Aarinfantasy Merchandise

[namiuchiha]

Hm, normally I would fangirlsquee and would say: "Omfg yes, let's do this" but I know very well how much work it is to make shirts, banners, tea / coffee mugs, bags, buttons and whatever you can imagine and merchandise. It's a hell of work and you need a lot of time, skilled people (the merch. should look "awesome" too), a lot of time and then you need money to print things on shirts and so on.

It's not like it is REALLY expensive but you have to consider aarin have to make prices so they could "earn" something for their work. And I would support them to do so because they shouldn't do anything for free. I mean, it's a hell of work (I repeat myself...I know) D: !!!11

If you use images from manga/anime you have to be careful about copyright and more. =_o Or you have to draw something by yourself....(work)

To be honest this should be a project (if you like to create merch.) with team members without responsibility for the site, the forum, the translation and the fansubs because it's much work and you have to spend a lot of time on it. Maybe some people who want to help voluntary or so.

Urm, but I wanted to ask if you'd be mad when people make 'merchandise' (like shirts) with "I'm proud to be an aaringirl" without the link to the homepage on the bag of the short or something like that (only for 'private use').

(If you try to create your own merch. it would be better and more comfortable to leave the link to the site out.
That makes life easier (for you and me). And so only those who know what aarin is know what the text means ?)


(guh, sorry for my English :/ )

[FFSR90]

Me and Aarin had this idea Loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong time ago... but it's something that will be very hard to implement if we decided to do so.

Time is one of our biggest problem.
But it's a fun idea to think about, just we can't do it.

If we could do it. I think we just go with "AF" and "The Y Collection" will be good enough with some kind of design.

*nods thinking about it* ya that's better than writing the entire thing out so not many questions would be asked

[darkparagon]

Well if you guys ever do something like this, can I request something in black?? I'm not a goth /emo or whatever names people give to those who like wearing only black, its just I never trust any other colour if buying off a picture online, I tend to end up with something the colour of vomet!

[aarinfantasy]

heheh, ya me and Dai-kun talked about it about 2 years back I think =x

Since this subject has been brought up, we will consider about it.

Oh and don't worry darkparagon, I am a 'black' person myself XD
Since I always wear black... but I like black, white, red, yellow, purple (in that order).
Anyway, there's always choices for some items if it's really available.

[accatone]

I dont' want to sound quibbling but Aarin and other many Yaoi sites are in the grayish area of law. The main paradigm we oppose to those arising legal questions, is we're a non profit organization. Well, any merchandising means money even if it's in small amount, this can open the door to contest our non profit status. Besides, being relatively secretive and visited by true and respectuous Yaoi fans preserved us from any gay haters or narrow minded bigots. I join Yavannah on if we plastered it so much it will be a bad publicity for us.
Plus, I don't see the need of it, I mean 90% of the need is in some wallpapers on your PC desktop, pics. 10% want mugs or T-shirt, why. You gonna show them around in your family's house or city or village? 99% won't do cause this world is not ready to open his arms to Yaoi. So why to do something wihich brings us a trifle and makes us risk a lot. The maximum we can do is to produce T-shirts with let's say the distinctive banners of Aarin but without putting the name or a website link. So the AF fan will decide on what he knows about the person who asks about the T-shirt, if he initiates him or her to the mysteries of Yaoi or not. But still remains the question of the non profit status. I think we can object that the tiny profit made on mugs and T-shirts serves to finance the site server and nothing else. Moreover, I don't think it will generate a lot of profits. May be 10% of the members will buy it.

That's all, I wanted to come with my little contribution to the debate.

[StrawberrySama]

I'm afraid I'll have to agree with accatone here, I really can't see how this would give much benefit. I know it might sound fun, but honestly, I'm happy that everyone around me is unaware of Aarin, and not meaning to be general, but most people will probably diapprove. I mean, yaoi could potentially be offensive to some people (I'm sure we all know quite a few...).
We are already a community of like-minded people who share a lot and gain a lot from each other - do we honestly need a mug or a shirt to know that?
I don't want to bore anyone, so I'll jst bring something up that hasn't been considered yet - postage. I live in Ireland, and will be moving to New Zealand in October/November. I'm guessing that this will operate from America, right? Well, I'm sorry if it doesn't, but it would all work fine and well inside of America, but Aarin has users from around the globe - how will everyone be reached? It would be unfair to those in more remote areas to have to pay so much more just because of where someone lives. I have found this is quite common in much merchandising - nobody will send stuff to Ireland, and that annoys me to no end, because it kinda makes me feel left out.
I'm afraid that there is too much to consider for this to simply go ahead - I really can't see how it would work fairly, and I find it irresponsible to push for something so trivial that could potentially have serious consequences.

[Tsuneko]

Well I was just thinking about the fact that there may be some month that the website doesn't reach it's donation things. It would surely take a lot of time. Posatages are also a problem - Strawberrysama I understand you well I am also in Europe and I uncounter the same kind of problem myself.

I guess if we wanna make aarin fantasy merchandise then we shall do it by ourslef lol*gather her craftyness together* is this allowed ? lol Say i'm gonna make myself an aarinfantasy shirt for example *takes her fabric paint out* would that be alright ? Just for the fun I'd give it a shot lol

[SpiritOfTheWinds]

Well, I also thought it was a great idea but I agree with the publicity. It would attract wrong people here. But the idea of T-Shirts and such with "slogans" could not be totally erased, no? I don't know if it's illegal to reproduce (for example) 2 characters of a manga or anime. Or a slogan from a serie and such things. No need of "Aarinfantasy" on it. We would know where it comes from if we're here! Well, just an alternative from my brain. What do you think?

[azhrien]

Uh..a little something from me..?
I think this idea is just ok.. if we fear on getting the wrong people here, then we should just make a concept that directly talks to our target market...and that is, the yaoi fans. maybe we can put something like the "come see yaoi" again. then put aarinfantasy behind the shirt. the link isn't necessary. through this we'd be able to fully establish our image. that's what I think


[+]

[mighty_anubis]

I think it would be great to have some sort of merchandise that could help us to make connections with people in the outside world. It would be cool to be walking down the street and see someone else with the same shirt as you and know that you are closer to yaoi fans than you might think. But the only problem would be trying to find a design that would work for different kinds of merchandise and a picture or slogan that didn't actively promote Aarinfantasy to everyday people and draw unwanted attention from whichever company. It wouldn't be impossible, would just require some clever thinking and design, but I guess all that takes time and I guess there is only so much the Aarin team can do. Maybe in the future we will see some kind of merchandise, and if the profits that are made from the purchases are put back into the forum then that doesnt go agaisnt any non for profit as all funds would go towards the creation of more merchandise and to the upkeep of the forum.

Nothing is impossible if you put enough thought and effort into it!