide, I ended up talking about more was sort of, you know,

the psychological abuse. abuse and, you know, how he limited her activities and things like that. And that was just, you know, it's an uncomfortable topic to write about. And I, you know, I felt like I did a good job with it. And I've gotten some feedback from some of our listeners that they thought they thought I handled it well. So I'm really proud of that arc. At the same time, it wasn't the most fun thing to write. Other than, you know, massive monster violence with the Dead Queen.

That was fun. Yeah, you set someone up like that that's so, you hate them so much, then you get to kill. Then you get to kill them. It was great. But actually, I also, I really loved the Paradise storyline. It was really fun to write something that was a little more lighthearted and at times funny. You have, we have fire breathing geese. And also it was a bit of a challenge to, you know, to write a really,

a classically structured story where you have a character who is in service to this being, sort of being of legend and he has to complete these trials and things like that. That was really like, it was both, you know, it was fun and a bit challenging.

And I, yeah, I thought that was, I also love that one. So that's probably my favorite. I have a question to, insert into this. Absolutely. When I was listening of that,

were those trials and the geese and stuff? Was that based off of actual fairy tales? Yeah, those are based off of actual jacktails. Oh, yeah.

So I got the vibe. I remember like the goose and I was like, are these following like a series of jack things that actually happened in the old tales? Yeah.

Yeah. Because it had the cadence and everything of like I am being told a fairy tale. Yeah. Yeah. The axe and the land actually appears

in Build Mama a coffin too. when Jack, spoilers for Bill by my coffin, when Jack disposes of a certain body, he uses a rusty old axe. There's a story of, there's a story, this evidence that the Jack Tales

carried over from the old country is just like in a lot of the early Jack tales, Jack, one of Jack's rivals is a king who rules a set of mountains. And as we all know, there are no kings, you know, in Appalachia, you know, but like those stories. Exactly.

Yeah, in fact, one of those, like there was, there's one king who always bet Jack couldn't clear this piece of land and Jack would do it and it would grow back and he would do it and it would grow back. I like that story a lot actually. That little bit. That was a good story because that is so fucking creepy in the most mundane way. Yeah. Yeah.

It's just like. And then I love that Cam, Cam went further with it. And like when when a home dude drove by later, Jack had suckered somebody else out there. And like, what is he getting out of that? Like what is he, is he feeding something off that? Is there trickster energy being generated? And also just how fucking creepy would it be? Like, you do your dishes in your house and you come by the next day and they're dirty and you haven't eaten anything.

Like what the fuck is going on? Yeah, yeah. And then the geese, of course, are the geese to lay the golden egg. Fire breathing might have been an accentuated point to make it a little more old gods. But it was funny, though. I laughed. Yeah. When we were discussing the story, Steve, you know, Steve made a suggestion.

He's like, oh, you know, you could also have, you know, like Jack have his hired help. And they're like, they're like searching him every time he comes to feed the geese to make sure he's not, make sure he's not stealing the eggs. And I'm like, dude, would you try to rob a goose? Yeah. And also, I think Jeff, I think he wanted him to steal the egg. Like, he was like wanting him to fail all these things. Yeah. kind of a little bit.

Yeah, it's always, it's always a roll of the dice with Jack. And I'm really proud of that character because, yes, he is Jack from the Jack Tales. But to me, he's kind of like, Jack and a lot of the Jack tells is presented as the young trickster. Yeah. And our version of Jack is millennia old. And he is like a little more jaded. The one bit that I wrote out of some of that was Jack facing down the boys who had come to collect from his previous incarnation.

That was a good one. And he found... That was really great. And he found... And he reveals like, no, I own you. Your daddy gave you to me so that that land would grow. But you know what? You're right.

That's an unfair contract. So I'm going to give it up to the people who originally wanted you. And that was the Jack, who was maybe a little Gaman version of Jack. Like I always think, like, if there were an American gods version of Jack, well, there have been some American gods comparisons, very flattering comparisons made lately. but our jack is millennia old. And I think it takes the tricks to make him young. That's not canon or anything.

But like I think in his mind, otherwise he would have calcified. You know, like, I like the idea that there is some type of like concept that keeps reasserting itself into reality. That is the concept of a jack. And it keeps like pushing itself into reality to be born.

yeah i think he's in a way he's necessary and um you know there is uh there there is there is um an interesting and and and and is and our jack is not necessarily informed by this but when you said that jordan you made me think from neil gamins the graveyard book the jacks of all trades the fraternal order of wizards who are all jacks from different nursery rhymes there's jack be nimble uh who is just the guy who jumped the candle. And then there's Jack Ketch, who is a world famous strangler who murdered so many people. Then there is Jack Tarr, who is an African bull legend. And like all these jacks that every culture has one. Spring Hill Jack, Jack, Jack the river. Yeah, exactly. Yep, yeah. There's a lot of jacks. And there's just, I've read that book aloud a million times to kids and in classes and for fun.

And there's just, there's the way they refer to himself. And then when the jack of the story, the man jack of the story of the graveyard book realizes all the others are gone that the honor guard have defeated them he describes himself oh look at me i'm a jack all alone and that's not an idiom and that's not an idiom but he makes it like i i one of my goals i aspire to do that thing that game and does to where common phrases take on capital letters yes yeah and kind of like occupy a heavier space in the in the air and uh if you've if you've not read gamins the graveyard book it is a children's book that is not a children's book. It will take you an afternoon to read at tops. And I, in my opinion, it is singularly the most complete and best thing he's ever written.

I always love seeing Jack being inserted into stories. So like I wrote one a while back that was, there is a prime jack of doors. Oh, nice. And every jack that we find is like a version of him that's gotten stuck in a reality and is sick and dying like Jack the Ripper is like him, but getting who got stuck in that reality. And there is a jack of doors. who is the jack of the doors to everywhere. Nice. I like it. I like that. But yeah, moving on, because we are three questions in and 26 minutes recording. Yeah.

So family, this is going to be a long one. Settle in. Settle in. So our next question comes from Katie from Long Island. What storyline from season two are you most excited to continue in the future? Steve, before you open your mouth. I told them not to ask for spoilers. And a lot of people did it anyway.

It's kind of spoilery. So let me start by saying. Let's caveat. This is a, this, let's rephrase their question. What storyline would you be most excited to continue, but that maybe you are or are not going to ever continue? I mean, I would say,

we've already said, you know, publicly before, that the Underwoods will have a role in season three. And I'm really excited to see where that goes. They're, you know, they're fascinating characters. And, you know, we're finally actually introducing some diversity into our world. And so, yeah, that's what I'm most excited about. I'm excited to see where their story goes. For me, I'll double down on the Underwoods.

are super exciting, mainly because some of those voice actors are also some of my really good friends. And I look forward to working with them again. I'm excited to, I'm excited also maybe, I don't know when we'll get there. And I'm not even going to say it's season three, but I'm excited to see where Nathaniel Locke and his new Jack-inspired Ward are going to end up. I love that bait and switch, by the way. That was one of my favorite things that we pulled off that we kept telling, talking about Jack's friend from the railroad. and everybody thought it was going to be the railroad man, but I'm like, it's way too soon.

And also to clarify for those who were confused, no, Lathaniel Locke and the railroad man are not the same. They are two separate characters. We were fucking with you. Nathaniel Locke. And I have a feeling you're going to know a little bit more about the Locke family. This season was the railroad season, but I feel like we didn't do a lot with the locks outside of the Halloween.

No, we really didn't. There's definitely more, more to tell about the Locke family for sure. Yep, yep, yep, yep. I think I've got some, we got ideas. All right. Well, the next question is from Nadia from Atlanta. Will we get more backstory on the ones who came before, the first ones? Oh, you mean the ones who put those who sleep beneath beneath?

I'm assuming as who they're asking. I think my advice to that would be to keep listening. The answer is maybe. Yeah, maybe. Maybe eventually. You might. Yeah. Yeah.

I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know who we would, you know, entice into writing something. Might be adjacent to that. Some fucking sucker. Somebody.

Some guy. Who would you would entice to write like some kind of trilogy about that? I don't know. So moving on, multiple knives in the dark have asked. What was your inspiration and desire to start the podcast to begin with? or to begin podcasting generally. We can both talk about podcasting, but I can,

I'll knock out mine real quick. I started podcasting, and actually in 2005, when Apple podcasts, when Apple and iTunes made podcasts on RSS feed reading, I was on an old hardcore message board called InStyf.com,

and it was like, and somebody, there was a thread about it. So just to see how it was, if I could do it, I made like a radio show playing like hardcore bands. Fucking nerd. Yeah,

and then I made like, We made jokes about users. I interviewed the guy who was like the admin who started the board, and it was just like a one episode thing. I thought, oh, that was pretty fun. And then when I got back into the Society for Creative Anachronism, I was dabbling online, but not showing up places yet, because I wasn't sure I wanted to do that.

I started looking for an SCA podcast. I couldn't find one. So I started one. That's the known world broadcast. It's only on like Apple podcast and Stitcher. It's not on Spotify. And it's literally a radio show for medieval reenacter music. And that honestly started making a little Patreon money

for me just a little, not a whole lot, but help was helping pay some doctor bills. And I started getting ideas for other shows because I was listening to stuff like the black tapes and Night Vale and and orphans and a lot of the stuff that was

out there that was good, but I don't want to be so arrogant to say like, I could do that better. I looked at it and said like, oh, I think I could do that. And I started kicking around ideas and And I ended up driving back and forth between North Carolina and eastern Kentucky for an appearance for the Moth storytelling show. And just started realizing I hadn't driven through coal country in forever and saw these areas that were super drained out and sapped out from strip mining in areas that were super lush and overgrown. And one of the things I've always been jealous of, like in modern Appalachar, living in modern rural society, was that we didn't have a mythology.

We didn't have like gods that were of the harvest or that were of these things. you know, everybody was just white, homogenous, and Christian. I thought, how cool would it be if there were these two deities or two demigods who oversaw the blighted and dark earth and the overgrown and lush earth? And that planted sort of the alpha seeds for the witch queen and the dead queen. And there were two very different things. And then I started doing mind-es-minding disaster, and I asked Cam if she wanted to be involved to write an episode

because originally the entire Barlow arc was one episode. The Sarah Avery thing was one hour long plus episode. And we broke it up and Cam wrote the church cycle. And then just from there, it just became about like, cool, we can channel these things we feel about back home into something that's dark and spooky that people when we live back home would hate and be afraid of and fear us for. And now it apparently seems they like it very much. Apparently a lot of people are, there are a lot of fans back home. Shout out to Wise County, Virginia. Shout out to East Tennessee.

and shout out to Western North Carolina and East Kentucky. Yeah, thank you all for your support. Cam, you had your own thing with podcasting too, if you want to talk to about it. Yeah, I did. I wanted to get into podcasting just because I'm a huge fan of them. I, you know, I love them. And I thought, well, what could I do? You know, I want to make a podcast.

And so I got my start. I, you know, a development podcast called Appalachian Arcana, which was in which which we talked about true crime from the region. So like the Knoxville Zoo Man, things like that. And also, you know, cryptids and folklore and things like that. And so that's where I got started. I was making that podcast with my friend Sarah. And she kind of, you know, she over time got really busy with work.

and that sort of went by the wayside because of that. And during that time, Steve, you know, came to me with the idea for All Gods of Appalachia. And would you like to write an episode? Because initially we were going to involve like multiple people. Everybody writing like one arc that was based on some sort of disaster, being a mining disaster, a natural disaster, what have you. And I'm like, cool, yeah, let's do that. And like, as Steve described, eventually that idea morphed into

what you know today. Yeah, if you listen to the original prologue, which I know people have a million times on re-listens, at the end I have this little straight-laced non-character post-rail where I talk about us and a team of writers. And we can always tell when people are trying to sell us something or get us to subscribe to a service,

when they send the email to Steve and team. Yeah. And it was originally, like, there were five or six of us, but one-by-one people just didn't stick around. And thank you for not, because that's a lot of people to split money with, frankly. And those are all wonderful people who I love. Shout out to Chris and Kevin, Stephen, those people.

But we're actually probably, I'm going to answer this now, there is more than a good chance that I'm going to re-record the prologue, more in the narrator's voice, and Cam and I will do a post role together to make it clear that it is not the Steve Shell Show and friends. Yeah. Because that is a mistake. You want to get ignored or want to get a real snarky,

email, try to sell us something or approach us thinking that I'm the only one doing the show. Yeah. Because I live way back in the cave and Cam is perched in the stalactites right above it waiting for you to come in and not see her. That is the way you get your head torn off. Especially if, for example, you know, come to us asking for an interview and say, oh, I'm a fan. I love the show so much.

And then, but it's clear that you've only listened to the prologue and that post-roll. We can tell really quickly how much of the show you've actually listened to. It's like, and not just in our, I mean, we've had a bunch of people. We've had initially, like, people who were, you know, wanted to come to us about a movie deal or a TV deal. And it became apparent really quickly in talking with them, oh, you've only listened to like two episodes. Or you've seen download statistics or you've seen how many patrons we have on Patreon. on. I've been following your work for a while. If by a while, I mean, how long it took you to look at the data that was scraped from our feed,

I guess that is a while, you know. Yeah. Yeah. So there's that one. What else we got there, Jordan? We have, this next one comes from multiple whispers from the bowl in a tree that was not there before, that is there now. Do you plan to explore some Native American themes or myths in future episodes?

That's very similar. to, you know, what we talked about earlier with telling the stories of Black Apple actions, that's really outside our lanes. So we're, we try to steer away from that, you know. We don't want to tell stories that aren't ours to tell. And it's, we, so I will tell a little bit of a story without going. The Dead Queen launch was initially supposed to include a story about the Ravenmockers

and Thai and their whole gimmings. with her was going to be that people mistook her for other myths and didn't realize how wrong they were until it was too late and that she was the root for a lot of other myths like the wichy woman in the woods the looky in your window and we had worked with one of our consultants Veronica who is descended from the Eastern Band of Cherokee and we had consulted with her and all the way up to the beloved woman of the Eastern band Miss Myrtle who is a wonderful human being and a true war like a a complete badass in terms of preserving the Cherokee language and just one of the most like admirable people like I didn't just not a person whose word I take very seriously

and we were referred all the way up to her to talk about language and talk about this and they were very helpful and gave us proper pronunciation but something was said at the very end of you know I'm like well how do you feel about us doing this you know we're white people trying to lift up Cherokee stories and but we don't want you know we don't want to step in at whatever. And Ms. Myrtle said something along the lines of, well, you know, if it's not a story being told by a Cherokee in Cherokee, on Cherokee land, it's just not a Cherokee story. And that sat in my heart very heavy. So if there are, if there are indigenous folk out there from Eastern Ben of Cherokee or other Appalachian tribes, you want to get in touch and, you know,

worked as a consultant or if you have a story to, if you have a story you want to talk about, be glad. We did include Speerfinger, old sister, as Brother Bartholomew called her, in the finale, because we did want to reference land back. We did want to reference like the people, you know, this land had been cleared by eugenics and genocide and just outright slaughter, and those people were bitter and angry and, you know, having to live the lives our people created for them. How angry must their gods and monsters be? And in the spirit, Spearfinger legend, Spearfinger is killed at the end of all, like the heroes always triumph. So I imagined a version of Spearfinger trapped in that liminal space without a life or a land,

and the fuel of that anger and that vengeance being what the union would need to be able to defeat the dead queen. And that's why we brought her in. And we did not use her Cherokee name because I don't feel worthy of speaking it. I do know how to pronounce it, but it was just one of those things of just like I wasn't going to do that. but people caught it and people know that she's a very specific legend to where our story was taking place and was very happy that the way that turned out and the reception it got. But again, I can't write what it's like to be an indigenous person here. Would love to know some folks who would be interested in helping do that.

So we would love to. We are not ignoring the midst of this land. Just like before, we have to, we need the help to tell them. But we, yeah, we don't want to appropriate them. Yeah, and, you know, our mouths are not shaped to say their names with the right amount of weight or wisdom. So I hope that answers respectfully enough. Cool. Next question comes from born in the Pacific Northwest.

Love the show in its soundtrack, which keeps me listening to the very end until the episode rolls over. How does the team select music for the show? I started when I started planning the show, I literally went on you. YouTube and Googled Gothic Country. Yeah. And I started looking for bands that I could reach out to and be like, hey, I'm starting this project. I don't have any money right now, but I will have money hopefully one day, and I can give you money.

And I found some artists. I kept finding artists that I like, but then I would find really problematic things about them. Apparently, like, just that genre of music and guitars and and dive bars leads to dark places. Who would have thought? Yeah. But then I met, I ran into those poor bastards, and I heard Godfurt. Dark Heaven and I cannot escape the darkness and sick and alone and a lot of songs Lonesome Wyatt did with the Reverend and I reached out for them like hey here are clips

really early clips of what the show is going to sound like this or what it's about what would it cost me to use 45 seconds of these songs and like oh man go ahead and use them it's fine so after season one was such a hit though we made sure we sent them some money and actually I would like to send them some more money at some point in the near future I'll say that out loud because I'm going to do that. Yeah, we've been really blessed that, you know, the artists who've been willing to work with us, they've been so kind. Steve's known, Landon, Landon Blood, who does our theme song amongst other things, for a lot, for, you know, for a long time, they're old friends, and he's just done a phenomenal job. Yeah, Landon is actually right now mastering a musical

project for us that we're going to be announcing, hopefully this fall. People have been asking for music from Landon, so we're going to try to accommodate that. Blood on the harp, their original bass player, Russ, was an old friend of mine from hardcore bands. So really, I just keep an ear open. And again, we don't accept open some issues. We get a lot of... We've known both Jake and Matt forever. So, they're old friends. Jacob Cody Moore-Danielson is an old friend of mine. He did the Railroad Man song and a song called Oyster and Mold that we've used before. Matt Evans is one of my best friends. We were in hardcore bands together for the better part of a day.

aid. He did the music for a door under the floor and it's currently working on the theme for porch light. I keep shooting things down. So really, he also, he worked with you on your rendition of In the Pines. Oh yeah, the version of In the Pines that I said on Patreon. The version that I demanded they create for me. Yeah, that was a cam. That was a cam. I'm just going to say add to this that if Landin Blood's real name is not Land in Blood, don't tell me. Because I, it is. It's totally given name. that is such a fucking rad like I'm a wizard name.

His sister's name? His sister's name? I think I can say his sister's name is angel. Angel blood? Yes. Fuck, that is so good.

Isn't it? His son, this is like side characters from like Constantine with me like living in real life. Thank you parents. And I think his, I think his youngest son's name is Killian.

All right. This is too much. Okay. Moving on. Yeah. Yeah, he's actually got a pirate ship waiting for him right now. But yeah, that's how we pick music. It's people we know and stuff we hear.

And I will say this. We do get a lot of music sent our way from folks who aren't from the region, who get the spirit of the show. And those poor bastards, Norlanden are actually Appalachian. They're just old friends. But moving forward, if we like it, we'll ask you to use it. We'll try to pay you for it. But primarily we try to source things genuinely from the region or people with ties to the region at the very least.

So the next question, from Nikki in Texas. What inspired y'all to include so many queer stories in both seasons? As a queer woman, I cannot express how much this means to me. You want to lead on that, Steve? Yeah, we grew up, well, for one, we grew up with queer friends who were closeted for their life, to mainly to the world, because it's Appalachia. I remember a good friend of ours did their research paper,

an anonymous interview with their gay best friend. And it was, I remember reading it in 1992, like I was reading some sort of secret Bible. And the existence of queer folk in Appalachia over, when I was a kid, was super closeted, super, like, unless you were like, you know, you own the hair salon of the furniture store. That's what you do in Appalachia. We're talking about our friend J.C. And he's like, he's like, oh, yeah, my brother Bo and his husband have a salon because they're, they live in Southwest Virginia and they're gay, so that's what you do, you know.

And it's just like, and as a bisexual man, you know, I only came out in my 40s. I'm in a heterosexual marriage, heterosexual relationship, but like I know who I am, and as someone exploring that and exploring that room I always knew in my house that I finally found the key to and opened it and then turned on the light.

You know, don't know if I'll put a futon in there or not, but it's a room that I'm happy to inhabit and happy to be there. I want to make sure that queer people are seen, particularly Appalachia was built on the back of queer women and no one will ever tell me otherwise. the number of matriarchs and the number of people who...

Just gal pals. Just gal pals. Just gal's being pals. They're just sharing that house. Their husband's down. They're just sharing that house. They're just friends. They're just friends.

Very good friends. Next question comes from multiple shadows that have attached themselves to you in your every move. Cam and Steve, what is the writing process like as a co-lab? Do you send each other pieces and parts you've written? Do you get together to map it out? Or is it a little column A and a little column B? Does someone come through to rewrite to ensure a consistent style?

I like to think I... It's a little column A and a little column B. Yeah, with a dessert menu as well. We will... There are times when I've been like, I have this idea for a story, I want to take this part of it, you do the monsters. Or Cam will be like, I'm stuck with this.

I don't know where this is going. Can you make something happen? step in with X and we'll do that. And then there are times Cam brings me a completely finished story. I go through and change like one or two words. Or I give her a completely finished story and she destroys all my beautiful run-on sentences. And makes it listenable. That is my job.

You know, I am the editrix. Oh, yeah. I am sure Cam is about to tear all my little sentences apart that I just turned in. You're going to learn. That's specifically why. when we propose working with doing. See, but I like when people fix on my run on sentences.

I don't mind. I don't mind. Because it still has to pass through me. And if I don't let the changes, it just never happened. I wish I had editors on everything I've ever written. Well, yeah, I'm excited about that. Yeah.

But yeah, so a lot of times it'll be like, I, Cam has handed me completely beautiful, finished things I've never had to do anything to. She always finds something to tweak in mind. And I don't say that complaining because she almost always makes it better. If we disagree on a turn of phrase or something, like, you know, describing a,

Paper rock scissors. Yeah. It's paper rock scissors. And to be fair, usually you do listen to me about the run on sentences. Oh yeah, yeah. Yes, actually, I should pause here for a second. Because I would pass out. I would pass out.

You would pass out because you don't breathe. But we, we co-lapse stuff, like we always tend to overwrite. An average old God's episode is three to four thousand words. The finale, at one draft, we stopped on the finale finale. It was 9,999 words. And we tried to keep it there. And then we edited some more. And borked it sadly.

Multiple, multiple hungry, skittering things have asked, is there any chance your stories we put in book or ebook form? Okay. So we get this a lot. And here's the answer. First of all, transcripts of the show are available for free on our website. A lot of people may not realize that. But yeah, we try to make those available,

as soon as possible, as soon as we can get the show transcribed after it drops. And we're looking at what we can do to make that happen faster. But we do make those available on our website in the episode section of the site. Aside from that, we're not going to self-publish a book of transcripts. That's never going to happen. We are not If you have been on our Patreon wait list for a while Which we are now finally getting cleared out

You may understand that we are not Have not been the best at being a storefront At packaging and shipping things And print on demand services Make us almost no money for the amount of books That for the amount of work that gets put into laying out a book For us in that terms If someone, if a publisher wanted to

Publish those with like some dope illustrations from a well-known artist that we love and respect and make it like a fancy thing that you could have on your coffee table. If a publisher wanted to do that, publishers if you're listening, those kind of books would be really nice. But we have no storage space.

I have a condo. Cam has an apartment. We do not have a warehouse to put 10,000 books in. And then... And ultimately, we're not interested in that. If a book is going to happen, it is going to be its own standalone thing. And in world story.

It said it in world story. And also a thing you need to understand if any, any sort of published, you know, print object happens. You guys need to understand that publishing a book takes years. It's like two to three years. And so it's, yeah, we're not saying no if, you know, the right publisher approached us. And, you know, it was a good. fit. They liked our ideas. We liked theirs. We're not saying no. I mean, that's something that could happen. But it's not like six months from now. Boom, here's a book. That's not going to be the case.

That's just not how it works. That's not how the publishing world works. As someone who has worked in publishing, that is not at all how it works. Yeah. But moving on, Shannon's somewhere in the north, mysterious. You said at the outset that the old gods aren't of hell or the Christian devil. They simply are. But it's not nihilistic like Lovecraft. The good guys, quotations, though usually flawed, also generally win. What in your view are the moral rules of the OGOA universe? To what extent do you think it's shaped by your own religious upbringing and or current outlook? Steve, why don't you start and then I'll...

Yeah, well, there are a few moral rules in writing. Number one, we never kill pets. The dog and cat always live. There is a reference to a sacrifice being asked for to bring an old family dog in the church episode of season one. That dog never showed up. Its owner loved him too much. He made for the hills and another family found him. He was adopted.

His name was Carl. We don't kill animals like that. We don't depict sexual assault on screen. Bad guys win. Listen to door under the floor. If you want to call Marcy Walker a winner as she lives in a house that was built to be filled with people, and music and joy and keeps it to herself and her best friend is the handyman whose daughter she got killed you want to call her a winner okay you want to call uh you want to call uh you want to call

um you want to call daughter doodley a winner yeah she busted a horned head and she ended up killing a whole lot of people and walking around doing what she did season two spoiler uh you want to you i mean like our winners are people are i've had conversations with people we don't have winners we I'm looking for that lovecraftian. I hate that word. Experience of how futile the human thing is, that's not what we do. Okay, so just going to tell you right now, if you are listening, waiting for us to go like everything is hopeless, they will eventually escape and they all die. I can't tell you that. You know why? We're not there yet, but that's not what I want to do. There's no fun in that. And that kind of just sort of brutalist style of.

writing just of flat, functional, hard stone, and whatever, it's totally valid. It's totally got merit. It's just not what I do. Yeah, I mean, like, and as much as, and I was raised very, very Christian, and I am very, like, not that. I'm something, but I'm not that. Um, yeah, I guess maybe that's in there somewhere. I mean, my own personal code of conduct now and, and the things I believe in now, you know, I definitely influence the way women are treated and definitely influence the consequences. A great, I'm sorry, Kim, I'll wrap this up. But one of the things, when we wrote the episode in, which in Pig Iron, the thing attached to the watch, eats and devours, the... Yeah, you were, you were concerned about that episode.

You talked to me, you talked to Sister Heather. Oh, I talked to a lot of people. I talked to actual sex work folks. I talked to friends of hours across the board. But my wife brought the question home when I was really debating of like how awful and graphic this is the happens person. She said, well, what's the consequence for him killing and eating that person? I'm like, oh, well, immediately his anchor to this world is taken away and he dissolves and everything he ever accomplished was sucked back into the void from which he came. And maybe he'll be able to occupy this world again, but probably not in that form with that power.

So there was a consequence for what. all the evil this thing had done. And I'm like, yeah. She's like, I'm okay with that then. And we had that consequence be immediate. We had that consequence be like, oh, someone witnessed you doing this thing. And they don't know that they're dissolving you, but they just did. So like, so I guess maybe in a way, Cam, you know.

Yeah, that and, you know, similarly, and we did have a listener reach out about this episode. what what happens in the murder ballad story arc to coralie and her husband uh yeah yeah he's a terrible dude and he treats and he treats his wife and other he very badly and other people in town not great either and there are consequences for his actions um you know someone had reached out because she you know was like oh here you are you've created all these strong women characters and then you have this character who's just a victim. Well, no, she's not just a victim. Nobody is just a victim.

But I'm not going to sugarcoat Appalachia or, you know, this world, much less the Appalachia of the 1920s and pretend that that shit doesn't happen, that people aren't abused and harmed. Is it, you know, do I wish that that were the case? Sure, I absolutely wish that. And so, you know, yeah, I created this storyline

and that terrible character basically so that he could be punished. But, you know, I will say I don't subscribe to the current idea that I've seen circulating online on Twitter some that fiction writers are somehow obligated to attempt

to fix the problems of the world through their writing. Or, for example, that we're somehow normalizing traumatic harm by depicting it in art. Like one of the great power of art is its ability to shine a light on the world, both on the beautiful things in our world and it's horrors and tragedies. You know, I think if we can open people's eyes, if we can motivate

some people to change for the better with what we do, that's great. But that's not why we wrote the show. This is a fiction podcast. Our purpose here is to entertain. If we do more than that, that's wonderful and I'm so glad but ultimately the impetus is on the audience you know on the audience to act to make the world a better place and on us, Steve and myself, in our individual lives you know it's not through the show

it's in the actions that we take every day just some of the things that I try to create you know through the writing and the telling is you know we we want to be we want to be good stewards of the culture we've been given to write about and that we've done. And we want to be, you know, for lack of a better term, good people in creating art about these things. Like, you know, I look at, because I self-identified as a white cis dude from Appalachia. I've not always been the best human being in the world.

I've been flawed in friendships and relationships. And I look at the growth that I've gone through, you know, in the past decade or so, to fantastic people, mostly fantastic women in my life, who have been incredibly patient and giving with me, and I can create the world that we have. Somebody once said, well, apparently in Alternate Appalachia, everybody loves queer people. No.

No, our Appalachia is very... You're guided by a narrator who loves queer people. You're guided by writers, but, like, I promise you, you give Frank Tilley a chance to square off against Marcy Walker. I can tell you the first words that would come out of his, mouth if this were existing in a 3D representation of, you know, of the whole thing, you know, like there's, there. But, but, but, you know, going back to the moral rules of this universe question, one of

those is we don't, we don't fridge people. Yeah. You know, we don't kill our queers on this show. Awesome. Moving on to the next question, multiple echoing dreams that you forget upon a waking and are only left with a wistful longing, ask, for each of you, respectively, which character has been your favorite to write

and or performed so far? Why? Lavinia! The most fun, the most fun character to write, the most fun character to perform. I love my little villainous. Oh, that's you so good. Anybody who has a skull made of throne, a throne made of skulls,

a skull made of thrones would be very impressive as well. Trevor Henderson, you should draw that. A school limit of Thrones. But yeah. For me, I enjoy writing Marcy a whole lot. There are so many women who have been in my life. My Aunt Teresa, my late friend Sherry, our friend Shannon, who embody who Marcy is. And there's so much, and my Aunt Pammy, God rest, there is so much love for those.

I have known that woman and that person. and I don't want to gender it in that. So that person, this all happened to be in my life. I have known that person in so many forms. That caretaker, that shielder, that guardian, that housegiver, that hallbuilder. And I love her. As far as the most fun to do. Well, I think Jordan's favorite character, Melvin, is probably one of my favorites

just because it's such a ridiculous voice to break out and to do actual nuance. to have him like have moments of emotion and sadness. And you can tell that big gregarious, you know, guy with the beard thing is his, you know, is a mask. A lot of it is. Yeah,

I laughed when you, when it first started talking. I was like, oh, fuck, it's the cookie monster. But then, like,

all the writing around him I loved because, like, I'm like, fuck, yes, sandwiches. Yeah, boy,

get that tick basket. Yeah. And then he like, but then he's like, he drops the mask, he's like about to fuck people up because he actually is secretly like the protector of all this people. And I've said it before in a couple other, you know, when I did my, when I would teach of mice and men, the character of Carlson, who wanted to kill the dog for being stinky and talks the old dude into getting his dog put down. That was his character voice, was a just slightly different version of Melvin.

And I just made him happier and gave him. And Melvin is a guy. he's a guy who's lost a lot and realized like, wow, I was a shitbag. I was an outlaw and a rough neck and I didn't take care of anybody, including myself, until I found a reason to live for other people. And I identify with that a whole lot. That's going to do it for this first part of the Old Gods of Appalachia Season 2, retrospective Q&A session.

Join us next time when we answer more of your burning queries, in cryptic and confusing fashion. See you soon, family. See you real soon.