#in fact i am making a zine about it.

[mrcowboydeanwinchester]

Ducks out on the lake; prayer unanswered

another 13x01 poem. i was rewatching the episode and couldn't get over the beauty of the surroundings; the movement of the water and the family of ducks in the background of a shot of the pyre. the sunlight and saturation of this episode haunts its grief and i can't stop writing about it

transcript under cut!

Ducks out on the lake; prayer unasnwered

There are ducks out on the lake.

Behind the pyre,

behind the smell of gasoline on wood

they are a family silhouetted on the water.

Everything is still:

there is no wind to fake breath

in your stiff lungs under the cream sheet

but the water is always moving;

in the sun it is shimmering, tipsy,

blue and glistening into the sky

as the sun sends long shadows

over the purpleing hills on the horizon.

I want you to say sorry for leaving.

I closed my eyes shut praying for you to come back

and the sun pressed in,

lit the skin of my eyelids golden.

I strike the match to burn your body

and there are ducks out on the lake,

everything living.

[firethekitty]

[trafficblrpositivityproject]

The queue is empty right now! After several hundred asks, I am all out! (✨0✨)

I would like to send out a thank you from me to all of you. Thank you all for helping me out with this project and uplifting other members of the fan base. Thank you for sharing this blog’s introductory post and helping me on my mission. Thanks to everyone who has sent in asks about me and this project. This blog literally cannot function without the help and love from all of you, so I thank you for helping me keep it running so far!

This project will continue for as long as you are willing to send in asks to it! If you have been thinking of submitting an ask, now is the time!

If you want some ideas, here are things you can send asks about.

• Your favorite artists and writers, of course! You are all very good at this so far. If you want to specifically highlight certain pieces or art or writing, go ahead! I will not take links or imbedded images—I do not want to be reposting or accidentally open the door for people to send me spam links—but if you want to describe them, that would be fine.

• Creators of less “popular” types of media like cosplay, songs, collages and web weaves, textiles, and anything else I’m missing! These art forms do not always get as much attention, so all the more reason to send them love!

• Your favorite theorists and analysts! Share about your favorite theories as well, and why you like them!

• Your friends! “My friend [URL] is really cool” is a very good ask! Not everyone submitted here needs to be a creator, or be here because they’re a creator. I do not want people to think that this blog is just for people who are “famous,” anyone can submit asks about anyone for any reason.

• Similar, people who have supported you. Friends who brought you into the series, people who regularly leave nice tags and engage with your work. Send some love back to the people who have been cheering you on!

• Events and zines! The fandom could not survive without the work of event weeks/months and zines. And I definitely do not mind being free advertising for the events and zines you all are in ;)

• Former members of the fandom who are no longer active or have moved fandoms. If they used to enjoy life series and have since moved on, they still count.

And I will remind you I am perfectly happy to take submissions on people with a degree or two of separation from trafficblr. Hermitblr and Empiresblr accounts, or bloggers posting about other overlapping SMPs and series like POW and MCC. Or participants in fan made Life Series. As long as there is some sort of overlap, I will not be fact checking.

Repeating the same person who has already been submitted is also fine. If you wanted to send me the same person every single day for a month I would not stop you. Just keep your ask positive and include fewer than 5 people, and we are golden.

All I want is to make this fandom a little more positive. I thank you all again so much for helping me so far, and if this is as far as I go, I will feel very satisfied with how we have done.

Thank you again, everyone, from the ferryman! <3

[spirk-trek]

hii this is really random but i'm writting a paper on star trek fanfiction from the 60s/70s and i was wondering if there were any fics youd recommend? are there any like iconic, keystone fics that are really significant to the fandom? (i'm having a bit of trouble sourcing pre-internet fics)

Hi! I'll try to help the best I can but I am by no means an expert- in fact, many people who end up seeing this may have better/more information so I'll extend it to any of them to answer as well :)

Disclaimer: many of the following links contain nsfw content!!!

Here is page 1 and page 2 of what might be the first known k/s fanfic published in Grup fanzine (1974). Grup is credited as being the first Star Trek fanzine with adult content. This fic, A Fragment Out of Time by Diane Marchant was vague enough that it had to be clarified as k/s in a later edition, but the author did do so.

Spockanalia is always a good source for early fandom. It is the earliest and best preserved example of fanzine content (beginning in 1967 before the second season had even aired). I'd definitely say that makes it influential! So much more can be found on the internet archive and on fanlore. Copies of Spockanalia found their ways into the hands of many people involved in the show, including Roddenberry himself.

Gayle F is a prolific fanzine artist (one of my favorites) for k/s and is also influential to k/s writing. She was behind the Cosmic Fuck Series (yes really lol) which begins with Desert Heat (1976) in which Spock prematurely enters his second Pon Farr with only Jim available to him. This is the first mention (that I know of) of Spock's "double ridges" which are still a fanon element of his anatomy today (fanlore link here).

Alexis Fegan Black is another name to know, but is actually the pen name for author Della Van Hise. She did a lot of her work in the 80s and beyond, so I'm not sure how helpful this will be, but I think she's very influential. You may know about her licensed trek novel Killing Time (1982) because the first edition was recalled for being way too gay (changes between the two versions are best documented here imo).

Jenna Sinclair was very influential but again, a lot of her works came a little later than what you're looking for (note: ao3 does NOT have the correct dates, you'll need to find those separately).

A few more links to throw at you:

List of Star Trek Fanzines

List of Star Trek SLASH Fanzines

Captain's Log (1968)

The Crewman's Log (1967)

Spock's Showcase (1968)

Spock's Underground (1968-71)

The Sensuous Vulcan (slash zine, 1977)

Thrust (slash zine, 1978)

I hope all these links work and at least something I mentioned is helpful for you!! Good luck! I'd love to hear about your research if you're so inclined to share :)

[netherworldpost]

The Cold Hearted Amateur Economist Studying the Annual Budget ($113.4 million proposed 2023) for the Chicago Public Library to state "This Is a Stupidly Great Deal."

I am not a professional economist.

To be clear, and to start with, I do not run economic data for real world scenarios for clients or governments or any institutions.

I do run fantasy economic models for fantasy worlds (elves, dwarves, dragons, etc.) for private clients (nerds with more cash than time).

But to be clear I am not a real world economist. So there will be variables I don't know/care about.

The Chicago (hi, I live in Chicago) public library proposed budget

for 2023 is

$113,400,000

(source)

Which is a lot of money, objectively speaking, when you look at it as an annual price tag of "I need $113,400,000. For, um, this year. Next year it'll be more."

In addition to being an amateur economist, as I call myself, because I deal exclusively in fantasy-world economics exclusively

I was a professional graphic designer for many years and have dealt with charts, graphs, information displays, etc.

for a really long time

From the above source, 24.3% (about $27,556,200) is provided by grants, leaving 75.7% (about $85,843,800) to raise.

Still a big chunk of cash.

Damn near $86 million bucks.

That would buy so many zines.

Is it worth it?! LET'S GO BACK TO "I WAS A FORMER GRAPHIC DESIGNER" and dealt with charts and things, a lot, to raise cash for weird projects, a lot.

$85,843,800 (above figure to raise) divided by 365 (sorry leap year, we're being un-generous) is $235,188.49 a day.

Nearly. A quarter. Million dollars. A day.

Wow.

But wait...

...there is more than one person living in Chicago.

Which means that it is NOT a daily bill to ONE person for $235,188.49. It is a daily bill for for 1/2,665,039 PEOPLE, given the city's population.

(source)

To be fair, not everyone pays taxes, for a variety of reasons.

Since I'm not a professional economist, let's be brutally unfair and guess only 1/3 of the city pays taxes. It's far more than that, but, yknow...

...amateur economist privilege.

2,665,039 x 0.33 = 879,462.87... we'll... just round... up... this isn't SAW.

FUN FACT, though! You can borrow SAW from the Chicago Public Library for $0.00!

Resuming the point!

Daily bill of $235,188.49 sent to a collective of 879,463 people whom paying taxes to fund the library using the above math.

(Folks astute in math are going to immediately get my end point that this is cheap)

$235,188.49 (daily budget) divided by 879,463 (people)

is...

$0.26742283643 or rounded up

$0.27 per day.

The Chicago Public Library costs less than $0.30 per day per tax payer to cover the entire city.

Less. Than $0.30. Per day. Per tax payer.

...wow.

You can do similar math by checking your local library's budget and comparing it to your local population and being as ungenerous, or more specific if you wish to get a closer-to-accurate number, when comparing tax payers.

If you want to say "1 out of every 3 people paying taxes is too high" (it's not, but let's just say it is for the sake of furthering my point of "the library is an intensely great deal) and instead... say...

1 out of every 5 people pay taxes

because you want to be a contrarian for whatever personal reasons

1/5 = 20%, 20% of 2,665,039 people is 533,008 (rounded up, per above SAW rules)

$235,188.49 (daily budget) divided by 533,008 (people in this ultra contrarian numbers formula) is $0.44124757977, or, $0.44 per day per tax payer.

Using 1/3 as a tax payer base is extremely low. It's easier math. I chose it to make a point.

Pushing it further to 1/5 as a tax payer base raises the daily cost by ($0.44-0.27) $0.17.

Use your local library. Your literal pocket change pays for it.

This is a "I love the library" post sponsored by the library research I am doing for a private client and work that'll be used for future Netherworld Post releases.

[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.

[the-old-mayhem]

I simply can't understand how can people still defend Irene after she fucking defended an adult who sent nudes to a 14 year old child, after she lied about giving money to metalheads against bullying organisation, after she lied about giving money to charity (in reality she pocketed everything) and after she blocked people who ordered pins and patches from her but never got them (they sure paid), not to mention the zine fiasco (zine never arrived but money is sure in her pocket), and after being friends with people who openly hate on Øystein - in fact, she even promoted them multiple times.

She was warned about it all, she was asked to provide receipts, she failed to do anything.

And she constantly pushes the narrative like she was super close with Pelle and Øystein, yet she never has anything to share about them - no memories, no stories, nothing special.

So yes, she deserves to be bullied. Bullied into admitting that she profits from all of this, bullied into stopping this farce. If you don't agree with me, here's the door 🚪

If you think that I am trash for saying it, but after all the reasons mentioned above as to why exactly Irene sucks, you still believe that she deserves to be admired or celebrated or trusted or whatever - you're a trash just as I am.

Also, what do you propose should be done to make her stop, if not pressing her into admitting she lied? Take no action? Let her do her thing in peace? I will sooner die than let it happen

[friend-crow]

Hi crow, hope you're doing well. I have a question for you and/or your mutuals reading this.

Im usually too sick and unwell to cast spells anymore, gathering all the ingredients is the biggest problem because i have to walk and thats really painful with my crps. I feel i have the emotional energy for spellcasting but not the physical energy. I have so many spells I'd like to cast but am just stuck in bed too often to do them. Whats a bedridden friendly way to cast spells? I've heard someone in the community mention "energy batteries" but i didn't really look into it. I feel my most useful spell I've done is a wishing necklace, i enchanted the necklace years ago and occasionally make wishes with it that come true, but i don't think i can rely only on that for spellcasting when im not feeling well. Im starting to ramble so I'll end it here. Thanks for any advice.

Hello! I'm sorry to hear you've been struggling. I'm not sure how applicable my advice will be for your situation, especially without knowing what sort of magical framework you're working with, but I'll give it a shot!

Something that's helpful for me is having premade spell vessels for the main sort of categories of needs I might have, which I can recharge and repurpose as needed. There's still a certain amount of set-up involved, but if you can manage to work on them when you're having a relatively good pain day, then you can (ideally) have them on hand for when you're not feeling up to a whole crafting process.

Example: I enjoy planetary magic as a system because you have 7 "planets" (the classical planets include the sun and moon), and they each have their things they can help you with. Between the 7 of them you can basically get your needs met. So I have a book that I made for Jupiter, which has images of the planet, the symbol, seal, kamea square, Orphic hymn, etc. in it, and inside the back cover is a little envelope where I can put petitions for what I currently need. The idea is that it's supposed to function as a sort of combination talisman and portable shrine, so when I want to do something under Jupiter's rulership, I basically just need pen, paper, a candle, and incense to repurpose it.

Side note: I don't know if you're interested in planetary magic, but I plan on making a series of zines that's basically a zine version of what I described above, one for each planet, that people can print out and assemble for free. Eventually. When I'm not drowning in work and other projects.

Along these lines, I recently posted about the fact that I do my job from bed about 60% of the week. I don't have a laptop, so I've had to get creative with my computing setup so that I can use my PC while reclining in bed. It's taken a few years to get my setup dialed in, but something like getting an overbed table can make a huge difference (I think mine was like $70 and worth every penny). Burning candles in bed is iffy, but maybe you can set up an extra bedside table or something for spell work, and really dial in the most basic components you need and can keep within reach. Simple is good! You can really do a lot with just pen and paper.

I also know people who do a lot of spell work during astral travel, which requires no materials or movement. I don't have a ton of experience in this area as I tend to really enjoy working with physical materials, but that might be an avenue to explore.

Alright, that's my thoughts on the matter for the moment. Opening it up to mutuals!

[versegm]

Coming out of my self-imposed tumblr ban cuz this is the third post I see along the lines of "man we gotta jump ship" so here are some other ways to be social/do fandom/ect. I'm not gonna call them "tumblr alternatives" because I won't lie to you these are gonna be very different experiences from tumblr. But if you use tumblr as a way to meet new people/post your thoughts/do fandom/keep up with folks, then maybe one of these is worth looking into.

COHOST

I don't use Cohost so idk if it's good or not, but all the people who use it tell me it's A Whole Lot Like Tumblr. Got pretty mixed reviews on this one, people seem to either love it or hate it, either way you could check it out it's free.

PILLOWFORT

My main bitch, so I can actually talk about it.

Pros:

Lots of cool privacy features

Porn is allowed

Website has been consistently getting updates and listening to the userbase

No ads because it's user-funded

Cons:

Being user-funded means the website is frequently struggling with money

NEOCITIES

This one isn't really a social media, it's a host for websites.

Pros:

You can do whatever the fuck you want here

Cons:

You have to code it all yourself

If you didn't immediately skip this rolling your eyes, here are some ressources to get a blog running with minimum efforts, and a cool zine to figure out what to put on your blog.

FANLISTING

Ye Old internet way to find new peeps in your fandom. It's a list of fans. I'm listing thefanlisting.org here because it's the biggest hub of fanlistings out there, but there are plenty that aren't listed so if you've got a topic dear to your heart it might be worth googling up "[fandom/ship/character] fanlisting" and see what turns up.

Pros:

It's literally just adding your name to a list of fans. Low spoon effort.

Cons:

If you want to talk to any of the people on the fanlisting you have to actually manually contact them via email or website or whatever they provided for contact. High social anxiety effort.

Anyways that's all I got chief. You probably already heard of half of those and the other half might have made you go "hey wtf that's not at all what I use tumblr for why would I need these" and the answer is it's not my problem. I discovered these when looking for ways for me personally to do social media so if you do social media differently sorry I can't help ya. But hey maybe you'll discover something new who knows.

Preemptive answers to things I am sure will clog my notifications for years to come:

None of these are like tumblr! Look bestie this is like the fifth time people consider abandoning tumblr at this point you have to make your peace with the fact that there is no other website like this one.

The websites you mentioned are nearly empty there's no one in my community here! Bro if you want a website with lots of people you don't need me listing off where you can go you already know where people are going (aka: Bluesky) If you're so scared to be alone then invite your buddies to move there together so you can chat together idk. Be the change you want to be in the world.

I'm not gonna use these. Then you've got my blessing to not use these. I assure you you don't need to reblog this post just to tell me you won't use these. I don't care.

Anyways. Peace. Dunno how many people this is gonna be useful to, but if you wanted to branch out of the usual reddit/bluesky/twitter, hopefully this will help.

Bunch of pillowfort invite codes under the cut since I got a bunch. Sorry I got no cohost as I said I don't use that one.

[scriggle-scraggle]

Due South Fic Recs

Academic Punk by TheHoyden (RayK/Fraser): The quintessential college professor AU

Busted & its sequel Tapestry by JiM: A year after CoTW, and a life-changing experience, Ray goes back to Canada

Like a House on Fire by @bethbethbeth01 & kelliem (RayK/Fraser): “In the immortal words of Yogi Berra, ‘It’s deja vu all over again.’”

With Six You Get Eggroll by @cesperanza (RayK/Fraser): The story of how Ray & Fraser ended up with six kids.

Ray Is Not Actually Graphing The History Of His Relationship With Fraser–That Would Be Pathetic, And Ray Is Not Pathetic–But If He Was Graphing It, Even Just In His Own Stressed-Out, Messed-Up Brain, It Might Look Something Like This by sprat (RayK/Fraser): The sex has never not been good. That is not the confusing part of Ray-and-Fraser. They are naturals at the sex; the sex is their friend. If there was some kind of sexathalon, the two of them would be All-State, trophy-winning champs.

Like a House on Fire by Beth H (bethbethbeth): "In the immortal words of Yogi Berra, 'It's deja vu all over again.'"

Ping by Speranza: I am not the only person here who wants a do-over.

Tip, Slide, Tumble by j_s_cavalcante: Ray knew when he found the body in the alley it was going to change someone's life. He just didn't expect that life would be his.

All the Comforts of Home by rattlecatcher: post-CotW

Family Portrait by Journey [archived by dsa_archivist]: A slightly AU Ray Kowalski meets Constable Benton Fraser.

This Is Us Series by AuKestrel: how was the decision reached between Kowalski and Fraser to embark on the quest for the Hand of Franklin?

Near Wild Heaven Series by AuKestrel: This was, almost literally, the first thing I wrote, and certainly the first long thing I ever wrote. (Coming to Terms was the first "short" story I wrote and posted.) I worked on this off and on for over a year and did not write it in any kind of linear fashion. The first part was actually finished last, in part because I was stuck in getting them to a plausible misunderstanding that was necessary for the plot (such as it was). It's rough, and could have done with more work, although I did fix a lot of the (popular at the time, I swear!) dialect.

I'm posting it in part because I had SUCH a great time writing it (in fact, there are still parts of it that make me laugh), because I learned so much by/while writing it, and also because it's sort of "historical": a lot of the tropes in dS fandom did not exist when this was written (hard to believe, but there were only 27 F/K stories on Hexwood when I came into the fandom, and only about 5 of those had any kind of M/M sex!), and I thought it would be fun for other people to see how we earlier writers managed such things as tropes before they were tropes. But, in essence, you are about to read a "first novel," with all the alarm bells that ought to ring in your head.

Hawks and Hands by Dira Sudis (dsudis): Eighteen sex scenes strung together with angst and hockey.

Finding the Words by Berty: When luck finally runs out, who's there to pick up the pieces?

Wildly Courteous Ways by Starfish [archived by dsa_archivist]: A new assignment has Ray worried until Fraser steps in to help.

When the Ice Goes Out by Kellie Matthews [archived by dsa_archivist]: Long past CotW, Fraser and Ray K. discover that life both it and isn't as simple as it seems.

What We Talk About When We Talk About Wolves by Penelope Whistle [archived by dsa_archivist]: From stake-out to make-out.

Unguarded Protectorate by Bone [archived by dsa_archivist], Mairead Triste [archived by dsa_archivist]: Smut and angst. This story was previously published in the zine SERGE PROTECTOR.

Somewhere Else to Be by Kellie Matthews [archived by dsa_archivist]: This is an AU. Fraser's not a Mountie, Ray's not a cop, but as someone once said, things once linked remain that way. In any universe, they are meant to be partners.

The Reaching Out One by Alex51324: (AO3 account required) It's ten years after the events of CoTW (in other words, the present day). After the Quest, Fraser and Ray went back to their regular lives--

The Course by Bone [archived by dsa_archivist], Aristide [archived by dsa_archivist]: Randomness. Inevitability. Smut.

If It Walks Like A Duck . . . by Beth H (bethbethbeth): When an old friend of Ray Kowalksi's returns to Chicago, it takes almost no time at all for her to draw the obvious - and erroneous - conclusion about Ray and his "partner."

Genesis by kalena: In the beginning, Ray Kowalski meets Benton Fraser, geologist and volcano cowboy, in Hawaii. AU.

[riodoesstuff]

"The Z in 'Zine' stands for Z■■■"

Pt.1 // Pt.2 // Pt.3

As one of our college works, we got tasked to make a zine of whatever we wanted that had at least a minimum of 20 pages, so i did a 27ish pages long comic using the minecraft end poem about one of my OCs, Mr.Z , whom has become the main target of my brainrot.

Since some of the things said in the pages aren't really true to the actual TDV storyline, I would say this is semi-canon, but most of it is fr canon.

Also, fun fact! the first printed version of this zine was all in B&W, save for a dark and denatured shade of red. Why? Well, because it turns out that making 5 in color copies of a 27-page long zine is not. cheap. So how do you solve that problem? Easy! Make & Print it in B&W, then paint all those 27 pages by hand and cut out different pieces of colorful paper for the glasses.

-> Pros: Cheap, no extra costs in printing; Cool hand-made stuff fits the character's theme!

-> Cons: You are out of time, and this is extremely time-consuming and not effective at all; Your hands and wrist hurt like hell; They are not uniform at all; Literally everything else.

Why did i do that. am i fucking mad.

[galaxy-lilies]

FINISHED THE HOTGUY ZINE AND AAAAAAAAH /POS

okay im going to put my thoughts under the cut cause OUGH this is going to be a long post LMAO

FIRST OFF can i just say how amazing and incredible the folk who organized the whole event are, they deserve absolute kudos

AND ANOTHER FIRST OFF: SHOUTOUT TO ALL THE LOVELY WRITERS, ARTISTS, EDITORS, ETC. WHO CONTRIBUTED YALL ARE INCREDIBLE

okay okay finally into the recap that was an amazing 3 and a half hours of my life

Pages 1-103:

When I first saw the heads up about how the zine was interconnected and skipping any part would potentially lead to some plot i was immediately intrigued then i was immediately hit with the other realization of "410 PAGES???? HELLO????"

the first comic was so fucking cute OMG LIZZIE'S DESIGN WAS SO CUTE AND THE SILLY SLIDESHOW HUMOR BETWEEN JOEL, SCAR, AND LIZZIE

"hold on let me make some edits-" "no let ME make some edits-"

the artstyle changing based on who was editing what, Joel just trying to support his wife, Scar purposely mishearing "cats" as "cash" absolute hilarity how i heart them all so

____________

AND THEN WE GET HIT WITH THE DOODY ART OOOOH MY DAYS CUTEGUY AND HOTGUY MEETING FOR THE FIRST TIME AAAAAAH

Grian rocking the cloak, Scar just absolutely confuzzled: THEYRE SOOOO *shakes them*

_____________

and the shenanigans between Ren, Scar, and BDubs oh my god AND THE ON GOING BIT ABOUT HOW "if anyone says hotguy it immediately turns into the logo" it never fails to make me laugh

the early days of the mutation, the proposal of the union, PEARL'S LITTLE >:3c as she pressed publish OUGH

and the trail of petals grian left behind as he considered hotguy's proposal just *splat* i literally ate up all the art and the fics and the silly silly edits in this zine THEY WORLD BUILDING IS AMAZING

____________

speaking of world building: MUMBLR??? HELLOOOOOOO

THE ANON'S HAVING SILLY MUSTACHES BY DEFAULT

THE RANTING IN THE TAGS

THE MEMES

now i need to know, what does old mumblr *checks notes* teal? green? look like

____________

(at this point it was around 8 PM but after a long day i was already reaching the point of eepyness and i thought "surely i can finish reading the hOTGuY zine in one sitting!" spoiler alert: i did not)

____________

immediately when i saw the G Team comic i was reminded of the council of Grians LMAO Grian being the absolute chaotic one man band as he tries to collect all this evidence, the readers seeing Scar's means of transportation for the first time, and then *vine boom* SCULK

also ARIANA GRIANDE THE BELOVED HOW I HEART HER SOOOOOOOO i love all of the grians featured here, and the fact that permit office grian managed to make a silly appearance AND his permit shenanigans working in his favor- hE EVEN HAS THE "please hold." MUSIC- iconic i tell you, iconic

____________

I absolutely exploded into a million pieces seeing tibby's art then exploded again because "i can't see the end of the horizon...CUBFAN135- IS THAT YOU??!!?"

seeing the sculk snail follow behind scar idly, the fact that grian's only lead is cub ordering pizza like of all leads. but to be fair it does fit both of them LMAO

i am eating the sculk texturing btw it's very very tasty uwu

it's the fact that both of them turned to each other to yell "ARSON" like of course theyre at the ready to light things on fire

BUT THEN THIS PANEL

cub just over scar's shoulder like a sack of potatoes, the match already out of grian's hand, the sculk snail also there to witness the chaos that is about to ensue *chefs kiss* poetic cinema

also i would buy this shirt

____________

oh my gods the emails, the emails were so fucking funny i- KJSDFHDSJK

BDubs immediately trying to screen Cub out and Cub just continuing his shenanigans unperturbed, grian at his wits end trying to contact scar but of course scar is busy and cub just assumes it's some impersonation account until further notice, TGC trying to contact them but once again Mr. Fan135 Does Not Give A Fuck and he lives to cause mild annoyances and chaos, what a guy LMAO

their littol email icons are so cute, when i saw pearl's i was like "WAH PUPPERRRR"

i havent seen many email-format type beat story telling before so this was an absolute joy to explore the story through pearl's detailed emails, grian's panicked typing (how was mans typing and sending so quickly with 365+ lazer eyed chickens chasing him like a mad man + a green gob- i mean goatman), and both bdubs' and cub's concern and nonchalance. not to mention bdubs just nodding along and going "well cub you have proven yourself...and uh- added a totally not a virus to scar's phone- BUT you have proven yourself...." absolute sillies, absolutely iconic

____________

THE TWITTER BEEF HAD ME CACKLING OH MY GOD THE QUOTE RETWEETS i would pay good money to see that in real time oh my god

mumblr user hermitopia-explained you will always be famous

okay i'll admit it i was distracted by the scitties- BUT the social media handles and names being remade into hermit puns and the fact he's chilling on mending beach I CAN'T

AND OUR ETERNAL QUEEN JELLIE i literally let out a small squeal looking at her she is sO *gently holds her*

birthday gorl getting absolutely spoiled, as she deserves

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scar finding a cloak just to do the sailor moon meme: iconic, showstopping, one of a kind, amazing, talented- i love these two idiots

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and as a heads up i'm going to try and separate these into about 100 pages each! so expect the next reblog soon

[decolonize-the-everything]

Okay, I'm also a little on the confused train. I vote third party and independent in my local elections when their policies (as they often are) are better than the local democrats. I vote for some local democrats when they, as in my community they happen to be, black activists who organized the entire of the blm movement in my city and then moved to campaigning for city council and stuff. I participate in mutual aid, I use my free time to bake bread for, and then deliver the bread and naltrexone to unhoused encampments. I advocate for every school in my area to teach actual native history. I distribute land back and esims for gaza pamphlets all over my city. I volunteer at soup kitchens a couple times a month, ect. I "donate" monthly "rent" to the tribes on whos land i live. I am currently at the least protest voting uncommitted in my states primary.

But like, I do bump up against... I don't want to vote for Biden. But if Trump wins, he's states he's going to put his everything into not only the genocide in Palestine, but hella racist internal policies beyond what we already have, stripping voting rights, stripping any existing social safety nets, removing anit hate crime protections, ect

So like. Yes. I am thinking about how indigenous communities would be impacted, at least in the short term. Among many others.

My final vote isn't decided yet

Do you really think it will prevent harm to vulnerable people to risk another trump term?

Not trying to be an asshole, asking you bc I respect you

*scare quotes are to imply that I think that language is shallow and not useful but I don't know what else to say

Please don't block me I'm being completely sincere about being deeply empathetic to your anger and share in it, but also confused and scared about the right course of action and the reasoning behind it

My opinions stem from my own organizing and activism.

I think it's going over a lot of heads that the same way we organize for landback or BLM and leave zines around to have progress in dismantling those, we ALSO need to be organizing behind 3rd party candidates to dismantle the 2 party system.

Like how helpful would it be to Any of those causes if someone said that instead of organizing for landback or donating or helping houseless people you should just vote for Biden?

That'd be ridiculous. Biden doesn't have any intention of significantly helping with any of those things and he's no substitute for the activism that's being done or still needed right?

So why are we as organizers accepting this logic when it comes to one of the most powerful positions in the world?

Why are we settling and saying he's the "realistic" choice and accepting it when we Know there are other options and avenues because we've Already worked in them?

I don't understand this and if You could shed some light I would in All Honesty appreciate it.

It's ACTUALLY confusing as hell to me that people I respect and work with and see as peers and comrades think that harm reduction is the best way to vote. It's confusing that instead of advocating for other avenues and educating people about other options or working for 3rd party campaigns or leaving educational zines around throughout election cycles and campaigns..... They say they're just gonna vote for Biden.

Yeah Trump sucks. I'd never deny that. I'd never deny he's dangerous. I just Also don't see how Blue Fascism is different from Red Fascism. It's all fascism and idk why we think Blue Fascism is an acceptable trade off when we literally Do Not have to keep making this trade.

The fact so many of us regularly feel like we don't have a choice is a testament to democracy already being dead, you know? Idk what we're saying 'yeah but the other fascists could be worse so let's just keep our heads down' as leftists.

I'm gonna be very real here, my concern is the future of humanity at this point. Point blank. White supremacy is an evil ideology that has harmed every person it touches while also making sure they help perpetuate it. In the last 5 years I've watched Nazis come back, several genocides, climate change and the death of winter, and police kill a man trying to protect a forest. Our president is more concerned with his campaign than the people he's killing or the families he's exploiting to do it.

Someone is going to have to risk something in order to stop a machine this big from killing all of us. The earth my child is going to inherit is going to be unrecognizable to me. She'll be lucky if she's never a climate refugee, just as it's Only luck that she's here in the first place after the USA tried to kill off the native Americans.

My concern is Everyone. And I know it seems backwards as hell to risk something so awful, but sometimes you have to make sacrifices to have something better.

I'd give anything to save my daughter from the future she's currently on track to inherit. And that doesn't mean that I don't love her. It's a testament to how much worse I genuinely believe things will get if we continue down this path accepting anything As Long As It's Not As Awful As It Could Be.

We would lie down and Vote to have robot dogs surveil our neighborhoods for immigrants and drag queens at this point "as long as it's not trump" and doesn't that terrify you more than he does?

It terrifies me.

There's no way that's harm reduction when we are NOT being harmed that way right now. That's Increasing the harm. A harm guarantee that you were tricked you into signing under threat of something worse.

[prince-liest]

Omg, I just wanted to say I ADORE your characterization of Al and Vox! I don't even have the words to express how much I love reading your stuff, especially the Anon responses you post on here. The behind the scenes thoughts are literally my food, lifesource, its so good when people not only write characters IN CHARACTER, but also include stuff about their analysis/understanding of the character too.. I'm literally obsessed with breaking down characters and yk, cracking their chrome domes open to see how they work (which admittedly, I am not the best at <_< but I love reading them). Just wanted to say how much I love your writing. I had maybe 2 questions, please don't feel pressured to answer them :>

What in your mind (in reference to the 66.6 fics) would motivate Alastor to let Val get close to him in the first place? Or was that more you picking these two characters up by the scruff of their necks and plopping them into a hypothetical scenario to explore their character and write some fun intimate thingsTM?

What do you think of the dynamic of Vox and Al vs something like Lucifer and Al? Personally I've noticed that something Alastor craves, behind the mask of his static smiling persona, is attention. He's (at least how I saw it) usually peeved when people don't care about his absence, and seems especially bothered by the King of Hell refusing to really acknowledge him, so he goes out of his way to push Lucifers buttons (like calling himself a father figure to Charlie, IN FRONT OF HER ACTUAL FATHER LOL) whereas with Vox, Vox is literally CONSTANTLY thinking about Alastor. Man literally interrupted his regular TV program to do a segment about how much he totally didn't at ALL care about Alastors dissapearance or the fact that he returned (suree buddy). So Alastor can have more fun with him and annoy him by ignoring and messing with him on purpose.

ty if you do respond to this, sorry if it was hard to understand, sometimes I forget how to put the thoughts in my brain into coherent words!

Ahhhh, thank you very much, anon! I'm especially happy that you're enjoying my commentary on Tumblr, haha - I spent a while on Twitter because that's where all the fandom zines I was in were being hosted, but nothing beats Tumblr for giving me a nigh-unlimited word count and a captive audience for my rambling! >:D <3 I'm back to cocooning myself on the OG hell site.

Thank you for this ask, it really brightened my day! :D

As for your questions:

1. I'm assuming that was a typo and that you mean Vox (but in case you did mean Val: that was just a funny accident of him walking by the room! Alastor wasn't paying enough attention until it was too late), and to that I say:

I think Alastor allows Vox to take a go at him in canon because he finds Vox's obsession with him to be entertaining, but also because Alastor is kind of a narcissist and that same obsession massively feeds his ego, especially in a political climate that otherwise forgot about Alastor. Vox's whole "Who gives a shit about Alastor coming back?! Haha, now let me have a public meltdown and short out power to the whole city about it! Oh, fuck, why is he back, though?? Can we send a spy in to find out??" is exactly the reaction that Alastor wants every time he mentions his mysterious absence and gets brushed off.

At the same time, Alastor doesn't seem to register Vox as a sincere and genuine threat. He's a big enough fish in the Pride Ring pond that his obsession with Alastor is gratifying, but Alastor's self-absorption also doesn't really allow him to treat Vox as a threat tier above "annoying in a funny way, and also television is stupid." (Perhaps this will change in season 2... :eyes: (or perhaps Alastor will get Even Worse) (please god let him get even worse))

So those two things in combination make Vox the perfect candidate for Alastor to experiment with while maintaining his ego and not feeling particularly threatened. Despite Vox's Safeword 101 talk, Alastor would never put stock into that system with Vox unless he was certain that he himself would be able to back up a 'no' with overwhelming force. Him even considering safewords in the Live On Air! series is less for his own sake and more a politesse he offers on Vox's request to warn Vox to slow the fuck down before Alastor tries to put his insides on the outside.

2. And in direct contrast, we have Lucifer...

... Who Alastor obviously actually cares quite a bit about, because he's a whole nother power tier from both Vox and Alastor, and furthermore and possibly even more importantly, a credible threat to Alastor's relationships and standing in the hotel. I think a lot of discussion I see about Alastor prodding Lucifer seems to talk about how quickly he got annoyed about Lucifer's comments, but that misses the fact that he was pissed off before Lucifer even showed up. He got pissy the moment he saw the welcome sign, actually! And I wager that he was narratively absent for the scene where Charlie actually calls Lucifer because he would have done his best to manipulate her out of doing so had be been there.

And given that the two clearly haven't met before (though obviously Alastor knows of Lucifer - and hates that the inverse isn't true, hah), it's not 100% clear exactly why he's immediately so annoyed, but in my personal view of things and barring something like "he's projecting onto Lucifer because his contract is with Lilith," I think that what we know of Alastor's personality points most strongly to "he liked being the hotel's benefactor and sees it as His Project, and doesn't like the idea that Charlie called daddy for something that she thought mysterious, powerful Alastor couldn't handle." He distracts a lot with obviously-goading comments about practically being Charlie's dad in his duet with Lucifer, but underneath that he puts a lot of emphasis on the work he's done for the hotel and the fact that he's been supporting Charlie and the hotel from the start, so why the fuck is this deadbeat asshole suddenly turning up?!

Tl;dr: Charlie missed her insight roll on Alastor's personal investments and he's sooooo offended - and taking it out on Lucifer!

I think one of my favorite things about both Lucifer and Alastor is that they both sooo obviously belong in the Pride Ring, hahaha.

[utilitycaster]

(not accusatory in tone) But in what ways does Dropout specifically cater to their loud obnoxious fans? I am a pretty casual D20 fan and only briefly lurked in Dropout’s discord when it existed, but I’ve seen this sentiment a few times now where people say Dropout listens to these fans as opposed to say CR, who has definitely backed out of unmoderated fan spaces. I was curious how Dropout differed (especially as much of their cast seems to use twitter and social media sparingly)?

I believe that the Dropout server's collapse is directly tied to the fact that they never had a "keep it on topic" rule, clumsily tried to implement a "no politics rule", and listened to a loud and unpleasant minority on Twitter who pushed back so hard that they opened up multiple political channels. Their next Discord survey specifically requested (volunteer) mods from specific minority backgrounds, one of which was a group of which I am a part, which was frankly disgusting - like, the reason pretty much any other fan server I've seen has a broad "on topic" policy is because most fan server moderators are like "I can handle making sure people keep it appropriate to a D&D show; I am not prepared to moderate discussion on geopolitics." The fact that the Dropout server's solution was to ask people from minority backgrounds to do this labor was infuriating and I have to admit, had they not shut down the server soon after I'd have at least written an actual letter (well, email) saying that unless they started paying mods, I would cancel my subscription over it. (I did say that I found this wildly inappropriate in the survey).

I also found their mods even before that whole debacle to be grossly incompetent. The biggest example I have in mind is that in The Ravening War, Lou's character Deli was at minimum flirting heavily with his aunt by marriage (and that this was reciprocated) and the mods like...outright said this wasn't happening because it would be icky, in pretty much those words; but this was not an isolated incident.

On the other side, Critical Role has pretty consistently only listened to fans for major missteps (the Wendy's one-shot) and otherwise has stuck to their guns on setting their own timeline and agenda for making or not making political statements, keeping moderated fan spaces on-topic, and also just not giving into fan requests that would require immense and impossible to moderate effort for very limited benefit (the biggest of which is their choice to keep their existing blanket content warning in most situations, despite a similarly small but loud contingent back in early 2021 making a commotion about it).

I think most of the problems with Dropout listening to fans stopped once they made the server read only. I do think that the fandom generally still has some of that problem (there's a zine scene, which I think is great, honestly, but a lot of the people who work on the D20 zines think they're king shit of fuck mountain for doing so) but I no longer think that any representatives of Dropout the company are listening; I think the server led them to learn their lesson.

[netherworldpost]

Hey, just wanted to let you know that thanks to you, I've written out a few zine ideas (mostly weird and designed to be made badly, but one that I will probably make to be Nice so I can show it to family and appear to be professional or something). I haven't drawn them all out yet, but you helped me feel like I can do a thing that I've been thinking about and didn't have the words for how to make for a long time. Now I have a medium (art and silly words) to do it (talk about weird obscure facts that I'm interested about and probably at least 3 other people care about). So anyway, I just wanted to say thanks for being the kind of weird that helped to make me feel less alone and like I can make strange and cruddy artwork to talk about my interests in the hope of finding other weirdos like me. I hope you're having a good night and tell the moon and mermaids I said hi.

Hey thats amazing!!!

When you start drawing it, or if you don't want to wait and draw it -- then before you start to produce it -- make what's called "a paper dummy."

This is literally just a paper mock up of the final size, binding, whatever, using scrap paper.

Make it, then write big numbers "page 1, page 2" (etc) then unbind it, unfold it, etc. Now you'll see "okay page one should go here... page 2 should go there..."

Keep making them. Long as it is fun. Long as it is rewarding. Regardless of audience.

It's super easy to confuse "art" and "marketing" and I think that's one of the big things that chomps people when it comes to "I made this thing, no one is looking at it?"

Art and marketing are DISTANT cousins.

Some of the most popular and prolific and amazing artists online and offline media use really simple forms and shapes. Some of the most amazing technical exercises you'll ever stumble into are virtually unknown.

It's all irrelevant.

Your goals are the singular relevant thing.

I advocate for "have fun" as the primary goal because you're exclusively in charge of that. Everything can grow -- if you want it to -- from this point.

You should make your zine and you should show your zine to people who are interested in the zine's subject and if you're on solid levels with this person you should give them the zine.

Then you should make more.

If you make the zine and you think "I love this and I want more people to see it, this would please me" then look into marketing. Huge corporate word full of as much moonlight as sleeze but it boils down to:

Make thing

Figure out who likes this thing

Show it to people who like the thing

Make more things

Repeat from beginning

Forever

Marketing is...

...tricky.

Sometimes fun. Sometimes gross. Rarely cheap. Occasionally worth it. Literally never ending if you go this route.

FREQUENTLY a repeated exercise of being in the right place at the right time with the right widget -- be it a thing you're selling or something you post online because you want to share.

Cutting the ramble short -- there is a reason why Coca-Cola is served in nearly every country on earth and has for decades AND STILL MARKETS.

It's an unending task that is constantly reinvented. When I say "there are town-sized departments of people dedicated exclusively to Coca-Cola and figuring out how to remind people it exists -- not buy it, just remind them that it exists" I am talking from experience. In college I briefly interned at one of these companies. Their entire account was literally "remind people Coca-Cola exists."

As I say, getting people to know the thing you made exists is tricky.

It is--

also

completely optional

make the thing and have fun making the thing then have more fun making more versions of the thing, new variants, re-dos as skills improve, as ideas bubble up, as "...huh"

That. Is. POWER.

Sometimes making art and zines is a hobby.

Sometimes it is a way of talking.

Sometimes that talking is with yourself, now.

Yourself in the past.

Yourself in the future.

Others.

Lots of mixes here.

Sometimes it's a way of shaping the world a bit more into a shape that you want to exist by making something and now it exists and the world is different, yours first and foremost.

I am happy to welcome you to the human classification of "artist." There are billions of us, from the early days of humanity up through now and going onwards for as long as humans exist.

Welcome.

I'm so glad you're here.

But remember.

I am not at credit here.

I merely opened a door that was already there.

You did this.

You are planning this, you are going to make this, you're going to make it better next time, you're going to figure out "This is who I am, this is what I want, this is how I'm going to get it," and then you're going to make it.

And it's going to sit on your desk.

And the world will be slightly better because YOU made THIS THING.

That is power.