bao3bei4

[bao3bei4]

sweet lad, could I ask where u get ur zines printed? the cover so glossy, the paper v nice to the touch

the most recent edition of yaoi zine (yuri zine) was printed through bookmobile! working with them was very easy, so if you're considering a largeish run and a local print shop can't do the job, i'd tentatively recommend them. (tentative because i've only the one experience haha)

[bao3bei4]

Hello! I just discovered your zines and like I’m so fucking obsessed. I was wondering if you’ll ever restock both the Yaoi (2 volumes) and Yuri zines? 🥹

i have no plans at the moment to restock them. it's something on my radar though - if we get to a point where there's enough demand to support a second run, i'll definitely consider it! so messages like this are helpful haha.

currently, however, between all the zines being on my website (longposter.neocities.org) and the workflow for packing and shipping one volume at a time being a lot more efficient, it's not a priority.

[bao3bei4]

this form is now closed!!!! yuri zine giveaway emails just went out!!!!!!!!!! check your email!!!!!!!!!!!!!

YURI ZINE GIVEAWAY

WAHOO. IT'S HERE! THE YURI ZINE GIVEAWAY! your odds will be pretty good i think. all you have to do is fill out my little form https://forms.gle/4vJuxr4T8rgbGBrh7 and be okay giving me your address over email.

[bao3bei4]

yuri zine pdf

OKAY! IT'S HERE! THE YURI ZINE PDF! WAHOO! 168 pages of yuri zine deliciousness

#x

[bao3bei4]

YURI ZINE GIVEAWAY

WAHOO. IT'S HERE! THE YURI ZINE GIVEAWAY! your odds will be pretty good i think. all you have to do is fill out my little form https://forms.gle/4vJuxr4T8rgbGBrh7 and be okay giving me your address over email.

[bao3bei4]

belated yuri zine update for tumblr!

the zines are in my house rn; we’re just waiting for the bonus stickers i made to get here. then i’ll start packing and shipping :)

[bao3bei4]

THIS IS THE FINAL WEEKEND TO BUY A PHYSICAL COPY OF YURI ZINE! preorders close monday! if you want to hold yuri zine in your hands, now's your chance :D

YAOI ZINE VOLUME 3 IS HERE! AND IT'S YURI!

yuri zine is 160 pages by 29 authors of essays, art, fiction, poetry, collage, rec lists, playlists, and more.

it is $20 plus $5 worldwide shipping for all this good stuff.

wahoo!!! let me know if you have any questions

[bao3bei4]

will yuri zine be posted online for free? if not, will there be a pdf available to buy?

yuri zine will be posted online for free some time after the physical copies have arrived! when that time comes, it will be available on my website at https://longposter.neocities.org/yaoi :)

[bao3bei4]

How long will the Yuri zine be available for pre-order?

the next two weeks!

[bao3bei4]

YAOI ZINE VOLUME 3 IS HERE! AND IT'S YURI!

yuri zine is 160 pages by 29 authors of essays, art, fiction, poetry, collage, rec lists, playlists, and more.

it is $20 plus $5 worldwide shipping for all this good stuff.

wahoo!!! let me know if you have any questions

[bao3bei4]

i haven't published them because that's embarrassing but i just wanted to say i really appreciate the asks i've gotten recently..... i lava you.

[bao3bei4]

did you want to go to me and @acernor and @sophia-sol's panel where we talked about trans fic but were unable to? GOOD NEWS, @ladyofthelog has compiled notes from that conversation into a ZINE!!!!!!!

[bao3bei4]

why zines? how zines?

i was on a panel at fanworks con 2023 about zines today. it was a lot of fun! i decided to turn my portion of the talk into a post for my friends who couldn’t make it to the panel. 

this post includes my thoughts on: 

why make a zine

how to generate ideas for zines

how to finish your zines

how to build an audience for your zines

so why zines? what are they? [ZEENS, rhymes with beans], pronounced that way because it’s a shortened form of the word magazine, are basically just that: self published magazines. but why make a zine over, say, a blog post? or any other piece of art. 

i have basically three reasons. the first is that making little books is cool. it’s genuinely awesome to make physical zines and have the product of your labor in your hand. it’s a great feeling to finish a project and feel a concrete reward, and a lot of times we don’t get that in our lives.

the second reason is that zines give you absolute editorial control. you can put anything you want on a page. whatever layout, whatever order, whatever fold, whatever content. you name it, you can do it. this is something other venues rarely give you. for artists, it’s phenomenal. and for the rest of us, it gives us the ability to become artists for a little bit, as we lay things out.

the third reason is that zines can be absolute shit. in fact, the more shit they are, the more diy and punk they are. they have an incredible lineage of stolen copy paper and anarchist politics. all that to say, is that there are no standards. the zine ethos is say what you wanna say. it’s tremendously freeing to go fuck polish and respectability, i’m making my project.

because of these three reasons, i want to encourage you to get started making zines by describing common challenges and worries and giving you several practical tips for each on working past them. so, in order, they’re “i don’t know what to make a zine about,” “i struggle to finish projects,” and “no one will read my zines.” let’s get into it.

first up, “i don’t know what to make a zine about.” i think this one is pretty common, even for experienced zine creators. sometimes you’re in the mood to make things but you have no clue what. a lot of people suggest to just go with random words or whatever pops into your head, but i’m picky! i find that unsatisfying! so here are some tips for people in the same boat. 

ONE: what’s distracting you? work with it. because anything can be a zine, let the things you’ve already done serve as inspiration. photos you’ve taken can be formatted into a zine. is there a game sucking up your attention? make a zine about it. the song stuck in your head can turn into a lyricbook, forgotten works in progress or sketches can be resurrected, cannibalized, or even published as incomplete zines. if you’ve been busy with real life, maybe the recipes you’ve been making—even if, especially if, they’re struggle meals, can turn into zines. interview your most interesting friend. summarize a book you read recently. even if you’ve just been doomscrolling, that’s a zine too! i got a zine last weekend called bay area newsreel which was collecting recent articles about local news from leftist perspectives gathered up into a handy volume. your attention is a gift, so look at what zine fodder it’s accumulated for you naturally. 

SECOND: add a twist. sometimes i have an idea but it isn’t quite right. it just seems too straightforward. so i try to develop along a single axis of content or form. what this means is basically go against your instincts, or rather, your first impulse. that first idea is very hard to walk away from, but doing so often gives you an idea that gets you unstuck. so for content, add a different perspective. for me this is often a theoretical approach. when i was stuck on my scum villain zine, turning it into freud zine let the words start flowing. next, on form: present it differently than your first instinct is to. if my first thought is “essay,” i try to figure out how to chunk out the information into modules or how to add interactivity or what kind of illustrations to add. if my first thought is “this could be a fic or comic,” i try turning it into an essay. saying things a different way often gives you a new perspective on the content as well. 

THIRD: copy! make your take on the same thing as someone else. it’s not stealing—well, ideally it isn’t. make your original take and give credit where credit is due and ask permission if necessary. but engage with the medium!!! making zines without reading zines is the same thing as trying to write a paper without citing sources, or a novel without reading your contemporaries. that is, you can do it, but it’s hard. zines are a genre into themselves so figure out how to situate yourself in their ongoing dialogue. an example of this from my own practice is that i own a zine about queer gods and mythological creatures from chinese history. reading it i was like. why don’t they talk about this. why don’t they talk about that. and that became the basis for my own zine, guaitai the strange and the queer which focused on queer chinese history and literature instead. different zine, same inspiration. 

all of my ideas suppose you have SOMETHING going on. what if you truly have nothing. my advice? adapted from my “how to write an essay” blog post, is to read a book. read an article. read something. and then post about it. and then turn your posts into a zine. don’t start entirely from scratch — give yourself a scaffolding. so first. read something and tell someone about it. i wasn’t lying about calling myself a consummate poster. it’s a big part of my thought process. 

second up, what if “i struggle to finish projects.” i’m no stranger to having a bunch of half finished half started projects lying around. but here are some zine-specific tips i have for addressing that.

FIRST! go smaller; go shittier. reduce the scope of your projects. make one pagers, lists. once when i was feeling stymied, i made a physical zine about movies i’d watched that month, just listing them with a couple bullet points on each film. i eventually turned it into a bigger digital zine where i listed movies i’d watched over the past several months with more thoughts on them, and nicely formatted. but that was something that came out of reducing my scope from “i need to write a manifesto on a movie i’ve watched recently” to “well i can just tell people about it” to “i can say two things about it.” and something actually got finished.

SECOND. your friends are a great tool for accountability. something i like to do is zine jams with my friends. nothing fancy, it’s just we’ll sit down for an hour and go we’re going to make something in this hour. or, for a bigger scope, we might work separately but commit to making a zine that weekend. it’s nice to have community and it’s nice to feel a little bit of a friendly deadline. i recommend this even if you DON’T have problems finishing zines. it’s a good time. 

THIRD. a lot of times if the words aren’t coming easily, it’s because i’m not trying to say the right thing. keep in mind that your zines don’t have to be “content.” this little paper zine i made about movies wasn’t made to share online; in fact, it’s not available online. i didn’t make it according to what other people would see or be interested in. you can and will burn out on making “marketable” content. corollary to this: sometimes what i have to say is something i DON’T want to share online. it might not be that it’s boring, it might be that it’s too personal. and i share a lot online, i write personal essays after all. but some projects i stall on because they’re really just for me, and i’m again, focused on making content. so this piece of advice is about rejecting the tyranny of the imaginary audience. 

and the next challenge is about embracing that audience! what if no one reads your zines, something that’s entirely possible. well there’s plenty you can do about that.

FIRST. cultivate zine community. read other people’s zines! talk to them about their zines! this greatly increases the chance that they will do the same for you. don’t go in expecting reciprocity; do it for its own sake, but it’s a great place to start. try asking people at zine fests if they’d be willing to trade with you, for instance. 

SECOND. write for yourself. it’s cheesy but it’s true. you really have to. if you’re not proud and happy with what you’re making on its own merits, what’s the point. now because this is a cop out tip, i’m not counting it as a tip on its own. 

so SECOND PART TWO. make your zines more accessible. if they’re not free, make them free—yes, you deserve to be compensated for your work, but it’s up to you to decide if you want a bigger audience first. if your zines aren’t short, make them shorter. make them short enough that you can post their entirety on social media or something else easy for your audience to consume. it’s a big ask sometimes to get someone to download your pdf! if they’re physical, hand them out to people you meet. remove all the barriers to entry.

THIRD. related to this, change medium. if you’re not making physical zines, try printing them out. if you’re not making digital zines, try digitizing them. both of these offer access to new audiences and new people who might be more interested in one form than another. 

i hope these thoughts encourage you to make a zine! if you do, please let me see it. i love reading zines. 

#x

[bao3bei4]

Man, coming as a fan of your svsss mommy zine, your s1 hannibal mommy twine is super compelling. Stop rocking my world like this!

Also, I was really impressed by your layout coding--the world needs more academic papers written in Twine! I'd love to know which story format you used, and whether there any resources online for those cool features like the footnote boxes and the do not pass go table of contents.

awwww tysm!!! it means a lot <3 twine info under the cut

i used harlowe

the footnote boxes are just a styled modal--here's a youtube video that explains them.

the process he shows mostly works, except you'll need to do "{(link-repeat:"&times")[(hide: ?modal)[] ]}" instead of "{(link-repeat:"&times")[(replace: ?modal)[] ]}" if you want it to work in the most recent version of twine

the table of contents is much lower tech than you'd imagine. it's literally four separate pages, each time adding a new link manually

i'm happy to give you copies of the css or the proof file if that would help!

[bao3bei4]

making a jokerified northern version of tshirt & their tumblr url is bao3beir4. is this anything

bao3beir4 only posts jungian archetype analysis of like. 2ha. my brother in arms

[bao3bei4]

so i recently rewatched the first season of hannibal. and i made a twine essay about it. well. about masculinities, phantoms, and families. click the image to get started

#x #just realized i forgot to post this here too

[bao3bei4]

Was enthralled reading @shrimpchipsss essay on realist and escapist yaoi and the ENTIRE time I was like are they gonna say it. Is it going to happen. That Scum Villain is a medium form of both realist and escapist yaoi intertwined in such a way that the realism and escapism are quite literally making yaoi with each other. And then when it happened I literally jumped out of my seat and raised my hands in the air like I just won the lottery or something

#yaoi zine commentary!