#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!

[leofromsomewhere]

Chat I fucked up.

Finally finished typesetting IDOAG in google docs, only to realize oh shit books are double sided. google docs can't do alternating margins. pages does have this feature. alas, copy+pasting the whole thing into pages did not work because font sizes or some shit idk what happened but there's like 5 words per page. also I don't know how to use pages I haven't used pages since I was like 7. idk what to do. This has taken me several weeks already, on a platform I was already proficient in, and I've lost my best dedicated chunk of time.

[calicohyde]

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

[phoenixortheflame]

Bound: Fire and Blood by @sleepstxtic

Typeset and bound by: me, @phoenixortheflame. Featuring art by: @wickedcircle

To prevent the Dance of Dragons from decimating what is left of House Targaryen, Luke offers his hand in marriage to Aemond — who accepts with one caveat: that they perform an ancient Valyrian public-sex rite in the dragonpit, as recompense for Aemond’s lost eye. This is a story of what comes before, and after.

I had the pleasure of alpha/beta-reading this fic. Or, as I said to Kat, this "whole-ass fantasy novel". It's got epic battle scenes, espionage, political turmoil, and sexy times on dragon-back.

I knew even when Kat was still writing it that I'd be binding it.

And not just because the fic is amazing. KAT is amazing. If you've ever had the chance to chat with her, you know she's one of the kindest, smartest, most charming humans on the planet. It's such a joy to call her my friend — and to have the privilege of reading her amazing writing.

For my design concept, I knew I wanted it to emulate George R. R. Martin's high-fantasy covers, which often features some sort of emblem or crest along with some very bold lettering.

I also had the opportunity to use this incredible fan art from @wickedcircle, which is just begging to be on the cover. So, I did what any sane person would do and created an alternate cover, which I used to make a paperback for myself.

The hard cover case is made with black book cloth and Lacquered Yuzen Paper, which has an embossed texture and gorgeous shine. I knew the second I saw it that I needed it for this bind.

As always, I made a cheeky little barcode for the dust jacket. It's a quote from a very, err, HOT scene. Hot! Like, temperature-wise. Sort of.

The typeset was made in Affinity Publisher. In fact, it was my first typeset made in Affinity, and I'm super happy with how it turned out!

It's not my typical aesthetic, and I was worried it might look tacky. But I think it fits the vibe perfectly. It probably helps that I included the other pieces of art @wickedcircle made to go alongside this fic, because, well LOOK AT THEM!!!!

Also, peep the red thread, which I used to sew the signatures together. I'd seen a few people use red thread for their binds, and I've been itching for an excuse to bust it out.

[plor-bindery]

(Re)Bound: Polar Night/Midnight Sun by me (@toomuchplor)

It’s been nearly a year since I started bookbinding, so I decided it was time to revisit the first fic I ever set.

I'll do a post with side-by-side photos another time but suffice it to say, it's not so clear to me that it's like 'first book bad, this book good'.

And if you're like, wow, Plor is posting a lot of binds this week -- you are correct. I'm on vacation this week, but also I'm wrapping up a few things that were WIPs for weeks. Lots of victory laps, but this is the last one!

I did my first typeset in Word before quickly switching to InDesign (which I have for work reasons anyway) so I wound up designing from scratch. (By the way, I’m very happy to share typesets if anyone is ever interested — for personal use only, of course!)

I used Canva to create the cover page and chapter headers in this cute watercolour style. And the end papers are pretty chiyogami from a paper store in Toronto.

I rounded the spine, but it didn’t need backing as the swell wasn’t much. I am still figuring out rounding for sure — the hardest part is getting the text block and spine stable enough to trim the head and tail straight afterwards, at least for me!

Sewn faux double core silk endbands on a 2 mm leather cord core.

I dithered about the case cover art for weeks while I did a million other projects. I knew I wanted to try something new but couldn’t find the right approach or technique to inspire me. Then I randomly tried a paper onlay for a blank book I was making and had my eureka moment.

The cover design is drawn by me in Illustrator, then cut from chiyogami by my cricut. I used a PVA/corn starch paste 50-50 mix to glue on the paper directly to the cover before the gold HTV outline was applied. The gold is partly decorative and partly to protect the edge of the onlay from friction/wear.

I am obsessed with how this looks. It’s quilting and paper art and mosaic all together? I can see myself doing this style more for sure.

One challenge is that once it’s glued up, you have exactly one chance to place the paper onlay on the cover — you can’t pick it up and try again because even with mix, the glue marks the fabric. So you need steady hands and good planning. I’m wondering about transfer tape or maybe even post it flags to help guide me in future projects? I'm pleased with the result but it could be better.

After all that sweating and work, I was paranoid about wear and tear on the paper, so I made a dust jacket. (Shout out to @citrusses for advice and emotional support during lamination time, and to lately for chatting with me and advising me as I did the paper onlay design and work!)

[kulapti]

Bookbinding of Carmilla by Sheridan le Fanu, Jan/Feb 2025.

Handmade custom copy of Carmilla using my typeset from the Renegade 2024 Tiny Books Bang! I made my own illustrations for this typeset, which was super fun, and you can find those in a separate post on my blog. Each of the four parts has a section illustration and different decorative margins, two of which you can see in the photos here. I used several pieces of butterfly imagery to reference Carmilla's line about girls being like caterpillars. There are several hidden critters in the margin illustrations. The title page is probably my favorite.

I was weird enough in the chat to convince a friend to read this novella and they liked it a lot, so I bound this copy for them! This tiny book uses hooked endpapers, a historic style I have been trying to master, and this one turned out quite well. This style involves being able to see into the hinge of the book, and the endpapers are decorative, rather than structural. If you want to see the difference, check out a mass produced book with decorative paper in the front: there's a single folded sheet of paper on each end of the book that glues the textblock (stack of pages) to each cover. In my book here, that paper is not a single piece but instead two pieces, and the textblock is held on to the covers by its spine instead. I finally remembered to put in an oxford hollow, which allows the cover to flex properly instead of being glued directly to the spine.

[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!

[kiwiana-writes]

Fandom Trumps Hate 2025 - kiwiana

The browsing period is officially open for @fandomtrumpshate and I'm offering THREE items this year!

Fanfic, 5-10k, Red White & Royal Blue, any rating

Fanfic, up to 5k, Red White & Royal Blue OR Schitt's Creek OR The Pairing, any rating

Typeset (digital offering only, NOT a fanbind), 50k+, Red White & Royal Blue OR any fandom I've created for previously, any rating

If you have a specific kink in mind or are looking for something that might require an archive warning, come chat to me before bidding—happy to talk it through, I’m pretty open to most things whether I've previously written them (in this fandom or another) or not, but want to make sure I can deliver for you before you bid.

If you want to use this to get me to finish a WIP you know about I’m also open to that, but again come talk to me first as I have more flexibility on the direction/length of some of those than others, and I want you to get something that’s for YOU.

For RWRB, I'm happy to write either book!verse or movie!verse but I don't combine them—this is very much a me thing, I get way too caught up in my own head if I have to try to merge multiple canons. So if you want June or Liam or Rafael (my beloveds) I'm afraid you can't also have Miguel… or an Alex that's over six feet tall 🤣 Unless you specifically tell me otherwise it'll be book!verse just because that's what I'm more familiar with, but I'm more than down to write in the movie world.

Bidding opens February 25th and closes March 1st, but you can browse both my offers and everyone else's now!

[saradika]

Do you mind posting more photos of your bookbinding project of “Bleed for Me”? 🥺 I’m so curious what it looks like

ahh hi anon!! 🥺💖 I was so excited to get this - I would LOVE to chat more about fic binding! and sorry this took a minute to answer, bleed for me had been one of my earlier binds, and while I’m definitely still proud, I’ve also grown a bit - so I decided to re-do it! 💕 and have the new finished bind + some descriptions below | fic here!

I did the same design for the front and back, just with red holo htv (heat transfer vinyl) instead of dark red matte, and I made a dust jacket this time as well!

I also used faux leather! and did custom heart & star/moon charms for the bookmark ribbon 🌙

the dust jacket is also dual-sided! 🥀

last time I did scrapbook paper for the end pages, and this time I designed custom pages - roses again, with fic quotes on the front and back

and then here’s images of the typeset! you download the fic from ao3, and then format. I chose a gothic font for the chapter titles & drop cap, and then used illustrations of castles for the chapter headers. when you’re done, you print it out into signatures, and sew them together - you can see my stitches in some of the photos!

more images, showing dividers & drop caps!

I also added the bonus boba chapter, using different castle images! 💕

I definitely made some mistakes still on this, but it was a lot of fun to see what I learned! An example is last time - I used way too much heat on the covers (you can’t see it too much in the photos but irl the glue seeps around the designs!) - I did a lot better this time!!! I also made the margins smaller, and didn’t paint the edges red this time. The paint got flaky, I’ve heard people use ink, so I am going to try that next time!

thank you again for asking! If you’d like to see any details or have questions please let me know!! 💖

[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.

[plor-bindery]

Bound: Our Objective Remains Unchanged

This is a collab with @kissmypoets-hp!!! They did the cover art and also collaborated with me on the typeset using their mad InDesign skills. I did the printing and binding.

The book copy I sent to Kiss just arrived, so I can share. (I’ve promised a copy to the author too, but we’ve also been chatting collabs so we’ve agreed it will come a little later…yay!)

The fic is, of course, the amazing Oxford rowing AU by @citrusses, Our Objective Remains Unchanged.

Kiss has been making all these beautiful digital covers in the Penguin Classics style and using classic artworks for the cover image. I asked whether we could collab on making one of these into a real paperback as I was learning how to do paperback binding, and they said yes! We settled on this fic because we both love it to pieces. Harry’s characterization is so sharp and real and yet so faithful to canon even in a muggle AU. Citrusses’ world-building is rich and delicious. And her Draco is heartbreaking and perfect.

The photos!

Process and materials under the cut.

Materials:

This was not my first attempt at a paperback with a colour printed cover — the actual first is still in the mail, so remains secret — but I was definitely still working out a technique here. I wound up using a heavier print paper and having Staples do the printing, then sealing with matte Mod Podge spray acrylic.

The text block was more straightforward — just ledger quarto paper 24#, double fan bind. I printed using my home laser black printer which has some pretty big margins, so I had to set up the typeset to accommodate some bigger trims to make Kiss’s full bleed artwork work properly.

Process:

The cover was the struggle. Staples does colour prints with toner, not ink, and the toner likes to crack and flake where the paper is scored/bent. The Mod Podge helps a bit. I still had to touch up with a sharpie in places, lol. I am also still figuring out how to score and fold neatly so the spine is centered. Add to this the headache and cost and wait to get stuff printed by them, and it wound up being quite high-stakes to get the covers done this way.

I also have been following Das’s method where you clamp the glued spine of the block (pre-cover) using two strips of wood, and I think I am over-clamping because the spine is often concave when dry. Next go, I will try no clamping and see how it goes.

But! I have recently acquired a colour inkjet printer! That does wide format and borderless! And has ink tanks!!! So more paperbacks are coming for sure. Also probably some hardcovers with wraps.

All told, it was a delightful process collaborating with Kiss and I would 💯 do it again in a heartbeat. I learned so much working with them!