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Fanbinds for Zulu

It's taken me more than a year to make this post. And it would have taken even longer, except I realized that what was holding me back now was wanting it to be perfect, which, let's face it, will never happen. So I am here to tell you about my friend @zulufic, about the amazing people of @renegadeguild, the Renegade Bookbinding Guild, and about fandom and community and how sometimes we really do get it right.

Zulu was my fandom and irl friend, and there is no good way to say this, she died of cancer a year and a half ago. She was family. She and my wife and I knew each other for twenty years, a significant part of our adult lives. Were at each other's weddings (her wedding to @belldreams was only a dozen people), travelled to cons, and helped each other move. She spent an unplanned week camping out in our living room one summer, as we torrented Stargate Atlantis, modded a House big bang from our living room couch, marathoned six degrees of actor separation media with us. Fell in and out of fandoms around each other, large and small. Witnessed each other's families and relationships and lives grown and change.

When I started fanbinding, I made her a pamphlet of her crackfic for Christmas. It was right around the time we found out she first had cancer. Surgery, chemo, and then we had another two years with her. She fell into another fandom, hard. I made her an anthology of her A League Of Their Own fic--all that she'd written at the time, at least. ("Would… you make a book of my fic?" she said when she saw my first casebound books. I never want to forget the way she said my name when she was asking me for something that was a foregone conclusion. "That was already the plan for Christmas," I told her.) I bound her rarepair House mpreg crackfic the next year, because that's what friends do. I didn't finish it until the spring--and then we found out the cancer was back.

She asked me for a favour over that summer. "Soooo… could you do something for me? Could you do another pamphlet, of this particular fic?" Yes, I said, yes I will. I will make you a pamphlet. I will make you TWELVE pamphlets. A HUNDRED AND TWENTY pamphlets, and more. (Spoiler alert, I did not make a hundred and twenty pamphlets, but I did make multiple copies of three.)

Here's the thing. She was on the prolific side, as a fic writer, and had been in fandom for decades. I wanted to bind more of her fic than I could possibly accomplish in time. I recognized there were finite amount of things I can finish while she was still here to see it, and that if I had tried to make this the only project I had, I would have collapsed under my own sadness.

That week, I said to a good fanbinding friend, I want to bind more of Zulu's fic, I'm just feeling a bit overwhelmed right now. Her response: "Can I help? Do you want me to typeset something?" Me: (ALL THE EMOTION) "… yes. But also, I was thinking of asking the Renegade guild if anyone else would be bind a few of her fic, too, maybe a few quick pamphlets?" Her: "YES, do it."

I did it. I posted. She immediately started a spreadsheet organizing what I'd already bound, and to let other people sign up for things, and put herself first on the list. The fact that someone else was organizing for me (made a SPREADSHEET!) made me a bit weepy. By the time I went to bed an hour later, I think we had half a dozen people signed up to participate.

I should have been prepared for the full force of the Renegade Bookbinding Guild members, otherwise known as the inhabitants of the enabling server.

The next morning came. And a few more people signed up. I tentatively suggested that if anyone wanted to include a card or note and maybe some stickers for her wife and their kiddo L, it would be welcome. And people started asking me questions. Like, what fic does she like best? Where should we start? Can we make a care package? What does her wife need?

Knowing the people in the server, and their general kindness and enthusiasm, I should not have been surprised, I really shouldn't. It just hits differently when you're the one who's the recipient, you know? "I don't know why you're surprised," said another friend. "You asked us to help and we're helping!" And it wasn't an official guild project, just an incredible act of community and compassion. And immense enthusiasm and zero restraint.

I started asking some surreptitious questions of Zulu and Bell. I'd asked Zulu a few weeks before about granting blanket permission for anyone to bind her fic, and for the typesets to be shared. I casually said, "Sooo I mentioned this to the fanbinding group. If someone does want to send you something, can I share your address? And can I suggest they send cards/stickers to L?" (Yes, and yes.)

We started a separate thread in the Discord server to keep up with the planning. Some collaborations started to come up. I'll typeset from South Africa or southeast Asia or from next door in the next US state, you print and bind, we'll collect some of the American books for a mass mailing to Canada. I don't have time to bind, but I can contribute to shipping costs. I don't know that fandom, but I can take your typeset, and make a copy. I love that fandom but don't have time and materials, but I'll typeset if you bind. At this point, there were more than thirty people involved. New-old fandoms were discovered. Techniques and experiments grew.

I told Bell a little bit. She knew there were books coming. I didn't let her know the full scope, but I figured she could use something good to look forward to. Zulu said one of her goals was to finish all her WIPs before she died. (That hurt my heart. She almost made it! But even at the end, she got distracted by a new fic idea...)

The behind the scenes binding continued. There was negotiating over obscure fandoms, and exclamations over fic for niche favourites. A need for a great deal of baseball theming because Zulu wrote a LOT of ALOTO fic in the last few years. There were anthologies and pamphlets, and tiny books, and large chonks, and an entire collection of every drabble Zulu ever wrote in House fandom.

There was a 100-word hockey RPF drabble bound in a one-page folio with metallic foil details. There was a whole-fandom slipcased pamphlet set of her handful of Friday Night Lights fic. There were Buffy and X-Files fic unearthed from deep in her backlist. There were several bonkers-ambitious binds of her SMAUs, social media AUs of tweets and screenshots that had me throw up my hands and exclaim "how am I supposed to typeset this?"

There were obscure Canadian fandoms encased in the fanciest of marbled paper pamphlets, and a House fic about stolen lunches bound in a brown paper bag. A flower-titled ALOTO fic with a cover patterned like a seed packet. A Yuletide obscure movie fic in silk moire. Firefly fic with a marbled paper inset, and a Stargate Atlantis fic with a vellum dustcover. A crackfic five things fic with a metallic paper DVD on the cover as a Chinese stab binding, from a fandom that needed MOAR LENS FLARE. ("I am sure you know this, Luna," said the binder working on it, "but Zulu is really fucking funny." Yes, yes she absolutely was.)

I can't name every single book because there were more than FORTY of them, but I love every one of them and the care that went into them.

I told you Renegade goes hard.

We drove to nearby city to see Zulu and Bell in August, 2024. They'd just changed up her pain medication and she was having a good day. We had a good visit. I put the pamphlet fic in her hands myself. They'd told her in June that she should expect about a year at most. It would only be three months. That was the last time I saw her in person.

We moved up the projected mailing date from mid-October to mid-September.

We knew, over the September long weekend, when the group chat went quiet, that it wasn't a good sign. I'd kept up a steady stream of pet pictures and other small bits of news. As the summer ended, we had fewer responses from her, and were more likely to just get an emoji back. Morning glory flowers only bloom for a day, and they were blooming outside my back door. I started sending a picture of that morning's flowers to the group chat each day. (And cat pictures. Of course.) I don't know if anyone but me really cared about the morning glories, but it felt like something tangible to hold onto.

The first few envelopes and boxes started to arrive. There were cards and stickers and handknit slippers, and a science facts zine just for L. I told Bell, tell Zulu we love her. And that I'm not sorry I unleashed 30+ fanbinders on her AO3 account.

Bell: (lists off the books that had arrived.) Me: Oh, so the group shipment from California isn't there yet. Plus at least three other packages I know about. Bell: Holy shites

Several lovely people found my name in the acknowledgements of more than one fic, and sent me copies, too. (Twenty years in fandom together…) I cried.

We knew things weren't good when Bell emailed to set up a time for a video chat. A few days after the September long weekend, we talked to them face to face, to get the news that they were moving Zulu into hospice care the next day. It would be the last time we'd hear her voice. We knew it was coming, it just all went so much more quickly than expected. She died less than three weeks later.

(But take a look at the dates on the last fic on her AO3 account. In such typical fandom fashion, she was updating her last fic from her hospice bed. A direct quote from Zulu: "The most important thing once I'm there, of course, will be to sort out the wifi situation.")

So, timelines got bumped up by another week. There was a rush for mailing. One international package from Europe got returned to sender without leaving the country due to post office shenanigans, and had to make a return trip, too late for Zulu. The package from Japan made it. The big group shipment box was sent via overnight delivery. It was supposed to arrive on Tuesday. It showed up on Friday, the day that she died, after she was gone. But by that last week, I'm not sure how much Zulu would have taken in about it, honestly. Bell took it with her to supper that night with friends and family to open as a special treat.

There were more than forty books of all sizes all told, from more than thirty people, and I still have about four more in progress myself right now, though I'll never get to put them in Zulu's hands and see her grin and say "Aww, you GUYS…"

But we flooded her with books of her own fic. We deluged her family with her words and love.

The books were on display at her memorial service, along with the quilt that her ALOTO friends had made for her. Also, the jersey she got printed based on her own fic (such a dork, I say with the world's most affection.) The books were all over the front of the room, and it wasn't even all of them. Zulu's mom sent a heartfelt thank you card to be shared with the whole group. The memorial also included earl grey tea and shrimp (two of Zulu's favourites) and a video message recorded to her from one of the actors from A League of Their Own (which I am sure confused many people, but we knew what was up!)

The second group shipment arrived with me several months later, and at least one more book came to me in person at the Renegade retreat, and Bell has them all in a bookcase together. I still have a few more to finish right now.

And, Renegade being Renegade, a couple of people have eyed Zulu's AO3 account and said, "Well, we didn't manage to bind ALL her 350 fic… so far…" And I laughed until I cried, and I am still hugging you all right now Renegade, SO HARD. And you've left a legacy, and you've made a difference. There are no thank you's that are enough. The love is stored in the fanbinds.

I've asked anyone who wants to share what they made to tag it #fanbindsforzulu. If you want to see some amazing things, check out the tag. And if you want to read her fic, and if you want to bind it, she would have loved that, and I would love to see it, too. And tell your friends you love them.

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