#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.

[the-yearning-astronaut]

Well. I feel like shit... just as I expected I would after the work shift I had yesterday. I hurt, I'm exhausted, I have a headache that I think may shift into a migraine soon, I'm nauseous, dizzy, and severely congested.

I'd like oblivion now pls.

[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.

[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

[sofiiel]

I love to imagine a successful Corroded Coffin.

But there's also something really endearing about flop Corroded Coffin. That never goes beyond the hopeless dreamer stage.

The band that failed to attract much interest from fan zines.

The band that who's EP and Demo tapes got sent back in the mail with small time record labels hailing them "trendies"

Eddie working at a band logo even with nothing but a few of their own things to put it on.

The guys working tirelessly to try and fund the costs of recordings, bribing small town USA to let their 'devils music' record in a small studio they had to drive a town over to get to.

Homemade band merch for those five drunks.

You know they each got called Posers several times and it probably made them upset at first but then they stopped giving a damn.

Trying to perfect and hone their sound, studying their idol's music more than they studied for their school tests and GREs.

Passing out their tapes in the parking lot of any concert they got a chance to go to.

Practicing their poses and stage presence for when they finally hit it big.

Knowing that day might never happen but hyping each other anyway.

Eddie treating his van like a Tour bus.

Vowing that they all make it or nobody does.

The guys practicing their signatures.

The band that only printed about a dozen ep albums. And they were all sold to friends and family.

The band that never went anywhere but lives on in my mind of the freaks of Hawkins, in priceless boxes of photographs, home videos, on worn tapes and wrapped vinyls.

And during every cook out as the guys grow up and live average but full lives they gather to talk about the good old days and rock out like nothing ever changed.

[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.

[perexcri]

there’s nothing more cruel than to be loved by everybody but you - [byler week - day 5]

yeah so i thought this fit the secret identities thing until i wrote it and realized it uhh. isn’t quite that. so enjoy whatever this is i guess - lots of miscommunication and a fun set-up for potential enemies to lovers

also it’s my personal headcanon that Will is a music snob, so if you don’t like that then uh,,,,i guess skip this one idk

title from: wilson (expensive mistakes) by fall out boy

dedicated to: the listening party for fall out boy’s new album that i went to last week in a city an hour away from me; i came up with this stupid idea on the drive there! indie record store in [city redacted], you were very nice, and thank you for having a decent selection of poetry i could pick from :]

Don’t ask Will how this ended up being his job, because he honestly doesn’t know. One day, they had a meeting for the university’s queer artists’ zine where he was complaining about everyone’s responses to the new U2 album (yes, it sounds different from other U2 albums, but obviously if you look at the lyrical and metatextual themes of Achtung Baby, it’s still very much U2), and then BAM–suddenly he’s in charge of doing the cover art for the zine and writing music reviews.

Sure, he could probably turn it down, but nobody else will take the job.

Also, he’s pretty sure they wouldn’t do it right, because, as much as he loves this group, their music tastes are…well…not everybody has an older brother like Jonathan Byers who makes sure they grow up with proper music opinions.

So, if anything, Will does this to keep the spirit of reviewing and recommending underground artists in New York City alive for the zine, and also because he doesn’t think anybody else could do it justice, no offense to them.

But Will is loathing this job for their upcoming edition. He’s sitting in that weird liminal time between class periods where people are in the chaotic throes of rushing around or throwing their notebooks open to prepare for the lecture; his elbows are pressed into the desk that’s just a little too small, and his head is in his hands. He’s staring down at the one submission he’s been putting off for precisely three semesters, because the president of the zine said it needed to be done before they moved on to new submissions, so could you please just lower your standards for one night and go listen to them play so you can write the damn review?

The Fellowship of the Ring, the submission card reads in faded pencil. Scratched under it in the slightly-fresher ink of the zine’s president’s pen, it reads: Thursday - The Purple Hall - 8 PM.

And, God, Will wishes this show was just gonna be a live reading of the Tolkein book. It would be so much better than what he knows it actually is.

The Fellowship of the Ring is a local, up-and-coming act in the underground venues of the greater New York City area that everybody loves because they sound like Nirvana and, you guessed it, throw out Tolkein references like they’re Led Zeppelin. They’re huge on college campuses, where students pass around live-recorded tapes of their supposedly-legendary performances all the time, gushing about how even the bass sounds, the peeling shrieks of guitars, the way the vocalist wavers between grumbles and ethereal, falsetto howls. They even gush about the lyrics and how they truly capture the experiences of Western youth in these first few years of the new decade: malaise, boredom, this sense that there is no great struggle for the future left for them, only an endless drowning in comfortable excess.

Will had even seen a girl with the band’s logo tattooed on her shoulder.

Which is…fine. He guesses.

If you like shitty music, that is.

See, that’s the fundamental problem here: Will likes doing these silly little reviews for live music around New York because half the time, the music is passably decent, and even if that doesn’t work, the lyrics can make up for it. There’s so much creativity in the air, and people are doing so much with it.

Not The Fellowship of the Ring, though.

Where everybody else sees innovation, Will sees reductivity; where everybody screams about the charm of the lyrics and the pop culture references they sneak in, Will sees a demeaning pandering to an audience. Every single time he has been subjected to the squawks and out-of-tune guitars of The Fellowship, he’s spent his time thinking he would be better off to save himself the time and just listen to Nirvana’s Nevermind for the millionth time, because that’s all The Fellowship’s trying to do, anyway, and at least then Will could listen to something good.

Yeah, Will hates The Fellowship of the Ring, and now he’s squeezing his temples so hard that the letters on the submission card are beginning to swim in his vision.

“Hey!”

Thankfully, Will is saved by his very friendly, incredibly good-looking neighbor in History of the American Constitution, Mike Wheeler.

“Hey!” he says, trying to gain back the energy that seeing The Fellowship’s submission card had unwittingly drained out of him.

And honestly, seeing that flash of Mike’s smile and how the fluorescents dance in his eyes, Will feels like he has enough energy to power the sun now, even if they are going to have to sit through yet another lecture about Article II–whatever the hell that means.

“What’s got you so down?” Mike asks, head tilted to the side, some of his hair tumbling into his eyes, and all Will wants to do is push it away–

But, no, he has to have a coherent conversation right now, so he shakes his head and tries his best to return Mike’s smile. “Oh, nothing…Just something for that zine I work on.”

“Oh, yeah!” Mike snaps his fingers, causing some of the buttons on his jacket to rattle together. He always wears a leather jacket no matter the weather or the rest of his attire, and today, paired with plaid pajama bottoms, held-together-by-duct-tape converse, and a baggy Care Bears shirt, it shouldn’t work, but in Will’s eyes, it does. “I think I saw one of those around! I wanted to grab a copy, but somebody else did before I could get to it.”

“I can bring you a copy of the next issue,” Will says, then, remembering the task at hand, groans and puts his head back in his hands. “That is, if I even survive it.”

“What, are they making you skip classes for it?”

“No, worse: they’re making me listen to a band I hate.”

Mike winces. “Yikes.”

“Yeah.”

“That sucks.”

“Right?”

“Can’t you just, like…push it off?”

“I did. For three semesters.” The professor wanders in with a mumbled greeting and a steaming cup of coffee in hand, and Will lowers his voice in anticipation of the lecture beginning. “That’s why I have to do it now.”

“Maybe it would help if somebody went with you?”

Despite having flirted with each other mercilessly all semester during this one shared class of theirs, they haven’t hung out much outside of it, so to be faced with the possibility of something that could potentially be labeled as a date between them is shocking. For a moment, Will can forget about the future torment awaiting him Thursday evening at The Purple Hall’s listening stage, and he thinks that maybe, just maybe, having somebody to talk to over the drone of the lazily-played guitars could make the evening slightly more bearable.

“Yeah,” Will finally says, a grin stretching across his face. “Of course. Yeah, that’d be awesome!”

Mike returns the look twofold, and one of his legs begins to bounce. “Awesome! When is it?”

As the lecture begins, Will resorts to a torn piece of notebook paper, like he’s a kid passing notes in class again to survive the boredom. He scribbles The Purple Hall - Thursday 7 PM, then hands it to Mike, who responds with a quizzical look at the paper, scratches something out, and hands it back to Will.

The Purple Hall - Thursday 7 PM 6?

Will shoots him a thumbs up, prays it wasn’t too awkward, and then folds the sheet of paper up and sticks it in his pocket.

And if he carries it around there for the rest of the week, then that’s his business alone.

---

The pros: this is one of Will’s favorite music venues, there’s several bands to look forward to tonight, and Mike seems wholly invested in the idea of this being a date, if him leaning closer and the playful hand on Will’s knee mean anything.

The cons: Will has to listen to the fucking Fellowship of the Ring in approximately ten minutes.

He’s able to put the thoughts off for the first hour. After all, The Fellowship isn’t set to perform until 8–he and Mike had met at 6 as planned, and Will has spent the first hour and a half trying to be blissfully unaware of the torturous fate awaiting him.

Even as his skin begins to crawl at the thought of having to hear those plucky, out-of-tune guitars and the lead singer screeching about the Gulf War under the guise of Star Wars references, he does feel a little settled. Mike’s fingers are surprisingly warm, and the alcohol they’ve been nursing makes his chest glow with warmth. It’s easier to laugh, to be focused solely on Mike and these wonderful, looping conversations they’ve found themselves ensnared in.

“This one’s good!” Mike half-shouts over the drum solo of the current act, consisting of just a drummer and a bassist crooning over their heady rhythms. They’re called the Jazz Squares, or something like that. Whatever.

At least they’re not The Fellowship.

“The drink or the band?” Will queries. His own head’s spinning with the beer he’s been sipping on for the better part of an hour, and he already feels lightheaded, because he’s a lightweight, and Mike’s got something to do with these pulses of courage thumping in his chest, right?

“Both!” Mike takes another long sip from his Jolly-Rancher-blue mixer. Will had asked him what was in it earlier, and all Mike had responded with was Coconut-something and a whole lot of rum!

They’ve talked about so much already–their families, their majors, their hobbies. Mike comes here a lot, he reveals, and he mentions that he plays guitar, too. He keeps it a playful secret when Will asks for more information, though: how long have you played? Do you write, too? Are you in a band, because I could put you in the zine if you wanted–

It’s a surpriseee, Mike had drawled in response, a stupid grin twisting his mouth as his fingers had vacated Will’s knee momentarily just to ruffle through Will’s hair.

As the Jazz Squares’ set finally dies down to some spotty applause (this is more of an alternative scene, after all, but a gig is a gig), Will lets out a groan, melodramatically knocking his forehead into the table, and finally drags out his notebook.

“What’s that for?” Mike asks, eyebrows high on his forehead.

“For that review I have to do,” Will grumbles.

“But isn’t that act on in, like, two hours?”

Will blinks a couple of times. He supposes he hadn’t actually told Mike which group he was here for, but he thought the fact that he originally proposed a meet-up time of 7 would have communicated enough that it was somewhere around then. “Um, no? I didn’t say anything, I guess, but I think they’re up next.”

Mike’s fingers begin to nervously tap on what remains of his electric blue potion. As his and Will’s gazes snag together for several heady seconds, he purses his lips, then throws back the rest of his drink, swallowing the last of it in just a couple of gulps.

Will slowly draws his notebook out, flipping to the page he had specifically marked The Fellowship of the Ring with a disheartened, frighteningly life-like frowny face scrawled next to it. “Is something wrong?”

Mike drags his wrist across his mouth, smearing any remaining drops of blue onto his leather jacket’s sleeve. “So this band you hate that you have to review…It’s The Fellowship of the Ring?”

“Yeah.” Will taps the top of his paper. “I didn’t say anything, but…Yeah.”

“Oh.”

“Why?”

“Um.”

Will quirks an eyebrow up. “I mean, do you like them? That’s fine, of course, I mean–people have different tastes and what-not. I’d just have to seriously question your judgment in all matters music-related, I guess.”

“Um,” Mike repeats, fingers now tapping a dangerously fast staccato against their bartop table. It makes the remaining beer in Will’s bottle slosh around. “Um…This is bad.”

“What? Are you a super fan or something?” Thanks to the alcohol, Will feels bold enough to scrunch his nose up with disgust. “I mean, fine, whatever. But seriously, if you want a second date, I’m gonna take you to a record store so you can hear some actually decent music. If you’re impressed by that fucking band’s reductive bullshit, you’ll be positively amazed by a group like The Clash or Smashing Pumpkins or–hell, even fucking U2–”

“Excuse me!” the MC calls over the mic; when the feedback whines, he takes a second to tap at the mic, then announces: “Calling everyone’s favorite up-and-coming group, The Fellowship of the Ring, for soundcheck–their set starts in five!”

The club erupts into raucous cheers. Will has to hide the involuntary groan of annoyance he lets out behind his hand.

Mike casts a nervous glance at Will, then pushes his chair out and looks like he’s going to walk away, the buttons on his jacket clicking together. He nearly trips over the saggy laces of his converse, and through the tears in his jeans, he almost looks like he’s shaking.

“Hey, wait!” Will says, reaching forward and grasping Mike’s wrist. It makes the other guy stop, a blush creeping up into his cheeks, and Will tries to push down his distaste for the band and lets out a sigh. “Listen, I’m sorry–I was being stupid. It’s just a band, after all. If you like them, that’s fine, and I will…” he swallows here, and it hurts, taking on this insurmountable task of trying to push his music-snob’s pride down. “I won’t make fun of you for it. I promise.”

Mike blinks a couple of times before a reassuring grin overtakes his features. “Uh…Nope. That’s okay, Will. It’s not for everyone. I wasn’t like…trying to run out on you or anything.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. I’m still gonna be here.”

“Then why are you getting up?”

Mike points at the stage, where a drummer and bassist are setting up their instruments, their eyes scanning the room in search of their infamous guitarist and singer. “Didn’t you hear? We have soundcheck. The set starts in five.”

Will slowly nods. “Yeah. Then the next act starts, and I have to scratch down whatever notes I can think of for them, and then we can get back to our date.”

Mike stares at him for several seconds.

And then it all catches up with Will.

“Oh, shit–”

Mike’s grin turns into something playful, his eyebrows shooting up beneath his bangs. “Can’t wait to read your official review of my fucking band’s reductive bullshit!” he says with a two-fingered salute, then spins around to make his way to the stage. He’s bathed in the dim lighting of the stage, hunching over his guitar the second he straps it around his chest, and Will wonders how somebody who was brave enough to wander around in a leather jacket and a fucking Care Bears shirt and look that good could be involved in a band that’s just–

This bad, Will finishes for himself as Mike strums his first cord, its electricity shaking the walls of the club, and he begins yet another signature Fellowship song that’s nothing more than various John Hughes and horror movie quotes juxtaposed over warring drums and guitars.

Of course Will would be stupid enough to fall for the lead singer of his most-hated band in the greater New York City area.

[ratssmpzine]

Zine Mod Applications Are Now Open!

Hello! Long time no see! For anyone who has been following this project, it's probably obvious that our publicly set deadlines have long passed with no news being posted. This is due to a combination of circumstances that have interfered with the current mod team's ability to keep up with our responsibilities and while we tried to pull through on our own for awhile, we've decided the best course of action at this point would be to look for some extra hands so we can get this thing finished! So we're opening up applications for staff!

The things we're looking for help with are as follows, listed in order of priority:

High Priority

Assistance with communication with members, record keeping, and behind-the-scenes organization. This would entail helping the current staff with contacting participants for deadlines and check ins and answering their questions as needed. You would also be updating spreadsheets as people are contacted!

Graphic design and image-editting help for creating contributor announcements, formatting pages for participants with written submissions, and helping with text-heavy pages of the zine.

Medium Priority

Art assistance, primarily helping one of the current mods with the artwork for the cover page, title page, and back cover, however art being incorporated into other pages would be welcome, but not expected. They may also choose to work with mods designing contributor announcements. If you're willing to help us out with art, we ask that you be able to use .psd files for convenience!

Management of the twitter and tumblr accounts, primarily being around to post announcements, reply to questions, and generally keep people outside the discord in-the-loop on important things!

Low Priority

Zine assembly using Affinity Publisher. This is something the current team is likely fully able to manage on our own, however if someone was interested in helping, we wouldn't say no! Just be aware that Affinity Publisher requires a one-time $60 payment and we do not expect mod applicants to buy a whole new program for us!

Applicants for mods must be at least 16 to apply! Our current hard deadline is September 15th with a plan to post the zine on October 4th, so keep that timeline in mind when assessing your availability, though we set a pretty distant deadline in the hopes of keeping things from getting too stressful! Accepted mods will also be welcome to make their own submissions to the zine beyond the work they put in as a mod if they so choose, but that's in no way required or expected!

Any questions can be asked here on this blog or dmed to @oneformercy if you prefer a private answer! We'll be keeping this form open until we feel we have enough of a team to get this zine finished, so there is no deadline, but we recommend applying ASAP if you're interested. We all truly appreciate the interest this zine has gotten so far and we're dedicated to getting it finished! Thank you to everyone for your patience!