#researcher-serif

[cosmica-galaxy]

-- And here's the last entry from our local menace, @researcher-serif and @cat-and-fox-hub! I feel so bad for this poor drill mimic, he has to raise two babies on his own after his mate died! But at least the human found him and they can help him raise his two youngins!! <: )

[lensman-arms-race]

Oh my goodness. For months I have had first 1, then 2, then 3 'ghost' asks in my Tumblr inbox: Tumblr displayed the number of asks but not the asks themselves, so I assumed it was a glitch. Today, Tumblr randomly allowed me to see them! All this time @researcher-serif had sent me nice messages and I hadn't seen or been able to reply to them! I must have looked like such an ungrateful cow! (As far as I'm aware, neither of us accidentally blocked the other, because we've been able to see and interact with each other's posts. There will be some stupid-ass edge case that Tumblr's spaghetti code tripped over, I'm sure.)

These are so nice! Thank you Serif! 💞

[scuddle-bubble101]

WHY CANT I MAKE MY CAPS BIGGER TO MATCH MY EXCITEMNT AND HAPPY TEARSSSS

JINX IS F*CKING ADORABLE AND WE LOVE HER ALREADY

Hope it's not disrespectful to ask though, how does am alter giving birth make sense? I'm not the best taught and you don't have to answer ofc, I'm just curious

(Also not sure if we can swear on ur blog)

(I'm gonna answer this one. No offense, but this question might make the new papas a little uncomfortable ;w;!)

Again, I don't like answering sys questions as the stuff we are witnessing is more or less in proper context [the past... And, it makes me and my system extremely uncomfortable to explain how we exist lol. We didn't sign up to be teachers.] but! To answer your question. Alters have their own worlds they belong to, they come and go as they please and visit when they want. I can't be anymore specific than that really. Stick and Matrix are their own people, me and Pen know this personally, I will not explain further on this. They simply do as they want. You already know how babies are made, it isn't rocket science.

ps. Swearing is allowed :] If you could hear the amount of times I've heard straight up ALL THE COLOURFUL language under the sun, I'd be living in a mansion X'D

[lensman-arms-race]

Thank you for the ping - I love this! The art is so cute and the description so lovely, it makes me melt. 💜

For the Celtic basis, is he based on a selkie? They shed their 'coats' (their seal pelts) only for the human they love best.

Exclusive Night

Made by Cat, aka Researcher Serif/AW

A somber tune, a blessed night; his screen crackles softly as he sits, more than content with you asleep in his arms. Dear beloved, know that he will shed his coat for you and you alone. It's easy to forsake the sea of static lights if it meant staying by your side. (The love he holds for you spares no expense.)

Who doesn't wanna be cuddled by a large TV unit who cradles and holds you so warmly yet protectively like a precious treasure to be kept safe?

Just like every other OC I have, there's almost no introduction to my goobers as they just suddenly slide into your peripherals lol.

Anywaes for those that don't know, meet [L_TM-WF4335], aka, Gin! My quiet, most handsomest large TV boi!

Main things to know 'bout him is that his head tends to shift in model/type every so often, he always covers up one way or another, he loves his precious savior, you, deeply, and he'll never part with his coat if he can help it.

(You're the only exception. Beloved dearest, guiding star of his life.)

For those that know of my goober (lookin at u @lens-guy-art /silly), we got a lil puzzle for u. Gin is partially inspired by a Celtic being in its mythos, there's hints in the flavor text and here, what do u think it is? U get cookies if u rite!

Either wae, hope u enjoy this Jouice™ of ours!

(_ ˶^ ヮ^˶)/ ♬♪

(Also, psst! TV Enjoyer Extraordinaire™ @lensman-arms-race, mayhaps this beest something thou wouldst enjoy? /silly)

─────────────────────

Check out my main blog: @researcher-serif

Here's my NSFW blog if that tickles your fancy: @grandfather-of-sin

─────────────────────

[commandershepardvasfuckit]

Playing with handwriting!

Been so so so many years since I’ve thought about character handwriting, and I’m not really thrilled with these yet, but some beginning ideas on how the party might write!

Halsin: two types of writing (his notes vs things others will read). His note taking when he’s working on something is a terrible scrawl that really only he can read, but when writing a letter to someone or recording research for others he has a tidy cursive with minimal serifs or embellishments.

Karlach: all print all the time. At one point her handwriting was fairly good, and you can see she knows how to write properly by the way her letters slant (probably used to use cursive) but too many years without it and just not caring about it means a basic print now.

Astarion: fancy. Always a fancy cursive, and very ornate capitals, especially for his own name. He used to be a magistrate so would you expect anything else?

Wyll: a semi embellished cursive, not as ornate as Astarion’s, but as the son of a duke he knows proper lettering and like a simple but high impact cursive that can be read easily at a glance.

Gale: the largest capitals you’ve ever seen with the smallest lower cases possible. Like Halsin he’ll write in a quick scrawl when needed (still pretty tidy though) but for manuscripts, spell books, or love letters? Impractical writing.

Shadowheart: print/cursive hybrid. Fairly upright letters with curved points on ascenders and descenders. Meant for writing quickly and clearly over anything else.

Lae’zel: refuses to write in common. Hates the way it looks and all her letters slant to the left (vs to the right) because of how Tir’su script is written circularly. Lots of crossed out words and letters when she writes in common.

[clusterrune]

npd centered/safe blogs

[npd scentered/safe blogs]

active

@ndcultureis

@narcissisticpdcultureis

@enigma-in-reality

@loverofmirage

@npdemu

@npd--bakugou

@selfdxculture (last posted sept.)

@yourlocalnpd (last posted sept.)

@fixingantinpdableism (last posted aug.)

@narcissist-hoarding (our term hoard blog)

@npdfavs

@prideisforeveryonebutcops

@a-sip-of-milo

@narc0path

@nicepersondisorder

@edrecovery-space (we have not posted in a while but are still active)

@fantasy-store

@cpunkwitch

@your-fave-is-crippled

@vineyard-edits

@archival-arrival

@ego-est-ignis

@objectumluv

@butchcoining

@narcissism-awareness (last posted may)

@mischiefmanifold

@npders (last posted aug.)

@queersrus

@apparentlysubhuman

@sapphic-horror

@your-npd-meme-plug (last posted july)

@puffl3m0n / @acetrappolaswife

@pyrocultureis

@hauntedselves

@empath-abuse-awareness

@citrine-rabbit

@narcissists-true-crime (last posted nov)

@kodiescove

@foolishnpd

@nahmanidontwantto

@alphabet-mafia-collective

@duckduckgoose-exe

@npd-haver

@zombie-dyke

@indifferentvincent

archives

@npdarchive

@npddoll

[inactive blogs moved to new list] here(link)

if any blogs would like to be added or removed please let us know! same goes for any blogs you may have/know that arent on the list and you think should be added.

does not have to be a blog specifically for npd content but at least safe for those with npd.

i would also prefer to include blogs that are screen reader and dyslexic friendly. ie no non-sans serif fonts or coloured text and/or at least includes plane text. as well as blogs that are pro-(researched) selfdx.

[aspd, bpd and hpd bloglists coming soon]

id's in alt text.

[copperbadge]

I've been a little stymied and thus somewhat putting off work on the new novel, Simon's chef novel, not so much because I'm blocked but more because I wanted to get Royals/Ramblers put to bed and also I was struggling a little to determine the love interest for the story.

While I often tell the Shivadh stories from dual points of view, there's usually a character I think of as the protagonist and one as the love interest -- like in Infinite Jes we knew Michaelis but I had to build Jes (my initial conception of Jes was a trans woman but I had to shift that a bit for various reasons). I've been talking to you guys about this story for a while so I had a bit of market research I guess, which started fitting things into place, but last night was the first time I sat down and just kind of thought about it for a while, so I think I'm finally starting to get her built.

Someone had mentioned they'd love to see what I believe they phrased as "a salt-and-pepper butch" which I liked, and I've been meaning to introduce more characters of color, but I also knew I wanted her to be native Shivadh, so mostly I needed to work out how to navigate her heritage. I'm going to do a bit more research as I write, but I think I've established her as a Sephardic Jew of African heritage, her family having immigrated from Tangier sometime in the 19th century and still having familial links back to Morocco. She's a chef specializing in Moroccan-Sephardic cuisine opening a restaurant on the Promenade, a she/her butch around Simon's age (mid-fifties) who has basically worked in restaurants her entire life and is now finally getting to open her own. I really like the idea of her using fem pronouns but a male name, so I've been doing some research and I think it's going to be either Jacob or Elias -- I like Elias better but there's already Eddie and Ephraim, and I'm trying not to use the same letters for names over and over (M, G, and C are ruled out, too many of them already). I suppose I could go with the unorthodox spelling Ilias, but that looks odd especially with a sans-serif font.

Anyway, now the research fun begins! Time to come up with an appropriate name for her restaurant and then get cracking on the Meet Ugly (they meet when he accosts her for her ricotta and she tells him to get bent).

[lenetaylor]

That time Paul McCartney stole a London street sign (probably)

Whilst perusing this photo set, my attention was caught by the street sign in the background, fixed to the wall:

The sign says Wellington Road NW; this road runs parallel to Cavendish Ave.

So at first I thought he and Heather were somewhere out on Wellington Road, but this didn't make sense: there are no places to swim (except the canal at the southeast end of Wellington, but, gross), and anyway Heather's wearing a nightgown. But as I looked more closely, I realized the photos were actually taken (by Linda, I assume, perhaps in 1969) the backyard of his house at Cavendish. The crappy paving stones and the multicolor brick wall match other photos at roughly the same time:

Note also the railing and steps, which match the fifth photo of Paul with his leg up.

But where did the sign come from?

These street signs were and are ubiquitous in Westminster. The original signs (installed in the 1950s) are cast iron and use the Crown Estate’s gilted crown emblem and relief lettering in a serif font. They look like this (note the Cavendish Place sign in this lot!):

In 1967, they started replacing them with a new style of sign, designed by Sir Misha Black. From this article:

If you ask most people what the typical London street sign looks like, they will probably describe something that looks very like the classic Westminster design: white enamel with neat black lettering and the postal district in red, then the name of borough in red across the bottom, all in sans serif. This classic and copyrighted design – many genuine examples of which are currently being auctioned online by Catherine Southon Auctioneers – feels historic but was in fact conceived as recently as 1967 by Misha Black’s Design Research Unit. Black was commissioned by Westminster City Council to design a simple and striking template that would replace the existing anarchic street sign policy – which he did with great success.

Here's the new Wellington Road sign:

The old Wellington Road sign ended up in Paul's backyard sometime after 1967. I think he must have seen it on the side of the road and picked it up while he was walking around, or fished it out of a skip. Or maybe he straight up nicked it while they were doing the sign replacement. Who can say?

I'd love to know how long he kept it fixed to the wall.

In conclusion, Paul McCartney stole a street sign (I think).

[uwmspeccoll]

Typography Tuesday

QUNZ - Lego Typeface

Since 2016, Dutch printmaker and educator Martijn van der Blom (b. 1973) has been working on designing a Lego typeface he calls QUNZ. He states:

I approach letters as a form of architecture, each letter is like a building. . . . I decided to give QUNZ a more open and playful character, This created space to fine creative solutions to thick and thin lines, diagonals and serifs.

Van der Blom designs while printing and most of his visual research happens in the printing process. He explicitly leaves room to design with the opportunities that present themselves in the act of printing. One result of this way of working is that certain compositions are not taken apart. Elements that have proven themselves are preserved:

I don't break down the compositions anymore. I leave them intact and store them in a dedicated typecase, just like all the other type in the studio.

The letterforms shown here from the second edition of Print & Play The Art of LEGO Letterpress by van der Blom and visual artist Roy Scholten, published in Dutch and English in Hilversum, Netherlands at tacit.studio in a limited edition 250 copies in 2024. Martijn van der Blom and Roy Scholten have been working with LEGO bricks as printmaking material in Grafisch Atelier Hilversum (a printmaking studio in Hilversum, The Netherlands) since 2013. 

View another post from Print & Play.

View our other Typography Tuesday posts.

[tinfoil-jones]

For Your Own Good: Intermission

Askbox? Open

If you don't know what this post is about, "For Your Own Good" or tagged as "Early Amnesia AU" on tumblr is a dialogue-only Gravity Falls fanfiction I've been working on that kinda-sorta follows a Mystery Trio -esque timeline, where Ford doesn't build the portal. To sum it up, the whole fanfiction boils down to:

Researcher Ford: I told you I never wanted to see you again.

Mullet Stan: Dude, I don't know who you are or WTF you're talking about right now, but I'm leaving this town and never coming back. You are never seeing me again after this. I'm probably going to forget you in like five minutes.

Researcher Ford:

Researcher Ford: *immediately kidnaps him*

You can consider chapters 1-10 to be Act 1 of the fanfic, and I’m taking a break for at least a week, most likely longer. The chapters so far were already written out in advance, and so was a huge reveal, but I still need to tie things together.

Here’s some authors notes/extra stuff about it, some of it might have already been put in the AO3 before or after notes. These are in no particular order:

This takes place 10 years after Ford and Stan were separated, currently they are both 27 about to be 28. Fiddleford is slightly older than them, being in his early 30s.

Ford is unironically the only person who finds Stan’s really dumb jokes funny.

Ford is the one who displays the most behaviours that would be seen from Mabel and Dipper decades later. Like Dipper, he views washing clothes as a waste of time, and like Mabel he ate an entire tube of toothpaste (granted, it was on accident)

While Ford is the more likely of the two to display traits that later present in Mabel and Dipper, it still happens with Stan as well. Stan has a similar nervous-chewing habit that Dipper displays in the OG series, but his only comes out when he’s particularly anxious. In this case, it was because he had nicotine cravings.

The 'That motherfucker is ugly' line that Stan used on Ford can be considered extra ironic because of how much the Stan Twins look like their dad.

Bill Cipher was originally supposed to speak in Times New Bastard (which is Times New Roman except every 7th letter is jarringly sans serif, a meme from tumblr), but AO3 and tumblr don’t let you change the font.

Stan goes out of his way to avoid using Ford and Fiddlefords given names- but this isn’t because he doesn’t know what they are. In the few times he has used their names, it was a sign that he was being sincere.

If you want to wonder whether or not Fiddleford likes Stan back, consider the fact that he could have walked away at any point, and either washed his hands of the whole thing, or just outright reported Stanford to the authorities. 

Bill is more like Discord from MLP - he’s just chaotic, often to the detriment of others, but he isn’t outright malicious (anymore), and he’s too busy SIMPING to cause any real harm. Basically, Bill is Fords patron for studying weirdness - he helps Ford in his research, but the cost that Ford pays is that Bill is able to possess him when he sleeps, and has unlimited access to his brain.

If Ford knew Rick Sanchez, why didn’t Rick see how similar Stan looked and put 2-and-2 together? Easy; Rick didn’t give a single shit about Ford, so he never committed his face or name to memory. Ford himself only remembered Rick because Rick was such a massive, egotistical asshole. If anything, Rick would think Ford is the lesser version of Stan.

Chapter 10 was the first concrete proof that the Stan we’ve been following likely is Stanley Pines and not some similar conman named Stan Malone. The last time Ford saw Stan would have either been when they were teens, so other than Stans commercials for his failed products there’s no way Ford would know what an adult Stan would even look like, and he’d have to use himself as a reference.

Stan has given some insight on his Thalassophobia (fear of the ocean / large bodies of water). In Chapter 10, he told Ford a number of things he escaped, including the trunk of a sinking car, and cement shoes. Cement shoes are either when you tie someone to a cinder block and throw them into a body of water, or when you literally incase their feet in cement, wait for it to dry, and then toss them into a body of water, so they’ll drown. Presumably, these are still things that would have happened to him even if he didn't lose his memories, so why would it give him a fear of the ocean now? Stan Pines in the OG still had a lot of positive memories associated with the ocean - he grew up on the coast, and had a lot of his hopes and dreams tied to the ocean. But without his childhood memories, he has no positive associations with it, only memories of times he almost drowned. 

Ford himself is not a touchy guy. The reason he hugs Stan even though it isn’t reciprocated is because from his perspective, this is his twin brother who is in pain and has been suffering all by himself for a long time. And Stan - at least how Ford remembers him - had a very touch-based love language. Fords doing it because he thinks it’d comfort him.

Stan seems pretty calm and chill for someone who’s been kidnapped by a ‘stranger’. This isn’t because he’s an overall chill guy because of amnesia, no he’s super pissed and the second he knows he’s free he will let them know that with his words, and incredible violence. He’s remaining calm because he’s been imprisoned and kidnapped enough times to know that pitching a fit or lashing out at his captors won’t do him any favours.

Fiddleford is still married to Emma-May and they do have Tate. But it's one of those lavender marriages (they're both gay and mutually bearding each other)

[lens-guy-art]

Art Fight compilation

In order:

Awry - @h4nk1ller Dole Whip and Gin - @researcher-serif Security - @askthesmoltitans TV 64 - @that-other-dead-person Streak and Whistle - @tabieeee

[cosmica-galaxy]

Heard u were lookin for DILFs so if u ever need him, I offer you Dole

He totally knows what's gonna happen to him (no he doesn’t)

I NEVER GOT THIS ASK, WHAT THE FUCK TUMBLR?! WE COULD'VE HAD A FUCKING DRILL DILF, YOU DAMN CUNT WEBSITE!! RAAAAAAAH I LOVE IT SO MUCH SERIF. I AM PISSED I NEVER SAW THIS!!

[spacemagicandlaserswords]

The Bad Batch 3.1 ‘Confined’ Recap

Image from this post by @isthereanechoinhere96

Fuck you for starting with that line

Why are the captions in a serif font?

Going heavy on the theme of freedom for the clones already in the recap. Foreshadowing?

Rex!

CODY

Meme by u/No-Needleworker5295 on Reddit

Ah fuck here we go again

Why must I be made to relive this?

Damn the music is really hitting hard and it’s only the recap

Spoilers for Season 3 below!

Mayday! *sobs*

Oh great, it’s fuck face again

Hemlock being a bastard as per usual

Poor Omega

“Prisoner? Omega, you are no such thing.” Said to the child kept in a cage.

Still not trusting and heavily side eyeing Emerie

Why do they let Omega carry around a little lunchbox? That seems like an obvious security risk. As does the cell with a window, even if it has a heavy grate on it.

LMAO Crosshair looks the saddest, wettest, most bedraggled little meow meow in existence

Who are those other clones??? I must know

Why are they taking blood samples from the top of the hand? That seems like the least useful place to take it from

“All of us serve a purpose here” Big oof

The shots and framing are making it pretty clear that the blood, and Omega's blood in particular, is important

So many commandos with the glowing visors

Oh, it’s a door scanner. I thought Omega was sitting in a cell in that shot in the trailer

Nala Se (derogatory)

Lmao that wasn’t even subtle. She just destroyed Omega’s blood sample without even hiding what she was doing

“This research, it’s not like what we did on Kamino, is it?” Pretty sure what you did on Kamino was just as horrific. Though you can’t really blame Omega for that seeing as she’s a literal child who was also probably experimented on

M-count. That’s midi-chlorians isn’t it. Lol they aren’t even being subtle about this. Force sensitive clones ahoy!

“Experiments on the specimens” Jesus H Christ

Vault? That doesn’t bode well

Everything about this episode is very eerie and sinister

Ok that is an excessive, overkill amount of security. Who the fuck is in there?

And straight into electrocuting space dogs. Great.

I knew the lunchbox was for hiding something!

Batcher? Aw, she named them after the Bad Batch

Yes, stick your arm into the cage with the aggressive space dog. That’s a good idea

Nuggies???

He was shivering T_T

Who are all of these clones??? I keep pausing the video and zooming in but I can’t see any identifying characteristics on any of them yet. 

And there he is

Oh fuck Crosshair’s hand is shaking. I know most people have probably watched the clip of this already but I deliberately didn’t. Shaking hands for a sniper is Not Good. That’s his right hand too, so presumably his trigger hand/finger/whatever it’s called? Is this a physical injury inflicted on him by their experiments or PTSD or both?

I’m intrigued at how much relative freedom they’re giving Omega. She’s not being kept in a cell all the time like the other clones. Though I suppose this is part of their plan to make Nala Se cooperate.

Ok the tap dripping in Omega’s cell is definitely a visual metaphor for how repetitive, dreary, and isolating this all is

That’s 21 tally marks

Oh, she made a straw Lula. Ow

[shrieking in distance] – what shrieking? Captions, what are you going on about?

Oh fuck that’s a lot of tally marks. And a hair change. Lots of time has clearly passed. They’ve updated Omega’s model too but I think it’s a tad heavy handed as she hasn’t aged that much.

Wow, she didn’t even look at Crosshair. Is this attitude change Omega being ground down by what’s happening to her or something she’s doing deliberately to try and play along and be more cooperative so she can find out about more stuff? Also, that’s the second time she’s walked past Crosshair in the same spot at the same time of the day. That seems deliberate. 

Lol could you be any more obvious with the lighting in that shot that Omega’s blood is important? It’s like the vial of her blood has a moody spotlight on it. Important plot point here!

Nooooo Batcher’s hurt 😭

Bacta sponge?

“If I get the chance to escape, I wouldn’t think twice about leaving you behind.” Hmmm, you keep telling yourself that Crosshair

“I’m not them.” T_T

“Don’t risk anything for me. I belong in here.” Oooooooooowwwwwwwww

“None of us belong in here.” Damn right

There is some really lovely cinematography and framing in this scene between Omega and Crosshair

Well that was brutal and heavy handed

A successful transfer? A successful transfer of what?

The “specimen” has a high M-count. So they’re force sensitive. Now for the speculation on who it is?

“You should not question my loyalty to science, Doctor.” LMAO bitch what?

Urgh, of course they’re killing the dog once it’s friendly

Ahahaha squished

Aw, she’s setting Batcher free but she doesn’t want to go. 

“I didn’t know you were so cruel, Omega.” Oh fuck right off

Piss weak attempt to help there Emerie

Hemlock getting his evil baddie laugh moment

Clever. Omega knows why she’s here.

Urgh, of course Hemlock would threaten Crosshair to get Omega to cooperate.

Re-education?!?!?! You sick fuck

“Actions always have consequences. Sometimes not in the ways we imagine.” I am really hoping that line comes back to bite him in the ass later on

Oh fuck off with bring back the doll Emerie. That is such a bait to try and get Omega to like her and behave

That’s 164 tally marks. Omega’s been on Mount Tantiss for 5 and a half months

Aw, Batcher made it out. And that’s the crashed shuttle from earlier that she’s howling on the top of. More foreshadowing?

[cat-and-fox-hub]

Between A Clock, Drill, & A Hard Place

Made by Cat, aka Researcher Serif/AW

Caught between a Clock, Drill, an' a hard place. How'dya find yourself caught between two powerful units and their affections? You're either a poor sod, a lucky bastard, or both. Either way, they're not letting you go so easily Little Bird~

In honor of my own severe simpage and @cosmica-galaxy 's freedom from finals, I present this! Hope yalls likey!

─────────────────────

Check out my main blog: @researcher-serif

Here's my NSFW blog if that tickles your fancy: @grandfather-of-sin

[patch-threads]

I'm an illustrator and graphic designer learning about book cover design and illustration. Today's breakdown: Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke @susannaclarke_ (on IG) published by @bloomsburypublishing (IG)

Cover design by William Webb @willwebbdesign (IG)

One of the first things I noticed while researching the cover is that not every edition is the same. I have a US paperback, which has additional text--"The International Bestseller" at the top and a quote from the Sunday Times at the bottom. Another edition I saw had NYT Bestseller and Time Magazine's Number 1 book of the year.

I assume these relate to the particular places in which these editions are being sold and what endorsements are most likely to sway potential readers.

I used my copy for a layout breakdown and reconstruction. The original:

My reconstruction:

For comparison: original vs reconstruction

This is a typography-focused cover, with the raven serving as the only illustrative element. There are two typefaces used, both with serifs. The title and author's name are in a font resembling IM Fell English, which I found on Google Fonts. It's primarily characterized by its irregular edges, probably the reason it was used.

The cover is very high-contrast, two-tone white silver on black, without any halftones or greys intermixed. Overall, it looks almost like a newspaper or early print book in which the color scheme has been reversed. The effect created is both "historical" and gothic, accurately positioning the book as if it were a gothic novel of the period.

The raven pushes the overall look towards the fantastic, hinting at the presence of English magic and mythology in a way that may not be obvious to the potential reader but which becomes very clear upon reading.

I love how simple it is, with each detail hinting at what the reader can expect. It’s a great cover!

[chillentertainer]

Archive Classics: Typesetting Fics

TL; DR: the internet is temporary!!! printed books (for your own private amusement) are forever!!!

What I do:

Basically, I choose fics that I think deserve to be printed and typeset them using a software called Adobe InDesign. InDesign is the professional standard in the industry, but there are definitely easier (and cheaper!) options for formatting.

Once I've chosen a fic, there a few different things I have to decide: the font, glyphs, book size, and the hors-texte (title page, contents, etc).

Then, I go about copy + pasting the text into the software, and formatting them. Usually, that just means deleting the blank space of lines that for some reason appears between paragraphs.

Every element, and I mean every single element, is designed for the reader's comfort. At no point should the reader feel lost or unable to continue because of the way the text is formatted. This means using serif fonts instead of sans-serif fonts for the body text and making sure that there aren't any widows/orphan lines. I have specific justification settings so that the spacing between words and letters are even and smooth to the reader's eye.

I also think about headers and page numbers more than you would expect. Should the page numbers be on top or bottom? Centered or at the corners. Should I have headers at all? And if so, what should they say?

When I began, and I still do this occasionally, I grabbed books off my shelves and examined their formatting. Then I'd question why they made this design choice or that. All publishers have their special little quirks and features, and if I spotted something I liked something, I would incorporate that into my own works. For example, Penguin Classics love their classic serif fonts and headers. Barnes and Noble Classics have a feature in their hors-texte that is their "From the Pages Of" section.

My favorite part is creating the cover. If you couldn't tell based off the title "Archive Classics," I *borrowed* Penguin Classic's grid. I love to use paintings or other kinds of artwork (like Étienne-Louis Boullée's architectural drawings for Fractals)

Why I Do This:

While there are many amazing and necessary reasons to read e-books, I enjoy the physicality of a printed book. Nothing can beat the sensation of turning the next page, the smell of paper, or the weight of your next great adventure in your hands. Fanfiction more than deserves to be experienced in that way too.

But also, I've always had a lingering suspicion regarding the temporal nature of digital media and of the internet in general. Fanfiction, in particular, are at risk of disappearing forever, and while you can obvs download it (which I always always do), there's a slight chance that you may not be able to access the technology in order to view it. Books don't require laptops or phones or internet service.

It's a silly movie, but Leave the World Behind (2023) showcases this perfectly, albeit with streaming services and dvds.

Finally, with the ever-changing landscape of the internet and technology, who knows if say archaeologists would be able to access ao3 in a 100 or even 50 years. Look at USB-As, and how quickly they're going out of use. Physical media like printed books will certainly last for decades longer. My ultimate (and idealistic) goal is to have a physical, printed library of fanfiction for both private enjoyment and for the academic study of fanfiction in the anthropological and literary fields. The latter will most likely not happen in my lifetime (if ever at all), but a girl can dream!

Copyright

This is slightly sketchy but from what I can tell from my research is that most sites don't give an af if you print like one copy for yourself and you do not print en-masse or start selling them. So like Manacled. Don't do what those kids did and put up your copies on etsy. I don't. I print this for myself and myself only. And I've never gotten a cease and desist letter or anything like that.

Requests are open: if you have a fic you think deserves the archive classics treatment, lmk! I do not accept payment. This is all free.

Examples!

A Current Cover I'm Working On:

This one is a linen wrap, which means it has flaps!