#a comprehensive list of everything i've posted over the last like year and some change

[sluttyten]

I've been so inactive and I hate it!! I think t he last fic I read was about jaehyun and yn and they'd f in random places hahahah - can u make a post of your current updates so that i can binge over the weekend? x

Oh man lol if the fic you're talking about is one of mine, then I think you're talking about I Know a Place, and that's been quite a while, but starting with that part one of that series:

Taeil

A Little Drunk On You - friends to lovers

workplace (mis)conduct - office/ceo au

Johnny

Snowed In - threesome w/ Hendery

A Cure for Nerves - ceo/boss au

I’m Glad We Met - strangers to friends to lovers

My Everything - cuckholding & voyeurism  w/ Jaehyun

Taeyong

Last Christmas - friends to lovers

What I Need - threesome w/ Doyoung

Eros & Psyche - anonymous sex (strangers to fuckbuddies to friends to lovers)

Yuta

Going for the Gold - uni au

golden - piss kink *beware*

Kun

Oh, Baby - established relationship

Dinner & Dessert - free use/rough sex, established relationship

kinda hot though - sweat kink & public sex

Doyoung

Hungry for You - best friend’s brother au

Round&Round -  established relationship

Supervision Required - threesome w/ Jeno

What I Need - threesome w/ Taeyong

a means to an end - enemies to lovers, uni au

Ten

Like Home - non-idol au, bisexual Ten & bi reader, strangers to lovers

good hurt - pain kink

Jaehyun

I Know a Place - Part 1 || Part 2 || Part 3 - exhibition kink

while you were sleeping - somnophilia/sleep sex kink, friends to lovers

In Your Arms - threesome w/ Mark, bisexual Jaehyun & Mark

My Everything - cuckholding & voyeurism  w/ Johnny

WinWin

Everything Has Changed - best friends to lovers 

Babymoon - pregnancy kink

A Win-Win Situation - sugar daddy WinWin au

Jungwoo

Long Flight - strangers to lovers

ignite me - uni au

playing favorites - threesome w/ Haechan

Mark

Watch Me - voyeurism, strangers to friends to lovers

positions - breeding kink, established relationship

In Your Arms - threesome w/ Jaehyun, bisexual Jaehyun & Mark

Xiaojun

a taste of you (darling) -  bookstore au, slowburn(ish), cheesy romance

dark side of the moon - chef au, knife play

Sweet Treat - cumplay, threesome w/ Hendery

Hendery

Snowed In - threesome w/ Johnny

morally grey area - uni professor/student au

Sweet Treat - cumplay, threesome w/ Hendery

Renjun

All I Ever Wanted - best friends to lovers

annoyingly cute - coworkers to lovers

meet me on the rooftop - exhibitionist idol Renjun

Backstage - you're both idols, exhibition kink

Jeno

Just So You Know - friends to love triangle, threesome w/ Jaemin

Supervision Required - threesome w/ Doyoung

Teddy Bear - size kink

Haechan

New Territory (expedition: you) - friends to lovers, questioning sexuality

Movie Star - established relationship, sex tapes

playing favorites - threesome w/ Haechan

Jaemin

Just So You Know - friends to love triangle, threesome w/ Jaemin

quiet down - established relationship

the babygirlification of na jaemin - bottom jaemin, top fem!reader

YangYang

Guilty Pleasure Series - Guilty Pleasure || Love on the Low Low - yangyang w/ a noona kink

time out - enemies to lovers

Pillow Princess - established relationship, slightly sub!yangyang

Shotaro

kiss kiss (fall in love) Series - Part 1 || Part 2 || Part 3 - uni au, friends to lovers

감이 오지? (Can You Feel It) - dom!shotaro

Multiple Members

J.Crew - orgy/gangbang with Johnny, Jaehyun, Jungwoo, Jeno, and Jaemin

Love Daze - sex pollen orgy with Kun, Ten, and YangYang

Unholy Series - supernatural au w/ Yuta, Ten, WinWin, Mark, and others

Full Masterlist is right here

[excineribusbooks]

Resource Post: Supplies, Equipment, and Software

So I've had some people ask about the supplies and equipment I use to make my books! This is not a comprehensive list, nor is it an official tutorial on how to make a book (for that, I recommend starting with Renegade Publishing's resource documents, DAS Bookbinding, or SeaLemon's YouTube tutorials -- all free, no patreon required!), but if you're floundering because you don't know what you need to get, hopefully this will help a little bit ❤️ If I discover more good resources or change up my style, I'll add to this post.

Of note: I'm based in the US, so this list is unfortunately pretty US-centric. Apologies!

SUPPLIES

Disclaimer #1: I have a background in book conservation, so I'm picky to a fault about the supplies I use. To make a long-lasting book, you want to look for "acid-free" or "archival" materials -- BUT, a lot of consumer craft stores have realized those are good buzzwords to slap on products even if they aren't really archival. Your best bet is to buy from stores that supply materials to libraries and archives; those tend to be higher quality and stick to actual archival standards. Talas, Hollander's, University Products, and Colophon Book Arts Supply are good places to start.

That said! If price matters more than longevity, hitting up Michaels or Joann Fabrics is totally fine. This is a hobby. The bookbinding police are not gonna come smash down your door because you didn't use archival-quality craft paper. My big recommendation, though: at least get your glue and paste from Talas. High-quality adhesive makes a huge difference in how well, and how long, a book holds together. Bad adhesives can turn brittle with time, stain your paper/cloth, and make all your hard work fall apart.

So, all that said, here's what I use:

BOARD - Davey Binder's Board, 0.098" GLUE - Jade 403 PVA PASTE - Zen Shofu wheat paste (you shouldn't have to buy more than half a pound -- a little goes a long way) CLOTH - Either Arrestox or Dover bookcloth, which comes in a wide variety of colors and holds up extremely well to whatever you want to do to it THREAD - 25/3 linen thread, which I run over a small block of beeswax to make it easier to handle and give it better "locking" properties as I sew. For bigger books of ten signatures or more, I sew onto 3/8" linen tapes for extra support. DECORATIVE PAPER - Hollander's is a treasure trove of decorative papers for endsheets and covers; Talas has some really nice ones, too, but they tend to be pricier (since unfortunately everything at Talas has gotten a lot pricier lately) PRINTING PAPER - Hammermill Colors paper, 20lb, in cream; 24lb is also a good weight that feels a little more substantial than regular printer paper. (I'll probably switch to 24lb once my 20lb paper runs out.) To get the right grain direction, I buy a ream of 11x17 paper and cut it in half to make standard letter-sized sheets (8.5x11). Here's a quick primer on grain direction and why it's important when making a book! ENDBANDS - I've never had the patience to sew my own endbands (though I hope to gain that patience someday!), so I just use premade ones like these.

EQUIPMENT

Disclaimer #2: a lot of the stuff on this list is professional-grade (or close to it) with prices to match. You definitely don't have to buy everything right off the bat. It took me fifteen years to accumulate it all, and you can DIY a lot of bookbinding equipment -- a good googling will lead you to all sorts of innovative ways hobby bookbinders set up their shops. The Renegade Publishing resource documents also have a lot of A+ recommendations.

PRINTER - For text, I use a Brother B&W laser printer with auto-duplex (auto-duplex is key when printing a book); for images, both B&W and color, I use a Canon color inkjet printer set to at least 300 DPI. I fully admit having two printers is an absurd setup, but what laser printers can do well, inkjets absolutely suck at, and vice-versa -- and like I said, I'm hella picky. You can get by fine with a single laser printer! Just make sure it's got auto-duplex to save yourself a lot of pain. GUILLOTINE - I have this model, which goes in and out of stock with some regularity. The trick with this guy is to (a) sandwich your text block between some scrap board so the clamp doesn't leave a dent, and (b) REALLY CRANK DOWN on the clamp as tight as you possibly can to keep the paper from shifting as you cut. This fixes 99% of the skewing problems mentioned in the reviews. PRESS - I have a little cast-iron press I bought off a coworker for fifty bucks; similarly, you might have luck searching eBay, looking at Affordable Bookbinding Equipment (Jim does incredible work!), searching craft stores for a flower press, or even just using two pieces of wood and a few C-clamps. SeaLemon on YouTube also has a good video on how to DIY a book press. PRESS BOARDS - For setting the hinges in the press, I use a pair of brass-edged boards like these. It's a good investment if you want to get really nice, crisp hinges, but it's also 100% possible to DIY brass-edged boards if you want. At my very first job, we even set our hinges by taping sewing needles to the book before putting it in the press! FINISHING PRESS - I have this one, which I use to back my books in combination with these backing irons BACKING HAMMER - To my chagrin, I've discovered that having an actual backing hammer makes backing a book way, way easier. Some folks have had good luck with a cobbler's hammer or just a regular old hammer from a hardware store, but I splurged on a student hammer from Hollander's, and it works fantastically. (I wouldn't recommend buying the "professional" hammers, though, because seriously, $90 for a hammer?! No.) BONE FOLDER - I'm actually not a fan of bone folders made from real bone; I like Teflon folders a lot better for scoring and flattening. (Real bone folders tend to burnish the material, an effect I'm rarely going for.) CUTTING MACHINE - A Silhouette Curio. This is 100% optional, but it's how I do the bulk of my cover designs, including cut-outs, embossing, foiling (with a foil quill attachment), and spine titling. The software and overall quality are way better than Cricut, and its 5mm clearance means you can fit more than just vinyl in there. Sadly, Silhouette has discontinued the Curio, but it's still possible to buy from third-party sellers -- and if you don't care about the 5mm clearance, I've heard good things about the Silhouette Cameo line.

A side note on vinyl, from the obnoxiously picky book conservator: if you're aiming for longevity with your books, using HTV in your book designs may not be the best idea. Not only can the adhesives be questionable, but the plasticizers in vinyl break down in really weird, gross ways once several decades have passed. That's why I tend to stick with cut-outs and foiling instead of HTV. But, again: if you just want to make something pretty, don't worry about it!

SOFTWARE

TYPESETTING - I use Affinity Publisher -- it's similar to Adobe InDesign, but with a flat cost instead of a bullshit subscription model. I am by no means an expert in this, since I've only been designing books for a couple years; pretty much everything I learned, I learned from Aliya Regatti's tutorial, plus or minus a lot of googling and noodling around. I've discovered that it does get cranky if your book is over 250 pages or so, meaning you may have to split longer fics into multiple files. That said, I've been really happy with it, and it goes on sale every now and then if the $70 price tag is too much.

As always, Renegade Publishing has a whole lot of tutorials for other software options, including Microsoft Word, InDesign, LaTeX, and Scribus if you already have access to one of those instead.

IMPOSITION - "Imposition" is when you lay out a book so all the pages are in order once you fold + gather the signatures. Since Affinity Publisher doesn't do this automatically on export, I use Bookbinder 3.0, which is an old but nice little Java program that breaks a single PDF into a series of properly imposed signatures. I usually set it to 6 sheets per signature.

MISCELLANEOUS

IMAGES

The Noun Project is a gigantic repository of basic SVGs and PNGs that are not only great for cutting machines, but for adding flourishes to your title page, chapter headings, and scene dividers. Every single book I've made has used at least one image from here; I pay for the yearly Noun Pro subscription, but it's not necessary to use the site.

Unsplash is perfect for photo elements

Pixabay not only has a great archive of photos, but illustrations and vector images as well

Surprisingly, Wikipedia also has a lot of good Creative Commons photos attached to their articles!

FONTS

1001Fonts is a good starting point for finding free fonts, as is FontSpace and DaFont

If you're willing to pay for fonts (and sometimes it's worth it for a well-designed font that's perfect for your project), Creative Fabrica and Pixel Surplus have some good stuff, including discounted bundles of multiple fonts

[materassassino]

13 books tag game

Was tagged by @polarcell! Heeeee~ I'm so glad I've gotten back into reading and can do this happily without struggle!

1) The last book I read:

Infidels by Andrew Wheatcroft. It's mediocre. The research is only strong when it concerns Spain, and everything else is skimmed over heavily. There is a distinct lack of Arab/Muslim sources the further along you go with blatant biases towards the Western pov and the end is absolutely fucking incoherent. Not a complete loss but mostly useless and woefully caught up in the madness that was America post-invasion of Iraq.

2) A book I recommend:

A Natural History of Dragons by Marie Brennan. I recommend it to literally everyone whenever I can, the whole series is so good.

3) A book that I couldn’t put down:

Much to my chagrin, Carry On by Rainbow Rowell. It reads like a fanfic so it flows dangerously fast and I read it all in one sitting. However I don't think it's particularly... good? It's fine, but it's verging on the "empty entertainment" I dislike from fiction books I read.

4) A book I’ve read twice (or more):

Apart from the worst possible answer (I read Prisoner of Azkaban so many times between the ages of nine and fifteen it's basically imprinted on the inside of my skull), I'm going to say The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. It's the first Narnia book I read, and it's still my favourite. I love Reepicheep so much it's stupid.

5) A book on my TBR:

There are so goddamn many Jesus wept. Perhaps Madhouse at the End of the Earth by Julian Sancton. Continue some good old-fashioned Hubris in the Artic/Antartic genre of historical event.

6) A book I’ve put down:

Price and Prejudice. Trying to get a middle schooler to read this was a stupid endeavour and I hated it and did not finish it. Nor do I ever actually want to. It takes a lot for me to actually put down a book and not finish it.

7) A book on my wish list:

The Best Land under Heaven by Michael Wallis. I've yet to read something comprehensive about the Donner Party and this one looks good.

8) A favorite book from childhood:

The Dragon's Quest by Rosemary Manning. I loved how eloquent and charming the dragon was.

9) A book you would give to a friend:

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke. It changed me and I need to pass on the smell of the sea and the feel of salt-stained marble.

10) A book of poetry or lyrics that you own

Literally the only poetry book I own is The Penguin Book of Greek Verse and I've barely touched it. I don't really do poetry.

11) A nonfiction book you own:

How am I supposed to choose? I have so many that I bought for uni and for my own enjoyment. I guess I'll choose The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine by Ilan Pappé. I have yet to read it because it requires a lot of spoons to read books like this right now, and I used a lot of them up on The Hundred Years' War on Palestine by Rashid Khalidi.

12) What are you currently reading:

Hurdy Gurdy by Christopher Wilson and Same-Sex Marriage in Renaissance Rome by Gary Ferguson. I'm enjoying Hurdy Gurdy so far, I forget how quickly fiction goes compared to non-fiction. Same-Sex Marriage is proceeding apace, but I really should have taken more notes as I read, if I'm going to be writing fic based on it.

13) What are you planning on reading next?

Fuck if I know, I'll just pull something out of the towering pile and get to it. It has to have the right Vibes for the moment, though, and those Vibes are mysterious at best.

Tagging @nightbirdz, @gravity-loves-me, @dangerouscommiesubversive, @maered613, @veradragonjedi, @ctrldao3, @teta-veleta and whoever else wants to do this!

[ryan-shepard-writes]

There are also instances, however, when the opposite is true. Someone will come along and tell you that you're being racist/ableist/homophobic because of their own preconceived notions and prejudices. And you really don't have to listen to them. Like at all. Your creation is your own, and some people won't like it, and that's fine. You do not always automatically have to change something because a stranger says so.

An example of this happened to me last year. A rando happened across my writblr because of a joke post I'd made, looked at my cast of characters, and just IMMEDIATELY started telling people I was racist because a lot of my characters are poc. She took one look and automatically assumed that the poc would be evil bad aliens, ravaging the poor defenseless white humans. Didn't ask questions, didn't look at the plot, didn't read character descriptions... She just ran with it. She saw poc characters and just assumed they would be bad guys.

The trick is, I'm mixed. My book takes after a lot of my thoughts and feelings, as a queer mixed heritage person. None of the characters listed in my cast currently are "evil", or even aliens. Part of the point of my book's plot is that they are all human, and that outward appearances don't change that fact. They're just humans from very far into the future, who had evolved in different ways and didn't recognize each other at first.

Girl trying to blow the whistle on me? Some white girl who was very obviously just doing it to impress other white people for tumblr social points. Like she was comedically shouting to her followers from the rooftops about me. I had to leave here several times for months at a time because I've been receiving anonymous threats and death wishes, all because this person had her own preconceived notions of poc stereotypically being bad guys, and how they couldn't possibly be anything else.

Anyway, my point is that like... Take stuff people claim is bad about you or your story with a grain of salt. Sometimes you will do literally everything right, have everything right, and be completely square and kosher... And some kid with no reading comprehension will walk by and try to fistfight you over something they refuse to understand because they themselves are X-ist and desperately trying to hide it. You don't have to listen. You can just slam the door in their face and move on.

i will say this as a ‘creator’ who has literally done this before and who has been told i need to change things within my creations to be more culturally sensitive: it is fucking easy to put “hey i’m writing about X as a non-X person. I did my best to research and to try to portray it in a respectful manner, but if I got anything wrong, please let me know and I will work to fix it”

and when someone takes that offer and goes, “hey you did this thing bad/wrong/inappropriately” it’s easy to say, “thank you for telling me, i will continue to research and I will do my best to change that into something more respectful.”

it’s easy ! it’s free ! it’s better than digging ur heels in the sand and throwing a hissy fit over the fact that u got smth wrong !!!