#or just me being a disaster

[finalfrontierpublishing]

Process - or really Nic doing random shit and hoping it works

Recently, a few bookbinders have been describing their creative process and i love how aspirational and amazing they are. these people are amazing, my friends- they come up with so much cool shit in the setting of their home, with things they have on hand, and it shocks me at how great these bookbinders are. 

i think comparatively, my process is fairly simple (i.e. chaos gremlin), and I've decided I'd like to use a previous book i took process pics of as a general outline as to how i come up with what i want to do. 

My first step is usually to fixate on a particular design element and move on from there - this is usually a chapter font or an image header or a cover image i’m interested in using, and then moving on to putting things together to form something cohesive. most of the time i have to see how it’ll look visually before i can decide, which does make choosing design elements challenging and hence made me a little into a pantser (despite being an asshole who likes to measure things). half the time, i change things like endpapers or endbands or colour of bookcloth or even the whole freaking design right down to the wire because i just won’t know what will work until i can see it.

To make this a little fun for me, I'll outline the general stream of consciousness (let's face it, it’s not that much of a process, I just think things and sometimes a book happens) along with 45% of the foul language that accompanies it when I try new things with books.

(Please be aware that I am 90% made of foul language and i sometimes frequently blaspheme like a sailor)

See below for thought process, process pics and much swearing. 

Day 0 minus 14 - Ok, let's be smart about binderary, shall we? I have a week of leave in February, let's make it count... Proceeds to prepare 10 typesets with 2 ready-made ones and then an additional notebook for a total of 13 books for Binderary. Ooh boy. Yeah, that’s achievable. 

Day 1:

Attends queercore workshop at 0630am in the morning. Fuck, am I sleepy. Did I succeed in making a book? Not really. Okay, let’s fudge it. Converts glueless notebook with nice stitching into case bind. Convenient gift for mothers day - booyah, 1 gift done. 

Oh hey. I have a thing. What about the Oh Mercy // Oh Love book. Hmmm, I have a nice image for this that I didn't use for the typesetting. Wonder if I can stitch it.

20:00 hours: Oooh, Neenah Illusio Laser paper - it looks so shiny. And Metallic. Very circuit board-y. Just what i was going for. Is it a paper? Is it cloth? I have no fucking idea. Hope it takes foil alright.

20:30 hours: Ooh ok, success - Jesus that's a lot of holes to poke.

Day 2: 

Okay, procrastination. Gotta make a case. 

JEsus i hate the turn ins and THE SPINE DFJKLSDFKLJ;SDF;LKSDF paper why you gotta do me a dirty?! Stiff and crinkly!!!!

17:00 hours: okay, case is nearly doneish.

Time to use foil quill to outline the holes to give it that soldered look and then do all the hole pokery. Dinner first.

19:00 hours: Dinner sorted. But like you know, let’s do some hammering with an awl in an apartment complex and pray none of the neighbours complain.

Shit these holes are small.

22:30 hours: I might finish this by Christmas, maybe. 

JFC i am collapsing under my hubris. THE FACT I THOUGHT I COULD DO THIS. Oh god @&£#'€¥ what possessed me to try this - oh I know, I thought it would look cool (90% of why I do things when I make books).

Go easy on the thread - do not rip it through the space between two holes. JESUS FFFJB;N;KLGH CHRIST WHY.

Okay I can do this. I can do this. Stitches for 4 hours and nearly collapses.

Stitching is done!!!! Hmmm design looks a little plain. And awww shit you can't see any of the gold around the holes anymore. Okay let's try going over it in foil quill again.

00:30 hours: OH FUCK OH FUCK WHAT A FUCKING BAD IDEA.

Jesus djdjsbsbdjdsbdbddnc * MAKES MISTAKE and adds dot of gold on the side of a hole, plainly not in the hole*

Frantically googles ‘how to remove we r memory keepers heat reactive foil from paper’

Tries to remove it with an eraser and tape as per google recommendations- but removes a fuck ton of the green colouring on the bookcloth as well. JESUS.

I am ready for death.

Day 3:

10:30 hours: Okay I am ready for a new day. Am I really ready? Unclear. Time to weed the shit out a fucking complex design and go blind in the process.

12:30 hours: Ok fuck, that only took 2 hours.

But oh shit endbands and glueing of the spine. Time to do some glueing. At least it’s somewhat therapeutic. Jesus my endpapers and mull are still not on.

14:00 hours: On to the case it goes

14:30 hours: Time to do some HTV application

Fuck why isn't the HTV sticking JESUS cricut is an evil corporation out to take my money and yet I did not want to use Siser HTV today because I Was Not Ready for Death and Ruination. 

Proceeds to iron for the next 1 hour. 

16:00 hours: Fine it's finally fucking on?

Is the spine done? Hmmm. that little blemish isn’t covered. Should I cover it? Ugh. 

Cuts out little squares of gold foil - but it looks foul. Okay, nope, not good. 

Fuck I need a nap. Somewhere along the way, spouse comes home. Dog has been fed. My job is done. 

Naps for 3 hours just because.

20:00 hours: Okay moment of truth. Time to case in. Book is gonna be held together with glue and prayer. Shit why do the squares look so small- fuck it's because there's some stitching on the spine so I can't push the textblock all the way in. I DID NOT PLAN FOR THIS EVIDENTLY. please do not stick out please do not stick out please do not stick out

20:30 hours: hallelujah it is FINE - into the press of a million books it goes

So that was a wild ride-- i wish i could say i exaggerate, but this is how it is with me tryin’ to do a book especially when trying new things i haven’t previously done before. Will a book happen? Sometimes I don’t really know. 

[inkskinned]

the thing is there's like, a point of oversaturation for everything, and it's why so many things get dropped after a few minutes. and we act like millennials or gen z kids "have short attention spans" but... that's not quite it. it's more like - we did like it. you just ruined it.

capitalism sees product A having moderate success, and then everything has to come out with their "own version" of product A (which is often exactly the same). and they dump extreme amounts of money and environmental waste into each horrible simulacrum they trot out each season.

now it's not just tiktokkers making videos; it's that instagram and even fucking tumblr both think you want live feeds and video-first programming. and it helps them, because videos are easier to sneak native ads into. the books coming out all have to have 78 buzzwords in them for SEO, or otherwise they don't get published. they are making a live-action remake of moana. i haven't googled it, but there's probably another marvel or starwars something coming out, no matter when you're reading this post.

and we are like "hi, this clone of project A completely misses the point of the original. it is soulless and colorless and miserable." and the company nods and says "yes totally. here is a different clone, but special." and we look at clone 2 and we say "nope, this one is still flat and bad, y'all" and they're like "no, totally, we hear you," and then they make another clone but this time it's, like, a joyless prequel. and by the time they've successfully rolled out "clone 89", the market is incredibly oversaturated, and the consumer is blamed because the company isn't turning a profit.

and like - take even something digital like the tumblr "live streaming" function i just mentioned. that has to take up server space and some amount of carbon footprint; just so this brokenass blue hellsite can roll out a feature that literally none of its userbase actually wants. the thing that's the kicker here: even something that doesn't have a physical production plant still impacts the environment.

and it all just feels like it's rolling out of control because like, you watch companies pour hundreds of thousands of dollars into a remake of a remake of something nobody wants anymore and you're like, not able to afford eggs anymore. and you tell the company that really what you want is a good story about survival and they say "okay so you mean a YA white protagonist has some kind of 'spicy' love triangle" and you're like - hey man i think you're misunderstanding the point of storytelling but they've already printed 76 versions of "city of blood and magic" and "queen of diamond rule" and spent literally millions of dollars on the movie "Candy Crush Killer: Coming to Eat You".

it's like being stuck in a room with a clown that keeps telling the same joke over and over but it's worse every time. and that would be fine but he keeps fucking charging you 6.99. and you keep being like "no, i know it made me laugh the first time, but that's because it was different and new" and the clown is just aggressively sitting there saying "well! plenty of people like my jokes! the reason you're bored of this is because maybe there's something wrong with you!"

[rox-of-iu]

something silly from yesterdays evening class

...

[introspectivememories]

it's always distinguished lesbian momo with disaster gay todoroki. we need to flip the script. disaster lesbian momo with distinguished gay todoroki. tddk are practically living together in shouto's japanese style dorm meanwhile momo flies in every morning, hair a mess, slamming that shoji door open, talkin bout "todoroki-kun! kyouka touched my knee this morning! do you think she likes me????"

[psqqa]

yes, yes i know edgeworth’s big wet eyes and loser boy personality have captivated us all, but listen. listen.

phoenix wright

phoenix “genuinely unable to reconcile the girl on the stand with the girl he dated for eight months, a cognitive dissonance so profound it’s ultimately explained by them being literally two different people, but which he first sits with for five years and does not talk about at any point to anyone” wright

phoenix “don’t mention that name to me. i don’t want to talk about it. i don’t want to think about it. i am just going to keep myself in this state of perpetual crisis mode focus on other people’s problems until eventually i die and get to hang out with mia on the astral plane and never have to deal with any of these emotions ever again” wright

phoenix “overnight loses his career and reputation and sense of identity while gaining an adopted, probably pretty traumatized eight-year-old daughter, and rather than leaning on his friends for help, or getting therapy, or taking any time to process any of this, he *checks notes* spends seven years dedicating all his free time and energy to investigating the weird fucking circumstances around it and maintains a friendship with the guy he suspects was behind it all” wright

phoenix "runs across a burning bridge and falls through it, half a day after the game establishes that he is terrified of heights, because his friend is on the other side of that bridge" wright

phoenix “i sure felt surprised. maybe i had my poker face on” wright

phoenix “looking back on it that was actually a pretty dark period in my life” wright

phoenix “don’t ask me how i got started. i don’t remember” wright

phoenix “only you stood still, your eyes calmly watching” wright

phoenix “sometimes, life just sucks” wright

just

phoenix wright

crunchiest man in the world

and all i wanna do is chew and chew and chew on him

[aroaceleovaldez]

i am a firm believer that Nico either got his ears pierced by Thalia with a hot unbent safety pin or at a random mall with a piercing gun when he was 10. there is no way he went about getting his ears pierced in any normal, safe manner. dude went to Claires. these are the only options.

[dirtyassvoiceactors]

Dorian gets offended/jealous Orym is talking about working out with Beau, so he tries to show off, Imogen calls him out on poor execution, so he just walks off to help Caduceus (who also quickly kinda roasts him) kkkkkkk

i need next episode to after Dorian and Orym wakeup together, Orym goes workout with Beau and have competitions, so the whole time is just Orym and Beau showing off to Dorian and Yasha, like doing push ups with them in their back or sm, doing upsidedown pullups

[cabeswaterdrowned]

unstoppable force (Adam’s canonical teacher kink) meets immovable object (Gansey being a professor’s soul in a teenagers body).

[fairypaw]

Well good luck, Babe!

[gloomyloomy]

here's some of my older one piece musings hehe

[tangledinink]

ninja turtles are here for projecting and processing grief, apparently.

i've seen lots of 'the death of future donnie' comics, most recently ofc being from @somerandomdudelmao (i went back and forth abt tagging but then decided i would, because this is directly their fault, /pos) and then, of course, all the fan content that was made in response to said comic... and i love seeing so many people make so much awesome work! but it's also really fucking sad.

so often in the real world, there are no goodbyes, no dying in the arms of a loved one, no heroic sacrifices, there's just... death. people just die and it sucks. especially because in real life there's also no cool storyboarder assuring you that there's gonna be a happy ending and you'll see them again. and so it's like... then what?

i dunno. i was just sad about it for a while, and i wasn't really sure what to do with that, but i guess this is my answer. sometimes you don't get to say goodbye or hold them when they leave you, and you dunno if you'll get to see them again. but you can still have the mark they left on the world and hang onto that. because no matter what, once upon a time, they were there, and you remember. other people probably do, too.

[daily-hanamura]

[varpusvaras]

Sometimes I have a good-natured laugh over how I ship jayroy. It's either a) in an au where I fully and more importantly, willfully ignore most of the canon in order to be funny, or b) in an au where both of them are +25 years old and have their shit sorted out and where I might ignore some things because I disagree with the writing choices made by DC on a metatextual level and disregard them as incomprehensive horseshit

[lilium-nepalense]

No ok hot take your all wrong. Neither Leo or Donnie is the older twin. They switch it around everyday even.

Splinter choose all thier ages based on height and at the time they where both the same. Simple explanation: twins! Leave it at that and back to his shows.

Leo and Donnie spend the rest of thier young lives trying to one up eachother on who's older.

Leo: im taller !

Donnie : that's not how ages work ! And your not even taller !

Leo: oh yeah ? Well I am cooler and more awsomer so that makes me older twin.

Donnie: No it doset!!!

as they got more annoying about it Raph decides to have them flip a coin for it every morning. They have been doing it ever since.

Somtimes it's used as leverage

Mikey: Donnieeeeeeee spend time with us you've been up in your lab all day!!

Leo: come on ! Don't you want to hang out with your favorite little brothers !

And somtimes it's used as a weapon

Donnie: as the older twin of today I get all authority and your opinion dose not matter

Leo: what !!!

Could Donnie very well work out who's older from blah blah blah science? Yes ! He could ! And maybe even did. But consider he dosent want to. Consider him wanting to connect with not only Leo but also Mikey and raph on a deeper level.

Think about days where Donnie is the older twin and connects with raph by shouldering responsibility together. Seeing the effect splinter has on his older brother and filling in the gaps. Consider days when he's younger and goofing off with Mikey trying out some crazy experiment with the faith that the older brothers will be there if they need.

Think of Leo and his relationship with Raph. Being Raphs right hand man on the team backing him up and fixing flaws in his planing. Working together to keep Donnie and Mikey safe. Days where being the younger twin means being babied like one and connecting with Mikey about not being trusted to make decisions (especially withing the first season of the show)

Days where Leo steps up to be a pillar for Donnie when he needs it and Donnie stepping up for Leo when he needs the same.

All these actions are things they would have been doing anyways. Supporting eachother and the rest if thier family. But it's layered with a flavor of older or younger for ease of connection.

Sure Mikey and Leo connect about not being trusted but isn't it better if they are also both the youngest ?

Sure Raph and Donnie connect over the huge specific loss of splinters supoort (as do all of them but these two in particular are pretty similar) and isn't it better if they where older together ?

In the end I don't think anyone really knows who's older at any given moment and the twins will flip it around for what's better or funnier in the moment. Because they are insane like that and don't care what anyone thinks.

[mammomlette]

People don’t talk about MC needing to wear a magical ring to not accidentally yk cause NATURAL DISASTERS with their powers??? Not only accidentally but without realising???

Diavolo or smthn is asking too much of MC or being a bit too annoying and their other hand slowly drifts towards the ring and they hold onto it while maintaining dead eye contact. Like continue to piss me off hoe I’ll blink and blow a hole in your castle idk

Obv they never do it (or do they?) but the threat is there and it’s a risk dia (or whoever but I’m using dia) can’t take

[kimaisalloren]

Redraw of my favorite chapter art. Except I wanted a creepy vibe and to make it look like inkwash. Original here owo: 👇