Due South

due South is a Canadian crime comedy drama television series created by Paul Haggis, and produced by Alliance Communications from its premiere on April 26, 1994, to its conclusion after four seasons on March 14, 1999. 
==Canon Background==
The show follows the adventures of Constable Benton Fraser, a Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer from rural Northern Canada, who finds a job at the Canadian Consulate in Chicago after his father is murdered. In his spare time, he helps his American friend, a police detective, solve crimes. Fraser's deaf half-wolf Diefenbaker assists.
Due South is a buddy cop show, but also includes elements of magical realism such as Benton Fraser being visited by the ghost of his father (who often provides bad advice). A major source of the comedy was stereotypical differences between Canadian and American culture at the time. 
 
===Characters===
thumb|Diefenbaker, the cute one in the middle, cover of The Last of a Breed
In the first two seasons, Fraser's American friend is Detective Ray Vecchio, played by David Marciano. After the show was canceled in 1996 and then restarted again, Marciano was unable to return (two explanations have been reported in the media: money or a prior commitmentJohnson, Brian D. Article in MacLean's, 13 October 1997. Republished in The Canadian Encyclopedia Historica. (Accessed October 11, 2008). The article states, "This season, says Marciano, Alliance offered to hire him back with a 40-per-cent pay cut, which he took as a none-too-subtle suggestion that he was not wanted."In Ride Forever, the British due South making-of documentary, Marciano said that he had already signed a contract when he received the offer to return to the show. See Ride Forever entry on IMDB.com. (Accessed October 11, 2008) so Callum Keith Rennie was hired to replace him. Within the narrative, the explanation given for the change was that Ray Kowalski went undercover as Ray Vecchio while Ray Vecchio went undercover with the Mafia. The fact that the two actors looked nothing alike was a running joke on the show.
Other significant characters include Lieutenant Harding Welsh (the Rays' boss at the 2-7 police station); Frannie Vecchio (Ray Vecchio's sister); Detectives Jack Huey, Thomas Dewey, and Louis Gardino (the "duck boys"); Elaine Besbriss (the 2-7's civilian aide in seasons one and two); Mort (the 2-7's forensic specialist in seasons three and four); Stella Kowalski (Ray K's ex-wife); Inspector Meg Thatcher (Fraser's boss at the Canadian consulate from season two onward); Constable Turnbull (Fraser's hapless coworker from season two onward); Sergeant Buck Frobisher (Fraser's father's partner); Bob Fraser (the ghost of Fraser's father, a.k.a. Dead!Bob); and Diefenbaker (Fraser's pet half-wolf).
==due South Fandom==
One of the more unusual elements of the show is the casual depiction of Fraser and Ray Vecchio communicating with the ghosts of their respective dead fathers. For this reason, due South is often described as an example of magical realism.For example, see TV Tropes' Magic Realism entry.
The show ends with Fraser and Ray Kowalski riding off into the sunrise together on a dog sled to look for the Hand of Franklin. The character resolutions in the series finale have provided much fanfic fodder.
===Pairings===
* Fraser/Kowalski
* Fraser/Vecchio
* Fraser/Vecchio/Kowalski
* Ray Vecchio/Ray Kowalski
* Fraser/Thatcher
* Fraser/Victoria
* Fraser/Francesca
* Welsh/Turnbull
* Vecchio/Stella
===Tropes===
===Straddling Two Mediums: Zines and Online===
due South was one of the first fandoms to navigate the waters of the internet. The editor of the zines Two and Twogether included links to online reviews in the zines' LoC, one of the first to do so as movies_michelle recalls: 
===The "Ray Wars"===
Even before Ray Vecchio's part was recast in 1997, fans were already apprehensive. After it became known that Paul Gross was going to be producing the later seasons, he said in an interview, he didn't know how to write Ray, and that phrase was repeated all over fandom. Other repeated phrases by fans at the time, "the first 2 seasons will always be canon" and "all we can do is wait and see." Some fans were worried that Dief would also be replaced by a new dog -- some Ray Vecchio fans took this as an insult, that given the possibility of one of the LEADs being replaced, some fans would waste time worrying about the dog.
The recasting of Ray Vecchio led to the infamous Ray Wars between fans of the first and second Ray, as exemplified by the division of mailing lists either declaring that they were a fandom-neutral zone (such as RedSuitsYou on Yahoo!Groups) or that they supported one character over the other. These divisions extended to slash pairings, so Ray Vecchio/Ray Kowalski was considered quite shocking when the first authors began writing it in late 1999/early 2000 See for a partial discussion (nested comments are unavailable) about one fan's view of the Ray/Ray pairing. , and Fraser/Kowalski/Vecchio was sufficiently inconceivable at the time that it's not even an available pairing option in the DSA.
For much more, see The Ray Wars.
===Non-Ray Changes in the Third Season===
Some fans were unhappy with the tone of the third season. A fan in 2000 wrote: 
===Fandom on Mailing Lists===
See List of due South Mailing Lists.
due South became a fandom almost immediately after the show debuted in 1994. Fan activity originated on mailing lists and in zines. The first due South discussion list was DSOUTH-L, founded by LJC December 20, 1994. Because employees of the show participated on this list, the rules against posting fiction and discussing story ideas on list were strictly enforced, and a companion fiction list was created. 
In 1995, there was just one main dS mailing list, for gen fans, slash fans, and people who'd never heard of the word 'zine' before. In May, there was a thread that discussed how "close" Ray and Fraser were, and how much they clearly loved each other. The thread hovered on the edge of slash for days, but never quite crossed over. None of the slash fans outed themselves. 
In 1996, ownership of the fiction list fell into the hands of a deeply-religious list owner, who objected to stories that contained swearing, pre-marital sex, taking the Lord's name in vain, and any slash content, even of a G-rated nature. See due South Religious Wars of '96.
Eventually, a request was sent out by fans to James Walkswithwind -- who had access to a private server, crucial in those days -- for lists with more open-minded policies. James responded with the creation of two mailing lists, DIEF, for gen and PG-rated het or slash, and DSX, for adult fiction and slash. (This was a departure from the usual practice of having g- through x-rated slash on slash lists and g- through x-rated gen and het on non-slash lists.) Both lists moved first to egroups and then to yahoogroups and are still in existence, though the traffic is greatly reduced from their heyday. Speranza is currently the listadmin on both lists. 
The production company was certainly aware of the tensions between slash and gen fans. By 1995, Due South story coordinator Scott Cooper appointed himself as an informal liaison between members of the then largest Due South mailing list, DSOUTH-L by "participating in groups and disseminating information as it became available. He provided information, episode guides, cast biographies, and air schedules." In October 1995, after a vigorous discussion about the possibility of a romantic relationship between Fraser and Ray he offered his opinion:
In December 1998, a few fans started a mailing list (DSVS-L) dedicated to writing a virtual fourth season, known as DSVS. There was an in-depth discussion for four or five months as the group decided on their roles (such as producer, writer, continuity editor, character editor), the main plot arcs, individual episode ideas and who would write them, whether to stick to COTW canon, how to avoid confusion between the two Rays, which characters to bring back etc. etc. From DSVS Writer's Page, published 1999 on Geocities Tuktoyuktuk Library (Accessed 4 March 2011 using Wayback Machine) Despite the thorough plan and exciting ideas, as far as can be discerned, the project never actually got off the ground, although there were many more fanfics written post-COTW, including at least one virtual seasonFrom Due South Slash Virtual Season, published 2001 on Fortune City (Accessed 4 March 2011 using Wayback Machine).
A snapshot of mailing lists active in 1999 can be found here.
Red Suits You was a "flame/otter-free zone" list, one of the few mailing lists/forums that existed in 1999 that didn't show partisanship and advocated tolerance.from list email reminder dated September 9, 1999 In contrast the Ray Vecchio mailing list Two Axes was highly partisan in favor of the Fraser/Vecchio pairing. For more on this partisanship, see The Ray Wars.
The original due South fiction list was closed down by the owner as a result of the religious debate, but was recreated in the form of DSFICT-L by a new owner.
A fairly comprehensive and up-to-date list of due South related mailing lists may be found at William & Elyse's Due South Page.
Femslash found a home in dS on the DSX list; in 1999, Gilda Lily was one of the genre's most prolific contributors with the Frannie/Elaine pairing.Email archive from DSX list, accessed November 13, 2008.
After Prospect-L's success as a fanfic discussion list in Sentinel fandom, Chinook was created in 2000 on a similar model for open discussion of due South fanfic.
===Fandom on the Web===
One of the earliest and largest resources on the web for due South fandom is William and Elyse's Due South page, last updated in October 2009. The site's mailing list included notifications of upcoming TV appearances of due South actors, long after the show went off air.
due South had a substantial presence on GeoCities, which was shut down in October 2009. See List of GeoCities Fansites for a list of due South fansites hosted on the service.
:See also :Category:Due South Websites.
===Fandom on LiveJournal===
One of the earliest community LiveJournals for due South (very possibly the first) was the Due South Reporter, which was founded by Speranza in 2002. Because the fandom was still feeling the effects of The Ray Wars, the community was created anonymously, and reporters were recruited from the various warring mailing lists to collect fanfiction links and fannish news from all parts of the fandom: Ray V, Ray K, het, gen, and other.
thumb|Posting frequency at ds_noticeboard, the central hub of due South fandom on LJ for several years.
The DS Reporter disbanded in 2004, by which time a whole host of other integrated LJ communities had been formed, including DS Discourse and DS Flashfiction in 2003 and DS Noticeboard in 2004. DS Discourse was a discussion-focused community whose inaugural entry welcomed "all persuasions, from gen to het to slash. All pairings welcome. Any discussion is welcome as long as it pertains to the show." It was most active 2003-2006. DS Flashfiction, co-moderated by china shop, Sageness, Speranza and Renenet, was the first flashfiction challenge community on LiveJournal, and was active until 2010. DS Flashfiction often served as a less-intimidating entry point for new writers because of its mandated theme and (often flouted) 1000 word limit. DS Noticeboard is a community bulletin board for announcements concerning everything from good sales on boxed sets of the series' episodes to newly-posted fanfiction, vids or other fanworks. Co-moderated by Speranza and Sageness, it was a central part of the daily operation of the fandom, and served as a model for similar LiveJournal communities in SGA and other fandoms.
Since these first steps, due South's LJ presence continued to expand. A complete list of LJ communities is posted on newbieguide. Many fans believed that the atmosphere of the fandom had changed since the Ray Wars took place. Although there were still many Fraser/Vecchio and Fraser/Kowalski shippers, there was less hostility between the two groups. The fandom became renowned for its congeniality and its friendliness to newbies. In the livejournal era, it became commonplace for people to "swing both Rays" or admit to an OT3. However, a 2009 discussion about the current climate revealed not everyone felt welcome.
In 2007 aingeal8c conducted a poll of due South fandom on LJ. The poll was advertised on ds_closet and ds_noticeboard, posted by aingeal8c to ds_closet, 21 May 2007. (Accessed 31 January 2021.), and 197 people took it. 97% of respondents were female, 100% read fanfic, 70% had been in the fandom 3 years or less, 77% only participated in the fandom on LJ though some people were also on mailing lists, and 83% were members of ds_noticeboard. Ray Kowalski was the favorite character of 43.7% compared to 31.0% for Fraser and 11.2% for Ray Vecchio. Preferred ship when reading slash: 76.9% preferred Fraser/Kowalski, 15.1% Fraser/Vecchio, 4.3% Kowalski/Vecchio, and 2.2% Fraser/Kowalski/Vecchio. 20% of respondents owned a dS fanzine., posted by aingeal8c, 17 July 2007. (Accessed 31 January 2021.), posted by aingeal8c, 17 July 2007. (Accessed 31 January 2021.)
In a December 2010 DS Weekly post, aingeal8c commented that there had been a noticeable decrease in output for the past year:
In 2014 desireearmfeldt commented on the state of the fandom on LJ and AO3:
In 2016-2017, several due South communities were imported to dreamwidth to preserve them.
===Fandom on Tumblr===
A new (smaller) wave of interest in Due South occurred on tumblr. Some fans called it the "due South Fandom Renaissance"."'due South Fandom Renaissance' is a term I first heard/saw being used on livejournal (to describe new fen coming from tumblr, though) in about 2014. I don't see it used very often anymore, but honestly I'm also not on livejournal in any real capacity anymore." , dreamwidth, 17 December 2018.
==Fanworks==
===Fanfiction===
====Print Zines====
* : Category:Due South Zines and:Category:Due South Slash Zines.
==== E-Zines ====
* Lavender edited by Jodie Louise. Gen, femslash due South and Original Fiction ezine (2003-2004)
====Ship-centric Fics====
See ship pages for individual examples:
* Fraser/Ray K fics
* Fraser/Ray V fics
* Fraser/Ray V/Ray K fics
* Ray V/Ray K fics
* One Day Forever by Deanna, a Kowalski/Volpe story.
====Gen Fics====
 
* Bounty Hunting Season by DesireeArmfeldt - Maggie MacKenzie and Janet Morse (2013)
* also see :Category:Due South Fanfiction
===Fanart===
* by bigmamag on livejournal (22 July 2010)
*ds_mangastyle LJ comm for matsutakedo's art
*Some of JS Cavalcante's art is available on livejournal.
*A lot of Due South zines are illustrated, though cover art is more likely photomanips than traditional drawings.
*Due South Seekrit Santa is a multimedia exchange, and artists have contributed to it. See the AO3 collection's fanart tag.
*Due South Canadian 6 Degrees Big Bang's fanart tag at AO3
*ds.art tag at ds_noticeboard (livejournal)
*ds.art tag at ds_noticeboard (dreamwidth)
*Due South fans group on Deviantart
*Due South tag at fanart_recs
File:Awakenings5.jpg|Benton Fraser on the cover of the zine Awakenings
File:Two interior ray by anya gruber.jpeg|Ray Vecchio from the zine Duet
File:Pure 8 interior anja gruber.jpeg|alt=black and white drawing of a head and shoulders portrait of Ray Kowalski|Ray Kowalski from the zine Pure Maple Syrup 
===Vids===
:See also :Category:Due South Vids.
With its gorgeous colors and interesting filming style, DS has historically been a popular fandom for vidding, though it lagged for a while during the move from VCR to computer vidding because of the relatively late release of DVDs for the show.TV Shows on DVD lists the Canadian release dates for the DVDs: the first season in November 2002, the second season in August 2003, the third season in September 2004, and the fourth season in September 2005. Amazon.com lists November 11, 2005, as the American release date for season three (actually season three and four combined). TV Shows on DVD also mentions the compression issues that resulted in poor image quality on the American DVDs. For an example of disgruntled, would-be DVD-purchasers, see Due South Season 3 Delayed again!, March 18, 2004. Thread posted on alt.tv.due-south. (Accessed 28 October 2008)
The initial dS vids were gen, or Fraser/RayV, and generally very upbeat. Example: Don't Put It In Your Mouth.
Some vids explained what happened to break them up arrived on the scene. Example: Full of Grace.
Happy Fraser/RayK vids: Examples: The Rest (Will Take Care of Itself), etc. 
Epic Fraser/RayK vids, many of which ended with the final shot from Call of the Wild. Example: Wonder of Birds by Laura Shapiro and Morgan Dawn.
There is also an entire genre of both slash and gen vids where absolutely equality of Rays is created: every clip of RayV would be balanced by a clip of RayK. Example: Istanbul (Not Constantinople) by Alasen.
Places to find vids:
* DS Music Videos (LJ comm)
* DS vids tagged on Vidding (LJ comm)
* 33 DS vids for downloading; 24 of which are available on YouTube by Mary Van Deusen
Below is a non-exclusive list of notable dS vids, in no particular order. Vids beloved by fans of a particular pairing or character are also enumerated on the pertinent subpages.
* Don't Put It In Your Mouth, by Chicago Loop 
* Alley Oop, by Mary Van Deusen 
* Roll To Me, by Media Cannibals
* Flying Home, by Morgan Dawn
* Big Man on Mulberry Street, by Laura Shapiro
* Wonder of Birds, by Laura Shapiro and Morgan Dawn
* Icebound Stream, by sisabet
* Out Here and In the Mirror, by here's luck
* You Can Call Me Al, by SDWolfpup
* Satellite, by SDWolfpup
* The Rest (Will Take Care of Itself), by Media Cannibals
* Istanbul (Not Constantinople), by alasen
* Goody Two Shoes, by pipsqueak and Laura Shapiro
* Pavlov's Bell, by butterfly
* Duet, by Fabella
* Handle Me with Care, by Media Cannibals
* Full of Grace, by Morgan Dawn and Justine Bennett 
* Ordinary Day, by yunitsa
* For You, by Ness
* Zebra, by astolat
* That's All, by SDWolfpup
* Dear Fellow Traveller, by absinthespoons
* Winter Song by pepperywisdom
 
==Podfic==
Due South was a very popular fandom for podfic in the LiveJournal era because a few due South fans like Zabira started podficcing many popular fics early in the development of podfic fandom, thus drawing in more due South fans to podfic (and maybe some podficcers to due South). The first post in ds_noticeboard about podfic was in April 2006 by isiscolo, who was podficcing their own fics., posted by isiscolo in ds_noticeboard, 10 April 2006. (Accessed 11 January 2021.) In late 2006 slidellra started a dS/C6D podfic masterlist., livejournal post by slidellra, 15 October 2006. Nos4a2no9 recollected, "I always think of slidellra as one of the big founding moms of dS podfic, in the sense that she was the one who went around requesting it and bribing/cajoling/begging people to record their stuf.", 14 Oct. 2008. In July 2007 podfic got its own section of the ds_weekly newsletter. posted by aingeal8c to ds_weekly, 22 July 2007. (Accessed 24 January 2021.) In 2007 Due South was also the second fandom hosted on the Audiofic Archive. From 2008 to 2010, the Amplificathon challenge, whose purpose was to encourage podfic in a wider variety of fandoms, listed due South as one of the three most popular fandoms for podfic. As podficcers moved into newer and larger fandoms, this effect diminished, but as of 2015 Due South was still in the top ten fandoms on Audiofic Archive., tweet by Paraka, 1 October 2015.}} 
The due South Podfic Exchange was a small podfic-only gift exchange that ran in 2013. Other due South and C6D challenges have also included podfic, including due South Seekrit Santa and Due South Canadian 6 Degrees Big Bang.
Where to find podfi:
*Archive of Our Own
*Audiofic Archive
*podfic tag at ds_noticeboard
*due south tag at podslash
=== Archives===
The fandom has several longstanding archives.
The oldest is the Due South Archive, known informally as the DSA or Hexwood from its old location at hexwood.org. The DSA then moved to squidge.org, and is consequently known to some as Ex-wood. In 2017 the archive moved to AO3, where the collection is still open to new works. DSA accepts all Due South fiction: slash, het, and gen. It has had at least eight archivists, including: A.C. Chapin (1994), Amanda Cook (1994-1995), Seah (1995 - 1998), Elaine Walker (1998 - 1999), Anagi (1999 - 2000), Nord (2000 - 2001), Merry Lynne (2001- 2003), and Speranza (2003 - ongoing).
Due Slash is, at its name suggests, a slash-only fan fiction archive. It is run by ZorroRojo, Robin Serrano, AuKestrel, and Kelingtyn.
Other archives have included Bindlestitch, Two Axes (a Fraser/Vecchio specific archive), Fraser's Library, and Racine Street.
Mitch Hudson has maintained an in-depth list of due South resources since the early days of the fandom. The site was last updated in 2008. However, if you're looking for older due South links, plug the website into the WayBack Machine.
Red Ships Green Ships is home to slash that "revolves around the Mountie and his third-season partner".
After the Archive of Our Own opened, many authors migrated their fics there (see the due South tag). Before the archive opened, fans on LiveJournal had multiple rounds of discussion about how people weren't uploading their fic to the available archives but just posting to LiveJournal and/or their personal websites. As of late December 2008 some fans said they were waiting for the AO3 to be ready. dreamwidth copy of a livejournal post by zabira, 15 December 2008. (Accessed 18 January 2021.) In 2019 a dreamwidth community, ds_ficminers, was created for archiving "old due South fanfiction that has not been archived elsewhere". (Accessed 18 January 2021.)
Fans have also been posting dS fics to fanfiction.net since 1999. As of January 2021, there are 874 dS stories on ff.net. (For comparison, there are 12,840 dS fanworks on AO3. 5174 of these are in the imported Due South Archive collection.)
===Conventions===
* Forever South, held in Sussex, England in 1995
* RCW 139, held in Toronto from 1996 onwards
* Big Red Due South Convention, held in London in 1998
Muskrat Jamboree (2007-2015) and Bitchinparty (2008-present) are two multifandom fanfic conventions that were started by Due South fans.
==Meta==
:See also :Category:Due South Meta.
* The More Things Change, the More They Really, Really Suck by The Divine Adoratrice (1997)
* What is she ranting about now? Melanie's Soap Box (1999)
* Slash Vs. Gen: What Makes Slash So Much More Appealing? by Jeannie Marie (1999)
* Hating Characters by T'Mar (1999)
* I Could Have Missed The Pain... by T'Mar (1999)
* A Cyborg Subculture: Slash Fandom Online (2000)
* An open letter to due South fans by Kellie Matthews (2000) 
* Guilt and shame in due South (with an X-Files footnote) by Kat Allison (2003)
* Long time coming: why I like slash by shadowscast (2005)
* by aingeal8c (22 August 2007)
* Let's Hear It For The (Fan)Grrls! by kill_claudio (2008)
* (August 26, 2009) 
* by Shayheyred on AO3 (2013-04-24)
==Archives, Communities & Resources==
*due South tag at Archive of Our Own
*due South tag at FanFiction.Net
*Due South Archive's AO3 collection
*due Slash archive
*Due Sur – Due South ~Directo al Sur a English/Spanish language website
*dS Flashfiction a LiveJournal community
* William and Elyse's Due South page (canon and fannish resource - last updated 10/2009)
* due South Overview, or: Why You Should Watch This Show by katallison at Crack Van (fandom resource) 
* A Guide to due South on LiveJournal overview by spikedluv at Newbieguide (fandom resource)
* Fandoms I Have Loved 4: Due South primer post by thefourthvine (fandom resource)
* List of due South authors
* ds_noticeboard list of communities
* by travels_in_time
* How to find recommendations (Part one of an erratic series) by julia_here (3 August 2008)
* P J's Due South Page
* Mindwarp's Lair: Just Due It! (list of links to other dS sites and to fanfic)
==Notes==
==References==
Category:Due South Category:6 Degrees of Canada