Queerly Beloved

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Zine
Title: Queerly Beloved
Publisher:
Editor(s): Noct, Evyn V. Aebriel, Hevanati
Type: Fanart, Fanfiction
Date(s): 2020-2022
Medium: Digital
Fandom: Kingdom Hearts
Language: English
External Links: Twitter carrdarchived
Social Media Header
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Queerly Beloved is a charity zine for Kingdom Hearts fans celebrating LGBT headcanons in honor of Pride.

About

This year has been hard, we need to remember where we all came from and that this game is about love, friendship and acceptance, so we'd like to introduce a zine for our LGBT friends and allies! #kh #khzine #zine #lgbt #LGBTQIAfamily[1]

The project was announced on December 3, 2020, on Twitter[1]. Through a poll on the same site postde on January 6, 2021, the title of the zine was decided by followers to be "Queerly Beloved", with other following contending titles: "Pride Awakened", "The Hearts Collective", "Bound Hearts"[2].

Contributor applications for writers, artists, and merch artists opened on January 24, 2021, and would remain open until February 24, 2021[3]. Acceptance emails were sent on March 3, 2021[4].

Preorders were originally slated to open on July 3, 2021, but was the delayed to July 7th due to technical issues[5]. The following pricing tiers were offered[6]:

  • "It Began With a letter..." Digital Zine Tier ($5 USD) - Digital Zine
  • "It Began With a letter..." Tier 1 ($10 USD) - Digital Zine, Social Media Headers, Wallpapers
  • "It Began With a letter..." Tier 2 ($15 USD) - Tier 1, Coloring Pages
  • "It Began With a letter..." Tier 3 ($30 USD) - Tier 2, Emojis, Icons
  • "Dearly Dreams" Tier 1 ($5) - Social Media Headers, Wallpapers
  • "Dearly Dreams" Tier 1 ($10) - Tier 1, Coloring Pages
  • "Dearly Dreams" Tier 1 ($25) - Tier 2, Emojis, icons, Templates
  • "Memories in Pieces" ($35) - Washi tape, Enamel Pin, Face mask, Sticker Sheet, Stretch Goals
  • "Just an Itty Bitty Too Much" - ($50 USD) - Digital Zine, Digital Merch, Washi Tape, Enamel Pin, Face Mask, Sticker Sheet, Stretch Goals

Stretch Goals included a holographic print at 25 physical bundle orders and an acrylic charm at 50 bundle orders[7]. On September 7, 2021, the mod team announced that profits made from the zine would be donated to the National Queer and Trans Therapists of Color Network, and that preorders would be extended until September 18, 2021[8]. Digital bundles continued to be sold after preorders closed.

No updates were made on the project's social media accounts until February 7, 2022, where the mod team apologized for unresponsiveness and that production was slow[9]. From then on, the mod team posted updates on merch production to social media accounts.

The zine was digitally released on August 30, 2022, for Gumroad and Etsy customers[10]. No other updates had been made on the zine's social media accounts since then.

Project Schedule
Start End
Interest Check December 3, 2020 -
Contributor Applications January 6, 2021 February 23, 2021
Preorders July 7, 2021 September 18, 2021
Shipping August 30, 2022 -
Leftover Sales - -

Proship Controversy

Early into the project's development, some fans criticized the project for putting "proship" in their project's profile and featuring Akuroku as a potential pairing on promotional material. On March 2, 2021, the mod team posted the following statement on their stance:

Hello all, it has been brought to our attention that there may be some misconceptions going around about this project. We hope to take a minute of your time to try and clear this up.

First we would like to blatantly state that, yes, we are a proship project, but that in no way means we support the actions of real life predators. We do not believe MAPs belong in LGBTQIA+ spaces. We cannot keep equating ‘proship’ to ‘pedophile’.

We would also like to state that the interpretation of our promotional images, as those seem to be a reason for the flare of misconceptions, are left up to the observer. They are ambiguous pieces of characters to showcase pride flags and inclusion. Nothing more, nothing less. The inclusion of popular ship tags are in order to garner more attention as well as make it easier for those who have been malaffected by instances of said ship proper precaution to block the mention and keep themselves safe.

Our project’s only intention is to spread love, inclusion, support and raise awareness. We are a solely Safe-For-Work zine, and our proceeds will be going to charity. The contents of the zine itself will not be ship centric, and that should not be a major concern whatsoever. Our main focus of the zine is not in ships, but seeing as relationships are the part of LGBTQIA+ life, they will not be banned or barred. The zine is meant to showcase the characters we have all grown to love while celebrating any and all queer headcanons our contributors will have of them.

It’s been a point of contention within LGBTQIA+ spaces of the perception of ‘straightness’. Please do not forget all of our Bi, Trans, Pan, Poly, Ace and other orientations. They belong in our family just as much as Gay or Lesbian do.

Finally we would ask that you please remember this is a show of support and love for our family under the same rainbow flag. There are enough battles out there, we do not need to add infighting. Don’t forget that at the end of the day our battle is always for real, living people. Fiction and reality are two separate things, and our energy should be directed towards real people that need help.

Thank you all for your time.[11]

Shortly after the announcement, the mod team posted an answer to a Tumblr ask wherein the asker accused them of including pedophilic content in the project under the assumption that "proship" was "fandom code for pedophile" and that supporting ships involving underage characters would mean supportung pedophilia in real life[12]. The mods replied that their definition of "proship" meant "not policing what others ship and in no way relates to what someone may or may not personally condone or ship". The mods then pointed out that the project already had rules in place to only permit shippy content between characters within the same age bracket.

Mod Team Addressing Concerns

On May 3, 2021, the mod team issued a lengthy Twitter thread explaining a situation that had resulted in the withdrawal of several contributors[13]. The following will contain secondhand accounts of the incidents.

Early in the project's interest check, the mod team posted a response to a comment that shared the interest check post, lamented that recent zine projects were oversaturated with an specific ship not specified by the mod team's thread, and also pointed out a spelling error. The mods admitted in the May thread that their response was harsh and agressive and was not the best course of action, and for that they apologized for the hurt they caused the commenter and fellow contributors in the project's Discord server. The messages since then had been taken down and are not accessible by archive. The mod team emphasized that even though some members of the mod team do not enjoy certain ships, their difference in opinions do not conflict with the project's "Ship and Let Ship" philosophy.

The second item in the mod team's thread addressed criticism of the mod team's accessibility to contributors. The thread explained that mods are just as human as everyone else and also have real world responsibilities, that time and patience is required to answer questions, and that mods are allowed to have "Off Duty" and "No DMs Until May" statuses to maintain a semi-professional setting and avoid airing their personal circumstances in the zine server or online.

Thirdly, the thread explained that the tight scheduling and "fast-paced" timeline, as the project was slated to be released in time for Pride Month, had been clear from the beginning. Since this had become a major concern among contributors, even causing some to drop out, the mod team had made adjustments to the schedule.

The next item in the thread addressed the project's Headcanon Claims procedure, which has been implied to have set a limit on the number of pieces per pairing or headcanon were allowed on the project. The mod team reasoned that this procedure was meant to allow contributors to incorporate their own headcanons into their pieces so long as the headcanon was based off of a group settings while not running into the issue of the project being dominated by the same pairing. The mod team announced that they had since then come up with a different means of encouraging diversity and that they had not intended to upset or stress out contributors.

Lastly, the mod team also addressed a headcanon vote that had been organized partly because of a mod's merch product that would have been offered during preorder period. Discussions about the vote were leaked outside of the project server and was, according to the mod team, taken out of context. To stop any potential "headcanon turf wars", the mod team had decided on an alternative solution to satisfy all concerned parties.

Contributors

The following names were taken from the project's social media account.

Page Artists

Merch Artists

Writers

Mods

  • Noct - Social Media, Check-ins, Discord Mod, Product Sourcing, Shipping
  • Evyn V. (evynvenpha) - Graphics, Formatting, Social Media, Product Sourcing, Administrative Duties, Finance
  • Aebriel - Formatting, Sales, Discord Mod
  • Hevanati (wolfecakes) - Graphics, Treasury

Former Moderators

  • Ashe (ValkyrieArts) - Mod
  • Kari (kawree) - Art Mod, Merch Mod
  • Mai (maikusakabe) - Finance Mod
  • Kry - Organizational Mod

Gallery

  • Social Media Header

  • Digital Bundle Listing

  • Full Bundle Listing

  • Stretch Goals

References

  1. ^ a b https://twitter.com/lgbtheartszine/status/1334738296568643584
  2. ^ https://twitter.com/lgbtheartszine/status/1346978935846756355
  3. ^ https://twitter.com/lgbtheartszine/status/1353586189585022977
  4. ^ https://twitter.com/lgbtheartszine/status/1367284044598157312
  5. ^ https://twitter.com/lgbtheartszine/status/1411444266774286338
  6. ^ https://twitter.com/lgbtheartszine/status/1412816998766190594
  7. ^ https://twitter.com/lgbtheartszine/status/1412817086276157444
  8. ^ https://twitter.com/lgbtheartszine/status/1435392440827977735
  9. ^ https://twitter.com/lgbtheartszine/status/1490938064595607555
  10. ^ https://twitter.com/lgbtheartszine/status/1564734089592127488
  11. ^ https://lgbt-heartszine.tumblr.com/post/644594114081505280
  12. ^ https://lgbt-heartszine.tumblr.com/post/645047057514708992
  13. ^ https://twitter.com/lgbtheartszine/status/1389450159520587784
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