#pilesofnonsense

[phynoma]

I am beyond honored to be one of the artists for @pitviperofdoom 's 2024 Big Bang fic, To Assume a Pleasing Shape

Since their fic is inspired in part by Bluebeard, I wanted to try and capture a sort of old book print vibe.

I absolutely ADORE this fic and I am wowed by @rhywhitefang's portraits for it! Thank you so much to you both, and to @pilesofnonsense for running the Rusty Quill Big Bang!

Find Pitviperofdoom's post HERE and rhywhitefang's post HERE

[bittercape]

RQBB 2024

This year, I've made art for A Change in the Air by @wonkyelk:

Go check it out! In addition to the Escher-inspired archives I have tried to illustrate (such a challenge!) there's centaurs and wings and much, much more.

Thank you to the mods at @pilesofnonsense for running this event again!

[marimo-art]

Here we are with a piece to compliment InArduisFidelis' fic, Of Those Who Have Gone Before for the Rusty Quill Big Bang 2023 ran by @pilesofnonsense (This is my first Big Bang participation, it was a lot of fun!)

[bluejayblueskies]

Breakaway | Glacy

(ID in alt text.)

I had a blast participating once again in @pilesofnonsense's Rusty Quill Big Bang event as a bookbinder/artist! This year, I collaborated with Glacy on AO3 and bound their TMA fic Breakaway. It's an ice hockey AU with underlying spooks and horrors, and I had a lot of fun reading it and working with it! Definitely go check out their fic!!

An additional shout-out to @shadow0haven who designed my new bindery logo! You can see it on the back of the title page in the fifth picture, and I love how it looks in my books <3

More information about the bind and my process can be found beneath the cut:

For this bind, I decided to go hard on the hockey theme. The team mascot is a revenant, so I went with a title page and cover design styled after a hockey jersey. The cover is made entirely of bookcloth, with the different colors and details cut out of different colors of bookcloth that are then pieced together like a puzzle. I was pleasantly surprised with how well it turned out! It took a little bit of fiddling to figure out the correct cut settings on my Silhouette, as well as the level of detail I could achieve, but I love how the whole cover has a cloth texture like a jersey would.

The construction of this book was a bit of a challenge. Because I wanted to put grommets in the edges of the cover and thread a shoelace through them, so the spine looked like a hockey skate, doing a regular coptic stitch bind--where the covers are sewn onto the text block via holes punched in the cover board--would have interfered with the ability to freely manipulate the laces.

I eventually settled on a hybrid coptic-sewn board binding style. There is an additional folio of cardstock sewn onto the ends of the text block that the boards are then glued into, thus directly attaching the boards to the textblock and providing more structural stability. Usually, with sewn boards, a spine piece is then glued around the spine to cover up the exposed sewing; instead, I glued the bookcloth to the cover and then carefully cut slits in the cloth on the spine side and fed it in between the lines of sewing. It worked out incredibly well, creating the illusion of an open-spine coptic-stitch book without actually stitching on the chipboard itself; I wish I'd had the foresigh to take process pictures.

After that, it was relatively simple to punch holes for the grommets, insert them, and then thread the laces through. Next time, I would use a thinner chipboard and punch the holes further from the spine to allow the cover boards to close more flatly, but overall, I'm very happy with how the various design elements came together! The shoelace is removable and/or adjustable if desired as well.

[iiiumihottie]

happy RQBB! here's my art for @aryashi's fic Eye Spy. DEFINITELY go check it out right now! it's amazing and such a fun ride-- i had a great time both reading and drawing for it! :D and as always, thank you to @pilesofnonsense for hosting :) (click for better detail grahh)

[Image Description in alt.]

[areyouokaypanda]

We've come back around yet again to the Rusty Quill Big Bang, hosted by @pilesofnonsense ! This year I, along with @vexfulfolly , was paired with @chrisis-averted to illustrate their fic, Fragments (I remember you). It's been ages since I dipped in to make art for TMA, and I had a lot of fun with this piece! Be sure to check out Vex's art and go read Fragments!

[pilesofnonsense]

RQBB 2024 Writer Sign-Ups Open!

Writer Sign-Ups are now open for the Rusty Quill Big Bang 2024!

Please read through the information carefully to understand what will be expected of you as a participant.

The sign-up link is at the end of the post under the spoiler cut!

You do not need to have decided what you will be writing at this stage, but please consider whether the fic requirements are compatible with what you have in mind, and be sure that you can commit to contacting us on the below deadlines to share your progress (or withdraw your participation if necessary).

Schedule for 2024 (all deadlines at 23:00 BST / 5pm CDT):

Writer Sign-ups: May 20th - 26th

Full First Draft & Summary Due: August 18th

Artist Sign-ups: August 26th - September 1st

Art Draft Deadline: September 29th

Final Fic & Art Due: October 13th

Posting: October 16th- 27th

Confirmation e-mails for sign-ups will be sent out after sign-ups close; if you have not received a confirmation by May 30, please contact us at pilesofnonsense@gmail.com. We ask that you check your email (including the spam folder!) and reply so we can confirm that your registered email address is correct and you still intend to participate.

Participation Requirements:

You must choose whether to join the Big Bang as an artist or writer. You may not do both.

Writers will require an AO3 account; if you do not have an AO3 account, please request one via AO3’s login page.

If you wish to write M or E rated fics you must be aged over 18.

All participants must read and adhere to the Expected Conduct guidelines (see below).

Minimum Final Word Count: 20,000

Maximum Number of Fics per Writer/s: 1

Maximum Number of Writers per Fic (collaboration): 2

Fic Draft Requirements: At the draft deadline (August 18th), we will require a complete draft of at least 18,000 words. “Complete” means that the fic is written from start to finish with no indispensable scenes missing or left as outlines—think, “If I posted this right now, would I be happy with the story it tells?”

Ideally, you will refine and polish your draft in the remaining time, but it can also be your final draft if you prefer.

Drafts will be handed in via a form that will be sent out to you before the deadline. Drafts should be available in Google docs, or if need be in PDF format.

Summary Requirements: A form for the summary will be sent out to you before the deadline. Summaries should briefly outline the general premise, and include rating, ships, triggers and other warnings, and any other relevant details.

Eligible Fics:

Fics of any rating and with any warnings are permitted, as long as they meet the minimum word count (20,000), are centered around at least one Rusty Quill original podcast (The Magnus Archives, The Magnus Protocol, Rusty Quill Gaming, Stellar Firma, Inexplicables, Chapter & Multiverse, Trice Forgotten, Cry Havoc!, Neon Inkwell), and are tagged appropriately.

We encourage authors to take this opportunity to challenge themselves to take on a project that they might not otherwise—though please consider what is realistic in terms of the deadlines as well!

Fics must be stand-alone (requires no knowledge of previous fics to enjoy), complete (resolves all main plotlines within the story, as opposed to being part I of a trilogy, etc.), and previously unposted.

Crossovers are allowed, but the focus should be on the RQ podcast involved. For example: a fusion crossover with the Leverage Team replacing the LOLOMG in the RQG!verse would not be permitted, though the RQG characters in the Leverage!verse would be.

Please be aware that fics with obscure crossovers, common squicks, higher ratings, etc., may be more difficult to match, and thus take a little longer to get snapped up. We will do our best to find you a suitable match, though!

If you have any questions about the suitability of your fic, please contact the mods.

Matching Process:

The artist sign-up will include a list of the anonymised fic summaries. Each artist will select 3 fics which they would be interested in creating for, with additional preferences (favourite show/shows they do not follow, OTPs and NoTPs, Do Not Wants, etc.) indicated in the comment field. Mods will then match writers to artists, taking preferences into account as much as possible.

If fics are oversubscribed or if it is otherwise necessary for matching, they may be removed from the list of eligible fics before the end of artist sign-ups.

If you have an issue with your match, please let the mods know as soon as possible.

Do Not Wants:

In this event, you will have an opportunity to Do Not Want (DNW) the types of content that you do not wish to work on. Similarly, if you’ve had conflicts with certain people in the past and do not want to risk matching to them, you can include this in your sign-up or draft submission, and we will avoid matching you with them (details of these will not be shared beyond the mod team).

The mods will always account for DNWs within reason; however, attempts to manipulate matches via DNWs or otherwise acting in bad faith will result in the rejection of your sign-up or draft. We are also not private detectives, and will thus not be fielding any requests such as “do not match me with anyone who has ever drawn/written XYZ.” Please keep that in mind when considering whether this event is right for you.

Expected Conduct:

By signing up for this event, you agree to do your best to meet the deadlines. If you might need a little more time, please email the mods to explain your situation before the deadline passes. Those who miss deadlines without contacting the mods beforehand may be dropped from the event without further contact.

In order to participate in this event, you must be willing to contact the mods directly in the event that you have a question, concern, or issue with your participation (as in the deadline example above). We are happy to help participants with anything that arises, but cannot accept “telephone”-style communiques on behalf of others.

Be in regular contact with your match—if you’re going to be offline for a significant length of time, let them know. Radio silence from your match in events of this kind can be very concerning. (If you are having trouble getting in touch with your match, please contact us!)

Please take care to credit your artist/writer in your own final post.

Our Discord server has its own list of rules, which are listed within the server. If you decide to join the server, we require you to read and abide by those rules.

Be kind and courteous towards your match and fellow participants. This naturally means that all forms of bigotry and discrimination are prohibited, but even where those are not at play, you are expected to treat others with respect.

We, like Rusty Quill, have an “all headcanons are valid” policy. Harassment or mockery of those with different interpretations will not be tolerated. This does not mean you cannot discuss how you see the characters with others or that your artist/writer should not take it into account at their discretion, but insistence that any one interpretation must be adhered to is not allowed.

If you have concerns that a work or participant may be in violation of the rules, please bring it to the mods directly. Harassment of other participants (including but not limited to callout posts, name-calling, baiting, etc.), either publicly or in the Piles of Nonsense discord server, over their identities, fanworks, or headcanons will result in an instant default.

A full overview of the Guidelines can be found on our Challenge Guidelines page. We also have an FAQ.

The writer sign-up form can be found here.

Thanks for reading, and we look forward to working with you!  

[pitviperofdoom]

My fic for the Rusty Quill Big Bang 2024 is out! The latest installment of my fairy tale series, Spin Spider Spin. Please mind the tags on this one, it's heavy on the body horror and violence. I've been calling it the timsasha fairy tale horror fic for a reason.

Thank you to my incredible partners @phynoma and @rhywhitefang for their wonderful art, and to @pilesofnonsense for organizing this event.

Summary: "Another monster for you to slay?” Tim asks when he sees his brother reading through a stack of letters. Mayors and governors and village heads have sent out the call. Everyone knows Danny’s name.

“A witch,” Danny says with a devil-may-care grin.

---

“Nothing gets in or out, not even with the key.” He taps his pocket, where he keeps the one key that he did not give her. “And believe me when I say that’s a good thing. What lies beyond this door is incredibly dangerous, so I would advise you not to try opening it.”

“Of course,” Sasha agrees, burning with curiosity. “Thanks for the warning.”

[vexfulfolly]

Happy RQBB 2024!!!

I was so lucky to work on a piece for @chrisis-averted ’s absolutely stellar fic!

Make sure to check out @areyouokaypanda ’s art as well!

This was my first time ever working on a big bang, and my team was so delightful. I 10/10 recommend folks join next year! @pilesofnonsense

[rhywhitefang]

Here are my pieces for @pitviperofdoom 's lovely fic To Assume a Pleasing Shape! Thank you so much for working with me and also thank you to my fellow artist @phynoma !

This is part of the Rusty Quill Big Bang as organized by @pilesofnonsense ! Thank you for putting that together as well!

I wanted to give them a stained glass effect. Honestly I was a bit inspired by the beginning sequence of Disney's Beauty and the Beast^^

[wordsintimeandspace]

Jon has just moved to London for his new job at the Magnus Institute and finds himself in need of a roommate to afford the rent. Meanwhile, Gerry just wants a place to crash, somewhere that offers a momentary respite from the ghost of his mother. Moving in together was supposed to be nothing but practical, but they quickly realize the true potential of their living arrangement. They have the chance to defy the supernatural together, and more importantly, they find themselves with the opportunity to make a home. But Gerry is not telling the truth about his mother, and in the end, she might be the one monster they cannot outrun.

Here is my contribution to this year's Rusty Quill Big Bang by @pilesofnonsense!

Jon/Gerry, rated T, 32k words in 10 chapters. You can read this story on AO3! With art by @morning-softness :)

[izzys-trying]

Oh lawd these boys in situations

My 1st year doing the Rusty Quill Big Bang run by @pilesofnonsense !! This is my first piece (Second here) for the absolute riot (and subsequent unexpected heart wrenching) fic, written by SmallishWormMasterOfTheUniverse on ao3, here!!! I recommend giving it a look!! Absolutely fantastic!!

🌙If you’d like to support me at all here’s my ko-fi !!🌙

[morning-softness]

[Image Description: Gerry Keay sits in front of a low coffee table. He is holding a mug in one hand and a pencil in the other. On the coffee table is a newspaper, with cats doodled in the margins. Gerry is turned slightly away from the table to smile at someone out of frame. Both his mug and his socks are orange with a black cat pattern.]

@pilesofnonsense It was an absolute joy participating in the Rusty Quill Big Bang again this year! This is my second piece (3rd piece here) (1st piece here) for the fic Us Against the World written by @wordsintimeandspace .

[chrisis-averted]

Written for the Rusty Quill Big Bang 2024! @pilesofnonsense

London, 2162. In a City devastated by nuclear conflict, Jonathan Blackwood is a private investigator who's dealing with a series of mysterious disappearances. When a mysterious woman asks for his help tracking down the Stoker brothers, he will soon get tangled in a web of conspiracies. Who is behind the disappearances? And what do they have to do with Martin, the mysterious man Jon keeps dreaming of every night?

Art by @vexfulfolly and @areyouokaypanda.

I've had a LOT of fun writing this, I hope you'll enjoy!

[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 💜

[iiiumihottie]

[Image description available in alt text and under the cut.]

my first piece in this year's big bang hosted by @pilesofnonsense! this is for @late-to-the-magnus-archives' fic This Dark Thing That Sleeps In Me. GO GO GO check it out! it actually killed me. in a good way. you will NOT be disappointed.

[ID: A drawing of a young Jon from The Magnus Archives in a crowded, dusty attic. He sits in the center reading a book in awe, with a big window shining onto him. Around him are scattered books, discarded bits of clothing, rugs, blankets, and spiderwebs. Jon is depicted with medium brown skin and short, black hair. End ID.]