It's taken me more than a year to make this post. And it would have taken even longer, except I realized that what was holding me back now was wanting it to be perfect, which, let's face it, will never happen. So I am here to tell you about my friend @zulufic, about the amazing people of @renegadeguild, the Renegade Bookbinding Guild, and about fandom and community and how sometimes we really do get it right.
Zulu was my fandom and irl friend, and there is no good way to say this, she died of cancer a year and a half ago. She was family. She and my wife and I knew each other for twenty years, a significant part of our adult lives. Were at each other's weddings (her wedding to @belldreams was only a dozen people), travelled to cons, and helped each other move. She spent an unplanned week camping out in our living room one summer, as we torrented Stargate Atlantis, modded a House big bang from our living room couch, marathoned six degrees of actor separation media with us. Fell in and out of fandoms around each other, large and small. Witnessed each other's families and relationships and lives grown and change.
When I started fanbinding, I made her a pamphlet of her crackfic for Christmas. It was right around the time we found out she first had cancer. Surgery, chemo, and then we had another two years with her. She fell into another fandom, hard. I made her an anthology of her A League Of Their Own fic--all that she'd written at the time, at least. ("Would… you make a book of my fic?" she said when she saw my first casebound books. I never want to forget the way she said my name when she was asking me for something that was a foregone conclusion. "That was already the plan for Christmas," I told her.) I bound her rarepair House mpreg crackfic the next year, because that's what friends do. I didn't finish it until the spring--and then we found out the cancer was back.
She asked me for a favour over that summer. "Soooo… could you do something for me? Could you do another pamphlet, of this particular fic?" Yes, I said, yes I will. I will make you a pamphlet. I will make you TWELVE pamphlets. A HUNDRED AND TWENTY pamphlets, and more. (Spoiler alert, I did not make a hundred and twenty pamphlets, but I did make multiple copies of three.)
Here's the thing. She was on the prolific side, as a fic writer, and had been in fandom for decades. I wanted to bind more of her fic than I could possibly accomplish in time. I recognized there were finite amount of things I can finish while she was still here to see it, and that if I had tried to make this the only project I had, I would have collapsed under my own sadness.
That week, I said to a good fanbinding friend, I want to bind more of Zulu's fic, I'm just feeling a bit overwhelmed right now. Her response: "Can I help? Do you want me to typeset something?" Me: (ALL THE EMOTION) "… yes. But also, I was thinking of asking the Renegade guild if anyone else would be bind a few of her fic, too, maybe a few quick pamphlets?" Her: "YES, do it."
I did it. I posted. She immediately started a spreadsheet organizing what I'd already bound, and to let other people sign up for things, and put herself first on the list. The fact that someone else was organizing for me (made a SPREADSHEET!) made me a bit weepy. By the time I went to bed an hour later, I think we had half a dozen people signed up to participate.
I should have been prepared for the full force of the Renegade Bookbinding Guild members, otherwise known as the inhabitants of the enabling server.
The next morning came. And a few more people signed up. I tentatively suggested that if anyone wanted to include a card or note and maybe some stickers for her wife and their kiddo L, it would be welcome. And people started asking me questions. Like, what fic does she like best? Where should we start? Can we make a care package? What does her wife need?
Knowing the people in the server, and their general kindness and enthusiasm, I should not have been surprised, I really shouldn't. It just hits differently when you're the one who's the recipient, you know? "I don't know why you're surprised," said another friend. "You asked us to help and we're helping!" And it wasn't an official guild project, just an incredible act of community and compassion. And immense enthusiasm and zero restraint.
I started asking some surreptitious questions of Zulu and Bell. I'd asked Zulu a few weeks before about granting blanket permission for anyone to bind her fic, and for the typesets to be shared. I casually said, "Sooo I mentioned this to the fanbinding group. If someone does want to send you something, can I share your address? And can I suggest they send cards/stickers to L?" (Yes, and yes.)
We started a separate thread in the Discord server to keep up with the planning. Some collaborations started to come up. I'll typeset from South Africa or southeast Asia or from next door in the next US state, you print and bind, we'll collect some of the American books for a mass mailing to Canada. I don't have time to bind, but I can contribute to shipping costs. I don't know that fandom, but I can take your typeset, and make a copy. I love that fandom but don't have time and materials, but I'll typeset if you bind. At this point, there were more than thirty people involved. New-old fandoms were discovered. Techniques and experiments grew.
I told Bell a little bit. She knew there were books coming. I didn't let her know the full scope, but I figured she could use something good to look forward to. Zulu said one of her goals was to finish all her WIPs before she died. (That hurt my heart. She almost made it! But even at the end, she got distracted by a new fic idea...)
The behind the scenes binding continued. There was negotiating over obscure fandoms, and exclamations over fic for niche favourites. A need for a great deal of baseball theming because Zulu wrote a LOT of ALOTO fic in the last few years. There were anthologies and pamphlets, and tiny books, and large chonks, and an entire collection of every drabble Zulu ever wrote in House fandom.
There was a 100-word hockey RPF drabble bound in a one-page folio with metallic foil details. There was a whole-fandom slipcased pamphlet set of her handful of Friday Night Lights fic. There were Buffy and X-Files fic unearthed from deep in her backlist. There were several bonkers-ambitious binds of her SMAUs, social media AUs of tweets and screenshots that had me throw up my hands and exclaim "how am I supposed to typeset this?"
There were obscure Canadian fandoms encased in the fanciest of marbled paper pamphlets, and a House fic about stolen lunches bound in a brown paper bag. A flower-titled ALOTO fic with a cover patterned like a seed packet. A Yuletide obscure movie fic in silk moire. Firefly fic with a marbled paper inset, and a Stargate Atlantis fic with a vellum dustcover. A crackfic five things fic with a metallic paper DVD on the cover as a Chinese stab binding, from a fandom that needed MOAR LENS FLARE. ("I am sure you know this, Luna," said the binder working on it, "but Zulu is really fucking funny." Yes, yes she absolutely was.)
I can't name every single book because there were more than FORTY of them, but I love every one of them and the care that went into them.
I told you Renegade goes hard.
We drove to nearby city to see Zulu and Bell in August, 2024. They'd just changed up her pain medication and she was having a good day. We had a good visit. I put the pamphlet fic in her hands myself. They'd told her in June that she should expect about a year at most. It would only be three months. That was the last time I saw her in person.
We moved up the projected mailing date from mid-October to mid-September.
We knew, over the September long weekend, when the group chat went quiet, that it wasn't a good sign. I'd kept up a steady stream of pet pictures and other small bits of news. As the summer ended, we had fewer responses from her, and were more likely to just get an emoji back. Morning glory flowers only bloom for a day, and they were blooming outside my back door. I started sending a picture of that morning's flowers to the group chat each day. (And cat pictures. Of course.) I don't know if anyone but me really cared about the morning glories, but it felt like something tangible to hold onto.
The first few envelopes and boxes started to arrive. There were cards and stickers and handknit slippers, and a science facts zine just for L. I told Bell, tell Zulu we love her. And that I'm not sorry I unleashed 30+ fanbinders on her AO3 account.
Bell: (lists off the books that had arrived.)
Me: Oh, so the group shipment from California isn't there yet. Plus at least three other packages I know about.
Bell: Holy shites
Several lovely people found my name in the acknowledgements of more than one fic, and sent me copies, too. (Twenty years in fandom together…) I cried.
We knew things weren't good when Bell emailed to set up a time for a video chat. A few days after the September long weekend, we talked to them face to face, to get the news that they were moving Zulu into hospice care the next day. It would be the last time we'd hear her voice. We knew it was coming, it just all went so much more quickly than expected. She died less than three weeks later.
(But take a look at the dates on the last fic on her AO3 account. In such typical fandom fashion, she was updating her last fic from her hospice bed. A direct quote from Zulu: "The most important thing once I'm there, of course, will be to sort out the wifi situation.")
So, timelines got bumped up by another week. There was a rush for mailing. One international package from Europe got returned to sender without leaving the country due to post office shenanigans, and had to make a return trip, too late for Zulu. The package from Japan made it. The big group shipment box was sent via overnight delivery. It was supposed to arrive on Tuesday. It showed up on Friday, the day that she died, after she was gone. But by that last week, I'm not sure how much Zulu would have taken in about it, honestly. Bell took it with her to supper that night with friends and family to open as a special treat.
There were more than forty books of all sizes all told, from more than thirty people, and I still have about four more in progress myself right now, though I'll never get to put them in Zulu's hands and see her grin and say "Aww, you GUYS…"
But we flooded her with books of her own fic. We deluged her family with her words and love.
The books were on display at her memorial service, along with the quilt that her ALOTO friends had made for her. Also, the jersey she got printed based on her own fic (such a dork, I say with the world's most affection.) The books were all over the front of the room, and it wasn't even all of them. Zulu's mom sent a heartfelt thank you card to be shared with the whole group. The memorial also included earl grey tea and shrimp (two of Zulu's favourites) and a video message recorded to her from one of the actors from A League of Their Own (which I am sure confused many people, but we knew what was up!)
The second group shipment arrived with me several months later, and at least one more book came to me in person at the Renegade retreat, and Bell has them all in a bookcase together. I still have a few more to finish right now.
And, Renegade being Renegade, a couple of people have eyed Zulu's AO3 account and said, "Well, we didn't manage to bind ALL her 350 fic… so far…" And I laughed until I cried, and I am still hugging you all right now Renegade, SO HARD. And you've left a legacy, and you've made a difference. There are no thank you's that are enough. The love is stored in the fanbinds.
I've asked anyone who wants to share what they made to tag it #fanbindsforzulu. If you want to see some amazing things, check out the tag. And if you want to read her fic, and if you want to bind it, she would have loved that, and I would love to see it, too. And tell your friends you love them.
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So a couple days ago, some folks braved my long-dormant social media accounts to make sure I’d seen this tweet:
And after getting over my initial (rather emotional) response, I wanted to reply properly, and explain just why that hit me so hard.
So back around twenty years ago, the internet cosplay and costuming scene was very different from today. The older generation of sci-fi convention costumers was made up of experienced, dedicated individuals who had been honing their craft for years. These were people who took masquerade competitions seriously, and earning your journeyman or master costuming badge was an important thing. They had a lot of knowledge, but – here’s the important bit – a lot of them didn’t share it. It’s not just that they weren’t internet-savvy enough to share it, or didn’t have the time to write up tutorials – no, literally if you asked how they did something or what material they used, they would refuse to tell you. Some of them came from professional backgrounds where this knowledge literally was a trade secret, others just wanted to decrease the chances of their rivals in competitions, but for whatever reason it was like getting a door slammed in your face. Now, that’s a generalization – there were definitely some lovely and kind and helpful old-school costumers – but they tended to advise more one-on-one, and the idea of just putting detailed knowledge out there for random strangers to use wasn’t much of a thing. And then what information did get out there was coming from people with the freedom and budget to do things like invest in all the tools and materials to create authentic leather hauberks, or build a vac-form setup to make stormtrooper armor, etc. NOT beginner friendly, is what I’m saying.
Then, around 2000 or so, two particular things happened: anime and manga began to be widely accessible in resulting in a boom in anime conventions and cosplay culture, and a new wave of costume-filled franchises (notably the Star Wars prequels and the Lord of the Rings movies) hit the theatres. What those brought into the convention and costuming arena was a new wave of enthusiastic fans who wanted to make costumes, and though a lot of the anime fans were much younger, some of them, and a lot of the movie franchise fans, were in their 20s and 30s, young enough to use the internet to its (then) full potential, old enough to have autonomy and a little money, and above all, overwhelmingly female. I think that latter is particularly important because that meant they had a lifetime of dealing with gatekeepers under our belts, and we weren’t inclined to deal with yet another one. They looked at the old dragons carefully hoarding their knowledge, keeping out anyone who might be unworthy, or (even worse) competition, and they said NO. If secrets were going to be kept, they were going to figure things out for ourselves, and then they were going to share it with everyone. Those old-school costumers may have done us a favor in the long run, because not knowing those old secrets meant that we had to find new methods, and we were trying – and succeeding with – materials that “serious” costumers would never have considered. I was one of those costumers, but there were many more – I was more on the movie side of things, so JediElfQueen and PadawansGuide immediately spring to mind, but there were so many others, on YahooGroups and Livejournal and our own hand-coded webpages, analyzing and testing and experimenting and swapping ideas and sharing, sharing, sharing.
I’m not saying that to make it sound like we were the noble knights of cosplay, riding in heroically with tutorials for all. I’m saying that a group of people, individually and as a collective, made the conscious decision that sharing was a Good Things that would improve the community as a whole. That wasn’t necessarily an easy decision to make, either. I know I thought long and hard before I posted that tutorial; the reaction I had gotten when I wore that armor to a con told me that I had hit on something new, something that gave me an edge, and if I didn’t share that info I could probably hang on to that edge for a year, or two, or three. And I thought about it, and I was briefly tempted, but again, there were all of these others around me sharing what they knew, and I had seen for myself what I could do when I borrowed and adapted some of their ideas, and I felt the power of what could happen when a group of people came together and gave their creativity to the world.
And it changed the face of costuming. People who had been intimidated by the sci-fi competition circuit suddenly found the confidence to try it themselves, and brought in their own ideas and discoveries. And then the next wave of younger costumers took those ideas and ran, and built on them, and branched out off of them, and the wave after that had their own innovations, and suddenly here we are, with Youtube videos and Tumblr tutorials and Etsy patterns and step-by-step how-to books, and I am just so, so proud.
So yeah, seeing appreciation for a 17-year-old technique I figured out on my dining-room table (and bless it, doesn’t that page just scream “I learned how to code on Geocities!”), and having it embraced as a springboard for newer and better things warms this fandom-old’s heart. This is our legacy, and a legacy the current group of cosplayers is still creating, and it’s a good one.
(Oh, and for anyone wondering: yes, I’m over 40 now, and yes, I’m still making costumes. And that armor is still in great shape after 17 years in a hot attic!)
In 2018 I developed a method to bind fanfiction into hardback books. Like penwiper, I was also literally working in my kitchen by myself and trying things out. This solo work was a meditative experience that allowed me to think deeply about the implications of what I was creating and what my ethics and philosophy should be. I got around to the idea that the knowledge I was building should be spread far and wide, so that together, many of us fans could bind all the wonderful fics that made our lives better in a million tiny ways, and wherever possible, create a copy to give to the authors themselves. In 2019 I wrote How to Make a Book From An AO3 Page, a free manual for how to format and bind fanfic, as a gift to fandom as a whole. It took off during the 2020 lockdown and has been going strong ever since.
Now, through the efforts of so many wonderful people, Renegade Bookbinding Guild has developed out of the Discord server I originally created just to answer questions about paper, fonts, printers and such. I figured there would be no more than 15 people joining. We have surpassed 3000.
I hope in another 20 years time my little tutorial still be kicking along out here, my bad photography and potty mouth sitting forever at the foundational level of an exploding practice of radical generosity and community, preserving the best of fanfiction from the ravages of time and digital threats and censorship, and giving authors the best thank you I know how to give.
Renegade once again celebrated in our favorite fashion, by crafting books for fic authors we love! Thank you to all the folks out there who are writing fic! We appreciate you and all the joy, laughter, cozy times, raw emotional gutting, love, hope, chaos, and more that you have brought into our lives.
Fanbinding(ish): Good Omens by Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman
(More photos below the cut, and I'll add the rest in another reblog.)
I had the idea for this four years ago. I actively started on the typeset about two years ago. I finished the typeset in about two weeks before the NG news broke--in fact I'd sent him an ask on tumblr just before he left, asking him if there's an explanation for Good Omens's inconsistent dropcaps. Maybe I'll ask the publisher.
Anyway! I almost didn't keep going, but I'd already put an insane amount of hours into the typeset, and also, fuck it. So I did it mostly for me, but also for Terry Pratchett, and also for the vine.
For those who aren't familiar, a red-letter Bible is one where everything Jesus says is in red. I thought it would be funny to do one where everything the antichrist says is in red--and then I also thought it would be funny to do pull-out quotes like my Catholic Youth Bible had, and then I thought, why stop there, and that's when things started to get weird. Trying to get the text to line up coherently around the trees and the mountains especially was delicate--and of course if I changed something on the page before it would throw everything out of whack.
The cover was inspired by those giant Bibles with covers that are an inch thick with a cross or something like that debossed in the middle. The text wasn't long enough to make it that thick, but it's two layers of thin board glued together. Leather on top, and then I used a foil quill to do most of the design--anything that's a circle is a brass stamp.
I make the design on Illustrator, and then had the cricut trace it onto the foil with a sharpie. I found that a lot more effective than printing it out and trying to do the foil quill through the paper stencil. I'll let you try and guess what shape I used instead of a cross, and will put the answer under the cut.
Doing gold page edges was a bitch and a half; I sanded off attempts about a dozen times. Fake gold was a bust; so was heat activated foil. I ended up doing one layer of acrylic paint and about five layers of gold acrylic.
And because I got this a lot about My Immortal: no, I'm not going to share the typeset. Even before Everything, I feel fine justifying this because I own the paperback, the deluxe edition hardback, the DVD, the script book, and the coffee table book. But I'm not actually into book piracy. (Unless you are the Terry Pratchett estate, in which case, sharing is caring.)
I'll do another reblog with the rest of the interior images.
(And for those who were looking for it: the cover is, of course, the dread symbol Odegra/the M25 motorway.)
My personal goal is to try and make fanfic binding as accessible to everyone as possible, so here are some resources on how to make a fanfic hardcover for under $25.
This is a barebones bind for the broke college students and such. Happy to field questions, too!
Here's a proposed budget breakdown:
Loosely organized thoughts:
Fanfic bookbinders often share typesets amongst each other. Never pay for a typeset for a fanfic.
You'll hear a lot about grain direction for your printer paper, but as a newbie on a budget without your own printer, settle for some nice 92 bright paper. If you like the hobby, splurge after but expect to pay at least 2-3x more for short grain paper.
Printing is a pain because some copy shops won't let you print intellectual property smut, and it's very expensive. You are better off bartering instead or looking for a free printer on Buy Nothing.
You know the thick paper wrapping that comes with online orders? It's a good weight for endpapers if you need to scrounge. Paper grocery bags or gift bags (birthday presents) might work, too.
Ask your local library to give you covers from books they are throwing out. Ask for outdated textbooks (those covers are built like tanks) or three-ring binders that are too busted to be binders anymore.
Obtain a used book that was mass produced (so your destruction of it does not impede anyone's access) and maybe even become a little vindictive with it.
If you can afford it, I recommend the Olfa SVR knife (~$10)
If you can afford it, upgrade your ruler to a t-square.
I really hope this resource is helpful! I want to stress how possible this is and encourage people to cherish what they love through art.
If you are interested in fanfic binding and have a little more disposable income, I have an affordable Fan Fiction Bookbinding Starter Pack that I carry on my site. I pack them myself and drop them 1x/month on the 15th.
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This is my 2024 Renegade Bindery Exchange story and I just recently was able to get the author's copy to them! So now I get to post!
This is a Witcher fic so I wanted to really lean into the sort of Medieval vibes of it. And it just so happened that my local book arts center was teaching a class on Medieval bookbinding this past fall. So, I took it, and incorporated some of the techniques into this binding. This book is sewn on duel sets of cord which are then pulled through holes in the boards to attach the text block to the boards.
The cover design was inspired by Jaskier's journal in the story; it was said to have a blue cover, look roughly hand made, and had some fun design elements for its cover art. So I did my best to make Jaskier proud.
Ever since I started making books I have wanted to do something to pay homage to old medieval illuminated books. And while I didn't have the time to go full monk on this I did spend many many hours doing my best to draw a number of illustrations in what I hope is a fitting style to add to the book.
I incorporated a number of flowers into many of the images. Folks familiar with the source material will likely already know of Jaskier also being referred to as Dandelion (so of course they make a big appearance in the type set), but the author for this story also gave him siblings and they all got associated flowers as well. So, as the story progresses and you find out about them I started incorporating their flowers into the designs as well.
I tried to find what I hope is the least offensive of an old style of font for the main body text. I found it legible so I hope that is true for everyone else. Many thanks to my exchangee for introducing me to this story!🌾🐺
Middle Fingers in the Air
by @pand-em-onia & Sull89
This is now officially the longest fic I have bound. I split the story into 3 volumes of approx. 500 pages each to fit all 590,328 words.
The cases are made with scotch Duo with a stripe of a paste paper that I made a while back. (Luckily the paper was just long enough to allow me to cut 6 strips.
On the spines we have the devil fruit of the 3 predominate characters.
For the end pages I found this great paper that is soft flowy like waves. So I knew I was going with an ocean/ship sort of design theme.
For the chapter headers I found a drawing of ocean waves and I used one inch slices of that for each one in sequence so it would tie into the waves and thin stripe of the end papers and cover.
I rounded and backed all these guys to hopefully help them last longer since they are so thick. I used an ivory paper for the text block to help give them a bit of an aged feel and to pull into the brown of the Scotch Duo. I used gold premade endband for this series, because I only have so much strength of will.
The author was even super great and sent me some raw text files to help with some parts that I couldn't pull from AO3. So glad to have gotten to make them a copy of their story!
Continuing the tradition of being incredibly behind. Here is my 2024 Bindings in review post.
# of new books made: 12
# of words bound: 1,057,532
# rebinds done: 7
# journals made: 1
There weren't very many of them, but I really do love the books that I made in 2024. I got to try a lot of new things; spray painting, foil work, designing cut book cloth to make outfit style book covers. I rounded and backed for books outside of a class for the first time and now I seem to do it all the time. I also spent the year helping to found a bookbinding non-profit so you know that's at least binding adjacent.
2024 was... a year. And I am hoping 2025 finds a way to be a different sort of year. But for right now. One day at a time. And the good news is, I have already finished 7 books this year and I have 4 more in progress before I even get started on the actual list for this year so hopefully lots more books to come, regardless of the pace.
oh yeah! i can also finally post the book i made for the 2024 renegade exchange! i bound "blackbird" by emungere for tiffo of fanbound books ^w^ i am honestly kind of obsessed with this fic now, lol. really pleased with how the spattered edges turned out, too, that was the first time i did those on a book :3 and i had fun with all the velvet textures too hehe
anyway here's the fic: Blackbird - emungere ITS SO GOOD YOU SHOULD READ IT (if you like hannibal fic, obvs)
In the Renegade Bindery Discord Server, we are once again running Binderary during the month of February. Attendance is free, and a link to the 18+ Discord Server can be found on our website.
Whether you’re new to the world of bookbinding or an aged veteran, join us for a month of binding fun! This event is all about community & learning, be it trying something new or refining existing skills.
All our workshops are run by members of our fanbinding community, and some of them are even on Tumblr!
Here’s the list of who’s running the week 1 workshops:
Specialized Typesetting in LaTeX: Celandine
My Immortal and the History of Fan Studies: Parsley
Typesetting in Google Docs: @sayornispress
Introduction to Typography and Typesetting: @bearclubbooks
Renegade Round-Up 2024!: @fanboundbooks, @robins-egg-bindery & @celestial-sphere-press
You Shouldn't Have to Pay for that: Making Your Typesets Pretty For Free: @daemonluna
Bookbinding Craft Along 1: Noodle
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In 2024, everyone wanted a piece of fic, from AI grifters to traditional publishers to ravenous audiences. Where did that leave the people w
In a normal year, @flourish & I would have made a list of five big fandom trends for our annual "Year in Fandom" round-up. But the podcast is on hiatus, and I was left with MANY THOUGHTS about fanfiction seeming to break containment this year and nowhere to put them. So this is a "Year in Fandom" segment of sorts, about a set of related fanfiction trends that I'm pretty unhappy about!
I get that sense that a lot of fandom folks are, like me, worried about the way the ground seems to be shifting beneath us: in meta after meta, I’ve seen frustration over a larger but increasingly passive fic readership; dismay that traditional publishing has a growing influence over a practice that partly exists in opposition to it; and anger that some guy can just copy-paste your work and charge money for it, and no one outside of fandom seems to care.
What happens when fanfiction scales—but participatory fan communities do not? Read or listen to an audio version via the link above!
Well! 2024 sure was a year, wasn't it! Despite [insert any number of horrors here] I still managed to publish and produce a ton of work that I'm proud of. So in the style of last year's round-up, here's my year in writing, editing, and podcast interviewing, below the cut:
writing
I wrote a pair of pieces for WIRED this year, one of which was probably one of my most widely shared ever—on people illegally selling bound copies of Manacled and other (mostly Dramione) fics. Later in the year, I watched a meltdown in one of my own fandoms (Interview with the Vampire) and wrote about how the broken creator-viewer contract in the streaming age creates a wild amount of uncertainty for fans.
In my Atlas Obscura column, I had the pleasure of reporting a ton of non-dramatic fandom stories. Back in January, I talked to organizers of and participants from Terror Camp—part academic conference, part fandom convention. In the spring, I interviewed some of the fanbinders from the Renegade Bindery, and fan studies scholar Daniel Cavicchi about his work searching for "fan"-like terms that predate "fan" and "fandom".
Then in the summer, I put out a call for folks who had included recipes in their fic, or cooked something from a recipe in a fic—the response was overwhelming! And finally, I traveled back to my college town to visit Emily Dickinson's house, which has recently been decorated with props and furniture from the show Dickinson.
Outside my fandom reporting, I published a few other things: a review of Kara Swisher's Burn Book in the tragically shuttered Roadmap (can't even share a URL!), and my judgment in this year's Tournament of Books, where I had to choose between Justin Torres's Blackouts and James McBride's The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store.
editing
This was the year Fansplaining the podcast went on hiatus 🥲, but I've been publishing at least one written piece per month since the summer. It's been a great pleasure to edit these writers on such in-depth, nuanced fandom pieces:
"The Fan-Journalist Tightrope" by Kayti Burt
Low pay, minimal worker protections, and pushback from both publicists and fellow fans. Is covering the thing you love even worth it?
"The Yellow Balloon Movement" by Maria Temming
Within jam band fandoms often dominated by substance use, clean and sober fans are building their own communities
"The Traumatized Gatekeepers of Broadway" by Laura Wheatman Hill
Theatre fans measure their passion by nitpicking. Does it do the industry more harm than good?
"The Acolyte’s Squandered Potential" by @hellotailor
The show brought a whole new set of fans to a stagnating franchise. Its cancellation suggests Star Wars is only interested in looking backwards.
"The Scream Fandom’s Enduring Divide" by Michael Boyle
Nearly a year after star Melissa Barrera was fired for pro-Palestinian social media posts, fans remain torn over the future of the franchise.
"The Beatles Live!" by @areyougonnabe
New generations of fans are cultural archaeologists, working with the materials of the past to create the passion of the present.
"Bringing Fanfiction Into the Classroom" by @aba-daba-dooo
Fic does something that my traditional English classes cannot: it places the power in the hands of the student.
interviews
We had only a few guests in the final six months of @flourish's Fansplaining tenure, but they were all fantastic:
Allegra Rosenberg, who talked about Tumblr, Terror Camp, and her forthcoming book on pre-internet fandom
Tiffo aka Fanboundbooks, who represented the Renegade Bindery and gave us a fanbinding 101
Kayti Burt, a fan-journalist who discussed the piece linked above
Effie Sapuridis, a fan studies scholar who works on self-insert fanworks (both written and visual)
These are copies of 'Demonology and the Tri-Phasic Model of Trauma' and its sequel 'Angel-Centered Therapy Through a Multicultural Lens' by @mouseonamoose, Nmn on AO3.
I made two copies of these one set for the author and another for @ineffablesilversmith (who made a donation via The Ineffable Con to Alzheimer's research in honor of Sir Terry Pratchett. Thank you for your donation!)
Each book follows the therapy sessions of Crowley and Aziraphale respectively so it felt like a perfect chance to finally get to make outfit themed book covers! Figuring out the cutting of the different fabrics to put the books together took more mental gymnastics then I had originally anticipated, but we all made it through the process and I was very pleased with the final results.
I was lucky to find perfect end papers large enough for two sets of each book at the local book arts center. This set took a long time, finding and compiling all the elements, special ordering Aziraphale's tartan, making my first ever set of rounded and backed books, there were a lot of little things that piled up to make it take many more months then I was hoping it would. But like I said I am really glad with how it all came together and so glad I got to read and build the story.
Also shout out to my Crowley and Aziraphale who helped prop open the books for the photo shoot. 😆
Update on fanbinding dissertation: binding the dissertation itself!
After many days and nights of writing and wrangling footnotes and proofreading (where I couldn't convince my laptop that yes, I meant textualisation, not sexualisation), 'twas time to bind the beasts! In three copies, no less! Which I approached with way too much confidence from my one fanbind experience, and came with many fun little surprises due to the format guidelines I had to follow 🤡
This is going to be a long one, so here's my happy unfocused mug to confirm that it all ends well:
First pickle: The typesetting. I absolutely loved typesetting fanfic, but the dissertation had to be A4 (way less fun, boo-hoo), one-sided, with every page numbered. Did you know that LibreOffice won't let you add blank pages and only number the non-blank ones, without skipping numbers? In order to print signatures I could fold into one-sided pages, only numbered on the right-hand pages, I ended up switching to landscape orientation and including the equivalent of a blank page in the left margin.
Second pickle: The imposing, which I couldn't figure out using the amazing bookbinder with my weird landscape 2-page layout. I finally gave in and rearranged all the pages manually, which looked like p. 1 on the recto / p. 10 on the verso, then p2/p9, p3/p8, p4/p7, p5/p8, p6/p7. And because there was no way I was paying print-in-colour prices for all of this, I further split the manually imposed pages into two files, one for the greyscale printer (cheaper) and one for the colour printer (highway robbery). Still came up to ~£70, just for printing.
Very glad I went in chunks of 10 for the signatures, it made both the math and the folding using sheets from two different piles much easier, highly recommend (if for some absurd reason you also want to bind one-sided numbered pages in folded signatures).
Third pickle: Linear time. Had planned on having so much time to print and bind this thing, but kept writing and rewriting and proofing and oops! It was due in less than 24 hours and it was still not out of the laptop. So.
22/09/24, 6pm: Got to the library, started printing.
6.45pm: Found another printer where all the paper was the same shade of white, started printing again 🤦♂️ (kept the the misprints to use as scrap paper when glueing)
7.30pm: Started folding the 150 sheets of paper (3 x 100-page dissertation, 2 pages per sheet). Went from the last episode of The Magnus Protocol, to an episode of Welcome to Night Vale, to deciding restart The Magnus Archive, which felt almost poetic.
9pm: Headed back home, trimmed the edges (with a borrowed guillotine), folded the endpapers, stabbed everything. Lack of pictures to be blamed on my inability to mess with linear time, and the eventual sleep deprivation.
10.30pm, I think? Started sewing the signatures together, again with Supernatural (which I started rewatching when I submitted my first dissertation assignment in mid-May, and finished 2 days after submitting the dissertation itself, again, such poetry).
2am, probably? Tipped the endpapers and glued cheesecloth over the spines. Somehow figured out where to set the three textblocks to dry (I don't have a press). Sadly gave up on sewing on (or glueing) headbands, because time.
3am-ish: Cut the missing cover pieces out of millboard (had already cut 4 of 6 covers, since I knew it had to be A4), measured the spines of the three textblocks and cut those as well.
???am: Did some math, because sure, that's the right time for that. Cut the bookcloth to size, glued the cover pieces on the bookcloth. Remarkably only messed up the measurements on one of them! That means one of the copies has a millimetre of millboard showing in the inside corners of the back cover, but not enough time/bookcloth/millboard to redo it, onward we go!
Way past dawn: Took a break for food while the covers somewhat dried. Cased the three textblocks in the three covers, with the endpapers bubbling, which took me by surprise since it was the same paper and same glue I had used for the fanbind without any problem. I'm now thinking that bigger book = more time needed to apply the glue = endpapers getting warped, but I was so exhausted by this point that who knows. Again, no time to redo it!
9.30am: Stacked the dissertations under the heavy reference books I used to write the dissertation. Toute est dans toute hein. Went to bed while they (mostly) dried.
2.30pm: Woken up by my neighbour's dj set. Eventually put all that hard work in a tote and walked to school to hand it in at 4.30pm.
Fourth and last pickle: The titling. Couldn't find paper long enough to do a half-dust jacket like I did last time. Had big cutout plans, ran out of time and couldn't finish testing those. Also had some thicker textured paper I thought of cutting and glueing to the cover as a title card, but it turned out too thin and was warping. Finally resigned myself to submitting it with a blank cover, but one of my teachers asked if I would mind adding the title on with metallic markers to make it easier to identify (one copy will eventually be on the shelf at the Institute), and I'm SO HAPPY with how it turned out. Metallic markers. Why didn't I think of that. (I did, however, think about dressing appropriately for the occasion.)
So, is it possible to print and bind 3 books in less than 24 hours? Yes! Am I glad I did it? Also yes, very satisfying, love being extra! Would I do it again? God no, I've been sleeping for two weeks and I still haven't recovered. Can't wait to start binding something else though, so I guess it wasn't that bad.
That's it! That's over! Aaaaaah! Now waiting for the grade and comments, and hopefully soon I'll be able to share the content as well.
I'll also try to post some more about the research/writing process itself, somewhere between the late nights reading international treaties on income tax and the early mornings spent figuring out how to apply for a phd next.
Thank you so much to everyone who followed along, this was way more fun than I ever could have hoped!
These are copies of 'Demonology and the Tri-Phasic Model of Trauma' and its sequel 'Angel-Centered Therapy Through a Multicultural Lens' by @mouseonamoose, Nmn on AO3.
I made two copies of these one set for the author and another for @ineffablesilversmith (who made a donation via The Ineffable Con to Alzheimer's research in honor of Sir Terry Pratchett. Thank you for your donation!)
Each book follows the therapy sessions of Crowley and Aziraphale respectively so it felt like a perfect chance to finally get to make outfit themed book covers! Figuring out the cutting of the different fabrics to put the books together took more mental gymnastics then I had originally anticipated, but we all made it through the process and I was very pleased with the final results.
I was lucky to find perfect end papers large enough for two sets of each book at the local book arts center. This set took a long time, finding and compiling all the elements, special ordering Aziraphale's tartan, making my first ever set of rounded and backed books, there were a lot of little things that piled up to make it take many more months then I was hoping it would. But like I said I am really glad with how it all came together and so glad I got to read and build the story.
Also shout out to my Crowley and Aziraphale who helped prop open the books for the photo shoot. 😆
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Question for the book binding peoples: I've been trying out making my own book cloth using the heat bond method. This stuff, in particular. And it's yielding this:
That's the paper backing delaminating after glue-up. Now, I'm thinking it's the paper I'm using (thin washi, no surprise). Easy to check but the bonding material has been a nightmare to work with, in general. On thinner, darker, or less busy cloth, the bond glue is visible, for instance. I'm not sure exactly where my failure point is.
So my question is this- Is this consistent with This particular brand bond material or the process itself? I've seen good work made with This method so I'm trying to cut down my own fuck-up variables.
Interesting, I have not had this issue. I think you are probably correct that it is related to the paper. I have used tissue paper (like for putting in a gift bag) and it seems to have behaved itself.
For the glue being visible, is it visible through the cloth or it leaks out around the edges? What temperature setting are you using on your iron when you bond them?
Directly through the fabric, unfortunately. My iron has a 1-5 scale (not particularly helpful) and this was the 3. I've tried setting at different temps with different pressures/time frames and I've had better/worse results- but always Some seepage. I've also used much thicker fabrics and seepage was non-existent. Obvious solution there but thinner is really much better for my current project.
I'll dig up some tissue and see if I can replicate the problem. Thanks!
Hmm, yeah. Don't want it to go through the fabric. Your guess that it maybe related to the thinness of the fabric is probably accurate. The tightness of the weave of the fabric is likely another culprit.
Good luck with the tissue!
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