Hello, and welcome to the Mistholme Museum of Mystery, Morbidity, and Mortality. This Audio Tour Guide is aware that this is your first visit to the museum! On behalf of the Museum: Welcome! It’s a pleasure to have you with us here today. The Audio Tour Guide will be your window into the history of the museum and its exhibits today. If you would like an introduction to how the museum works, please continue breathing normally. Fantastic!
This Audio Tour guide will pipe up every time you approach one of our exhibits with up-to-date information on the nature and history of this exhibit. Many of our exhibits consist of items with mysterious or mystical histories- which we refer to as “Alternatural Items” and this guide will relay that history to you without embellishment or editorialisation. Most museums make do with pre-recorded audio guides, or by simply printing out details and putting them on the wall near exhibits; here, however, the details surrounding some exhibits tend to shift or develop a bit too much for such a rigid system, whereas some others cannot under any circumstances be in close proximity to the written word. So, the clever folks in the Patronage department came up with this system, where our guests simply download a copy of the Tour Guide and get live commentary on all our exhibits, as well as live announcements and/ or security alerts all in the one place.
Please note, that if you notice your version of the Audio Tour Guide behaving oddly, kindly ensure that you dispose of your Audio Device in the nearest incinerator at the earliest convenience.
Where do I even begin?
I happened to get curious about this one. I saw the name in passing and thought it sounded interesting, so I gave it a listen. I shoved it down my gullet so fast that I fear that I may not digest it as well as I had hoped.
I have fallen hopelessly in love with this audio drama. It starts with just enjoying the flavor of stories. Not everything is necessarily horror— some stories make you laugh, some stories weave in the the slowly growing narrative, and some stories are born from the stories that the Audio Tour Guide experiences itself.
And then one starts noticing that representation is so easy flowing in the podcast. People are queer, gender non-conforming, a variety of races, a variety of people. This is easily the first podcast I’ve heard where the main character is not only using it/its, but definitively states that it has no gender. And it’s far from the only one with no gender! People just exist so easily that sometimes one doesn’t even notice the flow of pronouns.
The podcast is fairly accessible as well! It has a transcript (here) and clear trigger warnings on each small story.
The story is so wonderful. The listener has time to fall in love with the characters, and obviously the most beloved is the Audio Tour Guide. It develops the self-awareness it needs to realize what is happening around it and tries to save the museum… catastrophically.
Things get wild from there.
Please please please listen to it.
