hello! I haven't written my first letter yet but will do soon - feel free to write first yourself if you want to and I haven't posted yet, too! So excited to be your penpal :]]

word count: 907

transcript:

Dear Lyra,

Hello! Firstly, I want to apologise that my reply has come so late - this week has been so hectic and overwhelming, but I’m so sorry, aaagh. I, too, am so so excited to be penpals with you! <3
Swapping identities was indeed so so much fun, I love SWC chaos like that. Plus, you are an absolutely awesome person. Maybe I might be tempted to steal your identity again… ;) just kidding, just kidding! (Or am I?)
Anyway, I agree, and I would absolutely love love love to get to know you a little better!

Firstly, I’m doing alright, thank you. Like I mentioned before, things have been overwhelming and just… a bit much recently, but I’m coping, although hoping I can catch a break soon too lol. Some things recently in my life have been very much not the best and quite distressing, but right now in this exact moment I’m feeling pretty fine and dandy and to me I think that’s what matters. In my humble opinion, I believe taking each day moment by moment is a wise way to live life :D Hmm, now, I would in theory happily tell you about my life except I’m horrifically bad at answering open questions, and I have no idea what to say bahaha.
How about you?? How are you doing lately? And the same to you – if there is anything you can tell me about your life, I would also love to read about it!
I’m such a good listener, trust me.. (I’m actually just really nosy whoops.)

I do indeed – I love music! Honestly, all three. I love playing, creating, and listening to it! I do play instruments. My first ever instrument was clarinet, and I actually did that for a really long time but I lowkey hated it to be honest looking back lol. It hurt my head and throat so so much and I genuinely felt like I was going to throw up and pass out every single time I played a song. Never again, I am not playing an instrument I have to blow into. I have no idea why I kept on suffering through that lol.. Why did I not just quit sooner??
Sorry, that was a little traumatic tangent there baha.
Anyway… after, that I picked up piano for a little while and I enjoyed it but I wasn’t very committed to it; I didn’t do it for long. However, currently I play guitar, and I LOVE it! I definitely think it’s something that’s going to stick with me for a long time. I don’t have a huge array of songs I’ve learnt yet and I am definitely not that good at all, but I think it is just so much fun to do.
It’s so cool that you play the piano and the violin! I think those are both two absolutely beautiful instruments (I especially love the violin it can sound so haunting), how long have you been playing them for? And what music do you like to play, and listen to if you listen to music in your free time?

Also, do you have any other hobbies you enjoy doing? Apart from writing, of course ;D I’d love to be here as an open pair of ears if you want to yap.

You could never ever be annoying about astronomy to me oh my gosh, do not fear. So, I do GCSE Astronomy and so i have to learn/study 16 different topics for the content - 8 in n-ked eye astronomy and 8 in telescopic astronomy! (In n-ked eye astronomy it’s: topic 1 – Planet Earth, topic 2 – The lunar disc, topic 3 – The Earth-Moon-Sun system, topic 4 – Time and the Earth-Moon-Sun cycles, topic 5 – Solar System observation, topic 6 – Celestial observation, topic 7 – Early models of the Solar System, topic 8 – Planetary motion and gravity, and then for the telescopic ones it’s topic 9 – Exploring the Moon, topic 10 – Solar astronomy, topic 11 – Exploring the Solar System, topic 12 – Formation of planetary systems, topic 13 – Exploring starlight, topic 14 – Stellar evolution, topic 15 – Our place in the Galaxy, topic 16 – Cosmology)
Out of those, I think cosmology is definitely one of my absolute favourite things too!! It’s so so incredibly fascinating. I also love celestial observation and stellar evolution, but then again I think I basically just love it all.
And YES! I loooove all things weird and theoretical >:D

To be honest, I like all of science, it’s all so interesting to me I’m just addicted to learning lol. But especially biology, and in particular: medicine, genetics, and zoology!!

Aw thank you so much for the lovely words about my art, it genuinely means so much to me. Ahh yeah drawing digitally is definitely a specific skill, I was terrible at first lol, but everyone’s got different forms of art and mediums, that’s one of the things that is so wonderful about it in my opinion.

Finally, I just wanted to say before I forget, this letter is absolutely beautiful. Thank you so so much. I love it so much! You’re a fantastic designer :0 And you made the font with your own handwriting?! What!? I can’t believe that! That’s so so cool, oh my goodness! It looks absolutely incredible. I’d love to do something like that, would you mind telling me where you did it hehe?

With much love from your penfriend,

Seagull <3

Dear Seagull,

Hi!
First of all, do not apologize for that! IRL is much more important than SWC. And these things happen to me too. So don’t feel sorry!
Well, if you steal my identity, I will steal yours too. And I might not return it. I love your chaoticness and amazingness. /j (or am I?)

Anyways… I can’t really relate to your situation but I get the feeling, and I really hope your life gets better soon. Remember that I and the entire SWC community is always here for you if you ever need it. Sending you lots of virtual hugs! And yes, being bad at answering open questions is too relatable.
Me? I’m fine! I’m just a random nerdy teenager who lives in a totally normal place in Spain and goes to a totally normal school. My life is definitely not interesting. But if you want to know anything specific, feel free to ask! Don’t be afraid to, I will answer unless it’s too personal or doxxing.
Cool! I mean, the fact that you love playing, creating, and listening to music. Not the suffering. Sometimes, we don’t say that we hate something because we’re afraid of what others will say… Or at least that’s what happens to me, lol. I don’t know if that’s what happens to you.
I’m glad you found an instrument you love! Liking something is really important if you want to continue doing it, since there’s no point in doing something you dislike “for fun” if you don’t have fun doing it.

Well, I do agree, the violin is a beautiful instrument, but only 2% of the time. You move your finger 1 nanometer and everything sounds horrible. (Well, that’s probably an exaggeration…) And playing for a long time can be painful :’) but I like it! And the feeling of accomplishment when you learn something…
I’ve been playing the piano for almost 9 years already, and the violin for 6 or 7 years (this is not intentional I swear- I don’t remember the year T-T brainrot ruined the numbers 6 and 7…). I play many different kinds of music, sometimes classical music (almost always when my teachers ask me to because it’s hard) and I also like listening to modern music and figuring out how to play it. It’s quite easy for me and it’s fun. And what music I listen to is actually a really hard question, because I don’t have a particular preference or favourite artist. I have a playlist that’s literally 2-3 songs from the same artist and then jumps to a completely different style or even language… The songs in there range from KPDH soundtrack to Catalan music. Lol.

Oh, my list of hobbies is quite long! The activities I enjoy include, but are not limited to: the ones I’ve already mentioned, coding, crafts, stargazing, solving puzzles and sudokus, playing chess or other board games, staring at nothing and wondering about the weirdest things, graphic design, solving math problems, and probably a few more I’m forgetting about. And yours? I love reading about other people’s interests

GCSE astronomy sounds so cool! I wish my school had astronomy classes. Oh wait, they actually have one, but it’s an elective I could’ve picked last year except I had already started French and couldn’t leave. Truly heartbreaking </3
Biology is really interesting too! I just don’t know as much about it, lol. But I’d love to learn more so feel free to yap to me about it!

And thank you so much! I just searched “creating a font with handwriting” in Google, and I found a website called Calligraphr that works really well! Here’s the link: https://www.calligraphr.com/ .

And last but not least, I’d like to thank you for your kind words and for being an amazing penpal, leader, and person.
Have an amazing rest of your day, and an amazing week!

- Lyra

Dear Lyra,
(561 words)

Well well, I fear i am still rather late to respond this time but slightly less haha…? Sorry! Oops, sorry for being sorry as well.. sorry!
Yay, I should love to steal your identity, for you possess infinitely more amazingness than I! >:0 and I am speaking nothing but the truth.

Aww, thank you so much Lyra, that means a lot, you are very sweet and wonderful <3 and yes oh my gosh, i shall try not to get too soppy for a moment here but the whole SWC community is absolutely amazing and incredible. I don’t know what I would do without all of you beautiful vibrant people :’)

Honestly in itself that’s really cool to me, since I’ve never been to Spain hehe. I love learning about new and different places and things so much! I guess it just shows how different all of our ideas of ‘normal’ and ‘boring’ are, i find that thought so cool and lovely <3

Yes, I agree so much !! To be fair I consider myself quite good at dropping everything I don’t enjoy nowadays, I’ve learnt and decided in life that life’s too short and I don’t have time for all that bahaha. Awwe, I’ve never tried learning or playing it so I can’t say much but that makes it even more impressive what beautiful sounds can be made from violin :0 noo oww yes guitar is a finger-shredder instrument too at times i have to say loll.

That’s so cool, I bet it’s all absolutely beautiful what you play :00 and I relate so much to the extremely wide variety of music included in my music taste - my main playlist is EIGHTY AND A HALF HOURS LONG. EIGHTY! If anyone can name any genre or style it’s definitely on there somewhere lurking in the depths.

I think I love every single one of those hobbies too?! We’re so similar! And hmm, let me think. I also enjoy: horse riding, cycling, swimming (although those three were in the past), aquarium keeping/fish keeping/aquascaping, reading, any sorts of craft (miniature making, sculpting, scrapbooking, sewing, whittling, paper mache, beading, jewelry making, honestly anything i can get my hands on and have a go at lol), coding, video games, board games and card games : D there’s a lot more i know i’m forgetting, but that’s what came to mind first! Maybe that says something about me anyway haha who knows.

Awwe that’s a shame! Honestly though, it might be a blessing in disguise? Sometimes the stress of qualifications and exams and such ruin a really nice personal hobby/interest ahaha :’) that’s actually why I did not take an art GCSE, I knew it would probably make me get stressed about it and start hating art. Yay, I may yap about some science or something at some point if i feel the need and need to find a victim.. Cough i mean willing listening friend >: D

Thank you so much!! That’s so helpful, I may be trying to create a new font in the near future we’ll see ooooh.

Lastly, no, thank YOU! For being an amazing funny interesting friend, person, camper, and everything else that you are <3 It’s such an honour to have you camping in cyberpunk, I’m so happy you are!

Lots of love
Your strange bird creature penpal,
Seagull

524 words

Dear Lyra,

Firstly, this is such a beautifully designed letter, omg - you’re so talented at this I love it so much. Excuse the fact that this letter is once again plain, but I want to make sure my letters get to everyone before the end of SWC and we seem to be running maaaybe a tiny bit tight at 2 hours before the end ehe..
Wait. …Oh my gosh, time to nerd out, I did in fact know there were smaller and larger infinities and I FLIPPING LOVE INFINITIES. They are SO fascinating. However I think your amazingness is the greatest infinity.. Whatever that is. You’re so amazing you created a new mathematical concept. Congrats ;-D

I absolutely agree, it’s kind of a beacon of light in my life to be honest - as soppy as that sounds. But it's true, it's like an entirely different world that I can escape to and it's something so full of the kindest and brightest people. What an incredible thing!!

Oooh, I’m not sure what I would like to ask at this moment but if I do ever have a question I shall be sure to ask. I totally get that, but oh my goodness yes it would be incredible to meet swcers irl though i doubt i will. Time has flown sooo fast indeed because what do you mean March is almost over?! </3

For how many songs I have on my 8.5 hour long playlist lol, let me check that..
Okay. Whew. It contains (drum roll) one thousand, three hundred and thirty nine songs. 1339! That’s just my main playlist, too – all my liked songs in total are I believe in the 3000s haha.

I love that about the internet so much too - it’s literally like stepping into narnia a bit, because like where are all these people in real life, they’re not there?? I’ve never met so many people who I feel connected to and who are ‘like me’ and it’s lovely.

AW, that’s a shame - would you want a pet? If you could have any and as many as you wanted, what pets would you have? :0

Yes absolutely!!The creativity, meaning, concepts, mixed media, freestyle artsy stuff, random trials with different mediums, etc is one of my favourite things to explore in art and i’d hate to have to study only the ‘technical’ bits in any great amount of detail!

Yay, I very much hope we shall keep talking science - come rant to me about your favourite topics!! It would absolutely not ever be annoying! (Even if it was, I wouldn’t know.. So we could be annoying together bwahahaha)

Seeing as this will be my last letter to you before the session ends, I want to just say thank you so so much for everything, you’re such an amazing person and i am so so happy to be able to call you a friend and absolutely loved having these letters to write with you :’0
Until next time…..

Adios! Lots and lots of love from
The silly strange bird creature
Your pal of pens
The cyber rat demon

seagull
<3