To Engage Is To Build (and an excuse to share cool arts)
@toengageistobuild
Hello! This is my fandom/"front-facing" blog, and the one I use to interact with people the most. My personal/writing/art(?) blog is @veritiera. I will do my best to add image IDs, but I'm a noob at it-- if you do IDs, and you notice I'm regularly leaving stuff out, tell me! || Currently into a lot of things-- I tend to never leave something permanently, if I really like it-- but this includes TAZ Balance, Half Life (the games), Wolf 359, old VLD gen, indie animation, a bunch of random stuff, and really just any cool art.
[ID: Header is a bright yellow bucket full of King and Queen Protea flowers, which are large magenta flowers with petals that layer like dragon's scales on the outside, and a bowl-like inside, with the center pulled away from the edges. The center stamen are soft-looking, bunched together, and gradient from deep hot pink at the tips to a warm yellow at the base.
Icon is a close up of Tommy Shriggly from the Dropout comedy series Very Important People. He has an unnaturally wide neck, disproportionately tiny ears, a shaved head
with a brown mohawk, and thick eyebrows that are lighter than his hair color. He is looking off to the left with a serious expression. End ID]
Mark “send me into space first, even if I won’t come back” Iplier vs Ryan “I would never go into space, it’s fun to film but you couldn’t pay me to go up there” Gosling
Mark “send me into space first, even if I won’t come back” Iplier vs Ryan “I would never go into space, it’s fun to film but you couldn’t pay me to go up there” Gosling
doing my yearly relisten of Balance and I can’t help but grin like a madman at “I’ll be having my body back, to undead fuck,” and “sturdy, denim, and blue” FUCK
Happy ace week to asexual women, who are too often treated as “frigid bitches who need to suck it up and tend to their partners’ sexual needs.” Happy ace week to asexual men — and especially asexual trans men — whose asexuality is too often treated as something that makes them less of a man. Happy ace week to asexual nonbinary and genderqueer people, who are too often written off as “just trying to be special.” Happy ace week to disabled aces, whose ability to know their sexual orientation is too often called into question and whose asexuality is too often treated as less legitimate than the asexuality of able bodied neurotypicals. Happy ace week to aces of color, who are too often fetishized and treated as less ace than white aces. Happy ace week to trans and intersex ace, whose bodies are so often treated as obscene, who are so often asked invasive questions about their bodies and sex lives which would be uncomfortable even if they weren’t ace.
May we someday live in a world that respects the right to say no forever, to never consent to sex. May we someday live in a world where it isn’t treated as a rejection to not feel sexually attracted to a romantic and/or sexual partner. May we someday live in a world where asexuality is treated not as a problem to be fixed but as a normal variation of human sexuality. May we someday live in a world where people learn to stop conflating their own sexual desire towards a person with that person being allosexual. May we someday live in a world that respects asexuality.
its not that i think anyone is like, "wrong"? for shipping something inconsequential. its fandom and fictional characters. it just makes me kind of sad to see the unwillingness to interact with the media as it is and understand the fact those two under no circumstances would be happy together. i often wonder if we experienced the same media when i continue to see them in domestic wholesome aus where theyre together when canon has made it extremely clear if those two were together theyd hate every second of it
dont get me wrong i am a shipping fiend. but to me it just kind of comes back to the whole idea that a lot of people are incapable of enjoying a dynamic/being insane about it without also making it romantic because in their heads romance is the highest form of a relationship and only "proper" way to express how the dynamic drives them crazy. its something *i* have had to unlearn myself and am still unlearning, but its like... man
Thought I should make a separate post regarding this debate too.
"Do you think AO3 should ban AI generated works?"
Well, in theory, it may sound ideal. But in reality? No.
I am not a fan of AI, but "do you think AO3 should ban" never actually solves a problem. Because how can you tell what's AI and what's human made? It is extremely hard to tell, and going around accusing authors of using AI — just because you suspect they do — does more harm than good. Chances are that you're accusing real writer of being AI and ruining their day at best, making them quit writing at worst.
And the act of banning never stops something from existing. It only makes it more difficult to find or avoid. Tumblr bans porn, but you can still find porn on Tumblr. The only difference is that they're no longer tagged as porn, which means you're more likely to stumble upon them because blocking the tags no longer works when they are not tagged as porn.
The same applies to AI generated works on AO3. For now they are tagged as "AI generated". You can avoid them if you don't want them.
Once they're banned, people will no longer tag them as AI, which means you have more chance of unknowingly reading and leaving kudos on AI.
Also, no, unless an author says "this was written by AI" you cannot tell for sure if something was written by AI. Em dashes aren't evidence of AI. Long and overly described paragraphs aren't evidence of AI. Real human writers do write like this and AI was trained to mimic real humans' works.
If AO3 bans AI, you will be dealing with witch-hunting, genuine writers getting wrongly accused of using AI left and right, and AI works no longer being tagged as AI (meaning they are almost impossible to spot and avoid)
do you ever check the bug traps out of the corner of your eye, see “oh that one big bug I’ve left there since it wandered in last May so that it will attract the other bugs is, well, still there,” and then do a double take and shine your flashlight only to reveal a graveyard of smaller bugs that you did not notice had ended up on them
anyway this has been a “now I’m sad about the necessity of the things I use to preserve my sanity so I can literally sleep at night”
(glue traps suck, fyi, I do this because I have to but believe me anytime I see a bug outside of em I take it outside. I don’t know if it’s a blessing or a curse that my empathy extends to things that scare me half the time, but you can’t not notice the cute little behaviors of some bugs after taking THIRTY OF THEM outside. Yes I counted. Yes these are just the ones that aren’t on the glue traps, I am not counting those. Yes this is JUST from between June and now)
"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)
“A clone army is at the gates and they demand talks, my Lord!” As you receive the news, you notice the soldier biting his lip. “Anything funny to you?” After a short but intense attempt at looking solemn, the soldier bursts out laughing “I just don’t know why they cloned THAT!”
discord's new terms of service DO have a mandatory arbitration clause for the United States and Canada, you have 30 days to opt out by emailing an opt out notice to [email protected]. this has been your standard "for the love of god do not waive your right to a jury trial under any circumstances" notice
hi, this is your gentle reminder and PSA: there are ELECTIONS happening in November 4th. PLEASE GO VOTE. Trump is the most unpopular he has ever been, but does that mean your average independent, or republican will vote for a dem this time around-likely no- they probably will just skip the process entirely if they don’t have a candidate they feel strongly about. this is why i’m asking YOU SPECIFICALLY to make sure to go vote. and i don’t wanna hear any doomerism shit about how voting is a waste of time bc of whatever, guys voting is the last of anything we have it is clear most of these people who represent us do not actually care, HOWEVER trump currently has the house, senate and courts and making it even slightly harder to do anything or having a large enough group to speak out against what he’s doing will help hundreds of thousands of people in the US. now more than ever is it important to make sure that they know that we do not stand for this
If you're looking for something to do between now and November 4th to feel like you're making some progress, might I suggest checking out Vote Forward's letter campaigns?
Vote Forward volunteers send heartfelt handwritten letters to unregistered and low-propensity voters encouraging them to participate in our
They've currently got two campaigns active, one for the PA Supreme Court and one for the CA special redistricting election. For the latter one, I can tell you that this is a weird proposition historically and many Californians don't really know what to make of it; it might be one where messages sent to voters could really help make up voters' minds.
You can sign up for as few as five letters to send out. Campaigns run through October 28th!
OP didn't specify which elections are happening this November 4th of 2025, so to be as clear as possible:
The elections this November aren't for the U.S. House, or the Senate, or any other branch of the federal government.
The elections this November are actually more important than the elections for the federal government.
They are a mix of state and local elections.
To break it down further: we have statewide elections in the following states:
New Jersey: Governor, State House.
Virginia: Governor, Attorney General, State House.
Pennsylvania: a retention election for the State Supreme Court. Three incumbent Democratic justices are up for retention votes, where a "yes" vote means they stay on the court, and "no" means they must be replaced (potentially with a Republican). Republicans are attempting to take back control of the court by unseating two or more Democratic justices, which could compromise the fairness of elections in this state in 2026 and 2028. There are also retention votes for several lower courts.
California: Prop. 50 aims to counter Republican gerrymandering in Texas by gerrymandering an equal number of U.S. House seats in CA, contingent on the TX map staying standing in court. If passed, the new CA map would last from 2026 to 2030 (inclusive).
Colorado: Funding free meals for kids in schools, including mechanisms to help counteract the federal SNAP cuts! (Essentially, a recent change to the ballot measure made it so any leftover money from the meal program could go to SNAP.) This is via Proposition LL and Proposition MM.
Maine: Two propositions. The first is a dangerous voter disenfranchisement proposal, which would decimate access to absentee voting and require photo ID to be shown at polls. Proponents of the measure tried to sue to stop the summary on the ballot from actually saying what it would do to absentee voting (they lost their case, luckily), so you know it's bad.
The second Maine proposition asks whether to implement extreme risk protection orders (red flag laws). For context, Maine currently has a weaker "yellow flag law."
Washington State: Proposition to allow the state to fund its upcoming, public long-term care insurance program, WA Cares, with stock market investments reminiscent of how the state can already handle pensions. This would arguably/ideally keep premiums lower; I won't claim to be an expert on this one but it's definitely worth reading more about.
Texas: Too many propositions to list. (Literally, there's 17). Luckily, Ballotpedia has already listed them for us.
There are also too many municipal (a.k.a. town-wide, city-wide, or county-wide) elections to list! These elections affect your community the most directly!
Most people know NYC is voting for mayor (don't let Cuomo make a comeback!), but don't let him distract you from city council elections, either. Wikipedia has a long list of the largest cities with municipal elections in 2025 (Atlanta, Minneapolis, and New Orleans are some examples), but if you live in a smaller town, be sure to google "[your town name] elections" to see if you have anything this November.
Lastly, there is a special election in Tennessee's 7th Congressional district that's happening after election day, on December 2nd. This district is Republican leaning, but a large enough Democratic over-performance could flip it — and constitute one of the only chances to whittle down the Republican House majority before 2026.
No reblog-guilting here, I'm not gonna judge anyone for not wanting to reblog a long politics post, but I'm sure it would help a lot of people make their plans if enough folks shared this list of what elections are happening this November (and this December).
dededos
blakekathryn
areudirty
janainaart
snowghoul
