You find yourself in a haven where magic, fandom, and creativity intersect. Not much of a tall order, if you ask me. My whole life, they’ve always been one in the same. Stories are magic, creativity makes stories, and creativity is the spark of magic. And what else is geekdom other than the stories we love, the creativity in which they are made, and the magic of the creativity and community they inspire in us, the fans, in return?
My cohort Shawna and I found ourselves as children and instantly latched onto one another upon recognizing that we shared this love for fantasy, science fiction, superheroes, and cerebral/creative games — “geeky stuff.” Growing up in the 90s & coming of age in the 2000s, we older millennials (or…”Eldritch Millennials, as we prefer to be called) experienced a youth where these more geeky topics of interest weren’t as celebrated as they are today; especially on the school yard.
Before I met Shawna, I spent recesses for years in the classroom on the computer playing Oregon Trail (when I was lucky), or out on the wall reading The Chronicles of Narnia for the fifth time, being teased mercilessly by my classmates (when I wasn’t).
When we met, it was magic.
Like a party meeting in a tavern, like Harry meeting Ron on the Hogwarts Express, like Cloud buying a simple flower from Aerith in the Midgar slums — I finally have the confidence to say that our meeting on that elementary school playground was fateful. Through the years the followed, we grew as individuals, and as partners in our Geekdom. Any time we found a new interest, a new fascination, we threw ourselves into it with the passion of a sun’s gravity, learning everything about the topic as we could; as geeks are wont to do. Through cosplay, photography, theater, dance, music, puppetry, writing, digital art, DJing, emceeing and even helping to plan and run events such as cons and balls for our local geeky communities — everything we did, we did it with passion. We burned our candles at both ends, and the burning kept us bright.
But candle wax doesn’t last forever, and neither does human energy. To use an illustration from D&D: after expending all of our spell slots on quests for others, we needed a long rest.
The COVID 19 pandemic of 2020 came with many many trials and sorrows, but every cloud has a silver lining. As the world came to a halt, we finally had that opportunity for that much-needed long rest. And from it, a new seed of creativity was born.
I took time to just absorb geekdom. No longer was my precious time stretched into using my talents and creativity to make art for others. Instead, I finally had time to sit enjoy the art others made. I caught up on Kingdom Hearts, and the Final Fantasy VII remake. I read all of Elfquest, and Sandman. I started therapy, and mood-stabilizing medication (though not for everyone, both were and still are a godsend for me), and discovered my neurodiversity. Shawna and I started two new remote D&D campaigns; one in a homebrew world of Shawna’s creation.
Sometimes, you need to burn the field and let it lie fallow for a season before the phoenix within it can rise from the ashes.
Shawna came to me one day and said “I wish there was a place, like a central hub, where I could keep all of the geeky art and projects that I make. I have so many ideas to make videos, art, costumes, puppets, projects, TTRPG homebrews, homemade dice, and I have no where to share them all!”
This. From THIS tiny sentence expressing a deep and primal NEED was Mythic Geekdom born.
It began as a place where we can express ourselves in our creativity and our geekiness. And it grew into something that not only fulfills that purpose, but also provides entertainment for fellow geeks in our videos, livestreams, blogs, original art, music, and other content. And then we started getting comments from our fellow geeks: that watching our videos brought them joy after a difficult day. That our tik toks gave them encouragement. That our livestreams make them laugh, cry, and think.
It was then that we realized that our little Geekdom was not just for us, but it could also be for others. That we were not only a place of geeky art and entertainment, but a place where geeks can feel free to be their full selves and to encourage and enrich one another, and themselves. A place to help remind everyone that they too had the ability to make ANY aspect of their life mythically geeky.
So thank you for being here. Stay Mythic out there, Geeks,
And Welcome to the Mythic Geekdom.
