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We Sail Together - for Unleashed Blue 2023 🌊

Chapters: 1 of 4 - Isolation
Rating: Teen and Up 
Word Count: 24k (Chapter 4,842)
Tags: Alternate Universe - Pirates and Merpeople, First Meetings, Childhood Friends, Mild Peril, Threats of Violence, Eventual Happy Ending ( see more on a03 )

Chapter 1 Summary:

Haru was perfectly content with his life. He could live beneath the waves with the other merfolk, he could venture onto the shore when needed, and his island had everything he could have ever asked for.

He never anticipated that one pirate pushing his way into his life could change all of that.

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Been longer than I realized since I last got a new character!

Picked up this otter girl from @prince-o-sky and had to draw up something to start getting the hang of her design 🌸 Will try and do proper fullbody art with her sometime once ArtFight is done

Just wanted to clear this thing up

Friendly reminder that if I haven’t answered your ask the same day, it means either: 

  • I want to treasure that ask forever
  • I dont feel up to social interaction
  • I didnt have time, and ended up forgetting about it

What it does NOT mean:

  • I dont like getting asks
  • You’re bothering me by sending asks

SAME APPLIES FOR UNANSWERED TAG GAMES!

CHEERS TO GUY WALTON FOR “OUTING” THE FOSSIL FUEL COMPANIES

From the article:  

Walton has devised his own criteria for named heatwaves in the US, based on duration and extremity, on a one to five scale similar to hurricanes. Heatwave Chevron is classed as a four and is “historic”, Walton said. The meteorologist said he has a list of 20 oil and gas companies – including Exxon and Shell – for upcoming heatwaves and will turn to coal companies if he runs out of names.

OUTSTANDING MOVE

Y'all know what to do. Use Walton's naming system. Make it catch on.

Listen to your elders

So last week I posted abut the importance of downloading your fic. And then three days later AO3 went down for 24 hours. No one was more weirded out by this than I was. But while y’all were acting like the library at Alexandria was on fire I was reading my download fic and editing chapter eight of Buck, Rogers, and the 21st Century. And also thinking about what I could do to be helpful when the crisis was actually over.

So first off, I’m going to repeat that if you’re going to bookmark a fic, you really need to also download the fic and back it up in a safe place. I just do it automatically now and it’s a good habit to get into.

But let’s talk about some other scenarios. Last October I lost power for over a week after hurricane Ian. Apart from not having internet or A/C I did find plenty to do, I collect books so I had plenty to read, but maybe, unlike me, your favorite comfort reads aren’t sitting on a bookshelf. So let’s do something about that, shall we?

In olden times many long years ago around 1995 we printed off a lot of fic. It was mostly SOP to print a fic you planned to reread and stick it in a three ring binder. And that’s totally valid today too, but you can also make a very nice paperback with a minimum amount of skill and materials.

Let’s start with the download; Go to Ao3 and select your fic, we’ll be working with one of mine. This method works best with one shots, long fic tends to need a more complicated approach. Get yourself an HTML download

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Open up the HTML download and select all then copy paste into any word processor. Set the page to landscape and two columns, then change the font to something you find easy to read, this is your book, no judgement. This is all you have to do for layout but I like to play a little bit. I move all the meta, summary, notes to the end and pick out a fun font for the title: 

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No time like the present to do a quick proofread. Congratulations, you’ve just created your first typeset. On to the fun part.

Now you’re going to need some materials: 
8.5x11in paper
ruler
one sheet of 12x12 medium card stock (60-80lb)
scissors
pencil
pen or fine tip marker
sheet of wax paper
white glue
two binder clips
2 heavy books or 1 brick
butter knife

You’ll also need a printer, if you’re in the US there is almost a 100% chance your local library has a printer you can use if you don’t have your own. None of these materials are expensive and you can literally use cheap copy paper and Elmers glue.

Print your text block, one page per side. Fold the first page in half so that the blank side is inside and the printed side out:

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use the butter knife to crease the edge. Repeat on all the sheets. When you’ve finished, stack them up with the raw edge on the left and the folded edge on the right. I used standard copy paper, because you’re only printing on one side there’s no bleed to worry about. Take the text block and line everything up. Use the binder clips to hold the raw edge in place.

Wrap the text block in the wax paper so that the raw edge and binder clips are facing out. I’m going to use my home built book press but you don’t need one, a brick or a couple of books or anything else heavy will work fine.

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Once the text block is anchored down, take off he binder clips and get out the glue.

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You can use a brush but you don’t need one, smear some glue on that raw edge.

Go make a margarita, watch The Mandalorian, call your mother. Don’t come back for at least an hour

In an hour smear some more glue on there and shift your brick forward so that the whole book is covered. This keeps the paper from warping. While glue part 2 is drying we’ll do the cover. Get out your 12x12 cardstock

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Mark the cardstock off at 8.5 inches and cut it. Measure in 5.5 inches from the left and put in a score line with the butter knife (the back edge not the sharp edge)

Carefully fold the score line, this is your front cover. You have some options for the cover title, you can use a cutting machine like a cricut if you have one, you can print out a title on the computer and use carbon paper to transfer the text to the cardstock. I was in a mood so I just freehanded that beoch. Pencil first then in pen.

Take your text block out from under your brick. Line it up against the score mark and mark the second score on the other side of the spine

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Fold the score and glue the textblock into the cover at the spine. Once the glue dries up mark the back cover with the pencil and then trim the back cover to fit with your scissors.

Voila:

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I’m going to put this baby on the shelf next to the Silmarillion.

The whole process, not counting drying time, took less than an hour.

If you want to make a book of a longer fic, I recommend Renegade Publishing, they have a ton of resources for fan-binders. 

Shoutout to all my fat transmascs, my long haired transmascs, my short transmascs, and all my transmascs who get misgendered from behind and on the phone.

All my transmascs with "feminine" hobbies, "feminine" gestures, "feminine" ways of talking. My transmascs who don't voice train, who still wear clothes from the women's section.

Every transmasc experience is unique and amazing. You're all so wonderful and handsome and bring something that's just you into this world. Don't stop breaking boundaries and rules, reshape them and force the world to conform to you.

the gimmick blogs are like tumblr’s rogue gallery. yes we’ve got some heroes, yes we’ve got some villains, but more importantly if you look over here you will see some freak who devotes all their time to counting the number of “t’s” in a post

not joking I would kind of like to brutally murder whoever thought it was a good idea to take away clicking on a person’s name to see their reblog and make it borderline impossible to get to the original version of a post without spending ten minutes scrolling with ctrl f