#I'm planning on binding this fic with this as the cover and!! WOW

[ajaystillblue]

“Darryl had slept next to Henry and Mercedes a few times and then with Henry and Glenn, of course, but never with all of them together. It felt right. Safe. 

The afternoon light bled through the blinds, dappling the bed as wind moved trees in the backyard. The fan hummed above them.

Mercedes was the first to fall asleep, snoring lightly, her face tilted towards her husband. Darryl couldn’t see Henry's expression but saw it in his mind’s eye, the gentle reverence of his gaze on her. He reached out to settle a hand on Glenn’s hip, and he was out soon too, forehead resting on Mercedes’ shoulder.

Darryl peeked over at Glenn. His eye was closed but Darryl knew what he sounded like when he was truly asleep. With a start, he realized he’d taken off the eyepatch— he’d never seen Glenn without it. 

“Hey,” he murmured, voice barely audible over the shush of the fan and Henry and Mercedes’ breathing. Glenn looked over at him. 

Sure you’re okay? he mouthed. He knew they were waiting to talk properly but he had to check. 

Glenn studied him for a long moment, face soft in the faint light. His head rose and fell gently with Mercedes’ breathing, his hair shaking into his face. He didn’t move to fix it. 

Gonna be okay, he mouthed back. Promise. 

Darryl’s throat got tight again. He nodded and watched as Glenn drifted off as well. 

He fought against sleep for a long while, not wanting to forget the way he felt at this moment. He watched shadows dance on the wall until his eyes closed.”

I commissioned the incredible @martineisling to design a cover illustration for my fic Emergency Contact and!!!!!!! 🥺🥺 I mean what can I ever SAY!!! The details??? (THE TAROT CARDS!!!!) Their sweet little faces?! Martine’s designs have always been these characters in my mind’s eye when I’m writing so seeing them here like this is such a gift. 

[hooksbooks]

Fanfic Writers Appreciation Day

This year I participated in @renegadeguild's Renegade Loves Fic (Writers) event for the first time, in which we celebrate Fanfic Writers Appreciation Day by binding two copies of a fanfic we love and sending one copy to the author.

I chose Florigenesis by @nientedal (and its sequel your roots send down to grow as an epilogue), which is a Megamind/Roxanne hanahaki story. Or, in the words of the author, "Less 'Hanahaki' and more 'mutually-requited pining with flowers thrown in for flavor.' " I loved the imagery of the flowers and had a lot of fun typesetting it with as many floral motifs as I could fit in it.

The flower Megamind ends up coughing up for Roxanne are dahlias, so I found some open-source images of dahlias sourced from books in the public domain to use as scene breaks and as a watermark behind the table of contents. Additionally, I used the font "Lime Blossom Caps" to use as a drop-cap at the beginning of each chapter. The text ended up being a bit more than 380 pages.

This is the first time I've done a book partially covered in paper instead of all in bookcloth. Before gluing the paper to the cover, I sealed it with homemade paste wax, which I think turned out really well. The book has a lovely feel to it--I'll definitely do some more partial-paper covered books in the future.

Also for the first time I sewed a headband on each book. It turned out fairly well. I used waxed linen thread as the core (the waxed thread that came with my bookbinding kit--its braided and so thick I can't imagine using it for sewing signatures).

Additionally, I got myself a chisel (and sharpening kit) to trim the edges, which turned out much better than expected. I still don't have something to hold the book horizontally while I trim so I'm still trimming vertically for now, but it turned out much better than trying to use a utility knife like I was before.

Technical Details:

Quarto size (quarter-letter, about A6)

Sewn-on made endpapers

Rounded but not backed

Sewn-on headbands (no tailbands)

Chisel-trimmed pages

Oxford hollow

The linen tapes are frayed and glued to the exterior of the boards

Sewn-on bookmark

Things I especially liked about this bind:

CHISEL TRIMMING! I knew it would up my game to have a chisel to trim pages with rather than just a utility knife, but WOW, it made SO MUCH difference! Once they were finished I kept petting the edges of the pages because they were just so soft and smooth and perfect.

I really like the sewn-in headbands. I'd probably use a bit thicker core next time, but they turned out well and I'm pleased with them.

I'm surprised how much I liked the paper-covered covers. I had planned on most of my books being full-bookcloth with this one as an exception, but with how much I like the look and feel of this book I will probably switch that around and do just quarter-bound with bookcloth unless I have a good reason to make an exception.

For the made endpapers, I glued just the edge of the endpaper to the white instead of the whole page. I quite like it--it's a lot more flexible this way and doesn't have a "noticeably glued-together" feel to it.

The wax paste turned out really well. It makes the cover feel very "finished" instead of just like scrapbook paper, which is what it actually is.

Things I'd like to improve for next time:

Because the text block is rounded but not backed, there's a little wrinkling of the endpaper glued to the board right at the hinge so it doesn't pull when the book is opened all the way. I'll have to experiment a bit more with this to figure out a good hinge for a rounded-not-backed book.

Although I love the flower cover, it's a little busy to have the title legible on the cover, so it's only on the spine. That's not a bad thing, but I'm not sure what I would do if I definitely did want a title/design on the cover itself.

I think honestly there's not very much to improve for next time. I'm very pleased with how this one came out--it's very nearly perfect.

[hms-tardimpala]

Ficbinding: Broken Road by @thegeminisage

The fic: SPN, Castiel/Dean Winchester, M, 109k

A 14.13 Lebanon rewrite. When Dean uses a wish-granting pearl to try and kill the archangel Michael before he can escape the cage in Dean's head, they instead wind up with a newly-resurrected John Winchester. It's been more than a decade since John died, and a lot has changed: Mary is alive, Sam and Dean have what passes for a proper home in the Men of Letters Bunker, and they're living with angels. John doesn't know angels are real, he doesn't know about the fragile new relationship between Dean and Castiel, and most of all, he doesn't know that Dean said yes to Michael, or that Dean's plan to defeat Michael would send him to a fate worse than death. Now Dean must contend with both his father asking questions he can't answer, and his loved ones learning about the darker truths of his childhood, all while constantly battling the archangel trapped inside him. But Dean coming to terms with his history may be the difference between this being the beginning of a journey—or the end.

This fic has been in my to-read list for more than a year because big wordcounts are daunting to me, but boy am I glad I finally read it! It's a treasure of character writing for all protagonists (and it is so hard to find a well-written John and Mary Winchester) and the canon divergence is brilliant. If you know me, you know how attached I am to canon-compliant stories, so finding a way to resolve the big threat of season 14 (a season I really like) in a way that's satisfying to me is no small feat. What I want from fics is to be able to think "wow, I could have watched this story happen in the actual show" and this fic succeeds at that. I also loved the attention paid to Michael's possession of Dean (that the show shoved aside when it was convenient) because I'm a whump lover and possession whump is amazing. Also, as a Deanguy, it's good to read a Dean fic with a great Sam.

So yeah, I loved it! Now let's talk shop.

The bind: This is the third blue book in a row (guess my favorite color). I chose a light blue because that's the color of the angels' grace, white for the wings, and silver because it's a color associated with angels a lot in the show (the blades, the walls and furniture in Heaven, the clothes angel vessels tend to wear). I used this palette because Michael is omnipresent in the story, so I wanted to show it through the binding, and also it's pretty. The white lines can represent a broken road, but I was having fun trying a new kind of superposition, mainly.

This is the biggest book I've made in a while, with 394 pages. It's 17,2x12,3cm and 2,9cm thick. I had a trimming accident and had to reprint it all and try again. That's my reminder not to do maths when tired.

I didn't use many decorations this time, I wanted to keep it sober. The text dividers for the first six chapters are angel wings and an impala for the last one (when Dean gets to drive it again). Wings and a car are both modes of transportation, that's neat. What's new this time is that I didn't do a chapter heading, but integrated the chapter number to the text. I thought about using drop caps, but it was too much. I did however use color, which I've been tentatively adding to my books. I figured what the hell, I pay for the color ink too.

Now, here's the main new thing I tried with this one: putting a title on the cover. I often say "no titles on my books" because I don't think they're necessary since I recognize the books by color and size, and I don't want to buy a cricut. But I didn't want to die stupid, so I tried transfer paper. Which worked, the title came out good, but naturally the transfer substance came with it, around the words, and it's very visible on cloth. I want to be clear: it worked as intended, I just didn't like the result. I think it'd work best with an image than with letters. With letters, trimming all the extra transfer paper would be impossible to do cleanly.

So I'm happy I tried, but still, no titles on my books.

Fonts: DK Plague Master (title and author name), Moonrising (chapter titles), Gontserrat (text). All free on Dafont.

Materials: Blue and white cloth from Schmedt, 2mm grey board, 70g/m² white copy paper, synthetic bookmark and headbands. Silver endpaper bought in a brick and mortar craft store.

Feel free to ask me more about materials and fonts (or whatever), it won’t bother me at all to tell you what I used, I just can't think of anything else right now.