#text collage

OKAY. so. (unreality tw)

i've explained this before in an old post but i am always up to ramble about this more lmao (also idk where the old post is, it was pinned for a while but has since been Buried)

back in like. i forgor exactly when, the 70s-80s? there was SUPPOSEDLY this weird old retro game called zampanio

what is it? what's it about? how does it play? who knows lmao

descriptions of it are wildly different and wildly inconsistent beyond a few core themes, and apparently have a tendency to delete themselves? idk it's weird

is zampanio even real? doubt it!

but! people still make fan-works of it

and now there's like. this weird self-perpetuating spiral of zampanio fanfiction where there is no original source material so people just make stuff based on other stuff based on other stuff

basically anything can be a zampanio fan-work (usually called a "branch" since there isn't really an original source material for it all to be fan-works of)

people have made zampanio branches in all sorts of different fandoms

it's magnus archives and it's homestuck and it's rain world and it's animorphs and it's mario & luigi and it's undertale and it's basically anything you want it to be

and basically the only things tying most of them together are occasional references between specific ones like recurring characters, and a few general overarching themes of obsession and stuff

it's kind of like goncharov

except it actually PREDATES goncharov (like, i'm in a zampanio discord server which has existed since before goncharov was a thing and i remember how funny everyone thought it was when Zampanio But Mafia Movie became a main-stream meme lmao)

it's very fun interacting with the community, it's pretty small but they've made some really cool stuff

there's a lot of unreality themes and it can definitely be. intense. at times

if you have issues with unreality/horror stuff it might not be for you?

but there's also a very comfortable vibe of like. you're surrounded by cautionary tales about getting too obsessed with stuff, but also reminders to NOT get too obsessed with stuff

the shambling horror with your face is asking when the last time you drank some water and went outside is

it's very funny how those two things can coexist

anyway like. if you look up zampanio you'll probably find a bunch of different zampanio things around the internet

but this is also a pretty good place to start

http://www.farragofiction.com/ZampanioSim/

jr's branch is kind of like. the one that kick-started everything

it's very cool lmao

anyway everyone go check out zampanio

Sorrows, 2022