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smimon · 3 months

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The other promised personal post, this one about my self-discovery that I completed last year and in the result gained a weirdly powerful feel, like when Eragon found his true name if you know what I mean

Three main paths: art, brain training, isolation.

1. Art

Art was something I always loved, of course all kids do art but I never stopped. I kept making up characters and settings and stories and theme songs and game designs. I did my first zine at like 6 years old lol.

Living in capitalism meant that the most attractive stories were beyond my reach for financial reasons, so out of disappointment I decided to start telling my own stories, as if that was hard. This was all very early in my life and I believe I was always meant to be an artist and storyteller, and the skills I gained only helped me later.

Like when things started to get more difficult around middle school. When family started demanding and gave nothing back anymore. When the only protector I had left me alone to pursue a career, repeating that if they can handle it, I can too - but I was still a child.

When it was forbidden to talk, feel and hurt, I kept creating. Losing myself in fiction, which years later turned out to be much less fictional than it seemed. Most of my writing was about myself this whole time. I was scared someone might find out so I concealed the message so deep that I alone couldn't see it anymore.

And new stories kept coming, I kept drawing, the XP I gained brought improvement. Never completing anything but always creating something new, finding endless joy in rotating the blorbos in my head. And this continues until today.

Many many times I had doubts if it's all worth anything, a devil telling me I should drop art. And always some inner force pushing me back to the drawing desk. So many times I had to ask myself the question: why do I keep making art? And finally, very recently, I have found the answer.

I am an artist. Artists make art. It's that simple.

2. Brain training

Similar to other body parts, brain can be trained. Solving puzzles, finding patterns, learning, math, there are many ways.

For me it was trying to understand my family.

Recognizing patterns level hard. Predicting what will happen. Inventing ways to protect myself. Teaching myself to do things no one would explain to me but everyone demanded me to know.

School was easy compared to this. Studying gave results in a short term, sometimes it was even fun. Teachers noticed and behaved as if it was their success. Other kids' parents noticed and started bullying their children to get the same results, because if I can do it, why can't they? They were not abusive enough to trigger a similar mechanism, but abusive enough to make their children hate me.

But I haven't noticed. I had a few friends and did not even notice everyone else was against me. This was my elementary and middle school, and then at high school the level was much more even so I could be more invisible.

All the time I tried to figure out my family, and they kept surprising me. All the time I could get good grades, and felt like this is the only thing I am good at.

But as Master's degree approached, I had to accept this can't continue forever, that I am not smart enough to get a PhD. That after graduating I will have to start a job, live a normal life, do things I never learned. I was sure I will die within months, but hey, it's been years already and it only gets easier!

My true victory came just a few years after. I have finally realized there is no way to understand my family because they are simply irrational.

That's it! I am free now! High-fiving all the mathematicians who proved a problem to be unsolvable because hey, that's an accomplishment too!!!

3. Isolation

Introverted by nature, I don't like to spend too much time with people, especially the same people over and over again. Especially my family. Three days is my limit.

And I was tied to them all my life. So when I finally moved out, the sudden experience of freedom overwhelmed me. I did not want to give it away until I get saturated with how good it feels to be alone. Also, gaining distance feom my abusers allowed healing to start. But before that, long hours of remembering and understanding and grieving. Gaining courage to finally meet myself, discover who I am. Forget who I was supposed to be. A journey of self-discovery that brought peace and hope and skill and confidence.

But I am still human. Humans are social animals. I need some contact every now or then or I go insane.

For a few years, I used pokemon go. Going to raid hour every week. But everyone was busy playing so the contact was very shallow.

I started going to fandom conventions trying to relive the same kind of wonder I felt as a teenager. It is different this time, of course. I got used to the fun parts. Nothing seems as impressive as earlier. But even then, I felt like this is my place, and my kind if people. I only needed a way to connect.

Then Käärijä happened, of course. Suddenly I had a thought: the biggest fandom convention in the country doesn't have much to offer for me, but maybe I can do something crazy, maybe I can make this event a bit more me-friendly. I returned to fb after years of break to ask on groups if there are any Käärijä fans willing to meet up.

And they were. It only gets crazier from there.

I started talking to some of them. One suggested a Frank fanclub because we all had some Frank gadgets. I designed a sticker. I designed another one. I organized three meetups, day after day. People came. I made friends. A group chat was founded. Was it me who did it?

Then another crazy idea. Make more stickers. Repeat this at other conventions. And so my convention tour started. With many many stickers.

And then I start a daily Käärijä sketchbook. And then I find friends through the stickers. And then I find friends throught the art. And then the friends warm my heart and break it open and put a foot inside so it doesn't close back too soon.

And I realize I am not alone.

Okay?

So I am an artist, I stubbornly forced my way through my early years and ended up with a pretty cool job, and now I get just enough money and independence to decide how to spend time with people who are in general pretty amazing after all ✌️ still no idea what I want next but I am really happy I made it to here

#diary post #vent post #yeah it's. it's all connected #my biggest accomplishment is figuring it all out #truth does hurt but in the end gives freedom #semira origin story

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copyspaghetti · 7 months

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Here is the preview for my zine piece in the One And Only One mobreimob zine! I also have an age swap story for the hardcore zine for anyone who likes my age swap AUs

You can find the zine on twitter and here on tumblr @mobreimobzine

[ID: A black background with a white speech bubble to the left. The speech bubble reads "Shishou's arm rested heavy around him; a good thing, or he'd lose his balance. // Studying took priority over sleep, and every other part of life. The Body Improvement Club, going strong with new recruits, hadn't seen a trace of him. Nightmares of unsolvable equations plagued the few hours of shut eye he got. No rest, no relief, psyche wound up like an egg clock ticking towards certain doom. // Mob was a bubble ready to burst. // 'Alright, strip!'", an excerpt from the story in the main zine. The speech bubble is coming from a white silhouette of Mob. On the black background over Mob's head is golden text reading "Copyspaghetti" followed by white text reading "WRITER PREVIEW". To the right of him is the Tumblr logo with the text "@copyspaghetti". In the bottom right corner is white text reading "MOBREIMOB ZINE". /End ID]

#copyspaghetti writing #mobreimob zine #reimob #mobreimob #reimobrei #mobu saiko 100 #profic #proship #comship #one and only one zine

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trans-ylvania · 1 year

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okok ill put it in an actual card later but here's my 2023 bingo predictions

porn unbanned

another silly goofy show/musical theater production about slaveowners and/or serial killers because why not

t*ump faces actual consequence for once in his life

someone who knows gerard uses they/them and/or she/her pronouns for them

MCR INTERVIEW

MCR ALBUM

another star wars/marvel movie

barbie 2023 is epically good/terrible

barbie 2023 sparks a new gentleminons

one direction reunion

new social media to replace twitter

speak now taylors version

tumblr under threat

big supernatural occurrence confirmed (aliens? bigfoot?)

phoebe bridgers paul mescal breakup (bonus points for phoebe bridgers/bo burnham because i literally do not know what i would do w myself)

social media influencer actually goes to jail

brendon urie's child has a very unfortunate name (literally what goes well with 'urie' that poor child)

nfts banned somewhere (canada?)

starbucks unionization

some completely unrelated republican fuckshit happens on jan 6

famous unsolved murder solved (black dahlia, jack the ripper)

new disease

roe v wade restored

child of family vloggers writes an expose and laws are passed about it

my mom sold me to one direction netflix movie (but w a made-up band name) (it would be sick if one direction - see above prediction about their return - actually agreed to it though)

phoebe bridgers makes an new album and it ruins my life

i go to a concert

JEMILY

BYLER? (its been my hyperfixation for years gimme a break)

new unhinged plastic surgery

instagram subscription service

bare minimum 'activism' (black squares)

elon sells twitter

pete davidson + grimes

i get a good hairstyle for once

i make some new friends

new zine(s) :)

i figure out how to sell things online for i am an old man

i post some more of my writing/analysis/essays

identity crisis, name and/or pronouns change

#clem talks

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actingwithportals · 2 years

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Bear These Melodies Wherever They Go

Aaaaand the other thing I made for the @travelers-encore-zine ! I am going to go sleep for three months now.

They had said it called like the bowing of a string, its song one of endless rain.

You were there to raise your head and witness those first pulses, to feel the distant light as its rays beckoned your people forth; beyond the trees, beyond the rivers, achingly forward into darkness unknowing.

You were there to crumble to your knees when blazing flames licked outstretched palms unguarded in their eager wonder, reckless abandon leaving you all but blinded ‘til those sores finally burst, angrily raw and weeping regrets.

You were there to look on in resigned acceptance as the beams of that sanctuary fell. Felt in your bones and the phantom fractures of adolescent antlers never given hope to sprout anew as its wooden walls crackled and split, aspen disintegrating to ash.

Not a single face had shed tears for these fallen trees — not like the rivers that had been wept before (you did your best to hide any of your own that dared to prickle at your eyes). And by the time those floods had finally caught up to your kin, the reservoirs you kept hidden away in secret had all but run dry.

(Not that your elders would’ve noticed. Not that they could. Long had it been since you so easily garnered their attentions undivided, for better or worse.)

Perhaps that is why, when all manner of whispers around you spoke only with longings for a distant dream, you found yourself met with a wakefulness the likes of which your bones had never before tasted.

You could still hear the bowing string. And the flames which had been summoned to stifle its song only left your desire to harmonize all the more ignited.

The universe was not yet ready for you to sleep.

A crescendo had set up residence in your mind, erring ever closer to its zenith.

It echoed just behind your eyes, thrumming warbles punctuated with the pulsations of that string’s steady beat. Though the melody still played the same tune as it did all those years ago, all those lifetimes ago, the earnest meter with which the Eye called to you had now set your feathers to quiver beyond what any grand curiosity could have ever produced before.

There was more than just an intriguing unknown on the other side of that waiting void. You knew the crescendo would not cease its climb until the source of that rhythm was found. And who were you to demand its perpetual rise without relief?

When you woke from that dream, when you set out on that march that you knew could only foster aches deeper than those you had already endured (for this was not a journey that would be shared with fellows at your side — you stood alone on this precipice), it was not an allure of mysteries unsolved which quickened your step. It was not that promise of something more that you could take with your own hands which spurred you into action.

It was the hope of a song allowed an end. Of hands and voices granted rest well-deserved. Of melodies freely offered their inevitable conclusion, long-awaited and desperately craved. All so that one day the song may rise again. Played with a new tune, sung at a new pitch. And all the more beautiful for its title of debut rather than encore.

You’ve had enough of encores, you think.

As you grasped the controls that would return to the Eye its voice, you let yourself imagine for a moment what it would be like to hear your own melody played back to you by the stars, orchestrated by something new, your own hands finally allowed their respite.

And so you turned the lever.

Reason to hope is not guaranteed in this life. No matter how much you reach for it, cling to it, desperately cry out for any chance that someone in the dark might echo in response, there is never a promise of an answer. You knew this. You know this. And yet you cried out anyway.

You don’t think you’ve ever truly learned how to stop.

The Eye’s song does not reach you here, but you recall it nonetheless. You play it until your fingers crack and split against your instrument’s strings, until your throat is left jagged and worn as the last remnant warbles of your voice putter out into silent wails.

No voice echoes back. Perhaps there are simply no more voices left.

The universe does not promise you a reason to hope. Neither did the Eye. But yet...you find yourself still holding onto it. As lifetimes stretch into eons, you hold onto it like there is nothing else upon which you may cling.

And as long as hope is all that you have, you will keep that melody by your side. Until the stars wither and die and you are left the only one to play.

At least you had been brave enough to learn this song at all.

Too seek out and to understand. These are the principles that your people hold most dear.

On the surface, you do not think this to be such a terrible way to live. Seeking leads to new discoveries, new homes, new friends, new information gained and experience acquired — all to the furtherment of a life lived well. Understanding leads to taking all that you’ve discovered and making sense of it, not only for your own benefit but for the benefit of everything and everyone touched by your presence. This is the philosophy that Nomai have adhered to for as long as you imagine Nomai have existed. It is a good philosophy to hold.

But sometimes, in the pursuit of seeking and understanding, not everyone is bettered by the endeavor. Sometimes tragedies happen, and those who remain standing in their wake are left to wonder what purposes such pains could serve, if there are even purposes to be found in them at all.

(There was a time in your childhood when you questioned whether or not seeking and understanding could really be worth all those pains. You didn’t think “pain” was something that could be understood.)

Like every other Nomai in your clan, you had grown up hearing retellings of the Eye’s call. The song which your ancestors followed from beyond distant stars so that they could learn to understand— it is a rhythm you know well, that you all know well. The very walls of your homes are built to echo it. And even as children you are taught how to sing back in response, how notes can be crafted amongst the calculations of numbers, the hewing and warping of stone, even the hum of electricity manipulated most eloquently by those with hands and minds skilled enough to comprehend its language, who speak earnestly of how the very atoms of matter recite their own contributions to the symphony.

All the world is designed to sing. To live is to join and play alongside.

But that song does not always ring with joy. Sometimes the melody dips into sorrow, into that pain you swore could not be understood. The dissonance your younger self found in this reality was so jarring to all you’d been taught that for a long time it felt as if only you had found the antithetical truth: that what the Eye sings is not a tune constructed with love in mind. That maybe the universe only beckons your voices join so that it might take them for its own, until you’re left with no voice at all.

There were days when that song felt more a burden than a hope.

But you strove to learn it, anyways. Because to seek and to understand are what Nomai do. And despite all of the uncertainties that surrounded your childhood, you were at least certain of this.

You couldn’t deny, however, that sometimes understanding felt less like finding the correct order of a harmonic scale and more like the notes themselves were being ripped apart and distorted by the black hole that rested below your feet in the home you relocated to in Brittle Hollow during your years of schooling. Sometimes you would think that understanding was a lot harder than Conoy had usually led you to believe.

You worried for a time that maybe the problem was you. That maybe there were notes just beyond your reach that no one else was impaired from comprehending. The thought terrified you almost as much as the thought of the Eye’s potential malice. It was a difficult thought to accept, and an even more difficult one to ignore.

But there were days when you would see Conoy encounter a problem he couldn’t easily parse. And yet despite the ensuing nights that kept him awake with confusion, frustration, and repeated trials and errors, that lack of understanding did always reach an end.

Problems do not remain evasive forever. Eventually, solutions can be found. Maybe it was those reminders that kept you steady enough to continue picking apart the melodies that had long since eluded you.

It was a gradual rate at which you found those resolutions. Uncertain and quiet at first — like an off-beat that had forgotten its count — they did eventually resolve into structures you could actually place. And with time the melody became clearer, the notes more resounding.

For the first time, you truly learned how to sing along with them.

Some things, you decided, are undefinable. Like pain. Like sorrow. Undefinable in that...they do not always exist with reason. But you decided to believe that maybe things don’t need a reason to exist in order to be understood. Maybe it is not to attribute reason that you seek to understand things, but to know them. To live with them. To carry upon your backs the ones without strength to withstand them alone. Because just as immutable as is the way the sun shines, or the way the Eye sings, or the way Lami never fails to make you laugh, so too is pain.

You think about the Nomai who did not survive the Vessel’s arrival to this solar system. You think about the Nomai who still live today, carrying the pain of that loss. And even though years do not ebb its sting away entirely, they stand amongst you nonetheless. Laughing, and learning, and adding to the verse you all bear together in harmony. For the ones whose voices have long since gone quiet, and for the ones whose voices you do not yet know but will be ready to welcome on the days when they arrive.

You think that maybe, though the song is often burdensome, it is not so terrible to have learned the tune at all.

The Eye eventually calls to you, as it calls to everyone in your clan.

The melody still sometimes distorts in places; jagged edges that never fully sand down into gentler sections. You find that it reminds you of Giant’s Deep, of the storms that twist and pull at the very bedrock of the planet until all solid ground has been flung beyond reason and order. But then you reach the calm, the brief moment in between duress where all is dark, and quiet, and you are left free-floating in the soft yet impassive hold of empty space.

And then you crash down again, and all is back to reason and order. Until the next cyclone comes to disrupt the peace, but you’re always better prepared for that one than you were the one before.

The universe is full of uncertainties, you understand. Their existences do not mean the universe wishes to see you stumble, but nor does the universe hold your hand to keep you steady on your feet. You weather those storms with your own hands, and the hands of those around you. You understand that such instability isn’t personal or wretched. It simply is, as all things are.

You make your pilgrimage to the Quantum Moon with these thoughts in mind, the song you carry woven with the voices of all those who came before you on this journey, as well as the ones who were never given the chance to know its call.

Your verse is all the better for their company, you think.

There is a crescendo rising, just beyond the horizon. Though you walk towards it alone, you walk tall all the same. To seek out, to understand.

To and fro, to reap and to sow. To bear every melody wherever it is they go.

And so you go.

“Feldspar used to say they could hear the stars.”

It’s easy for Hal’s words to echo in your mind as the thrum of a banjo draws nearer.

“Music from the cosmos,” you can remember as well Feldspar having said once. Not a single evening around a campfire would go by with them present that similar words were not shared.

Back then, you’d taken Feldspar for a dreamer. A romantic who maybe spent a little too much time staying up late with Gneiss, drinking sap wine and waxing philosophical about why it is we sing. Then one day, you found yourself angled towards a morning sky dominated by the swirling storms of Giant’s Deep, signalscope in hand, and a harmonica buzzing alongside radio static as its tune traveled to meet you from a thousand kilometers away.

Maybe the stars themselves didn’t sing, but Feldspar did. They did until more voices couldn’t help but join in too, until the whole night sky was alight with that one constant melody. You never stopped watching it, never stopped listening, just in case those stars eventually decided to sing back.

And one day, one did. With a voice that rang louder than the sturdiest of strings, a rhythm more stalwart than the deepest of lungs.

When your sun erupts for the first time, when its outer shell of smoldering red burns away as it collapses into glinting fractals of blue brighter than the clearest waters which sizzle and snap in its oncoming wake, it is not merely a sound that rushes over you.

It’s a song, and it is in this moment you realize you’ve only just now understood what a song can truly be.

So, naturally, you ask the universe to play it again.

“The sun has reached the end of its natural lifespan.”

You can feel the translator tool shaking in your grasp as you read those words.

How many times have you gone through this loop? A hundred? A thousand? Time loses its meaning when you’ve lived through the same repeating twenty-two minutes for the greater part of what’s now felt like either a third of your life, or just a few days of it.

In all that immeasurable time, you hadn’t slowed down long enough to consider that maybe this past one-third/few days could be your last.

But there it is. The answer some part of you quietly knew, but never dared to speak up about loud enough to be heard beyond the roaring of your ship’s engines, or your HUD’s alarms as your oxygen reserves depleted themselves once again in a moment of childish hubris spurred on by desperation, or the harmonica that continuously eluded you for the ever-expanding fogs of Dark Bramble and all the ravaging dangers hidden within.

Why, the whole world had only just unfolded itself before you into something far greater, far more terrifying, far more beautiful than anything you could have ever dreamed! Of course you weren’t going to think too hard about that tiny, insignificant detail of your sun exploding every handful of minutes or so. It was just another fun and intriguing part of the mystery, a riddle to be solved and noted down later in the Outer Wilds Ventures’ museum alongside all of the other peculiarities of your solar system for future generations to marvel and spectate over from the comfortable distance of time passing as it should.

So it is equally surprising and yet agonizingly obvious in all of its foreshadowing that you find yourself here, blindsided by a truth that you would have had no other choice but to eventually accept. The Nomai, for all their genius and determination, hadn’t conquered their greatest trial while the memories of their efforts slept on with the stars. The Sun Station hadn’t magically learned how to work in their absence.

It just so happens to be that you are the lucky one alive to see the end of the universe.

The sun swallows you whole long before you will your limbs back into moving. Ten minutes of the next loop pass on before you even idly acknowledge Slate’s questioning looks and impatient proddings with their marshmallow-roasting stick (you don’t hold it against them how the outside of your pants leg is sticky now) and eventual worried mutterings.

You lie there with the rest of the Hearthians — equally helpless against the impassive and unnameable rage of nature and entropy — as the sun washes over you for the uncountable’th time.

There’s a crescendo rising in tandem with the spinning of the last dwindling stars.

You’ve felt it for a while now. For the past dozen loops or so, you’ve done your best to ignore it. But eventually you must remind yourself of why you wanted to visit the stars in the first place, why you learned to face down a supernova again and again with increasing reckless abandon and an ever-growing fire burning in your chest.

The stars had answered Feldspar’s song. They had long ago sung it to the Nomai, and the Nomai had sung it back, and something had kept it silent to them until Feldspar learned to pick it up again, and if all the world is going to end and if there is nothing you can do to stop that no matter how much you learn and explore and hope and plead then what point is there to knowing any of this at all if not to echo that inescapable song too?

There’s an essay that you found in the School District of the Hanging City. A Nomai child named Solanum had written about the beginning of the universe, and how someday the universe would come to an end. She had recounted that such an event was far beyond her lifetime, but that it would not be far beyond someone’s.

Well. Here you are.

Solanum is older now, and it is neither cruelty nor destiny, you think, that would insist she live out her conclusion of that essay. Someone long ago had once said “the universe is, and we are,” and you like to think she was right.

You want nothing more than to tell her she was right…

There’s a crescendo rising in tandem with the spinning of the last dwindling stars, and slowly, steadily, you are learning what notes to play next to see that crescendo resolve. You’d never been the greatest with music, but you’re learning. From all the voices back home more dear to you than these stars. From your fellow travelers: Esker, Gabbro, Riebeck, Chert, and Feldspar. From the Nomai whose voices still sing with the humming of Brittle Hollow’s black hole and the rising and falling sands of the Hourglass Twins. From Solanum, where she waits upon the Quantum Moon, alone… From voices more ancient still who have waited even longer, quietly in the dark and dreaming of the home that they will never again reach. From a prisoner kept in solitude who despite it all never stopped crying out their own defiant tune…

You learn — from all of them — how to answer the Eye’s call, how to sing on your own, in tandem with the still-spinning stars.

There’s a crescendo rising. It has been rising since before the universe was young.

As you stand before the Eye, as you dive headlong into that vortex, falling upwards towards everything and nothing and eternity wrapped in finite wonder, you hear that crescendo finally reach its peak.

And then, the melody falls.

“Do you hear music?”

For the first time in a long time, you notice the universe has gone silent. As if holding its breath before a grand finale. You think that makes sense. You’ve been holding your breath too.

It doesn’t truly begin until every corner around the campfire has been filled. Opening with the practiced plucking of strings along the neck of Riebeck’s banjo, swelling in substance as Gabbro and Feldspar join in with flute and harmonica, respectively. Esker accompanies Riebeck in melody as their whistling picks up, and you have to turn away for a moment just to keep yourself from crying at the sight of them trying not to smile. It’s a perfect, full measure before Chert adds their drums, and another still before Solanum includes her own verse.

You think the Nomai song fits together beautifully with the Hearthian one you’ve known all your life. You’re glad that here, at the end of all things, such connection could be realized. After all this time of hoping, of searching, of learning, a Nomai finally did it. A Nomai finally reached the Eye of the Universe.

You’ve no doubt all the rest had walked this journey by her side through every single moment.

The last instrument takes the longest to join. And though its melody is one most different from the rest, it falls into rhythm so easily you can’t help but believe with all your heart that from it is where all the rest were born.

There is no insignificant part of you that wishes to see this song last for forever…

(Maybe somewhere it will, but...you will all be long gone by the time that somewhere comes into existence. No one is meant to see forever, not even an over-eager star-faring hatchling trapped in a time loop at the end of the universe.)

You aren’t sure what to expect from that song’s conclusion, from the universe going quiet for the very last time. When the light of the campfire goes dark, and all around the faces of your fellow travelers look onward to that infinite trail of possibilities, waiting in hushed patience until it is asked to collapse into a singularity. You’ve never truly seen an ending before, you don’t know if this is what it’s supposed to feel like.

Maybe endings are meant to be unknowable. Undefinable. Maybe that’s part of the beauty.

“The future is always built on the past, even if we won’t get to see it.”

“It’s the kind of thing that makes you glad you stopped and smelled the pine trees along the way, you know?”

“Ahh, I hope there are beasties in the next one.”

“I’m really happy we’re all here.”

“Even if it’s over now, I had a good time learning. But I think the rules are about to change.”

“Whatever happens next, I do not think it is to be feared.”

“Are you ready to learn what comes next?”

You nod.

You can’t see her face, but you like to believe Solanum is smiling. “I admire your curiosity, friend. Let’s find out together.”

And so, you collapse the possibilities. You give the Eye its conscious observer.

You let that song end.

When the universe erupts into blinding infinity around you, you go gently into that goodnight knowing you have played your part well.

May the next play out brighter, and with just as much wonder.

#outer wilds #outer wilds spoilers #outer wilds echoes of the eye #eote spoilers

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zeldaficzine · 2 years

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Bring to life the forgotten fragments of Hyrule's history...

Hyrule is full of unsolved mysteries and unanswered questions. There are historical events we’ve been told about and have never been able to witness for ourselves.

But what if we could bring those stories to life?

Hyrule Apocrypha is a fic-centric zine focusing on these lost tales of Hyrule. From forgotten mythology to unexplored history, this zine intends to expand on canon lore and fill in the blanks with interpretations of how certain events may have come to pass. Writers and artists will collaborate in the storytelling process, culminating in an anthology that looks, reads, and feels like a real history book in the Zelda universe!

Stay tuned, our Interest Check opens on July 11th!

Twitter || Info Doc || Carrd || Mod Team

#the legend of zelda #zelda zine #zelda fanfiction #fanzine #tloz #zelda #breath of the wild #skyward sword #wind waker #loz zine

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junefm · 2 years

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character : muse three ; given name : june louise armstrong ; pronouns : she/they ; gender : non-binary / demiwoman ; date of birth : february 3rd, 1999 ; age : 23 years old ; hometown : seattle , wa ; sexuality : bisexual / biromantic ; zodiac : aquarius sun , sagittarius moon , leo rising ; nicknames : junie b. jones , juniper lee , jujubee ( familial ) ; occupation : camera crew for unsolved

pinterest : click here !

likes : smoking weed , obscure movie theories , collecting stickers on her skateboard , making zines out of case notes , tequila & sprites , ignoring her parents , sending video diary entries to her sisters ; crushing trivia nights ,

aesthetics : climbing onto shoulders at punk shows , idle hands clicking a zippo with a crudely etched skull & bones , heavy boots weighing down wild running through the streets at midnight , cackling laughter leaving the scene of a petty crime , an eye-roll right alongside an adoring smile

personality : june is a connoisseur of the less-than-finer things in life – like screaming through rock shows and throwing parties so loud the authorities get called – but is so soft in the middle she’s still dough. claims not to give a fuck about a single thing, but physically cannot stop herself from saying hi to every dog she sees. was on a roller derby team that named her june harm-strong, but got in trouble for forcing time-outs anytime anyone got too hurt, her team or not. the only kid that can call herself punk rock, then cry over a cheerios commercial in the same breath.

biography :

june was adopted as an infant by henry and lianne armstrong, pastors at a mega-church in seattle, washington. her sisters hazel (older) and rose (younger), also adopted, were her lifelines growing up.

following a repressive and sheltered childhood, she came out at thirteen and turned away from the church and her parents. her grandmother took her in after that; an eccentric former actress who let june blossom into the little anarchist she was born to be.

but being separated from her sisters was harder than she thought, and though their parents tried to keep them apart at every turn, she snuck into the house whenever she could and snuck them out whenever they felt daring.

she worked at the old movie theater in her grandmother’s neighborhood until she (barely) graduated high school and then it was all film, all the time. even guitar, which she swore was her life’s calling, was pushed to the side in favor of watching, obsessing over, and making movies.

when rose graduated from high school a couple of years ago, june felt the universe pulling her out of seattle. she took off for the open road and found herself all over the place: waiting tables in santa fe, playing guitar with a local band in portland, operating a boom mic in hollywood, making friends and enemies with a horde of roommates across the west coast.

all she needs now is the next great adventure. but you know what they say: be careful what you wish for.

connections :

muse 18 - was arrested in a news scandal with june

muse 16 - had a one night stand with june

muse 11 - is drinking buddies with june

texting buds who share memes and not much else

fellow musicians for june to play with when it's too quiet

returned and unrequited crushes

exes, fwbs, flings, and everything in-between

any friendly connect, considering june sees a good time in everyone

a less than friendly connect, since june isn't everyone's cup of tea

hi-deedly-ho, neighborinos! it’s your (possibly least) favorite kid, maeby (26, she/they, mst), here with my favorite teeny-tiny babe, june! this is all i’ve got about her for now, but i would love to plot with anyone interested and i can’t wait to write with everyone! ♡

#religion tw #homophobia tw #drugs tw #✧ — ⋆ don’t have much but i laugh a lot ; about .#here we go !

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thisremainsunsolved · 2 years

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henriediosa · 2 years

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the song of the lighthouse-keeper

First posted on Hellopoetry in November 2020. You ever try to write a poem for the funsies and it comes out sad? The prompt for this one was "Present options on the first line of your poem" from Leandro & Mai (@leandroandmai on Instagram). I think it was also influenced by the latest Buzzfeed Unsolved video about the Flannan Isles Lighthouse Keepers. Also, it's been windy and rainy and cold lately. This poem also appeared in ISIO Zine.

Shall I march into the sea tonight? The lighthouse-keeper asks. The light is lit; the wind is wound; I have no other tasks. The rains have cycled fifty times Since they last turned on me; Shall I bar the windows shut tonight, or march into the sea?

Who will find me lost at sea tonight? The lighthouse-keeper thinks, When shepherds turn their flock indoors, And the barkeep turns to drink. I am the lighthouse-keeper, but I do not have to be; They'll find another keeper when They find me lost at sea.

And if the sea won't take me, love, The lighthouse-keeper sighs, No candle on my windowsill Is watched by no-one's eyes — No shadow's crossed my threshold's bounds Since I was thirty-three — With stones inside my pockets Let me march into the sea.

Give me no pauper's funeral, The lighthouse-keeper sings, Though scant be the inheritance You'll cobble from my things. If my debtors come a-calling, Tell them, forfeit every fee — Or, if they are truly greedy, Let them find me lost at sea.

#poetry

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l-coleart · 1 year

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Poster based on Buzzfeed Unsolved Supernatural.

(pssst! check out my etsy filled with awesome stickers, zines, and other handmade goods)

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angel-milano · 5 months

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November 28 – Around the World in 30 Days

WeirdNJ: A Rebuttal

This is a zine that Angel picked up from a night market while traveling through New Jersey, USA. Written by proclaimed Magicks expert Charlie Little, these are theorized magical explanations for some of the stories that the infamous WeirdNJ publication puts out. It's tucked in the pages of Angel's journal where she has completely forgotten about it.

1. The Jersey Devil - The most powerful and lasting of Jersey folklore, the Devil is not a devil, but in fact, a demon! There are aspects to the origin story that are true. In the mid-18th century, a woman named Mother Leeds was pregnant with her thirteenth child.

Unable to handle yet another, she attempted to summon a demon who could take her unborn from her and spare her from her fate. Seemingly, it did not work, as nothing came through the tear. Leeds would go on to have her child, only to realize that the demon had possessed her unborn child. The demon killed its host and took on its true form--the horned, taloned, hooved monster that we know today. It killed most of the Leeds family and retreated into the Pine Barrens, where sightings and encounters would continued for the next three centuries.

While most Magical Experts would classify the Devil as a Stage 4 demon, some have theorized that it might even be Stage 5, considering its lasting power on this plane in its true form. It continues to collect pieces of humanity by slaughtering those it comes across, so don't go camping in the Pine Barrens alone!

2. The Deserted Village and Enchanted Forest of the Watchung Reservation - Deep in the forests of Watchung Reservation in Union County are a series of buildings that have largely been abandoned. They have been bought to be used as homes and businesses, but every time the venture fails and the buildings are abandoned again. Some claim it to be ghosts, while others say that it is witches or demon summoners.

But this expert theorizes that it is actually...faeries! After all, where does the name "Enchanted Forest" come from, were these lands as dark as claimed? That isn't to say that faeries are automatically whimsical or even friendly. In this case, the forest houses an isolated Hollow that does not appreciate encroachment by outside creatures. It is very possible they are using their pixie dust and magic to create much of the spooky atmosphere that is attributed to other sources.

3. Big Rusty - In the forests of Burlington County, you can find a series of small abandoned buildings, and a huge "statue" of a troll feeding on the materials of said building. But is it truly a statue at all? Not so, says this expert! As our society has modernized, the needs for Bridge Trolls has largely been discarded, leaving many to go into hiding. But some, like Big Rusty, have found ways to exist out in public, especially in remote places such as this. Live freely while no one is around, while freezing in place when people come to admire. It's a pretty good gig for someone of that massive size and I commend his creativity making use of the surrounding landscape.

4. Caldwell's Mystery Sky Thread - In the 70's in Essex County's Caldwell, a mysterious silvery thread was found to be hanging, supposedly from the sky itself. Eventually the thread was brought down with fishing wire and handed over to the authorities, who could not determine its origin. While declared an unsolved phenomena, many sorcerers have come forward to explain that it is the remnants of a reagent that was not fully utilized, most likely from the clouds and winds itself. Despite this pretty cut and dry explanation, WeirdNJ continues to ignore Magical theories.

5. Cat Eye's of St. Joseph's Church - For the past 100 years, a mystery has been plaguing this church in Jersey City. Many have reported sightings of gleaming cat eyes in the belfry. While some have posited Magical theories, like perhaps a vampire or a werewolf, I believe the answer is much more obvious--a gargoyle! Gargoyles are known to choose residential, populated areas as their daytime homes, and although the church does not claim to house any, that doesn't mean that none like to go there. In fact, it may be a prime spot to spend a relaxing evening after a stony day in the sun. With their ability to fly, the creature could easily vacate and hide away during the day, thus leaving no traces behind.

6. The Double Trouble Mystery Spot - On the border of Berkeley and Lacey Townships is the Double Trouble State Park, where a section of trees has been completely flattened by unknown means. The location has been hijacked by UFOlogists who claim that the mysterious flattening and reports of lights are a clear sign of aliens. But my readers will know that aliens aren't real. More likely, it is the aftermath of what is known as a Magical Disaster. These happen frequently in heavily Magick populations, where a sorcerer loses control of a spell or someone tears a hole between dimensions. Although much rarer in New Jersey, it is possible, if not probable, that the forest was being used for some kind of ritual that went wrong. The perpetrator was simply ashamed, and never stepped forward.

7. Highbee Beach's Ghostly Grave - Ghosts are the bread and butter of WeirdNJ. They are one of the few Magical phenomena that the common folk understand and accept. Any oddities in the world are almost always attributed to ghosts, which I find to be a very lazy form of investigation. Take Highbee Beach in Cape May. Just because there is a grave there, all strange activity is attributed to ghosts. But have we not considered that mermaid pods frequent the Cape May area? Reports of hearing mysterious noises, or even seeing strange figures can easily be explained by a mermaid wandering the shores. But the fat cats at WeirdNJ don't want you to know the truth, and thus we must find it for ourselves.

8. Mysterious Lights of Slabtown Road - And then when it likely is ghosts, that's when alternative explanations come out! When traversing this road in Salem County, it is said that there will be lights you can touch and the sounds of footsteps on all sides. Some have claimed fairies, while others have claimed sorcerers, when this seems to be a textbook definition of ghosts. Ghost stories are always attributed to pale human figures, but ghosts can take on incorporeal, non-humanoid forms as well. Hello, Will-O-Wisps, people? But that isn't a "fun" ghost story, and thus is not classified as one. I would also highly recommend NOT touching the lights, if you can help it.

9. The Cult of the Mysterious Monk's Castle - Everyone knows the story of the cult that made this castle famous. However, rumors and legends surrounding the castle still exist, despite the cult being long gone. Why is that? Some believe that it has become squatting grounds for vampires. Vampires living in a castle is highly cliche, but considering the property has been under numerous legal battles and has no plans to be open to the public soon, it makes a great location for newly transformed vampires to lay low until they figure out their situation.

10. The Gates of Hell - This zine began with demon activity and will end on demon activity! The Gates of Hell are a huge series of underground tunnels and sewers in Clifton, Passiac County that have become legendary for demon activity. A haunted tourist trap for teenagers and graffiti artists alike, there does not seem to be much truth to the rumors. However, the sighting of multiple demons, and weird behavior exhibited by visiting teenagers suggest that the spot is a prime location for summoning. While actual portals to the Underworld are highly scrutinized with little evidence, is it possible that one exists here in our very own Garden State? Check out our website and subscribe for further magical truths to paranormal investigations.

*NOTE: None of these claims have been verified.

#swynwrimo #swynwrimo2023

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