"Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world..."
George wanders into a bar. Nothing is ever the same.
Thanks to Soph for accepting a copy of this story. Apologies for the delay and ups being trash 💀
Thanks to @upthehillart for approving my use of their art for this fic.
Special thanks to the @renegadepublishing server for all your support, advice, and encouragement during the making of these books.
To ups, I hope you never feel the gentle touch of a woman, that your child never hugs you again, and that every time you enter a room, you forget the reason you are there.
Below, I will discuss the process, which will include a lot of spoilers. (But also more pics 😈)
When I heard this story was set in the same universe as choices, I lost my shit a little and read it. Slowly, however, this story began to mean a lot more to me than I could put into words. George's grief over the lost of his soul mate, the struggle to find himself, and Blaise's love, passion, kindness, and confidence in himself resonated to me in such a way that I knew I needed to hold it in my greedy little hands.
I started to think about what I wanted to do and how I wanted to bind this story. I struggle a lot from picking the font for the body text to picking the chapter titles. I finally, after fucking around with canva for more time than I'm willing to admit , I was able to come up with these:
(If you would like the files for anything I used, please dm me, and I will send them to you! I will eventually set up a google drive)
In the story, there is this moment where Blaise casts a spell that creates a constellation, of which George got the inspiration to make a mood ring that created a little sky, and depending on your mood the sky changes to reflect how you feel. He gives it to Blaise, and they have a picnic under the sky, indoors, later at Blaise's party they have such a cute moment at night and so I wanted to implant the sky in some way.
I also wanted to use constellations in this bind. I didn't know how or where. I just knew I needed them in my life. So while i mop over my inability to impelent them, I took a break. So one day, I was reading a book with these very cute corners, and then it hit me. (No, I didn't finish the book i was reading. I was busy stalking the internet, trying to find the perfect image)
After that, picking the page breaks was easy. I wanted something simple since I didn't want the typeset to look so busy that it took away from the most important element of the bind, aka the story. I added a few little things for me in Draco and Harry's 2 chapters because I'm weak, and that's for soph to find all on her own 👀
I will put this here, tho.
Lastly, because Tumblr won't let me post more pictures, here are the endpapers I used for 2 of the 3 books.
As some of you may have notice, there are blues, pinks, and whites in this bind. It's a subtle yet very loud depiction of the Trans flag. It was very important to me to show that this story is of a Trans man that, as soph, puts it, saved himself.
I added all the chapter notes, trigger warnings, and more information about this bind on the typeset itself. Ultimately, to me, this is a form of archiving stories I think matter, and if for whatever reason, technology dies on us, this story will still live on.
The info that's only important to the binders 💀:
Materials list:
Bookcloth: Colibri in color Cornflower, this cloth has a silk like finish.
Htv: I used siser's htv easy weed vinyl with a bit of a pinkish undertone to it.
Endpapers: they are from paper tree nook in the uk
Endband: 2 mm 100% leather with blue viscous thread
Textblock: I used standard 20lbs cream color paper. I used toner to print. To sew the textblock, I use blue linen thread and remie bands gifted to me by my friend duranbinding. I painted the edges using golden acrylic paint, and the charm and ribbon are both from Michael's
Typeset:
(I will edit in this bit later since I made so many changes its hard to recall them all)
As if Kuruk being claimed as the worst Avatar in history, while he cleaned up Yanchens mess, dedicating his life to slaying bad spirits while getting no reward but only hatred towards him, losing his wife on the wedding day in progress AND his own life at the early age of THIRTY THREE by literally rotting from spirit powers was not enough suffering for a lifetime. Hah. NooOOOo!
Apparently universe does not want to give this man a fucking break because his "team Avatar" his "best friends", keep being the absolute assholes even after his death AND LITERALLY BETRAY HIM IN HIS NEXT LIFE. AND THEN KEEP MAKING HIS RECARNATION'S LIFE MISERABLE. WHY WAS NOT ONE LIFETIME ENOUGH, WHY??
Me, waking up at 5 am in a cold sweat: Mystra's human appearance being uncanny perfect and statuesque, but honestly overall unremarkable, shows not only her vanity, but also the immaterial and immature nature of the love Gale had for her. Like a vain and petty goddess with a taste for young wizard boys would, she purposefully and artificially designed her appearance for broadest appeal (conventionally attractive white woman, roughly maybe 30-ish? She literally looks like the post-PS "perfected" version of so many models who work in advertising), and has foregone personality in the process-- which is something with which young Gale was unconcerned, because he was just so enamored with the illusion of perfection that he didn't even seek substance, or anything past that veneer until much later, AND when he did, he got punished for it severely.
Gale first being so enamored with her that he has to conjure her face just to gaze upon it, THEN falling for a character with a more niche, more "human", flawed appeal (such as a stout, hairy, scarred-up lil blue dwarf man with a funny mustache, and a silly lil beard to conceal his weak chin), THEN seeing her AGAIN and not even thinking for a single moment about her beauty is. 👌👌👌
He's standing IN FRONT OF the goddess who once dominated his every thought, and he's just thinking "this conversation is uncomfy, I wish my boyfriend could have come with me :c".
there's this trend on tiktok rn where someone "pranks" their bf by calling them husband, and if you did that to touya he would get super nervous about it and immediately overthink it, to the point where you'd probably interpret it as a negative reaction and not do it again, but if you ever introduced him as anything else other than your husband ever again he would be SO pouty and hurt
never have i been so entirely exhausted from sitting in front of a laptop in a dark room for three hours gay! and so full of delight and happiness! like wow! i have not felt this good in ages!! and its a good kind of tired! i feel like im glowing!
but shit, the update is more than i could've dreamed of. like i said - three straight hours of combing, and i probably still missed a thing or two! i'm even saving the storytime audio to enjoy in the morning, i haven't listened to it yet!
i already have so many thoughts and emotions but i'm... so wiped out oh my god lmao. so much new stuff at once! i need to sleep on it all! and in the morning i will be more than happy to reply, interact, answer asks on this subject, share my actual thoughts - i just need to take the rest of the night to Process and rest, yk yk
and i know i "missed" some links on my liveblog! i know i know! i didn't add every single thing i found - like most of the Wally audios - because i'll be compiling them all into a labeled post tomorrow! when i wake up! i'm already looking forward to it <3 i'm confident i personally found all of them, though! i was Thorough! i went through everything at least twice, i tabbed through, i clicked on Everything...
but yes i hope you all are having a wonderful Update Day/Evening/Morning/Afternoon As The Case May Be. this is truly a delight and again, more than i could've dreamed of. i'd forgotten what it's like to be so wholly excited and delighted by something! it's been so long since i've felt this kind of genuine joy and whimsy! usually im white-knuckling my optimism and happiness but tonight it was all authentic 100% non-forced From The Soul!