#passing records zine

[passingrecords]

✨ Contributor Spotlight: AsterEfflores ✨

Please give a round of applause to the amazing AsterEfflores, @asterefflores, our promo artist! 🤍 🤍

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[rumalumasuns]

Lout of the Count's Family Zine - Sample #2: Lost in a Child's Paradise

Hope everyone's doing well! This post is to promote a pay-what-you-want charity zine related to Team One from the webnovel/manhwa Lout of the Count's Family I had the pleasure to write some pieces for. Please check it out!

“Team Leader! You can’t just run off like that!” said a panicked company worker. Roksu ignored him, storming off from the meeting room he just came from, his pursed lips and crossed brows showing his great ire.

The worker, apprehensive of what the heads of the company would say, tried to chase after Roksu, widening his steps for a chance to catch up, but to no avail.

“Too bad. Tell the higher-ups that today is my day off. If they don’t let me have it properly, I’ll quit,” said Roksu as he walked out of the organization’s building, his long tan coat flowing behind him.

He couldn’t believe he was called in for an “urgent task” that could’ve been easily handled by any other team at a lower level than his own. It was his day off, for goodness sake! He was supposed to be picking up his niece from daycare, not dilly-dallying with any sort of menial task, especially on this important day.

Once he reached his company building’s parking lot, Roksu got into his car, closed the driver’s door with a loud SLAM, and secured his seat belt. His phone connected to the Blacktooth speaker of the car, starting to blast an old movie soundtrack he found in the MeTube playlist of the original Kim Roksu. 

Although the music somewhat calmed him, Roksu was still annoyed by the earlier encounter with the company worker, so he aggressively drove out of the lot, his brows furrowed and his grip on the wheel tight.

While driving to the daycare, he received a call from Sohoon.

“Team Leader, did you just leave the building?”

Roksu groaned. He knew that concerned tone meant Sohoon was going to nag at him for being rude to that random worker. So, he used his secret weapon.

“Please, dongsaeng-ah. I’m kind of busy at the moment. Can I call you back later?”

There was a long pause on the call before Roksu heard a flustered huff from Suhyeok’s end.

“Heh heh… d-dongsaeng?… Jeez, Team Leader. You… Seriously, you have to tell me more about this later, okay? Minah sunbae is also gone... Why am I the only one working today? :(”

“Thanks, dongsaeng-ah. See you later,” replied Roksu, smiling amusedly at his subordinate’s whining.

With another huff, Sohoon ended the call.

Even though that short call lifted Roksu’s spirits a little because he got to tease Sohoon, Roksu was still a little bitter and quietly complained to himself about how he was going to be late as he drove faster to his destination.

Eventually, a one-story pale yellow building came into Roksu’s view. In the space in front of the building was a large yard with patches of grass surrounded by a painted white fence. From the yard, high-pitched shrieks of laughter were heard as little children were playing games like soccer and hopscotch. Outside the gate, other guardians were also picking up their children, walking hand in hand with them to get to their cars and go home or another destination.

Roksu double-checked his bag to make sure that he brought his wallet and ID. Having one annoying inconvenience was enough for the day. He didn’t want another problem at the daycare with some random daycare worker thinking he was a threat or kidnapper. It wasn’t his fault that his dark clothes and height made him look scary to the children. Though, that was a story for another day.

After parking safely in front of the daycare, Roksu slowly got out of the car.

“Uncle Roksu!!” shouted an excited high-pitched voice.

Did you enjoy it? If you want to read the rest, please check out this link here if you haven't already! For more details, please check out @passingrecords

[transxfiles]

listen alright you just gotta have that 1 interesting person in your life who you never really directly cross paths with but who is still a part of your life via proximity and who you get really excited about seeing from a distance. it's enriching. it makes life a little more magical. like something out of an art film or a children's book.

[bubblesandgutz]

Every Record I Own - Day 827: Shellac 1000 Hurts

This is a long and tough one, so I'll spare your timeline and force you to make the jump.

On February 21, 2001, one of my husband's closest friends was murdered by a man named Michael Gargiulo. She was stabbed 47 times.

Not surprisingly, my husband does not share my appreciation for slasher movies. I still feel like an asshole for dragging him to a midnight screening of the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre on my birthday years ago. I was an idiot for not realizing that someone who lost a loved one in a brutal act of violence wouldn't find a film recreating that kind of violence entertaining.

"I don't enjoy the sound of people begging for their lives," he told me after the movie. I can't blame him. Even music with "tortured" vocals tends to get an immediate "can we listen to something else?" from him.

Transgressive art is a weird thing. People will always be drawn towards art that's shocking, forbidden, or taboo, but I also assume most people have a line they don't want crossed. I love Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but I hate Cannibal Holocaust. As far as music goes, I have a much easier time ignoring the cartoonish violence of death metal than I have sitting though music laden with brazen sexism or homophobia in the lyrical department.

Content aside, art gets even trickier when the artist's life comes under scrutiny. Again, I assume most people have a line they won't cross. You might not have an issue listening to Michael Jackson, but you would probably have a major issue listening to an artist who assaulted a member of your family. Or maybe you do have an issue listening to Michael Jackson. Maybe you also have an issue listening to an artist because of their political alignments. And maybe you have an issue with an artist simply because of something they've said in the past. There's no shortage of music out there, so why give your attention and money to assholes? On the other hand, artists are human beings, which means they've inevitably hurt someone in the course of their lifetime, so if we blacklist every artist who's ever done something hurtful, we're eliminating art from our lives. Everyone has a line, but I think any rational individual understands that the line will vary from person to person.

I've been thinking about transgressive art a lot since the passing of Steve Albini. The public overwhelming seems to mourn his loss, but I've seen a few people weigh in online with some valid criticisms: he was in a band called Rapeman; he said some sketchy things about child pornography in a zine back in the '80s; some of his lyrics reflected racist elements of society without taking a clear stance against them. Albini addressed these incidents later in life, acknowledging that though he was not advocating for the kind of behavior he was portraying in his art, the ambiguity that made his songs feel dangerous could also be construed as promoting or celebrating the subject matter.

By the time Albini got around to forming Shellac, he seemed to have shed the dodgiest parts of his confrontational persona. That said, I know a few people who take issue with Shellac's most popular song: 1000 Hurts album opener "Prayer to God." True to the title, the song is a literal prayer to God asking for the Almighty to kill the singer's cheating lover and her partner. It's essentially a murder ballad without the actual murder. Or maybe it's more in line with The Beatles and Elvis singing "I'd rather see you dead, little girl, than to be with another man," except in Albini's case the majority of his ire is aimed at the male lover. It's a visceral song, and while it might feel cathartic for someone who's been betrayed by their romantic partner, it might feel too harrowing for someone who's actually dealt with a potentially dangerous jilted ex.

I played "Prayer to God" for my husband once. He wasn't a fan. To be fair, I don't think Albini's brand of minimalist tone-scrutinizing math rock was ever gonna be his cup of tea, but the lyrics certainly weren't going to help. Consequently, I reserve 1000 Hurts for times when I have the house to myself.

And ultimately, I would hope that his reaction to Shellac would be the kind of response we'd see in people who take issue with Albini. Simply put, it wasn't my husband's cup of tea, but he didn't try to convince me that I shouldn't enjoy it. Yes, Albini dealt with some ugly and uncomfortable themes, and by his own admission he took some of it too far. But his music was both a reflection and a reaction to the things he saw around him. Just as the slasher films of the '80s were a reaction to the era's conservative bent and puritanical attempts at censorship, so were Albini's songs (particularly with Big Black) a rebuttal of that decade's benign soft-rock FM radio staples, PMRC campaigns, and right-wing fundamentalist attempts to whitewash the media.

Much like those slasher films, Big Black has aged with an unexpected patina. Yes, there is something still "dangerous" about it, but that danger seems less rooted in pushing back at "the establishment" and more like it's picking at the wounds of the most vulnerable and injured parts of our society. Given even a minimal amount of context, I'd think the average person could appreciate its attempts to say "no, this world isn't perfect and we're not going to pretend that it is," even if those attempts are admittedly a little ambiguous and sloppy at times. But that kind of context doesn't arrive as a disclaimer on the album packaging, so its reasonable to understand how someone could find Big Black's unflinching first-person villain profiles to be a little problematic.

Consequently, I completely understand why someone would take issue with Big Black's "Jordan Minnesota" or Shellac's "Prayer to God." On the other hand, I want art to be uncomfortable sometimes, even if that unease is unintentional. There's no shortage of art out there that aimed to be progressive but aged to show the inherent biases of its time. Just consider the contingent of people wanting to change the racist language in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. I'd argue that sometimes the shortcomings, biases, and outdated perspectives in an artist's work are as much a statement on the times as the actual subject matter.

Everyone has a line. And for a lot of folks, Albini probably crossed it a few times in the course of his career. For me, listening to Big Black or Rapeman or Shellac is like watching Texas Chainsaw Massacre---I don't need Steve Albini to explain his lyrics anymore than I need Tobe Hopper to explain that we shouldn't cut people up with chainsaws and turn them into human barbecue. But Albini also dealt with minor horrors that impacted a far greater percentage of the population, and that's something he had to reconcile and acknowledge later in life. For me, his charity work, fierce advocacy for marginalized people, and willingness to stand up to bullies in public forums offset any of his early artistic missteps, but I also understand that making art about human suffering is always going to elicit pain from people who have endured those particular trials.

Everyone has a line.

[quads004]

Please Start Archiving in the US

With current events, I think it is prudent that everyone, that is able to, needs start archiving shit. I am a former library worker but I do not know much about cybersecurity. If you do want to go down that route please research and keep you and your archive safe :). The more copies that are preserved, then the more likely it is that the media will survive. Even if you save only 2 files that is still important!

First, I will list how to create an computer archive and best practices, then I will provide a list of known targets and suggested materials to add.

You need somewhere to store your data most people will use their computer's storage drive but you need to have backups! Do not rely on cloud storage solutions, they require internet connection are vulnerable to data breaches, and the companies that store that data must follow any laws that the government may decide to pass. USBs or external hardrives are best options. CDs can be used in a pinch, but are more likely to degrade as well as having lower storage capacity then the previous options. Use whatever you have lying around, you do not need to spend money if you don't want to.

When saving data use file formats that are common and able to be read without use of a special software. (that means no .docx) PDF/A is the gold standard for archiving. It is a subtype of pdf that contains metadata, such as typefaces and graphical info, that ensure the files are read properly in the future. Adobe Acrobat is able to save and convert documents into PDF/A. PDFTron, DocuPub, and Ghostscript are all free or have free versions that create pdf/a files. PNG, JPEG2000, .txt, MP3, wav, are other common file types that the Smithsonian recommends for data storage. For a full list of types to use and avoid, see the sources cited at the bottom.

What are we archiving?

Please gather both fiction and nonfiction resources. Nonfiction collection ideas: Current news clips, local history of marginalized communities, interviews, biographies, memoirs, zines, and art pieces. Saving scientific research is incredibly important! In 1933, one of the first places they targeted was the Institute of Sexual Science. Lots of what was stored there was never recovered. Environmental science, trans and intersex health, and minority history will likely be targeted first. For fiction, the most commonly challenged books last year were: 1) GenderQueer by Maia Kobabe 2) All Boys Aren't Blue by George Johnson 3) This Book is Gay by Juno Dawson 4) The of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky 5) Flamer by Mike Curato 6) The Bluest Eyes by Toni Morrison 7) Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews 8) Tricks by Ellen Hopkins 9) Let's Talk about it (Teen guide to sex, relationships, and being a human) by Erika Moen and Matthew Nolan 10) Sold by Patricia McCormick I present this list so you have an idea of what is normally targeted. Books that describe racism and queer identities are most common, but other targets include any depictions of violence, drugs, sex. Use your personal archive to accumulate data that you personally are passionate about. The more niche a topic the more likely it is that other people will not have it in their storage.

Lastly, please remember as an archivist you are not there to determine if a piece is worthy of being saved. Just because you do not like or agree with the message does not mean it will be saved from being banned. All artworks amateur or professional are worthy of being archived.

Sources: ALA 2023 Banned Books https://www.ala.org/bbooks/frequentlychallengedbooks/top10

How to create a PDF/A file https://www.research.gov/common/attachment/Desktop/How_do_I_create_a_PDF-A_file.pdf

Smithsonian Data Management Best Practices and File Formats https://siarchives.si.edu/what-we-do/digital-curation/recommended-preservation-formats-electronic-records https://library.si.edu/research/best-practices-storing-archiving-and-preserving-data

[aflowerdrops]

An introduction

HELLO!! We're a group of music enjoyers who got together in november '24 with the goal of preserving and nurturing emo music, art and culture. We wanted to create a space where bands and people in "the scene" can use as an outlet - we want to help give them a voice, spread the word about their projects, and find their next favorite artists! We LOVE post hardcore, metalcore, emoviolence, hardcore, screamo, all that stuff.

What we're trying to do here… This started when one day, one of us (hi i'm mio) came across an old, dead blog dedicated to this type of music while trying to learn more about a band from the 90s or early 00s. I was moved by the fact that I could still find bits and pieces of information about bands that were playing, and stopped playing shows, before I even had the ability to have memories (I'm 20 at the time of writing this:)). I couldn't think of many similar channels for this new generation of bands. We have social media pages for this, but we wanted a publication that all different kinds of people could enjoy, that features art, news and "opinions", something formal enough but REAL - something a little scrapbook-y — a zine.

Our plans going forward The internet is clearly not as permanent as we once thought it was. We're losing fuck-tons of media every day, and the thought of losing, not being able to re-discover, share or pass down our favorite music is daunting. We didn't start this to be an archival project, but we hope to help make this content less easy to disappear by branching out into email newsletters and physical forms of media. Also, we're looking for bands to interview and review, guest writers and photographers who can have their work published on our blog, and even labels and record shops that would like to work together in any way. If you're interested or know someone who might be, please contact us!

We're super excited about this and we've already got a few bands on our roster. Be prepared to see some familiar names! Last but not least, we're brown, queer, and this is NOT a safe space for racists, homophobes, transphobes, misogynists, zionists, ableists and assholes.

We cant wait to show what we have in store for y'all!!

Lots of love, aflowerdrops — mio, rania, taro, ricky, and goose. 🖤

[dianeramic]

Hey there!

I'm Dee, an illustrator/graphic designer who's worked on children's books, self publishes coloring books, created countless illustrations, and loves working with traditional and digital media.

My work is hugely inspired by paleontology, astronomy, sci-fi, fantasy, and educational media. I love designing characters, creatures, and the worlds they live in.

Making art has always been a part of me for as long as I can remember, and now you can help support my work! For $5 a month, you can see high-resolution versions of all of my art posted here before anywhere else online, as well as literally thousands of sketches and concepts I don't post anywhere else at all!

Patreon is where I'll be posting all the behind-the-scenes of my work, from watercolors, to vectors, to the characters and creatures I'm constantly creating, and a comic I'll be launching this year! In addition to that, I now record timelapses of my digital art, all of which are available on Patreon!

You can also get in on monthly merch packs delivered right to you, including stickers, wooden pins, zines, and art prints! Etsy discount codes are available at certain tiers as well. Come check it out below!

The Backstage Pass is the tier where you get to see all of my work, which is way more than what I make public on my various social media platforms like Tumblr and Twitter. This could be sketches, WIPs, rejected works, writing, coloring pages, hi-res images, and more! It also includes access to my art Discord server!

For the Sticker Club, in addition to all of the above benefits, you will get a pack of three 3-inch stickers delivered to you! I will also be making drawing process videos available at this tier.

If you're part of the Pin Club, then every month, you get to choose one 2-inch wooden pin from a selection to be delivered to you. Due to shipping costs, this reward is only able to be fulfilled to USA residents. All of the benefits from the previous tiers are represented here as well!

For the Prints and Zines tier, every month, you get to choose one 8.5x11-inch print or a zine from a selection to be delivered to you, as well as the monthly pack of three 3-inch stickers. Due to shipping costs, this reward is only able to be fulfilled to USA residents. This tier includes all rewards in the Sticker Club and Backstage Pass.

The Works is the tier to pick if you want all of the rewards from every tier delivered to you!

Every month, you get to choose one 8.5x11-inch print or a zine from a selection to be delivered to you, a wooden pin, and the monthly pack of three 3-inch stickers. Due to shipping costs, this reward is only able to be fulfilled to USA residents.

Thank you for reading this far! The link to my Patreon is here. I hope you stop by and take a look!

[thenightpool]

rinharu wrapped 2023

We almost can't believe it's already time to bring out the kadomatsu again! 2023 just raced by, didn't it…?! Let's take a moment to look back on everything Rin & Haru (and their fans!) have achieved this year.

🌸 Archive of Our Own

The Matsuoka Rin/Nanase Haruka tag on AO3 now holds 3,674 works!

That means 173 new fics were posted this year. (There might've been more than that, but it's hard to keep track of creators privatising their older fics!)

And the Night Pool's AO3 collection is up to 90 works!

.

🌸 The Night Pool

Here at TNP, we revived @sakurathon, a cherry blossom-centric event! This year, the event received 40 works by 19 lovely participants.

Since it was such a big success, we're bringing the event back on April 27th & 28th 2024.

°•. ✿ .•°

We also held the aquatic-themed Unleashed Blue, during which 20 participants created 51 (!!) otherworldly works for us.

With permission of the creators, we lovingly collected them in a 400+ page commemorative zine. You can download it on linktree

°•. ✿ .•°

Writers filled an impressive 35 prompts during our prompt meme Make a Splash! that we held in honor of Haru's birthday.

Read the fills on AO3

°•. ✿ .•°

Rin & Haru's Big Warm-Up, our monthly prompt event, received 16 new works on AO3 across the year & more on socials.

Check out our collection on AO3

°•. ✿ .•°

We also kicked off rinharu fandom's very first bang: MEDLEY!, a mini + reverse hybrid bang that will start posting in March!

(Psst. Sign ups are still open for a few roles!)

°•. ✿ .•°

We held 3 training camps – super fun writing retreat weekends – over on our Discord. We have 4 more retreats planned for 2024!

If you'd like to join us for the next one(s), here's the info

°•. ✿ .•°

We posted 33 new fanart translations!

Here's the link to our masterlist

°•. ✿ .•°

And finally, The Night Pool beat out Harurinralia to win our Ultimate Rinharu Moments Tournament that we held back in April on both Twitter and Tumblr!

.

🌸 Other Fandom Events

It's been a busy year!

In July, @starstarfairy hosted Wave Of Memory (@rinharumemories) to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Free! The event ran in two wave on tumblr and Twitter and combined polls, fan memories, and all types of fanworks.

@sweetheavenfics helped us run the RH-friendly @soumako-week in September!

@ryu-outsider hosted the month-long daily prompt event Free!cember here on Tumblr. It welcomed the entire fandom. The event was promoted by eleanorenchanted and run via hashtag.

And @rinharuweek ran for a full 10 days this year in celebration of the show's anniversary! They are just wrapping up.

.

🌸 Official News

Free! turned 10 in 2023. Omedetou gozaimasu!

Free! The Final Stroke Part 2 broke all of the series' previous records in the box office, bringing in over 1 billion yen

It also finally made it to Crunchyroll.com for the US & select others

Miyano Mamoru & Shimazaki Nobunaga fed us (+ fanartists' inspiration) well by shouting "HARU!!" and "RIIIN!!" at each other before hugging passionately during the 10th anniversary event at the Saitama Super Arena

We got tons of amazing new art; including a cover illustration for Free! The Band Live's Ever Blue performance in Yokohama, Animedia's July W-cover, Sweets Paradise's promotional art, and Kyoani's 10th anniversary event's illustration

Rin's ripped jeans (+ THE ANKLETS) in the Matsukiyo & Cocokara's Top Of Summer collaboration launched a thousand fanworks

Matsuoka-senshu, Nanase-senshu, Kirishima-senshu & Yamazaki-senshu represented Mizuno at the World Swimming Championships in Fukuoka

Spoon2Di recently restocked volume 78 & 85 on their webshop, and Akiba Pass Shop opened pre-orders for some gorgeous tapestries featuring said art

Karatz, Bikkuriman Choco, Iwami & DECOL all bumped Rin up to 2nd place in character listings (where he belongs!!)

Last but not least, KyoaniShop bankrupted us all by releasing amazing new merchandise (and also did not try to hide that Rin is the Free! series' 2nd protagonist, either…)

--

Thank you so much for being here with us in 2023. We hope it has been a wonderful & creative year for you. Here's wishing you an even more rinharu-filled 2024!

[stillunusual]

Jungleland (issue #6) YEAR: 1977 CREATED BY: Mike Scott and his mates LOCATION: Edinburgh SIZE: A4 WHAT’S INSIDE…. My copy of this fanzine is a re-print and has some pages missing, but I'm posting it anyway because somebody requested it. I tried in vain to find the missing pages (4, 5, 24 and 25) on the interwebs, so if anybody out there has a fully intact copy I'd love to hear from you. The missing content is listed on page 2….

Mike Scott is best known for being the founding member, lead singer, guitarist and songwriter of The Waterboys, having also previously been in Another Pretty Face and Funhouse (whose story is documented in issue 4 of Rough Justice fanzine).

In a 2018 interview with Owen Murphy of KEXP, Scott had the following things to say about his zine:

…."Jungleland was a fanzine that I made in 1977. I lived at the time in a small town in the West of Scotland called Ayr, and I went into our local hip record shop which was called Speed Records. They had these things, these photocopied, stapled, homespun things. Sniffin' Glue fanzine, a couple of issues of that. And I read it and thought, "Gosh, I could do that!" - and of course, that was the spirit of punk. So I started doing my own fanzine. I photocopied it on the photocopier at my work. And I did, I think, nine issues. The first four were in Ayr and then I moved to Edinburgh. I moved back to my hometown. And at the time that punk rock was exploding and the last five issues were done there. And I interviewed Richard Hell, The Clash, The Only Ones, Tom Robinson, Bob Geldof. Lots of people. Every band who passed through Edinburgh I would try and blag in and meet"….

The front cover of issue #6 summarises what's inside the zine pretty accurately, the text is neatly typed with some handwritten annotations, and it's an interesting read - particularly the Richard Hell and Clash interviews. The singles reviews are rather brief (eg the review of Ian Dury's "Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll" just says that "it's brilliant") but sometimes less can be more.

Click on the title above to see scans of all the zine's pages…. my box of 1970s fanzines flickr

[catmillers]

Frequency – self-para

“Hey, it’s Delphi,” Cat drawled into the microphone, voice in half a slur.

She could feel every nerve ending in her body ache, mainly in her fingertips, some in her skull, head pounding with each beat from her heart. It echoed in her head, coiling into the beginnings of a headache. Why the fuck had she picked up these pills again when it felt like this on the comedown?

It had taken months, patient, patient months to repair the damage she’d wrought against the radio. Cat wallowed in loss, curled it around herself like a blanket even though her life was built upon one thing – a determined escape from loneliness. Loneliness could be abated if she fixed it all. Maybe, it would be like Nano had never left, if she piece by piece took care of the damage of the mics, taped back together the drawings Enna had shown her of the graffiti she’d wrought across the Capitol, pulled her copies of the zine out from the drawer she’d shoved them inside and smoothed out the wrinkles in the paper. It was better, she supposed, to remember them as they were.

Wallowing in her regret, her fear of a change of her stasis made her explode, she knew that, hell she’d cried clutching pieces of a shattered laptop in her lap for hours until Cress had scooped her up off the ground. Cat regretted erasing the last earnest memories she had of how good things had been when the team of freedom fighters – the rebels, the T0MMY team, had worked together to try to save Panem.

It was real fuckin’ stupid, she thought. Cat had thrown so much away for the sake of living in comfort under a regime she had tried to erase with a fucking alias and a line of code but it brought her back here, in the tower, the present, legs curled under her body, a new computer, nothing as nice as her old one had been – she’d traded more than she should’ve to get her hands on it – but it was a comfort, something familiar to hide behind.

“Hello,” she repeated, testing it again, this time the mic pinged in the recording program, picking up sound. 

It wasn’t live. Cat doubted she’d ever go live again, not when Vox Populi propaganda crammed the airwaves. Besides, that was one bit of tech she was certain she’d never get her hands on again if she tried. Transponders were likely something more than she could rustle up enough to trade, not if she wanted to eat, not if she didn’t want to trade herself for it. 

Talking through radio was better than talking to Eugene though, who had been notably silent the moment a pill passed through her lips. She worried what other ghosts would try to flood her head if she didn’t take anything. Eugene was dead. He wasn’t supposed to respond, but he did more often than not. With the radio, talking to herself was appropriate, wasn’t insane, she could talk and know that on the other end was silence. 

“We got ourselves into some shit, huh?” Cat gave the rhetorical. There was no audience, she doubted there ever would be again, not that she so desired a captive thing like that. Cat had spent so much time screaming and crying and pleading for someone to notice how she ached, but the more she did, the more she felt like she pushed everyone away in some form or another. She supposed the radio would do – or the fantasy of it – because she didn’t want to ask for someone to help her.  The one time the words of needing someone there had crossed her lips, she was told – reminded – of how easily strung along she was, how obsessive she was, how she was ‘Delicious to toy with. So insecure, so broken’. 

Cat didn’t like to ask anymore. 

Even if Cress had apologized the damage took because, even if Cress had said all of that to shove her away, the words were still accurate, weren’t they? They still had to come from a place of truth, right? 

“Maybe I got you guys into some shit, I dunno,” Cat hissed, tucking herself smaller and smaller, because maybe she could just disappear that way. “I’m sorry,” she voiced quietly, as if the other side could offer her some absolution, “I know I said all this would be better without Snow and the Capitol, but now look, 'nother launch day, huh?” 

Cat’s eyes watched the waveform rise as she spoke, die off into a straight line when she fell silent. She swallowed, this wasn’t as good as asking for help. It wasn’t working the way it was supposed to. Nothing was satisfying when her words weren’t met with a reply – maybe in another world she’d hear something snarky from Nano in her ear about how the Vox would shut them down if she kept her tongue that loose. 

Her fingertips crammed down on the spacebar. It halted the line. Her cursor moved to hover over the recording button. End recording. Her fingertips found the keyboard – ctrl, a, backspace. The recording was deleted, she needed to try again. She clicked to record and the waveform began to move again.

“This is your oracle, Delphi speaking.” 

[passingrecords]

✨ Zine now available until July 1st! ✨

All proceeds from this group journal zine featuring our favorite Vanguard Team One members will go to Hope Bridge Korea Disaster Relief Association 🤍

Zine link: HERE

---

@all-zine-apps @zine-scene @zinefeed (Thanks for the reblog! 🤍✨)

[rumalumasuns]

Lout of the Count's Family Zine - Sample #1: French… Toast?

Hope everyone's doing well! This post is to promote a pay-what-you-want charity zine related to Team One from the webnovel/manhwa Lout of the Count's Family I had the pleasure to write some pieces for. Please check it out!

Sunlight filters through translucent white curtains, landing softly on the features of Kim Roksu as he snores softly under his fluffy white duvet. As the rays of light scatter over his face, Roksu’s eyes twitch and he groans as the light gets brighter. After tossing and turning around in the bed, Roksu begrudgingly gets up, taking a long stretch while letting out a loud yawn. As much as he didn’t want it, all the years of fighting had trained him to wake at the slightest light or sound.

“Damn… I wanted to slack off today too…” he grumbles, slowly getting out of bed to get ready for the day.

It is a rare “day off” for him. Monsters have not attacked for a couple of days, so although everyone is still on high alert, some people have decided to take some time to rest and recover. This includes taking inventory of available supplies and rebuilding the shelters.

Today, Roksu was planning on sleeping the day away, maybe eating something later, but the sun urges him to be awake and to DO something. So, he heads down the stairs of his house towards the kitchen.

It has been several days since Roksu, Jeongsu, and Suhyeok purchased this house in a partially remote area. The property is a two-story house with a small garden (“But someday it’ll be a big orchard!” said Jeongsu) and some additional unused land. It’s close enough to get to the other shelters quickly, but far enough from where normal citizens live so the three won’t be disturbed often.

Upon entering the kitchen and dining area, Roksu deadpans at the sight in front of him. Just like him, Jeongsu and Suhyeok are wide awake and chattering quietly about what they should have for breakfast. Hearing Roksu’s shuffling, Jeongsu stops talking and turns to look at Roksu.

“Oh, you’re awake! Finally, we were about to come upstairs and ask if you could make us something.”

“Why me?” grumbles Roksu even though he proceeds to go into the kitchen to grab and put on a pink frilly apron (a gift from Suhyeok) from the long cabinet next to the kitchen sink.

“Well, you do cook the best meals out of the three of us,” says Suhyeok playfully. 

“Oh, but we were wondering if you could make us something other than Korean food this time?” asks Jeongsu. “I watched some mukbang videos last night and someone was eating French toast with fruit and some sunny-side-up eggs, so I woke up craving some today,” he says as he gets up to grab some orange juice from the fridge.

“...Fine,” sighs Roksu, and he gets to work.

Jeongsu and Suhyeok marvel at how Roksu handles the eggs as Roksu quickly mixes them together. He then quickly slices thick cuts of bread, dipping the slices into the egg mixture before setting them aside on a plate next to the cutting board. 

Thinking that he is going to cook well, Jeongsu and Suhyeok stop paying attention to Roksu and continue talking about plans to add fruit trees and vegetables to their garden.

All is peaceful, until suddenly Suhyeok stops mid-conversation at the smell of something… burning???

Did you enjoy it? If you want to read the rest, please check out this link here if you haven't already! For more details, please check out @passingrecords

[rustbeltjessie]

You Might Be An Xennial If...

you don't even (whatever whatever what-ever) care that you'll never recover from the recession

Empire Records was your favorite film & like, who needs a job with a decent paycheck & benefits when you can be a tattooed gum-chewing freak forever?

damn the man!

you remember dial-up modems, AOL chat rooms, web page guestbooks

you ever made mix tapes (& later made the transition to mix CDs but some long nights you long for those days spent pressing record & play.)

you grew up playing Oregon Trail & part of you can't help but think your demise will arrive like death did in that game, driving an 8bit Conestoga, telling you: you have died of cholera, you have died of dysentery.

you have died of exhaustion.

no one wants to claim you once you were a Gen-Xer but they kicked you out & you know you're not a Millenial cuz, like, you still use soap & napkins & drink beer, & go to Applebee's once or twice a year.

New Kids on the Block was your boy band & you came of age during the heyday of third-wave ska, learned to skank at summer camp after a few sweaty rounds of spin-the-bottle & from them on got sorta turned on every time you heard

pick it up! pick it up! pick it up!

you wonder at the ways of the younger generations, so many of them eschew sex & cars, but back in your day, there was no greater insult than you're a virgin who can't drive

you heard a lot of whispered innuendo when Clinton was prez, adults snickering about what happened under that table when they thought you weren't listening like you didn't know what a blowjob was? like you'd never been asked

spit or swallow?

you gave your first blowjob at twelve bestowed the back of your throat to an older boy hoping he'd splatter his coolness back onto you; twelve was the age you developed a taste for several oral fixations—cocks & tongues, joints & cigarettes

you had a lot of firsts at twelve, like, that was the year you wrote your first zine, the year you first tried suicide, yeah there were enough things making you feel so shitty you wanted to die, even when you were twelve

the year punk broke (your heart)

you were too young to see most of the cool '90s bands live, but old enough to be devastated when their lead singers killed themselves or o.d.'d—you had your first cigarette the day Kurt died, stood huddled in mourning

outside your school with all the other weirdos with their black clothes & nicotine haloes, someone passed a cigarette to you & you smoked it while a boy you knew bloodied his knuckles on the brick wall while muttering fuck you fuck you fuck you & the world was ending

Y2K was your armageddon, you were eighteen, so full of whitehot fury you wanted to see the world all burning skies & shattering glass, but nothing happened so you shot up & passed out in your boyfriend's bed

the world has been ending ever since you were born, & you spent so many years trying to end your life in both direct & oblique ways, you never thought you'd live past twenty-one, & maybe what really defines your generation

is that self-destructive impulse, cuz your heroes were suicidal rockstars & you grew up aware of chemical warfare & species extinction & your own downward mobility & your older siblings raised you on the gospel of Gen X slackerdom, so, like, whenever an adult asked what you were going to do with your lives you responded in unison

planning for the future? ugh, as if!

—Jessie Lynn McMains, from forget the fuck away from me (Bone & Ink Press, 2019)

[curseofsergei]

I'm so annoyed tonight at a situation I'm dealing with in regards to a zine project from an entirely different fandom (I'm not even in this fandom so you probably won't be able to deduct which zine this could possibly be).

BIG DRAMA WARNING!!! Not CoS but actually kind of insane?? If you just wanna be nosey now is the time I guess....

I am the formatter for this project. And there's this person, who was supposedly meant to be my formatting intern. This was...hardly expressed to me? I credited them as an Organization Mod in a WIP. Asked everyone to make sure their roles, names, etc were correct. They got upset about this and claimed that I was meant to be teaching them formatting. Again, something not really expressed to me? I apologized and said I didn't realize they were meant to be a formatting intern position. Then, they left the server.

The admin Dms me about how I changed their role without permission, and how I was meant to be teaching them formatting. Guys, this project has been going on since...June? July? This was hardly emphasized. They pointed out they told me once in passing in July. Clearly this wasn't anything acted on. I forgot. It wasn't emphasized.

Regardless I admitted my mistake and sought a compromise. I told admin I would be willing to teach this person how to format, and even have them format half of the project themselves (with my assistance) for hands on experience. Admin mentions that won't work. Because this user has left the server in a rampage, and started blasting me on twitter.

She started calling me a sexist pig, scum of the earth, how badly she wanted to murder me. Okay. Claimed I called her my secretary, and claimed I saw her as a "lesser sex". We are the same sex mind you???

Anyways. Admin asked her to remove her posts and she did. But she refused to speak to me. Refused to compromise. Did not want any part in it anymore. So, it comes to the crediting...I tell the admin I would feel wrong not crediting her for the work she did. She organized files, communicated with contributors, kept up-to-date on records, to-do lists, etc. She did a lot! And deserves credit!

Admin finally gets back to me. "She insists on being credited as a formatting moderator". I..no? I'm not doing that. Not only was she disrespectful towards me, called me all sorts of names, refused to compromise, caused trouble for all of the moderation team. But ultimately she did not do any formatting. She didn't. I'm not putting her down as if she and I had any sort of partnership when she has been nothing but rude to me.

But the admin keeps insisting. I may just leave this project. I really might. There's been...a lot of disrespectful behavior towards me for this project. I've put up with it because the admin is a fringe-friend. But this is just a spit in my face. I'm not doing this!!

Am I crazy?? And the admin is like, "she has a bigger following and will probably try to start something with us if we don't do her wishes". That's just too bad, isn't it? I don't care! I really don't. I'm not disrespecting myself, crossing my own boundaries...to appease someone like this!! Not at all!!

[donnerpartyofone]

I'm trying to picture the logical outcome of that rhetoric going around about how we should all reblog people's art and fan content out of the goodness of our hearts--like just to satisfy everybody's cravings for attention, as opposed to reblogging if and when we actually like something enough to want it on our own blogs. I mean there's no other reason NOT to reblog something than that you just don't enjoy it enough, so the only reason to press people about reblogs is to override that basic lack of desire and pleasure. With that said:

Let's say person X is earnestly writing and recording really shitty music. You don't like it, but you feel duty-bound to make them happy by acting like you think it's good so you reblog it, all of it, every time. And let's also say your supposedly heroic urge to promote things you don't believe in, to make your blog represent stuff you don't actually care for just to create a feeling of artificial popularity for someone else, catches on, and we all start doing it. Now everyone is playing music they don't like, or are even indifferent to, and we're putting it on all of our blogs, like you're covering your room in posters for something totally uninspiring, that you're only involved with out of pity. And then one day we all find ourselves middle-aged and tired without that much money or energy to go around, and we're still dragging our asses to shows that start too late and go too late, trudging from the bar to the bathroom as the only way of breaking up the monotony of politely sticking it out until your friend goes on--who actually isn't even your friend, they're just some rando on social media who everyone collectively decided to boost out of the misguided notion that we are all owed zillions of notes and followers just because we want them, and now this person gets to go about their days imagining that they're deservedly famous and never learning things like, for instance, you should make art for your own personal satisfaction and not to get everyone else's approval, or that being loved by a few people who really understand you is better than being popular with masses of strangers, or that there are forms of success that aren't just doing numbers on some cretinous website.

One of the more important parts of the above is, person X is not your friend, they're just some guy. In real life, there is a good probability that you will sometimes have a friend who makes bad art or bad music or writes bad poetry etc, and you will feel obligated to go to their show/reading/etc and act supportive and come up with nice things to say until you're exhausted to the point of death. And you sacrifice your time and comfort like this because X is someone in your life who you care about, even if it doesn't feel completely honest to be this positive about everything they do, it's worth it because you're invested in how they feel (this is providing you don't have more of a tough love relationship, which is maybe ideal, but not everybody does so well with that, so ANYWAY). And if you're part of an actual community of artists, everybody winds up buying each other's zines and being the only people at each other's shows and basically just passing the same $10 bill around in a circle forever and man is THAT exhausting, but at least you all know the score, even if no one is saying it.

But what I'm saying is, this is the burden of relationships, the result of not being able to necessarily choose who you love. The most common type of relationship on Tumblr is between strangers; I will never know anything about the vast majority of people whose posts I see, even that I like. I will make some friends and acquaintances, but for the most part I'm here to have my own experience, to follow people because I like what they do, to interact with their stuff for no reason other than that I enjoy it. So for me, the Tumblr pitch is basically "Come to this site, people post all kinds of cool shit and you can amuse yourself for hours!" The pitch should not be "Come to this site where people will conspire to make a charity case out of you by making you think they like your stuff when they really don't," nor should it be "Come to this site where you have a moral obligation to help promote all kinds of random crap you might think is lame or boring, but you're forced to because you feel sorry for strangers who make bad art and you don't think they should have to learn that no one owes them a successful artistic career and popularity isn't everything!" I mean that is a nightmare. If you're lucky you'll have enough of that going on in your real life that you definitely won't want to join a website where you have to do it for people you don't even know. If you're extra lucky, you'll never have to do anything like this at all!

PS If half your likes and reblogs are inspired by charity and not informed by your actual taste, then your approval becomes totally meaningless and nobody should care what you have to say. Same goes for always agreeing with whoever is talking to you and always saying you're sorry even if no one asked for an apology. It's a way of being a liar. You turn your own word into mud.

[omegaremix]

Tower Records (final visit); 2006.

Close to the end of the year, and also when the semester ended, I looked forward in selling my books after finals so that I would get money back. Then I got a friend together to go with me to Tower Records in Huntington. In a matter of one hour, that money would be gone. Right now I’d be very excited about what I would find in those bins. But for years it hasn’t been the case and the euphoria of being in a store, any store at midnight, has been long gone. The entire chain went under and currently co-opting it is a third-rate clothing store.

Autumn of 2006, people were standing on the sidewalks of Route 110 holding picket signs like it was the end of the world. First advertised on those signs were ten to thirty percent off all merchandise at Tower. When passers-by and sidewalk shoppers took a closer look, they ended up in shock as they realized that it was an end of an era of some sort. Time passed by and the stakes went up. Forty to sixty percent discounts finally garnered Tower’s final audience and rush of shoppers. The final swan song came when all merchandise was down to a whopping seventy to ninety percent off. That was when they had their biggest ever turnout because no one wanted to pay full price for music. Not then, not now.

Music collectors and fans were reluctant to buy any new release or any title that was full price. They all jumped at the opportunity to clean out Tower’s shelves with a steal. Buyers hovered and tracked entire sections looking for that one shining crown jewel that made their lifetime.

As a music fan for years, I couldn’t begin to tell you how much Tower shaped my taste in music and style. Unlike FYE and Sam Goody, Tower was the one commercial music chain that had a lot of artists and titles that no other commercial store had. Think of what was the Port Jefferson Music Den (closed down in 2002) where they were the one underground record store that had everything other stores didn’t even come close to carry. I remember Nineties summertimes visiting the Massapequa location picking up rare CD singles and imports as well as other rare hard-to-find and ahead-of-release-date CD’s and artists I picked up such as Autechre’s LP5 (1999) and EC8OR’s World Beaters (1998).

And being a fan of print media and graphic design, I also bought stacks of magazines every week. The magazine selection in Huntington was unrivaled, measuring at least several rows  of sixty to seventy feet of anything and everything you could think of: industrial (Industrial Nation), punk (Punk Planet), experimental (Wire), graffiti (Disruptiv), style (Mass Appeal, Mean, Vice, YRB), and art design magazines (LoDown, especially LoDown because it satisfied my requirement for underground German pop-kultur) as well as hardcore zines (Short Fast Loud!, Maximum Rock And Roll, Under The Volcano) and other cult magazines I happened to be lucky to pick up (Lisa Carver’s Rollerderby, anyone?). Every month went at least sixty to seventy dollars total on magazines alone.

Yet towards the end of Tower’s presence I didn’t pick up on music as much because just like other buyers, I had to stand back at the higher-than-usual prices for releases. Compared to discount chains like Best Buy and other record stores, it wasn’t unusual to find a new release with no-frills to be priced at $19.99 or even $21.99. DVDs I noticed were priced at times to be five dollars higher than their competitors. Maybe some shoppers felt the same sentiment as I did.

Not only that, the forces of internet piracy and MP3 downloading of recent years proved to be too dominant and powerful to be stopped, and is currently co-existing with other existing record stores this day and age. Consumers then re-routed the system right to their own bedrooms with no price to pay for their music. These factors, plus incurring debt that led the chain to bankruptcy in 2004, proved to be too much for Tower.

Without Tower Records, it was less convenient for me to pick up whatever artist or movie title I wanted right away right after work. When Tower closed down it took a bite of some of the physical record collecting I had. Yet, only they could have given me these experiences: no more magazines letting me know what the latest art direction was or who was in the spotlight. No more frantically walking around with a huge stack of everything and more in my hands still looking for one more CD. No more back room full of posters, sheet music, jazz, classical, hip-hop, techno, and soul. No more silly Hollywood memorabilia and comic-book fantasy merchandise. No more video games, no more characters hanging out in the store wearing goth, back-pack indie, or hardcore.

No more attitudes from the employees who treated customers like nothing because they felt like it. That was really the only problem I had with Tower Records, mostly in Huntington. The cashiers pointed people out with a huff and puff because they were given more than enough change or money, or how they rang up a transaction without even making an emotion or saying a word. Some stuck female cashiers had that flat out know-it-all act for no apparent reason. Sometimes I even renounced the shop because of its sometimes poor service, but that was not the case in the end as the attitude did improve, thank you.

And no more of what would be where I had my first date with my Peruvian then-girlfriend Jenny. I would never forget wandering in that Huntington store looking for the next purchase when she walked in, greeting each other with open arms. We left when a thunderstorm knocked the power out, but we returned after dinner and had a fun time, the first of many for months to come. This was also where I met a pretty and pale Irish redhead who I later met again into at community college the following year.

What is now left of the record store scene on Long Island? A few of them which existed when Tower crumbled are still around and even new ones popped up. The majority of shops in total are still around because internet opinion made their case about the lack of quality, esthetics, art, and ritual of having the physical thing, making the case of cherishing these shops. On the online circuit, some titles are now being released in very limited quantity, mainly in the low thousands or even in the mere hundreds. It’s a huge drop-off from what the millions in print runs used to be. Naming your own price for digital downloads, sharing streams to the public, or even buying from the label or artist directly is the way to go nowadays.

Doing my Ω show, I do most of my music testing at home.  My habits have been ruined by MP3s and streams as acquiring music is of very low cost and extremely ubiquitous. After all that, it hasn’t stopped me from going to a music warehouse in Shirley or celebrating Record Store Day annually in April to find breaks, samples, or dollar music to win it all. Yes, I still very much prefer to go out of town to buy music with my money which I support the artists and shops I like. Even to this day, I’ll be very happy spending two-hundred to two-fifty a visit, if I have it, on music just to have the artwork, colours, lyrics, pictures, ink, liner notes, credits, barcode, and the entire CD itself, because later on I will turn a profit in style points as time goes by, just like when people are hoarding and sharing their vinyl and cassette collections now.

November of 2006 was my last visit to Tower Records ever. Acquired would be some titles that made my pre-Ω shows and would be part of some personal mixtapes. Prices were forty percent off on music and that was when I decided to go and treat myself. There comes a time when you just can’t wait and risk a good sale on music before they no longer have stock. The total spent on my last ever visit to Tower Records was two-hundred on music and the Andy Warhol book at seventy-five, originally one-twenty-five. (Have you ever carried a book so massive and so heavy?) I took my bags worth of music and magazines with me to the trunk of my car, never to return to the Tower Records experience again.

On another note, I am in contact with M-Ro, a former manager of Tower Records, same location. He later on became a manager of a lifestyle store more out west and is now a ticket broker in an independent movie house. He once had a show on WUSB and was a major figurehead and darling of the Long Island underground and punk scene. You may also know his brother J-Ro, who still has a slot with us at WUSB.

Andy Warhol Giant-Size

Hatebreed Supremacy

Deftones B-Sides And Rarities

Boysetsfire The Misery Index: Note From The Plague Years

Lamb Of God Ashes Of The Wake

Throwdown Throwdown

Kill Your Idols From Companionship To Competition

Stereolab ABC Music

Pretty Girls Make Graves Elan Vitale

Roots Manuva Awfully Deep

A Tribe Called Quest The Low-End Theory

Leonard Cohen Death Of A Ladies’ Man

Jesu Silver

Jenny Lewis & The Watson Twins Rabbit Fur Coat

Stereolab Fab Four Suture

Boards Of Canada Trans-Canada Highway

Ladytron Light And Magic

Kid 606 Pretty Girls Make Raves

Buzzcocks, The Operator’s Manual

Public Image Ltd. Greatest Hits So Far

Roy Ayers Virgin Ubiquity 2

Flyleaf Flyleaf

various artists Punk v. Emo

Total cost: ~ $275.00