#i had to actually *use references* :0 instead of just doodling from memory

[tiny-xander-adventures]

:0 What did Xander find in Mr. David’s room?

gasp! what’s in Mr. David’s room? it’s Mr. David, of course!!

[murderoushagthesequel]

my cover for teach them how to dream by @im-still-tryin-to-find-it is done!

the full image is here, and below the ~keep reading~ will be the front cover, spine, and back cover individually in better quality with explanations (this will include minor spoilers, mainly references to specific scenes i think are cute)

for those of you that haven’t read tthtd and don’t want spoilers, read it! you won’t regret it. if the color and joy i tried to convey on this cover is any sign, it’s every bit as cute and bright as i’ve drawn it.

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front cover (click for better quality):

so the front cover obviously has the most easter eggs, but i’ll explain them all here for all y’all who are interested:

the stars above the blackboard are meant to resemble the glow-in-the-dark stars that are referenced a few times throughout the story

i really hope some of you get this but i added those white/blackboard borders teachers would always put up with fun patterns on them, i picked the alphabet

the chalkboard drawings!

a stack of chocolate chip pancakes because harry is obsessed with them

a whisk from james and regulus' halloween costumes

a text convo because the texting is pretty important in this fic

the framed poem!!

forget-me-nots because they just remind me of jegulus

snowflakes and hearts because of james’ love confession on christmas

butterflies flying in the shape of a heart: one is red for james and one is green for regulus

and finally a sunrise/sunset because james texting reg sunrise/sunset pictures!

ofc regulus likes reading in general but i drew the books specifically thinking about when regulus goes to lily’s bookstore and they first become friends

a pen cup both because it’s a classroom and because i wanted a way to represent regulus and james’ love of writing (thinking about the scene where regulus just looks at james' empty google doc and starts writing)

a rotten apple to reference one of my favorite scenes, chapter 6: the apple orchard, when regulus and james are talking about the kids finding rotten apples and then james has to eat one because harry asks him to

the desk, idk why i just picture regulus having this needlessly fancy wooden desk

and finally the sun streaming through the windows, i’ll explain a bit more when i get to the back cover

spine (click for better quality):

not much to go over here but

used the ao3 logo as a publisher mark

same writing of the title as the front cover but in solid writing instead of chalk

paint splatters for the background!

back cover (click for better quality):

starting with the background, again we got paint splatters

most books have a review on the back so i included an excerpt of my own review at the top

then one of my favorite quotes which is just so cute shut up don’t talk to me (this quote is part of the reason i included the sun streaming through the windows on the front cover)

and the official description by gabby from ao3

i used hearts as a separator between the words just because love!

and there are little doodles around both to fill space and also for the vibes

copied the cover art credit format from some books but without the publisher cuz there is none

and then the barcode! believe it or not there’s a lot here:

first of all the price, books in the us usually have prices written like that but the second one is canada- i changed it to international because it's the internet! and the marauders fandom is international!

the barcode itself is made up i just drew it

but the numbers are code for a series of letters (the alphabet where every 10 letters is assigned to the numbers 0-9) it spells “caught the moon” which is a reference to regulus and sirius’ memory of sneaking out to go capture the moon

and the qr code is a real qr code that leads you to the first chapter of tthtd!

ok that took forever to type out lol

i had a bit of trouble trying to balance out the kindergarten-y aspect with the actual plot and love story but i'm pretty happy with how it turned out anyway

if you haven’t read teach them how to dream yet PLEASE do, making this cover and going back through all my favorite parts of the story was such a joy and i really hope you appreciate it! i could only include so many references on this cover, there's so much more in the story.

going to go take a break and not move my hands for 5 hours because i just typed this all out on my ipad.