Wards and Wings

My 2025 2026 Ficbinding Goals

Try a new type of book cloth [working on that for current binds ✅]

Rounded spine ✅

Full page/ even more detailed chapter headers ✅

More! Images! ✅

Make a quarto

design/print my own end paper

Try a new typesetting program [Downloaded affinity - haven't used it yet lol! ✅]

Thrust Issues (Rebind)

Never Too Late for Love

Postcards Anthology

Straight On Till Morning

For Marvel Trumps Hate 2024 (@marveltrumpshate), my winning bid went to a pod organized by the lovely @nostalgicatsea. The pod wanted to give a gift to the talented @sineala - who is one of the kindest, most dedicated, creative people I have every had the pleasure of interacting with. So many of her fics are on my top Stony to-bind list, and I am honored that I was given the free rein to do want I wanted for the binds.

So when the scope of what I was making for this kept expanding, I did nothing to stop it. I, in fact, kicked it into third gear and added more books (and art!) on to the project.

Straight On Till Morning by @sineala

Fandom: Marvel (Comics)

Ship: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark

Start Date: 01/12/25

End Date: 03/30/26

Pages: 245

I've had SotM on my binding list since I first pulled the trigger and jumped into this hobby. I had an idea for what I wanted this bind to look like, and MTH2024 gave me the opportunity to do all the things I wanted to with it.

I...love this book. I love this entire bind - from the wild cover to the spine to the end papers to the chapter headers. The sparkly black book cloth. The color contrast on the cover. And the art. I especially fucking love the art. 

Gods this cover is so many lines. So many lines.

I wanted to wrap the book around the fic. I wanted the space themes, the trek font, the chapter breaks to all match the theme. 

Pulled it off, i think.

I will admit: I am not a Trekkie. I'm not typically a space gal, with the expectation - it seems - of any space fic related to Stony. I'll eat that shit all day and ask for more. But when it came to the slices of Star Trek lore that I wanted to add, I did the best research I could to get the vibe right. But there is SO MUCH of it, that I had to settle with doing the best I could to match the vibe as well as possible.

I treated this bind as the 'main' book bind for Marvel Trumps Hate 2024 winning bid - in that I wanted to go above and beyond with what I had originally proposed. So, I went on the hunt to get my hands on something I love more then anything to add to my fanbinds: I commissioned art.

@zappedbysnow fucking knocked it outa the park. I am, honestly, blown away at the art that she made. I picked out at one scene per chapter for her to draw, provided my (frankly lackluster) trek research, some (not well articulated) descriptions with some (really bad) rough sketches for the compositions of the illustration I wanted. Zapped took my brain dump and ran away with it.  

Special shout out to the Trekkies in the CapIM discord for the assist as well. Nether Zapped nor I are versed in Trek lore, so our collective research on the very specific outfits for this very specific time period were...not as good as we (read: I) originally thought they were. The lore-accurate check was wonderful - thanks for the help, ya'll! 

Duology collection of fics by @sineala

This was my pitch to Sineala originally for the Marvel Trumps Hate 2024 winning auction item(s). Since so many of her fics are these huge epic novels, I wanted to gather a few of the 'smaller', short fics together into one bind instead.

I was spoiled for choices - it took the longest to actually pair down the list of fics to include to settle around an relatively equal wordcount for both books.

There are 8 fics in each book, divided by POV.

TS || Pages: 312

When You're a Stranger // The Libertine // See You at the Bitter End // The Jar // So Much to Confide to You // Not So Secret Anymore // Like a Comet Streaming On / Trust Fall

SR || Pages: 287

Icebreaker // Mercy in You // Love Across the Multiverse // To Make Much of Time // Your Name on Every Wall // Down to Zero // Sucker Punch // Think of This as Solving Problems

I didn't wanted to do love letters as a theme. The idea of these little moments from different parts of each of their lives, snippets from different times and different timelines and different cannon - they felt more bite sizes. Coupled with them being the 'shorter' fics that Sine's written, i grabbed onto the postcard with the main idea of the duology. You can't write as much on a post card as you would in a letter - making them more bitesize. But it's the thought - the intent - of sending a post card that i liked. The Thinking of you in this moment of it.The Wish you were here. With me.

The postcard headers were very fun to do. Each is specific to the fic - I did so much unnecessary research for these, it’s not even funny.

I added old vintage stamps to each of these too. It’s what originally inspired the idea for the whole thing. I wanted to try and do something 3D and tactile for each of these headers.

Never Too Late For Love by @sineala

Fandom: Marvel (Comics), Marvel Ultimates

Ship: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark

Start Date: 04/25/25

End Date: 02/15/26

Pages: 231

A surprise bind. While Zapped was working through the art for SotM for me, I….kinda got carried away. I had been looking for a reason to bind this fic, so this was perfect reason to.

The soulmate idea is one that i loveloveLOVE. Red string of fate, find each other in every universe, this was always going to happen - I eat that shit up. So for this fic, I swept through and found every mention of a soulmate, bond, or soulbond - and highlighted them all red. (Sineala taught me a new word today - rubrication. I stole the idea from the Medieval Manuscripts research I did for a previous bind, but of CORSE there's an actual word for it. It just felt right to do...)

I pulled my overall inspiration from the Le Chat Noir - the 1896 poster, specifically, you know the one. Between the lace, the cat, and the color combo - everything felt like it fit really well with the theme of the story. I wish I could explain why it felt like it fit, exactly. Maybe because Ults tony has always felt like such a cat to me. Or maybe it’s the hue of the whole universe has this…old paper, big band, gramophone sound to it. Either way, i grabbed on to the idea and leaned in. 

Overall, this bind for MTH 2024 was the simplest. Probably because the original idea was so clear. Other than working through finding all the right words to highlight in the text block, the whole book was put together very quickly - then sat on my hard drive for half a year.

Your typesets are absolutely amazing it's crazy. If you don't mind me asking, what software do you use? You probably already answered it but i can't seem to find your answer. Again, your work is incredible!!!

I...may have said it a while ago, but i actually use Microsoft Word 😅

Specifically, i use Blak's Raw-Text Formating macro for word first, and then i modify everything based on the specific changes for the books i like to make. You can find it HERE. I have specific settings for drop caps and bleeds that are specalized for whatever I'm making - but Blak's base has been a LIFE SAVER.

I use Canva for all of my image creation and overlays. I pull hard images from places like Old Book Illistrations and Public Works by Cosmos for larger illistrations, or I scoot through Etsy to find print packages of older art. I have been spending a LOT of time making sure the images im using are not AI, and it's easier to do that with old illistrations then with the newer stuff.

1001 Fonts is the best place for fonts, but there are tons of spot to find fonts online. I do a lot of font reserch before I start - so most of the fonts I use are free.

I spent a while using InDesign for work - which is what I used for the Zine i was part of a few years ago - but i am not paying any money to Adobe. Do I have Affinity installed on my PC? Sure do. Have i made the jump over to actually use it? Not yet. I have binds that I need to get done for my MTH winners, but once those are done I'll actually start to try out other programs.