Boo hoo i'll be able to add more physical storage to my phone and be able to change out batteries if they degrade as well as all these other optional features I won't have to touch
I love how they add totally absurd things no one is asking for to make the idea look crazy. And still, I must emphasize, failing to make this look like a bad idea.
"Is this what you want? Is this ugly stupid bullcrap what you want??" the biggest loudest idiot in the room asks, holding up a picture of the hottest looking shit I've ever seen
saw a post letting people know that your ao3 bookmarks are viewable on your account unless you make them private, which suggests that the median ao3 user does not use ao3 in what i will call 'the optimum fic-finding treadmill' where you find a fic author you like and look through their bookmarks to find more fics that are good and then look through that author's bookmarks for even more good fics. like a conga line of great but extremely specific tastes. or one of those chessboard rice doubling analogies and oh no that is a LOT of ao3 tabs.
I saw this on Bluesky and I need to convey to you all that I am salivating with my jaw on the floor at a printer
I'm not finding good GIFs right now but you know those scenes in movies or TV shows where someone cool or sexy or glamorous walks into the room and the characters stop talking and just stare?
Imagine me twirling my hair around my finger with a buffering symbol over my head at this thing:
My most recent project, and most intensive project in a long time!! Halo Effect and Soldier's Heart by @alex51324. Five books in all, totaling over 1700 pages. Details, story spoilers, and more photos under the cut - there are quite a few!
In WWI, English soldiers wrapped their pants and boots with "puttees", and the spines mimic that look. Rather than actually wrapping, or cutting the spine cloth into pieces (which I worried would fray over time, especially with the opening and closing of reading), I pleated it and sewed it to the cover cloth (which is light canvas-y green but otherwise rather plain, so I'm not including photos here). The titling is flat gold heat transfer vinyl.
The bookmark charms relate to the story, of course.
Halo Effect - I felt that Thomas was defined by his status as a footman and this sets up his massive character change throughout the series, so the first bookmark charm is a footman's button, though not a Downton-specific one.
Soldier's Heart, vol. I - This fountain pen nib is from the early twentieth century. I found in the first volume that Thomas's social network, and communication both to and from define this part of the work.
Soldier's Heart, vol. II - My dad collects WWI memorabilia, including bullets (it's in this volume that Thomas is shot). He cut a bullet down for me to use for this binding. This particular bullet is English, rather than from any of the opposing nations, since he doesn't collect those (and I was rather lucky he had even an English one) but tbh I don't have the slightest idea what the difference is.
Soldier's Heart, vol. III - Y'all this is a genuine RAMC WWI coat button. I couldn't not use it. Wholly unmodified, to be clear, so if the book ever needs rebound or anything changes, it can be removed and reused as necessary. I chose this volume for the button because I felt Thomas really come into his own as a member of the RAMC, away from the war - and because I wanted to use the bullet for the last one, and this is the only volume this button would fit on, other than the last, but that's a whole other deal.
Soldier's Heart, vol. IV - Thomas, whose father was a clockmaker, becomes a chauffeur at the end of Soldier's Heart. My first idea was to use some sort of gear that resembled a car part as a charm. I come from a long line of magpies/dragons/Gollum-like creatures, and my grandfather had, in his garage, an alarm clock that belonged to my great-great-grandfather, gathering dust, because my grandpa had been meaning to fix it and just hadn't gotten around to it yet (he'd been saying this since the mid-seventies, at least - my aunt wanted to use it, since it would have matched her quilt). Anyway, we all gathered around the dinner table to take this clock apart, which turned out to be a rather violent act involving pliers, several screwdrivers, an orbital sander, a drill press, and a hammer. I got a few gears out of the deal, and my cousin (a mechanic) selected the one that looked the most like a car part, scaled down. So. Double connection.
It's a bit difficult to tell in the photo, but the speckled edges each have two different colors, and there's, again, a reason for each choice! Each color represents something specific:
Blue - clear skies/relative calm
Green - naivety/he's got things to learn
Brown - the muck of war
Red - blood (Thomas's and others')
Halo Effect: Green and blue
Soldier's Heart, vol. I - green and brown
Soldier's Heart, vol. II - brown and red
Soldier's Heart, vol. III - green and red
Soldier's Heart, vol. IV - red and blue
The speckling is also more intense in the middle three books.
My signature throw, as well as a close-up of the hand-sewn endbands (each volume's endbands match the speckled edges of that particular book) and a bit better look at the RAMC button, though a bit blurry.
And next to it, my metadata page and the gratitude from Halo Effect. I'm very much enjoying this metadata layout, and here's as good a place as any to give some general typesetting info:
I used IM Fell Great Primer for the body text, 11pt, 15pt leading.
Next up, the details in the letters--each character has their own handwriting, and a few are showcased here:
Syl drew a face in the margins of one of the letters with Theo, and I mimicked it for the binding. (Yes I was in fact crying as I did it)
Don't be afraid to ask if you'd like to know the names of any of the fonts - all from Google Fonts, since I do my typesetting in GDocs. I love the first one, in particular (Joey's) because I so rarely use it. I'm very happy with how they all turned out, they feel like they match the personalities well, in my opinion, though I should have made a couple a touch bigger.
---
I think that's all of my photos! I'm so so proud of how this binding turned out. It had quite a long turn-around - it's not unusual for me to have less than two weeks between reading a fic for the first time and having a bound copy on my shelf, and I read this fic for the first time over the course of nine days all the way back in March. (Which. okay. Not that long actually.)
I had a really lovely time with the binding, as well, because I got so much input from my family and friends - my dad was integral in the whole process, not only in the donation of the bullet, but also in the design of the covers in general and in answering my WWI questions, and my mom helped me pick colors for the endbands and edges. My grandpa donated a clock, and my boss helped me figure out how to get the charms attached to the ribbons, and her sister helped me with sewing, so all in all this whole experience has been so wonderful, so special. I'm so grateful for it.
pirates of the caribbean really introduced an eldritch octopus man who kills indiscriminately and torments the dead as their poster villain and then you watch the movies and it's like, "oh no, actually the worst villain in this series is a small white british man who functions as the herald of capitalism" and that was very very brave of them
things i wish someone told me before i started writing (and also things i ignored anyway)
okay. writers of tumblr. iāve compiled a list of things i desperately wish someone had sat me down and said before i started writing, not that i wouldāve listened, because i was 14 and powered entirely by hubris, iced coffee, and my wattpad era.
anyway. here we go:
1. stop rewriting chapter one.
i know you think itāll fix everything. it wonāt. itās a hydra. you cut one head off, two Google Docs appear.
2. your first draft is not a treaty with god.
it can be messy. it can be unhinged. it can have 47 placeholders named āidk something happens.ā itās fine.
3. perfectionism is just fear wearing a blazer.
write badly on purpose. humiliate your draft. it builds character (yours).
4. word count culture is a scam.
you are allowed to write 200 words and call it a day. you are allowed to write 5k and then disappear into the void for three business weeks.
5. google docs autosave WILL betray you.
download backups. then back up your backups. then sacrifice a pen to the writing gods idk.
6. description is not pretty synonyms.
itās specificity. the torn movie ticket in their pocket. the buzzing light in the hallway. the chipped nail polish on their thumb. write the thing not the aesthetics around the thing.
7. dialogue isnāt two Shakespeare ghosts monologuing at each other.
interruptions. trailing off. people lying. people avoiding the truth. people saying āwhatever man.ā let it get messy.
8. you donāt need a whole map before you start.
sometimes you just need one character with one problem and the stupidest idea imaginable.
9. reading your old writing will make you cringe but also cry a little because wow you cared so much.
keep that version of you alive.
10. donāt wait to ābe good.ā
you get good by writing the stuff you think is embarrassing.
11. also: nine out of ten times, your ābadā idea is actually the one that goes feral and grows teeth and becomes your WIP.
12. hydrate.
no further explanation.
ok thatās it because if i keep going iāll start confessing things about the time i wrote a whole novel in 2017 that will never see daylight again.
reply if u relate or if u too have 87 abandoned document fragments in your google drive.
This is not new. Several years ago, the creators of Phineas and Ferb had issues with Dropbox for the same reason: they got copyright struck on private files of their own show, because they got picked up by Dropboxās content ID system. MOST cloud providers use tools like content ID to scan uploaded files, EVEN PRIVATE ONES, for copyright infringement or āobjectionableā content. Do NOT trust the cloud, under any circumstances, with anything potentially pirated, questionable, or as your sole backup. Thereās nothing wrong with using cloud storage for convenience, but it should never be your only copy, and it should be totally avoided with pirated or copyrighted content. This is part of the reason I have harped so hard on not storing the TPK leaks in Google Drive as a long term solution. They will get nuked eventually, theyāre in contentID now.
germansingergirl
areudirty
jacobvanloon
2087
blakekathryn
prguitarman
romaincrisis
janainaart
vaporwave
