pleasantboat press

manda | they/them | binding books since november, 2020 | my binds | main | insta | member of Renegade Bookbinding Guild I do not take commissions

[swordsmans]

AHH!! im so excited that this project is finally in the author's hands. it was my pleasure to bind @jaebirdpikeri's endlessly fun tsukasen fic craving to touch (with art by the extremely talented @north-sta). this was one of the first tsukasen fics i read in the fandom and ive been drafting (and re-drafting and re-re-drafting) designs since last summer--the author requested a celestial-themed bind and i had to deliver. im so pleased with the results :3

this bind went through a few different iterations--i got almost through the case drafting stage and literally the night before i was planning to start making cutouts in my boards i woke up at like 3AM and completely changed the entire design. it switched everything from a mostly full-cloth bind with a few minor details to a faux three-piece bradel (flatback) with bunch of moving parts, but it was totally worth it in the end.

the is fabric, mulberry, and lokta layered across 20pt, 50pt, and 70pt board with HTV titling and accents. there was a minor issue with the cover titling disappearing into the background but i went over it a second time in white slightly off-center to create a sort of drop shadow effect with the gold and i think it turned out really lovely.

the edges are hand-mixed speckled blue metallic paint and gold calligraphy ink with a 4mm gold silk bookmark, 10k gold clasp, and celestial charm. i sewed 2-thread, single-core medieval style endbands as usual, and the blue thread is a close match to the thread used to sew the textblock together.

the typset for this one was particularly fun. i found a bunch of different starmaps from the 1600-1800s and used them to accent the different chapter pages. there are nine total, each rotated three times across 23 chapters and the title page, showing the both the progression of time and tsukasen's relationship throughout the story. i also included ursa major/minor and orion constellation accents on empty rectos because i felt those were fitting for the characters.

here are a few additional typeset samples! and shoutout as always to my friends for listening to me lament about one thing or another on voicechat or in person--this time mostly about math, haha. until the next one!

[celestial-sphere-press]

A Treatise on Breaking and Repairs by @glimmerglanger

this bind has been in development hell for some time, but I've decided it's met my proof of concept so here it is!

for this bind i used a lovely typeset by @finalfrontierpublishing .

this is a three piece in-boards bradel, with a leather spine. cover is inlaid with a second bookcloth, and the edges/cracks were painted red oxide acrylic, then water gilded with brass leaf for the kintsugi effect (I painted so many layers, it was damn near the whole real lacquer process). I didn't get a perfect finish, but I'm happy enough with it! edges are black ink with a single line of gold that matches the gold thread in the endband; the gold line is also the point where the story switches from "breaking" to "repairs" which is also shown by the art change in nic's typeset. some people might recognize this double core gradient endband from my binderary class this year, as i used it to teach the class.

process photos & video in the next reblog

[celestial-sphere-press]

so when i say this involved a lot of time, i mean I painted probably 10+ layers of acrylic over these bookcloth edges and sometimes sanded it back down to get a reasonably smooth raised surface for gilding (multiple layer of lacquer (and bole? maybe) are how actual kintsugi is done, though with much higher precision, and it's not usually a raised finish afaik).

and then applied brass leaf (i was at a friend's apt that day and did not have my bamboo tweezers so... bamboo chopsticks)

the leather spine involved some paring practice

and also figuring out that my first attempt to gild the leather section was going to tarnish, scraping all that back off, and going over it again with the acrylic first, then the leaf, then sealing it with dosabiki.

the gilding i did for this book is pretty cobbled together I think; i used the red acrylic to replace more authentic red bole, and then used an Italian water size to affix the brass leaf (water gilding style); and then finally pulled out the Japanese dosabiki to re-size the end result, which is common in japanese gilding to prevent tarnishing. the one part I might probably have screwed up is I'm not certain if I let the water size cure long enough before I applied the brass leaf; when I tried to burnish the leaf a little, it rubbed off instead. So somewhere in there I didn't give it enough time to dry.

[roseserpentpress]

Finished binding a positively delightful, smutty and devastating fic Praeteritum Memorias by smoace_shipper; it's been one on my list to bind for a while, and well pleased to have finally gotten around to it. The cover paper I actually had bought a few years ago, it was a matching pair of one white and one red swirls, and in seeing them immediately knew I wanted to use it for a smoker/ace fanfic; I actually cut with an x-acto knife the separate papers to form the interlocking of the fire/smoke, which can be seen below, with the fic information

Praeteritum Memorias by Smoace-shipper (E, 43k)

Ace never had an island on the grand line that he so vehemently hated. It almost reached the levels of hatred that he held for Loguetown when he held up a child that looked too much like his lover. Everything down to the hair, the scowl, the eyes, hell even the name matched. He understood the Grand Line was a crazy place but this was easily top 5 of creepy island.

Now his question was how the hell was he going to get his Smoker back if he was stuck with this shrimp that barely reached up to his hips? Would he even get to see Smoker again?

[whatapictureisworth-press]

So it’s been awhile since I’ve bound anything, but when I read the Cursed Amulet Story by @sunderwight, I was like, I gotta make an actual, physical evil amulet now. Except the evil amulet is also going to be a book. And the book is like a diary by the guy trapped in the amulet.

The book is held in the brass frame (also made by yours truly) by friction; it pops out super easily so you can read it but it’s not going to fall out accidentally.

The typeset fit into exactly one piece of normal 8.5x11 printer paper, and if anyone else wants the file to make their own evil amulet, I’m happy to share.

[piyo-13]

i did a thing!!! fanbinding of @parkersgeorg's incredible scum villain fic, airplane view of the self, which is one of my favourite svsss fics (for good reason).

overall i'm pretty happy with how this turned out--the red endpapers are extremely vibrant IRL (and ties in with [spoiler] at the end!) and provide a nice contrast to the dark blue cover paper (moshang colours!). this is also the first time i've tried a ribbon bookmark and!! it works! i can indeed mark my pages!

the chapter headers were both fun and a beast to figure out--i used a stock image of pixels and then dragged it all the way to the end of the page, and then when i trimmed the pages before binding i cut off all the white space the printer left around it to make it look like it had printed right up to the edge :') the page dividers are willow leaves, as a play off of (spoiler) liu qingge's name.

and yes, i did go through and manually typeset every single time that the system talked (there are twelve fonts used in this typeset including the default text font, lol. thank you fontspace). i would also just like to clarify that in the digital version, all the pixels and system talk is a bright cyan:

i just unfortunately do not have access to a colour printer :')

[pleasantboatpress]

it's me and my backing tool against the world

[wordsintimeandspace]

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!

[celestial-sphere-press]

Fanbinding: To Conquer An Emperor by @zarasu

Transmigrating into the stallion novel he hates most is bad enough, but why did it have to be into the body of one of the protagonist's wives? Shen Yuan spends exactly two months dealing with harem intrigues, sullen maids and his husband utterly ignoring him before he decides to go on an extended holiday. Very extended. Surely no one will care if he just forgets about being married and becomes a cultivator, right?

I made this book for @waterloggedowl for the @renegadeguild annual exchange! It was very fun getting to return to Scum Villain fandom for this! When I started fanbinding I was deep in danmei fandoms, but I've been off in Star Wars for the last few years.

I was blessed to be able to use the chapter art by @sunshine-dies . Their work is on the dust jacket, and I got to do a couple of fun spreads like these.

Beneath the dust jacket the book is bound in colibri bookcloth, with crepaldi marble paper inset for the fan and foiled with silver.

The same marbled paper is also the endpapers! I diverged from the standard SY color scheme here for two reasons: 1) sunshine-dies' art is in a lovely blue hue, and 2) Shen Yuan is never Shen Qingqiu in this fic, so a color change in the theme feels appropriate. The endbands are done in my asymmetrical style to match, and I painted the edge a polarized blue on black.

Back to the inside - since LBH is the emperor in this fic and inner court drama plays a large role, I created a vector pattern based on one of the wood lattice screen designs in the Forbidden City. More traditionally speaking this would be within a rectangular frame, but I kinda like the rough edges.

[renegadeguild]

Binderary 2026

Whether you are new to the world of bookbinding, or an aged veteran, join us for a month of binding fun! This event is all about community and learning, be it trying something new or refining existing skills.

No Registration Required! Simply attend any or all of these workshops at your leisure.

All workshops will be hosted on Zoom. Zoom links will be provided in the Renegade Discord. A discord link is provided on the about page of our website.

Week One: Sunday Feb 1st - Saturday Feb 7th

Week Two: Sunday Feb 8th - Saturday Feb 14th

Week Three: Sunday Feb 15th - Saturday Feb 21st

Week Four: Sunday Feb 22nd - Saturday Feb 28th

[celestial-sphere-press]

Endbands of 2025!

Only five distinct ones this year, due to the move. But! I tried two new styles. I gave the chevron endband a go (bottom left) and also did a couple of true double cores (two on the bottom right). I think those ones turned out pretty well. I used a 0.5 mm plastic cord for the secondary core, which made it about the same size as the wrapped threads. I think it kept the end result from overwhelming the book.

Happy holidays & a wonderful new year to everyone!

[laurelnose]

fanbinding: turnabout’s fair prey by yoon ha lee

hokay so. a while back I was thinking about how Turnabout’s Fair Prey is basically only still accessible because us sickos just keep passing around the direct link. and then I thought, I wonder if I could archive it physically? and then things, uh, got away from me.

This is an 84-page quarto letter (4¼" × 5½", trimmed to 4⅛" × 5¼") sewn boards binding. The cover is cut from cardstock & backed with silver lokta paper. I used spray adhesive because I was afraid to brush glue over all my fiddly little lines. The backing process worked great but the cut is a bit rough. I wouldn’t use a plotter to cut something this small and detailed from cardstock again, even with a 60° carbide blade. Next time: laser.

I adapted the Twine game format to the Choose Your Own Adventure format by just tagging all the links with page numbers. Links with expandable text moved to footnotes (sometimes nested footnotes). The body typeface is Warnock Caption and the display / superscript typeface is Titillium Web.

it is illustrated, because all good CYOAs are illustrated, and I did end up doing five even though I said I was going to stop at three. The full set can be seen here (not safe for work or tumblr).

98% of my involvement in the book arts is the sawbones rebinding I do for work, which mostly involves cursing the names of several major publishing imprints. it’s nice to do something where I have control over the structure for once!

...I made seven of them.

obviously i can’t keep a heretical number of books on hand, so if you want a hard copy of the paracanonical dubcon bodyswap CYOA, and you’re comfortable giving me a (USA) address, shoot me a message here on [tumblr]. I will mail one to you. Please be legally an adult and not deathly allergic to cats (mine got into the bookcloth).

[laurelnose]

typesetting!!

@a-voltage files for u and anyone else who wants to print and bind your own

you can work up a text block for any construction, but for anyone newer to the handbinding game, these are the resources I find most helpful for the particular construction I used:

Sewn Boards Tutorial by lowmountain

Variations on the Drum Leaf and Sewn Boards Bindings by Karen Hanmer

The Sewn Boards Binding by Gary Frost

Sewn Board Binding Part 1 (Part 2, Part 3) by DAS Bookbinding

Flexible Made Sewn-on Endpaper by DAS Bookbinding

[kaleidoscope-draws]

One warm day and the kids got an outfit change. They're ready for summer!

The low-cut shorts Sqh is wearing, that show off his lil belly button, ARE SO CUTE! AHHH I wanna eat him.

Also ft the tiny fanfic book my friend made me. It's perfect for a little light (smutty) reading.

(Close ups of smut book under cut cause its nsfw)

[oakskull]

i was sketching the fits on my phone and i was like wow... these outfits have a whole different vibe on normal porportions

i respect that yoy give your little guys crocs, but in my heart of hearts, MBJ wears socks and sandals to the beach. I gave him high socks here but sandals were non-negotiable. I also took some creative liberties on the fit bc I could Not make it look good with the triangles. its very cute on the chibi tho.

i did keep SQH to your original vision... mostly.

[pleasantboatpress]

Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

typeset in: EB Garamond

145 pages

This photo set has been dubbed "Carmilla Goes to the Beach" by my lovely photographer cait while @whimsyquill and I were the interns holding up a sheet.

These were made as a matching set gift for my lovely binding friends emma, cait, sleepy, TT and @whimsyquill for our little meet up. Hope you enjoy the little manda books friends!!

I had fun doing the design on these ones, so there is a little droplet of marbled paper blood on the front cover, a spot of red in the white endbands, and Carmilla's name is red throughout the text, hehehe. I enjoy a solid vampire theme.

[haxkattpress]

One Elephant at a Time by fundlebundle

"The flame cast strange shadows on his face and made the Dark Mark dance on his pale skin. It had been ten years since he’d last seen Draco Malfoy."

It's hard to believe that I started working on the typeset for this bind in October of last year. Nearly eleven months later, I have finally managed to bring my vision to life.

This bind has a foiled cover and spine, hand sewn silk endbands, and edges that have been painted and gauffered. It also includes my first attempt at a hollow.

You can find more pictures and information about my process under the cut.

***this fic is an unfinished WIP on Ao3***

For the cover and spine, I recreated Albert Angus Turbayne's design for the Macmillan Peacock Series (1896).

Macmillan reused this cover for multiple titles over the course of several years. From what I can tell, it was initially created for the works of Thomas Love Peacock. If you look at the left corner by the edge of the peacock's tail feather, you can see Turbayne's unique signature.

Choosing this cover locked me into an 1890s Art Nouveau theme for the typeset, and I spent a considerable amount of time tracking down potential chapter headers that harmonized visually.

Peacocks are a distinctive motif in this fic, and I tried to choose images that matched the individual tones of each act. I represented Harry's presence with warm browns, yellows, and oranges, and Edwin Selwyn's with imposing blues and blacks.

A full list of the artists used in my typeset can be found at the bottom of this post.

Predictably, everything that could go wrong with this bind did go wrong. I botched the rounding and backing on my first textblock, and had to reprint it. It also took me a long time to find endpapers that could play nicely with the yellows, blues, and browns. Luckily, Jemma Lewis had exactly what I needed!

I had never sanded or painted the edges of a book before, so I spent several weeks practicing on scrap textblocks while I waited for my brass tool to arrive. None of this would have been possible without the incredible tutorials made by @copticcowgirl and @duran-binding. Their guidance (along with @pleasantboatpress!) helped me figure out a method that worked for me. Duran Binding even sent me some pages about gauffering from a book she had!

Unfortunately, I lost my goddamn mind when I started trying to figure out the gauffering.

There aren't any comprehensive gauffering tutorials online, and the information about it is scant. I had to piece together my method from stray book pages, stalked instagram comments, and weeks upon weeks of trial and error. Heating the tool correctly was far more difficult than I anticipated, and I didn't have a proper finishing stove, so I just stuck it in the flame of my gas stove (thanks to @pleasantboatpress for the heating advice!). Even more difficult was figuring out the correct amount of pressure to put down without burning my foil or edges. Pictured above is the cardstock grid I made to ensure my lines were even.

I also couldn't fit my textblock in my guillotine, so it took me roughly 5 hours of sanding per edge to get the mirror finish I needed. I didn't want to give myself carpal tunnel, so I limited myself to 1-2 hours of sanding per day. Each edge took me a full week to complete. In total, my edge decoration journey took me about three months.

So please, LOOK AT THEM! LOOK! MY BLOOD, SWEAT, AND TEARS!

DOES MY AGONY PLEASE YOU?

I was also too chickenshit to try gauffering on my good textblock without testing, so I also finished two edges on my reject. I also tested my endbands on it. I will probably finish it when I'm feeling less raw.

Unfortunately, gauffering was only the beginning of my suffering. The file for the cover was a challenge to create and adapt. I knew that it was a bit of a pipe dream, and I knew that it would be hard on my machine. I usually do a series of cardstock tests while refining my files before I commit to bookcloth. It proved to be too much for my Cameo 4, and it started gouging my foil and paper after completing a few runs of the cover.

After two weeks of troubleshooting and emailing support, I accepted that my Cameo 4 was dead. Queue a month of depression, and some of the greatest frustration I've ever experienced with a project. I eventually sucked it up and bought a Cameo 5, and had to do extensive testing to figure out the best settings for their native heat pen system.

These are the vast majority of my cover tests (most of them are double sided). Foiling the cover took 12.5 nail biting hours, but my Cameo 5 finally pulled through! Hooray! I love you Cameo 5! Please don't die on me! There was one odd area that refused to foil, so I cracked open my old WRMK pen and filled it in by hand. Pro tip: separate every design element in as many layers as possible so you can double up on foil and redo problem areas easily.

After this, everything began to move along quite quickly.

@copticcowgirl convinced me to put a hollow on my book, and sent me some absolutely incredible notes and videos to help me along! She was also incredibly gracious when I barged into her DMs wailing about millimeter and half millimeter increments, and gently guided me towards the finish line. So much of this bind would not have been possible without her!

Mummifying the hollow was my favorite part, and I really do believe that it helps my book open beautifully. After that, it was a small matter of casing in, and I was free from my seemingly eternal torment!

I would also like to extend my thanks to @tsurashi-bindery, who has been by my side every step of the way. She is the world's best tie breaker, and she patted me on the back every time I told her that I was really, truly, totally going to quit binding for real this time. Her aesthetic sense is fantastic, and she spent hours helping me pick, edit, and arrange my photos. Thank you for being my cheerleader. <3

I also genuinely appreciate everyone that reached out to me on Insta and Discord while I was posting WIPs- your encouragement truly kept me going!

I will likely be posting a gauffering video at some point when I have the time. I don't currently have any plans to share the typeset unless the fic is completed, but you're welcome to DM me.

If you've read this far you're a superstar! This fic is incredibly close to my heart, and I'm relieved that I was able to properly express how I feel about it through this bind. Here's hoping my next project is a bit shorter!

Art credits:

Cover: Macmillan Peacock Series, Albert Angus Turbayne (1896)

Title: Untitled book plate, Alfred Petrasch (1857-1910)

Act I title: Macmillan’s Illustrated Standard Novels, Albert Turbayne (1896)

Act I chapter: Cigales et lis, paons et cytise, bordures, M. P. Verneuil (1897)

Act II title: Charles Scribner’s Sons the Modern Poster, Will H. Bradley (1895)

Act II chapter: Kunst en Samenleving, G.W. Dijsselhof (1893)

Act III title: Bradley, His Book, Will H. Bradley (1896)

Act III chapter: Poissons et algues, coq, écoinçon; paons et vigne; lièvres, chiens et ronces, bordure, M. P. Verneuil (1897)

Dinkus: Fonderie Typographique Française: Caractères et vignettes bois (1922)

Act ender: Combinaisons ornementales, M. P. Verneuil (1901)

[bladedweaponsandswishycoats]

Hand-bound edition of DMBJ and Flowery Night!

I finished my bind for the cnovel bookbinding exchange with....DMBJ and Flowery Night!!

more pics below the cut!

And then, in addition to DMBJ 1-8 & 11, the Russia Novella!! -

[fantailpress]

Lise-travaganza! (MDZS)

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, I asked one of my favorite fic authors @veliseraptor if I could typeset a short MDZS fic for a @renegadeguild exchange. And then I asked if I could bind my 10000% favorite fic of theirs for a different Renegade exchange. And I asked if I could bind them copies of these fics, plus a couple others. And then... I didn't. UNTIL NOW.

Now presenting five* binds of Lise's MDZS fic, in collaboration with several other binders! (* really it's four binds because I forgot to take photos of one of them... oops...)

On a Narrow Road

SongXueXiao wake up with amnesia. Full leather binding with an ombré dye, and endpapers by @renato-crepaldi. This fic follows the trio on their journey as they encounter adventures and figure out who they are (both self and relation to each other), and I always associate yellow with travelogues. Art nouveau's slightly creepier side was also a key design element.

With Absolute Splendor

Jiang Cheng tries to reconcile with Wei Wuxian by forcibly planning his wedding to Lan Wangji. This goes about as well as expected. In theory this fic is about a wedding, so there's a hint of auspicious red brocade cloth and the bookcloth itself is really made of blue and red, but much like in the fic, Jiang Cheng manages to make it much more about him and so the red/blue turns into purple and there are lotus motifs all over. Typeset by @humanalias.

This World Is Gonna Break Your Heart

Jiang Yanli survives but both her brothers die and now she and her child are left alone with the Jins. Ethiopian binding that is very monochrome to match the typeset, but is stitched together with purple thread to hint at what she's trying to hold on to. Typeset by @daemonluna.

If Living Can Be This

What might have happened if Xue Yang had let Song Lan live. I originally typeset and bound this in 2023, but now it was time to (finally) make an author copy! I slightly reduced the amount of gold I used in the original binding, but largely kept the same elements. This time I did a much simpler case binding instead of a springback! Typesetting notes are in the previous post.

Exposure Therapy

Wei Wuxian is scared of dogs, and Jin Ling knows the only way to fix this is with exposure therapy, obviously. I typeset this for the 2023 Renegade Tiny Books Bang, and Poky Puppy Press lovingly bound a copy for me and also for Lise! Which I then proceeded to take zero photos of. 😅 But please picture it as very small and cute.

Huge thanks to Lise for writing so very many incredible fics and continuing to be one of the best writers of Xue Yang in particular. Thank you for your patience while I finally finished all these!

And thank you to all my fellow Renegade binders who provided the typesets and/or binds, or offered encouragement and advice throughout the process.

[chubsonthemoon]

I started fanbinding around July 2020! Happy five years to me making fanfiction into books 🥳 To celebrate, I finally sat down and took a count of (almost) every fanbind I've made in the past five years.

A million thanks to Cass of Battenkill Rose Bindery for the Catalogue typeset that I've been using to keep track of my progress over the past few years, @roseserpentpress for their amazing book log template that made it easy-peasy to move the information to a Google Sheet, and of course @renegadeguild for, well, everything <3

Some of these you can find in my fanbinding tag, and a smaller subsection of those have been cross-posted to ao3. The rest have been mailed to friends, authors, or are just for me and my shelf <3

On to the stats!

Some basic numbers:

TOTAL BOOKS: 90

TOTAL UNIQUE BOOKS: 64

TOTAL COPIES: 26

TOTAL FICS: 58

TOTAL ANTHOLOGIES: 5

TOTAL GIFTED (usually to authors, sometimes to friends): 29*

*this number is higher than "total copies" because I sometimes only make one copy of a fic, then gift it to someone! (i.e. Fandom Trumps Hate books)

TOTAL FANDOMS BOUND: 19

TOTAL SHIPS BOUND: 21

TOTAL WORD COUNT: 3,421,358 (wowie!)

BY YEAR (unique books only, not including copies)

2020: 10

2021: 16

2022: 12

2023: 11

2024: 6

2025: 9

OTHER STATS/FUN FACTS

Non-fic books (still fandom-adjacent): 6

WC of longest fic bound (not split across several volumes): 205,361

WC of shortest fic bound: 1,821

WC of longest anthology: 97,454

# of times I've bound other people's typesets: 4

# of times I've bound my own work: 2

First book: On Stranger Tides by @theroyalsavage, finished 8/1/2020. Link to post on tumblr and ao3.

Latest book: motion on a circle by @runesick, finished 7/2/2025. Link to post on tumblr and ao3.

~

THOUGHTS! (warning: they are sappy)

Wow! It's a little wild looking at the numbers all laid out like this, especially the number of books per year. I started out this hobby the way I do most hobbies: feet-first, full throttle. Over the years, I haven't been binding as much in terms of quantity, but I also started experimenting more with my binding practices, techniques, and designs. Every time I make a book, I try to do at least one new thing, to keep things fresh!

In many ways, it's actually really difficult for me to talk about fanbinding? There's so much I could say, and I don't know if I could adequately express everything. I could start with the story of how I got into fanbinding, which is the story of how a lot of my binding friends got started, too--namely @armoredsuperheavy's seminal guide/manifesto on how to make fanfiction into books. I could talk about how I found ASH's work in June 2020, looking for something to take my mind off of the pandemic, national tragedy, my school assignments. I could talk about how in July 2020 I joined a discord server called "Bookbinding Discord" (or something similar? I can't remember exactly haha), which--little did any of us know--would later bloom into Renegade Publishing. I could talk about Renegade Publishing, the name for our little group a tongue-in-cheek reference to imprints and big publishing houses; how what was originally tongue-in-cheek became not so tongue-in-cheek when, a few years later, we officially became a 501c nonprofit and a fully established artists' guild. I could talk about how that group, our group, Renegade Guild, is now explicitly dedicated to making this craft as accessible and affordable to as many people as possible, in the spirit of fandom gift economy. I could talk about there's a name for what we do now, fannish bookbinding (or just fanbinding), how there is now acafan scholarship written about the practice of fanbinding, and how cool (and sometimes terrifying) it's been seeing the practice make its way across so many different platforms, influence so many different communities, even the publishing industry itself. Because I was there, Gandalf. I was there when it was just a few weirdos (affectionate, I am one of the weirdos) making fics into books. (It is still a bunch of weirdos making fics into books, btw <3).

I could talk about meeting friends from all over the world in hotel conference rooms and retreat centers, squeeing over fanfiction and talking about art and yelling about our faves. I could talk about the letters and postcards I still exchange with those friends today, how our lives intersect in the most delightful of ways. How I may not know what someone does for work or what their real name is, but I know their current obsessions are, their favorite characters, their ongoing creative projects. I could talk about how my relationship with fandom has been changed for the better--how I learned firsthand how stats and numbers are not indicative of the quality of my work or the impact it might have on a person. How those numbers are only stand-ins for someone--an author, a reader, a commenter. I remember meeting Renegade friends in person for the first time--the first time I'd met any online friends in person--and seeing so many people who had been faceless usernames and profile pictures. I remember thinking--oh, you're real. You're just like me. We're all just writing stories about things we love. I remember watching a friend in real time read a fic I'd bound of my own work and thinking--oh. You're real. You're just like me. We're all just reading stories about things we love.

I could talk about how the way I read and engage with stories has changed. How, when you sit down to bind something, you breathe form into it. How you become the creator of that form, the designer of its physical vessel. How fanbinding allows you to see the work in a new way; how suddenly a million delightful questions arise, all clamoring for attention. How should I design a title page, a typeset, a cover? What themes from the story do I want to highlight in the book's design, its construction? What form and size should the book take? When you bind a fic, sometimes the design choices you make will only make sense to two, maybe three people. And sometimes that's the point! Sometimes you want ginkgo leaves on your endpapers ;) And sometimes you want something that a wider audience can understand (although the little in-jokes are still present, for those who go searching for them). Then you ask yourself: How can I convey what the author wanted to convey via an entirely different medium, even to people who aren't familiar with the source material? What are the basic principles of a strong design? What makes something beautiful? The story is already beautiful (at least, that's one of my own metrics for choosing to bind a work)--how can I do it justice?

I could talk about how my understanding of and appreciation for media preservation has deepened. How making books is a race against time and constant attempts to remove NSFW art (often queer art, often art by POC) from the Internet. (Hell, even as I write this, there's been another crackdown on NSFW creators on game sites like Steam and Itch.io.) Every time I sit down to make a new book I ask myself: what information do I need to include in the book for future reference--fonts, provenance, number of copies made, who those copies went to and why? What web of relationships will someone in ten, fifty, a hundred years be able to glean from this book? What materials should I prioritize getting so that these books will last as long as possible? Where will these books go after my death? When you start thinking on long enough timelines, you're hit with the humbling realization of how fleeting these stories can be. Once you get over the existential dread (or do your best to, aha), it only strengthens your resolve. You realize all over again how fucking cool it is you get to bind them to physical meatspace, how you get to decide what you want to preserve. You remember: at the end of the day, these books are containers for the story. If the corners don't exactly line up, if there are glue stains on the cover, if you don't have the fanciest papers or equipment, so what! The point of the book is to give the story a home. It's okay if that home is a little wonky, so long as the foundation is there, so long as the bones are good. (Tell you a secret? I've maybe cased only a handful of books completely straight. They all still work perfectly fine :D)

I could talk about how this hobby has given me the courage to try things I never would've tried otherwise. How one love always enriches another. How this hobby is actually a gateway to a million other hobbies ("a million hobbies in a trenchcoat"--Renegaders, in the spirit of establishing provenance, I'm officially claiming being the first person to have coined our beloved "a million (although I think I say "dozen" in the post, haha) hobbies in a trenchcoat" adage. You can find the first instance of me saying this under point #3 in the link, although someone please feel free to challenge me on this, heh :3). In the name of fanbinding, I've found myself in weaving classes, in paper marbling classes, in boxmaking classes. I've volunteered as a docent at a printing museum. I've visited professional bookbinders and toured their workshops. I've found myself picking up books in used bookstores on design basics and typesetting practices and papermaking. I see the world a little differently, now that I know where to look. I could talk about how being in fandom often feels like you're a traveler on a long journey, always on the road. You spend a few months in one place, a few years in another; sometimes alone, sometimes with friends. I could talk about how fanbinding has made it so that no matter what my newest obsession is, I always have a home to return to--a craft for fandom itself, a craft that's taken me outside fandom, too.

I could talk about how I've fallen in love with writing as craft, writing as a form of connection, all over again. As someone who both writes and binds fanfiction, I know how special it feels to have someone bind your work. My fanbinding energy goes almost exclusively to binding other people's work, and I've only bound my own work twice. But I've also been lucky enough to have had two friends bind my writing, and gosh. Gosh, gosh. Every time, it feels like they've wrapped up my heart so tenderly and given it back to me. I want to give that feeling to every author whose work I've ever bound. A few years back I was able to start offering author copies, and it's honestly been one of the most rewarding things ever, to get to mail someone their own story. This kind of community building--book by book, story by story, is an integral part of why I do this (and also, it's a fun return to the physical roots of modern media fandom). I love making connections with someone over something we both love so much, over a shared act of creation. I love how stories can do that--how they allow you can reach people you never would've reached otherwise.

So I could talk about a lot of things, really. Mostly, though, I just wanted to say thank you--to my friends at Renegade, to every author who's ever written a story I love, to everyone who reads my write-ups and leaves nice comments on my work. I can't tag all of you, otherwise I'd be here all day, but from the bottom of my heart: thank you, thank you. Thank you so much.

TLDR; Happy five years, yippee!!! I'm so excited to keep making books <3