Stargazing Sheith Zine

Hi guys!  So sorry to have this update after so long; I definitely should have posted it back in November, but holiday (and other things) got away from me.  If you’re wondering why I’m posting it now, I’ve been following the Voltron Zine Scene for some time now and one thing I’ve noticed is an increasing distrust of charity zines and whether or not the money has been donated.  Though nothing has changed with us, we just wanted to pop back in and provide documentation of our donation, as well as some testimonials from the people you guys have helped.

(Please note that I did not claim these for personal deductions on my taxes; they were tax-deductible, but I didn’t feel comfortable putting them on my own tax return)

Extras sales for Stargazing: a Sheith AU Zine are OPEN!

Merchandise includes zines, stickers, and mini prints.  You can find us at our Bigcartel store!

Additionally, we’re selling Last Chance PDFs for only $10, as well as damaged stickers and prints for a fraction of the price!

BUNDLE BONUS: buy bundle merch along with the zine and receive a free PDF copy!

Hey all!  A couple of things:

1. First of all, consider this a ringing endorsement not to live in the South: when my AC went out last week, it got so hot in my room that all of the vinyl stickers melted slightly and stuck to each other.  Unfortunately, this means that almost the entire batch has been damaged, and I’ve had to reorder the stickers.  I’ve already discussed it with our supplier and will provide updates as we receive them.

2. We will be selling the damaged stickers on our Bigcartel for very cheap prices, if anyone is interested, in hopes to recoup at least the production cost.  Consider this your chance to pick up extra copies!  Please review the pictures for examples of the damage.

Stickers are $1.00

Sticker sheets are $2.50

3. Shipping will be a flat $.50 for domestic and $1.00 for international.  However, if you have previously purchased a physical copy of the zine or bundle, you may input your order number (minus dashes) as a coupon to receive free shipping!  Please note that using an order number as a coupon will result in your order being added to the original order and sent to that shipping address, even if you input something different for shipping.

4. The zines took a while to print due to the AX rush, but I’ve been told I should receive them by next week!

We’re officially in the printing stage!

The zines have all been paid for, color corrections completed, final go-ahead given, merch is all sitting in little piles on my desk waiting to be shipped out...

AN UPDATE!

The last of the merch has come in! Final count:

—62 complete bundles (I’ll be quadruple checking this number just to be sure) —5 bundles without a sticker sheet —1 bundle without a sheet or the Greek Mythology sticker —1 baseball sticker —1 celestial print (slightly defective) —3 pirate prints —3 cover prints (1 slightly defective) —4 circus prints (1 slightly defective) —3 desert fantasy prints (2 slightly defective)

Feat. THE PROOF!!!!

It needs slight color corrections; we’re waiting to hear back from the artists to make sure nothing else needs fixing. Final order has been paid in full and will start to print Friday!

Get to know the contributors that are a part of Stargazing: a Sheith AU Fanzine!  Last, but not least, is @fishingclocks​, who did a “Finest Hours” AU fic!

As a reminder, you only have a little over 24 hours to grab your own copy of Stargazing!

Willow

“Through context clues, I've decided that 'Shut your quiznack' means 'Shut your fuck', and I think that's beautiful.”

fishingclocks on AO3 @fishingclocks​ on Tumblr

So, even I, a semi-recovered Chris Pine fangirl, hadn’t heard of Finest Hours until you pitched this fic idea.  It’s definitely not very well-known or the sort of thing you’d commonly see done as an AU, and arguably a challenging genre as well.  Why was it that you decided to go with this instead of something more traditional?

So there's a couple answers to this. The first is a preference for my Sheith fic that's pretty personal - I just really like fics where they're pilots? No matter the setting - in spaceships or on a dingy - I feel like Keith and Shiro belong on ships. And this fic is basically intrinsically tied to ships. The real reason, though, is that I just like to tread off the beaten path with my AUs. I adore tropey fic, but I feel like I don't have the mind to take something someone else has already done and make it my own. So for me, that sort of AU almost is traditional!

You have done some unusual (and awesome) AUs before, that’s for sure.  I’ve been familiar with (and loved) your work before you joined Stargazing, and so much of it is very long!  You might have stepped outside of your comfort zone for this project, but you definitely nailed it.  What challenges did you run into while trying to tell a story within a zine’s shorter word count, and (for those of us who struggle with it, too), do you have any advice for downsizing?

Yeah, for me, the hard part is always telling a complete story while also setting limitations for yourself. I always like having lots of dialogue in my pieces, and because I like to keep a close third-person POV, I like to include moments of introspection to move the story forward, rather than have plot points do all the work. The way I've started practicing, I pick out the most important moment in a scene - the main plot reason it's there, because in a short fic all of your scenes should have a reason in the plot to be there - and center all action in the scene around it. That way, all of your scenes are direct, intentional, and yet they do what you need them to do. And it doesn't only have to be plot driven either - you can center the scene around a thematic concept, or a character interaction - as long as there's constant forward momentum to some end goal in the scene!

Despite being in the Voltron fandom for a while, this has been your first foray into writing a full Sheith fanfic, correct?  What was it like, coming in and beginning to make your mark creatively on this fandom, with this ship you’ve been sailing for some time?

Honestly, it's been terrifying! I mean, no, that's not the right word, but it was definitely something that intimidated me. To be totally honest, I swore that I would never write any Voltron fic - I feel like there's so much I don't know, and that there's so many better authors than me, the fandom doesn't need me. In the beginning, I didn't really ship anything except Allura and I, so I thought I would just sit it out. And then all at once, my friends introduced me to the wonder that is Sheith, and I was a lost cause. I still don't feel like I know enough or am involved enough in the fandom to write anything but fun AUs, but I've been broken. For over a year I've been writing small fics for them - little character interaction explorations, just to figure out their dynamic and get a fix of fluff - and with this Stargazing fic, I'm officially making my first real, exciting step into the fandom!

We’re definitely glad to have you here, that’s for sure!  And finally, the most important question of all: if you could choose to live in any AU, limited only by your imagination, which would it be?

I actually don't have to give this any thought at all! Remember those Moon and Sun AUs that were popular about a year ago? One character is the moon, one character is the sun, and in some AUs they live in a stylized version of space, and in others they rule over a kingdom, of sorts, one dark blue and silver, the other yellows and oranges and reds. I would love to be the Sun! The costumes in these AUs are always so lavish, and the Sun designs are always just stunning. What I wouldn't give to be constantly surrounded by warm sunset colors, draped in yards and yards of fabric - and also with this AU comes the standard romance with the Moon, and I personally feel like it's my destiny to be the Moon's girlfriend, so that would work out very nicely.

Get to know the contributors that are a part of Stargazing: a Sheith AU Fanzine!  Meet @seitou​, who did a Circus AU that is also part of our merch bundle!

Seitou

“Love is patient and kind; love one another.”

Circus AU!  Your absolutely gorgeous art is not only part of the zine, but is being featured as one of the mini-prints in our bundle.  Let me say, I’m definitely shelling out to get myself a copy of that one!  What can you give us about the backstory of this AU?  You’ve really piqued my curiosity!

It was originally an idea for a fanfic plotted out just before season 2 dropped, so I've been sitting on this for a while. Shiro was a former trapeze artist who suffered a horrendous fall at a young age and had to quit. He sees Keith perform Corde Lisse, the suspended cord acrobatics thing, a few years later and was entranced by him. At some point during his frequent visit to the circus Keith picks Shiro out as a volunteer to do tricks off his shoulders, lowkey flirting with him and slowly fall in love. How the story went after that depended on if Keith was working for Zarkon or Alfor, so either Keith and Shiro run away together, or Alfor ask Shiro to join their troop and he works his way up to Ringmaster.

So you do freelance art for a living, but also take fandom commissions as well.  That’s a lot of art!  How do you manage to balance your time and energy between your career work and your commissions?

It helps that the work I do get is related to one fandom or another, and that my situation is such that I am able to mostly focus on my art. Traditional work also takes longer or shorter depending on what medium I'm using so that helps. But burnout is very real, so I try to take breaks and do other things.  Saturdays are generally my art free day, unless I have a deadline, then all bets are off.

Now that is relatable.

So you get to do fandom work for a living?  That sounds awesome!  What other fandoms do you do work for?  Was there any process that led to you being able to do so or was it just a series of fortunate events?

A series of fortunate and unfortunate events really.  I was originally going to college for Marine Biology, but I was going through a Junior college circa 2005 to 2008 and found out that I would have to get through calculus  to get my degree. I was exhausted of math at that point so I decided to say forget that and looked for something else. Art had always been a passion of mine so it seems like a natural transition for me. So I applied to an art school, and while that's been difficult to maintain attendance, (housing is expensive in San Francisco) I don't regret it. As for fandoms, I've done art for Ronin Warriors, Transformers Animated, Superman, Harry Potter, X-Men: First Class, and Snow Villars from Final Fantasy.

I feel you on that one; I dropped my computer science major in a heartbeat because of calc.

Final question: Voltron has so many good characters, but most people have their own special fave!  Who is yours, and why?

Everyone who ordered the bundle should have a copy of the Stargazing PDF in their inbox. If you don't, please contact us with your order number ASAP and we'll get you sorted as soon as possible!

In order to give everyone a chance to help us reach 100 orders (and a free print with all physical orders!), we’ll be extending preorders for a couple more weeks!  They will now continue running through May 19th!

We would really appreciate any signal boosting you can offer, and if you haven’t gotten a chance, pick up your copy now!

Concerned about this delaying your copy?  Don’t be!  While we’re currently making the finishing touches, assuming everything looks good with our creators, everyone who has bought the bundle will receive the PDF by May 7!  If you buy the bundle after this, then we’ll be sending them out periodically (ideally once per day, but no later than once per week).

Get to know the contributors that are a part of Stargazing: a Sheith AU Fanzine!  Next up is @amorremanet​, who did a roleswap AU fic!

A special thank you to Andromeda Zine for allowing us to borrow this concept!

Amorremanet

“Keith says, ‘Nothing is worth Shiro’s pain.’ I say, ‘Yeah okay, honey, you can take care of him when I’m done’”

Amorremanet on AO3 @amorremanet​ on Tumblr

Your piece for Stargazing has Shiro and Keith with their roles reversed: Keith on the Kerberos mission and Shiro as the half-Galra Garrison washout.  Without giving away too much beyond what has been shared in previews already, can you give us some insight into the inspiration behind this AU, and how you picture it changing up the events and interactions of canon?

Role-reversal AUs are a favorite trope of mine. All AUs offer the opportunity to explore pieces of the characters that might not come out as easily in more canon-adjacent fics. What I love about role-swap AUs, though, is the creative challenge of exploring how the “cores” of the different characters can both change and not when they’re literally placed into another canon character’s shoes. As for how the swap in “The Oncoming Storm” changes things, the Galra reveal would also go very differently, because Champion!Keith would fight Allura harder in defense of Shiro than canon!Keith does in defense of himself. But most of the changes that I see coming in this AU are subtler at first, and end up having some cumulatively huge effects. For instance, I think Shiro would still be the Black Paladin at first, while Keith would still be in Red. But that changes the eventual build-up to the Galra reveal: Shiro can’t fight Zarkon head-on and hear the, “You fight like a Galra” line, as canon!Keith did; he would have been ejected by the Black Lion. That line is easy enough to transfer onto Sendak during their fight in “The Fall of the Castle of Lions,” because it’s something that he’d say (and with Sendak, he’d probably mean it as a compliment). But the significance of that fight changes if Shiro is running into a fight with someone who has such a huge advantage because Sendak hurt Keith, Shiro’s beloved. This changes Shiro’s astral plane confrontation with Zarkon, and it all adds up to a very different Galra reveal. The worst part of it for Shiro, though, would be feeling responsible for Keith’s trauma. He blames himself for “pushing” Keith onto the Kerberos mission, but for him to be a member of the species that harmed Keith? In canon, Shiro doesn’t blame Keith and loves him fiercely. But sadly, Shiro wouldn’t show himself that same understanding. So, yeah. A mix of obviously big changes, and little ones that add up to big ones.

I was going to ask you about your favorite minor character in Voltron, but given the contents of this fic, it's not exactly hard to guess!  Tell us a little bit about why you chose Iverson as a major character in this fic, and how you went about developing his character.

A: In fairness, I love a lot of the minor characters! That said, I do have an Iverson bias, and I feel like he gets a raw deal. He can be abrasive. His first scene is him chewing the Garrison Trio out. While doing so, he says things about Keith and Shiro that can sound pretty negative. This makes it easy to write Iverson off as a jerk, even a villain. That reading of him doesn’t hold up for me, though. There are several reasons why not, but his relationship with and treatment of Shiro are the most telling, for me. He doesn’t blame Shiro while talking about the Kerberos mission. Iverson doesn’t mention Shiro at all, which is strange when he’s so direct about everything else. Then, when Shiro crashes, Iverson is present in the med-tent for unexplained reasons (which could be personal). When speaking to him, Iverson uses the name, “Shiro.” This isn’t a super-intimate nickname (Lance uses it despite not knowing Shiro personally before Team Voltron). But if Iverson were sticking to protocol, he’d call Shiro, “Lt. Shirogane” (or similar). Before anything else, Iverson tries to reassure Shiro that he’s safe. He only makes the call to put Shiro under because they don’t know what his prosthetic arm can do or not (which is a fair concern). The way Iverson talks about this sounds regretful, too. He doesn’t like drugging Shiro, but his options are limited. That’s how I see Iverson in general. He’s in some difficult places, facing dangerous and high-stakes situations. He isn’t a monster; he’s just a man who’s trying his best with very limited choices and seemingly insurmountable odds. Which is how I tried to portray him in this AU, too, Also, I have a Shiro bias, and canon!Shiro doesn’t have very many non-Keith personal connections before Team Voltron. The way Iverson treats him makes me think Iverson might have been one of them. And I liked exploring that possibility in this fic.

After reading that, definitely consider me a convert.  It's always fascinating to see different trends and countertrends in fandom.  Related to that, you've mentioned that you've been indulging in fandom between frantic work on your thesis, which is… also about fandom?  What's the premise there, and and how are you bringing your own experiences as a fan into your academic work?

A: My MA thesis is about fandom, yes! It’s been through a few different versions before ending up where it is. First, it was going to be a more traditional academic paper, focused about how fans write about LGBTQ experiences and issues in fics/headcanons, and focused on trans and/or non-binary representation in particular. (I worked on this version in 2013-14, so there were even fewer trans fics/hc’s than there are now. Also, the main fandoms in it were Supernatural and Teen Wolf, not VLD.) But my school’s program in women’s/gender studies has three options for the final project: the thesis; the practicum (basically, an internship where you write a paper at the end); and the creative project (which still has a research component, but isn’t). In a required class, our prof had us list ideas for how we could pursue our interests in all three of these options. The creative project that I came up with was, “I mean, I write fanfiction? I guess I could do that.” I expected my prof to tell me how ridiculous this sounded. Instead, she got excited about that idea, which got me excited. Which got my poor advisor excited (especially because my original fic ideas were for HP, which is her pet fandom). Then, everything got derailed by IRL drama for a while. But now, I’ve written my fic (“But boys spring infernal,” my overgrown monster of mutual pining Sheith) and I’m finishing the paper about it. In general, the project is about the LGBTQ and feminist potential of fanfic, with a focus on hurt/comfort and AUs, which are sadly under-researched. Aside from canon-divergence fics, AUs especially get a raw deal. Most fan studies scholars write them off as original fic with fandom characters pasted on. That bugs me both as a fan who loves AUs, and as someone who sees the field of fan studies stagnating because we aren’t adapting as fandom evolves. So, I’m bringing my fannish experiences into my project because they are the project (or a pretty big part of it). In addition to the research that went into this, there’s an autoethnographic element to the paper. I have to write about the process of writing BBSI, as well as the different personal experiences that went into the fic, and it’s been fun but incredibly challenging. On the other hand, I got to cite Legit Sources™ like Michel Foucault while justifying my love of long-haired Shiro. That’s probably my personal peak of questionable academic arguments, and I probably shouldn’t be so proud of it? But I am.

Long-haired Shiro, the Shiro we all deserve.  Also, I am totally jealous that you've gotten to write fanfic for a school project. Final question!  After reading your piece, I think I ascended to another plane of existence.  I absolutely loved it.  So I have to ask for your blessing: may I have your fic's hand in marriage?

Oh my god, fgkdhf, thank you! For that compliment, for letting me babble about this fic, and for giving me the chance to write for this zine. As much as I love this role-swap AU idea, “The Oncoming Storm” might not have gotten to exist without Stargazing giving me the push to actually write it. (Which I could write another long answer about, because I find the different levels of communal writing/collaboration that go on in fanfic so fascinating.) With that said? You absolutely have my blessing to marry this fic. I’m so glad that you’re so excited about it, and I’m excited about getting to read everyone else’s fics and see the art pieces when the zine comes out! <333

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