You are a violent and irrepressible miracle

Hey everyone, it's Pacific!

Every year I write a Birthday Blog where I reflect on reflect on the year, all the things I've done, and what's coming next. You can check out last year's blog, "28 & Cooking"

Last year on my birthday, it felt like everything was ahead of me and I was waiting. Waiting for my wedding, my honeymoon, waiting to announce this project or to start that new idea. Last year seems so far away, like I've lived a whole lifetime in the last year.

First, since last year I got married, it was a wonderful day, week, and month. We had friends and family fly out from all over the world (with our furthest guests flying in from Europe)! Six months later, Syd & I traveled to Prague for our honeymoon, which was equally magical. And now, approaching our eighth anniversary (and first year of marriage) it feels like all these memories slipped by too fast for me to really grasp. But it's been an incredible year.

But what about work stuff?! Surely I've done some cool creative things in between all the big life milestones, right!? Yeah, man! I have!

First, back in April it was announced that I'll be creating a new fiction podcast with John Carpenter. It's too early to talk about it yet, but I'm incredibly excited about the idea, and I can't wait to sink my teeth into it!

Then, we launched Season 3 of Mayfair Watchers Society back in November. Also I just discovered Mayfair Watchers Society has a TV Tropes page?! Sorry, big moment for me, I basically grew up on TV Tropes reading all the cliches and devices used across my favorite shows.

SCP chugged on, as always, and we even broke from format to release twelve episode of Situationally Comedic People, our workplace comedy mini-series written by Hannah Schooner & Giancarlo Herrera.

The Really Big Thing

If you read my Birthday Blog last year, I teased a new project, American Abyss. So now it's time to tell you about American Abyss. Are you ready?

A little over three years ago, I approached my colleague Ben Counter (Out of Place, Warhammer 40k, Project SERAPIS) and asked him what he wanted to make next. He pitched me an idea, and we work shopped it, let it rest, totally reworked it, and eventually we landed on something really exciting. We were going to create a new "weird zone" fiction podcast, inspired by Roadside Picnic, S.T.A.L.K.E.R., Annihilation, and Pacific Drive.

But– Around the same time, I was trying to solve a problem with my podcasts. Advertising our shows online has always been an uphill battle, for a very simple reason: Fiction podcasts are an audio medium and the internet is a visual landscape. For a long time, my solution was to just promote on other podcasts in trailers and feed drops. And despite the odds, we did find a big audience (that's you)! But the prospect of starting from scratch and trying to hit that kinda luck again felt like a long shot. So, I set out to make a podcast with visuals (not a movie, I promise). But, as the project evolved, I didn't want to limit our storytelling to just audio. And it grew and grew and grew. And now, three years later, I'm excited to share American Abyss with you.

American Abyss is a multi-media internet horror project consisting of short stories, artwork, audio clips, and a podcast. Each of these small parts aim to give a glimpse into the world of the Palmyra Exclusion Zone. This world is hand crafted for folks who like to read the item descriptions in Souls games, or watch long lore videos. The closest approximation is something like Mystery Flesh Pit National Park, or Welcome Home (but with a podcast and a zine slapped on).

This all brings me to the next exciting (and nerve wracking) part of this announcement. We need your help to make American Abyss. We've put in a lot of work into this project, and we have about the first 4-5 months of content done. But we have a lot more story to tell. So here's what we're going to do:

Our Kickstarter launches on August 21

In the month between now and launch, we'll be uploading the first month-ish of content for you to listen to, including:

two podcast episodes

weekly artwork

and some "artifacts" recovered from the zone

Please help us spread the word by following our new project on social media, and reblogging our artwork! We're on Discord, Tumblr, BlueSky, Instagram, and YouTube

But that's not it! It's my birthday, so I come bearing gifts (That's how it works, right?) The first podcast episode is available right now on Youtube and so is the first artwork/artifact (and a couple of other smaller ones).

American Abyss is a team effort. And boy oh boy, do we have a killer team. Check it out:

Trevor Henderson (Siren Head, Cartoon Cat)

Eduardo Valdés-Hevia (Book of Bill, Home Safety Hotline)

Trevor Roberts  (Mystery Flesh Pit National Park)

Ben Counter (Warhammer 40k, Out of Place)

Nic Boone  (Dead by Daylight, League of Legends)

Mattie roi Berger (Fall of the House of Sunshine, SCP Archives)

Kayla Temshiv (Something's Amiss at Juniper's House)

Kieu (Dust & Dread comic)

Michael J. Fielding (Breathing Space, The Dead)

Mary Verhoeven (Teleportation and Other Luxuries)

Carolina Valdés-Hevia (Horror writer extraordinaire)

Hannah Schooner (Situationally Comedic Persons, Dungeons & Drumbus)

Jesse Hall (Tales of Thattown, Jesse's Lockbox Anthology)

Marisa E. Cardin (Jax Cassaway novels, Mayfair Watchers Society)

and Pacific S. Obadiah (that's me)! 

Something foul grew within our city, it poisoned the water in the well. Out of the festering growth, a homegrown militia with stockpiled weapons emerged. The Federal government rushed in to contain the tendrils of insurrection, but they failed. The rot went deeper than they realized. A botched raid turned into an all out civil war. As explosions and fighting rocked the city, the National Guard was summoned to facilitate an evacuation. Endless fighting engulfed the streets, and you and I were caught in the crossfire.

Then, one night, "The Flash." Stars cascaded out of the sky, leaving behind streaks that burned bright and brighter. Until the entire city was subsumed in light. As quickly as it came, the light vanished, leaving behind only uncertainty. Chaos followed. No one knew if this was some new horrible weapon, or an unseen phenomenon. That night was one of the longest of our lives.

In the morning, we woke up, expecting evacuation, only to find that the city was cordoned, quarantined, cut off. Communities were ripped apart as the border wall fell between them. You ventured out, with the noble pursuit to protect our neighbors. I asked you to stay. I don't know if you heard me. And then the power went out. I tried to find some comfort in the silence. The momentary ceasefire.

But in the darkness, I only found your empty shape. I ventured out into the night to return you to me- But I left too late. I searched. And I searched. But you were always out of reach. And I was so scared, and so tired. I returned home, and hoped that soon you would too.

You didn't.