Avid fanfiction reader.

This is a cover for dcxdp fanfic We're longing for daylight by AKelaNakamura.

I went into this knowing an idea, a musing, a nonconcrete feel of what I wanted. I had the vibes settled but no actual certainty other than grave and Jason. I looked around for different images of a grave and was surprised by how hard it was to find suitably eerie graveyard photos.  Most were close ups of specific graves and just wouldn't work how I wanted it to. I did find one of a grave in a mossy forest which I messed around with the colours of to get a more eerie feel and added in a bunch of mist elements with various levels of fading. I knew I wanted a pic of Jason so I searched for different ‘guy knelt down’ and other similar things to find a photo or shadow image I could use. I found one that worked and removed the background placing him in front of the grave. I added in various small moss balls (colour changed to match the ground) around his legs to make him more part of it instead of just thrown on. I chose a very simple font for the title in the top righthand side with a handwriting font smaller underneath for the author name.

The image wraps round to about ⅗ of the back as well so for the spine I just copied over the title and author name and just changed the positioning and size. For the back I added a column in green and placed the summary on top in black and the qr code underneath. I don't really like the way the back looks and think I'd like to switch over the font to match and maybe add in some kind of texture, maybe vhs scratch, to the top as it doesn't feel like it fits as is. It was a quick but calming cover to make. I might also add in a few green wisps around the grave but not sure as I do like the look of the front. It's just the back I'm not fond of.

This took about 24 minutes to make in canva.

Stolen Moments by @mothballmilkshake

The longest fic I've ever bound totally deserved to be a box set. 🥰💗

I recently did a fan bind of the Rivals series by the amazing @kazliin and experimented with ice-themed painted edges. It was a fun process!

not to be a cornball but i am actually in tears as @organic0ranges did what i can only call a downright beautiful job binding the soviet montage and winners-verse. the books were so thoughtfully put together and so so so spot on with the imagery, motifs and aesthetics i'd imagined for both works. i cannot put into words how much this means to me seeing my writing like this 🥹🥹🥹🥹

usps getting this to me so fast was such a great way to start my week. more details also up on their ao3!!

This work has been archived by dsa-archivist on Ao3 and I used to visit it monthly before I said to myself: I should archive it for myself too. Here it is.

True North by Crysothemis (archived by dsa-archivist)

The yearning in this is just so deliciously painful. It's an amazing canon compliant ending to the series. Highly recommend.

The title resembles the series graphic so much I just had to do it. I had to. Overall, I'm very satisfied with how it turned out. My red vinyl was being a little bitch and stretched like a gum so I gave up weeding E holes halfway through though :)

Art by Emilio Aguilar

May’s Theme: #TravellingBeekeeper

Presented by IDEA Academy

Discover the artists of the Character Design Challenge community and the current Theme of the Month in our Facebook Group! And when you repost your design on our Patreon page, you can also win awesome prizes every month and choose the future themes!

If your characters sound exactly like you (or worse, like a textbook), it’s time to fix that. Real dialogue isn't just about what people say, it's about what they leave unsaid.

Check out my latest blog post for a quick guide on writing realistic dialogues for your novel.

Generally you unbutton and re-button a suit coat when you sit down and stand up.

You’re supposed to hold wine or champagne glasses by the stem to avoid warming up the liquid inside. A character out of their depth might hold the glass around the sides instead.

When rich/important people forget your name and they’re drunk, they usually just tell you that they don’t remember or completely skip over any opportunity to use your name so they don’t look silly.

A good way to indicate you don’t want to shake someone’s hand at an event is to hold a drink in your right hand (and if you’re a woman, a purse in the other so you definitely can’t shift the glass to another hand and then shake)

Americans who still kiss cheeks as a welcome generally don’t press lips to cheeks, it’s more of a touch of cheek to cheek or even a hover (these days, mostly to avoid smudging a woman’s makeup)

The distinctions between dress codes (black tie, cocktail, etc) are very intricate but obvious to those who know how to look. If you wear a short skirt to a black tie event for example, people would clock that instantly even if the dress itself was very formal. Same thing goes for certain articles of men’s clothing.

Open bars / cash bars at events usually carry limited options. They’re meant to serve lots of people very quickly, so nobody is getting a cosmo or a Manhattan etc.

These events are almost always open bar. They're not trying to make their money back on alcohol. They want you to drink and eat and donate generously.

If there are cocktails, there will be at most two on offer, pre-made in large tubs. You cannot order a different version, it is what it is.

There are two types of events: cocktail style or seated. The first includes roaming hors d'oeuvres or a fancy buffet with tiny plates called a grazing station. For a long night, the roaming food will get a little bigger throughout the evening and have a 'main' at some point based around a protein.

A seated event will usually be more structured and may include multiple courses. Silver service is not in vogue anymore. You are likely to get either alternating meals brought to you like at a wedding, or served banquet style. A good caterer can get a plate to everyone in a 300 person event in about three minutes.

Drunk people are the same no matter how expensive their suits. They still laugh too loud, spill their drinks and slip on the dance floor. They are usually less embarrassed about doing coke in the bathrooms.

A full scale event that starts at 6pm will have staff arriving at noon to begin setup. Earlier if there's a light show or pyrotechnics. Typically venues don't just have 30 tables and three hundred chairs lying around, let alone table cloths, chair covers, etc. It's all rented and brought in on the day. Bands and DJs will be running audio tests in the background throughout.

Most heritage buildings that host these things, like museums and manor houses, aren't really designed for them. They might put down mats so you're not walking in stilettos over two hundred year old wooden floors, the kitchens are weirdly far away, and there are not enough taps. There is never anywhere for staff to sit, so if you open the wrong door you might find half a dozen waiters sitting on upturned milk crates in a room full of million dollar paintings, eating the left over bread.

Really old buildings don't have enough bathrooms, which means the staff will be sharing with the guests.

Clean up starts the second the event ends, if not sooner. Unattended glasses will start to disappear first, then table decorations. When the timer ticks over, the lights come back on and exhausted staff strip the tables, pack up dirty glasses and unopened wine bottles and have to Tetris it all into the back of a van. The venue is booked for that day only, so everything has to be gone before anyone can go home. A large event that finishes at midnight might take until 3am to be cleared away.

What can it be??

A book! With a bottle-green cover!

With gorgeous endpapers!

And a story by me!

it has pages!

And bonus material!

@betrayedbycinnamon is awesome and podficced one of my fics; as a thank-you, I offered to bind any fic of her choosing. She decided on veryrach’s Gonna Be My Girl?, a Winterhawk fic that plays with the perception of gender and how one presents themselves.

I decided on a legal quarto (probably my favorite size, honestly) and chose a purple-and-teal Dubletta bookcloth for the cover. (The purple was very hard to photograph, but I promise it's there.) The cover design is HTV, with the "My Girl," the kiss, and the tip of the lip gloss in pink.

This was also the first full bind where I used my 3D-printed book trimmer. It worked so well, and was so easy to use, I am absolutely thrilled. I didn't get the bottom edge quite even (it's a little rough) but overall I'm super happy with it.

I always try something different with every bind; for this book, I decided I wanted to try using tapes and a rounded spine. The tapes were really easy to work with; the spine was very easy to round as well, though the curve is a little choppy in places. Considering I don't have a proper finishing press, I think it's still pretty good.

I have a few select favorites on the list to bind, and first up was Heliotrope by Waiting_for_a_sunny_day on Ao3! @hisomo

I've returned to this fic many times, and it holds a special place in my heart. Yoshiki’s journey to letting go of his tightly-held grief and simultaneously learning the necessity of loving oneself post-canon is masterfully written, and one I just needed to have on my shelf. I've documented the process it took to get it there, under the cut :)

Rourke Island by sreka / @smodernlife

“Lupin didn’t seem pleased that I was filming last night,” Sirius said lightly.

“Most people that come here…” Lily spoke slowly, choosing her words carefully, “Remus put it like this to me once: most people who choose to spend years of their life so far from civilization have a reason for leaving it behind. Remus wanted someone like us and he held out for so long because he expected he would get sent a bunch of finicky artsy types. I don’t think he expected you. And now that you’re here, I don’t think he quite knows what to do with you.”

When wildlife filmmaker Sirius Black arrives on a remote Antarctic island for a year-long assignment, he isn't phased by the freezing wind, the perpetual darkness, or the hostility he meets from some of the biologists at the research base. He is used to living an itinerant existence. He is comfortable with unforgiving conditions. He expects the world to treat him harshly. But he does not expect to fall in love.

This was my second attempt at fanbinding (bound with explicit permission), and my first time making a case-bound book! This story is such a comfort read for me, I love it dearly and find myself constantly going back to it when I crave a slow burn, mature romance. My design inspiration was a combination snowy landscapes, old polar exploration volumes, and of course the typewriter. I wanted it to look like something you might pull from some old university shelves.

I've completed my Project Hail Mary rebind!

I'm super happy with it! It's a little botchy around the edges and definitely wonky in places (and there are quite a few mistakes that I can neither unsee nor correct) but, considering it's my first proper rebind, I'm really freaking happy with it!

More glamour photos and some in-progress shots under the cut...