A so called grown-up woman´s various hyperfixations. Like hats, hobbits and musicals. And most things in between. Sometimes NSFW, always LGBT+ friendly.
As is my way now it would seem, I started this one in September. The line in the typeset is the approximate shape of I-10, with LA chapter titles being on the west side and El Paso chapters being on the east side.
The cover was harder: I always thought of this fic as sort of a yellow, which didn't really seem right for a cover. I asked Cly for a description and they said "a warm window at night. so kind of cool blue grey purple evening and then also the warmth of a lamp. that’s so unhelpful my god" but it was, in fact, very helpful. And then this whole book proceeded to be a comedy of errors because:
I had what I thought was the perfect fabric, a sort of two-toned blue/black. I had exactly enough for the cover (thanks, Fitz!) and then proceeded to fuck it up (RIP) by first: gluing the cover (which is made of two thin pieces of board glued together, one of which has a rectangle cut in it) on upside down, so the window was on the bottom half, and then: leaving too much space around the spine.
So I made a new one with the blue moire, of which I have...plenty. Cover went fine. Got the paper window in perfectly. Did a practice run with the stamping machine (known hereonout as The Machine, to keep with my Princess Bride equipment name theme.) Measured it, then, like Icarus, though I could make a measurement adjustment on the fly and have it come out correctly. Reader, it did not:
I spent like ten minutes trying to convince myself that it was fine. But. It wasn't fine. So I started over.
Anyway. Covers 3 and 4 are what you see in the final versions. I eventually figured out that if I taped a few layers of watercolor paper on top of the cover to test the location in The Machine, I could make sure to line it up exactly correct. I also figured out that I could do this by adjusting the placement just slightly between stamps:
So maybe I'll try and do that on purpose at some point, though I'm sure that's when it'd ultimately fail me.
Anyway, the punchline of all of this is that after all of this, over the course of a few months, I made an error that was a first for me, and everyone I showed it to. The endpaper curled when I put paste on it, and I didn't notice. You kind of have to laugh:
I don't ENTIRELY hate it because there's no board showing and it gives an interesting page turn effect. but that was NOT the intended outcome. RIP. I sent the author the successful one.
For the fourth year in a row now, it's time for Small Fandom Summer! Join me for Small Fandom Summer! It's real easy to play:
Make a fanwork for something that has fewer than 1000 English-language works on AO3
Post it to AO3
And then you've done it! You've made a thing and you've diversified the fandom ecosystem! You're basically a hero.
Q: The fandom I want to create for has more than 1000 English-language works on AO3, but the specific pairing I want to write for has fewer than that. Does that count?
A: Yes!
Q: What if it has more than 1000 English-language works on AO3, but, like, just barely?
A: Okay!
Q: What if it actually has a lot more than 1000 English-language works on AO3, but it still feels small?
A: Sure!
Q: What if I don't want to post it to AO3? What if I don't even have an AO3 account? Can I post it somewhere else?
A: Wherever!
Q: What if--
A: Just do a thing, friend. Make a thing. Share the thing. This is not meant to be restrictive; this is meant to be inspirational. Create the fanworks you want to see in the world. Make a stranger happy by appealing to their niche interests. Bring joy.
And if you want to give yourself some silly little Steam-like achievement badges to commemorate your accomplishments, well, you're in luck! I've made a bunch of them right here! You can grab the ones that apply to your work and paste them wherever you like and feel good about what you've done. Here's a few of my favorites:
So you see? This is meant to be silly and fun.
There's nowhere to sign up. There's nothing to commit to. There's zero pressure. You just do it if you do it, and don't if you don't. But if you do want to play (yay!), tag your stuff with #small fandom summer so we can all swoop in and appreciate everyone else's efforts.
I bound a little copy of The Witch's Cat by Champagne / @temporalreplicsimile! The story was the perfect opportunity to try my first buttonhole binding and I love the result. It's such a fun structure!
I can’t decide if Gavroche is going to cause a third accident and they’re all going to meet there, or if they’ll have to keep crossing that street until they’ve all met, your pick.
So long as there shall exist, by virtue of law and custom, decrees of damnation pronounced by society, artificially creating hells amid the civilization of earth, and adding the element of human fate to divine destiny; so long as the three great problems of the century—the degradation of man through pauperism, the corruption of woman through hunger, the crippling of children through lack of light—are unsolved; so long as social asphyxia is possible in any part of the world;—in other words, and with a still wider significance,
so long as ignorance and poverty exist on earth, books of the nature of Les Misérables cannot fail to be of use.
Happy Barricade Day 2025!
In lovely collaboration with the talented artist @p-trichor
