Hedge Rustles

Editor's notes
This page is a compilation of all the lore that has come from Discord messages from Steve and Cam. Spoilers abound here and are not tagged, so I do not recommend reading this until after you have listened to all of the podcast as it stands. I made some judgment calls on what counts as "relevant;" the things that are included here are all of the things that I deemed Major Lore when creating this page. There are also some things that I excluded because they were basically a repetition of a previous message. With that all in mind, remember that this is all just my take on what is and isn't "big news," so it's like still worth at least skimming the messages surrounding some of these exchanges in the Discord and/or reading though all the messages Steve has ever sent like I did.

As you read this, keep these words from Steve in mind: "Some things just are. There's not going to be a wikipedia entry for every element of magic in our world, or else what's the point of it being magic.  This has been my #1 resistance to the idea of the TTRPG was the idea of codifying our magic system and lore into something that can be quantified and assigned numbers or probabliity.  Sometimes magic is just magic."

Editor's note from @eartothehedge: All line breaks between repeated messages from the same person have been removed to make things a little easier to read.



07/10/2020
@aHumanPerson: I wonder how the forces that imprisoned The Old Things factor into this

@oldsteveofappalachia (he/him): The designation of "Thing" refers specifically to all things connected to, associated with and of Those That Sleep Beneath. The Green is older than The Things. Jack is something else entirely.

07/20/2020

@dingo: Is The Black Stag supposed to invoke Shub Niggurath?

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): Nope. The Thing Whose Name Sounded like Horned Head But Was Not is not connected to, nor inspired by anything HPL ever did.

09/01/2020
@Churlington Beesecoat (he/they): i was gonna basically float the idea that daughter dooley could have been sheila walker, then remembered she was ace

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): Correct and about 100 years too old.

Editor's note from @eartothehedge: I won't be including any further messages regarding DD and the Walker sisters; Steve has confirmed many times that there is no blood relation of any kind between DD and the Walkers.

Editor's note from @eartothehedge:: there wasn't really a direct question leading up to this; just general conversation on the hierarchy of TWSB and their servants.

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): The Six, The Grey Ladies, The Bs are things made from things in this world. BY the things so they BELONG to the things but they are not OF the things, if that makes sense?

More general discussion occurs here with some jokes from Steve; search the Discord channel if you want to read it all.

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): [intervening discussion from other members have been removed and some punctuation added for ease of understanding]

The Green is life. It is holler medicine and granny magic, elemental things, purity, light, rain, wind earth. Bears. Actuall [sic] elemental LIFE. The Inner Dark is where Those Who Sleep Beneath....well...sleep. And since TWSB are...entities....the place they occupy and maybe are from is The Inner Dark. So if there are two opposing forces, The Green Vs The Inner Dark. BUT, around that, you have deities/entities/ghosts/monsters who were here first or [are] independent of [TWSB and The Green]. Jack in BMAC is a prime example. To back up for a second though, to talk about The Things (Inner Dark). There are three types OF things we've met. Well two we've met. The Old Things: if you are ever in their presence, game over, they've won, the gates have fallen, all your gods are dead. The Deep Things: Horned Head, Grany White, Old Copperhead, The Tree. All the major monsters we've met have been Deep Things. They slept beneath and were sent up to find ways out for the rest of the collective hivemindfacelessnamelesscollectiveID [sic] of the universe.

The Low Things: The Hounds, those are low things. Eddie Avery, once his humanity was purged, would have been a low thing; same thing with Pinky. Pinky gets a bad rap. People hate on pinky bc they think he was honestly trying to get Sarah to come with him until whatever was controlling him started banging his burning corspe ON THE PLANET to get him to comply.

@evidently (he/them): but...where do the Six or the Gray Ladies go?

@bonecrusher (ze/hir): they're servants of the Deep Things

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): Yep. Servitors, Servants, agents. They're still flesh and blood, of this world.

@Tempest2004: My question is why were they [the Swarm] so fixed on Sara? Because of her connection to the Green?

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): The Swarm is a Deep Thing that was once MUCH more powerful. MUCH MUCH more powerful. Then Granny White stole that, but that's a story for another day.

@Churlington Beesecoat (he/they): oh, of course, i just get a strong inkling that if horned head HAD succeeded with daughter dooley, it would've been a major stride toward freedom

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): Oh, if he'd managed that, we wouldn't be here.

@evidently (he/them):

09/05/2020
@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): Fun Facts about being in the presence of HH that aren't as noticed or not specifically stated:

The telepathy he uses is intentionally disorienting. HH could sound completely human if wanted. It is not wanted.

A lot of the things come with scent memories/smells that aren'f [sic] their doing. Our world WANTS them to end. Actively seeks to undo them. Thus why there are a lot of association with rancid milk or spoiled meat. Our reality is giving them cues to hurry up and pass on. The things that can walk in physical form possess massive power—that alone takes up a whole bank of processors to use a computer metaphor. If a thing can hold onto PASSABLE human form, then they're burning HUGE amounts of power just to do that and have to shift to something not human or as human to recharge that particular battery. (The Swarm showing under IC's skin, Granny White and the Harvest. HH finding a form that is between normal and not to maintain a balance. Also, Granny White holds human form YEARS a time. It's not perfect, clearly, but she's not a legend like HH she passes as part of a community for decades at times.

@max thembovision (they/them): So the inverted lantern imagery on merch......is that representative specifically of the Boy's lantern? Is it just a tool to use in the dark? Or is it a symbol of light and goodness?

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): It's the Boy's lantern, but it's also an intentional symbol of the Dark. If you flip and drop an oil lantern, it either goes out or goes boom. When I first started doing concept design for the show we bought a set of mining vectors to work with for inspiration, and the lantern was in there, when the show had a different name that never made it to launch. I was working on a patch for a mine rescue jacket that had the name of the show and that lantern, and i was scaling and tilting it and i flipped it, and i loved how the lines looked inverted, and from there got the ideas I just shared.

@max thembovision (they/them): I love it. I'm contemplating symbols of The Green and The Inner Dark respectively, and wanted to know where/if the lantern fit in

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): The Boy is ...unaffiliated

@Churlington Beesecoat (he/they): the sense i get is that there are 3 "factions" of spookies:

the Inner Dark, and the Things it creates

the Green, and its servants

and those things made by man

[some more discussion occurs here, but this message seems to be what sparked Steve saying the following]

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): You'd find folks within the green who hate each other and disagree how the power should be used and allocated.

09/24/2020
@Tempest2004: So, is it skin-to-skin contact that allows Daughter Dooley to drain folks? Seems like a silly question, but curious minds want to know

@Churlington Beesecoat (he/they): the sense i get is that it's always working when she's near people, but actually touching them is like Rogue Xmen levels of bad for their health

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): Daughter Dooley has what amounts to a vampiric (she is not a vampire) aura. She draws life from all things around her. The Green feeds her steadily and without having to kill things around her. Can she grab someone and lifedrain them? I guess? But that would be really counter to her nature and she'd have to try. The Six Men are filled with their own form of cursed immortality and are sort of primed to be batteries for her.

09/25/2020
@Fenris_Lukos: I was re-listening to BMAC and was curious about something. When the episode centered around Jack talked about his "origins" and the many names he'd been called across the world, really spoke to me. Is Jack like some kinda fey thing, maybe perhaps one of his names was Loki? Just curious.

@The Boonies Witch (she/her): he seemed more anansi to me than loki

@Fenris_Lukos: He mentions that as one of his names. It was a logical connection to assume that Loki might've been in that wheel house too considering how much of a trickster Jack is

@The Boonies Witch (she/her): thats a very good point

@Tempest2004: I find it interesting that 1) he's shown to be able to travel the world 2) is known by many names. So who's to say he isn't the same trickster deity. Or just impersonates them.

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): Or maybe all gods are the same gods in different places, shapes and times. Who knows. Also, who says there are hard and fast rules to anything. [cut out non-lore messages] Also, the definition of "God" in our world is...not really a thing. I mean I know it's in the name of the show, but it's maybe not as literal as you'd think. The Things (Those That Sleep Beneath) are beings of world altering/ending power. They are more like a cosmic id for lack of a better way of saying it—so I probably wouldn't look for any kind of clear cut pantheon or anything.

10/09/2020
@Frances K R (she/her): I do wonder how Hornéd Head is doing in early-20th-century now. It's probably not great, given what Lavinia did to the orphanage.

[unrelated discussion]

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): The Church Camp of HH's (Y'all are ASSUMING it was the orphanage) was destroyed by TDQ. Miss Lavinia killed lots of other people, just not them.

10/21/2020
@Billy (He): I think there's a couple forces at work. For the first part, BMaC implies that some powers just act as in-betweens for really significant powers. Anansi working for ol' HH implies there's a kind of overarching power dynamic that these beings tend to follow. I'd actually imagine that what most people call "the Green" is actually just a group of spirits or minor powerful beings that work together in service of an even greater being. If things like Hanging trees can truly develop that much power and influence after just a couple generations, I'm imagining there must be tons of small things with some power stored within them. And maybe that applies to the Green as well as to the more dark and sinister existences? The prevalence of these minor powers could potentially explain why some of these things can just intermingle with normal humans and not come off as odd. Like, HH was helping to run an orphanage? From being a major player in the woods, that is a serious downgrade. He's probably working for someone else now too... I don't think someone as significant as he was would just be ignored after losing a little power...

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): 1 ) A little power would be the understatement of the year. Keep in mind, TWQ origin storyline takes place over an entire century or more.  If he had his throwdown with DD in the late 1700s/early 1800s and he's still recovering in 1917.  That's more than "A little power".

2) That tree had been offered lives long before white men came and started hanging other folks over it.

3) The Green is Vast.

11/02/2020
@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him) [my italics]: She is preceded into the Lord’s kingdom by her loving husband Waylon Gregory Boggs and her siblings Selma, Bertie, Bradley, Martha, Verna, Inez, Dorothy, and Kyle. She is survived by her three children, Vernard Michael Boggs of Ivy, North Carolina;

Editor's note from @eartothehedge: Steve mentioned Glory Ann's obituary to point out that one of her siblings was named Inez, as in Inez Rigg, nee. Bogg.

@groundshaker/time (they/he): VERNA

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): I was gonna say she has a nephew named for her

@groundshaker/time (they/he): 1922 is the year for the Hwwen special and that's also Death order in that obit, not necessarily birth order

Some discussion occurs here that I didn't think was especially relevant.

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): Family names and lineages only matter to humans and things that at least WERE human at once point. A Thing will have no family name that's not just a mask.

@groundshaker/time (they/he): i'll be honest, i'm at the point where ive been writing down every person with green eyes for reasons i cant even remember. does the same apply for the lockes? or are they more human? i guess the locke name is kind of like a mask that was passed down

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): The Barrows an the Lockes are VERY special exceptions.

@groundshaker/time (they/he): ohohohohohoh, is that so

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): Their relationships with The Things is very old and very complex. Workers of the Green are born with power—with conduits to a force greater than them. Humans allied with TWSB usually have no gift whatsoever which is what makes them perfect for the Inner Dark to use.

@groundshaker/time (they/he): more like genetic gifts verses cancers caused by environmental toxins

@Eli/Line (they/she): so its [sic] not gender based?

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): its not meant to be THAT on the nose. Gender is a construct

@Eli/Line (they/she): Correct and the good Beesecoat and I will have a lovely conversation about trangenderism and the Green at some point in the future

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): There are male witches. Male practitioners. Anyone can be born a conduit to the Green. Whether the Green accesses that person is a different matter entirely. Glory Ann talks about it in BMAC. Mercy MIGHT have had a gift once, but she became so bitter and so unfit for it that that door closed.

11/06/2020
@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): steps out of the hedge

The Tabernacle of the Elder Covenant and the Undying Love and Grace people are two different groups. HH was not behind Barlo—he was in no shape to be. That's another figure entirely who you have not met face to face to face to face yet.

Y'all are doing some nice sleuthin' otherwise.

slithers back into the hedge

11/09/2020
@Frances K R (she/her): We haven't really seen him [Horned Head] explicitly lie since. (Although we've barely seen him )

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): Pokes head out of hedge thumbing through notes. Where are you getting that HH can't lie?

@ZombiStayDead: Oh that was me, he just seems the sort of character who sometimes can't lie in fiction and stuff. It's a trope that would fit his archetype, is all I meant. Then I realized I was definitely wrong when I remembered the first episode of the podcast.

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): Yeah, motherfucker IS a lie. a walking, talking, lie. He's arrogant, he's cocky. but that's not his true shape, or his true name. Y'all are bringing some sort of Fae nonsense to the woods. and he's NOT evil. Evil and Good are OUR concepts. Not TWSB. they know HUNGER. an angler/lantern fish doesn't moralize about how it tricks its prey; it just eats. When fandoms/common tropes bleed over your gonna find yourself surprised when the rules you invented in headcanon literally mean nothing in canon :/

@Frances K R (she/her): I get that labelling the Things as mean is largely a projection based on their effects (although really, Skint Tom having fun with hunting, that might be in the text there), but deer god, given what they do it's kind of hard not to react that way.

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): Hunger and avarice and all the things that come with it

@heckacentipede s/he (Eli): i love amoral Things that can easily be portrayed as "evil" but are truly morally neutral

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): when filtered through the souls of men, becomes evil, TO US. if there were no sentient (by our def) beings on the world they were imprisoned in, they'd jsut [sic] possess the strongest and breed it to be able to eat everything and find away to use that to feed them. but instead of an ocean full of sharks, they get a world full of complicated, anxious, overtly concerned and evolved primates, so they adapt. the evil come from US. they just want to eat.

[intervening chatter occurs here]

@Mavrick (he/him): Also, HH made by far the weakest "bid" for Mama Boggs' body, but he also staked almost nothing, so he came out the best of the four of them in the end.

@ZombiStayDead: Yeah he was like "Oh is that happening? Eh I know a guy who owes me a favor, maybe he'll pull it off." Broken Bough risked the most, having the tree cut down, and got outsmarted by a snake and a child.

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): I'd argue that HH made the most subtle play. Vernard was just stupid not to run his mouth about it grandiose terms. If he just said "I Bought a pretty patch of land to bury mama in," and then HH's team turned it into the Ziggarauts of the Fuck the Everything, then it could have happened. Old Copperhead probably was the biggest longshot—-corrupting Daniel, Daniel being a little bit gifted, him not fucking EVERYTHING up. Mercy's was probably the furthest from working, bc Deely is no fool.

@ZombiStayDead: Oh yeah definitely the most subtle. I would just consider it a weak bid because HH used Jack as a proxy, which was a huge risk to his chances. I guess you could say Jack was... A wildcard.

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): ....which is his nature. Jack is pragmatic. How do I keep this dumbass from buying this land? Well, dead people can't buy land. Simple. Bonk.

@ZombiStayDead: I mean. Occam's razor. And to his credit, it did work. Technically.

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): It did. and something that's never been mentioned. That Fancy Piece of Firewood that Glory Ann gave Vernard to use? all carved up with runes and sigils—to aid in the release of Jack from the meatsuit? yeah, that was a lie. Those were binding runes. every blow tied Jack DEEPER to the meat suit so he felt every second it was dying.

11/12/2020
@Dúbh_Siúlóirs: All the  bone  items (which I just found out are actually antler) - I have a strong feeling I know where they came from. As well as the Walker sisters; feel almost certainly to be descendents of the Good Daughter Dooley (although judging by the legendary status of the Witch Queen, she may yet live). Nadine's mother though? Unsure due to the hair color talked about, but there's clearly more Witches, Keepers of the Green around so....yeah.

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): Daughter Dooley has no descendents. We've been very public and very forthright about this. She's asexual and aromantic. Her line ends with her. I can promise you all right now, no one is ever going to be revealed as a secret daughter of or son of or anything tied to DD. Solitude suited her and that's how it stays.

12/13/2020
@doc (he/him): Here's a question: where's the Clutch in 1927? In 1902, the area around Baker's Gap is known as Rossville and the Clutch is not yet there, but the spot is a wellspring of hunger and oblivion in a deep-dippin' holler with a voice that comes from beneath. No mention of the Walker House being in the area yet. By 1917, it's Baker's Gap, the Clutch is not too far from but not too close to town, and the Walker House is in the Gap proper, also some distance from Town. At this point, there's no mention of the Reservoir. By 1927, we hear about the Walker House and the Reservoir around Death Island, but not the Clutch. Maybe, it's still there, just abandoned for 10 years since the Walkers closed down the Wolf Sisters. Maybe that old wellspring of oblivion now lies deep beneath the surface of the Reservoir, leaking into Baker Gap's drinking water supply. Or, maybe —- it being a little out-of-the-way spot that takes quite a while to get to from town, and which also has a special connection to the darker parts of supernatural —- maybe what used to be the dry land of the Clutch now sits on the shores of the Reservoir, surrounded on 3 sides by water put there by man, not by nature, known to the local boys as Death Island?

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): It's been ten years since the ghosts bound in the clutch were freed by Marcy and Ellie. Without their pain and the presence of practioners, there's no foothold for the TWSB to grab onto. The Green reclaimed that place and it healed.

01/15/2020
@Cornelia Marie: Last night I listened to the Interlude and The Boy. Not sure if this has been asked yet, but Roy and Missy Abshire, from the first part of The Boy, are they possible kin to Junebug, Debora, and Floyd. Dont know how I missed this after my second listen to episode 14

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): Absher. They are in fact kin, but it's not really of note. Meaning that Junebug's great Uncle Roy won't be coming to visit anytime soon or anyyhing. [sic]

01/17/2020
@Tempest2004: I always kinda wondered why The Boy visited Roy Absher. Yeah, he sent his boys into the mines, but the grief and regret he displays doesn't match that of Myrtle Hooper, Bobby Hamner or the men in Pocahontas Was it because Roy's boys wanted to see him again? Or was he just an easy target.

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): Great question. Roy knew better. He lost all his brothers in the mine. He lost his Daddy in the Mine. He knew what would happen to his boys and he took them there anyway. The Boy also isn't merciful. At all. In his mind Roy could never suffer enough. People like to anti-hero the boy a litttle[sic]—and while he's not a "Thing"—he's not a being that has an ounce of kindness or redemption left in him. I seriously doubt you'll ever get a pure origin story of The Boy—nor will you probably ever see him "Freed" from his need for vengeance. There's scary, awful stuff out in the woods and underneath the earth and we're responsible for some of it. We can't be surprised when it takes no prisoners and gives zero fs about collatral damage. and there is no "...just as bad as The Things" angle you could ever present to The Boy. I promise you, he does not care.

01/26/2021
@PackMentality: Just relistened to the season 2 prologue. Is the boy who died in that episode cowboy?

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): Yeah. I thought that was pretty clear. There was no way Copperhead was gonna let Daniel out of the deal alive. Daniel was dead the moment he entered into the bargain with something as low and capital P Petty as a snake that trades in secrets. Yes. Daniel was dyslexic and he was capital G Gifted, but his gift, being raised by such a stoic and bitter father without a counterbalancing love, like from his Mama basically made his gift Toxic. The same way Mercy's resentment and bitterness kept anything she might have had from manifesting. Fun Fact: When we started planning out BMAC, Daniel was supposed to be cunning and straight up "Fuck it, let's end the world" evil nihilist. When Jake Moore read the first lines I'd written for Daniel—it changed the way I saw the character and I dialled him down to misunderstood and misguided rather than sinister.. Great insights all around though y'all. Proud of ye.

02/14/2021
@Crochet Tiddies of Appalachia: I noticed it was really driven home in this ep that his [HH's] power is always a perversion of love. He takes images of the ones we hold dearest and uses them against us

@Tempest2004: Ooohhh, so the voices and feelings at the door to the house in Lonely Creek and what he showed DD are like a... defense mechanism? Like how an animal always has that one last method of fighting/hunting? If that makes sense. And because he was in his elemental form, that was his greatest weapon/defense.

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): Nah. That's just The House at The End of Lonely Creek. It's a bad place.

[some intervening chatter here]

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): The House at the End of Lonely Creek was a horrible place. It was a thing that got stuck in a backwater cycle of venom and evil and all kinds of stuff. It was like a crappy old house with a creepy pond out front. It was a living game of truth or dare that ate kids. Literally. That's what it did. It would appear in various places in super rural areas and lure kids who'd discover it in and eat them and move on. In the backstory of this last episode, HH found it, killed it—hollowed it out and made it his nest. His Borrowed Tomb so to speak.

02/15/2021
@aliciadenise: ok, so I understood it as her [DD] just being near, she could drain a life force, which is why so many people in Last Harbor started going down, not because she was touching them, but just because she was there. So in her confrontation w HH, I assume it’s because she’s literally sick and tired of his shit, that she’s able to bind him like the angrier she gets, the more she’s able to feed off his power

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): Her curse is an aura, skin to skin contact intensifies the transfer, as do elevated emotions. and she warned him in the original TWQ Episode about "Playing mummers with their faces" in terms of her mothers.

[chatter between here and the next rustle]

@Eli/Line (they/she): i think Land Ownership is a little too Human American Money of a concept to really have an impact on magic

[lots of chatter and theorizing on this concept; not necessary to understand the following, but fun to read if you're inclined.]

@Churlington Beesecoat (he/they): i think my read on those wards breaking is gonna stay "ms avery believed they held while the land was hers, and because of that, when the land was legally no longer hers, the wards were broken by her belief" until we have more data from which to draw a different conclusion

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): There's a LOT of complicated things involving land and mineral rights and identity and ownership in Appalachia, and that complicated relationship is tied to how magic works here. Short answer: Eddie Avery defied the company by finding land they hadn't bought yet and buying it and leaving it to Sheila Walker. He did certain things when he built the house that Sheila had taught him long, long ago when he was moving from place to place working—how to protect the little spaces that were his, if only for a little while. Carole Anne and her sisters marked and warded it better—but the ability to do that extended back to the fact that Eddie had owned the land and via his love for Shiela and the family and their connection to...the craft or however you wanna think of it—it held. Eddies dead. Sheila's Dead. Eddie's blood is dead. No one thought to put the land in Carol Anne's name. so basically all the wards, all the protection turned into scribbling on someone else's property, and all that was left was Carol Anne herself—as a Dead Man's Switch

[chatter about these rustles occurs here]

@Tempest2004: so wait. If Eddie bought land B&L didn't own yet, then Combs didn't have a legal right to it? Or did he not think it through?

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): the company was clearly very obviously going to buy them a new house and put them somewhere safe and not eat them and feed them to a ravening mouth of darkness and entropy. So Fun Fact, Barrow and Locke — Both families STARTED out as normal evil capitalists. they aren't that anymore. but they are still bound by the rules of such things. it's part of their curse—they get to play the game and feed the beasts and get goodies for doing so, but they have to play within their own convoluted and arcane rules of contracts and rights and business and money.

@Frances K R (she/her): What about the Grey Sisters? Have I been reaching with my "they seem to care about ownership", or do they care? And do they need to care? (And will I be denied answers, as is entirely reasonable?)

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): The Grey Ladies. They are not sisters. The Grey Ladies want revenge on the people that stole from their Master. The young woman in roanoke was given the chance to walk away. what was the difference between her and the ones that...weren't given that option.

@Frances K R (she/her): —the others were men.

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): Give that kinfolk a pumpkin. and also, they were getting very, very impatient. it took them from 1921-1935 to track down and locate the three biggest pieces of the lost crown they could find.

02/17/2021
@doc (he/him): Thank you. A well placed reminder. Ok, HH is talking about him and his fellow Deep Things being created for a purpose. Ok, yeah, that's not so much of a big reveal. I'm still fascinated by the implied-but-never-mentioned "They Who Imprisoned The Old Things", and what manner of magic springs from their realm.

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): Nope. he's talking about the whole collective kit and caboodle of TWSB. Remember what exactly those boogers are and what their purpose was. Also, I say explicitly in the very, very first episode TWSB are not evil, and they are not of Hell or the Chirstian Devil. They had a purpose. That purpose was delayed, for whatever reason by whatever/whoever put them under those mountains.

[chatter]

@Crochet Tiddies of Appalachia: I think there's a reason the servants of the green feel TDQ needs to be restrained. I think she's too much death. Too much vengeance. Too much rage. I love me some mountain justice. But I think TDQ is like the wolf sisters. In fact, isn't this the same Darla that was one of the leaders of the wolf sisters?? Her 'episode' that made her lose her voice.. She was overtaken by her shadow self from the magic mirror. She's not even herself anymore. This isn't a good cult. Lol I'm not sure there is such a thing.

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): Miss Darla is indeed the same Miss Darla from TWS.

02/19/2021

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): Some things I made



[the other things Steve puts here is the timeline.]

@doc (he/him): This makes sense. I still wanna emphasize that the Season 2 prologue, once understood in the context of the later episodes, says that Caleb dies in the pines of Death Island and should've stayed down, but didn't —- and he has some shame over this —- and that TDQ finds him there. I think it's very cool that TDQ is in Baker's Gap months before Frank Tilley dies ... those being the months when Brother Timothy's cult of the Good Mother is forming in the same area.

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): 1) I COULD Have said the wrong year on that episode about before Caleb blah blah.

I've been known to f up that way.

2) The cult will get more bg later on, but they've existed for a while, even pre The Speaker (T/E). Notice when The Speaker tells them they've FINALLY entered he Age of Reckoning. Some of them have been waiting for a while.

3) As I recall, Cowboy did not fully have his sight until after he died on Death Island bc the first person he 'sees' with it is his adopted dad

02/22/2021
@rauldouken: Does Sarah has any connection with DD? And how the items got into their previous owner hand?

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): Items? Ohhh, you mean the Items from Holiest Days. Oh yeah. There's a story there. Dunno if it's one we'll tell, but I know exactly how that happened :)

@Vic (she/they): I only just started the newest episode, but... AM I UNDERSTANDING THIS RIGHT THAT MELVIN KNOWS ABOUT THE CULT OF THE GOOD MOTHER AND WILLINGLY BROUGHT CORALEE THERE!? This adds a new layer to the web, to be sure....

@daddy max (they/them): My guess is that he knew about the encampment, but didn't know it was Good Mother, or didn't link Good Mother with TDQ.

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): Melvin is NOT a church going man. Ever. For any reason. So any driving out to the camp and picking up from camp would be just that. Melvin would never be interested in hearing a word any preacher of any sort would have to say.

03/17/2021
@daddy max (they/them): All the victims [at the Home] were girls. Was the home just for girls, or were there boys who just didn't get selected?

@clicheNuance (he/him): if i interpreted it correctly, it was a home for grown folks and children alike, so I imagine there were boys there too.

"... And gather what remainder had none, for further assistance and relocation... When they asked her if there was anyone she could go to.. they gave her a clean dress with a number pinned to it... Tents were set up to house the children and the women, which honestly was all there was about left, and arrangements were made for them to be taken to the Home."

[chatter]

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): ground rumbles One thing people shouldn't forget. HH is a monster. Monster. Capital M. He's not cuddly, nor kind, nor merciful. He exists to bring about the end of everything this world knows. Yes. He is a predator. No, he has no sense of morality. There are male practitioners. Lots of them. You just haven't met many yet.

@Salty Cryptid (they/them): I very much enjoy the distinction between lowercase M monster and capital M Monster

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): Horned Head is also not a He, even though HH exhibits a masc voice and persona. gender means nothing to the Things.

03/18/2021
@daddy max (they/them): Are all six boxes necessarily people? Is it possible that boxes 1 & 2 are children, and boxes 3-6 are used to divert attention

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): You all fixate on the weirdest things. The boxes were packed with the same things that went to market, with an extra package tucked inside. HH was scavenging at that point. He had no idea a descendent of a powerful bloodline was right under his nose or Sarah wouldn't have made it through the first night. Her interaction with TWQ/The Green protected her and masked her. He didn't know who or what she was until he was physically touching her

03/21/2021
@Tempest2004: Warning: this is just a spur of the moment notion and I am unfamiliar with classical naming conventions, so please be aware of accidental ignorance. When you says 'trans', could we potentially be talking about D.L. 'Dougie' Walker? Because as far as I know, 'Dougie' is usually short for Douglas and given how inclusive the show tends to be... Also, a quick google search also indicates that it's been used as a girl's name, so maybe I'm reaching.

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): I'll let @Cam 🖤Old Gods (she/they) address as this is her character

@Cam 🖤Old Gods (she/they): Dougie isn’t trans, but she is gay.

03/23/2021
@daddy max (they/them): Who was in the cars trying to run Kenneth Carter of Pineville, KY off the road in Bone & Shadow pt. 2?

[chatter]

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): I could ay agents of B&L. Or maybe no one at all.

03/26/2021
@Patty J (she/her): So, one of my friends has a theory that because Sam is blind but can see magic-ish and is so fearless and good that he is not actually a dog

[chatter]

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): Sam is a dog. Sam doesn't need to be anything other than a dog. Sam is a dog.

04/01/2021
@rauldouken: So i was thinking about one thing: the twsb are priosiners here but who put they here? I think is inconsequential but its good to pass time thinking about it

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): Not. inconsequential. at. all.

[chatter]

@Pidge: I just have to go ahead and declare myself Ignatius’ biggest fan. I really want to see more of him. I find him equally horrifying and humorous. The horrifying is self-explanatory. The humorous...Like, appearing as something that Obviously Wrong and Not Human and being like “this is easy. I am doing such a good job at this human thing. No one suspects a thing.” It makes me wonder how many other “lesser” things there are that can’t take human form

@Churlington Beesecoat (he/they): oh, most of 'em. i wouldnt be surprised if HH couldnt even manage it if he tried

@Pidge: How hard it is to pass for “of this world” definitely makes the ones who get close that much more unsettling.

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): Elder Henry was as close as HH got

04/08/2021
[I collated the messages about Pigiron for clarity; they were sprinkled throughout the rest]

@Frances K R (she/her): Would you believe it took me until now to factor in "the pig-thing ate three hollow men, that means it destroyed three Barrow minions, maybe I should consider that when trying to decide if he's Barrow or Locke?"

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): Remember, actual THINGS don't belong to Barrow or Locke. they would be more like...patrons. So either way, Barrow wanted to keep Pigman, or Pigiron as I called him in my head, happy. So he ate a few Hollow Men. big deal, they can make more. but the fact that he COULD

[chatter]

@Frances K R (she/her): Oh thank god for the Pigiron thing, I was worried it was just me. And yeah, that makes sense too! I wasn't thinking B&L owned Things, I was just...thinking of him as an extremely beefed-up (by comparison to the Hollow Men) singular version of the Grey Ladies.

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): Nah, he was a full on thing. Probably a reclusive one who had to be convinced to work with the Company

[chatter]

@Eli/Line (they/she): he died, didn't he?

@Frances K R (she/her): ...eh? I mean, his form disintegrated. Whether that's exactly the same thing...

@Eli/Line (they/she): I mean, I thought the Hollow Men said he was dead. But it is a Thing, so it's up in the air

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): His form. remember, things are just fragmented pieces of TWSB broken off and sent up to find ways out. You kill one, it's essence just goes back to the hive. some, like the swarm, have been remade a few times over. Old Copperhead' s on at least his 4th go-round.

@Eli (they/them): I don't know that much about Old Copperhead, but he seems a bit squishier than, for example HH

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): Well, when you keep getting set back to square one before you can become a true force of power/terror/object of a cult, etc, then you stay squishy.

@clicheNuance (he/him): following minute 23 of the new episode/the explanation of hollow men: the six men maybe being hollow men that got nabbed up by old horny before they could get refilled, as a matter of spite or just self-servitude? easier to steal than to bother making his own to ship off to daughter Dooley?

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): NOPE. The Sixmen are not Hollow men. The Sixmen are revenants or Low Things. Simlar tools employed. Hollow Men are living men emptied and converted into monsters.

@Pidge: I feel like there’s no real way to fit everything into a neat hierarchy and categorize everything because of the sheer number of forces at work here. Like it’s not necessarily all related.

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): The Sixmen were 6 poor dudes HH used his immortality but not really swindle on who can't die if they wanted to.

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): There are plennnty of connections to make, and sometimes there's just wild savage weirdness. For every carefully forged plan that Those Who SB create by manipulating captialists, racists and other easily led humans, there's that herd of swine that got a taste for human flesh and a Thing decided they'd be good modelling clay to build a body out of to eat people. Or there's an old man who heard voices in a cave and keeps bringing them half of his food as an offering, until it takes him, and then his town. Appalachia, and in turn our Appalachia, is a vast and wild place. Every little holler and county or region has their stories and their myths, and their lore, and The Things walk through those like a horny teenager through a Halloween Spirit store just puttin stuff on, trying to get noticed so they can get what they want from someone else while wearing a costume.

04/09/2021
@hvandermark44: Can anyone let me know what part of Pennsylvania was referenced in the most recent episode [A Bad Night for Hollow Men]?

@mxchief max (they/them): Barrow is fictional, so I think we'd have to ask @oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him) what part of the state it's in. but the Pennsylvania Dutch accent steve used was from northeastern PA, iirc

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): Mr. White was from near Amish Country. Barrow itsself is centered around Coal Hill where the first ever Bitumious mines were dug in PA. My accent was a little "just learning" level, but I was proud of the focus I got on the slang and the sentence structure

04/10/2021
@Churlington Beesecoat (1/ty): I particularly appreciate the mention, in either the prologue or episode 1, of how the first people to approach the montains could tell Something Was Fucky, and it wasn't til "other men, from the east and the north, arrived" that things went fully sideways.

[chatter]

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): our take is that the first people could tell, "nope. this is not a good place." and then the white people showed up and were like, "Oh, let us exploit the shit out of all of you and this and what? A pact with darkness that we think we can profit from? Sure. Sign us up. Oh, and we can dress it in religion?" They knew where to go and where not to go. One of my jumping off points is what Chief Dragging Canoe supposedly told Daniel Boone — that what he'd find beyond the Cumberland Gap was a "Dark and bloody land," and no one has gotten clarity on what he meant by that in actual history. Did he mean tribes had warred for the land, or it was disputed between tribes or that THEY would fight them for it? LOTS of misundestood or misappropriated stories and legends due to that statement, so I just took it and jumped off a cliff with it.

@ADMedievalist (she/her): But the coyote is Jack, yes?

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): In our world jack is the archetype of all trickster gods. Here he's jack, there he's anansi.

04/11/2021
@Pidge: Ok so I’m trying to remember the brief mention of Ignatius after Barlo. I think it was chronologically after Barlo and he’s referred to as having “too many nervous tics”

@Vic (she/they): Was he mentioned by Granny when she was listing off all the other Things? I can't rightly remember.

@Pidge: I don’t remember either. I thought he was mentioned in relation to showing up and trying to get another witch to let him on her land but I could be completely off base.

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): That's not a thing, no. Ignatius is in one episode. We meet him and he dies in Afterbirth. And to be totally clear, Ingatius Combes was the name of the body that The Swarm possessed. The Swarm was one of, if not THE first thing to break the surface. It connected with the life force of all the crawling creepy things and was HUGELY powerful until the others came.

04/13/2021
@Aperture Flash: Characters like [TRM] are some of my favorite to look at. I feel like literally the only reason that he's interested in helping the hollow men, is because that girl has stolen railroad property, whatever that watch is. The Hollow Men can be halfway through to the death fight with the Walker sisters, and if The Man from The Railroad sees the watch sitting on the ground, he might just bend over pick it up and walk away, because it then stops being his problem. Unless of course the walkers become a threat to the railroad.

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): Oh the watch isn't RR property. It's COMPANY properly. Barrow Company property—or so they think.

@Aperture Flash: I figured since they had stakes in the Railroad, it would Fall under his Umbrella...unless I'm misremembering that.

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): Oh i mean there's Lock Rail—but they're just a railroad line. TRM is THE RAILROAD. As in the concept, the idea, the genus loci. You know how Death, in many cultures is a dude in a robe with a scythe that stands as an avatar for all things life and death? Yeah, TRM is that but for early 20th century capitalism and industry.

04/19/2021
@Churlington Beesecoat (1/ty): ok but the REAL question: is what was mr pigginbotham's name that white was so scared of?

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): I would tell you but it would feel more like a physical blow.

@Vic (she/they): Oh, so a "name that sounds like Piggyboi but was not" scenario?

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): ALL of their names are like that, to one degree or another.

04/22/2021
@Quetz: I'm on Episode 20. Have I heard the name Evelyn before now..?? was she one of the werewolf group? I'm pretty sure "Darla" was.

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): The one and the same Miss Darla from TWS.

04/24/2021
@ADMedievalist (she/her): When TRM refers to a weregild, does he mean that the theft can only be paid for with a life?

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): Removing the watch from the Thing she stole it from returned him to the inner-dark at a vulnerable moment—-so the weregild would her her life paying for his life or loss of status—TRM is using it sort of sarcastically here, but means it all the same.

05/03/2021
@Pidge: Totally forgot about the whole implication in the first Bone and Shadow that Nadine’s dad is totally bi and in love with his butler

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): They were totally lovers. Just sayin' outloud. I said it back when that ep came out. Totally two dudes bein' lewd in the nude, ruff and tuff doin' stuff with food. And they loved each other very much

05/07/2021
@mxchief max (they/them): White says specifically "we need a barrow" and the accent from Pennsylvania, where the Barrow home office is.

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): The Hollow Men as cool as they are, are henchmen. While they are disposable. They are also not easily killed. Their forms are killable—and the further they are from the home office and the further they get from the control and source of their hollowing. Also, the further they are from the Coalfields, the more a roll of the dice their very existence can be.

05/17/2021
@Frances K R (she/her): I mean, some of the text is explicitly presented as hearsay and some of it isn't?

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): ALL OF THE TEXT IS HEARSAY. The entire frame of the show is you're being Told a Story. Am I realiable Narrator? Maybe. Maybe I've literally told you the answers to most of what you're asking, but just in my own way.

05/18/2021
@the railroad stan (they/them): yes i would say that TRM's "future-seeing" abilities seems limited to the death and blood spilled on the railroad and most likely in the 20th century alone seeing as that's what he's an avatar of yknow

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): You have to ask yourself, was he seeing the future? Or was he just reading the plan outloud?

@the railroad stan (they/them): my favourite thing of note is how he seems more aware of certain things after crouching down and tasting the ground

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): That quirk was fun. I think it has something to do with him manifesting that physical form. Like he figured out that input was the most fun or something.

@Fire Tarrasque (They/Them): I might say that TRM is an infant version of TWSB

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): Well he clearly doesn't need to eat. Oh no. TWSB are completely alien. They are outside us, they are beyond us. He is us. Just distilled through genocide, murder and something supernatural.

05/19/2021
@D (she/they): So, I’ve had a thought rolling around all day that’s probably been discussed ad nauseum by now, but it seems like banishings and bindings and the like all sorta start with stating that the thing is seen. That seems significant to me, particularly when one of the last things Cowboy said before we found out who he was and all that was “I see you."

@doc (he/him): Yeah, I’m pretty sure this is a new notion here. I’m curious about the same general set of questions from the point of view of how the authors’ experience with real world magical practice translates into how ritual is represented in the fictional world. (And, relevant to this channel: can our theorizing here then be informed by practices from, say, for example, real world Wicca or related traditions?)

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): Cam handles all of the structure and "What ritual should sound like" in our world. I just make it sound pretty when I can. I'm not a practitioner of any sort, that's Cam.

@Cam 🖤Old Gods (she/they): I will say that it’s definitely not informed by Wicca, but some other western traditions, yes, as well as traditional Appalachian folk magic/medicine practices. But (obviously) only to an extent bc this is fiction and real magic isn’t that, um… cinematic lol.

05/21/2021
@Pidge: I really feel like [TDQ] is the flip side of the green. A woman murdered and buried in the Dark Earth who became its avatar. You can’t have creation without decay.

@Fire Tarrasque (They/Them): I've never really gotten the idea that the Green is decay.

[discussion]

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): I don't why you all would think that decay isn't part of the green. If it happens within the natural cycle of life, it's of the green. The green is not all sunbeams rainbows and grumpy giant bears. The green is shredding rain and rotting trees. The green is falling rocks and cricks overflowing their banks trying to get back home and waterlogging and rotting everything in their path to get there.

07/03/2021
@Churlington Beesecoat (1/ty): i think i would put brother bartholomew, jack, and old sister in the same category, i just dont know how i feel about that category being Haints

[lengthy theorizing]

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): I've been pretty explicit about who Old Sister is. If you google her one defining feature, you get the Cherokee legend she's tied to. Bartholomew isn't anything. Bart is an avatar, a body, a skin—bear or human. For lack of a better way of saying it, Bart is a vehicle for The Green. He is the shape the green takes when it needs to directly intervene. As for the ritual. 2 pairs of each was enough for MAINTAINING the binding. What has to be done now is the same thing that was done initially when the witches and the dark came together the first time.

07/15/2021
@D (she/they): I wonder what Caleb would see if he really looked at Jack

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): Probably whatever Jack wanted him to see.

@Frances K R (she/her): I figure that since Sarah wasn't being chased by HH, I'm not yet betting that she was another case of the HH plot-to-infect-a-Green-attunable-human-with-evil.

@Beth (she/they): I doubt HH is the only scout.

[more discussion]

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): Just remember: y'all STILL ain't met the thing that orchestrated Barlo""@Frances K R (she/her): You can also look at how they turn out different. I mean, Sarah gets family and gets... un-lonelied? reintegrated? DD less so; although the Sixmen might be family-ish, they are static in a way Sarah's aren't.

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): The six men are corpses. They're empty shells with a battery made of darkness in them. Any personality they might seem to have is what DD projects on them.

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): But to answer a question the Elkins baby was never a baby. Maybe one day we'll tell the story about what was going on in last harbor before DD got there. But trust that baby never got that powerful it came into the world as an empty shell wrapped around something very very bad.

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): But I will say this and then I'm going to vanish: The thing that was behind Barlo not only laid out a plan to essentially offer up an entire town as a sacrifice it manipulated a supernatural independent being as powerful as the boy into being the match that lit the fuse.

@Vic (she/they): I think what's hanging me up is seven years passed, but the baby was still a baby. And it sounded more like someone dropped MechaBaby off on her doorstep rather than she being there when the babe was abandoned. But. I am very distracted by good vibes and bad vibes in turn, so. XD I'mma just console myself with a massive relisten.

@Cam 🖤Old Gods (she/they): DD and HH fought over that baby. This is the answer to the “but what happened to DD?” question people have been asking for a year. The baby isn’t aging bc it’s not a real child anymore. It’s a hollowed vessel. It’s the DEAD Queen. As for Bartholomew’s description of events, he told them the parts that are relevant for them to know. “She’s no one you need concern yourselves with.”

07/18/2021
@Jax: But in all seriousness, does that leave open the possibility that HH or some other thing is the babe's father? In The Holiest Days ep 3 HH makes no mention of who the father is and only refers to Doc G as a fool.

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): Yeah, there's no mystery there—I can answer that. Doc Gillespie was a servant of HH and was used as a human conduit to impregnate a gifted woman with a Thing that could be born of human flesh and be more solidly ground into the world and that's where the baby came from. He seduced the Elkins girl and gave her a baby made of the dark as it was channelled through him via HH and through HH via TWSB proper. Given that that little experiment brought about a force of nature that nearly brought the whole house down, the whole interbreeding thing probably won't be on TWSB's drawing board again.

Also, it's important to remember, that all the Things functioning as agents of TWSB on the surface are still part of the collective whole of TWSB. Fragments, shadows, seeds, etc of the inner darkness that has been pushed, wedged, snuck or burned into our side of the veil. If you destroy one outright, like what happened to Skint Tom, he is just sent back to the collective hivemend in the mountains to either be repurposed or just absorbed back into the collective host. As Things develop their own personality, their own agency, they are loathe to give up that form. Thus HH clinging to scraps of life rather than being sent back to the recycling center.

08/10/2021
@Luna (She/Her): No DD has no relationship to the Walkers, straight from the Hedges guiding whispers, "Not everything is related." I think its been tossed around a few times that he makes the scent comment becuase of how much green magic she has.

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): Newp. The smell like her line comes from the fact that Sarah channeled The Witch Queen's magic and voice in episode 2.5, but that was when DD was going to be less of a character and more of demi-god that we almost never met. But then the response to her as a character was so big that I wrote the DOUBT episode. We had like a couple of hundred listeners then, so that moment is confusing. BUT, to be clear again, The Walkers are not descendents of DD. Sarah shared a magical connection with DD through time and distance and etc that I will one day have to explain, but that day is not today. It's kind of like Martian Manhunter being in those early episodes of Sandman, it was something that was an early attempt at the story that eventually changed.

08/17/2021
@Krit (they/them): Just me thinking about Caleb... And how dreaming about cows was the last thing he did before he first saw her and it all happened. The last happy memory he had was a dream that his family had a nice farm with chickens and cows, and when everything else was gone, he knew he liked the cows.

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): Fun fact, Cam accidentally named him Cowboy. We were talking about giving him another C name or a K name to match Caleb, but Cam said "You could just call him Cowboy if they're gonna find him out with the cows, as a joke. It stuck.

08/23/2021
@doc (he/him): I’m between two ideas on the wolf of Death Island: either some kind of manifestation triggered by cowleb’s death, like you say above, or TDQ was actually lurking about Death Island herself and summoned it up to bounce Not Curt’s Daddy.

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): So the Dead Queen's summoming power. She constructs things out of what ever is under the earth where she stands and frankesteins it into horror. When She blessed/cursed Caleb, she reached out with a protection charm, which the Child twisted into am immortality binding. DD tried to give him a protective aura of sorts, the Child twisted that into something that would not only protect Cowboy/Caleb but probably slaughter everyone around him. When that ward was triggered on Death Island, a place that was filled with deep magic before any boys every played there, and only fed and enriched by the generations of boys who gave their life energy and hearts and love to a place—the magic summoned The Wolf—a construct amplified by all the love on the island but still a force of guardianship and destruction. Fortunately it had a target in The Thing That Wasn't Curt's Daddy. All of the monstrosities created by TDQ's necro-rector-set powers are totally depenedent on the corpses she has access too. The things under the lake were older and bigger. You'll find out more about Cowboy in time.

09/01/2021
@Wrennn (they/them): We also have to remember that it's been said that there are different powers out there too, it's not just TWSB vs. The Green, so it's completely possible for something to exist outside of those two and have enough power to be able to imprison TWSB.

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): The green was already here. TWSB was imprisoned by something else entirely.

09/22/2021
@Churlington Beesecoat (1/ty): [Brother Bartholomew is] sort of analogous to TDQ, in the sense that he's as close as you can get to a physical manifestation of the Green.

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): TDQ isn't JUST a mainfestation of TWSB though. Brother B would be more of a head to head with HH or GW. The Green just doesn't spread itsself as thin as the Inner-Dark, of course, the green can operate freely pretty much and isnt trying to escape a prison.

10/03/2021
@clicheNuance (he/him): Hej-hej! (Spoilers! This entire comment is spoilers!) I was actually the person who pulled Steve's ear about the moon lol, he explained it around the time of the live readings last year in the patreon channel. that being said, Jacob Erskin isn't Inherently/explicitly one of The Boy's boys; he's just named as the boy who was in the stable at Avalon when everything was up in flames (see: Do You Think You're Dreaming Now, Bobby?). And the last thing I bore ear-based witness to was part 2 of What Happened With The Man From The Railroad & The Local Magistrate, so yes, am.. basically there. Maybe they're cousins /j Either way, I just thought it was funny

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): Erskin and Erskine are two different last names where I'm from. And Mr. Erskine of the Hollow Men's first name is Abel. As Mr. White calls him. Jacob Erskin died in Avalon and walks among the boy's legion as a burned black cornhusk of a boy. He doesn't talk. He looks back toward home occasionally, but he travels with the boy especially if there is fire to bring. Abel Erskine was a man full grown, and a lifetime criminal and arsonist by the time he took a job with B&L as a personal assistant and security detail for some of the middle managers of the expansion south and westward. Abel Erskine, overall, was a horrible man who was convinced he was wronged by the orphanage he was rasied in, so he burned it down. There was, in fact, so little humanity left in him by the time he applied for his job in the years before he was hollowed, many in the home office were shocked that TWSB hadn't called for him personally already. He was responsible for many, many burned schools, churches and hospitals in the name of his vengeance and of course for cold hard cash. He does not have a brother named Caine.

10/12/2021
@Vic (she/they): Made a whoops, but over in patreon chat it is said from The Hedge Evelyn/Timothy are genderfluid.

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): Yes. This. I workshopped the character with a whole mess of NB and GF folks bc I wanted to be super careful and respectful with The Speaker. But they are genderfluid and are based on a childhood friend. I'm sure I didn't get them exactly right for everyone, but we take writing folks who aren't us each individually very seriously and they get passed through many beta-reads and consultations before they get to the show. Their explanation of when they feel which name they go by is directly inspired by a conversation I had with that friend a long, long time ago. Hope this helps.

@Quetz: Well [Darla] didn't have a voice at all when last we "heard" from her, so it'll be interesting to hear how she procures a new one.....yeah I'm not asking for spoilers; I'm just so stoked to hear about how she lost it. like did the shadow take it??? How did she not die?? (don't answer)

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): Yes, I will answer that. The shadow took it. The mirror purged her of many things; the side effect was her voice.

@Quetz: Interesting. I thought the shadow was going to take HER when I heard the episode, so it was a surprise to see her again 10 years later. Was it ultimately a good thing for her to run into that shadow? Like for her personally.

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): Oh I wouldn't go that far. But that's a different story for a different time.

10/14/2021
@The Acolyte of The Bone Holders: But will DD ever have any apprentices/proteges?

@Vic (she/they): Brain gremlin response: Who you think taught everyone The Bindings?

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): The bindings and the magic tied to them is far older than any young girl come to the colonies.

@Vic (she/they): I assumed so. But we also have some proof that HH taught DD some of the "old magic", as implied by the S1 Finale. I wasn't saying that DD is the reason magic has endured in Appalachia or anything like that, but I do get the impression she kinds just....hangs out and offers advice/lessons to those who know where to find her and truly have a need of these lessons. Not always in grand plot-driven ways, but just because she's one of the Two Queens and Knows Some Shit. But the flip side is I fully accept this isn't really backed up narratively anywhere, so ehhhh.

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): oooohhh — no no nonono. The things DD learned from HH and his tutors are NOT the old ways. That's dark shit powered by TWSB, or shades of the green that have been perverted maybe. Also you might notice, none of our characters know wtf she is. None of them connect dots back to "The Dooley Girl" or "The Witch Queen." The Dead Queen has a name bc she's made herself known, killed lots of people, etc.

11/02/2021
@Exilegreen: Speculation — so if there is a Barrow involved in the CVA in the 70s, that either means that the Barrows either got their hooks into that organisation from its founding as a side-deal to B&L in the 30s, or they jumped ship later on in the timeline (maybe when B&L goes under), right? That is unless B&L itself comes to a very rapid end shortly after 1927/8 main timeline events of S2. Big time speculation: maybe the onset of the Great Depression itself kills off the corporation B&L, so the families themselves move on to the CVA?

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): Bold of you to think they didn't cause The Great Depression.

@Mavrick (he/him): When was a Barrow mentioned? I must have missed that part.

@Vic (she/they): The owner of CVA was a Kyle Barrow, if I'm not mistaken.

@Cam 🖤Old Gods (she/they):

No one said that was the owner. The CVA is a government entity.

@Cam 🖤Old Gods (she/they): No one said that was the owner. The CVA is a government entity. Also our show has ALWAYS s kipped around through time. You’re surprised I set an episode in 1975 when in S1 we flip flop among three different centuries?

11/30/2021
@doc (he/him): How long have folks been worshiping the Good Mother like this? When did this group come together? The DQ has only recently been walking when we meet the Church in 1927, but Mother’s been around for what, like 130 years or thereabouts. Has Team Green ever had to deal with them before? Where do their beliefs come from? “The Age of Reckoning”? Misunderstood overheard witch talk? Or they get dreams from TDQ? Or DD? Or HH? Etc. I got questions.

@Cam 🖤Old Gods (she/they): They are cultists. There is no “Good Mother.” There is the Dead Queen, and she’s fucking bad news. They’ve made up their BS just like other cultists do. Sorry but just bc DD occasionally manages to manipulate things to punish shitheads doesn’t make the DQ “good.”

@Theme-Incorrect Cartoon Horse: DQ isn't /)Good(\ but the Crazy Cult is pretty well-informed regarding her particulars, then spun hard enough to make a BeyBlade tournament say 'Whoa slow down'. ... So how do they know all that stuff?

@oldsteveofappalachia (He/Him): TDQ is powered by a scion of TWSB which can send all sorts of visions and miracles and other such things in dreams and happenings. When a figure doing miracles and promising justice to folks who've pretty much been perpetually wronged and hurt by the world shows up and actually does stuff, people will believe. How did any mortal prophet who founded a contemporary sect of an American church know anything? Alice B White? Joeseph Smith? Those kind of folks have very convienient revelations from a God that seems to take their side in most conflicts.