“Fandoms had different levels of involvement with The Powers That Be, the creators of their source texts. This involvement varied in intensity, took on several forms, and had differing end results……
Gene Roddenberry wrote: “…We were particularly amazed when thousands, then tens of thousands of people began creating their own personal Star Trek adventures. Stories, and paintings, and sculptures, and cookbooks. And songs, and poems, and fashions. And more. The list is still growing. It took some time for us to fully understand and appreciate what these people were saying. Eventually we realized that there is no more profound way in which people could express what Star Trek has meant to them than by creating their own very personal Star Trek things. Because I am a writer, it was their Star Trek stories that especially gratified me. I have seen these writings in dog-eared notebooks of fans who didn’t look old enough to spell "cat.” I have seen them in meticulously produced fanzines, complete with excellent artwork. Some of it has even been done by professional writers, and much of it has come from those clearly on their way to becoming professional writers. Best of all, all of it was plainly done with love.”
I just plugged in an external disk and found this on it.
I remember being stuck on small island with slow slow net speed as events were unfolding. Just a reminder that when for profit corporations own your platforms and control your means of communication, you are at their mercy and whims. (Hint to tumblr users)
“By 1976, Star Trekcons were getting bigger and more expensive; more guests, more stars… In reaction, Paula Smith and Sharon Ferraro planned SeKWester*Con (pronounced “sequester con”) as the first media con by fans and for fans, with no celebrity guests – designed for fans who complain that at the big cons, they never get the time to see the other fans. The first convention had a cap of 200 attendees and was wildly successful.
There were 110 attendees. Most were zine editors, writers and artists, along with some zine readers. Two panels were ‘Feminism in Treklit with Sharon Ferraro and Jean Lorrah; and Paula Smith and Joan Verba debating the viability of the Vulcan-human hybrid; and Novels in Treklit.
SeKWester*Con was one in a series of cons that eventually became MediaWest*Con…..
It was, by all accounts, the most well attended event at the convention and quite boisterous. At the panel were Leslie Fish, Gerry Downes, and Gayle F.Carol Frisbie, editor of Thrust, informed the audience that Gene Roddenberry knew about K/S and had told them that, “as long as it stays underground, and away from the mothers of America,” he had no problem with it.
Parts of the panel went unintentionally public when a problem with the hotel sound system inadvertently projected the voice of Connie Faddis reading aloud from an explicit story into the hallway. And while the panel was controversial and generated loud objections (see the LOCs in issues #12 and #14 of Menagerie), the convention organizers pointed out afterwards in Menagerie that when the panel was announced in the convention progress report: “Ten people volunteered to be 'pro’ the K/S relationship; no one volunteered to be 'con.’ We had to draft the opposition.”…….
I’ve always written poetry ever since I can remember. It’s the best, easiest, and cheapest therapy on the market, but I never wrote a story until the third season of Xena: Warrior Princess. I was reading a piece of fan fiction. I’d discovered it while downloading some pictures of Xena and Gabrielle for my kids at the local library. I’d come across something called ‘alt’ fiction and on a whim decided to print some up for myself. When I read it I felt so liberated. There were others out there with this truth in their head. It was empowering. So, there I am reading this long since forgotten piece and it just faltered at the end. I thought about how I might have ended it differently and began to try my hand at writing the ending. I really enjoyed myself and so I began to write full stories. Slowly. I’d like to think I’ve improved since then.
At the end of 2003 it became an automated archive using the eFiction software
.…Mightier Than the Sword was started sometime before November 18, 1997. Originally it was a site to host my fanfiction, as well as a few stories that I particularly liked. Since its conception it has moved several times. Mainly on ‘free’ hosts until July 2003 when I finally broke down and got both a domain name and web-hosting. …Mightier Than the Sword is a one-woman operation. As such, it has always been limited by the amount of time I have available to work on it. Consequently when I moved it over to my own domain I was extremely interested in finding a way to automate it, and with eFiction I can do that while still reserving the right to not approve certain stories.[1]
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Reblog with the first Star Wars films you saw/will see at the cinema.
I’ll start - The Empire Strikes Back.
That force awakening one. With the sleepy force.
Revenge of the Sith!
Return of the Jedi
Return of the Jedi, technically. At the age of like six months. It was a bad plan.
More properly, Star Wars. Remastered.
All three remastered versions and it was awesome.
Star Wars Special Edition
Phantom Menace. I looked kind of like wee Anakin at the time (and was a similar age) my mum kept calling me Anakin very occasionally for years.
Revenge of the Sith
Phantom Menace, and I enjoyed it from what I can remember. Even Jar Jar.
Phantom Menace. God I love pod racing.
A New Hope - Special Edition
Also the A New Hope Special Edition. (Generation VHS represent!) Going to see TFA for the first time with at least 3 of the people I waited in line with for all 3 of the SEs.
One more for ANH Special Edition. *Force fistbumps all around* I still have the VHS box set of the Special Editions.
Star Wars. The first one. The original one. I was 11 and I loved it fiercely.
Star Wars. The first one, the original theatrical release, but during its second run in theatres in 1978. I was 5. Changed my life.
(I have major problems with the special editions. And episodes I-III.)
Star Wars, original flavor, May 25, 1977. I was just about to turn 8.
Star Wars, May 25-June 2, 1977. Every single night for a week I was in line to see it again.
Star Wars, A New Hope very late during its first theatrical release. It was in a crumbly part of downtown Philadelphia. I was visiting with my uncle that summer (maybe 13) and he dropped me off at the theater at 11 am. He needed some “me” time and knew I was a sci-fi fan. The theater was in a (then) bad part of town and the movie had been out for a few months so it was just me and one other kid. It was…magical and thrilling and something i had never seen before. I bugged my uncle to let me see it again at every town we visited in America that summer. Drove him crazy.
That was also the year I found my first fan fiction in my uncle’s ex-girlfriend’s closet. It was a pro book called “The New Voyages” and I fell so in love with it that she allowed me to keep the book when I had to return home to Europe.. I would not find fanfic again until 15 years later.
*On a side note, when ‘The New Voyages” was released in 1976, only one other Star Trek book had been commercially printed. Fan fiction was in commercial circulation before the tie in books.
From Fanlore, the fan-run non-profit wiki about media fandom
The Fanzine Archives: A Library for the Preservation & Circulation of Fan-created Material was a collection of fanfiction zines owned and circulated by fans, and then Ming Wathne (aka Mariellen Wathne), from the mid-1980s to 2009.
Ming eventually remodeled her house to make shelf space for the hundreds, then thousands of different fanzines she acquired and cataloged. Local fans helped log in new zines, but it was Ming’s show for more than 20 years.
In 2009, the final version of Ming’s library became known as The Fanzine Archives: A Library for the Preservation & Circulation of Fan-created Material. The Fanzine Archives became a federally recognized, non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation and circulation of fanzines. The Archives maintained an active circulating library of over 300 fanzines, and a permanent collection of over 3,000 titles.
Quick Timeline
Beginning in 1981 (perhaps earlier), George Lucas requested that copies of all Star Wars fanzines be sent to him; the Official Star Wars Fan Club folds in 1986.
The zines resided in an unknown location and were not circulated for two years
In November 1989, Ming wrote a letter to Comlink and explained she was re-opening the lending library and that The Santa Barbara Science Fiction Alliance would be involved. The collection was to be “The Corellian Archives.” She hoped to have it up and running in the spring of 1990.
The Fanzine Archives: A Library for the Preservation & Circulation of Fan-created Material
In August 2008, the library was closed due to Ming’s poor health. Ming asked fans to help her find a permanent home for the 3,000 plus zines she carefully accumulated and indexed.
‘Why go to all the trouble to run a zine library?’ ‘Coming into fandom a little late (1980), I missed many of the early SW fanzines, those incredible first efforts. Oh, I had heard of fanzines, as any Trek fan had, but I’d never seen one. Then, at my first convention I discovered a SW fanzine. I was hooked! I had to have more, read more - I wanted it all. Alas, economics prevented me from acquiring more than just a few, although thanks to the generosity of a new friend in fandom, I was able to read some of the ones I’d missed. Whenever I could lay my hands on a ‘zine I hadn’t seen before, I was like a person dying of thirst finding water in the desert (a bit melodramatic, I know, but it’s the only comparison I could think of). I would read whatever I found from cover to cover In record time, not thinking that I should savor the moment, make it last, for I didn’t know when I’d get another one… Now, I have a chance to finish playing catch-up. I’m able to take a look at fan history from the beginning and at how far we’ve progressed. …SW can and will live on in the minds and the hearts of all its fans; and in all the fanzines, both old and those yet to be.”
I forgot to mention that the Fanzine Archives are open to the public. You will need to sign in, leave food/drink/pens behind in a storage locker. You can then “call up” the zines you want (they are brought to you by the library staff). Here is a 2014 road trip (with photos): http://aralias.dreamwidth.org/1989345.html
From Fanlore, the fan run non-profit wiki about media fandom:
Nexusis a gen Star Trek: TOS fanzine anthology. There are six issues.
Several fan reviewers of the time refer to some stories as K/S; the contents skate really, really close to what fans today define as slash but were what fans in 1978 were defining as a relationship story, and perhaps what some would call pre-slash or simply smarm.
Issue 1
Nexus 1 was published in February 1978 and has 196 pages. The cover is by Gail Stark………
…..The zine also contained an ad for a writing contest. Winners would win a copy of Nexus #2. Entries were to be no longer than 5 pages single space typed and had to include the following paragraph:
Kirk watched with disbelief as Spock walked calmly into the turbolift. Clenching his fist against the mounting anger, Kirk stormed in after him. He waited for the lift doors to close before he spoke.“Just answer me one thing, Mr. Spock.” Kirk snapped. “Why the hell did you do it?”Spock turned, lifting one eyebrow in astonishment, “Captain,” he said indignantly, “I did not do it. It simply happened.” Kirk looked at him in open mouthed surprise. He leaned against the side of the turbolift in shock. “Mr. Spock, your Vulcan logic never ceases to amaze me.”
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From Fanlore, the fan-run non-profit wiki about media fandom
The Fanzine Archives: A Library for the Preservation & Circulation of Fan-created Material was a collection of fanfiction zines owned and circulated by fans, and then Ming Wathne (aka Mariellen Wathne), from the mid-1980s to 2009.
Ming eventually remodeled her house to make shelf space for the hundreds, then thousands of different fanzines she acquired and cataloged. Local fans helped log in new zines, but it was Ming’s show for more than 20 years.
In 2009, the final version of Ming’s library became known as The Fanzine Archives: A Library for the Preservation & Circulation of Fan-created Material. The Fanzine Archives became a federally recognized, non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation and circulation of fanzines. The Archives maintained an active circulating library of over 300 fanzines, and a permanent collection of over 3,000 titles.
Quick Timeline
Beginning in 1981 (perhaps earlier), George Lucas requested that copies of all Star Wars fanzines be sent to him; the Official Star Wars Fan Club folds in 1986.
The zines resided in an unknown location and were not circulated for two years
In November 1989, Ming wrote a letter to Comlink and explained she was re-opening the lending library and that The Santa Barbara Science Fiction Alliance would be involved. The collection was to be “The Corellian Archives.” She hoped to have it up and running in the spring of 1990.
The Fanzine Archives: A Library for the Preservation & Circulation of Fan-created Material
In August 2008, the library was closed due to Ming’s poor health. Ming asked fans to help her find a permanent home for the 3,000 plus zines she carefully accumulated and indexed.
‘Why go to all the trouble to run a zine library?’ 'Coming into fandom a little late (1980), I missed many of the early SW fanzines, those incredible first efforts. Oh, I had heard of fanzines, as any Trek fan had, but I’d never seen one. Then, at my first convention I discovered a SW fanzine. I was hooked! I had to have more, read more - I wanted it all. Alas, economics prevented me from acquiring more than just a few, although thanks to the generosity of a new friend in fandom, I was able to read some of the ones I’d missed. Whenever I could lay my hands on a 'zine I hadn’t seen before, I was like a person dying of thirst finding water in the desert (a bit melodramatic, I know, but it’s the only comparison I could think of). I would read whatever I found from cover to cover In record time, not thinking that I should savor the moment, make it last, for I didn’t know when I’d get another one… Now, I have a chance to finish playing catch-up. I’m able to take a look at fan history from the beginning and at how far we’ve progressed. …SW can and will live on in the minds and the hearts of all its fans; and in all the fanzines, both old and those yet to be.”
I have a meta question I am investigating, and as part of that, I’ve been trying to determine what the big fandoms on AO3 are. I’m not ready with my meta, but I thought people would be interested in the list.
First, I looked at the fandoms by media type pages because they have an easily-accessible work count. (It’s not entirely accurate, but it will do for looking at broad questions.) Then I picked out everything with over 10,000 works. I sorted through those and made judgment calls on what counted as separate fandoms and what counted as a valid single fandom grouping. I also had to decide what media type to count sprawling metatags as, and I was looking for categories that might have meaningful analogs outside of AO3.
(For example, “Arthurian” looks big, but that’s just Merlin plus micro-fandoms, while “Stargate” looks big and that’s SG1 and SGA, which overlap and share characters but are treated as separate fandoms by fans much of the time. ‘Real person fiction’ is massive but not on my list because I don’t think it counts as a single fandom. ‘DCU’ isn’t that valid a grouping, but it doesn’t break down neatly into 10k+ fandoms, so I left it because I felt it was more misleading to omit all of its subfandoms, which include Smallville and Arrow, but also lots of non-live action stuff.)
This was all fairly arbitrary: there are a zillion 9k fandoms on AO3 that are obviously large and that I’ve left out, but it gave me a manageable set of fandoms to work with and I think provides a realistic snapshot of what’s going on on AO3 right now. The total came to 35, and not always the set I expected. (There’s much more anime and manga on this list than I would have assumed, for starters.)
Summary From a distributor, Agent With Style: “The entire SG-1 team is having a very bad day bordering on the comical, when their current assignment abruptly turns dangerous. On an uncharted planet, Daniel Jackson is reunited with his wife Shar'e and forced to match wits with a cunning, ancient immortal —the god Hephaestus — who has devious plans for SG-1. In a desperate race against time, the remaining members of the team must deal with a bizarre primitive culture to find and rescue Daniel before it’s too late.”
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Recently I bought some Star Trek zines online and while reading through, discovered this article. This zine is Archives I, published in 1979, and the article is So You Want To Be a Fan Artists! (fanlore article here) by Beverly C. Zuk (fanlore article here). She passed away in 2009.
In 1979, there was no computer software available for fanartists to draw in, no Wacom tablets or Photoshop. There was no internet to google references, no netflix/streaming to pull up specific scenes of past episodes. No internet and online fan communities to share your art on. Fans had to send their artwork to zines like these and hope to get published in order to share their work. The same goes for fanfic.
This book was published 4 years before I was born. By the time I was old enough to be a fan of things, there were livejournal communities and mailing lists. And now if I want stories or fanart, or to share my own fanwork, it’s clicks away. If I need a reference for any specific thing, I’ll have thousands in the time it takes me to type what I need.
I’ll never forget how lucky we are.
(PS I love the notes about Kirk being harder to draw than Spock, because the struggle is real and older than I am.)
Since you will make profit from sales in China (according to your emails posted out by cindyfxx), it can not be legitimate(it is also illegal under PRC laws and regulations, if anyone says its legitimate in China, he/she is lying, and by all means, not getting punishment cannot make a illegal action legitimate). I understand that this permission goes against federal and state IP laws, plz ask your domestic lawyer for further advice.
Cindy told me you would send me this message. Thank you for your concern, but it is not needed. Cindy and juefeifei and anyone else can do whatever they want with my fanfiction. If they want to sell it in China, that’s just fine by me; if they want to keep whatever they earn, that’s just fine by me; if they want to send me some money, that’s just fine by me. This isn’t something that I sought out–Cindy contacted me about it to ask permission and I gave it–and I’m not looking to make any money off of this. If I do, great. If I don’t, great.
If you are very concerned about this issue, then I kind of wonder why? Fanartists sell their work all the time online, in America as well. I see prints and coffee mugs and T-shirts of Captain America, Hannibal, and other fan artwork being sold all the time on Tumblr. I have had Supernatural fanfiction that I wrote taken and printed and
sold in an anthology here in the United States (without my permission, which I thought was kind of rude–at least Cindy asked for permission!).
juefeifeifei is an extremely talented artist and I am delighted and excited to know that she wants to illustrate my story. I can’t wait to see what she will make! No, it’s not technically legal–but a lot of what fanartists and fanwriters do is technically illegal, or at least very questionable. If you have a problem with what they are doing with Revenant then you sort of have a problem with fandom as a whole. The things we create, the stories we write….none of them are approved by the original creators of any TV shows, movies, or comics.
So no, it may not be legal, but it’s legitimate in terms of me having given my permission for them to do whatever they want with my fanfiction.
In the US, fair use does not depend on whether any profit is made,. It is only one of many factors. In fact, there was a recent US court decision that held that Google’s scanning of books for indexing purposes was transformative use even though profit was part of the reason they were scanning.
The laws in China are a mystery (and their application even more mysterious and riddles with inconsistencies). But here in the US, we have a bit more clarity.
The poster also assumes that there will be profit from selling the fanbook. Most often these small scan fandom efforts do not net any “profit” - the cost of production is usually covered by the money charged. Keep in mind the cost of production in the economic world includes the artist and translator labor in addition to the cost or printing and shipping. I’d suggest that
juefeifeifei keep track of her costs and offer that up in case there are questions.
tl:dr: Selling fanart or fanfic does not automatically make it a violation of copyright in the US.
A totally different issue - there is also a long history of fans selling -usually a cost, but not always - printed copies of their fanfic or their fanart. By long history I mean 40+ years. In the US they are called fanzines. In Japan they are called doujinshi. There is a huge market in China for doujinshi (including “slash” also known as “yaoi” or “dan mei”) . Doujinshi are bought, sold and resold openly on the Chinese version of eBay and in many other locations in China. This means that this one fannish effort - translating a fan story into Chinese, illustrating it and then selling hard copies - is not unusual.
From Fanlore the fan run non-profit wiki about media fandom:
Guardianis a 24 page Sam+Dean (gen) Supernaturaldoujinshi by Weekend. It is part of an alternative universe series where Dean is a robot designed to protect Sam.
Definitely not art-related, but fandom-related for sure. Some of the comments extracted here bring back so many memories, ahhhh. I feel old reading some of these, but at the same time, I have a goofy sense of nostalgia, hehe.
Consider how, by trivializing and marginalizing an entire body of work as unimportant, we are not paying attention to the trends that are manifesting in fanfiction. Think about the profound space fanfiction provides for representation of minority communities. Canonical books, comics and TV shows revolve around the white male. Fanfiction provides the space for a gay Clark Kent, a genderqueer Sherlock Holmes, a lesbian Nancy Drew or an asexual Harry Potter. Most mainstream blogs are cis-gender owned, but Tumblr has more out and proud gender-queer writers in fandoms than any other social media site.
Consider that the most serious criticism of the dubious consent sexual practices in “Fifty Shades of Grey”came from other fanfic writers. Works of fanfiction come with tags, warnings, potential trigger associations and level of maturity — something not offered by published books. There is a lot of good fanfiction is doing in the world, if only we took the time to lift our eyes from the misogynist haze and take notice.
From Fanlore, the fan run, non-profit wiki about media fandom:
“Sam/Dean Slash Archive is a slash Supernatural fan fiction archive that focuses on Wincest or the Sam/Dean pairing. It has been online since January 14, 2006. As of March 2012 it has over 300 stories archived, 581 authors and over 4000 members who had written almost a total of 30,000 reviews. Stories must “be Sam/Dean slash. Gen/Pre-Slash story is welcome too as long as the main focus of your story is the relationship between Sam and Dean Winchester."
The archive will accept underage stories with appropriate warnings but ask that if Sam or Dean ”have been sexually abused by adults when they are under the age of 16, please do not be too graphic.“The only other exclusion is: "No bestiality and no snuff. Any story where Sam or Dean is killed as a part of the sex act will not be archived.”
The archive also offers multiple ‘skins’ to visitors allowing them to customize their viewing experience.”
A wonderful Star Trek fanzine novel concerning the lives of Spock’s parents Sarek and Amanda.
From Fanlore, the fan run non-profit wiki about media fandom:
“It was a huge seller, [3](especially for a non-K/S zine). By April 1977, over 950 had been sold. [4] 300 copies were printed each for the first and second printings (April and September 1976), 400 for the third printing in November 1976 and by February 1977 500 additional copies had been printed.
This zine had a long-lasting influence on fans’ view of Sarek and Amanda’s relationship, on Vulcan culture, on pon farr, and on Amanda herself. (NTM Amanda created the first universal translator; an idea that later appeared in many stories.) In some ways, the NTM universe Vulcan was the anti-Kraith Vulcan – interestingly, since Jean Lorrah also wrote Kraith stories.
The story could be considered a fix-it novel, as it spent a long time giving a possible explanation why Spock’s parents didn’t show up for his Kali-fi (in the TOS episode “Amok Time”), and why Sarek and Amanda’s relationship could be both strong, and as we saw it on screen in “Journey to Babel.”
I mostly just wanted to say thank you for being so forthcoming about where you are in life. I always worry I'll get criticized for being in fandom even as I get older and older, but seeing awesome people like you, who have established careers and kids and the whole nine yards and still come and gift us with your stories, that really makes me happy. Thanks.
You know, you really won’t get criticized: there’s LOTS OF US GROWNUPS, and we used to be NORM before fandom got all, like, trendy and stuff! The thing is, in the days before these easy peasy social media sites where you plug in a user name and a password and boom, you basically HAD to be grownup to do fandom! You needed to know FTP and basic HTML and like, buy plane tickets to conventions or show up at weird restaurants to meet someone you’d talked to on email. THIS WAS UPHILL IN THE SNOW, and you had to BYOB (buy your own boots :D) I’m still honestly shocked every time someone’s like obviously in high school or whatever; it’s just, that’s so incredibly recent that there were the means for younger people to participate to this extent, though I think it’s great - I was writing fanfic at that age too, but it was so much harder to share it, and I think we’ll have more continuity over generations, too.
So, a few things: Thanks for your patience! I’ve got only one more midterm to go (well, at least, this week), so I’ll be a bit busy until Friday. But, thankfully, after that, I’m freeeeee
But, anyway, on a bit more of an important topic: I need a hint of help. Does anyone know where to find Spockanalia and other Star Trek fanzines online? I need them for a research paper.
Thanks in advance! I’ll be doing work on a bunch of things, so I apologize if my replies to asks and such are a hint sporadic.
forgot to mention: you can also get basic info about media zines at Fanlore, the fan run non-profit wiki about media fandom.
So, a few things: Thanks for your patience! I’ve got only one more midterm to go (well, at least, this week), so I’ll be a bit busy until Friday. But, thankfully, after that, I’m freeeeee
But, anyway, on a bit more of an important topic: I need a hint of help. Does anyone know where to find Spockanalia and other Star Trek fanzines online? I need them for a research paper.
Thanks in advance! I’ll be doing work on a bunch of things, so I apologize if my replies to asks and such are a hint sporadic.
I think Texas A&M University (TAMU) is working with the publisher to get the Spockanalia newsletter online. Both University of Iowa and TAMU will make a copy of material for research purposes for a small fee (usually 25 cent a page)
And all 3 sites allow visitors and will allow you to scan or copy yourself. Special Collections do have access restrictions (you need to leave food and drink outside) and you will have to “call up” (have the librarians bring you materials).
It’s a leftover of a bit of old timey fandom culture. Back in the 90s/early 2000s it was fairly common to denote a trait by writing trait!character. Fanlore has an interesting article about it with a possible explanation for it, I recommend it.
The things you find lurking in your basement. I thought these were gone forever but thankfully, I kept them all: my favorite X-Files fics from Gossamer back when I was spending several hours a day on Gossamer, all printed out on various shades of tinted paper and each with a cover I made by hand–as you see–bound in several volumes, and some of these migrated to AO3 but many indeed vanished from the Internet forever. I always meant to do a similar collection of favorite MSTings, back before Web Site Number 9 died, but most of them were both too hair-raising to reformat for printing and just far too long.
Sonetimes, figuring that since I was only altering them for my collection it wasn’t a crime or nuthin’, I would go through stories and rephrase a line here and there, remove passages I didn’t like, on occasion rewrite random paragraphs or change, say, an in-story reference to Sarah MacLachlan lyrics to a band I actually liked; every altered story had a scrupulously enumerated log of “editorial” changes attached as an appendix, since someday I might be called on in federal court to testify to exactly what I had altered and how. I started making larger “edits,” rewriting the occasional ending and once, since I have no shame, reworking a Mulder/Scully story into a Mulder/Samantha one (I still think it worked better that way). Eventually this did, in fact, lead to my sitting down and writing my own fanfic from start to finish, though ironically, other than one never-posted-anywhere practice run I’ve never written any X-Files fic. And that’s how I began to write anything at all.
If you ever want to find a permanent home for these wonderful items….
I had just assumed they wouldn’t take them as they’re not “proper” zines, but thanks for the heads-up! I do actually need to sit down and decide who gets the posthumous keys to my tiny fannish fiefdom (and where to donate that shelf of non-fannish zines, while I’m at it), so this is good to know.
In fact, so many of these “custom zines” were donated to Iowa that we had to invent the name for them. And make a page on Fanlore.
…fair point. Maybe they should partner with @transformativeworks to digitize them… >.>
(yes, I know it’s not THAT simple, but a girl can dream, yeah?)
Iowa has partnered and are digitizing their collection and you can request “research copies” of the Iowa holdings. I coached a friend through the process (library archive dweeb here) and they got one of the first Kirk/Spock stories copied out of the collection. The librarians there are awesome so if there’s something you’re itching for contact them. :-)
Thank you for this! I belong to a local SF&F Club that has produced 10 fanzines over the years. Love to have them preserved for future readers.
University of Iowa and Riverside both have sci-fi fanzine collections. Iowa is digitizing theirs.
There are media fandom fanzine archives in Iowa, Texas, California (UC Riverside) and Ohio. Then there are smaller collections in other states. Texas has a few (only a few) zines available online (with permissions).
The things you find lurking in your basement. I thought these were gone forever but thankfully, I kept them all: my favorite X-Files fics from Gossamer back when I was spending several hours a day on Gossamer, all printed out on various shades of tinted paper and each with a cover I made by hand–as you see–bound in several volumes, and some of these migrated to AO3 but many indeed vanished from the Internet forever. I always meant to do a similar collection of favorite MSTings, back before Web Site Number 9 died, but most of them were both too hair-raising to reformat for printing and just far too long.
Sonetimes, figuring that since I was only altering them for my collection it wasn’t a crime or nuthin’, I would go through stories and rephrase a line here and there, remove passages I didn’t like, on occasion rewrite random paragraphs or change, say, an in-story reference to Sarah MacLachlan lyrics to a band I actually liked; every altered story had a scrupulously enumerated log of “editorial” changes attached as an appendix, since someday I might be called on in federal court to testify to exactly what I had altered and how. I started making larger “edits,” rewriting the occasional ending and once, since I have no shame, reworking a Mulder/Scully story into a Mulder/Samantha one (I still think it worked better that way). Eventually this did, in fact, lead to my sitting down and writing my own fanfic from start to finish, though ironically, other than one never-posted-anywhere practice run I’ve never written any X-Files fic. And that’s how I began to write anything at all.
If you ever want to find a permanent home for these wonderful items….
Here’s something that just walloped me from behind while I was writing a Scully monologue yesterday for *Sanctuary. I know this has been brought up before but it hadn’t hit me at such a deep level as it did yesterday, and that’s the possibility that while Scully feels that solidarity with Mulder for everything they’ve gone through, and is grateful for his support (and he has supported her–many times), still, all those horrendous things she’s gone through in the past six years have been a direct result of knowing/being with Mulder. I think–and I’d never felt this before from her, but I sure did yesterday while I was writing and had slipped way below the surface of the character, so to speak–that she may hold some resentment toward him for what’s happened to her. Not at a conscious level, but subconsciously. Anyway, I put this question to a few fellow Cavedwellers and these were the very interesting responses I got…..
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!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! that’s amazing, I have to look into that! Thank you!!!
Indeed and there is also a fanzine archives at Texas A&M University, along with the Sandy Hereld Memorial Digital Zine Collection. Both Iowa and TAMU collections are open to visitors.
Ex: Comic Books. A number of comic tie-ins were created that continued the animated stories. These are considered to be canon.??? Put stuff here about the comics?
Video Games. Additionally a number of video games set in the same universe were created.??? Put stuff here about the games?
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Wow, every time I think I can’t hate the “let’s commercialize fandom” contingent more, I come across something like this:
ML: Yeah, I guess I’m so far removed from fanfiction as a primary mode of fandom because I’m so in a very different world of behavior rather than a single point of origin fanworks. And what I really mean, I guess, by ‘canon is a little less important,’ is that there’s the incredible loop of production and consumption, so that producers are consumers are producers are consumers are producers are consumers. And so at any point along that trail someone can join in the fandom. So someone can be, can know StarKid, and become part of the fandom that way, even if they weren’t necessarily deep into Harry Potter before that.
ML: I really strongly disagree with anti-consumerist fandom. Because it’s missing a whole part of the production cycle that is absolutely necessary for people to understand in order to actually get canon. And in order to actually get fanworks! (Meredith Levine in an interview with Fansplaining, August 2015)
Funny how it is a person who analyze fannish interactions for profit that redefines fandom as commercial. Not only should be accept it when we get overrun by people trying to make money off us. We’re actually now supposed to accept when we get moved to the frienges of “fandom” to make room for the “real” thing–MONEY.
This may be a good point to remind ourselves why some of us keep on holding high the banner of non-profit fandom and its role in fannish history. So in that vein, here are two of my favorites quotes.
We need a central archive of our own, something like animemusicvideos.org. Something that would NOT hide from google or any public mention, and would clearly state our case for the legality of our hobby up front, while not trying to make a profit off other people’s IP and instead only making it easier for us to celebrate it, together, and create a welcoming space for new fans that has a sense of our history and our community behind it. (Astolat, May 2007)
Because I want us to own the goddamned servers, ok? Because I want a place where we can’t be TOSed and where no one can turn the lights off or try to dictate to us what kind of stories we can tell each other. (Speranza, January 2008)
Because with everything I see and know and post about the OTW, with everything that’s going on, at the end of the day, this is OUR space, for however we want to define our, for however inclusive we want it to be. The one thing that won’t be included, however, is third party platforms trying to make money off OUR CONTENT!
distantsun said: Found it so interesting when yall’ve been talking about antis and callouts recently, and like, Strikethrough on LJ in 2007 was The Event that caused AO3 to be born, when all of fandom Stood Behind fans who were creating explicit stuff feat. minors?!
YEAH
Y E A H
like, without the VERY SAME content creators the antis are thoroughly convinced are The End of the World As We Know It we wouldn’t even HAVE ao3
I mean astolat, who is the creator of both yuletide and essentially ao3 too and like is arguably one of THE MOST important people in all of fandom ever writes explicit wincest. One of the very ships that’s going to cause the apocalypse. Do the children even know where we would be without her?
Like honestly, they all need to spend a decent couple of hours on Fanlore. Go read about strikethrough and boldthrough, go read An Archive of One’s Own, go learn your fannish history and stop acting like the pillars of our society are crumbling around us as we speak.
I don’t know what the “antis” and “callouts” movements are (besides their general usage), but
rootingformephistopheles is correct: AO3 was created, in part, for fans to be able to post fiction that might run afoul of (1) copyright over-reach as well as fiction that is (2) not welcomed elsewhere (RPS, chan, rape/noncon, what we now call Omega-verse).
I did some googling and found this 2014 petition demanding that A03 purge all underage and noncon fic. It gathered 5 supporters.
Since some people apparently misunderstood what I was trying to discuss - well it started as a rant, but turned into a discussion somewhere along the way - in this post, I shall try to make my point clearer and tag everyone who participated. Whether they want to continue the discussion then I leave up to them.
My rant was born of a frustration that every time anyone tries to discuss why F/F fics and female centred fic in general are ignored to the extent that they are, a common argument to shut it down is ‘well, fandom is dominated by straight women so what do you expect?’.
But there’s no evidence to support this claim and a good deal of circumstantial evidence that indicates the opposite might be true. Hence my rant about a reference for the straightness claim.
My interest is not and never was about women who read fanfic as a source of porn, there are problems in this kind of borderline fetishisation but it is not for this post nor did I intend the other post to go in the direction of discussing porn preferences. (Kindly don’t go there with this post. I know it’ll be difficult but please make another post and tag me in it. I’m sick of this discussion getting derailed into smut land). My focus was on all the rest of the fics, the relationship ones, the romantics, the angsty, the plot based action fics and so on, they too get ignored in a way they never would if it was an M/M or even just M/F fic, even when they’re not about people’s OTP.
But for some reason fandom is so obsessed with two white boys bonking that they’re incapable of seeing beyond the porn in fanfic, which raises the question why a space that is supposedly welcome to LGBTQIA people perpetuates the homophobic hypersexualisation of same gender pairing that the rest of society is so eager to do.
My interest in the sexuality of fandom is actually marginal. It could be an interesting thing to examine, but it is in no way high on my list. My one and only interest in it is insofar at this enforced heteronormativity of fandom is used as an argument to shut down discussion. And being of a particularly non-straight sexuality does not exempt a person from perpetuating this mindset - most whom I have seen use it have been identifying as bi or pan, but this is anecdotal evidence -
The reasons for reading and writing slash (and no, I don’t fucking mean smut I mean fics with same gender pairings that’s what the term slash means, it does in no way exclusively cover smut fics no matter how much homophobes would claim that jeeze) are multiple and varied and no single study could ever remotely cover everything and anyone who claims otherwise is either ignorant of how academic research works or lying. But saying that there should be no protest, no questioning, no examination of why F/F fics are ignored, of why the supposed heteronormativity of fandom is used as an argument to shut a mere attempt at debate down, is further alienating and shoving under the bus those (female) fans who are uncomfortable with these mechanisms, because in doing so they’re being told, once again, that they’re unwelcome in fandom.
As usual, the topic threads are so complex that it is hard to track what is being said. I often feel like we are talking past one another (which, when you read the diverging threads you will understand that we often are talking past one another)
I am certain there are some that I missed or that I oversimplified or linked to the wrong posts. But it may help further the discussion if we indicate what aspect that we’re focusing on.
To answer #4-2 (so sorry about the numbering): Even if fandom was predominantly heterosexual, I don’t see how fans can rationally use this fact to shut down discussions about why there is a lack of femmeslash*
Just because one is heterosexual does not mean one would not be interested in femmeslash. Just as not all heterosexual women are interested in m/m slash. So to use the presence of heterosexuality to shut down discussions of femmeslash makes about as much sense (to me) as using Chinese grammar rules to shut down discussions of English grammar rules.
Keep in mind that I come from a slash (M/M) perspective and from a time where enjoyment of male/male slash placed you - whether you were heterosexual or gay - outside any norm. We might as well have been speaking Martian back then. (”So…you’re straight but you like to read about men bonking? Wait, you’re gay and you like to read about men boking? No, wait, you’re bi and you like to read about men bonking? Stop it! Just. Stop it!! What’s wrong with the lot of you!!!?”)
Back in 2013, when the AO3 census survey results were posted, there were similar discussions. And I found this one quote that pretty much summed it up for me:
“There are so many things that set us on our course of sexuality, and only a few of them are the things people mean when they talk in labels.”
*This is not to say fans are not shutting down discussions.
