#chat typesets

[cyborgjack]

Another ficbind down! This one I put together at the request of a friend. It’s one of her favorite fics for a pairing that really took over her brain real estate for the past 3-4 years or so.

When she asked for Something So Dear by forthesanityof1, I checked and it’s over 180k words. My longest ficbind so far. I had to work up to this one—got a few bookbinding projects done and then tackled this.

The title page is really simple and uses a lovely ornament by @cmdonovann that I got through the Renegade Bindery server, which has been such a wealth of resources. I slapped together the chapter ornaments myself, trying to work out a balance of flower and tattoo design (because it’s the whole premise of the fic).

Sorted out that pesky recto-verso problem, thank goodness.

I also had some fun figuring out how to build out the text conversations in the fic. I’ve been typesetting a lot since February and have employed a different strategy each time to denote texting. There’s some chat fics I like but constructing the typesets for those will be a… much later project. Compiled social media history stories are really cool to see and I want to do them justice. This one has just a few minor pieces of text in chat format, so I played with typesetting that.

The edges look chewed up because I tried to shave the textblock down to make it pretty and even on the side, but I was using a box cutter and didn’t realize the blade wouldn’t cut the full girth of the signatures. I had to flip it and things went poorly. Another bookbinding lesson learned! I still really like this one, it turned out very pretty. My friend will be getting this once I ship it off—I haven’t sent her pictures of it and she isn’t on Tumblr anymore. I hope she enjoys it as much as I enjoyed making it and problem-solving all the pieces!

[calicohyde]

TW for video: Descriptions of Infidelity, Suicide, and Underage Drinking

[illym]

[szynkaaa]

So Much (For) Stardust by Fall Out Boy

Bind made for a Fall Out Boy trade with beardeddogbindery

Christy and I chatted about FOB and doing an album exchange while I was attending a FOB concert - I know there are a lot of Swifties out there, so it's nice to also bump into another FOB and be able to do a small trade together ((if there are more Fall Out Boy fans out there, don't be shy let us know))

Christy told me that she hasn't really listened to much of the newer Fall Out Boy stuff - I knew that lot of the older fans didn't like any of FOB's post-hiatus works. SMFS was described by FOB as "[the album] sounds closer to a continuation of their 2008 record Folie à Deux", which I thought might be a good "re-introduction" into FOB's newer music. I also really really really really like this album myself lmfao.

✦ illustrations are done on Procreate, everything was typesetted on Clip Studio Paint 0/10 I do not recommend typesetting on CSP lmfao ✦ Printed on A4 folio and then cut down to 148x148 mm because I wanted the lyrics book to be square and resemble an album ✦ original album cover features a painted dog. Christy has two VERY ADORABLE puppers. The only logical approach here is to draw one of her dogs and slap it onto the cover ✦ Dog illustration + endpapers + title page + some other pages are foiled using black foil! It was my first time working with black foil. It's very subtle ✦ Backside text is done on holographic reflective HTV, to add a bit of surprise effect and make it glow like a star

Please go check out @beardedogbindery's page for her two adorable quarto binds (I got two binds. two!!!)

So Much (For) Stardust typeset will be available at request for personal binding too! .

[all-hallows-street]

All Saints Street Extra Comics Translations 1-3

Apologies for the delay! We are finally publishing translations for the All Saints Street manhua.

We will be uploading them on this drive for now and later upload to mangadex. I will have to ask you to NOT SHARE this drive PUBLICALLY, feel free to share it privately.

Example of what to do: sending the drive link to friends on discord.

Example of what not to do: posting the drive link to twitter. We are going to start with some older extras that were never translated to get a good idea for a workflow and fix problems as they rise. After that we are going to prioritize translating chapters 486-500 (why? well, if you know you know) so we can also start working on simultaneous text translations for new chapter releases. What I mean by this is that as soon as a new chapter comes out, we can upload an english text translation alongside it, like the japanese translation team does now.

Here is an example with the bonus comics:

I am also hoping this will be a good accessibility feature. Likewise, I am releasing to the public the table I translated from the japanese group. It is a rough Work-In-Progress table, but for me it has been an invaluable whenever I have to look up a certain chapter. I even made a search engine to look up chapters by character appearance.

Meanwhile we will be going back and re-lettering chapters that have been translated by independent efforts and uploading them to Mangadex. We have obtained permission from both @saints-street-translated and @wan-sheng-jie for this! After that the translation will continue in two fronts: the comic translations from 501 onwards and releasing text translations for new comics.

Translating the whole manhua will be a looooong process. Right now, we have text translations for all extra comics, but the lettering has been going slow. That's why we are still open to more volunteers to join us for the role of cleaner/typesetter! You don't need qualifications or even software (we will get it for you cough), just time and a disposition to learn.

TL;DR

ASS manhua translation is resuming.

Older Extra comics will be translated first.

We will translate 486-500 ASAP.

We will release text translations for newer comics.

We will remake the translations for 405-485 to upload to MangaDex.

 We need YOU to typeset the ASS comics into English!

[plor-bindery]

Bound: Kinkuary ‘23 by wolfpants

Next up in my tour of binds I made for wolf: Kinkuary ‘23 by @wolfpants

When I first reached out to wolf to ask permission to bind their fic, I asked if there was anything in their fic that they wished they had bound. They mentioned their Kinkuary fics but immediately said "oh but that's impractical because it's a whole collection" or something to that effect, which of course I took as a challenge. (Authors, be warned. I will almost certainly bind the thing you say I should not try to bind.)

Anyone who is wisely subscribed to wolf's works on AO3 probably had the same delightful experience as I did throughout February 2023: namely, waking daily to a little notification that there was a small kinky gem awaiting consumption at one's leisure. Wolf writes sex incredibly well: the viscerality and immediacy of it, but also the thoughts and turn-ons and how it lights up each character's brain differently. They have a gift for making me love tropes and kinks I might not ever think to read or write otherwise.

All that being said, I felt slightly weird about being like HERE IS A BOOK OF YOUR KINK THAT SAYS KINK ON THE SPINE so (as wolf has noted) I went all Victorian and made a dust jacket to cover up the bind if wolf ever wants to make it look a lot more innocent than it is.

So many firsts in this one for me: first dust jacket, first index, first collection of fics, first table of contents... It was a blast from start to finish and I learned SO MUCH.

Materials and process chat under the cut.

Materials:

Ye olde wooqu bookcloth off Amazon, HTV vinyl, 24 lb cream letter (wrong grain, forgive me) folios, machine-made endbands, black cardstock end papers.

The dust jacket is probably the only newish thing for me: I did a print using Staples' online service (which probably contributed to my choices because I also use this service for actual work things...) It was a poster print on matte paper.

Process:

This was a pretty straightforward bind but the typeset was full of learning curves. I use InDesign for typesetting and figured out how to set up a TOC and index. Wolf is a GREAT tagger so once I realized I'd either have a seven-page run of front matter listing the tags for each fic, or an index condensing them down, it was a no-brainer. And because wolf is so brilliant with tags, this led to my favorite index entries ever under Draco's listing (see photo.) I also figured out how to use styles to make every story have a header of its title, etc.

The great artwork of Eros is from rawpixel.

The other new thing for me was, of course, the dust jacket. I was disappointed to realize I'd messed up the measurements somehow once I printed, but it was close enough, so I went with it. I tried to rub some beeswax into the cover to help preserve it a bit but not sure it did much. If I were doing it again now, I'd use some Mod Podge matte aerosol fixative.

The dust jacket artwork is from the Smithsonian online collection of vintage seed catalogues. (S/O to my librarian spouse for the tip!) I created the spine matching the style as closely as I could, and then I went to town with silliness for the flaps. (This is probably a downside to having a fic writer also be a binder. I have trouble not writing something when the opportunity presents itself in the course of binding...)

The cover design is, of course, just a whole bunch of cursive X's. I'd hoped to have the title and author be a knockout from that pattern but it proved too hard to weed/read, so I ironed black HTV over the red pattern instead.

This is the only one of the set of four binds that I haven't (yet) bound for myself as a personal copy, but I think I will probably do so at some point! I was running out of black bookcloth at the time, so I prioritized wolf's copy for obvious reasons.

[keystonepublishing]

Canary Card in the Dungeon Dark by Ciel_Creations

(Note: this fic, like most that come from Twitter, didn't actually have a title. The title here is one I kinda made up, based on the plot.)

After the last mammoth bind, I decided to take some weeks off, relax, and pay more attention to other stuff rather than continue bookbinding. Unfortunately, this came to an end when I looked through my AO3 bookmarks one day and discovered several fics—one of which I wanted to bind—completely deleted!

That punted me off my relaxin' ass and go straight to saving and binding fics I like from being gone forever. One of which was this: a fic from Twitter about Jimmy being a guide in Decked Out!

First off: Yes, there are people who write fics on Twitter.

Since the fic came from Twitter, I had to do some tweaks before printing. Besides the aforementioned title and the usual typesetting and editing, I also wanted to preserve the original tweet. But instead of just a screenshot, I decided to go hard mode and recreate it in Affinity Publishing. For what it's worth, at least it wasn't complicated.

The fic writer noted that the work was inspired by a fanart they saw. Specifically, the Dungeon Guide Jimmy fanart by Hybbart! So that had to be included, though that did raise some questions as to how should I 'decorate' the fic to match the Decked Out theme.

Birds and cages form important elements in the fic, so I wanted to include them within the typeset. Additionally, I wanted to experiment with page numbers after seeing some examples in other books, and make them a larger part of the overall layout. Solution: smash together the numbers and cages at the edges of pages! It did took a while to figure out how to make the numbers stand out against the bars, but the end result looks beautiful!

The bird element was much easier to handle. A canary silhouette as a section break was enough. And since this is minecraft, I decided to format the death message like if it came straight from chat.

Special thanks to Ciel_Creations for writing this fic!

[bluejayblueskies]

the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the ambition of the world | phynoma

[ID: Two pictures of two hand-bound books, the first of which shows their front covers and the second of which shows their spines and part of their front covers at an angle. The leftmost book is bound in yellow bookcloth and has a hand-embroidered smiling mouth with bloody teeth on the bottom portion of the front and back cover. The title, "the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the ambition of the world" is in the top right corner in black as well as the words "volume one" in maroon. The rightmost book is bound in red bookcloth and has a hand-embroidered ribcage on the lefthand side of the front cover and the righthand side of the back cover. The title, "the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the ambition of the world" is in the top right corner in black as well as the words "volume two" in white. Both volumes have stitching across the spine that joins the embroidery on the front and back covers so that the design stretches across the spine. /End ID]

It's finally time to share the books I made for the 2023 Rusty Quill Big Bang, hosted by @pilesofnonsense! This year, I was paired with the wonderful @phynoma, who wrote a post-circus AU entitled the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the ambition of the world where Jon is marked by an entity known as the Consuming that feeds off hunger and desire and focuses, in Jon's case, around sexual hunger and desire. It's a truly spectacular fic with excellent worldbuilding, spot-on characterization, and a wide variety of sexual encounters of all flavors, and I highly recommend it!

As this fic is written in transcript format, I wanted to go with an open-spine binding style that would have the advantage of both lying extremely flat when opened and giving the fic a more screenplay-like appearance. Also as a consequence of the transcript format, the final page count ended up being large enough that I split the fic into two volumes, the first of which covers season three and the second of which covers seasons four and five.

[ID: Two pictures of the same hand-bound books, the first of which shows volume one and the second of which shows volume two. Both books are fully open to display their front and back covers touching. We can see that the embroidered design, half of which is on the front cover and half of which is on the back, forms a complete picture when the book is fully open. /End ID]

Each volume has hand-embroidered front and back covers, with titles done in black, white, and maroon gel pen. The covers were designed so that when the book is fully open, the front and back cover designs come together to form one single cohesive image. Additionally, when the book is closed, the spine stitching was done so that the design stretches across the spine, thus making the full design complete whether the book is fully open or fully closed. I'm really proud of how these covers turned out, and even though the embroidery took much longer than I anticipated it taking, it's definitely something I would do again!

More description and pictures of the interior of the books are below the cut:

I went with a visually simple yet technically complex design for the typeset of this fic. Microsoft Word's styles were very much my friend, as well as its advanced find-and-replace feature, to automate a lot of the formatting for this fic. The most complex bits were the group chat excerpts and making sure all the profile pictures were positioned correctly, as well as the email chain excerpts in volume one. The text messages were done separately in an HTML workspace and then included via screenshots, and because I had an HTML/CSS text message code already sitting around from a previous project, those were relatively simple to format!

[ID: Eight pictures of the interior of the hand-bound books from previous photos. The first picture shows the title page of volume one, which has the title and author name in black and "volume one" in red, as well as a picture of a ginko tree. The second picture shows the title page of volume two, which has the title and author name in black and "volume two" in red, as well as a picture of a cherry blossom tree. The third picture shows the colophon and table of contents for volume two, highlighting the binder logos--a bluejay and a bookpress--and the faux-label table of contents title. The fourth picture shows the chapter header page for the chapter "voyeurism" in volume one, featuring brackets around the notes, content warnings, and pairings for the chapter as well as a quote from the confessions of augustine, which is separated from the warnings with an open eye graphic. The fifth picture shows the beginning of the chapter "hunger in the garden" in volume two, displaying the transcript formatting of the text as well as the faux-label chapter name on the top left. The sixth picture shows text messages in volume two, which are formatted the same as text messages on an iOS system with blue and gray bubbles and a name header that says "Jonathan Sims." The seventh picture shows some chapter text as well as a faux-office memo, done in a sans serif font, written from Elias Bouchard to the Archives team. The eighth picture shows on the left page faux emails, done in an iOS style with profile pictures for each email, and on the right page a faux-group message with profile pictures for each member and a header that labels the groupchat as the Snarkivists. /End ID]

The fonts used for this typeset were chosen based on those used for the unofficial Magnus Archives transcripts--DejaVu Sans Mono for the chapter intro pages and Libre Baskerville for the body text. I'm not 100% sure that those are the actual fonts used for the unofficial transcripts, but based on the reverse font search I did, those seem to be a close match for it.

This was a big project for me, and I'm so happy to finally see it to completion! Once again, a big thanks to Phynoma for being such a wonderful partner to work with--I'm excited to send you these books so you can see them in person 💜

[three--rings]

Binderary 2024 wrap-up

When Binderary started, I hadn't touched any bookbinding since August when I broke my foot. Step one was getting my crafting space cleaned up enough to let me walk through it with crutches.

So my original goal was to get one single book done in the month, with a stretch goal of 4 total books, aka peaceful mode of the challenge.

I finished with seven total books, if you include the leather cover I made for my dnd notebook (which I do, it was complicated.)

Here are all my full books from this month on my shelf

I'm obviously most proud of my two large projects: the 999 script and the Planescape: Torment novelization. They were both involved typesets, and Torment was an experiment in binding style.

This month was about learning new techniques. From the entire k118 binding style, which I learned mostly from a couple blog posts, @spockandawe's advice, and at the end from the fantastic Binderary workshop on it. Plus I was using a guillotine for the first time, which I'm still getting used to.

And I very impulsively bought a Cricut Maker which arrived halfway through the month (thanks to enabling from Renegade folks and finding a used one for a good price.) So I had to learn entirely from scratch how to use that. My experiences with HTV Foil were BAD, but regular HTV is much easier. I then started working with stencil vinyl and paint, which was its own learning process, but worked pretty well on my leather books.

Meanwhile, I was also going through physical therapy for my foot and went from crutches to being able to walk unsupported in my boot, which is huge progress and made working on books much easier as the month went on. So this Binderary was a big time of growth and progress for me personally.

I also really love that Binderary is February because I get in a real creative slump in winter, and after two months of no creative impulses, Binderary always shocks me into high speed creation in a really nice way.

Thanks and love to everyone involved in planning and running this great event and everyone hanging out in the discord and workshop chats.

[choco-pudding]

The Vampire Dies in no Time, Chapter 215. Read text from right to left, do not repost.

(Translations by @lavoszero and myself. Edits and typesetting by myself)

Plain text below

Death 215: An Old Blood Gathering in the World of Eternal Night.

p. 39

Somewhere near Shin-Yokohama, Old Blood vampires gather.

Fwoooooo

Icy smile lord, Northdin Has a powerful charm ability that can captivate anyone. Can also manipulate the cold and freeze anything. A formidable old blood vampire.

Tap

p. 40

Northdin: "Good grief, am I the first to arrive? Draus called me over…"

Rise

Necro-Dealer, Elder Said he can easily create and manipulate a near endless army of ghouls. A formidable Old Blood vampire.

Slump

Elder: "Hey, Northdin, how have you been fairing?" Northdin: "! Elder…" Elder: "Have you grown tired of immortality yet? I'll spare no expense on acquiring your corpse if you have. " Northdin: "Quit it, your necromancy jokes are beyond tiresome." Northdin: "And you're having a ghoul act as your proxy, even at one of our gatherings? Lazy shut-in." Elder: "Oh, how rude of me."

p. 41

Snap Split

Elder: "It's simply too much of a hassle to travel on my own… I'll remain in this shell tonight, but know I'm here nonetheless." Ishikana: "Just what are you doing, are you aware of how grotesque that look?" "No matter the circumstance, you guys never change.

Sizzle Burn

The Immortal Flame, Ishikana Controls fire, bane of their kin, with ease. Sets ablaze to combatants and compatriots alike. A formidable Old Blood vampire

Ishikana: Ah, it seem the raven has arrived."

p. 42

Solar Eclipsing Raven, Ventrue Capable of transforming into an ominous six-winged raven. Can outpace the sun. A formidable Old Blood vampire.

Fwoosh

Elder: "Making a flashy entrance as usual I see~. show off." Ventrue: "Hmph, I do as I like. Now, why did Draus summon us to such a seedy place? Northdin: "It's his current fixation" Elder: "You're one to talk, by the way, how's that huntress fairing?" Ventrue: "I have nothing to say about that!" Draus: "Ah, Ventrue, it's been quite some time!"

Lean

Ventrue: "! Draus..."

p. 43

Draus?: "What a wonderful night too, such a beautiful full moon! It's dazzle rivals that of a woman's breasts~!" Ventrue: "Dra-Draus?" Draus: "Who says that!!!?" Dicknea: "Apologies, Apologies, I didn't mean to be rude, just having a bit of gentlemanly fun."

Shifting Shadow: Dick Can Effortlessly transform into all sorts of things, be it beasts, insects, plants, fog, or even the moon. A formidable Old Blood vampire.

[Most likely Draus]: "Is everyone here? I see Yo… That Yellow… he didn't show up."

That Yellow ← (Mr Lewd Talk)

Northdin: "He was invited!? If he shows up, I'll kill him." [Most likely Dicknea]: "I rather enjoy that vampire's company though [Most likely Draus]: …Well then, let's go inside.

And with that, "the Old Blood Meeting" has begun.

p. 44

But it's just a front for idle chit-chatting.

Draus: "Now, let us begin the council of ancient vampires!" Dicknea: "For tonight's topic, I propose "favorite breast shapes."

Conial, hemispherical, triangular.

[Most likely Draus]: "What kind of discussion topic is that!?" Draus: " This is a noble vampire gathering, the topic should mirror our awe!" Ishikana: "And we've had these gatherings for how long now? We've already exhausted all meaningful topics." [Unknown]: "We've mostly been lazing about since peace was achieved." Ishikana: "How about 'recent home appliances purchases." Draus: "That's… not awe inspiring… maybe… is it?" Dicknea: "A while back, I bought some silicone breasts that made for excellent pudding molds." [Most likely Draus]: "I thought I told you to hush!! That's not that even an appliance."

p. 45

Ventrue: "Hmph, centuries passed and you still lack even a shred of decency. As for me, I recently obtained a 'toaster oven.' Bread cooked in it is delicious, fresh or reheated."

Ding!!

[Unknown]: "What are you, an old lady?" [Unknown]: "An old lady with a daily cooking blog?" Ventrue: "I'm answering in accordance to tonight's topic, so don't talk smack!! If you despise it so much, then pick a different topic, Draus! Draus: "Oh, ah, um." Draus: "Fav… 'favorite dog breed." [Unknown]: "What are you, an old dog lady?" [Unknown]: "An old lady that visits a dog park two to three times a week." Draus: "WEH!" Northdin: "How about 'favorite duel against a hunter.' in regards to our conflicts with humans, I’m certain we have no shortage of stories to tell."Draus: "As expected of Northdin!" Elder: "Ah, like that story I heard not too long ago about how lil' Northy here was forced to wear a bikini by the Shin-Yoko hunters before they sent him flying." Northdin: "Octo-headed ghoul, I'll kill you! It was a corset and I was not 'sent flying!" Elder: "Aah, my deepest apologies, Icy Smile Lord." Northdin: "You're awfully chatty for a fossilized shut-in who only recently lost his cherry!" Elder: "There's a video on it floating about in Nūtube's huntersphere, you should subscribe to their channel." Northdin: "Which NūTuber, I’ll cut off their internet connection with a blizzard!"

Absolute ruckus

p. 46

Northdin: " Moreover, how does Elder know about that In the first place, Draus?" Draus: "N-no... comment..." Ishikana: "Anyway, has anyone neared death at the hands of a hunter recently? Or is that a rarity nowadays?" Ishikana: "You guys, have any of you nearly died recently?" Elder: "Oh, I suppose that's one interpretation of awe." Dicknea: "Only about 3.5 time surprisingly." Ventrue: "Just the other day I was nearly hit by an airplane!! The skies are too crowed now!!" [Unknown]: "Just because you can fly so high doesn't mean you should."[Unknown]: "You'd cause a major wreck if you get sucked into the plane's jets." Dicknea: "A few days ago, during a raging rainstorm, I thought I saw an erotic book at sea and nearly went in after it. [Unknown]: "Shut the hell up!" [Unknown]: "Don't die over something so pathetic!" Ishikana: "Sometimes I choke on the tapioca while mindlessly drinking bubble tea. It’s always when I least expect it, too." [Unknown]: "That sounds like an old lady problem." [Most likely Ventrue]: "Those kind of drinks are out of style, granny. Elder: "Speaking of style, I just remembered something." Draus: "Oh?"

p. 47

Elder: A young vampire, rather, my grandson, told me that black cloaks are 'lame' now. Is that true?"

Black cloak Black cloak Black cloak Black cloak Black cloak Black suit

Ventrue: "No, it's not, it just depends on who's wearing It." Northdin:"Hmm, whether or not it's lame all comes down to a vampire's personal taste." Draus: "It's traditional fashion, more people need to understand that."Ishikana: "The black cloak is an iconic symbol of vampirism. Dicknea: "That's just how young people are." Elder: "Well, mine's 'unique' as a robe so it doesn't apply to me regardless." [Unknown]: "Hey, you're the one who started this conversation!"[Unknown]: "That's like comparing an onigiri to a rice ball, there's barely a difference!" Northdin: I wear a long coat, so I suppose that makes me the most stylish one here." [Unknown]: "Sure you are, Mr. long-term middle school syndrome." [Unknown]: "Okay, Mr. Final Fantasy Reject." Northdin: "I'll freeze you all Into popsicles!"

p. 48

Draus: "I bought this trendy vest not long ago." [Unknown]: "How are you this much of an old man!!" [Unknown]: "That's something old men wear right when they hit 70 or 80 years old!" [Unknown]: "What do you need so many pockets for? House keys? Blood Bons?

*^ A sweet similar to bontan rice candies for vampires.

Draus: "Enough, back to formidable topics! More topics that match our vampiric awe!!" Ishikana: "How's this, 'humans have become far too conceited nowadays." [Most likely Draus]: "Yes, a worthy topic for us awe inspiring vampires!! Northdin: "On that note… The night's far too bright in these modern times. To invade our territory with those vulgar lights, it is absurd. It's also inconvenient when hunting prey." Ventrue: "Agreed, even the backlights in blood pack vending machines are obnoxiously bright, it ticks me off. Only us vampires need it, so they should reduce the amount of light it produces."

Shine

[Most likely Draus]: "I-isn't that a little off topic? Elder: "There's someone who always dislikes and leaves rude comments on my videos, I hope someone splits their ass in half and they die!" [Most likely Draus]: "That's completely off!! Go back to being awe inspiring!!" Elder: "Fine, I'll drop the vulgarity. I hope that foolish person dies with their legs split wide open." [Most likely Draus]: "That's still bad! And a bit, you know..."

p. 49

Dicknea: "Is it me or has censorship in erotic manga gotten unnecessarily stricter with each passing year? It's for adults after all" [Unknown]: Is everything you output lewd?"

Topic → Dicknea → Lewd

Dicknea: "Of course not. In fact, I support curating separate spaces, it allows for non-conformity and a more unique erotic world." Draus: "Stop it, I get it!! Let's discuss something cool, now!!!" Elder: "If we were to form a band, what would our band name be?[Unknown]: "What brought this up!?Elder: "Bands are cool, are they not?" Elder: "Draus you can be out lead vocalist. You're such a talented singer after all." Draus: "Huh… Me? Me, as the frontman? truly?" Elder: "For sure." Ishikana: "If Draus is the lead, then we should name it after him. We can be The Dora*mons." [Unknown]: That reference is so outdated, do you even known the interests of today's youth!!!? Ishikana: " I know they read Champion." Ishikana: "At seven we'd have the right amount of members, too…" Draus: "Huh?" Ishikana: "Ah." [Unknown]: "Right, there's only six of us. Since he (Mr. Lewd Talk: Hahaha) isn't here... No it's for the best that he isn't here."

p. 50

[Unknown]: "Yeah, he emits a horrendous air about him just by existing! We would have been stopped at the entrance!!" [Unknown]: "Agreed." [Unknown]: "Not that is matters now." [Unknown]: "Splitting it rounds it up to 18,334 yen per person, right?"[Northdin]: "That seems fair enough." [Unknown]: "Will you hand them back the bill, Northdin?"

Beam

[Northdin]: "Pantsuits have a deep sense of erotism."

."

Mr. Lewd Talk Wielder of a potent hypnosis that forces people to speak the language of lewd talk. A formidable Old Blood vampire.

Death 215: End

----

Translator's notes:

There's a lot this time.

畏怖, translated here mostly as "awe," is awe in the fearful sense.

Page 45 Northdin is literally saying he was forced to wear "bondage." However, in Japanese, "bondage" is more commonly used today in reference to fashion (i.e. clothing made of leather/ rubber) rather than a restraining tool. "Corset" was chosen because it's the closest thing to what he was wearing and let's him keep some dignity.

If you're not in the known, Elder is a NuTuber and I'm 75% sure he's alluding to his own channel.

As a reminder, Ishikana's gender is a self-admitted "secret." They're called both masculine and feminine terms in other chapters, so don't take them being called an "old lady/obachan" here too seriously.

Page 48

Original text is comparing onigiri to omusubi.

Page 49

Draus's name is phonetically "Dorasusu" in Japanese, hence Dora*mon. The Doraemons, a spin off of Doraemon, does in fact have a group of seven Doaemons in it.

[epitomereally]

Celestial Navigation by @sabrecmc

18 year old Omega!Tony finds himself Bonded to Captain Steve Rogers. He isn't happy about it until he is.

An absolutely gorgeous story of learning to love yourself, even when you feel like you don't fit in & that you grew up wrong. I'm so happy to have gotten to bind this mammoth work for Sabre & as a gift exchange for @mourningmountainsbindery (who bound me this beautiful copy of Astolat's Let the River Run—JUST LOOK AT THAT COVER!).

Also to anyone who has @ed me lately (looking at u, em @powerful-owl & tacky @tackytigerfic particularly) & I've been derelict in responding, here is WHY.

This has been the longest binding project I've undertaken, both in page count and in time. My original message to Sabre was on March 16th—can't decide if I want to use the laughing or crying emoji here—and the colophon says I made the book in April 2023 (which was when I started typesetting, maybe). I had been randomly perusing dying videos on Youtube in bed on a Saturday morning, as one does, and came across a video showing how to spiral tie-dye. I IMMEDIATELY had a design premonition of the full design for this fic as a two-volume set, planted into my brain wholesale by the binding gods. I learned many new techniques throughout the process (edge painting, edge trimming/sanding, tie-dying/dyepainting, embroidery, typesetting meta from tumblr which copy-pastes with the worst goddamn formatting in the world, kill me now). Overall, alternately extremely painful & wonderful, and I'm extremely proud of this set.

Design-wise, I went whole-hog with the scifi stars theme. Endpapers are recolored versions of the star charts from the Apollo 11 mission:

Title page & chapter titles are both rips in the galaxy:

Epigraphs both star-themed:

Some more glamor shots because I'm so proud 💕

8.6 lbs // 3.8 kgs worth of books (~3000 total pages) 🥰

Celestial Navigation is also INCREDIBLY popular, and Sabre has been incredibly generous answering asks on her tumblr + writing additional one-shots in the universe. There is also a veritable volume of fanart. I was so inspired by seeing @robins-egg-bindery copy of ********, with its appendix of fanart & meta, that I promptly copied them.

fanart redacted because lots of the artists are no longer active on tumblr but just know i am ECSTATIC about the amount of art in these books

Lastly, I love how @clovenhoofbindery includes their 'Illustrator mess' with their bind posts, as a behind-the-scenes look into the wild process of designing these books. I don't actually have an Illustrator mess for this book (the chapter titles & title page pretty much came in one take), but I do have a DYING MESS. It took me sososo many tries to figure out how to get the dye to look how I imagined in my head. I ended up 'dye painting' instead of tie-dying in the end, but my inbox is always open to chat hand-dying/tie-dying/dyepainting (or what I did differently between any of these attempts). Numbers are the dying attempt.

Last process shot: I hand-dyed variegated linen thread to match the colors of the bind, which ends up being incredibly difficult to see on the finished bind, but was super fun while I was sewing!

Materials:

Body font: Kepler

Title font: Compaq 1982

Chapter number font: aliens & cows

Endpapers: recolored versions of the star chart used by Michael Collins during the Apollo 11 mission (archived at The Smithsonian)

Bookcloth: dyed using Dharma Trading Procion Fiber-Reactive Dyes

Title page and chapter headers: designed in Photoshop using the Ultimate Space brush pack by jeffrettalyn on DeviantArt

Metallic embroidery thread: Cosmo Nishikiito thread

I would dye for this embroidery thread. It is LIGHT YEARS better than the classic metallic embroidery thread from DMC: much easier to work with & much more sparkly. Literally so eye-catching; it truly doesn't translate to photos.

Paint for edges: Daniel Smith watercolor tubes in Iridescent Sunstone and Prussian Blue

Note: these are GORGEOUS watercolors. The color is so saturated and strong and beautiful BUT I don't think I'd recommend watercolors for edge painting. They went on very differently depending on the grit of the sandpaper I used for the edges + they sometimes bled into the pages + they had to be set with fixative, which then stuck the pages together.

[ywpd-translations]

Masterpost of everything you need to know about this blog!

Hello, I'm Fyki and I created this blog to post the tranlsations of the Yowamushi Pedal manga. I know many of you have been following me for a long time, but I decided to make this masterpost so that new user can know everything they need!

You can also find me here:

Main blog

AO3 for my writing

And if you want to support me, you can buy me a coffee!! ☕ That would mean a lot <33

So! (under cut because it's a bit long)

First things first: I am NOT a professional translator, nor am I a professional Japanese speaker. I learned Japanese precisely to be able to read Yowapeda, and then since no one else was translating it and I love this manga so much, I decided to use what little knowledge I had to translate it. This is to say that these translations contain errors, especially those of the older chapters.

2. You can find everything in this Google Drive folder: LINK

3. Translations start from chapter 422, which corresponds to the end of the fourth season of the anime - basically, translations start from the start of the third day of the second Inter High. Chapter 424 has only the last few pages translated, and chapter 425 is not translated - for both it's because I didn't tranlsate the scenes that were already in the last episode of the anime.

4. Some chapters are typesetted, but mostly they aren't. When I first started I was trying to typeset too, but it was too much work; then during the years some people offered to give me a hand and that's why some chapters are typesetted. For the non typesetted chapters, in each folder there's the raw pages and the translations file.

5. Everything is also here on tumblr at @yowapeda-translations. That was my first blog, but then tumblr for some reason flagged it as containing mature contents, and that created some problems with the search and the visibility, which is why I made this new blog.

6. I post the new chapter every week, usually during the weekend, so you expect it between Friday and Sunday, depending on how long it is, how difficult, and how much time I have.

7. I LOVE talking about this manga, it's the reason I started doing this in the first place! So if you wanna chat, share theories, fangirl together, please do!! I am extremely slow in replying to asks and messages, but that's because I have little time, but I promise you I will reply!

8. Please if you want to use my translations to typeset or for anything else, ask me first!

I think this is all, but if you have any question feel free to send an ask or a message!! <33

[mothmanmademedoit]

Finally done with Keep It Steady, Eddie! By outofmygourd on AO3.

I love this fic a lot, it was my first long fic in the fandom and I fell in love, so I needed to have it as a physical book to annotate it and highlight everything.

The lovely art on the cover is by @nadiasna7 who was kind enough to let me use it, thank you!

I don't remember what font I used for the text because the typeset was made ind December, but I'll add it later if I remember. The chapter design was made on Canva.

I'm pretty happy with how it turned out and so happy to be back to binding! It's been a pretty rough few months (I lost my job and haven't been able to get a new one yet and I got dumped) but this is something that brings me a lot of joy so I'm excited to be back.

Please dm me if we were talking and I haven't answered yet! I'm a mess keeping up with chats but I'm trying to be on top of things now.

[jaysbraindump]

Turning @aletterinthenameofsanity 's victor au into a physical book: update 2.5

Decided this is a cleaner way to update instead of reblogging the same post over and over with the updates. Kenna if you would like me to stop tagging you in the updates just let me know and I shall

I never actually posted the link to the fic I was binding so here you go:

https://archiveofourown.org/series/4206124

(I'm binding the main timeline fics currently, not the au ones)

I don't have any real updates as of right now, but I was chatting with the wonderful @bohemian-rhapsody-in-blue about potential cover designs because I have no ideas and she provided a wonderful draft that I felt needed to be shared

I'm going out of town tomorrow so I won't be able to work on the actual typesetting at all for a couple of days (literally only two but still) so I'm gonna dedicate time to figuring out a cover + working on my own hunger games au while I'm inspired

That is all, stay tuned for a proper full update later

[szynkaaa]

Bookbinding Supplies + Typesets

I have decided to put all the book binding tools and supplies I use into a google sheet, including links where to purchase them.

Please note that I am located in Germany, therefore most of the shop links are stores based in Germany - however, I'm sure you can find similiar tools or alternatives in your home country too :)

This is not a "you have to have this" kinda list, it's just tools that *I* use to make my books, a lot of them are nice-to-haves.

Here is a list of available typesets I have.

Please fill out the Google Form to request access to them.

There has been several cases of people using typesets to mass print and sell fanfics at a profit. The google form is a way for me to track who I have shared the typeset with and whether I want to share it with you in the first place or not.

If you have any questions regarding book binding, how to get started, or just want to chat about fandom things, my DMs are always open!

Website Instagram Ko-fi Shop

[spnfanficpond]

Weekly Pond Newsletter

It's Daylight Saving Time again in the US! (It's coming for the rest of you soon enough.) Yes, it's that time of year when we lose an hour and all get cranky and have more heart attacks and car accidents. I wonder if we could Tulpa DST away, somehow? Like, if we all just thought about it hard enough all at the same time.... Of course, arranging the "at the same time" part of that would be a nightmare because of, you know, DST and time zones and such.

Old Business:

Poll results - Last week, we asked you all if you would be interested in learning about typesetting or fanbinding, and the answer was an overwhelming YES! We will keep this in mind and work on making this happen!

Monthly Prompt - The monthly prompt post went up and it's all about Sky and Water! Tag us in anything this inspires you to create so we can signal boost it!

Angel Fish Awards - The post for February went up, and the winner of the raffle was @spn-fanfic-reblog-writes!

SPN Rewatch: Fanfic Edition - We had another great chat, this time about the last two episodes in season 1! Check out the Archive masterlist for links to the docs for each episode to read all about it. Remember, if these ideas inspire you to write anything, let us know so we can signal boost it!

#TweetFicTues - Last week's prompts were:

New Business:

Steve Carlson Stageit today - Later today, Steve Carlson will be doing an online concert on Stageit! Click here for more info and to get tickets!

Conventions - AHBL is happening right now in Melbourne, and Creation Burbank is next weekend! So much new content from our cast! If you're attending a con and want to meet up with other Pondies, we have channels in our Discord server for that. Check them out!

Fishing For Treasures - Next weekend is FFT weekend here at the Pond, and the theme for March is CROSSOVER FICS! Drop your links in either the FFT channel in the Discord server or our inbox here by Friday, Midnight, EDT!

Manta Ray chat - Admin Michelle will be spending some time in the Discord server next weekend. Keep an eye out for announcements with the day and time!

St Patrick's Day is next weekend! Give us your favorite leprechaun or otherwise Irish-related fics in the replies and reblogs so we all can celebrate!

POLL - Since so many folks are interested in typesetting and/or fanbinding, and these seem like topics that would require video, would you all be okay with Zoom as a platform for these tutorials?

(Divider by @glygriffe!)

That's all for this week! To see all Pond events, and also other SPN-related things like conventions and online concerts, check out our Google calendar! Click here for a static view in Eastern US/Canada time (desktop only, no mobile app access, sadly), and click here to add our calendar to your own Google calendar! We try to keep it as up-to-date as possible. If there's something you want to see on the calendar that's not there (maybe a convention we missed, cast birthdays, or something similar), send us an ASK and let us know!

Hope you have a great week! - From your Admins and Manta Rays, @manawhaat, @mrswhozeewhatsis, @mariekoukie6661, @thoughtslikeaminefield, @spencereliotwinchester and @heavenssexiestangel!