Duck Prints Press LLC is delighted to announce that the Kickstarter for our second anthology, And Seek (Not) to Alter Me, has commenced!
InAndSeek(Not) toAlter Me, 16 authors and 16 artists have come together to create an exquisite, full-color collection of artwork and stories inspired by William Shakespeare’s play MuchAdo About Nothing. We encouraged contributors to stretch their imaginations, think outside the box, and put their own unique—and queer—twist on Benedick, Beatrice, Hero, Claudio, Don Pedro, and the whole gang! In true Shakespearean fashion, our creators utilize gender, sexuality, romanticism, and a host of costume changes to tell unique stories—some featuring original characters, some characters from the play—that show Shakespeare’s work in a whole new light.
So—grab a cup of tea and reread or rewatch your favorite version of MuchAdoAboutNothing to refresh your memory. Our stories and artworks feature wlw, mlm, poly relationships, trans characters, gender swaps, canon divergent tales, AUs…there’s even a two-page comic! Settle in with this delightful collection and enjoy visiting Messina (and elsewhere!) and falling in love with Leonato’s family and the troops of Don Pedro’s army (and many others!) again and again and again!
And Seek (Not) to Alter Me is a stunning zine, printed in full color, A4 size (8 ¼ inches x 11 ¾ inches/21 cm x 30 cm), approximately 150 pages long. It includes 16 stories, each up to 5,000 words long, and 20 full-page interior artworks. Creators share their visions with us, discuss their inspiration, and take us along on a journey to experience what this play and these characters mean to them.
It’s my first published original fiction, and I couldn’t be more excited! We’re on the doorstep of getting funded (about $300 away) with 3 days left! This anthology is in a style similar to a fanzine and it has queer stories for everyone, no matter your preferences!
If you haven’t checked it out yet, please make sure to do so, and if you can support it, great! If not, please reblog this to help spread the word so we can sprint across the finish line!
Every single person involved in this project is a fanauthor or fanartist! And that’s true from our ownership (hi, I’m Claire, better known in fandom as @unforth) all the way through those who do our graphic design, our typesetting, our planning…everyone! (Well, except our lawyer and our merch vendors). Some, like Aria, are public about their participation in both fandom and this book; others have opted to separate their fandom selves from the publishing selves. Some of the folks who are open about their inclusion?
I’m writing all this ‘cause it’s occurred to me people don’t know, but Duck Prints Press explicitlyexists to help fancreators make the transition into paid publishing work, and we onlywork with people are active in fandom!
ANYWAY. All that said! We’re thrilled to share that we’ve reached our base funding goal!! “And Seek (Not) to Alter Me” will see print!! It’s such great news, and a huge relief.
But! We’re still hoping to reach some of our stretch goals.
We’re at $12,150 right now.
If we can hit $12,500, we’ll be able to print the books (and include in the e-book!) art for the back cover by front cover artist Gio Guimarães! Backers at Levels 3, 4, 5, and 6 will also receive a second art print (at no additional cost to the backers!). To be honest, we’re pretty certain we’ll hit this goal – so confident, in fact, that we already have commission Gio, contract signed and everything.
More ambitious – if we can hit $16,500, we can give all our authors and artists a raise from 1 cent per word/$50 per page to 2 cents per word/$100 per page – doubling how much we pay them! We’d loveto be able to do this, and we think it can be done, but we need your help!
Do you love this project? Do you want to support our authors and artists? If you haven’t backed yet, consider doing so – just $15 will get you the e-book in PDF, ePub, and Mobi format, or you can take advantage of this one-and-only time to get the book in print format, for $40!
If you can’t afford it (we get it! times are tough!) or if you already have backed – help us spread the word! Reblog, retweet, share, and boost our posts on one or more of our social media accounts!
As always, you can find our Kickstarter campaign here – get yours before it’s too late! 3 days left…our campaign ends on Thursday, April 14th at 11:30 a.m. Eastern!
(and don’t forget, you can buy our current titles and merch on our website, support us monthly on Patreon,or give us a one time donation on ko-fi - though, if you’re a ko-fi user, consider giving us a follow because in the next week or two we’ll be setting up our ko-fi to support monthly subscriptions and merch sales, so stay tuned…)
We’d love a strong final push on this KS project, so help us spread the word - signal boosts always appreciated!!
My book press’s current crowdfunding campaign is entering it’s final 24 hours! This is your only chance to get the book in print, if you want it, and even if you don’t want it I’d love your help signal boosting this post to spread the word!
In the category of “small, meaningless accomplishments,” before my surgery and in the couple weeks after, my “likes” exploded - I store things to queue for the art side blogs in my likes, and in the fall I’d been working on chipping through it, but my pain levels and fatigue just made it impossible. I was almost below 17k likes when things got bad, and I was close to breaking 19k by the time I felt well enough to start really working at it again.
Anyway, all that is to say - I’ve just gotten it below 18k again (in part thanks to Tumblr upping the queue limit, thank you Tumblr…) - and I’m happy.
…alright, I’m too tired for words in a book, and I caught up on the TGCF manhua…I think it’s time to start Global Examination over. I began but got distracted and only kinda remember what was happening, so…
(There’s a lot of manhua I want to read on the Bilibili app and I’m really trying to remember to read on there more often, esp when I feel like reading but I’m too tired for a book.)
Sometimes I think about how antis basic life view is “I call people freaks and tell them to kill themselves because they like fictional stories I think are yucky and I am definitely the normal, healthy one here” and it just blows my mind all over again.
Alright…so since, like, 2017, I’ve never caught up on AO3 comments. Sometimes I’ll make a lot of headway but I always inevitably fall behind again, and the number in my inbox is just so intimidating that I feel like I’ll never, ever win, which tends to mean I answer even less than I would if I could instead go “I just need to answer 6 today and I’ll be back to zero!”
It’s currently just under 3,600, just for reference. Which…well, all-time according to stats page I’ve had 13,000+ comment threads started on my work, and since some of what’s in my inbox is replies to replies, I can safely approximate I’ve answered about 10,000, or about 3 out of every 4 I’ve ever received - which really isn’t bad, is it??
Anyway the point is I’m slowly coming to accept that this is just. Insurmountable. And I’m starting to seriously consider just wiping everything from before, like, the start of 2022. I haven’t written much this year so that SHOULD leave me with a far more manageable number, and once I’m on top of it I think it’ll be much easier for me not to fall behind again. If I ever want to, I can always just start going fic by fic and answering anything I haven’t previously answered, but without the weight of that thousands number staring me in the face.
And I think basically I’m posting this to get affirmation and reassurance that I’m not a terrible horrible person if I wipe 3,400-or-so comments from my inbox without answering them.
Me, watching 2 stick figures beating each other the fuck up: …it does make me uncomfortable, how violent they’re being with each other.
My six year old: They’re just drawings! They can be redrawn! If you couldn’t redraw them, how could you draw something?
Me: …you’re not wrong.
(Or: my 6 year old understands the difference between fictional violence and real violence better than a noticeable percentage of people on this website. )
Update:
Me: what about you, little? What do you think about it?
Her: good.
Me: …what’s good about it?
Her: …
Me: would it be okay if someone did that in real life?
Her: no!
Me: then can you tell me what you felt was good about it?
Her: I just like it okay!
Me: …that’s…that’s not so okay no…can you really explain to me that you understand what I’m trying to get at here?
Her: … … …
Me: hooookay then.
(Or: my 4 year old does NOT understand the difference between fiction and reality apparently so I guess we’re not watching more stick figures beating each other up. )
Me, watching 2 stick figures beating each other the fuck up: …it does make me uncomfortable, how violent they’re being with each other.
My six year old: They’re just drawings! They can be redrawn! If you couldn’t redraw them, how could you draw something?
Me: …you’re not wrong.
(Or: my 6 year old understands the difference between fictional violence and real violence better than a noticeable percentage of people on this website. )
Can you imagine thinking 8 bazillion things are Too Problematique To Be Allowed and then ending with “DNI if you mock Loveless”?
I also love the list of fandoms that ends with “etc.”, clearly a reader is supposed to infer from that list where there’s no obvious common thread between the DNI fandoms what OTHER random fandoms this person thinks are unacceptable.
“Yanderecore.”
Obvious references to JJBA = DNI. Subtle references to JJBA = 30 points!
I don’t know who Melanie Martinez is but I kinda want to support her out of spite. (Googles: apparently she’s a singer from The Voice who was accused of sexual assault.)
Like, San Lang, he’s a soldier when he dies, and even tho it’s never specified, it’s pretty clear he’s in his late teens, maybe 17 or 18? And Xie Lian is the general of his army, his commander, his prince…and it’s really clear that from sometime in his teens, if not even before, San Lang is hopelessly in love.
Which is to say, San Lang is a twink and he waits 800 years to get absolutely railed by the Crown Prince of Xianle.
That’s it. That’s the post.
Wait…no. I’m not done. It’s like…
Hua Cheng: I want that twink obliterated.
He Xuan, expressively, even though he knows he shouldn’t: …?
Hua Cheng: Me. I mean me. I want me obliterated, by that man’s dick, in my a–
…an A/B/O, canon divergent version Tian Guan Ci Fu, where child (pre-presentation) Hong Hong'er is rescued by alpha God Please Crown Prince Xie Lian and immediately imprints, like, “This one. This one is mine.” He figures that means he must be an omega, and that’s fine - common-folk don’t usually care about presentation types when they find mates, it’s only upper-class types who get all hung up on “alphas! must be!! with omegas!!!” but surely he wouldn’t feel so strongly for an alpha if he wasn’t going to be an omega…
…which means it sure is a surprise when he presents as an alpha…
…anyway I was so tired last night that I didn’t get much farther than that but I know that (lemon text incoming!!)
(seriously so lemon fresh)
(the lemoniest)
(okay no not really there’s way more lemon stuff out there)
…but I know that this ends with barely legal twink Hua Cheng who is hung like a fucking horse riding Xie Lian’s knot while Xie Lian massages his knot until Hua Cheng is so hot and desperate he could cry, but he still has to wait to come until Xie Lian’s knot has gone down and Xie Lian has taken his fill and then, and only then, can he fuck and knot his dianxia.
