#foil quill

[starblightbindery]

Animorphs #20-22 by @kaaauthor

This is a remake of a book I made almost exactly two years ago. That was the 11th book I ever made and this one is the 50th (!) I asked K.A. Applegate to sign the book while it was still in sheets, so I only had one chance to get it right.

🐅 Animorphs 20-22 was the first serialized arc in the 90s book series.

🐅 The heroes recruit a new kid to their guerilla team and grant him morphing powers, only for his selfish and sociopathic tendencies to jeopardize their fight against the alien invasion.

🐅 Young readers were challenged by this subversion of the "new kid" trope and the moral dilemma that developed. Do they kill a fellow teammate? How else can they neutralize him?

🐅 ALSO: Can these middle schoolers crash the G7 Summit and save Boris Yeltsin, Bill Clinton, and other heads of state from infestation?

Foil Quill on Verona bookcloth, with iridescent calligraphy ink edges. I wanted to give this trilogy the special edition it deserves.

[plor-bindery]

I just tested out a foil quill for the first time and it's glorious. (The illegal We R Memory Keepers version for Cricut -- tried the Cricut one first and it's dogshit.) Cannot wait to inflict foiled covers on all of you in the near future.

[silverskye13]

the godawful hels-mirror of helsknight being a growing force, fighting with vigor and pale hair and freckles to EB's slowly dimming star. a frustrating reminder that hels would continue once EB did not. a fresh face full of poetry and naive notions of honor. desperate to prove himself in the way of children longing to be taken seriously.

and EB watching, now sure of himself and his place in the world, no longer vying for life, helpless to do any more than return the favor as helsknight's hair dulled and his poetic faded into raging impotence. a burning need to prove himself in the way of dying men clawing at the world desperate to leave a mark of their existence.

And the universe said: I feel nothing for you, for you came from nothing

[navigateme]

A Black Mass Over Highway Ninety by Greenvlvetcouch continues to be one of my favorite fics and I was so excited to bind this!

Huge shoutout to @vellichorbindery for letting me use this gorgeous typeset

I really wanted to build in a folding map so that I could have it open and follow along with the story. I think the map was originally made a while ago by greenvlvetcouch in response to a tumblr ask and I just added some graphics to it.

[neptunesenceladus]

for my siblings birthday I bound a copy of The Lost and Forgotten by @litcraz

I typeset this fic awhile ago and then printed it at the start of the year to slowly work on over a few months. It was also my first time using a foil quill, which was certainly an adventure and something I’m hoping to get more practice with in my next bind (you can see the spiderweb is a little dodgy in places haha)

In the future, for works of this size I may experiment with larger signatures for less swell. I did 24 for this one but I might try 32 at some point.

Overall I learnt a lot through this bind and I’m so excited to do more. Thinking of trying to make a dust cover to go with it but that depends on my printer behaving (it hates me)

[bookwyrm35]

YES! I have always thought of Holly's color being red! (with variations of pink but that's besides the point. I'm actually really surprised people peg her as yellow, that was never the feeling I got from her). And I love the little note that her being red would make Skull and Holly direct opposites because yes.

I never even considered what Quill's color could be but you make a very good case for purple. He's described as wearing a black turtle neck (I belive) the first time Lockwood and Co. sees him after he steps down from Fittes, but now I can almost see it as a being a kind of midnight purple and I'm not mad.

I recently finished reading all the Lockwood & Co books, and my god they were good, but it got me thinking. If the show continued, like it deserved too, would Holly and Kipps have gotten a signature color the same way the trio did? If so what would they be? Well I was looking at twitter and I saw that most people agree that Holly's color would be yellow, and Kipps' would be white, and I'll be honest I disagree so badly I'm about to write an essay. It's funny because I distinctly remember finishing the books and thinking, "ah watch everyone put their colors as yellow and white cause it's easy". LOUD INCORRECT BUZZER. Y'all just don't get color theory OR the characters the way I do so listen up.

Holly is many things. She's positive, and compassionate, and kind, but she is so much more than that. She's not just a "yellow", yes maybe she is the sunshine of the group, but honestly? Not really, and that's ok. She's fierce and sometimes she has a short temper, she pretends to let everything slide off her shoulder, when really she's just keeping it inside. That's why her and Lucy are constantly budding heads in the beginning of their friendship, they are so similar. I think her color should be red. She's constantly described as wearing it, and I think it really fits her. Red represents passion, energy, confidence, and excitement to name a few. Holly is always described as having a presence, and her energy and enthusiasm comes off her in waves. Red is usually described as the color of love, and I still think that fits. She has such love for the entire crew, and it's so clear she would go to the ends of the earth for them. I also think this would blend in with the others very well. Despite it not actually being blue's real opposite, blue and red are often seen as polar opposites, which really fits for Lucy and Holly's dynamic. It also works because red and orange are both warm colors and George and Holly have always gotten along. They are similar in their methodical and sometimes odd ways of life. I also think it's fun cause Skully's color is green, and green are red are direct color wheel opposites. I'm pretty sure he hates her the most, but Kipps is also competing hard for that title. And lastly black is kinda the color in between, now more on that in a second.

I see what twitter was going for, Lucy and George are blue and orange, direct color wheel opposites, because they are quite literally direct opposites. So it makes sense for Kipps to be white since he's the direct opposite of Lockwood? LOUD INCORRECT BUZZER AGAIN. Tell me y'all didn't understand their dynamic without telling me. Lockwood and Kipps didn't get along cause they were so different, they butted heads so hard because of how similar they are. It's exactly what happened with Lucy and Holly. Plus white represents a lot of things that are definitely not Kipps. My proposed color for him is purple, I know that's a little odd, but walk with me. Although it's never explicitly stated, one can assume that Kipps was an absolute prodigy when he had his talents. I only bring this up, because purple often represents royalty and luxury, and he practically became a fallen king when he lost the only thing he was ever good at it. But purple is much more than that, it also represents bravery, uniqueness. ambition, and justice. I think Kipps' original color is grey, and not just because of the uniform. Grey represents seriousness, sadness, and boredom. That's how Kipps was before, but when he remeets the crew during book 3 and 4, we begin to see the shift. The group helps him gain his ambition back, and with all of their love and support we even begin to see how brave he really is. He has a unique way of going through life, and even when all the odds are stacked against them, he still seeks justice. Purple fits with the general color scheme as well. It's very close to black, which represents how similar him and Lockwood are, and it's also a cooler color like blue. Kipps and Lucy certainly got along the easiest out of the crew.

Overall it just makes sense. George and Holly are the warmer colors, Lucy and Kipps the cooler, and Lockwood as the mediator between them. I feel like red might be a little hard to incorporate without being overpowering, and I know that purple isn't a super masculine color, but hell if those costume designer made full orange outfits look good they can literally do anything. Anyways I know this isn't that important, but ugh I love color theory so much, and I love how much thought the costume designers put in the first time. I feel like having Holly and Kipps color being yellow and white is just a cheap easy shot, and doesn't take into account the characters and their growth enough. I rest my case.

[teleportbooks]

Ficbinding: Salvage by @muffinlance (typeset by @no-name-publishing)

I've recently been getting back into AtLA fic as my kids are watching the series. I was already thinking about binding Salvage when I realized that @no-name-publishing had already typeset it; thank you for letting me use your work!

The marbled paper on the cover is a piece I made myself a few months ago, but unfortunately I only had one letter-sized sheet and couldn't do a standard paper w/leather spine cover. But restriction breeds creativity as the saying goes, so I cut the paper on the diagonal, and built the rest of the cover around that.

I decided that a wave pattern would look cool to fill the remaining space, so I cut a stencil with my Silhouette and painted the design with Angelus leather paint, which I used for the first time here and can't recommend enough for applying titles/designs on leather covers. The endpapers were done with the foil quill attachment; both designs are from this artist.

I have told my eldest that she can read this if she's very careful with it :D

[chaoticbindery]

Salvage by MuffinLance

I completed this baby back in October early November it was painfully fun, lol. Shoutout to @no-name-publishing for sharing their typeset with me!

Below the line, there is more information and photos on this bind!

The foiling took about 8-9 hours or so. There was a lot of trial and error, and I ruined about 3 books worth of bookcloth. I ran through all my heat reactive silver foil (neverforget✊️)before I was able to compelte it. I used foil I got from a bindery that is closing down, I used my new cameo, and the memory keepers heat foil quills.

I was originally going to use The Great Wave off Kanagawa as my cover art, but my friends talked me out of it, and I'm glad since, had I not listened, it may have taken longer. The sound of the cameo working will haunt my nightmares. My spouse was dreading their life choices. "Why did I buy her the machine from hell?" Cause you love me, my sweet honeybooboo, that's why.

I used 28lb paper for this puppy, my printer was such a good boy and printed it out without a single issue (bless you babe I will thank you first when I get a trophy one of these days) but after I folded it it was like 3 inches wide and I got so scared for my life.

I used remie band and linen thread (only the best for you, my precious), I made headbands with the bookcloth and l2mm leather core, and I used glue and kozo paper to strengthen the rounded spine.

Rounding and backing almost made me cry, but I had DAS there with me. Also, shoutout to my friend's cousin for the backing and routing boards and Jim with ABE for the wonderful laying press.

The endpapers are from De Milo Design. They are handmade, and I got them at a local faire. They are beautiful!

The bookcloth is from BookcraftSupplyCo in CA!

If you would like to learn more about bookbinding, consider joining @renegadepublishing

[infiniteglitterfall]

A Chabad synagogue in Pomona, New York, burned to the ground on April 17th, along with its three Torah scrolls.

Torah scrolls are hand-written, hand-made, and kept in elaborately decorated cases or wrappings.

Many of them have long histories; my synagogue has two, I think, that were smuggled out of villages being destroyed in pogroms or in Nazi attacks. One of them is the only remaining piece of that village on earth.

Sometimes, the Torah scroll doesn't even belong to the synagogue, but is on loan from a place like the Memorial Scrolls Trust:

There's an entire Jewish holiday just for taking them out and dancing with them: Simchat Torah, "The Joy of Torah."

In fact, that was the holiday on which Hamas's invasion took place.

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A post shared by We Are Tov (@wearetov)

So it's a particular tragedy when a Torah is destroyed.

Chabad itself has a page about what goes into making just one Torah scroll:

"An authentic Torah scroll is a mind-boggling masterpiece of labor and skill. Comprising between 62 and 84 sheets of parchment -- cured, tanned, scraped and prepared according to exacting Torah law specifications -- and containing exactly 304,805 letters, the resulting handwritten scroll takes many months to complete.

"An expert pious scribe carefully inks each letter with a feather quill, under the intricate calligraphic guidelines of Ktav Ashurit (Ashurite Script). The sheets of parchment are then sewn together with sinews to form one long scroll. While most Torah scrolls stand around two feet in height and weigh 20-25 pounds, some are huge and quite heavy, while others are doll-sized and lightweight."

I learned all of this on Tumblr.

Once upon time, in people's "punch Nazis" days, I would've been able to find some mention on Tumblr of this synagogue burning.

There is none, so I'm posting about it.

And I'm going to quote Daniel Weiner, Rabbi of Temple de Hirsch Sinai in Bellevue, Washington, when his own synagogue was vandalized last November:

"It’s horrific and heartbreaking.... [Taking out your feelings about] what's going on in the Middle East by defacing a sacred space of a synagogue -- that’s the very definition of antisemitism."

I'm also posting about the Kehillat Shaarei Torah Synagogue in Toronto, whose windows were broken on Friday, April 19th, by someone who also tried to break the front door down.

And the April 15 graffiti outside a Bangor, Maine synagogue that said, "Nazi Israel 30K murdered," next to a crossed-out Star of David. The same synagogue faced pro-Hamas flyers plastered around it in November.

I was going to include all the synagogues vandalized over the past six months. But there are way too many. Several every week. Lots are swastikas.

I'll go back to just doing attacks on and near synagogues.

Someone has to talk about the 1-year-old who was stabbed outside Temple Beth Zion-Beth Israel (BZBI) synagogue, in Philadelphia, on April 13th.

The foiled terrorist attack on a Moscow synagogue on April 11th.

The man who, on April 9th, screamed at the rabbi at Moldova's Great Synagogue, "What are you doing here? How come no one has finished you off for everything you are doing to the Palestinians?" Just one week after people had vandalized a Holocaust memorial in nearby Soroka, and sprayed "Free Palestine" on it.

The Oldenburg, Germany synagogue that was firebombed on April 5th.

The Florida Las Olas Chabad Jewish Center, which on March 16 burned, but not to the ground. The Torah scrolls were safe, and no one was hurt, but the back of the building was severely damaged.

The planned-but-thwarted-on-March-7th ISIS massacre in a Moscow synagogue.

The stabbing of an Orthodox Jew in Switzerland on March 5th. (He was badly injured, but expected to survive.)

A man leaving a synagogue in Paris was beaten on March 3rd.

People set the courtyard of a synagogue in Sfax, Tunisia on fire on February 27th. Firefighters managed to put the fire out before it consumed the inside of the building.

The synagogue is no longer used; there are no Jews left in its area, and fewer than 1,000 Jews left in Tunisia overall.

(Thousands of Tunisian Jews were sent to work camps during the Holocaust. Antisemitism across the Middle East continued to increase rapidly for decades. By the 1970s, 90% of Tunisian Jews had fled to France or Israel.)

On February 18, an Orthodox Jew leaving Synagogue of Inverrary-Chabad in Lauderhill, Florida, was beaten by an attacker yelling racial slurs.

Someone deliberately chose International Holocaust Remembrance Day, January 27, to smash all the windows in the front of Sgoolai Israel Synagogue in downtown Fredericton, New Brunswick.

On December 29, Turkey arrested 32 people linked to ISIS who were planning attacks on synagogues and churches.

On December 17, a man drove a U-Haul truck up onto the sidewalk between a barrier and the front door of the Kesher Israel Congregation in Washington D.C., got out, and started yelling "Gas the Jews." He also sprayed a foul-smelling substance on two people leaving the synagogue.

December 17 also saw 400 synagogues across the United States receive bomb threats.

On December 11, a man attacked an elderly couple on their way into a synagogue in Los Angeles, screaming, "Give me your earrings, Jew!!" and beating one of them bloody with a belt. (Happily, he chased the guy down the street, and caught him when his pants fell down.)

On December 10, a 16-year-old was arrested in Vienna for planning an attack on a synagogue.

On December 8, on the first night of Hanukkah, 15 synagogues in New York State received bomb threats. And someone screamed, "Free Palestine," and fired shots outside of Temple Israel in Albany, NY. Which has a preschool that was in session.

Meanwhile, the five Jews left in Egypt were canceling public Hanukkah candle-lighting at their synagogue out of fear of reprisals. Particularly after two Israelis in Alexandria had been gunned down by terrorists on October 8. (While Israel was still fighting Hamas in Israel.)

On November 15, a terrorist group set the only synagogue in Armenia on fire.

Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA) has a history of working with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).

(PFLP is part of Hamas's network of groups. Samidoun is their nonprofit arm - which is why Germany banned Samidoun last year, although it's still active in many other countries.

PFLP is also actively supported by the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), a diaspora nonprofit group, and Within Our Lifetime (WOL), an SJP spinoff in NYC.)

On November 11, halfway through Shabbat services, police asked Central Shul in Melbourne, Australia to evacuate "as a precaution" due to a "pro-Palestinian" protest that had chosen the neighboring park as its gathering place. Australia has seen some very outspoken antisemitism at protests, including the march shortly after October 7 that chanted "Gas the Jews."

Also on November 11, protesters targeted a synagogue along a march route. They sat in their cars, spraying green smoke and shouting at people leaving the synagogue. The march itself featured a record number of horrifying signs and chants.

On November 7th, Congregation Beth Tikvah in Montreal was firebombed, and the back door of the Jewish organization across the street (Federation CJA) was set on fire.

On November 4, protesters chanted "Bomb Israel," and burned an Israeli flag outside the only synagogue in Malmo, Sweden.

During October, there were 501 antisemitic acts under investigation in France in just three weeks, including groups gathering in front of synagogues shouting threats, and graffiti such as the words “killing Jews is a duty” sprayed outside a stadium.

On October 18, people firebombed a synagogue in Berlin after homes all over the neighborhood were graffitied with stars of David.

And also on October 18, hundreds of "pro-Palestine" rioters attacked the Or Zaruah Synagogue, in the Spanish enclave of Melilla in North Africa, while worshippers were inside.

Based on the video, they seem to have blocked the synagogue entrance completely, while screaming "Murderous Israel" and waving Palestinian flags. (Melilla is an autonomous zone belonging to Spain. It borders Morocco.)

On October 17, during pro-Palestinian protests, hundreds of rioters set fire to Al Hammah synagogue, an abandoned house of prayer in central Tunisia. They hammered down the building’s walls and raised a Palestinian flag on the building. Police did not intervene.

The Facebook page "Tunigate", which has around 88 thousand followers, published a video of the assault. So did "Radio Bousalem”, with 83 thousand users. The vast majority of comments on these videos welcome these acts. The building was severely damaged and almost completely razed to the ground.

On October 15, bomb threats were sent to many East Coast synagogues. Attleboro synagogue Congregation Agudas-Achim received one of the emails, which read, "The bombs will blow up in a few hours. A lot of people will die. You all deserve to die."

On October 8 -- again, while Hamas was still in Israel -- Madrid’s main synagogue was defaced with graffiti that read “Free Palestine” next to a crossed-out Star of David.

And on October 7, an assailant in Rockland, NY fired a BB gun at two women entering a synagogue. Later in the month, a banner at the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue in the area was vandalized with the words, “Fuckin kikes."

[itripandfallalot]

these two. they have to be some of my favorite characters to write in a scene together. the banter. the sass. they both love the challenge. the rise they get from each other. they crave the competition and need the outlet.

is my favorite pairing male foils?!? it may very well be. the snarkier, the better.

ʟᴏᴄᴋᴡᴏᴏᴅ & ᴄᴏ. | ʟᴏᴄᴋᴡᴏᴏᴅ + ᴋɪᴘᴘꜱ ʜᴀᴘᴘʏ ᴛᴏ ꜱᴇᴇ ᴇᴀᴄʜ ᴏᴛʜᴇʀ

[purplephloxpress]

Another year, another Fanfiction Writers Appreciation Day!!!! If you are a writer of fanfic, please know just how appreciated you are!! Fandom would be such a different space without your creativity and labors of love. 💜

Holidays are all about making traditions, and the bookbinding friends with @renegadeguild once again came together to bind copies of fics for their authors as a show of our appreciation. This year I had the absolute joy of binding Emergency Help Wanted by the wonderful @piyo-13 and even got to collaborate with her on some of the design elements! It's a Modern AU Jiang Cheng/Lan Xichen fic that starts with a "help wanted" ad.

EMERGENCY HELP WANTED

I lied when I got my job. I told them I had a kid so I could leave early from work to pick him up from daycare, take him to doctor's appointments, and occasionally miss a day when he's sick. Long story short, I'm in too deep. I didn't think it through. Looking to rent a kid for bring your child to work day. Must be a boy ages four to six, longish dark hair, likes soccer. Must also be artistic as the macaroni noodle paintings I made seem a little advanced for his age. Also, I will pay extra for someone willing to play the role of husband when dropping him off. He's a prosecuting attorney who often brings his work home. Message me for further details. Serious inquiries only.

Ok. So. I may have gone a little feral with this one. Online "help wanted" ad spiraled into loading wheel scene dividers, spiraled into fake Google search result headers, spiraled into FULLY committing to those authentic looking text messages. In full color. (There are so many. I typeset in MS Word. It was SO worth it, but god what a struggle at some points.) And don't forget the "recent searches" title page! Or the computer cutout on the cover! (It's bluescreening, just like Lan Xichen through this entire fic!) Also that cover/title page image that I just kept adding details to. (It's supposed to be Lan Xichen's desk, so it simply didn't feel right until it had sticky notes on the computer, #1 dad on the mug, scissors and measuring tape, scribbles on the sticky notes) Did I have a ton of fun designing this one? Perhaps. Couldn't say. Maybe just a tad. (This is a lie I had an ABSOLUTE BLAST!)

Historically, I've waited until I finish at least the typeset before reaching out to the author, but not so with this one! I got the idea for the fake google search results from Piyo's authors notes, teasing the contents of the next chapter. But! Those didn't start until about chapter 4! So I reached out and asked if we could collaborate and I'm forever glad I did! Not only does this have teasers for each chapter, I also got to bounce design ideas off of her, including what shade of blue and purple for the text messages. Because my friends, that is a serious matter and changed SEVERAL times throughout the process.

Also shoutout to all my Renegade friends who gave input and encouragement over the past year while I worked on this (what endpages to use? how to make this shade of green perfectly Nie Huaisang? how do we feel about this text message design? or how about this one?) - I love you all dearly and appreciate you so much for putting up with my nonsense at all times.

Binding details below the cut!

Fandom: The Untamed/Mo Dao Zu Shi

Pairing: Jiang Cheng | Jiang Wanyin / Lan Huan | Lan Xichen

Bookcloth: Aqua/Purple Dubletta from Colophon Book Arts

Endpapers: Craft Consortium Ink Drops - Ocean pack

Textblock paper: short grain cream from Church Paper

Titling: We R Memory Keepers foil quill

Endbands: leather cording core, DMC embroidery floss for the bands

Body Font: EB Garamond

Title Font: Berlin Sans FB

Text Messages: Roboto

Additional fonts: Times New Roman, Kunstler Script, Magis Authentic

Title page image from Rawpixel and designed in Canva

Various computer graphics from The Noun Project

Tumblr insists on eating and doubling text in this section at its own whim, so if there's something missing that you're curious about, feel free to DM me an ask!

[sits-bound]

Bound: All Our Gifts at Once, or, the Young Sea-Man by @tiltedsyllogism

This was a bind for one of my Fandom Trumps Hate auctions. It's a wonderful Sherlock fic/Little Mermaid AU. It's really quite beautiful and moody and atmospheric.

It's set in Victorian England, so I went pretty old-fashioned with my design, and I'm quite pleased with how it turned out. Each chapter opening page has a map of the area in the chapter title. I love the subtle "mermaid scale" detail of the end papers too.

I’m kind of obsessed with the fonts. For the body, I wanted something a bit old-fashioned. I have no idea if the one I chose, Schoolbook, is era-appropriate, but it just feels right. And I have used the cover/chapter title font, Roman Antique, on another bind, and I just really love it, particularly in italic. It has these wonderful alternate glyphs for many of the letters, and it lends itself to making a simple but beautiful design.

I don't often include the author notes in a bind, but these added so much to the story that I opted to leave them in.

More details:

Bookcloth is (I believe) Verona in Blueberry (bought from Hollander's)

Endbands are made from the bookcloth, I drew gold lines on it with my foil quill for funsies

Maps came from Etsy

The charm on the ribbon is a shell

The endpapers are from Joann's

Thanks again to @tiltedsyllogism for bidding on my auction!

[runawaymarbles]

Sheppard's Law, by @cesperanza

Version 3 of the fic I bound for the Renegade Bindery gift exchange! (you can see speranza and @gempothospress's versions here)

I had a lot of fun typesetting this--I took the epitaph motif from the section titles and ran with it. I have never seen any form of Stargate, so thanks to cesperanza and @annerbhp for consulting. Other things I hadn't done before making these three books: cover cutouts, or foil.

"I don't know much about Stargate," said I, "so I'll just put a Stargate on the cover. Should be pretty straightforward." I then proceeded to learn that foil quills were not my friend, that the cricut foil head was finicky as hell (it works beautifully on bookcloth-- but not on leather or buckram,) and in the case of this particular edition, remember too late that unlike leather and buckram, you cannot wipe glue off bookcloth with water. I think I might start taping wax paper over my covers when I'm casing in so that I stop having this problem.

That being said, both the foil and the cutouts were kind of addicting. So I might end up sneaking them into more books where they may or may not belong.

[crushribbons]

𝖇𝖎𝖗𝖉𝖎𝖊, 𝖕𝖙. 𝖎𝖎𝖎

summary: Sebastian Sallow is an unusually skilled legilimens, it turns out. (series masterlist)

cw: 5.3k words, S M U T (18+ ONLY), implications of dub-con!, on that inception-type shit, penetrative sex, oral sex (f receiving), sebastian sallow i know the little shit you are, fem/afab reader. requests open

a/n: alexa play it ain't over by the black keys cuz.........xx laney

There was nothing else to be done.

At least, that was what Sebastian told himself. It had reached a point of total hopelessness.

There was nothing else to do except take her to bed.

He was already being driven mad by love and lust in equal measure when he ran into her outside the prefects’ bathroom, and the sight of her exposed, flushed chest when her dressing gown slipped down had sent him over the edge. Barreling along the corridor after she ran away from him with a cry of disgust and frustration, he hoped against all hope that his pajama pants weren’t putting his achingly hard cock on too much of a display. He pressed his towel over his waist and sprinted past the fifth year that was lamely scolding him for not heading back to his dormitory at this hour. 

The library wasn’t open to the general student populous at night, per se, but Sebastian had always found limitations like timetables and hours of operation to be, well, limiting. He cast the charm for disillusionment over himself and strode past the two prefects who were flirting in front of the quietly splashing fountain.

He’d clocked the book that he snuck out of the library with only minutes later’s existence a few months earlier, on another nighttime venture through the Restricted Section. While running his fingertips idly across the spines that made up the Legilimency section, the shining foil on one tome had made his hand freeze. Legilimency and the Dreamer: Infiltrating the Sleeping Mind, for the Beginner. 

When he’d first seen it, a pang of guilt and shame had shot through Sebastian as his mind immediately conjured up one perfect use for the lessons taught in that book. At the time he’d fled the library to stop himself from picking it up, proud of himself for exhibiting self-control and respecting the friend that plagued his own dreams. He had resolved with solid determination to never remove that book from the library or read its contents.

But then she’d gone and worn that dressing gown. 

Faded, old cotton sliding off her perfect, porcelain-smooth shoulders while he gaped at her newly-exposed chest; the encounter hadn’t gone quite as he would have liked, but it was still causing blood to rush southward in his body as he exited the library wing and wove downstairs to the Slytherin dormitories, the book heavy under his arm. He tried to hide the title with his sleeve. The common room was blissfully empty, save for a few stragglers hunched over parchment and scribbling the tips of their quill down to the blunt. He ran up the stairs, pushing the door to his shared bedroom open quietly so as not to disturb anyone that was already asleep. The only sound was soft breathing, sighing, and snores, so he exhaled a small puff of relief and stowed his towel back in his trunk.

Curtains slid shut around his four-poster bed, Sebastian relaxed against his satin pillowcase, propping himself up on his elbows. The dormitory was darker than usual, as the moon that always filtered in through the windows was obscured by clouds tonight, so he muttered, “Lumos!” and opened the book that he’d expressly told himself he should never pick up. It would be wrong. She can’t control what happens in a dream. It’s a violation of trust. I should wait until the perfect moment and just tell her. I should not read this book.

But, there really was nothing else to be done.

Sebastian had to have her, he was sure of it, or he’d die. Until their awkward, semi-nude encounter in the Slytherin corridor, he had never seriously considered anything happening between them. But since then, she’d been behaving strangely around him. Ominis was convinced that she was attracted to Sebastian, but the latter knew better than that. 

“She’s just embarrassed about seeing me in a towel,” he told Ominis as the two brushed their teeth two mornings after the incident. “You should have seen how she laughed at me.”

Ominis leaned over the sink and spat toothpaste into it. “Sure she wasn’t all…flustered about it?”

“Flustered?”

“You know how girls get.”

“You sure you do?”

The next time he saw her, Sebastian was quick to joke about the situation and set everything as usual once more. When she wiggled her eyebrows at him while Amit Thakkar burst into an unnecessarily-lengthy explanation of Gamp’s laws of transfiguration, he thought she seemed grateful for the normalcy between them. Grateful, and beautiful. 

Fuck. It appeared his crush wasn’t going to be tempered by mere humiliation.

And now, the sight of her sweet skin peaking out at him as she blushed so prettily had pushed him to the brink. If he’d been struggling to be near her the past few weeks, it was nothing compared to the raging maelstrom of sexual tension he’d been weathering since passing her in the hall. He was taking her to bed. One way or another. 

Lust flooded his brain as he flipped through the pages of Legilimency and the Dreamer. The book was dry and dull, and Sebastian felt his eyes drifting closed even in the wake of his impure thoughts. History and theory, two of his greatest adversaries, were abundant throughout the first few chapters, and he had almost given up, when his eyes fell upon the title of chapter five: Entering the Sub-conscious.

When planning a sub-conscious infiltration, it is important to understand first whether or not you have been given consent by the sleeping party.

Sebastian swallowed, guilt thick in his throat.

"If you have obtained consent, then you are ready to follow the simple guidelines outlined here to decipher and demystify the nightmares of your clients. First, and most crucially, your subject must be sleeping in a place they find comfortable. This author recommends conducting a legilimency session from the safety of the dreamer’s own bedroom."

He thought of her, sound asleep by now in her dormitory, that same angelic expression she’d had on her face when she slept on his shoulder through an entire Transfiguration class in place. She smiled, just a hint of a smirk, when she slept. 

"Next, physical contact with the dreamer will aid you in your attempt to penetrate their thoughts. The sleeping mind, though at rest, utilizes just as many defensive tactics as the awake. If a session must be conducted remotely, a physical token of the dreamer’s or portrait of them can act as an acceptable substitute. The legilimens may still encounter difficulty, however."

Well, he certainly did not have a portrait of his desired stuffed into his trunk. Sebastian glanced bleakly at the sheets around him, hoping a sock or shoe of hers would appear by magic. No such luck. He almost returned to reading when he remembered what was currently sitting in the drawer of his bed-side table, tucked with care into an empty chocolate frog box. Sticking his head out of the curtains for a moment, he rummaged around in the drawer until he felt the box and pulled it open to reveal the tiny note she’d sent him by owl on the night the entire fiasco began. 

A little birdie told me he liked cherry tart, so I saved him some. I’ll bring it to you in a bit. 

He closed his fist around the parchment and shut himself up in his bed once more. Birdie. He couldn’t bear to hear her call him that anymore. Not when the only way he could fall asleep now was to wrap his hand around his cock and huff her name under his breath. Not when all his dreams lately ended with her weeping out the nickname he used to love as she came undone around him. Not when–He realized as he leaned back over the book that he was panting a little. In anticipation or triumph, he wasn’t sure.

"It is important to note that, just as a legilimens can manipulate the content of the dream they enter, so, too, can they manipulate their own appearance. Consider taking a form or otherwise altering your appearance in a way that will put the sleeping subject at ease. If the sub-conscious detects an unfriendly presence, it may block itself from you entirely. When you are ready to begin your dive into the sub-conscious, situate yourself somewhere comfortable and close your eyes, picturing the face of the dreamer and pointing your wand at them (or at the object you are using in place of physical contact).*"

The asterisk at the end of the sentence drew Sebastian’s eye to the bottom of the page, where the author had left an aside:

"Author’s note: As already discussed at length here, legilimency is a difficult and fickle art for most to grasp. Without a natural proclivity for it, the aspiring legilimens may find themselves frustrated by lack of progress. Use consistent practice to improve your infiltration and dream-deciphering skills."

 He laid down in his bed, pointed his wand at the little scrap of paper pinched in his fingers, and said “Legilimens.” His eyes flew shut of their own accord and the image of her face swam before him, all watercolors and sparkling eyes and sunlight filtered in through stained glass. Even through his intense concentration, Sebastian couldn’t help the small smirk that pursed his lips.

There’s natural proclivity for you, you ancient dust trap.

She was sleeping in her bed, just as he’d pictured, but her expression as he watched her, seemingly through a thick, glass porthole in the ceiling above her, shifted to one of anxiety as she thrashed gently side to side. The sheets were twisting around her limbs and sweat was beginning to glisten on her forehead. He desperately wanted to leap into bed next to her and wake her, smoothing hair off her hot face and kissing her awake from the nightmare. This would have to do, for now. 

He watched her for a few more seconds, then remembered what he was supposed to be doing. The physics of the whole situation threw him off as he tried to get his bearings. He felt like he was moving through cold water trying to reach her, and just as he figured out how to put one foot in front of the other, that foot tripped him up and he fell forward. He clenched his teeth and tried to stick out his arms against the stone floor, but instead, he found himself tumbling head over heels through a massive void. Just as he started to panic about what he’d gotten himself into with this idea, his feet hit solid ground once more. Though not quite stone…and not quite ground.

Sebastian looked at his surroundings. It was some sort of corridor; all he could make out were several dozen imposing doors and the faint swirl of smoke or steam that seemed to enshroud everything. Could this really be her dream? He had been anticipating something light and peaceful, perhaps her sitting in a field surrounded by friendly kneazles (her preferred way to die, she had told him many times). This setting looked far more nightmarish.

“Shit shit shit,” he muttered to himself, his voice reaching his ears, wobbly and distorted, after several seconds. He was still stuck in the thick fog of her subconscious. Regret that he hadn’t read more of the book before attempting this little nighttime visit was clawing at his ankles nervously. What had it said? 

Suddenly, the witch of his wildest dreams dashed right in front of him, ignoring him entirely and sprinting at top speed but pausing briefly at every other door to yank it open, taking note of its contents, and wailing in despair. 

“Oh, no, no, no, no,” she was moaning in terror, her dressing gown flowing behind her as she checked two more doors. The thin linen of her nightgown underneath the robe was sticking to her sweaty torso and showing far too much skin, even through the dark haze of fog obscuring Sebastian’s sight. He watched her mutter “Late! Late! I’m going to be late!” under her breath in a frenzy, and he couldn’t help but chuckle just a little at the sight. What was that Muggle book she’d read to him by the lake that one afternoon? Something about a little white rabbit that was always running late? The comparison was too perfect. 

The white nightgown disappeared around a corner, and Sebastian remembered with a jolt that he was supposed to be following her. He glanced around himself one more time and determined that he needed to be more focused. He pressed his bare feet hard against the ground and his fingertips against the wall, grounding himself, and everything came into much sharper focus as he took a deep breath. Her subconscious let its guard down with noticeable haste, accommodating him with torches along the wall that lit the corridor and banished the fog away. If he hadn’t known better, he could have been in any secret passageway that Hogwarts had to offer.  

He took off down the hall after her, his limbs no longer encumbered by the heaviness that had impeded them before. At the end of the hall before he could turn the corner, he came upon a huge, ornate mirror hung on the wall. It was scratched and spotted with age, but he could very clearly make out his own face, pale and desperate, chest heaving. A line from his guidebook poked at him: “Just as a legilimens can manipulate the content of the dream they enter, so, too, can they manipulate their own appearance.”

Put her at ease, put her mind at ease, he thought, What would she li– 

Then he remembered, with almost a shout of triumph, her expression when he’d come back to school after the summer holidays at the beginning of seventh year. Living at Feldcroft alone during the summer made Sebastian prioritize the work of the estate over his own physical needs, and he’d forgotten to attend to a fairly large physical need before returning to Hogwarts. On their first evening back, his sweet witch had greeted him in the Great Hall with her mouth agape and eyes raking over his entire head. “What?” he’d asked hesitantly, running a hand through his hair. “Is there a grindylow hanging off my back?”

“Mm-um, no,” she replied. Her voice was a croak. “Your hair just looks…different.” 

Sebastian swore. “I forgot to cut it before leaving! Shit! I always try to make sure it’s clean cut before school.” He knew he must have looked crazy, disheveled, unkempt, but he couldn’t understand why her eyes were still the size of the dinner plates on the long tables behind them.

“It–you shouldn’t, um, it–it looks really good, Seb,” she had rasped.

It looks really good, Seb.

With a smirk, he looked back in the mirror on the wall and saw that his hair was now just as it had been that very enlightening day, waves turning into full curls around his temples and brushing the bottom of his neck. He couldn’t even deny the little prick of ego that told him he did look really good. Perhaps he’d lose his shears after this. Some of the color was returning to his face, too, as he set off after her with more confidence this time. 

When he next caught sight of her, she was pulling open yet another door, and he ran forward to try and catch up with her, but felt his heart drop when she smiled in relief and entered the room. “Wait–!” He reached out a hand, but he was still several lengths down the hall from her, and the door was quickly shutting behind her. In one last blind attempt to not lose her, he dove forward and, carried by the illogical nature of her dreamstate, landed directly behind her and wrapped his outstretched hand around her ankle.

“It’s me!” He tried to say, but his mouth wasn’t producing any sound. His vision swam and the torches behind them flickered low, threatening to blow out. She was scared. He tried again to reassure her, to relinquish her ankle and stand, but he was frozen, paralyzed by her mental defenses. Recalling the earlier technique that freed him, Sebastian pressed his face against the ground and breathed deeply, righting himself. The torches blazed back to their full flame. 

Before he could do more than shakily climb to his knees, still using her ankle as support, the two of them were thrust backwards, away from the open door and hurled down the hallway they’d just run down. She shrieked and clawed at the ground while Sebastian tried frantically to yell her name to calm her, though he was close to a panic attack himself. Her subconscious must not have been completely fooled by the “friendly presence” of the unexpectedly skilled legilimens visiting it for the evening.

Finally, they slowed and slid to a halt, but when Sebastian looked up to take in their surroundings, he found them no longer in the torch-lit corridor, but in…

Fuck, Sallow, come on. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to visualize any other setting than his own bedroom at Feldcroft. She had never seen it for herself before, and would surely be suspicious if it suddenly made an appearance in her dreams. Perhaps the hair had been a bad idea. 

But then he saw that she was still heaving shallow breaths, hunched over on the floor, and he ran to her. Kneeling in front of her and grabbing her face in his hands, he cooed, “Hey, hey, it’s alright, love, it’s alright! You’re safe, I’m here, everything’s alright!” He’d never meant for all of this to scare and stress her so badly. It was supposed to be a tranquil dream that he infiltrated, one so lovely and bubbly that the mere suggestion of a fuck from her dashing friend would be enough to send her into fits of rapture. Clearly, she was carrying some sort of tension with her throughout the day, if her dreams drifted to such harrowing places at night. 

“B-birdie?” she sniffed as she gazed up at him, properly realizing who her captor/savior was for the first time. 

“Yeah, it’s me, baby, you’re okay,” he murmured, smoothing a thumb over her cheek and catching the tear that hung there and wishing his cock hadn’t stiffened. She dug her fingers into his pajama shirt and tried to gain control of her breathing. She looked so tiny, so fucking vulnerable, that he couldn’t believe he’d ever thought about–

She launched herself fully into his arms and kissed him. Sebastian’s eyes flew open and took in the Slytherin Quidditch team poster that he had stuck to the top of his canopy in second year. “Fuck!” he yelled, and one of his roommates snorted in their sleep, disgruntled. The shock had shot him straight out of her dream and back to the real world. Before he shut his eyes once more, he cast silencio over his bed, lest he wake up and scream again. 

When he next opened his eyes, she was still kissing him. Oh, what a lovely night to discover that he had impeccable legilimency skills. 

He recovered himself by pressing a hand into the stone of Feldcroft’s floors, and he felt everything sharpen and come into clearer focus again, including the little sounds she was making as she licked his bottom lip. 

“Oh, God, sweetheart,” Sebastian groaned, taking her face in his hands again and making sure her lips stayed pressed against his forever. It was every bit of the heaven he had envisioned. Three years of pining after this woman had set a lot of expectations in his head that he was sure were unrealistic. But she felt just as good, hell, fucking better than he had ever imagined.

He stopped caring about maintaining his composure when her wandering hands slid down his front and came to rest on top of his painful erection. “Fuck, wanted this for ages, fuckin’ love you,” he grunted, embarrassment a distant memory. Why had it been so awful that she’d seen him close to naked? As she unbuttoned his shirt and shoved it off his shoulders, he found that he couldn’t recall. Seemed like she wanted to see him naked very badly, now.

Apparently, she did, because his clothes were inexplicably gone before she’d even reached the last button. “I like dream you,” he muttered as he laid her back against the ground and slotted one of his now-bare knees against her hot core. “She doesn’t make fun of me so much.” He looked down at her, panting beneath him and begging him with her eyes to take care of her. She didn’t seem to be able to hear him very well, the ends of her eyebrows drawing together in confusion as she watched his mouth move. Oh, well. She was enjoying herself and he didn’t have to worry about making a fool of himself anymore than he already had. 

The dressing gown that had set him off just hours ago was wrapped tight around her waist, taunting him. Sebastian did what he’d wanted to do right there outside the prefects’ bathroom and ripped it and the nightgown away from her body. They seemed to dissolve into steam or otherwise drift off her skin as he drug his fingertips down her now exposed form, which writhed with want for him. 

Without a natural proclivity for it, the aspiring legilimens may find themselves frustrated by lack of progress.

Sebastian was grinning when he pulled her legs up, tossed one over each shoulder, and dove into her cunt with his tongue. She gave a positively sinful moan and wrapped her fingers in his newly-long hair. When she felt the extra length sliding through her hands, she gasped, “Oh, fuck, I love your long hair!” He bumped and rubbed her clit with his nose in response, somewhat to elicit another pornographic cry from her and somewhat to hide the idiotic grin that hung on his face, covered with her own wetness. Her taste was so perfect on his tongue, he thought he might weep.

“You taste so divine, I knew it. Better than any fucking tart.” He hoped she hadn’t clocked the “I knew it.” Given that her only response was to wiggle her hips further up his shoulders so his face was pressed more flush against her cunt, he figured that she hadn’t. The image of her, sweet and thoughtful, holding the cherry tart for him outside his dormitory, popped into his head as he ate her out. Merlin’s fucking beard, do I adore this woman, he thought happily.

“You–” She was attempting to choke words out of her mouth as it lolled open with stupid pleasure. “You kn-knew it?” Sebastian only hummed and licked his tongue in a circle in response, which made her back arch. “Was…Is little birdie that curious about me?”

“Fuck, I love it when you call me that,” he growled, enjoying the relief of unloading all his secrets to her in this isolated setting. He’d thought about getting her in his own bed more times than he could count, but it had never gone this well, even in his fantasies.

After he’d made her scream his name three times using just his tongue, he lifted her off the ground and threw her onto his bed gingerly. He climbed on top of her while she reached and whined for him, throwing a leg over either side of her waist and wondering vaguely if her physical form was reacting to this dream as excitedly as her dream one was. Then he realized that he had no idea what his own sleeping body was doing in the boys’ dorm, and was very glad for the silencing charm he’d hastily thrown up.

The sheer weight of sinking into her made Sebastian’s head sag, dropping it onto her shoulder. “Oh, goddamn,” he whimpered. His cool exterior fell away as desperation took over and he whined through the feeling of dragging his cock back out of her. She wrapped her legs around his waist tight, locking him in and making him falter a little bit. His arms on either side of her shoulders held him up, and he noticed with a momentary sheepishness that they looked a bit more muscular than they might have looked outside of the dream. Anything in the name of her comfort, he thought to himself, and a devilish little “Ha!” slipped out of him as he began moving inside her again.

He took his time. It was a dream, he figured, so there were no real-world deadlines to be concerned about while he languidly fucked her. She occasionally would dig her nails into his back and demand he go faster, but he hushed her each time and focused on the way her mouth fell open a little each time his cock brushed her limit. After a few minutes (hours?) however, he found himself unable to maintain his lazy pace, his own needs creeping up on him with wicked subtlety.

“G-God,” she hiccupped when he began thrusting hard and fast.

“No, sweetheart, it’s Seb,” he grinned. 

He leaned down and licked a hot trail from her collarbone up behind her ear and she moaned, a portrait of prettiness and pleasure. Her tits bounced with each thrust and he found himself staring unabashedly at them. She was too drunk on him to even try and cover herself from his gaze, but from the way she was ogling his naked body, he figured that she was alright with a little peeping.

She hiccupped again and huffed a piece of hair that had fallen in her eyes out of the way. “No–ah!” Her hands flew to his triceps and clutched them for dear life as he drove into her steadily. “Nuh-uh. M’birdie,” she slurred. Her face and body were drenched with sweat, as was his, and a drop fell from the tip of his nose and landed on her breasts. “Dirty birdie.”

Her giggle changed course and melted into a moan as he groaned and picked up his pace even more, chasing their highs for the both of them. “Shit, baby, come for me! I’m all fucking yours,” he cried over the sound of their hips slapping against each other repeatedly. She shrieked and threw a hand out, searching for something to grasp onto, but found nothing solid. Then her fingers closed around his run-down antique headboard, and he committed the image to memory like it was a religious rite. Inane syllables were trickling out of her mouth, but for the most part, she’d been struck dumb. Sebastian indulged in the trickle of pride that ran through him at the sight. 

But he hadn’t gotten what he wanted yet, not really. The image that had been plaguing him since he first started harboring this nasty crush on his dear friend. The one that got him dangerously aroused if he even dared think about it. And if this was going to be their only sexual encounter (and there was no doubt in his lovesick mind that it would be), he wasn’t leaving without witnessing it firsthand.

So, just to be safe, he begged for it.

“Let me see you cry when you come real pretty, please? Hm?” He fucked her as hard as he could, and her body shook. Tears were welling up in her eyes. “Come on, I’ll be a good little birdie, I swear.” 

Her tight walls clamped around him, hard, and he gave a strangled yell, his eyes squeezing shut. 

When he opened them, the blasted, poxy, stupid, goddamn Quidditch poster was staring at him, instead of the flushed and fucked-out witch that he wished were still underneath him. He was on his back, panting like he’d just run the length of the castle, the note from her still clutched in his sweaty palm and the heavy legilimency book still open atop his stomach. Exhaustion dug its claws into his racing mind. He hadn’t realized how draining legilimency would be, even if the screwing hadn’t required any real effort. 

Probably should have read one more chapter. He yawned and fell into the first dreamless sleep he’d had in months.

The following morning, he plodded into the Great Hall for breakfast feeling like his legs were made of tar. The few hours of sleep he’d gotten after his little legilimency practice session had not been nearly enough to refresh him, and after he’d woken up, he found the imagery from the dream playing on a permanent loop in his mind. Sebastian realized, as he ascended the stairs from the Slytherin dormitory with a sinking sense of dread, that the dream had been a horrible idea. He knew how perfect she felt now, and nothing would ever compare, he was sure of it. And if she was as happy with the experience as she had seemed to be…

But then, he argued with himself as he poured a cup of coffee from the hog’s head pitcher on the dining table, maybe none of it had stuck for her. Maybe she had awoken to no memory of the previous night’s dream, and the idea of hooking up with him hadn’t taken root quite the way he’d hoped. 

Sebastian was still lost in his own brooding thoughts when someone sat across the table from him. He grunted wordlessly at who he could only assume was Ominis, his eyes still out of focus and staring out the window as he thought hard. 

“Morning,” came a squeak back, and Sebastian almost fell out of his seat when he realized it was not, in fact, Ominis sitting across from him. It was her. 

She looked awful, even through his lovestruck gaze. Her eyes were bleary, dark bags underneath them that indicated a fitful night of sleeping, and her skin was an ashen shade of its normal color. Her hair hung undone around her shoulders. Even her tie was tied incorrectly and wasn’t even underneath her shirt collar.

“Did you…not sleep well?” Sebastian asked, looking anywhere except at her. The eggs and toast on his plate were extremely interesting today. When she didn’t respond, he chanced a glance up at her. Her brow was furrowed.

“Yeah, I think I just had a bad–” Her eyes suddenly widened and her entire face, neck, and hands turned bright red. Sebastian’s insides contorted, nerves on fire. 

“Bad dream? What about?” He cocked his head to one side and tried to play as stupid as he felt. Could she tell? Did she know? How could she? If she’d enjoyed the dream, why did she look ready to jump from the Astronomy tower?

She was stammering. “Oh, er, no…it wasn’t…I mean bad isn’t–just kind of…weird, I think.” Then she finally broke eye contact with him and looked down at her empty plate. “And a little inappropriate,” she muttered.

“Yeah?” Sebastian thought his heart might give out. He darted his tongue out to lick his dry lips. “Inappropriate how?” 

She scowled at him and didn’t answer. He decided to push the enormous amount of luck he’d been granted the past two days.

Sebastian leaned forward, a conspiratorial grin tugging at his lips despite himself. “Come on, tell me! I won’t ask anymore questions. I promise, I’ll be such a good little bir–” “GoodBYE!” she cried, and leapt up from the bench as if she’d been hit with a blast of icy wind. 

Really must write the boring old git who wrote that book a nice thank you letter, Sebastian mused, spreading jam on a piece of toast and sinking his teeth into it as he watched her tear out of the Great Hall with one last glance back at him.

pt. 4

masterlist

[oogaboogasphincter]

thinking about what makes a man holding a beer sexy…

this is just a silly drabble, i thought of logan and joel while writing so choose your own adventure ;) reader is referred to as bub/darlin’ and girl 💕

the firelight flickers in his eyes, illuminating their depth, as it does on the droplets of condensation rolling down the foiled label. his hand molds to the glass curves, his thumb rubbing up and down the slope of the bottleneck in subconscious cycles. the condensation leaves his fingertips cool and wet, doing little to extinguish the molten desire surging through his veins as his eyes land on you.

maybe it’s the way his lips form around the top when he takes an unapologetic sip, his tongue caressing the underside of the rim as he tips it back. fuck that bottle, you think, that should be me. or maybe it’s the way his eyes look over the bottle, downcast in a tunnel toward you.

maybe it’s the way his throat works as he drinks the sweet liquid down, that masculine bulge in the center of his throat bobbing with each swallow. it’s an even better sight when he hasn’t shaved in a while and his beard has gone all prickly, the stubble splaying like quills whose poison only you are immune to as his skin stretches.

maybe it’s the way when he catches you staring mid-drink and the skin around his eyes tightens with a knowing smirk, his eyes glistening with a light buzz underneath his thick lashes. maybe it’s the way the corner of his lip quirks up around the mouth of the bottle, a soft sound of amusement breathed out through his nose.

or maybe it’s the way his tongue darts out to lick the taste from his upper lip, grazing the tip of his mustache that you yearn to feel the bristle of between your thighs…

“ya see somethin’ you like, bub/darlin’?” he mutters in a gravelly, deep voice. he takes delight in the flustered way you squirm and press your thighs together. he can practically feel the innocent heat of desire radiating off of you. “c’mere,” he rasps, jutting his chin toward you, spreading his thighs and resting his arm on the back of the seat.

you take a seat in the empty space between his thighs daintily, but he leans forward and wraps his arms around you so that your back presses against his chest. maybe it’s the way he holds the bottle like a possession and he holds you with the same ownership. something he wants, something of his.

he hooks his chin over your shoulder and noses the tender spot right before your ear, the warmth of his soft, contented sigh tickling your peach fuzz. you can smell the malted yeast on his breath, and while sometimes you can’t stand it and the stickiness it conjures, in this moment it’s equally intoxicating to you on his tongue as it is to him in his bloodstream.

“good girl. my girl,” he whispers possessively.

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[haxkattpress]

The Bolthole by aideomai, Tepre, and GallaPlacidia

I'm absolutely thrilled to finally share my first fic bind here on Tumblr! I completed this bind back in November, and it introduced me to so many wonderful people.

You can find pictures and detailed explanations of my process under the cut.

This is "The Bolthole" by Aideomai, Tepre, and (formerly) GallaPlacidia on Ao3. The cover design is adapted from "The Little Brother" (1902) by Josiah Flynt. The typeset is my own.

I fell in love with this cover the moment I saw it, and wanted to try to recreate it with book cloth. As a hobbyist book binder, I like to try to revitalize older designs from the public domain. There are so few copies of this book left in the world, so I thought it would be fun to give it new life as the cover of a contemporary story.

The cover is made out of three different colors of book cloth from the Allure and Verona lines. The book cloth and endpapers were bought from Hollander's.

I used my Cameo 4 and a strong tack mat to cut the design out of each color of book cloth. I then assembled the pattern like a puzzle. It was MUCH harder than it sounds! Some of the pieces were incredibly thin and fragile, and they were difficult to keep track of.

For the foiling, I used my Cameo 4 and the We R Memory Keepers fine tip foil quill for everything but the spine, which I did by hand. I foiled immediately after I cut, without removing my mat from the machine. This helped me line everything up. It did not, however, prevent me from sweating bullets as my machine worked.

This method was, frankly, torture, but I'm really glad that I tried it. Now that I've had a nice long break, I'd like to try it again soon. I love running my hands over this book, and the texture of the book cloth feels wonderful under my fingertips. I do, however, have a few words of caution. Do not try this out unless you have book cloth to burn! Here are some pictures of just a few of my failures.

The Cameo 4 is not your friend. Your cut-outs can and will get fucked up for no reason. If the mat isn't sticky enough, or the blade isn't sharp enough, or the fabric doesn't adhere properly, your design could get completely shredded. I strongly recommend that you avoid Verona book cloth, or anything with a paper backing and loose fibers. It was absolute hell to work with. When it wasn't shredded by the machine, it was fraying like crazy. Acrylic coated cloth is the way to go if you want clean lines. And, you know, your sanity intact.

This was my most challenging bind to date, but I learned a lot! Aside from experimenting with book cloth, automated foiling, and my Cameo 4, it was also my first time formatting, printing, and sewing a text block. I'm incredibly grateful for all of the online tutorials and wonderful people who helped me make this bind a reality!