It started with a Tumblr post. A blog I had never seen or heard about, was asking if anyone knew anything about making zines, specifically a charity zine. The poster said that they were appalled by the way people, specifically people of color, were getting treated under the current US administration and they wanted to make a charity zine as a way to make money for charities which combated discrimination.

If you've never encountered the word "zine" let me explain: A zine (short for "magazine") is a short publication of art or writing usually about a specific subject matter. They're common in fandom circles, but before that they were often put together by other types of in-groups. For example, LGBTQIAP+ people might put together a zine about what it's like to be something other than heterosexual and cisgender.

So, when I saw the post, I had no experience actually making a zine. In fact, the best I'd ever done was submit work to them, and I was new even to that. But, ever since I was a kid sitting on my living room floor, disassembling and reassembling typewriters, I've always been good at figuring out how things work on the inside, even if I'm looking it at it from the outside. So obviously I replied to the post and told the girl on the other end, Haylie, everything I knew. By the end of the night the two of us were really doing this thing.

Over the next month we chatted endlessly about our plans for the zine, deciding that we wanted it to be fandom related, and have as many fandoms as possible represented. Haylie came up with the idea, because she wanted it to be called the "We Stand As One Charity Zine." We discussed the rules for submission and the kind of content we wanted, and finally, after a month of planning we officially opened for submissions.

The We Stand As One Zine welcomes any fanart and fanfiction you have regardless of fandom or ship as long as you send it to our email by May 22nd, 2017. As long as your piece has no gore or nsfw content, we hope you will send it in! After we compile the submissions, we'll sell it on Itch here and split 100% of the proceeds evenly among the Autism Self-Advocacy Network, Callisto, Border Angels, and CAIR.

The reason we picked these non-profits should be obvious. We are currently faced with a world leader who publicly mocks disabled people, has been accused of at least ten sexual assaults, wants to publish lists of crimes allegedly committed by undocumented immigrants the way Nazi Germany did with Jewish people, and uses rhetoric that is responsible for a bigger uptic in hate crimes against Muslims the likes of which haven't been seen since the 9/11 attacks.

Haylie and I know that this is a lot of work to take on for causes that we aren't immediately affected by, but neither one of us are willing to standby safely while others are persecuted without doing something, anything. And if you don't agree with our cause, that's okay. You can disagree with the charities we picked if you want, but use what we've done as a lesson on how you can make a difference, even if you're young, and have never done anything like this before. All it takes is initiative and a healthy obsession with Star Trek, and you too can use your fanworks to save the world.