fanculturesfancreativity

[fanculturesfancreativity]

#if its 1997 Ray K had barely started #but also #lol #The two pairings wouldn't appear in the same zine!! #hashtag veteran of the Ray Wars omg (@cesperanza)

A Digital Fangirl's Journey into the Analog World

It started with a search, three words typed into the eBay search bar. Due South zine.

I began my fandom journey online when high-speed internet was slowly rolling out in the United States. I've never known a time in fandom when a million search results weren't at the tips of my fingers, and yet I've been nostalgic for a more physical relationship with fandom. Thankfully, the @ds30below fest announcement had a week devoted to history. The perfect excuse to dive into zines for the first time.

Due Frisky #2 is a digest-sized, soft-cover zine held together with staples. This baby fits perfectly in your hand for reading anywhere. The photo doesn't do it justice, but the cover is a pretty pinky-red color.

Inside, there is a table of contents, an editor's note, the stories, and, at the back, a short advertisement for more zines from the same press. Included at the end of each full-length story is a black-and-white photograph from the show that is connected to the story's content. This is an F/V zine from January of 1997, although nowhere do they address or even mention Ray K. Perhaps issue one dealt with that?

As for the content itself, there are four stories and one poetry cycle. I'd especially like to highlight the first story, "Perfection" by Khylara, which deals with Ray V's Catholicism in such a beautiful way that I was practically jumping with joy as I read. Unfortunately, my searches have not turned up this fic anywhere online to share! It's such a shame, too; it's so thoughtful.

Speaking of which, although I can find some of the authors online, I haven't found any of the particular fics from the zine available. Mireille, who people may know from their other F/V works, has the first part of a multiple-part series in this zine. Now, the editors warn you of this in the editor's notes, but I had forgotten by the time I got to this story, and frankly, I am climbing the walls wondering what happens next!

I found reading this zine extremely satisfying. It was wonderful to have some fanfic to curl up with during a spring storm while being beholden to a supercomputer in my hand.

I also loved reading stories that were contemporary to the show's actual airing. I found the language to be just ever slightly more formal than fanfic nowadays, but in a way that was not distracting or detracting.

Another thing, as the title might imply, all of the stories feature sex and sexuality as a topic. Obviously, given my track record, that doesn't bother me. But I could see where that would turn some off from reading. There's drama, fluff, and plenty of other emotions throughout the pieces, but at the end of the day, they will be having sex.

Overall, this was a fantastic zine for a beginner. Every piece was wonderful, and I anticipate reading it again many times.

[fanculturesfancreativity]

Another AO3 thing I’m curious about, how do yall decide if something is good enough to read? Usually I follow a rule of 1 kudos for every 10 hits. One because it’s easy math and two it’s yet to fail me. Thoughts? Do you just go for it and pray it’s good?

[fanculturesfancreativity]

stating to think there’s an inverse correlation between how good media is and how easily fandomizable it is 😁

[fanculturesfancreativity]

What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn't happen much, though.

��� J.D. Salinger.

[fanculturesfancreativity]

I was today years old when I learned that when you type "otp: true" in AO3 search results it filters out fics with additional ships, leaving only the fics where your otp is the main ship

[fanculturesfancreativity]

if a character means enough to me i will truly never stop thinking about them. i just retire them into a little back room in my brain and periodically bring them out to stare at them under a little light

[fanculturesfancreativity]

I'm gonna say it.

It's unhinged to assume that someone's taste in fiction equates to what they believe is moral or good, or is something they want to see or experience in real life.

That is a bonkers assumption to make.

I'm tired of humoring people with long arguments about it when the simple fact is it is a totally fucking absurd reach to accuse someone who enjoys something in fiction of being in favor of it in real life.

I'm tired of pretending like this is a legitimate position to hold-- that they should be afraid of fiction's dire influence on a reader's moral decay or that it's a sign of what the author secretly wants for realsies in real life.

[fanculturesfancreativity]

Fanfic authors love comments! We don't care how long it is! We don't care if its just nonsense! We don't care if its an in depth review or a single word! We love engagement! We love fanarts! We love that our work inspires you! We love to see what you create through our works! We love you recommending our stuff! We love kudos! We love votes! We love bookmarks! We love subs! We love you, and I don't think you know how much you truly mean to us! We would move mountains for you!

[fanculturesfancreativity]

[fanculturesfancreativity]

if you’re white and wanna write a poc character and feel awkward about it i implore you to ignore any twitblr stuff treating it as a massive ethical burden and instead come in more with the same mindset you’d have if you wanted to write about idk firefighters but didn’t know anything about firefighters so you do... research. Like fuck off with the weird kinda creepy calls for spiritual introspection you’re not writing about god damn space aliens you’re writing about humans and if you think you need more perspective of different life experiences just read?

[fanculturesfancreativity]

Photographs That Show Action Figures Interacting with Everyday Objects

Japan, Osaka-based photographer Hotkenobi stages action figures in real life settings to create a series of quirky photographers.

Keep reading

[fanculturesfancreativity]

Stop putting DNI on your tags and stop bringing shipping discourse into AO3

AO3 hid the story and asked OP to remove the tag (the fanfic is not even removed) due to the inflammatory tag. That's deserved. AO3 is not a social media for people to fight over ship and chronically online discourse. It's a library. If people keep bringing DNI and discourse into AO3 it'll make the place toxic for writers and reader.

What are you trying to accomplish with putting DNI? Do you think people actually care about DNI? No, it's just making you looking like an asshole doing this

Also AO3 was founded by a Wincest and Thorki shipper. Astolat made AO3 because FF net and other sites keep purging nsfw fanfic. AO3 is literally made for problematique shipper that op don't like.

Then OP doing this? For what? People want to enjoy reading their fanfic not seeing DNI and online discourse on AO3. I hate using the word virtue signaling as it's often used to demean progress but this is what a real virtue signaling looks like 🤦🤦‍♀️

(I bet op wrote more inflammatory tags on their fic other than 'proshitter DNI get a life' because it take a lot to get your story hidden or removed)

[fanculturesfancreativity]

literally so embarrassing to have someone go "i don't go here" or "what's this from?" on my art and it's a rarepair/crackship that is in no way representative of the source material... and i have to be like. well you see, the rest of the restaurant's menu is not like this. i'm doing my own thing eating black olives right out of the can in the back-of-house. whether or not you want me to throw you a can, you have to understand that's not what they serve out front

[fanculturesfancreativity]

Funniest thing in the whole wide world is opening a completed fic and seeing the author’s note for the first chapter say something like “unlike my other fics, this will be a shorter one! Expect it to be complete within three months or so” and then you look at the stats and the fic is 100k+ words and took two years to finish

[fanculturesfancreativity]

I know "60s housewives who invented slash fanfiction" has taken on a life of its own as a phrase, but Kirk/Spock didn't really exist until the 70s and THOSE WOMEN HAD JOBS. They were teachers and librarians and bookkeepers and scientists and they damn well spent their own money going to conventions, printing zines, buying fanart and making fandom happen. Put some respect on their names.

[fanculturesfancreativity]

[fanculturesfancreativity]

30 Below: resources & AO3 collection

First things first: here's the AO3 collection for all your future fanworks! Yay!

Now, some links to get you started.

🐢Where can I watch due South?

Well, we're all in luck — it's on youtube!

There's also Slings and Arrows and Hard Core Logo, both great—but not only—points to get into Canadian 6 Degrees. You can DM this blog, flownwrong on DW or emotionalrisotto on Discord for a better quality rip of HCL, or something more obscure ;)

🐢Are there transcripts?

Why, yes, there are — wonderful and detailed, on Dreamwidth and AO3. Courtesy of @agentreynard!

🐢Where do I look for history and discovery?

@juniperpomegranate's lists of Livejournal and Dreamwidth DSC6D communities are an endless rabbithole of joy (note that some of them are alive on DW, pop in to see what's up!)

LJC's due South page is just one example of many, many fansites of yore. This one is still up, offers lots to see, and links to many other fansites (see: Wayback Machine)

Fanlore. Linking categories, not just fandom articles, because there's a lot more: due South | Canadian 6 Degrees.

Official site, archived. Honestly, this one is just cute. This is a link to a random snapshot — if it doesn't work, see below.

You'll have to deal with a lot of broken links. Most often, Wayback Machine has your back: paste the link into the search bar and click around on the timeline until you find a working snapshot!

These links are just a few ideas, and mostly concern the online era of dS fandom — please feel free to share your own suggestions.

Otherwise — just pick a link and go from there. Use whatever you find as inspiration. You'll likely see something I didn't and do something I haven't thought of. That's the point. Enjoy!