Omg so many updates today!! Thanks @thewholelemon, @facewithoutheart, @ileadacharmedlife, @run-for-chamo-miles, and @rimeswithpurple for the tags!!
I am in the midst of preparing for my bookbinding marathon for The Wisdom of Emperors that should start mid-August, which means it's practice time! (Cue training montage music.)
But in order to practice, I need something to practice on, and that might as well be something fun versus blank printer paper (since I want to practice with all the same materials.)
So, I asked my favorite historical fic author, @ninemagicks, if I could bind fin de siècle. or New Romantics and she gave me permission!
More under the cut! 💖
As you can see, or very quickly turned into and. Since, I figured, the more practice the better!
I did a very, very fast typesetting job with both of these but managed to include a few fun details.
The ticket is based off of this Great Western Railway ticket from 1904.
I also made custom ads for each chapter to correspond with the ad at the start of each chapter of fin and I tried to mimic some of the insane typesetting the Victorians used to do.
(Also the margins are HUGE because I'm cutting a lot off!! I wanted to make a more pocket sized book with a bit of a wider spine, versus a tall skinny book since I wanted to reduce the amount of leather I will be using.) (YES! These are getting bound/partially bound in leather.)
I tried a new sewing method & new sewing support (twine instead of tapes,) as well as sewing it on a proper sewing frame. (I have mixed feelings about the sewing frame, but I like the method just fine!)
I also tried two different signature sizes, one with 4 folios, one with 8 folios to see if that made a big difference, aaaaand it did, I think the one with 4 folios looks nicer even if it takes three times as long to sew. (That's the one with more/thinner sections.) We'll see if it effects how edge decoration goes...this weekend.
+ anyone else who wants to share what they've been working on 💛
(also it's been forever since i've properly gone through this tag list, pls let me know if you're no longer in this fandom, or you want to be added/removed/italicized/etc)
last month of summer! I'm trying to think of it more like: we have an entire month of summer ahead of us and not: summer is almost over. It's half-working.
I'm headed to the beach tomorrow to meet up with family but wanted to share a couple sentences that I wrote while I waited for Littlest Lemon during his swim lessons. Tags and snippets below the cut!
This is for my CORB that I am terribly late on from the beginning of the year. The final fic is going to need significant work to make it cohesive, given how fragmented my time spent with it has been, but sometimes tiny chunks of time is all we have and I'm hopeful I'll be able to stitch it together in a way that works. Right now I'm just focused on pushing through--kind of like crocheting a bunch of granny squares and hoping at the end you have enough and the colors work together. Thankfully @rimeswithpurple as my CORB partner gave me a great framework to help hold the story together!
Featuring some Baz-Agatha-Penny friendship, as well as a line lifted directly from our (not-Carry On!) source material:
“Simon volunteered for this, though,” Agatha reminds me. “He knew what he was getting into. Okay, maybe he didn’t know exactly, but he had some idea after meeting your family. He wants to marry you. He knows this is part of marrying you.”
I’m welling up already and Simon isn’t even here yet. “Any moment now, he’s going to look at me and think, ‘you’re so not worth it,’” I sniff.
Penny wraps her arm around me and leans her head on my shoulder, and Agatha takes a napkin from the stack of spares and blots under my eyes. “You really are,” Agatha tells me seriously. “Now let’s go pluck that unicorn’s tail so you can present Simon with his ceremonial headdress.”
Will the headdress stay? I don't know. It just made me laugh. I think next time I'll just give you all every ridiculous bracketed thing I need to go back and fill in (ex: {MAKE UP STRANGE MAGICKAL CUSTOM}), and we'll see if you all have any bright ideas.
until then, enjoy the first week of August and let me know what you're up to! And if you're not on the tag list and would like to be, let me know!
It's still Sunday here and I wanted to keep up with posting. Thank you to @thewholelemon for tagging me! Summer is winding down over here and I'm happy for the return to routine, but I'll miss the unstructured time with the Little Purples.
I'm still working on my chastity fic which currently has no working title. I'll take any and all suggestions. I've managed to write it entirely on my phone since most of my free time is spent carting the kids from place to place. Both kids are at camp this week, so I'm looking forward to not having to surreptitiously type on my phone and hope no one is looking over my shoulder. I've admitted to a few moms at the rink over margaritas that I write and illustrate fic, but none of them asked anything further.
I had to look back at an old Six Sentence Sunday post to find this banner and the last time I used it was when I was working on Beautiful Roaring Scream. I really love that fic and I'd really love to get back to that au one day.
Until then, here's some Simon and Baz on Facetime:
His eyebrow starts creeping up. “Snow, are you on my pillow?”
I shrug. “What if I am?”
“I'd want to know what you were doing on my side of the room.” He says with a smirk.
“You know I love the way you smell.” I say before turning my head to take a deep inhale of his pillow. “It gets me going.”
“Are you gonna start wanking with my dirty laundry?”
“Who says I haven't already?”
I flip to the rear facing camera and show the growing tent in my trackies.
"You're a menace."
Hope you have a wonderful week! Tags and hellos below:
based on observations of the youth in the library, dog man and babysitters club are really big with the 6-10 crowd. percy jackson is still really relevant, as is everything rick riordan with ages 9-14. and jennifer lynn barnes, sarah j maas, and tahereh mafi are all really popular with teens. they also like olivia rodrigo and katseye in terms of music.
forget trying to explain dubstep to a victorian child, try to explain genAI to yourself from ten years ago. they invented predictive text on steroids and people take its words as gospel. ceos fully believe that glorified autocomplete can replace millions of employees and many people are fired or forced to edit machine's vomit. creative fields are in shambles, everything is slop. anyone can publicly make porn of anyone in one click, yes, including children. no, there are no consequences for that. nothing feels real. no one can apparently write an email anymore. I'd have a stroke.
I'm sure I've left some people out because I slapped this together in 15 minutes but it's a whole lot more, imo artists and writers are nothing without these other guys (gn)
Good evening from me and my ancient cat/office assistant, who is aggressively impeding helping me type.
Hey, on Sunday I posted another microfic that I had hanging out in drafts. This one is a Mars House one. I do think I'm going to post all those microfics on ao3, I just don't want to lose them to the tumblr black hole.
I have a snippet because I am a writing writer who writes, okay? That's why. This is hot-goals-summer adjacent. I read this helpful tip about habit-building and how it helps to embody the identity you want to become when you're just starting out, instead of waiting until you are allowed to claim it. I am a writer. I am a runner. I finish books, I finish fics, I finish knitting projects. I do feel like it takes some pressure off. Instead of waiting for some magical moment when I transform into a writer, I can just be a writer and then ask myself--what would a writer do? Send me some good vibes that this keeps working.
Under the cut, tags, good vibes, and a summery snippet.
The taller one has wavy hair and jeans that look painted on—they can’t be comfortable in this heat, but he looks like he’s never broken a sweat in his life. He props his sunglasses on top of his hair—glossy, loose waves. How is he defying this humidity? I guess anything really is possible with enough money. His shirt’s buttoned halfway down his chest and he’s smirking at Simon already—Simon, who’s already fuming beside me. It’s like he walked in the door and pushed every button Simon has without even doing anything.
Finally, he looks over at me. “Who’s this?”
“Hi, I’m Shepard,” I say, smiling. “I’m from Omaha.”
“My condolences.”
any identities you want to claim without worrying about whether you've earned them or not? CLAIM THEM and also tell me what you think shep's favorite ice cream flavor is.
sorry my dears, you knew this would happen. I finally have some writing but it's not snowbaz, it's sk8. sharing under the cut :)
life update: summer is sure happening. I wish I had more to say but at the moment I'm pretty wiped out. I just wanted to share a few words, even if few people on my tag list will care.
Instead, just consider this a hi, hello, happy summer!
Joe never asked where Adam and Cherry went that night. He looked at Cherry funny when he returned, but said nothing, just handed him back his skateboard and they left together without a word.
"Race you home," Joe said, but it wasn't a race at all. Cherry was skating slow, mind caught up in the moment that had passed. Again and again, he saw Adam's lips come close to his own, saw the fire in his eyes, then felt that kiss, searing and blinding. A tsunami of a kiss. He touched his own lips. Felt the pull of a force rushing over him, pulling down his walls and boundaries. Flooding his mind. Adam kissed him. Adam kissed him. He kissed him and called him special. He'd told Joe and Cherry they were special, and he'd showed them his real face. Was he now showing Cherry his real feelings? He'd never suspected that Adam thought of him as more than a friend, more than a follower, but Cherry didn't know, Cherry didn't know.
Maybe this was what love felt like-- all confusing and disorienting, overwhelming and powerful. Something that crashed into you and pulled you along in its wake. Cherry was a practical, logical man. He could calculate angles and with enough raw data and the right computing power, he thought he could probably predict the likelihood of any event under the sun.
Probability that Joe would annoy him, but they would fight and make up anyway: 100%.
Probability that Adam would kiss him....? That one didn't compute.
Adam made him want to toss out predictions and skate on a whim, like Joe. It was this unpredictability that kept Cherry's mind focused on him.
So, the whole ride home, Cherry skated slowly as he mused. But Joe, in contradiction to his own words, never raced on ahead. Instead, he stayed right beside him.
Thank you for tagging me @toc-the-scrambled This seems like fun :)
Last Song: “Dracula” by Tame Impala just came on, but before that it was “All These Things That I’ve Done” by The Killers!
Currently Watching: I don’t watch too many shows, but last week we went as a class to see Hamlet in London. Still need English education even if we’re magicians. Oh, and I’d love to get my hands on Hell’s Kitchen or Kitchen Nightmares with Gordon Ramsay, but this technology ban makes this proper difficult.
Currently Reading: Every Magickal Record since 1986. But for fun, I’ve been reading The Baker’s Appendix by Jessica Reed. It’s small enough that I can bring it with me to class (this science is far more entertaining).
Current Obsession: Baking! And goats :) I need to visit Ebb again before the kids get too big.
Currently Working On: Figuring out who Nico is. If someone has a lead, I’m all ears. Never even heard of a Nicodemus in my life. Didn’t know it was a name.
Currently Wearing: I’ll post my OOTD along with this :)
Last Google Search: “do vampires really sparkle?” Penny’s reading Twilight. It’d be funny if they did though.
@artsyunderstudy made three new art pieces for this fic which are absolutely STUNNING
I had the absolute joy and honor of pairing with @artsyunderstudy to bind this stunning fic by and for @cutestkilla! 🧡
Main typeface: Averia Serif
Title/Chapter font: Freehand Blockletter
Bookcloth: Duo Brick
Vinyl: Siser Gold, Cricut Foil in Bronze and Rose Gold, Cricut Iron On in Oyster and Wine
Paper: Church Paper Short Grain 24lb Opaque Vanilla
Cut with a Cricut Maker, applied with Cricut Heat Press, and printed on a Brother Laser L2460 Printer and Epson Inkjet 3830 Printer
The back cover design is based on this lovely art by @artsyunderstudy
moving between hyperfixations is like wow i can’t believe i used to think this song was about that guy when it’s clearly about [guy it’s also not about]
see unfortunately I have this condition where if I am not explicitly told that I am a part of the ingroup then I will assume I must be part of the outgroup
Actually you SHOULD make problematic content. You SHOULD explore dark or taboo topics. You SHOULD have a space where you can cope with your traumas or explore sensitive topics in a way that doesn't hurt anyone.
Also you should make problematic content for funsies. You don't need to have had trauma or need to be coping in order to explore dark creativity. You can just be a human who wants to explore dark and taboo topics because you want to. That's completely normal, btw.
Every single person on this planet thinks about dark and taboo things. It's literally the most normal thing in the world.
so many people ive known have pushed themselves to burnout trying to deny their disabled reality, skipping accommodations, skipping rests etc. and the world convinces them that the solution to their burnout is to push even harder. it’s a huge tragedy. i know social pressures make it tough but i want more disabled people to make things easier for themselves where possible, to opt out of things that harm them when possible, to quit while they’re ahead. be that person today! protect yourself where you can! take micro breaks while doing your hobby. get that shower chair. sit to brush your teeth. lie down in the middle of the day, even if only for 5 mins. these things add up and it’s so worth it.
