#this will probably be included in a zine later

[porcelain-rob0t]

on identity, healing the inner child, fursonas, and cringe culture

[macgyvermedical]

Um... What is whump 😅

Well, like a number of fandom terms, that's a lot of different things to a lot of different people. If you look on a bunch of whump blogs, you will see almost as many answers to this question.

I personally feel it boils down to a genre founded on the way of showing a character's vulnerability in fiction without the necessarily using romance or sex. So generally that means some kind of illness or injury, where one character has to take care of another (or the much more recent version, which is one character hurting another character, with or without the care aspect).

It's been around in a variety of ways since fandom was a thing. The first name for the genre probably originated out of the Star Trek fandom, whose authors wrote "Get!Character" (for example, Get!Kirk or Get!Spock) fanfic in paper zines in the 1960s. The next term, "charactertorture" (for example, muldertorture) came out of The X-Files fandom in the 1990s. Livejournal and Fanfiction.net preferred the term "Hurt/Comfort" to refer to the genre as a whole, without tying it to a specific character or fandom. Finally, around 2005, we started seeing the actual term "whump" gracing entries to Gateworld forums, though originally it referred to "ShepWhump"- injuries and illnesses befalling the character John Sheppard of Stargate Atlantis, which later broadened to include characters from Stargate SG1 and then any other fandom or character. At this point, people who enjoyed whump were called "whumpers".

Around 2016-2018 there was a shift to include explicit torture without following it up with the care and comfort that had long been part of the genre. Now instead of the vulnerability coming only from opening oneself up to care in a dire situation, the vulnerability could be forced onto the character by another character. It is still to an extent accomplishing the goal of causing a character to experience vulnerability, but it depends on the author/reader/watcher as to which definition of whump they ascribe to. At this point, the term "whumper" started to refer to the character who was doing the hurting/torturing within the story, if there was one.

It's honestly been a relatively big split in some parts of the community, which is why you saw the poll I reblogged the other day asking whether people preferred whumperless whump (old definition) or whump with a whumper (new definition).

[newttxt]

hi quip! i really like your one piece comics and i am curious how you do them! i'm not good at comics and want to be better at drawing them! how do you learn how to make comics?

thank you!

uh oh... im afraid u have caught me at the perfect crossroad of "bored at work" and "unrelated task ive been meaning to do but keep putting off."

this is long. i hope you like reading (and grayscale progress pics). and of course!!! disclaimer before we begin that this is just how I, personally draw comics. there is no "right way."

quip's comic-making process!

Switching my typing to make this more legible...

My process can kinda be broken down into 6 steps:

Brainstorming

Thumbnailing

Sketching

Panels & Text

Lines

Tones/Colors

1. Brainstorming

My brain is a leaky sieve on a good day, so I sloppily jot down ideas in my phone notes the moment I have them. This helps me when it's time to draw too, because if I feel art blocked, I can look through old concepts and see what catches my interest.

Otherwise, I love drawing for other people's writing. :) And if worst comes to worst, doing manga/comic page redraws in my style teaches me new things every time.

Once I have my idea, I'll usually make a bulletpoint list of "plot points" or "story beats" I want. Then I plan the comic with this format that I've adapted from a tutorial I read once. I'm going to use my most recent comic (original comic post) as an example.

I start in the third column, writing notes of what I'd want to see in each panel. I also include the dialogue (in this case, I didn't have to write the dialogue! it's from the fanfic linked in the original comic post!). I usually write the whole name like [Luffy:], but at this point I've drawn so much of these guys, just the first letter works.

I like to handwrite these notes to get an idea for how much text I'm putting in a single panel.

After I describe all the panels, I go back and separate them into pages. I can't tell you how to know how many panels to a page. It's whatever works for you. I just kinda know about how big each panel will be, and so I can feel when I'm probably running out of space. (Also. You can change things later. I don't in this example, but I add/drop pages/panels all the time.)

2. Thumbnailing

Thumbnailing—as the name suggests—should be done tiny. Too tiny to accidentally get sucked into details.

This is about marking down blobs where items/characters go, and figuring out the paneling. I'll draw and redraw these a bunch of times too.

This is also the most time-consuming/brain-working part for me. If I were in a zine that did progress percentage, I'd try to finish thumbnailing around the 50% mark (but I'm also a moderately fast artist, so your mileage may vary).

I think the terrible quality makes them charming, actually. I really like how silly they look. :')))

I will add, when you draw your "page" rectangle, make sure it's the same proportions as your actual canvas for the final image. You want an accurate idea of how much space each panel will take up, especially if you have a lot of text.

3. Sketching

This is my most recent change to my usual workflow, and it's saving me a lot of time. I make my thumbnails a bit bigger (each one about half the size of the final canvas), and I sketch these basic body forms right over them.

It just helps give me placement for my actual lines!

I usually draw these in a paleish color so I can lower the opacity and not get distracted by them while lining. The random darker parts are to either help keep two forms separate (like when two characters have their limbs all over) or to better define sections that were too sloppy/poorly proportioned.

I also think this helps my poses stay looser, because I have more dramatic/wriggly shapes that aren't too bogged down by proportions yet.

Sidenote: I CANNOT show this here, but sometimes this is when I take videos. Of myself. I prop my phone camera up and shoot a video of me acting each panel. :/// It looks really dumb, but it also shows me fun body language ideas like hand gestures, expressions, weight distribution, etc. Just pretend you're an overdramatic cartoon character, and try not to worry about your roommates or mother walking in on you doing odd things. (You can also use the video for anatomy reference later, but I usually just capture the vibe and don't try to copy the actual video frame.)

4. Panels & Text

Oh, boy. So, the panels are usually just straight lines (though it's fun to make creative exceptions, like a round panel to mimic looking through a spyglass), but there are some fancy rules that I don't strictly adhere to.

I believe (I have no technical training in this. Take everything I say with a grain of salt) the vertical gaps (between two side-by-side panels) should all be a consistent width and the horizontal gaps (between two panels on top of each other) should be another. The vertical ones? Should be thinner? Because you want the eye to easily glide between them, whereas the horizontal gaps should be a visual barrier to keep you from jumping ahead. Just something I've vaguely noticed.

There are lots of fun "default layouts" you can look up. Or keep it a consistent grid. I think it's fun to sometimes have characters/objects sticking out of panels and overlapping others. This is just a matter of taste, creativity, and inspiration. (Read Witch Hat Atelier... It has some of my favorite paneling...)

You may also notice I have already done the speech bubbles. This is, to me, a crucial step. This helps me catch early if I don't have enough room for all the words. It also lets me plan the art in each panel with the speech bubbles in mind. There's nothing worse than working really hard on a panel, and then you realize there's no room for the bubbles.

I also try to lay them out in a way that guides the eye! Even without art, can people tell where to go next? Better yet, if I want people to look at panels out of order (aka not left to right, in my case), can I use the speech bubble path to make them? Here's just a vague example of what I mean.

As an added bonus, doing speech bubbles early also allows me to be lazy! :) Ignore the comic; I'm not supposed to post it yet oops,, There's a whole lot of drawing to do on each comic page, and I am not wasting my time on stuff that will be covered up. So yes, if I hide my bubbles, there are a lot of unfinished lines trailing off into nothing. (As a bonus, if there's a part of a character you're struggling with—and it won't look weird to do so—you can move speech bubbles to just hide the problem area yayyy)

Making the actual bubbles could be their own whole tutorial, tbh, but there are some general guidelines I use.

Zoom out when you choose your font size. You want to know how it will look to the average reader, so it isn't super teeny tiny or way too big. You generally want to keep the same text size for all your pages/bubbles.

When I draw bubbles, I try to size them about one vertical letter height (and some change) around the words [left side]. This isn't always the case though, because humorously large or funny shaped text bubbles can convey different feelings [right side].

On Procreate, I set my bubble lines to Reference and just drag-and-drop the white fill on a separate layer below the lines. (Remember to turn Reference back off again when you're done, or your fill bucket won't work right when you're drawing.)

To get the white outlines I use to keep the bubbles from cluttering up the art, I literally just Gaussian blur an all-white copy of the lines + fills... and then I copy and merge it 5 times until it's opaque enough. This is a terrible way to do it, but it works for me. :')

5. Lines

This is the part that I can't tell you how to do. I literally just. Draw right over my wacky sketched body forms. Boom. Comic drawn.

I'll make three suggestions:

Don't focus on making every panel perfect. Give a little extra love to big ones or ones you want people to linger on. Otherwise, know that people are typically speeding through the art. It's way more important to focus on storytelling than art technique. In my opinion, a good story that's told well will always be better than a beautiful one told poorly. (Some comics are beautiful AND well-written... Alas, I am just a hobbyist who needs to get the ideas out of my head at top speed.)

Put your background lines on a different layer. Put your foreground lines on a different layer too, if you have those. Basically, I try to keep the main part of each panel (usually a character or object) on my lines layer so I can erase background/foreground/etc lines to ensure clarity/focus.

You can make background lines lighter colors too. I have too many numbers sorry. (1) Background. The stuff that's farthest away. Lightest lines. Few details; more focused on shapes and the suggestion of a background (I'm not good at backgrounds). (2) Midground. Same distance away as the characters are. Lines can be black. (3) Also midground, and also the same distance away. But they're very detailed, so I lighten them so they aren't so distracting. (4) The characters. Black lines for focus. For people who haven't seen the comic, I swear they are just hugging. This is SFW. D:

6. Tones/Colors

Do not. Do NOT ask me. I don't understand colors. I hate working with them, but I try because I want to improve. I hate doing anything beyond the simplest grayscale shading. Please go elsewhere for your coloring/tone advice. This is how my color picker looks 95% of the time. I have pre-set "percentages" of black that I got by lowering the opacity of a black layer and just color picking it. I don't even know the exact percentages I used. Good luck out there. Be better than me.

7. Sharing

This is a bonus step that I didn't mention earlier, but it's actually the most important of all of them.

You need a friend. Or maybe a groupchat or discord. A family member or coworker if you're really close like that. I don't know.

Find SOMEWHERE you can spam wips and be cheered on. Drawing comics takes a while, especially if you're trying to tell longer stories than I'd dare to attempt. If I don't force someone to praise me for every line I draw, I shrivel up and die.

Also if and when you post online, add alt text. I'll admit I'm the first person to complain and drag my feet on this, and I literally use a screenreader myself when my eyes hurt (strong prescription glasses wearer). Comics should be accessible, because stories are fun and everyone should be able to enjoy them.

***

Learning???

And I guess lastly, how do you learn to make comics? Two steps: 1) read them and 2) make them. This is the tragedy of creating things.

1) Reading them: I grew up reading comic strips, western serialized comics, and webcomics. I've always loved graphic novels too. Then in late middle school, I started reading manga (Death Note and Haikyuu were my first two), and now I'm trying to read more webtoons (sorry im so slow bree)!

I also... mass-consume doujinshi, thanks to proxy mailing services and bilingual friends/Google Translate/knowing some Korean. (I have an entire bookshelf of doujin, actually,,)

The thing is, it's not usually enough to just read comics. You also need to be thinking. :/ I notice paneling, comic devices, clever comedic timing, etc. as I go. It's just a lot of studying/learning while also enjoying the story.

2) Making them: You just have to start. :( Even if you think they're "bad." My first comics were actually just drawings placed randomly all over the page, connected by speech bubbles (yay... I was already practicing how to place bubbles to lead the eye around the page...). I was going to post a pic here, but I'm a coward. Backscroll my account and you can find some older ones though.

I also know my art in general improved dramatically when I did ten comics in ten weeks for my friend's fic. Don't do this. It hurt my hands/wrists. But do practice in moderation.

***

If you actually read all that... I hope it made even a modicum of sense. And maybe it was even helpful? Just know at the end of the day, there is literally no right way to draw a comic.

And if you aren't ready to go for it yet, you can start by just adding a couple speech bubbles to your illustrations or doodles! It's a way to add storytelling and dialogue writing to things you may already be making.

Yay. I love comics. :))))

[souryogurt64]

Hi long-time lurker, first time follower. When you say the hardliners still profit from their connections to Fall Out Boy, does that mean in a “name-dropping” way or do you think FOB is actively doing things for them?

To answer your question in very narrow and brief way, this guy I will call R (for the sake of this post) wrote a very long feature article on Fall Out Boy's origins as well as other stuff too. Another guy called S owned the label they put Evening Out on.

In the 90s, R used to make zines and be in bands with this guy I'll call S (for the sake of this post). S owned the label Fall Out Boy put Evening Out on. Both of them identified with a movement that held very extreme beliefs that were both positive and harmful. In these zines, they often advocated for the extermination of gay people, insisted gay people were indoctrinating children, compared abortion to the Holocaust, believed women should not be allowed to access birth control, and wrote offensive things about women who disagreed with their views, such as calling them "lard cunts." They also advocated for positive things like racial justice, police abolition, and environmental preservation.

Andy was in a band with S when he was like 15 years old and a lot of the zines were put out in association with this band. When Pete was like 14 and a literal child, he was in a band that probably identified with this movement, and a lot of his other bands were not explicitly identified with this movement, but shared a lot of scene real estate with them. I'm pretty sure R and S were like 5 years older.

As Pete and Andy became young adults (17-19), they started their own bands that focused entirely on positive things like racial justice or veganism, but still shared spaces with bands who held certain beliefs about abortion, birth control, women, and gay people. Then, as actual adults (21-23), they started Fall Out Boy, which sought to be positive and inclusive to everyone, and later used Fall Out Boy's influence to advocate for both pro-choice and pro-gay activism.

They ended up not wanting to release Evening Out on S's label, and while they have never gotten too explicit about it and have primarily focused on the quality of the demos, I am pretty sure a big part of it was S's beliefs. Evening Out came out on the label anyway, it made a bunch of money, and a lot of that money was used to fuel this subculture, which they were not okay with but did not have a choice in because they signed a contract with S to further the band.

As decades progressed, R and S slowly dialed back the more problematic elements of their beliefs a lot. R became a journalist at the same publication as the ghostwriter of Pete's book, most likely while still identifying with this movement. S is often quoted as an authority on Fall Out Boy.

In 2013, R wrote what is one of the most influential and widely circulated pieces of journalism on Fall Out Boy's history. In 2023, Fall Out Boy re-released this piece as a book. They made a lot of edits, which included removing a misogynistic comment from Pete as well as references to politics in hardcore. Around when they did this, scans of the piece on Reddit that had been widely viewed and circulated for the last decade were taken down due to copyright. This piece quoted from S a lot, and S is often quoted as an authority on FOB in general. R definitely profited from the release of this book though he is no longer affiliated with the movement discussed in this post, and he probably wrote a lot of other journalism about FOB, and he probably got into journalism partially through publishing these hateful zines about women and gay people.

I'm focusing on R and S in this post for the sake of giving examples to provide simplicity because they are some of the biggest names, but benefits of Fall Out Boy's legacy carries over to a lot of people associated with hardcore, and I think Fall Out Boy's hardcore roots are often sanitized in order to protect Fall Out Boy's image as well as hardcore's image, especially in relation to women and feminism.

And that's often not good when most people dominating music history are straight men, and people like R who was arguably part of a hate group are the ones who get to decide which perspectives are and are not included in seemingly "objective" documents like oral histories, which is often problematic as these documents posit that women just didn't exist, when in reality, Riot Grrrl and hardcore existed at the same time and were often reacting to each other on issues like race and women's rights. Obviously, there are problematic elements of Riot Grrrl too.

Anyway, it's often treated as if women or gay people in emo didn't exist and never accomplished anything because "They were no women at Warped because they weren't good enough to play" "There were no women on X label/tour/whatever because they weren't good enough" "There were no girls in bands in the 90s" "That girl's band isn't "really" emo so she doesn't matter and she shouldn't be in the book" And there's no consideration of how major players in "emo" viewing feminists as "lard cunts," or things like that thing about that guy who ran Warped intentionally pairing up bands with MCR with homophobic bands to cause heckling and drama, impacted who is considered "really emo" today and which smaller male bands have been chosen as important, legacy acts despite not being commercially successful, versus how female fronted bands that aren't commercially successful are dismissed as failures that don't matter, and how this is currently impacting things like WWWY or the Warped comeback.

And fans of MCR, FOB, and Panic often do not engage with these discussions in a constructive way, partially due to how they are wholly informed by (see above discourse about The Narrative).

Someone wrote a 250 page zine mostly about the movement I've discussed and touches on Fall Out Boy's relation to it and made it available for free, it's very well written and well cited as well as taking a very balanced perspective.

[essektheylyss]

#FjoreverToJester

Howdy! Last week I ran a poll about running a Critical Role fanzine focused around Fjord and Jester's wedding ahead of the live show this fall. If you missed me posting about it last week and want to find out what this actually is, please check out the linked post, which has more details about the concept and parameters. And otherwise, here's how I want to do this (pun intended)!

All posts about this going forward will be under the tag #fjorevertojester. Because this wedding absolute REQUIRES a cheesy Instagram tag.

I'll put together a form (probably google since that's easiest for me, but if anyone has other platform ideas let me know; just not microsoft because one drive is my nemesis) and post about it here. This is going to ask for your general idea, a method of contact, how you want to be credited, and whether you're going to the NYC show.

The latter will only be used in the event that I cannot fit all of the pieces into a printed version, but also so that I can hand them out to folks who are there! Depending on interest and size I also may be able to mail them, if you do want a copy but can't attend, so I'll include a separate question about whether or not you'd like a physical version, and if you won't be in attendance, whether you're willing to give me a mailing address. (Obviously this is not required, but I of course can't get you a copy without it.) I will be posting the full zine as a pdf, so you can alternately print it yourself!

Because I am who I am, I will probably also put together an Ao3 collection to post pieces to, for general archival purposes, in case people prefer that reading experience, and so readers can bookmark/kudos/comment if they want.

My primary question is this: for anyone who wants to contribute, which of the following do you prefer:

Option 1: A form to gather participant information with a more immediate deadline (probably mid-July) with later communication from me at your preferred method of contact.

PROS: you do not need to have your piece completed before you submit; separate file transfer means easier formatting options.

CONS: more back and forth communication later; you will need to give a method of contact that allows for file transfer (i.e., email or discord rather than tumblr DMs).

Option 2: A form to gather participant information AND the pieces themselves, with a later deadline (probably early-September).

PROS: little to no back and forth communication; you only need to think about submitting once; you can have me contact you via tumblr askbox for all I care.

CONS: you will need to have your piece completed before submitting; fewer formatting options in google forms means you'll need to note where there are, say, italics.

[olderthannetfic]

You've encountered site changes over time as a fan elder, what do you make of Tumblr potentially being put out to pasture? Tumblr was my coming of age fan site, and im looking for advice to transition to the next thing with grace and less bitterness than I feel now.

--

Ahaha. God, you should have heard the howling about LJ. "Fandom is over!" "Never again shall we dwell in fandom's True Home!" etc.

Hell, this endless "only LJ was good" crap turns up in replies here on posts where I as OP have very clearly laid out why that's rose colored glasses nonsense and you can so make friends on tumblr, have a conversation on tumblr, etc.

I had my crabby phase about this during the transition from Yahoo Groups to LJ. A lot of the real olds had it over paper zines and the transition to the internet.

I don't know if reading these hilariously samey old posts would help. It does give perspective, I think.

--

As for what you should do, do what I did with Tumblr:

1.

Look around to identify the Next Thing fandom is going to camp out on.

It may take a few guesses and some time to figure this out. You will likely not be an early adopter. Fandom was well established here by the time I joined at the end of 2010. Of course, by now, all those 2009 and before accounts are long gone, but at the time, I was a n00b joining other people's space despite having been in fandom for ages.

2.

Don't expect to enjoy it

I didn't join tumblr because I liked it. In fact, I despised it. I kept right on despising it until a brief stint in Sherlock fandom, a fandom that was so active here at the time that I was able to finally see the good aspects of the site's structure and features.

This is the mistake a lot of people make. They give things a cursory try, don't enjoy them, and go "not for me", forgetting that the last site also had a steep learning curve that was either difficult or that they didn't notice because they were in a different phase of their life.

Bitterness and grief are, frankly, an inherent part of the process. You can try not to be a debbie downer in your public comments, but you can't just not feel those things during the awkward part of the transition. Sometimes, acting positive and cutting off excessively negative thoughts can make you feel less negative overall, but it doesn't happen immediately.

3.

Accept that feeling cranky and old is both a you problem and a state of mind, not a property of the new site

Relatedly, the way we remember fandom platform X feeling usually has more to do with us being in college with fandom friends down the hall or having discovered Our People for the first time or some other time when we had a lot of energy and positive emotions. Often, we were in the throes of a first or new fandom love too, probably for some megafandom that other people also cared about at the same time.

When fandom is leaving some site, there's a grieving process anyway, but we're also often in a worse part of our lives for starting new things. We're busy. We're tired. We're between fandoms. We feel like we already paid our dues to build up our community. Why should we have to start again?

But let me tell you, you always need to start again eventually. I go to a weekly vidders' zoom chat, and a lot of the people in there are old as balls, including Kandy, the person who invented vidding back in the 70s. She's a lot of decades and a few cancers in, and she had to relearn how to vid on a computer after transitioning from slideshows to VCR vidding back in the day. If bad health, platform changes, and dead friends were going to stop her, she'd be long gone.

It's like sharks: you stop swimming, you die.

This isn't just about fandom, obviously. It's about avoiding a midlife crisis and, later, about avoiding feeling emotionally geriatric even when your body is falling apart.

Change gets us all, but being mentally old is a choice. The real reason I gave tumblr such a try was that I had been so resistant to getting on LJ. I was 20. Even a year later, it was fucking embarrassing to have been a crotchety old hag as a college student. I promised myself I'd soldier through the next change instead of dragging my feet about it. And it totally worked in the end! But boy did it not make the transition any less unpleasant emotionally!

4.

Find your joy

As is obvious from the above, the vast majority of the problem is just emotions. Fandom has been on a million broken sites with shitty features. We go where the people are, regardless of whether it has the technological aspects we liked at the last place. The actual shape of that platform is largely irrelevant.

What does matter is whether we as an individual fan are still excited and happy about something. I was between fandoms recently and went looking around for BL series I hadn't watched yet. People kept suggesting things set in the present day with too-cheesy production values and too many banal schoolboys in modern day settings without even anything spicy going on. I realized that the BL/danmei scene wasn't really cutting it for me and I should go for production values and genre and non-canon ships. You probably scrolled annoyedly past the picspams that resulted.

(Of course, hilariously, someone has now shown me the trailer of Red Peafowl, so someone may be making BL that feels like it's for me after all. Look at all that badwrong and very dark color grading.)

When you're in a good place emotionally, it's a hell of a lot easier to weather any change, and when you have a new fandom, it's a lot easier to connect with other fans.

A lot of people wait around for lightning to strike twice. They found their first fandom by accident, and they expect it to happen seamlessly again. For me, it's far more productive to brute force it: collect up a big list of what's popular or what's new and go through it till you find things you might like, then try them all.

And part of this, obviously, is not waiting for other fans to make the party happen. The more you need to join something other people are already doing, the less choice you'll have in fandoms or in platforms. If you aren't picky and just go where the tropey longfic is, that can work, but even then, favorite authors disappear or go to fandoms you hate and former megafandoms dry up. If you're the one bringing the party, it's a lot easier to find a new fandom or platform or community to have fun in.

[he6o]

My two full art contributions to Caelum zine - a zine celebrating the kings of Lucis.

I was fortunate enough to take on the role of art mod/cover artist, and later distribution mod, plus filling in a last minute artwork for a missing king 👑 It’s been a fun ride, and we’ll be launching leftovers this month so keep a lookout on the zine’s Twitter for updates (@ ffxvcaelum) if you want to pick up books/merch, including my Noctis print and washi tape 🥰.

I’ll probably drop posts to spread the word on other platforms too when it goes live. Incredibly proud of all our artists and writers, and I hope you guys check out their works as they post their contributions going forward! ❤️❤️❤️

[devilsminionzine]

Dearest mods, I received the "Devil's Minions Minions Zine" today and can't express properly how very deeply impressed I am while flicking through those incredible 100 pages! Thank you so much for your initiative and your effort you put into this! And of course also thanks to every author and artist who submitted their texts and artworks! These 100 pages of pure devil's minion feels like heaven for me 🥰.

What would you suggest how to comment on all of these fine pieces? Since I am, of course, determined to comment on everyone of them (although I will probably need a whole year for doing this 😊). Do I send my comments to the authors and artists directly or do I send them to you? I could also post them on my account but I don't want to spoil anyone. So what would you think which is the best way?

We definitely encourage you to share your thoughts directly with the authors and artists! If you look back in our archive, we have included social handles for authors and artists on our Community Spotlights. We do currently have an embargo on posting work outside of the 'zine, but we do anticipate authors and artists putting work up on their own platforms later in 2025 so you can also share thoughts that way.

If you aren't sure how to get in contact with a particular artist, though, feel free to send your thoughts to us here and we will (privately) forward them along.

If you'd like to post broad thoughts about the zine as a whole, feel free to post them and tag them with #devilsminionzine either here or on bluesky - we'll be checking in there and would love to hear any feedback people have!

[smallishzine]

we received a question about shipping, so here is our answer: (there is also important zine info unrelated to shipping at the bottom of the post)

Yes, ship art/writing is allowed, *however*, this is still a zine dedicated specifically to Joel, so if you choose to incorporate that into your piece, it must:

Have Joel as the central focus of the piece

Have something in the piece contributory to the zine besides shipping

be entirely sfw. This goes for any piece anyone makes, keep it Family Friendly. You don’t have to make it, like, toddler safe, and you’ll have a lot more leeway in gore and blood and violence and arson and all that good stuff because it is Joel we’re talking about, but please take pity on the ace-spec minor modding this zine.

try your best to stick to c!Joel’s canon relationships. We’ll be polling about this later but current plan is for the zine to feature pieces dedicated to all the eras of Joel’s content creation as like the thing that our zine is. I don’t know if we’re gonna go as far back as mousyluvscheese, and we’re probably gonna focus on just his Minecraft content unless someone expresses specific interest in doing a piece for something he did outside of that, but yeah that’s currently the plan. With that in mind what I mean by stick to canon is basically with the current plan everything we make up will be based off of what’s already there, so if your ship requires you to retcon and rewrite then probably no. The one exception is probably Lizzie, if she was on the smp then you are allowed to ship them as romantically (or non romantically qprs and other aroacespec headcannons are totally okay) as you want. I’m not sure if I’m explaining myself well so if you want me to elaborate further then feel free to send in an ask.

also I know that everyone has different definitions of ship art so like if you make it with romantic intent but it could also be interpreted as platonic then you don’t even really need to ask if that’s okay (in terms of shipping we’re still gonna make you run your ideas by us before you start working) Also if it happened in canon exactly the way you depicted it, such as Real Life smp smallidarity, double life boat boys, or esmp2 mythicalbeans, then you’re also probably in the clear.

also!!! And this is extremely important even if you definitely aren’t planning on including shipping!!! The plan for what’s going in the zine is in no way set in stone, it’s just a starting place to work off of right now, if you guys wanna do something else then fine by me! However, if the idea gets more difficult/complicated, then I’m gonna need your guy’s help to pull it off. If you wanna tell a complete story, like hotguy comic zine did, I’d love too!! But I’d need you guys to help come up with the story and write it and stuff, as I’m rather incompetent at most things. It was probably a bad idea to put me in charge of this thing. If you wanna make an in universe art book documenting a specific thing Joel has made, like scarland art book did? Sure, super down for that! But you guys would need to pick what thing. You wanna do something that’s never been done before in the zine scene? I’d love too! But you guys would have to come up with the ideas and then let me know, cause currently I got nuthin’. Don’t be afraid to send me asks, if there’s something you want to see Let Me Know!!! Everything is subject to change, and I love getting input from people who want to see the zine get made. If you’ve got ideas, send em’!

wow I got really off topic.

-mod Dinn

[memoriesofthepark]

So I had posted about this a while back when I thought I hadn't made it in (they got back to us much later then scheduled), but I deleted it once I got the news!

I had a piece in my school's literature and arts journal!!! This was a goal of mine and I am proud of my self for submitting and for working so hard on my piece. Details below the cut for any one who's interested!

For this piece, I depicted a fruiting of Brown Star-footed Amanita mushrooms 》 Amanita brunnescens. I first encountered this species on campus and so it felt quite fitting to include.

I'm in college pursuing a degree in botany with a minor in art. It is my intention to work as a scientific illustrator, drawing specimens and diagrams for textbooks, research publications, museums, etc. This was a big accomplishment for me, and a step toward the career of my dreams. I grew up and graduated high school in a far lower income area than the city where I now attend college and the difference has always been stark and glaring from my perspective. I had never experienced anything quite like the gallery reception/release party for the magazine, what with the people in suits sipping ginger ale punch and eating finger sandwiches and there were many more people there then I was expecting.

It was overwhelming, and family made it even more stressful, but it was also wonderful and in between the moments of imposter syndrome and social anxiety I really felt proud of myself. I met a fellow trans student artist there who had composed a piece of music which could be accessed via QR code on the page featuring her interview for the zine. I complimented her composition and she asked me about my piece. It was really inspiring, despite my near inability to talk through my nervous trembling.

Anyway, submit/apply for that thing, even if you don't think you'll get it. And do the scary thing once in a while; it's probably worth it, even if you're shit-your-pants anxious the entire time.

[j-richmond]

Check out Dark Future in Portland! An awesome RPG shop!

My brother Nick and I went to check out a cool local game store here in Portland called Dark Future PDX. They carry our game The Magical Land of Yeld, so we wanted to stop in and say hi. The store is tiny (although they're moving to a new temp location this weekend, and permeant new location later this Spring). It was a 15 x 15 foot room crammed with RPG books. They only carry RPGs, and I'd say 90% are second hand. It was great! So much cool stuff. Old D&D books, of course, but that was just a tiny part of their stock. So many games I've never seen first hand, and so many new ones! Very good pricing too.

We picked up Heavy Gear 3rd Edition, West End Game's Star Wars and Heroes Unlimited 2nd Edition. I almost got an entire set of 2nd Edition Legend of the 5 Rings and a few TMNT books. I plan to go back for about a dozen other books when I can afford to, and there's tons of stuff there I've never heard of and would like to get a closer look at. They have a good mix of both old and new mainstream, indie and small press games, including some zines.

The owners are really friendly too. When we came in they were taking care of an injured rabbit they found in front of their store. We talked to them about our favorite games and playtesting, and they told us about plans for their new location. We also overheard them talking to other customers. Super friendly people.

If you're looking for a neat game shop with probably the best selection of game books in Portland, this is it! Go spend some money. Pick up some Yeld stuff while you're there!

[anticidic]

thanks for tagging me @marichild !! lowkey obsessed with this

Fanfic Writer Interview

How many works do you have on AO3?

21 as of right now! (It should be 22 because I still haven't put up my fic from the bsd Halloween zine up yet, but I DIGRESS)

Your top 5 stories by kudos/likes:

from a to o, i love you so — an omegaverse A/A -> A/O Soukoku piece of Dazai having a mild identity crisis and trying to accept himself for who he is.

foiled fables — A Soukoku yokai!au about Chuuya stumbling upon an eerie shrine and learning the hard way that kitsunes do, in fact, exist.

with me, disaster finds a playfield — Beast!AU from Chuuya's pov loosely following the light novel, only Dazai lives. And instead of telling Beast!Akutagawa and Beast!Atsushi about the Book and "other world", he tells Chuuya.

letters to my chosen one — Angel & Demon AU where Dazai, a historian, is suddenly approached and asked by the higher court of angels to be appointed to a human as a guardian angel after Chuuya's previous guardian angel goes missing.

bad days, good nights — Birthday piece for Dazai. Chuuya loses a bet (again) and wears a maid dress (again).

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I try to respond promptly, but sometimes I'll open and read a comment and PLAN to reply later, then a week goes by before I remember again. Longer comments I may take some time to get back to, but I do my best to respond to readers! I love the speculations people make about where they think I'm taking the story (shoutout to someone who predicted a critical plot point way in advance before I even got to it) but yes, I respond! I love and appreciate comments!

What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

still the snowflakes fall — A what-if had Dazai been a part of the Decay of Angels instead. And Fyodor's very involved in their relationship. Predictably, it isn't very happy. Dazai loses his memories after a page in the Book rewrites his past, and it doesn't come back to him until all of Yokohama is already engulfed in flames.

What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

I think probably from a to o, i love you so. Because it's about Dazai waking up one morning and losing a critical part of his identity and suddenly everything he knows is a lie. But despite fumbling, he comes to accept a new reality because, as Chuuya puts it, he's still Dazai. That core part of him hasn't changed.

Do you write crossovers?

I don't, and don't think I would because it feels like a complicated thing to tackle, but I've considered writing fusions! Like, more than several times I've thought of writing bsd characters in a Honkai Star Rail setting, or even like a world where Pokémon exist.

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

I've gotten a few weird comments, but I just delete/block and move on.

Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

SO LIKE, I'm not even gonna toe around this (lol). Because if you look at my ao3, it's almost all entirely E fics. I like smut included in plots and smut with feelings, though. PWPs aren't really my style, I've found.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not to my knowledge.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

I've been graciously approached a few times asking to translate my works! But because they were explicit in nature, I didn't feel comfortable having them translated to Wattpad. I'm not terribly familiar with Wattpad's policies with that sort of content, but I didn't want the people asking to risk getting in trouble.

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Does unpublished count @ohhcinnybuns and I go back and forth with our Snow White!Dazai and Prince!Chuuya writings.

What’s your all-time favorite ship?

It feels unfair to name one, but IwaOi and ShuAke still hold tiny places in my heart though I'm not as interested in Haikyuu!! and Persona 5 anymore. And then there's Soukoku for the last like...eight years.

What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

I have a Dead Apple sorta-one shot that I just haven't found the time to go back to. It was from Chuuya's pov shortly after fighting the dragon and saving Yokohama. Basically just post-Dead Apple stuff, but Dazai taking off with him instead for some sweet post-corruption care. I don't want to say I'll NEVER finish it, but I just have so,, so many other things that both need my attention and have my attention because of sheer brainrot.

What are your writing strengths?

Painting scenes and going into depth about character motives and inner thoughts! I'm almost detail-oriented to a fault, and I've had scenes compared to like reading Dostoevsky a lot.

What are your writing weaknesses?

Dialogue, weirdly enough. I always had a sneaking suspicion that I write a little too much exposition and focus on too many details that there's not enough dialogue. (I even wrote a fic entirely without any dialogue.) It's something I've been actively working on! It feels weird struggling on dialogue when my job requires me to actively engage with others throughout the entire day, but I'm just an awkward potato dialogue writer.

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

This feels tough to me, because I feel like honorifics don't translate as well to English. I write Japanese honorifics simply because I feel like it reads a little better, but that's about it. I throw in some Japanese-originated words like tatami mats, taiyaki, and kotatsus since most of what I write takes place in Japan.

What’s a fandom/ship you haven’t written for yet but want to?

Jouno/Tetchou for sure! I love them, but I just don't have any inspiration for them. Every inspiring idea I get ends up going to Soukoku or Fyozai. I wanted to once write a Valentine's fic for Suegiku of Jouno giving Tetchou boxed chocolates, but then it didn't happen.

What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

foiled fables!! The origin of the kitsune!Dazai brainrot that spiraled out of control into kitsune!Chuuya and now kitsune!skk as a whole. I finished it a while ago and almost like not even a day goes by where I don't think about it. Someone even made lovely art inspired by it, and another person made a playlist dedicated to it and it makes my heart swell. But I also really loved coming up with the plot and the twist in it.

no pressure tags!!: @mothboypoison @unicornpopcorn14 @frankenjoly @ohhcinnybuns @floatysparrowthing

[getintheholezine]

YOU, YES YOU, CAN MAKE A ZINE! Part 2

Part 1 is here: https://www.tumblr.com/getintheholezine/771675540692336640/you-yes-you-can-make-a-zine-part-1

What should my zine be about?

A fanzine is typically focused on one fandom – one show, one movie, one book, one comic series, that kind of thing. Often, zines are even more specialized, publishing works on…

A character or ship

A genre, like fluff or angst or smut

A prompt or theme

A trope or kink

Choose something you find interesting and valuable!

The term “zine” can also broadly refer to other group fan projects like calendars and card decks, because those are run very similarly to anthology-type zines.

Zines may have content restrictions based on the comfort level of the person/people running it. For example, they might specify no explicit sexual content or no violence. Please be as specific as possible when outlining your zine’s boundaries.

How big should my zine be?

Big enough to get people excited for the variety of works within, but small enough to manage the work of putting it together and distributing it. For a small, simple zine run by one person, I recommend 10-15 works, for a total of 30-40 pages.

What kinds of works should my zine contain?

Entirely up to you! Fanzines typically contain fanfiction and fanart. You could expand that to include poetry, comics, scripts, and essays of analysis/critique (“meta”).

For art, decide if you want full-color or black-and-white only (more on this later when we discuss printing). For written work, you'll want to set length guidelines. In a booklet, a 2,000-word fic will likely take up about 8 pages, so consider setting a 1,000-word, 1,500-word, or 2,000-word limit.

Digital or physical?

Unless you have access to free printing (for example, if you work in an office and your boss doesn't pay too much attention to the copier), a digital zine is the only zine you can produce completely cost-free. Distribution of a digital zine is dead easy – just post the download link! And if people want a printed copy, you can always produce a printer-friendly version of the zine, and encourage folks to DIY it at home.

Producing physical copies yourself will cost you money. It might be as little as a ream of paper, if your home printer is up to the task. It’ll cost a bit more if you need it printed and copied at a copy shop. Will you bind it yourself, which takes time, or pay extra for the copy shop to do that? If you plan to distribute it by mail, there's envelopes and postage, too, and the time involved in sending the damn things.

Should it be free?

Fandom has long been understood as a labor of love, where people produce and publish fanworks in the spirit of generosity. Add in those pesky copyright issues, and (unless the fanworks are based on something in the public domain, like Shakespeare) trying to turn a profit on fanzines is risky. Some zines do risk it, but that is beyond the scope of this guide. Fan projects like zines have often collected funds to cover their material costs and/or to donate to charity, and that's what I'll be discussing.

Here's a rundown of some options:

A zine that is digital-only and free doesn't cost you a dime, and can be distributed simply by posting a download link on social media. Easy-peasy.

A zine that is digital-only and for charity doesn't cost you a dime, but must be distributed to individuals via email after they've donated the suggested amount. They can pay you, trusting that you'll direct the money to charity; or they can donate directly to the charity and show you a screenshot as proof (my recommendation).

A zine that is physical and free will cost money to make, and unless you hand it out to people in person, will also cost money to distribute. Not to mention the time and effort of collecting addresses, addressing envelopes, getting postage, and so on. You’ll be asking people to trust you with their mailing address and probably their real name. (You should plan to delete all that after distribution is complete.)

A zine that is physical and cost-covering may require you to accept payment from people who want the zine. Not only will you be asking people to trust you with their mailing address and probably their real name, you'll be asking them to trust you with their money – that you are taking only what you need to cover costs, and not pocketing any profit for yourself. You can promise to donate any leftover money to charity, which again requires trust. On the other hand, you can avoid collecting money by using a print-on-demand service like Mixam’s PrintLink. People can pay the printer directly, and the printer will mail the zine out! Just make sure you don't mark up the zine’s price over the cost of production.

A zine that is physical and for charity will cost you money to make and distribute. As with the digital charity zine, you can avoid handling people's money by asking them to send you a screenshot of their charitable donation. The money you spend to make the zine becomes a sort of donation by proxy. Perhaps each printed zine costs you $5 to make, and you require a $10 donation to get a copy, so you spent $5 for the charity to get $10. Unless you have a sizable philanthropy budget, this approach really only works for a small-audience zine.

Note: You need to decide if the zine is digital or physical, and if it's free, cost-covering, or for charity before soliciting fanworks. Potential contributors deserve to know up front exactly what they're getting involved in. Also, if the zine is not entirely free, you need to decide what contributors will get at no cost to them. Plan to give them at least a free digital copy, if not a free physical copy, as well. Some cost-covering zines charge buyers enough to pay for the contributors’ physical copies. Which is just another example of how adding money into the mix also adds complexity!

Part 3 coming soon!

[sunstoneboy]

Hi hi hello hey how you doing? (Intro)

Hello! Thought I’d finally get around to making an intro post since I’ve been meaning to a while but just haven’t gotten around to it lol. I’m just gonna blab about myself for a minute and anyone who may be so inclined can have a look at it lol. Anyways- onto the meat of the post.

The basics:

Autism + ADHD + DID (traumagenic system)

He/they/any pronouns collectively (each alter has our own preferences, again feel free to ask)

20 & from Canada

Collectively Transmasc genderfluid + gay demiaroace

Biggest interests include: The Beatles, visual art, music (I play guitar and bass mainly but dabble in other instruments as well), writing, spirituality, and collecting stuff

Ask box is closed cuz it’s broken.

I have no specific DNI but I block as I please

Interests:

ngl there’s a lot of stuff I like that I just don’t remember so I’ll probably edit this and add to it as I remember more lol

Biggest interests:

The Beatles, music in general, art and writing in general, spiritual topics, insects and adjacent critters, physical media, commonplacing, zines, trinkets, plants and nature, collecting.

Music:

The Beatles (+Beatle-related releases), Fall out Boy (+Patrick Stump), Will Wood (+and the tapeworms), Queen, (old) Panic! at the Disco, Bo Burnham, Jack Stauber, Twenty One Pilots, Adrianne Lenker, Alex G, June Henry

Other medias:

Coraline, studio Ghibli movies, Pokémon, Digimon, minecraft, FNAF, animal crossing, moshi monsters, DHMIS, animal crossing, + more I’m definitely forgetting

Tags:

#riv.posts : any of either my original posts or anything I’ve added enough to that I’d want to be able to find it later

#yeah : things that make me say “yeah” or otherwise relatable content

#babies : silly little baby creatures

All the other ones should be fairly self-explanatory

:))))) bye bye

[retrosofa]

I wanted to post some updates regarding the future of No More Mermaids.

I announced this elsewhere but No More Mermaids is officially coming to an end. The plan was to do another ten chapters but I'm cutting it down to three, possibly four. The next chapter is about 70% done. The goal is to have the series done by next summer but knowing how unpredictable things can get, I wouldn't be surprised if I was still drawing chapters well into 2026. Regardless, we are in the home stretch. The final chapter has been scripted and I've already drawn a few pages. Hooray!

The third volume is still in the works. I actually had copies printed out last year but I wasn't happy with the quality, so I'm having a friend do revisions for me. I'm hoping to have it finished in time for the Philly Comics Expo in October. The third volume will include updated (and uncensored) versions of chapters 12 through 15. The fourth and final volume will follow sometime later, probably late 2025 or early 2026.

I'm pretty much done with Tapas. Between the censorship, shadow banning, lack of engagement and other issues, I don't think it's worth hosting my comic on there anymore. The plan is to upload one more chapter but I'll probably just draw a goodbye for subscribers. Regardless of what I decide to do, the last chapters will be print only. The censored version of No More Mermaids will remain online until further notice. I'm not sure if I'll seek out another web host in the future. I'll make a decision whenever the series is complete.

Just to clarify: I'm not done making comics, just done with this comic. When I started No More Mermaids, I was single, working part-time and had a lot of free time on my hands. All of that has changed over the course of seven years. What started out as a passion project has slowly become an obligation. I'm very proud of this series but I'm ready to move on. I would like to focus on other projects, like more short comics or zines. I've also felt very guilty creating "sad boy comics" when I'm much happier nowadays and have a wonderful boyfriend I come home to everyday. I'm also just exhausted of all the hurdles I've had to jump with this series. It's given me a lot of trouble over the years. I want to move on.

I know I say this a lot but thank you all for the support over the years. I met some incredible people along this journey and I'm very proud of myself for sticking with it through the years. Since it is an autobiographical work, I can always revisit it too.

Anyways, please look forward to the upcoming finale of No More Mermaids.

[vintagerpg]

This is one of the oldest of the relatively small niche of books about RPGs: Fantasy Role Playing Games (1981), by J. Eric Holmes, the same Holmes who shepherded the original Basic Set Dungeons & Dragons into existence.

In the early 80s, a bunch of these types of books came out; they were sort of introductions to the idea of RPGs, mixed with brief how-tos and overviews of the market. This is probably my favorite of the ones I have read. The first third or so of the book is an overview of the key concepts of how to play, complete with transcripts of game sessions and a sort of read-along dungeon. Holmes shines, though, when he gets to the history of Dungeons & Dragons, in which he was a firsthand eye witness for a time. The immediacy of his account is engrossing, even if he is an unabashed Gygax cheerleader.

He follows this with a look at other games on the market (including big ones like RuneQuest and Traveller, as well as odd ones like Bunnies & Burrows and Superhero 44), miniatures and the magazines (both the semi-pro stuff like Dragon and the zines like Alarums & Excursions). The brief chapter on computer games is a hoot and rightly spends a chunk of time on Zork. I quite like the photographs that use miniatures and simple FX to great effect.

I also particularly like the penultimate chapter, which discusses the supposed perils of roleplaying. It makes a spirited defense of the hobby and also muses on the sorts of people who are attracted to it. It is one of the earliest acknowledgments I’ve seen of the hobby’s gender disparity and Holmes has some thoughtful ideas on why that is. It is his hope, back in 1981, that parity will be attained when RPGs are more popular and socially accepted. Nearly 40 years later, I like to think it is moving in that direction.

(Repost from April 27, 2020; lightly revised)