Bound: Do Every Stupid Thing by @thepartyresponsible

Typeset and bound by: me, @phoenixortheflame

Featuring art by: @minhyongi and @adayka

Whew! This one was a doozy. Four fics, two volumes—and two copies to boot, since I made a set for the lovely @sammialex.

In the end though, it was worth it, and I'm fucking thrilled with how these turned out, especially the typeset (more on that later) and the dust jackets, which were inspired by Hayley Williams' single art for "True Believer."

I knew I wanted to do a Bucky cover and a Tony cover (since the fics are from Jason's POV), and I scoured social media trying to find the perfect art. Bless @minhyongi for letting me use the piece featuring a young Tony Stark and @adayka for the Bucky Barnes art.

The dusties were fully—and painstakingly—designed on Affinity. The "lockscreen" photo on the back of volume 1 is of a floor drain—a visual cue for torture, and one I couldn't get out of my head thanks to this series. The photo on the back of volume 2 is of a car battery because THEY TAKE TONY.

The theme for this bind was "Tony's metal band t-shirts" but mostly that translated to lots of upside down crosses and the New Rocker title font.

The upside down crosses on the cover are meant to look random, like they're falling form the sky...rain or, better yet, bullet casings.

The endbands nearly killed me, as did hand sanding the top and bottom edges of three out of four books, but—look how pretty!

Endpapers were Crepaldi (I KNOW) but also thank god one of my besties, @maleekamolscreates, is a superstar paper marbler because at the last minute I decided to scrap my original case idea which meant sacrificing one pair of endpapers. Her replacement papers are on the far right.

The typeset is perhaps my favourite I've ever made and the biggest drop caps I've ever attempted.

A massive thank you goes out to @thepartyresponsible for writing this amazing series (and please reach out if you'd like copies, I'd love to make you a set!).

The true origin of the phrase belongs to celebrated author Tamora Pierce, in her 1983 novel Alanna: The First Adventure, when Gary says, "Still—what can Alan do for you? He's just a little guy"(49).

Thus, whenever we say of someone or some creature that they are "just a little guy," what we are really saying is that they are a short redheaded knight-in-training with some sort of Gender going on who will kick your butt given half a chance.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk. May we all be the little guys we wish to see in the world.

You have to rest in your own desire to create.

But, because I see statements like this turn into a sort of general notion of “it’s bad to want validation or attention or engagement”, and to me, that’s not what this means.

It’s perfectly valid to want people to like and engage with what you create. In a general sense, when you create anything, you do it to share with other human beings. Art, craft, food, anything you create is a way to connect with others through our shared humanity.

And wanting someone to like you fanart or read your fanfic is part of that.

the lines on the bottom say do not microwave but i have been microwaving it for 7 years now. i put it away wet and it must have slid off the counter. it broke into 6 pieces. my girlfriend says this is proof a ghost that lives in my house; particularly because it is a black mug with a ouija board design. i think it is proof that i should dry things before i put them away.

i had superglue from an abandoned art project. it took me four days. inspired by kintsugi, i painted the seams golden. it is my first time doing anything like this, and it was more error than trial. i do not have any fancy materials. there is a thick band of gold across the no, so it reads like a diphthong now, N\O. a part of it broke in an almost-perfect peace sign, oddly round.

it will not be watertight anymore, it cannot be a mug. i'll reuse it as a flower pot. it will go on my back porch. it is kind of ugly, really. i didn't do an excellent job.

i spent every minute of this repair thinking about how often i had used it. how many little rituals it has been a part of. it is a big mug, but not a soup mug, which i loathe. it is perfect for two hands to hold. i have used it almost daily, so often that many of the details have worn off. my own skin did that - almost a decade of shared warmth.

none of the times i have told this story has a single person said what do you mean you have a favorite mug. not a single person who has seen the resulting half-maimed piece has said why would you put that back together? not a single person has said this is a waste of time. not a single person has told me what's the point of this? if you want to find a new mug, just use AI.

somewhere someone is probably using AI to draw an image or write a poem, i know that is true. but i think it is also probably true that most of us are going to write and read and draw and dance just because. that the process of doing so is not for a goal or a specific benefit, but because for thousands of years now - when a piece of pottery breaks, we try to fix it. for thousands of years - long before capitalism had any say in it - humans have been doing things just for the experience of it. for the fuck of it. for the love of the game.

ai is not going to win because i cut my thumb while i did it. ai is not going to win because i kept thinking about my all friends who do ceramics, how they're always asking me if i want to join them for a lesson. i was thinking about every person i've ever shared a coffee with. i was thinking about who i was when i bought this mug (graduate student. could barely afford the off-season thing on clearance). i was thinking about how many hands have held this, how many people i've been since.

ai is not going to win because i didn't do a perfect job of it.

my sister-in-law and i recently had a conversation about how one of her coworkers uses Chat instead of reading self-help books. and we both looked at each other about that, the stunned silence of rabbits. "can you imagine?" we said. what's even the point to it.