#first zine in a very very long time

[falloutcoys]

made a zine on writing and creative slumps

[monty-glasses-roxy]

For some reason, this round of meds (same dose and everything as last time) is making me have very violent Realisations and Remembering Things moments. And by that I mean the Thing I Forgot and/or the Realisations show up with a bat and see how hard they can make my brain hit the wall. So anyway.

YOU GUYS REMEMBER SPIKE THE WETFLOOR BOT??? YOU GUYS REMEMBER HER??? THE FIRST FAZBEAR ANIMATRONIC TO BE BORN FROM LOVE INSTEAD OF PAIN??? YOU REMEMBER HER???

CAUSE I JUST DID

[spatio-rift]

someokas readiness to make nishiki his disciple on the day they MET is just so amusing to me. i cant help but wonder if being a teacher to a younger player was something hed been wanting to do and nishiki was his chance to have that kind of relationship w a kid so he Jumped on it. 😭 nishiki was like Yeah someoka-san it was real nice to meet you &Thank you for the food but this isnt working out for me im probs gonna go back to japan. and someoka was like little dude you stay Put. you call me master. and im gonna make you the best soccer player in the world.

[frankmillerturnonyourlocation]

Finalized some zine submissions todayyy!!! Going to celebrate byyyyy probably rewatching some Evil and smiling really big every time Ben is there

[the-cimmerians]

It's 2024. I have been participating in fandom for 40 years. This is a ramble commemorating some history I've experienced along the way.

In 1984, I attended my first convention, and made a beeline for the one long row of covered tables in the Dealer's Room that was, according to the whispered lore of my friends, 'the one'. "um", I said, very suavely and coherently, except for how it was totally the opposite of those things, "I'm here for the... for the, uh. For-"

"Come around here," the man behind the table said with exhausted ennui, so I went around, and he lifted up the table skirt next to him and pointed to rows and rows of boxes underneath the line of tables. "It's all under here."

It was all under there. Along with about five older ladies with glasses, graying hair, cardigans. Flipping through slash zines and chatting in whispered voices like old friends (which of course they were). I noticed one of them had the good sense to be wearing kneepads. I was still too young and ablebodied to need kneepads when crawling on a carpeted floor, but I immediately found her preparedness skills to be both impressive and hot. "You're new," one of the ladies whispered to me--a bit warily, which made sense. "Are you sure you're in the right place?"

In the faint light (the kneepads lady had also come prepared with a flashlight, additional practicality hotness points for her) I grabbed a comb-bound book with a heavy line art piece on the cover, featuring a musclebound Captain Kirk getting righteously and enthusiastically plowed by a stern-yet-ebullient Spock. "This," I said, pointing helpfully at the cover, like I was trying to make myself understood in a language I had only the vaguest knowledge of. "I'm here for this."

Outside at the convention, most of the attendees were wearing large homemade circular pins that shrieked 'K/S is BS!!!'1. But underneath the table, we reveled in the forbidden.

***

In 1985, I fell very hard for Starsky & Hutch fandom. Which was simply referred to at the time as 'the other fandom', because there were only two. We were upstarts. Many fannish elders predicted that it was just a phase.

***

The 'circulating library' was a massive stack of barely-legible pages that smelled strongly of mimeograph ink. When you were on the list, you would write stories while you waited for your turn, and when the big box was mailed to you, you would read everything (new finds, old favorites), add your own sloppily-typed or hastily-mimeographed stories, and then mail the whole thing to the next person. For me, at the time, it was an extremely expensive indulgence--but my favorite one.

***

By 1990, slash fandom had grown enough that I no longer knew everyone in it, which was both thrilling and a bit daunting. A young woman at a convention waited for me after a panel I was part of (I think it was 'writing impactful smut' or something like that), and said she had a question she didn't want to ask in a group setting. I'd heard that before. I said that's fine, go ahead and ask; and she came out with: "Why do you have to be gay?"

I blinked. "Is... that a problem?"

She looked annoyed. "Yes, because your stories are on all the recommendation lists and in all the top zines, but if you're gay and I read something you wrote and I get hot from it that makes me gay, and I'm not gay."

"Wow." I grinned, I couldn't help it. It probably made me look very predatory-dyke-about-to-score-a-toaster. Whatever, it was enough to make her back away from me fast.

When I thought about it later that night, I wondered what it would be like not to be the only queer person in slash fandom.

***

By 1997, slash started appearing on the internet. Many fannish elders claimed it was the death knell of slash fandom, or dismissed it as 'just a phase'.

***

Anyway, I wrote all this for myself as a commemoration of sorts, but if you took the time to read it--thank you. Love you, fandom. I always will.

1 In those days, m/m fandom was known as 'slash', which grew from the fannish shorthand where 'K&S' meant a story of Kirk and Spock having adventures or tribulations or what have you, and 'K/S' meant a story of Kirk and Spock getting it on (Kirk divided by Spock or Spock into Kirk--it was mathy fannish humor and I was into it then and I still am now). Slash was decidedly unpopular in the fannish world in 1984, and there was a concerted effort to force slash authors, artists, and fans out of 'mainstream' fannish public life. Hence, under the table.

[hairmetal666]

After the Russians, Steve learns three important things about himself:

Robin is the best friend he's ever had; the uncontested other half of his heart. His soulmate, the platonic love of his life, his missing puzzle piece.

He's not in love with Nancy anymore. It's really saying something that hearing those words come out of his mouth is the shock of his life. Once the drugs wear off, though, he realizes they were absolutely true. A surprising win for the Russian truth serum

Her bathroom confession...he sits with it for days. Not--not because she's a lesbian, of course not, but because. Well, Robin knows herself in a way he's never allowed himself to. And he thinks that maybe maybe he likes boys in the same way. That he always has, but never let himself acknowledge it, the way his eyes wanted to catch in the locker room, the drunken, fumbling touches between him and Tommy.

The last one...he's not sure, is the thing. How can he be sure? Like, in his mind, his imagination, he's very into it, but what if it's different in real life? And how can he even find out? He tells, Robin, of course he does, and they go to Indy, right, to a bookstore and she throws a few zines at him and he sneaks some porn (he's definitely into the porn), but that's not--it's not practical experience. And he's not ready to go to one of the bars, for sure, so he doesn't--like what's he supposed to do?

It's around this time in his bisexual spiral that the kids start hanging out with Eddie Munson, that he starts thinking about Eddie Munson. He always noticed the long, dark curls and the bright, brown eyes; the slender cut of his waist; the wry slant of his mouth as he shouted insults at the jocks; the glinting silver of the rings on his fingers--fingers that were long and callused, fingers that could grip around Steve's--

Nope, he's not going there. Even though, a little voice in his head says, he cares for Steve's kids and maybe he's not good at school but he's smart and he's also so pretty, with his pale skin and his big eyes--

No. He doesn't have a crush on Eddie Munson. Absolutely not.

And when he picks up the kids from their little dnd club and sees Munson standing against his van, he doesn't feel an electric zing in his chest, the first stirring of butterflies in his stomach; that would be crazy. They hardly know each other. It goes like this every time, and he's almost able to believe he doesn't care.

Until Eddie trips over the threshold of Family Video, stumbling on an untied bootlace and gangling his way through the front doors. The clatter catches both Robin and Steve's attention.

"Welcome to Family Video," Robin says. Steve stares.

"Uhh." Eddie's eyes flit between them, his face getting redder by the second.

Fuck, he's so cute and Steve's saying--without thinking about it, he's saying--"let me help you find a movie, man."

"Yea--sure, yeah." Eddie's hands are stuffed in the tight pocket of his jeans.

Steve takes a few steps down the closest aisle. "So, what--uh, what are you looking for?"

"Horror? Nothing in particular."

They make their way to the horror section, and it's like some insane, deeply horny demon takes over. He starts grabbing movies off the shelf, no rhyme or reason, doesn't even know what most of them are.

Eddie's staring at him with wide eyes and a raised eyebrow, and Steve just keeps grabbing tapes, is sort of doing a running commentary on titles and tag lines, and he can't stop, why can't he stop? it's like smoke is coming out of his ears. Robin is watching him from the counter with her mouth hanging open, gummy worm dangling down her chin.

"You know," Eddie grabs something from the shelf, "I think I'll just do Friday the 13th again. Can't go wrong."

And he leaves Steve standing there with half the horror section collected in his arms. He stays there while Eddie pays, face burning. It's been--well, a really long time since he's struck out so hard, and he wasn't even really trying.

As Eddie's walking out the door, his sad pile of movies shifts, then tumbles to the floor.

"You have a crush on Eddie Munson." Robin accuses.

"No!" He ducks down to collect the tapes, hoping to hide the crimson of his face.

"You do." She points an accusatory finger in his direction. "I haven't seen you this pathetic since Scoops."

"It's nothing."

"You know," she crouches down with him, "you could just, like. Try to hang out with him."

"After that? Are you kidding? I'm surprised you don't already have a new You Rule/You Suck board going."

"Oh, I do, it's up front." She jumps to her feet. "But still. You should try. And you have an easy in with the kids."

He glares at her in response, starts re-shelving all the dumb movies, and then they get busy, so the topic is dropped. He thinks about it thought. He thinks about it and he--

Instead of waiting in the car for the kids to get done at Hellfire the next time, he goes in.

[dungeonzine]

Need help prepping your zine portfolio or could use some pointers? Here’s a brief guide for choosing and organizing your works to make a successful portfolio!

Let’s start with artists.

What format should you use? Simple is usually best! Google Drive folders are often preferred because they easily display your work with no extra steps. Carrds, websites, or curated social media work too, so long as there is not extra material or posts hiding your work. Try to have as few clicks before seeing your work as possible, so no need to separate work into folders and certainly don’t require a mod to search your entire page for it—they may not have the time.

Make sure that your work is publicly viewable! Double and triple check that your Drive folder is shared publicly or your websites are not behind a password.

When choosing which pieces to include, always choose your best and most polished work. All works should be complete, in full color, and be fully shaded or rendered. Try to have at least some of your works be approximately something that would be found in a zine, which usually means about A5 sizing. Backgrounds are an essential skill for zines; make sure you show you can draw them well. Of course, sometimes some of these elements are excluded in a piece as a stylistic choice, but all are important skills to show you have.

If possible, try to include the topic of the zine in your portfolio. It does not need to be every single piece. If you only have WIPs or messy work of the topic, then it may not be worth it to include it and that’s alright (though make sure the zine does not require art of the subject when making that decision. Ours does not).

Most zines ask for featured works separate from the portfolio. These are the first things mods look at when evaluating your application. Choose your strongest three (or however many are asked for) pieces as your featured works. Typically, try to include art within the fandom as a featured work if you can. Try to have those vital skills on display in these as well (backgrounds, rendering, etc) so it’s immediately clear you’ve got what it takes.

No need for every piece to hit every point. Try your best for the portfolio together to hit most of them and meanwhile you can work on creating some art specifically to show off anything you’re missing!

There are some things you want to avoid including at risk of weakening your portfolio. A portfolio is only as strong as its weakest piece, so having less pieces is better than having weaker pieces. Only include polished work you’re most proud of. WIPs, sketches, or isolated character work may give the impression that you won’t provide a complete zine piece. Including multiple styles or mediums (especially ones that you wouldn’t be comfortable using for the zine) may confuse a mod as they might not know which you’ll use. If you include multiple styles, make sure that you are skilled and polished enough in all of them to use them for the zine. It’s totally fine to have a smaller portfolio, especially if you’re just starting out—don’t clog it with art that’s not your finest.

Merch portfolios are very similar to page art portfolios, but focus on character-centric work often without backgrounds. Do research on what makes a good merch design, because not all compositions translate well to physical products.

Photographs of merch you’ve made are excellent, but if you don’t have them then you can make mock-ups to help mods understand what you’re envisioning for the final product. Merch portfolios can be a combination of photos, mock-ups, and designs. Print samples may look very similar to a typical page art piece.

If applying as both a page and merch artist, you will likely want to have separate portfolios, as the roles require emphasis on different skills.

Writer portfolios are similar to artist portfolios in that they should contain only your best work. You may also use a Google Drive folder or another hosting website so long as it is highly curated and does not contain many other works to sift through. Typically, zines ask for 3-6 works under 3k words, but double check these numbers with each project you apply to.

If you’re applying to a specific role, such as poetry or article writing, try to have those kinds of samples ready. It may help to make a separate portfolio for those more specific applications.

Here are some other tips! Of course, there’s an infinite amount of ways to make a great portfolio, so if this guide isn’t working for you that’s totally fine. Experiment with different ways if you’d like!

Our applications open soon. Good luck!

Got additional questions? Send an ask here on Tumblr or on our Retrospring! We’re always happy to help or clarify.

Learn more about our Dungeon Meshi zine here!

[siskey]

I haven't shared my submission On the top of the world for TIC4 Zine, my goodness!

In fact, this drawing was first thing I drew after Season 2 was released. I've been drawing after very very long time and was afraid I totally lost my skill (and apparently art style, nonexist thing), but I enjoyed painting them again so much. Also, Daniel Worth paintings are awsome! I won't pretend I wasn't inspired by his work :D

Hope we all enjoy the next volume of The Ineffable con! (me just virtually)

[greenflowerceo]

hii im suuper late to my own week ik (i'll post the rest of the days from time to time, college applications were a pain </3 but i've got most of it down

This piece is a redraw of my very first post ! This has been a wip since the start of the year so my art style unsurprisingly changed a bunch as i tweaked the lines and colors. it's not the best but it's looking as good as it can be!

as for the zine, people are free to draw up pieces for the week up until the end of september and we can compile it all together! it's not really the usual zine format but who knows.. we can maybe try to figure out a way to formally start a more structured zine project for these two

Anyway! I've decided to dedicate my greenflower week posts to my headcanons I've made up for them from the past 4 years.. I figured you guys could take a peek into my brain since I haven't really been good at that unless you catch me in a vc :") there's a buncha hcs and old ass art i never posted finally unearthing under the cut if you wanna take a peek

So, first thing: Body headcanons..

i took super long getting what i want with this waay back when I started posting cause I was still figuring out a lot with my art. i couldn't get in good details/features that would properly differentiate them or make them fun to draw. I wasn't striving to be really innovative with the designs or anything, I just wanted them to feel like characters I like looking at and thinking about

finally, i'm somewhat able to settle on these as of right now! It will most likely update as the time passes and my art changes, but this is what I got!

basically the main idea is that i wanted Lloyd to be bulkier but sharper. grew up fast and has all these edges, but then you get to know him and he's just a big ol dork. Mostly wears loose-fitting clothes that hides his figure, but he's quite built underneath

Brad's a lil taller and pretty lanky. my art style may not be able to show that properly but lloyd can snap him in half <3 he also seems hella chill but that's probably cause he got balls of steel after living through a million ninjago invasions

This thing below is an old outfit concept I have for a project that I've been working on. does not reflect my current headcanons with his physical appearance but i do like his clothes

I think he loves his role as the green ninja, saving the world and such. it came with lots of baggage and reflection but i do promise that he enjoys it for the most part. I think him wearing green is kind of like wearing work clothes so he tends to avoid it on days when he's free to keep from being too ready to jump into ninja mode

i do tend to keep him in green though cause the fandom sure does love their color-coded ninja

anyway .. that's about most of what i've got for this that looks good enough to post, so here's a bunch of other doodles/sketches, both old and new ToT

oh and a quick comic too cause why not

one more: bonus greenflower yuri

thanks for coming to read this far :) there'll be more soon

[superhero--imagines]

Part 1 Here! / Part 2 Here! / This is Part 3! / Part 4 Here!

A/N: I don’t think the poll is over yet, but this one was very clearly going to have the highest percentage, I’ll do the “maybe if we were closer in age” one later though!

If you haven’t already please check out my Batman zine, it’s got so much fanfiction and beautiful art from five different artists! Please check it out, please. I need to find a way to compensate these artists. You can check it out here!

Bruce slumps in his chair, a longing glance spared to the decanter on the bookshelf.

He closes his eyes and wills away the craving. It’s always ten times worse when he wakes up the next day, and he can’t afford feeling worse at this point in his life.

Wasn’t it just yesterday he was twenty years old and he could spend all night playing Bruce Wayne’s party boy image, and be up in three hours feeling none the worse for wear. Now even after nine hours of solid sleep, he wakes up sluggish with an ache in his bones.

I have to be strong.

“Why did you keep her away from us?”

“Who?” he asks absentmindedly, his entire focus still on the brandy.

“(Y/N).” It’s the last name he expected to hear, especially from his oldest son. He looks up, hoping he’s misheard, but the look in Dick’s eyes proves him wrong.

Looks like I’m going to need that drink after all.

He reaches for the decanter, two crystal glasses retrieved from his desk drawer instinctually, glittering on his desk.

“Why are you bringing this up now?” He stalls by taking a sip, feigning casual, like the mention of your name alone didn’t set his heart racing.

“Don’t play this game with me Bruce,” Dick sounds more sad than angry, and it softens him. “Why didn’t you let us see her?”

“It’s complicated.”

“Then start untangling it for me.”

Bruce sighs, taking another sip of his father’s brandy. There’s a million reasons he could tell his son, none of which would be lies entirely, but softer than the truth.

But when he looks up into Dick’s eyes, he can’t bring himself to say any of them. Armed with nothing but liquor at the bottom of his cup, for the first time in four years, after dodging this question from reporters and acclaimed journalists and new paramours, he finally tells the truth.

“Because I didn’t want her to see you.”

A simple, ugly truth. He doesn’t bother looking up to see his sons reaction, he already knows a kind boy like Dick, a boy who’s fully believed his entire life that good prevails, won’t be able to process that his father did something like this. He makes better use of his time by refilling his glass.

Dick slumps in the chair by the time he’s polishing off his second peg, and pouring in his third.

“You did it to punish her?” He can see anger begin to replace shock, and he doesn’t blame him for it, but Bruce is angry enough at himself for the both of them.

“I wanted her to forget we ever existed.” This truth is as kind as it is ugly, and the nuance confuses Bruce even now. But three glasses of brandy affect him in a way that makes his tongue feel lighter and his mind feel free.

“I wanted to give her a potato sack full of money and jewels, and send her far away where no one knew who she was. I wanted her to meet a good partner, someone who would always put her first, and if they decided to extend their family I wanted her to be able to move on without feeling like she left anyone behind.”

“So you wanted her to have a great life, far away from you, and you never wanted to hear anything about it,” Dick’s voice is cold.

Bruce shakes his head. He wanted to hear everything about your new life. What kind of partner you picked. How you spent your days. When you got married. When you had your first child. When you had your second. Everything. And on bad days, he’d close his eyes and let himself imagine it was him standing next to you, that in some alternate universe he made a single different decision that gave him permission to deserve you.

“I was just tired of hurting her,” when you came in to his life, for the first time, he felt like he’s been allowed to have something of his own. Not as Batman, protecting to the city, or Bruce Wayne the mask he carried, but him as a man. But he could never seem to return the reverie you extended to him.

“Do you think she’d ever be able to move on, to live even a semblance of a normal life, if all of you were showing up at her house all bruised and beaten?”

Dick stays quiet now, and Bruce hates himself for having to say it out loud. His son may be an adult in the eyes of the law, but some parts of him are still childlike. After all, Bruce isn’t the only one putting Gotham first.

“I wouldn’t call the way she’s living now normal.” Dick’s been to your penthouse, he’s seen the photo albums full of tabloid clippings and the rare pictures he and his extended family post on social media. He’s seen the journal you keep, hidden on your bookshelf that he mistook for a regular novel during his bi-weekly trips to your place, full of notes on every article and picture and what might be happening behind the scenes to prompt a public appearance like that. Years of deductions and question he could have answered with a single text message a month, but Bruce wouldn’t even allow that.

Dick’s anger grows.

If Bruce had told him he did it to punish you, he’d be angry, but he would understand. Sometimes when you love someone that much, someone who’s too good for you, you grasp at any way to keep them. But this is a million times worse than that.

“If you loved her that much why’d you even let her go?”

Again, another question he wasn’t expecting. Maybe it’s the alcohol, but he doesn’t feel the sharp sting of surprise this time.

“Because sometimes love isn’t enough.”

Dick leaves. Bruce pours another glass, and when he’s sure he’s alone he pulls out his wallet, tugging out the family photo he keeps tucked beneath his black card, turning it over to see your portrait taped on the other side.

The corner of his mouth quirks up.

It was from when you’d both just gotten married, before you were used to upper class etiquette. You complained all morning about having to get ready and wear a bunch of expensive uncomfortable clothes designers had sent in for the article in the Gotham Times, emphasizing how ridiculous opulence like this was when there were so many bigger issues in Gotham.

He’d bought out every copy of the magazine in the city. He still had most of them, tucked away in a box in his closet that became the casket for your relationships. Every now and then he’ll unearth it, just to allow himself to be haunted again by your memory.

But for tonight, just your picture and a glass of brandy is enough.

“You’re so much better at this than I am.”

[madfantom]

Full animatic And so, part 2 of my comments, let's start.

◁Part 1

In the last part, and here, the order in which the children got to William is shown, and I will explain why it is not the order of the murders Here is a MEMO with missing children to make it easier to navigate, since I drew very simplistically.

I mean, when watching usually fnaf animations, I myself had the question "who the fuck are all these kids?" and, either in another animation I understood, or I did not understand at all, or the designs were so simplified that you can guess (I mean a child in all red or with a pirate armband is foxy, Freddy is all brown, etc.) So I just made outlines of their hair and costumes and that's it

It's just a little complaint here, don't pay attention, I'll just say it once, and that's because I didn't think that someone would write the same thing all the time when writing AU And one more thing. Chick's name is SOFIA. Please guys, I know that Suzy from fnaf 6 exists, okay? She's there, hell, she's even in the animation next to Cassidy. I just shifted her from being a chick to another one, not removed. And she also has an interesting role and a different design logic, I just don't have time to do everything. In fact, I even have a reason why Sofia exists and I wrote a very long text post about it, but I haven't finished drawing sketches there, so you won't see it yet. It's just that I'm starting to get a little bit hung up by the same type of comments from Pinterest, although to get rid of this, I write in big letters everywhere that it's AU

Let's go back to the animatic

I have displayed the methods of killing, which will then be reflected in the appearance of the ghosts. In fact, I took the idea from my old horror zine Fnaf art when I was thinking about how the children died there to make their appearance more creepy. Some of the ideas remained, and some were redesigned, as well as some designs

Sofia was placed in a ventilation unit. William caught her and left her there suffocating in the off ventilation , after a light strangulation, suffocating in the off ventilation. She didn't actually die, but she was the first (And I refer to this also in a custom night with the phrase "I was the first, I have seen everything!") And now imagine how the room smelled of chemicals after cleaning it from all kinds of oils and other liquids necessary for mechanisms that are very difficult to wipe off. While ventilation did not work and the girl was locked in a narrow place after she was strangled, forced to watch through the slots for the children who were after her That's why Sofia's ghost makes such a quiet clucking sound, as she coughs as if she's still in the ventilation. She won't die of suffocation, nah, in this comic she's still alive and William can cut her throat.

About the rest it is more obvious, well, not counting the pictures on the Background.

Jeremy was electrocuted, so his ghost hair is pulled up as if by an electric shock. He also has charred lips and eyelid skin and no eyebrows, and his hands have torn and charred stripes from just the same clamp. He looks like the most crippled of the three

Fritz couldn't stand the blows from blunt and sharp objects and in the end they attached a mask to his face with a nail gun or something like that and set it on fire quite a bit. Well, just a little bit. His background is directly related to the comic, which Redraw at the beginning, and now I continue. I'm still doing it, but I need a lot of time for it

Gabriella was basically cut while they wrapped one of those cables around his neck that are forever hanging on the walls in fnaf and pulled out his eye after death

[clubrougefanzine]

sketch by @nodulemodule, lines by @lotus-start, color by @noodlesblue

Hello again my darlings!! I have a very important announcement to make. After careful consideration and reviewing the interest checks you all sent in, we have decided that all proceeds will be donated to the people of Palestine! More specifically, we will be donating to Anera's Gaza Humanitarian Aid. Until next time everyone! Applications will be closing soon so I suggest filling it out if you haven't already!

From the river to the sea,

Palestine will be free

-Rouge <3

Rouge's outfit is inspired by Palestinian refuge and activist, Leila Khaled, born on April 9, 1944. She is well known for her role in the military, having hijacked an Israeli plane. She is a part of the Palestine Women Organization and had been elected as first secretary. She has written an autobiography titled My People Shall Live.

While we have decided to donate the zine profits to the people of Palestine, there are still many ways you can help right now.

Call/email your representatives, donate directly (even just five dollars can go a long way!), check out Operation Olive Branch, spread awareness, do your daily clicks (I recommend taking the time and supporting all their causes as well)!!

Free Palestine, forever and always <3 🇵🇸

[end3rm0cha]

YOU KNOW IT, THE FORMS ARE HERE !!!!

They will be OPEN for 2 WEEKS !!!

GET IN HERE IF YOU CAN !!!!

WRITER OR 3D ARTIST ? NO WORRIES YOU CAN ALSO PARTICIPATE !

As expected the theme for this zine will be Winter ! The season might not have started yet but by the time this zine should be ready, it will have been around for a bit now ! I hope this very vast theme will bring joy and ideas to everyone.

Either it be hot cocoa near the fireplace, snow on the horizon or even christmas itself, everything goes as long at is takes place during the season !

Ounce the two weeks are over I will go over every application to get as much people into this zine ! E-mails will be send and all that boring stuff <3

Keep in mind that things will have to be discussed in between participant when this phase will be over, we wouldn't want everyone to choose the same character and setting ): (as lovely as that still would be)

I will do my best for this to go smoothly, everyone is welcome to be patient and polite with me, don't be mean !

For anyone wondering you will have until december 1st to finish your pieces but this time limit can and will change if anyone needs it ! It is merely temporary for now to give me an idea of what's to come.

this post may be subject to changes.

[sinn-bee]

Hi I'm very fascinated by your dragon svsss au and I got a question if you're still open for them! It's regard SY!SQQ, bc in the first pic that you uploaded of the au he's noticeably more clothed than LQG and in the last comic you made the joke that he's wondering where his clothes are. Now to my question: is this different to how Shen Jiu used to dress because Shen Yuan had some modesty concerns from his former life or did he always cover up more? Or is Liu Qingge just unusually exposed in comparison to the other dragon Peak Lords? Anyway I hope you have a good day!

First of all sorry it took so long to answer your ask oTL (Got busy and distracted)

To answer your first question, SY!Sqq wears the same kind of clothing that SJ!Sqq did, he does feel kinda weird about being so exposed for a while but gets to learn Very Quickly that most everyone dresses like this. So yeah he has modesty concerns but learns to hide his embarrassment very quick because if everyone else is doing it, it isn’t as weird!

Lqg is more exposed than the other peak lords 😂 I’ll get back to that in a second.

SO. Some worldbuilding lore~

“Dragon fashion is designed to transition easily between forms and allow a tail to move freely, and dragons don’t care much about nudity or exposure-

Clothes expand at the waist and are slit at the sides to accommodate a larger, more serpentine form, and come off quickly and easily if you want to get really big.”

-excerpt taken from a dragon au fic my friend Corrin (/ partner in crime for making this au) wrote (it’s not posted yet, it’s Moshang, and it’s part of a zine coming soon)

Draconic peak lords, having ascended to full dragon hood, can shift between forms easily and so as mentioned above prefer to have less clothing that is easier to move around in. Normal draconic cultivators mimic those styles to some degree despite not being capable of shifting forms fully.

So less clothing = Shifts into other draconic forms more often. Lqg likes to hunt and travel and be in a draconic form a lot so he…doesn’t care much for clothing.

Yqy you’ll notice is very clothed and that’s because he just doesn’t ever shift to other draconic forms for sad reasons, and also to cover up as much of his scales as possible.

The other fun clothing headcannons (is it headcannons for an au??) I have are that the style and complexity of clothing also depends on the ranking of the peak and draconic hierarchy. Like Sqq has more jewelry and gems and Sqh has much simpler clothing and no gems. Lqg has gems because they’re a gift from Sqq.

The other reason for being so scantily clad is that draconic cultivation takes a Lot of time and effort, some more so than others, so people who have beaten their way to the top and ascended to dragonhood like to show off their scales and draconic features. Ahem Sj cough cough

Thank you so much for your curiosity! I like being able to infodump about my au especially since posting the comic and art for it takes a while 😅

[goodluckclove]

Stop Calling Yourself an Aspiring Author: A Proposition

So this post is dedicated to @dreambigdreamz, who asked me a question about when you can stop calling yourself an aspiring author. I had to wait until I could go to sleep to properly answer, because this is going to be a long one, probably. I'm actually doing this before I get to work for the day, because if I could get one goddamned person to stop labeling themselves like this I will feel success for at least three days.

It's a question for new writers - the difference between a writer and an author. If you Google the difference it appears there are two camps:

Writer and author are synonyms

You are only an author if you publish your work/write as a career

This is odd to me already. It's odd and it's immediately gatekeep-y, and it's so fucking surreal that ours is the only artistic field that has this strange distinction. For most other outlets there's still a separation between hobbyist and professional, but that's considered optional as far as I've seen.

Someone who paints or does digital art isn't likely to call themselves a hobbyist artist, even if they aren't doing it as their main source of income. They're just an artist.

If someone practices the piano but isn't actively in a performing band or symphony, they probably don't call themselves an aspiring pianist. They're already doing it. They're a pianist.

I briefly considered cook versus chef, but in that context cook doesn't necessarily mean amateur. There are line cooks and prep cooks and fry cooks and sauté cooks who work professionally. I have the qualifications of a prep or line cook, but I'm currently only cooking meals at home. So does that mean I'm an aspiring cook? That's weird. That doesn't sound right.

So by this point it should be clear that I find it deeply reductive to say that you can only call yourself an author if you've professionally published a work of writing. Maybe that was the case, like, a hundred years ago? Even then, though, one of the definitions of author is a verb describing the act of writing something. You could author a scientific paper. You could author a poem.

It's 2002. The scope of what it means to publish is infinitely vaster than it was in the days of Virginia Woolf or Ernest Hemingway. You could traditionally publish your novel - that's still an option. But you could also indie-publish. Or self-publish. Or produce your own zines or chapbooks and distribute them online. Or send our newsletters on platforms like Substack. Or serialize through websites like Wattpad, Tapas, Itch.io, Patreon, AO3, or even tumblr.

I never called myself an author, but my reasons have nothing to do with whether or not I've been published. I prefer writer, as it has a more versatile feel that tracks whether I'm working on a novel or a poem or a play. But that's beside the point.

Personally, I'm in the first camp. Writer and author are essentially synonymous, only in my eyes an author is someone who writes fiction or nonfiction prose. That's it. Have you done that? Cool. Good job no longer being "aspiring".

If you have the words aspiring author in your life somewhere, there's a good chance you're actively gatekeeping yourself from feeling good enough to do your own thing. Why not replace it with something like the following?

future bestseller

soon-to-be published

new author/writer

growing author/writer

developing author/writer

practicing author/writer

author/writer in training

just author/writer

If someone does the whole "you're a writer? what have you published?" welcome to the conversation that all writers have to tolerate at some point. People are dumb. People typically don't know our industry and how it functions, and that's fine. Just smile and nod and shrug your way out of the conversation.

Yes, there's infighting within writers who should very much be spending less time arguing who gets to wear the nametag and who doesn't. Those people are lame dipshits who should shut the fuck up and get back to writing. If you have a passion for writing, be it fanfic or scripts or short stories or novels, you are my peer and colleague. I might not like the structure or content of your writing - which is fine, by the way - but I would never even say that you aren't a writer holy shit.

I don't care if you use every genre and trope that I find trite and excessive. If you genuinely care about the stories you tell and you still present yourself as an aspiring author, you have a duty to take yourself more seriously than that.

You are a writer. You are an author. This should not be a question.

We need to move past this and start asking ourselves the real questions that come after you answer "Am I an author". Am I a safe author? Am I an advocate and an ally? Am I a supportive member of the community? Am I still learning? Am I a capable author? Am I adaptable? Am I resourceful? Am I determined?

I'm running out of steam here. I need the writers here, especially the younger writers, to move past this stage of their creative careers as quickly as fucking possible. I was there too. I get it. And I'm telling you it's time to soak the label of aspiring so as to loosen the adhesive, gently peel it off, and throw it in the trash forever. Don't even keep it for sentimental reasons to look back on later.

Toss it. Burn it. Eat it. It is not helping you.

Okay that's all. You should close this now and write three hundred words of whatever the fuck you want. I love you.

[damnfandomproblems]

Responding to 3 anons in #5796

"I agree with this tbh. Like adults are the ones making things unsafe for minors in fandom spaces. YOU are the ones who approach minors unprompted. Minors are just minding their own business in fandom, then you all come along and bother everyone."

Predators that are adults are not synonymous with all adults in fandom. It's not the fault of the vast majority of fandom that kids purposefully bust into adult spaces and arbitrarily believe the creeps saying they're "safe" adults. It's the fault of your parents for not reaching you worth a damn and the predator. And yes, kids do fucking barge into adult NSFW spaces. None of the the ones that say they mind their business actually do.

"I agree with this post, cause like... the ones doing the most harassing are adults. I am a minor, and it makes me feel unsafe in fandom spaces. Especially when I see adults drawing nsfw of characters who are MINORS! aging them up does not excuse that gross and creepy behavior. Just stop and give us a space where we don't get pushed into a corner and called annoying. Leave our fandom spaces!"

It's gonna be really funny when you age out of your favorite characters and have a moral dilemma over the fact that you don't stop thirsting over Bakugo or whoever the fuck the minute you're older than him.

And aging up is...how time works. That's like saying no one can view anyone sexually, fictional or real life, because they were once a child. Do you realize how stupid that sounds? If you don't want to be sat at the kids table, learn how to behave rather than screaming at the main table because Aunt Milly told an off color joke and Grandpa Joe has a naked Princess Peach tattooed on his arm.

"I see people getting mad about Fandom Problem #5796, but that kind of is just proving the point? You all act like the minors are the biggest problem in fandom, but you are the ones constantly inserting yourselves and making it about you.

I see adults say things like:

- "Fandom wouldn't exist without adults."

- "Who do you think created fandom? Not minors!"

- "Minors wouldn't have content if it weren't for adults."

All are ignorant of the idea that minors are the foundation to fandom. Fandom would not exist if it wasn't for minors being interested in it and starting groups for people to join. Often times, the best artists and writers in the fandoms are THE MINORS.

Adults make the space uncomfortable by inserting themselves and putting NSFW fics and art of minor characters. Then they get pissy when a minor points out it makes them uncomfortable and go "stop invading our space!"

You are the ones trying to push minors out when we just want to have fun! Just leave us alone!

-A minor"

Minors aren't the biggest problem, no. But by food are they the loudest. You say you just want to have fun but minors have on mass harassed people that were leaving them alone simply because they didn't understand the concept of dead dove don't eat.

And no, you are not, nor have you ever been, the foundation of fandom. It has always been adults, from the very beginning when Sherlock Holmes novels gained an international fan club unlike the world had ever seen to the 1960s housewife Spock/Kirk shipping Trekkies starting conventions, mailing lists, having coalate parties for zines, and laying down the foundation we have today. Adults were the ones that got sued my lunatic writers in the 90s, and they're the ones that, 90% of the time, are buying the services or media for you to consume in the first place.

And I'm sorry, but the best artists and writers in the fandom are never minors. Exceptionally talented minors are exceptional for a reason. The rest of you sit somewhere between "average and has potential" to "would make My Immortal hide its face in secondhand embarassment." Art and writing are skills, and anyone under the age of 16 likely hasn't been writing fiction long enough to run with the heavy hitters. Considering the state of the US education system, this is an even more laughable stance.

Many minors have great potential, but acting like your the best in show when you just made it out the gate is the height of hubris.

Posting as a response to a previous problem.