Rynling R&D

HUNTER'S MARK: A Bloodborne Anniversary Zine
https://huntersmarkzine.carrd.co/

Hunter’s Mark is a free, digital, open-call fanzine celebrating Bloodborne, announced publicly on the tenth anniversary of the main game and to be released for free on the tenth anniversary of the Old Hunters DLC.

It seems like there are no applications for this project; you just sign up and tell the mods what you're submitting. Sounds good to me!

I've actually been looking for an excuse to write about Rom the Vacuous Spider. Before she was a giant horrible creature, Rom was a scholar at Byrgenwerth College, and I'd like to take a shot at telling her story. My idea is that Rom desired a longer life and deeper insight for the sake of scholarship, and that she was obsessed with the "publish or perish" cult of academic productivity. If nothing else, I've been keeping a running list of fake book titles that might appear in Bloodborne, and this would be a fun opportunity to share my delusions. I'll call my story "Progeny," because... Idk, a swarm of spiders is as good of an analogy for academic publishing as anything.

The Whispers of Hyrule
https://thewhispersofhyrule.carrd.co/

The Whispers of Hyrule is a fan zine dedicated to exploring the various forest folk that reside in the lands of Hyrule and beyond throughout the Legend of Zelda franchise and their footprint on their world.

This zine is still in the interest check stage; but, given that its theme rests comfortably on a bed of moss at the perfect intersection of my niche interests, I have already written pitches.

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I'm so excited about all of these ideas that I'm not going to wait to be accepted (or rejected) to start writing the stories. In fact, I've already commissioned an illustration of the Saria story and a comic adaptation of the Ganondorf story, and I'm keeping an eye out for someone to draw the Deku Princess for me. I'd love to participate in the zine if given an opportunity; but, at the same time, I think this is what people mean when they say "embrace your strangeness and write for audience of yourself and three other sickos."

Someone recently invited me to do an email interview about my history with zines. This was for a project that most likely won't extend beyond the graduate class they're taking, so I thought it would be okay to share my answers to their questions here. I'm not sure if this is of interest to anyone besides me, but it's a nice little snapshot of a small part of my creative life.

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I need there to be an 18+ Final Fantasy server on Discord for writers and artists.

Not so anyone can do anything lewd. Rather, it would be nice to have a chill place to drop in and hang out and talk about video games where people can say "fuck" and discuss the plot of games that came out more than ten years ago without having to worry about spoilers.

There are two really good servers for Zelda artists (Zelda Creators and Linktober), but they're both purposely designed to be accommodating to children (under the age of thirteen). This is cool, but it's also not the type of space where I feel super comfortable.

Unfortunately I am terminally offline. I only check Discord once every three or four days, and then only for maybe five to ten minutes at a time. I can't create or maintain a server on Discord myself. The only way to be a part of a Final Fantasy community like this is to apply to zines and hope I get accepted.

So I guess my resolution for 2024 is to build a Final Fantasy portfolio and apply to Final Fantasy zines. My dream is for there to be a Final Fantasy VI zine one day, so that's what I'm going to focus on creating the perfect portfolio for. By this I mean that I am giving myself permission to write all the bizarre niche FFVI fic I always wanted to. I never wrote these stories because there is no audience, but that's okay; the audience is me.

> And then I thought I'd be even more cringe and pay $10 to blaze the post. I'll report back on how this works out. I don't have high hopes, but you never know.

I guess technically the post is still "blazed" until noon today, but it I'm going to call it at 71 notes, most of which were received during Tumblr primetime between 5-8pm East Coast time. That's not bad, and it's far more than I expected for something that would have had very little inorganic growth to begin with.

Maybe it's cringe to promote your own work, but honestly, what's the harm in showing people the beautiful cover art along with a link to a free zine. Haters gonna hate.

Lucida Sidera hasn't opened applications yet, but I've been thinking about what stories I'd like to pitch them.

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All three of these pieces would fit nicely into 1,500 words, but they also seem like the sort of stories that wouldn't get any hits or kudos on AO3. I need to think about how to give these pitches more punch, and I also need to think about what to use as my writing samples.

And finally, I should probably set up a portfolio on Carrd. I've been putting this off, but I think it's time. For my icon, I might just use the portrait of Agnes that the zine's promo artist, Allison McKenzie, created for me. I'll probably never get An Unfound Door published; but if I do, I'm going to have to figure out a better way to describe it than to say "this is fanfic about a Final Fantasy game that I wanted to make when I was younger."

Lucida Sidera: FF Ladies Zine
https://twitter.com/ffladieszine
https://ffladieszine.tumblr.com
https://ffladieszine.carrd.co

Okay here's my pitches:

(1) Ashelia B'nargin Dalmasca
(2) Ashelia B'nargin Dalmasca
(3) Ashelia B'nargin Dalmasca
(4) FFVIII was a good game actually
(5) Ashelia B'nargin Dalmasca

Okay! I'm ready to begin work on a new short horror fiction zine, which I've decided to call "Terrible People." The most difficult part of this process is creating the cover. I want to commission an artist I admire but have never worked with before, so I made a sketch of how I envision the cover...

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Zine Red Flags
https://zineredflags.carrd.co/

I wrote this based on my experience participating as an artist in a bunch of zines in the past, most of which were GREAT and some of which were BAD.

There's no actual discourse here, just good sense all around. There were a few points I disagreed with at first, but then I thought about them and realized that the artist is exactly right.

This is an interesting use of Carrd, by the way. How intriguing to create a tiny website that makes a single argument in a visually impactful and well-organized way. I really like this. I wonder if you could use it as a medium for storytelling...?

Indie G Zine Vol 3
https://www.fangamer.com/products/indie-g-zine-volume-3

This full-color softcover book features art, interviews, notes, and more about a huge variety of indie games. Each entry includes original writing and art to place these games on the broader indie landscape. It's a great way to discover new games and artists, enjoy beautiful art, and get to know your favorite developers.

In my last post about Phantasmagoria Zine, I was saying that it would be cool if video game fandom zines had more writing, specifically nonfiction writing. Indie G Zine is a good model for what that might look like. I have all three of these issues, by the way, and they're deeply and truly gorgeous. It's too bad that Fangamer doesn't make PDF copies available.