#salvage by muffinlance for atla

[five-rivers]

Does your fandom have it?

You know what I'm talking about. That one divinely inspired fanfic that contains the holy trinity of good writing, length, and completeness.

(If it does, say the fandom and fic in the tags!)

[firelilysky]

@muffinlance ‘s Salvage was the first big ATLA fic I read, effectively launching me into this fandom head- first. It feels right to pick this series back up with a grumpy little Zuko fawning over the albatross-pigeons and pretending he’s not.

[chaoticbindery]

Salvage by MuffinLance

I completed this baby back in October early November it was painfully fun, lol. Shoutout to @no-name-publishing for sharing their typeset with me!

Below the line, there is more information and photos on this bind!

The foiling took about 8-9 hours or so. There was a lot of trial and error, and I ruined about 3 books worth of bookcloth. I ran through all my heat reactive silver foil (neverforget✊️)before I was able to compelte it. I used foil I got from a bindery that is closing down, I used my new cameo, and the memory keepers heat foil quills.

I was originally going to use The Great Wave off Kanagawa as my cover art, but my friends talked me out of it, and I'm glad since, had I not listened, it may have taken longer. The sound of the cameo working will haunt my nightmares. My spouse was dreading their life choices. "Why did I buy her the machine from hell?" Cause you love me, my sweet honeybooboo, that's why.

I used 28lb paper for this puppy, my printer was such a good boy and printed it out without a single issue (bless you babe I will thank you first when I get a trophy one of these days) but after I folded it it was like 3 inches wide and I got so scared for my life.

I used remie band and linen thread (only the best for you, my precious), I made headbands with the bookcloth and l2mm leather core, and I used glue and kozo paper to strengthen the rounded spine.

Rounding and backing almost made me cry, but I had DAS there with me. Also, shoutout to my friend's cousin for the backing and routing boards and Jim with ABE for the wonderful laying press.

The endpapers are from De Milo Design. They are handmade, and I got them at a local faire. They are beautiful!

The bookcloth is from BookcraftSupplyCo in CA!

If you would like to learn more about bookbinding, consider joining @renegadepublishing

[muffinlance]

Isopuppy Plushie Pattern

Sew your own isopuppy from Salvage! Patten by me, aka the writer. Finished puppers are approximately 2 feet (61 cm) long from nose to tail tip, extremely huggable, and extremely likely to get kidnapped by the nearest small child and/or adult with excellent taste.

PDF pattern includes written directions + process photos. You can get it here. There's also a crochet version over on my craft site.

[craft site || writing site || AO3]

[id: Sewn isopuppy plushie, which is a hybrid of a dog and an isopod. It has the shell and legs of an isopod and the head of a dog, with little antennae. End id.]

[emperor-smol]

I tried my hands at the boys from salvage by muffinlance in this lovely palette (+ red)

i recommend the podfic with sound effects it's an Experience

[justarandompersononthehellsite]

So... @muffinlance wrote a really awesome story. I read a post from a point in time, though I truly do not remember when since it seems like I've been working on this project forever, saying that she gives blanket permission for people to print and bind the story into a book (I think there was an also addendum saying that they do not give permission to be sold, since selling fic is illegal). This fic has had total control over my whole brain since it was sent to me (@creatorofthemind I believe it was you, so thank you forever for tuning me into it) back during the days of like chapter six or seven.

So here I am now, sharing this amazing journey of my first ever bookbinding adventure. Further reading below.

So to give you an idea of what's going on, this is a fanfiction about Zuko (Avatar the Last Airbender) (animated show version, the LA show did not exist yet and we do not speak of the movie) being adopted by Hakoda, Father of Katara and Zuko. (This might have also been what kicked off the Give Zuko A Parent craze, but don't fact check me.)

Overall, the characters from the show stick very well to the cannon versions, but where MuffinLance really shines is in the rich backstories and fleshed out feeling of all the non cannon elements. Especially the background characters. I would argue that the writing in this peice of fanwork could easily rival the cannon show at many points of comparison.

Now that you have context, we can get into the actual process.

To start, I used this guide to figure out where to even begin, and fount the included resource list to also be quite helpful. I cannot for the LIFE OF ME figure out where I found the template I used for the front matter and such, but it must be somewhere and I will link to it when I inevitably come across it again.

Then I began to typeset. This step took... a long time. I worked in chunks from about September of 2022 to late March of 2024. I would get a big section done, sometimes even the entire thing, but then find I hated the way I had done it and give up for months at a time. Such is the life of ADHD and flitting interest in projects I suppose.

And then finally, step one was done, and I was left with pages on a word document that look like this. (And do please let me know if you want the link to the document. It was so much work, and I would love to not be the only one to use it.)

Next step was printing out this beast. Ended up being about eight pages of front matter, and about 630 pages of body text.

That I printed wrong.

Twice.

Before finally getting it right. And then not getting a picture of it, because I finished at 4 am and had work at 7, and am also an idiot.

Then I simply stitched along, putting everything together into a beautiful text block.

And came up with a design for the cover.

Yes the glue did end up lumpy. Ignore it.

Yes I did have to sketch out the design onto a scraped page several times before I figured out what I was doing. Ignore that too.

The cover design does wrap around the entire cover. No I did not get a picture before I glued the thing down. See again: I'm an idiot. And just... massively impatient.

Finally, we get to the stage of gluing. Behold, my bookpress.

Of course, topped with Madam MuffinLances own actual professional-people book, Fox's Tounge and Kirin's Bone. It is Excelent. Here is the LINK so you can go and support this amazing author with the real-monies as well as the internet-kudos.

Then, once everything is glued together, one must give the book its "gilt" edges.

[dspd]

Fanbinding “Salvage”

My adventure in binding Salvage by MuffinLance and a second one for her has begun!

[the-storyteller78]

I absolutely adore Hakodad fics because I feel like the thought process is basically “what if Zuko had another father figure and three more uncles and two additional siblings and also a cute emotional support animal because our baby deserves it?”

[karothefool]

Hakoda & Zuko being higher in the Hakoda character tag than Hakoda & Sokka or Katara really says a lot about us i think

[aboutiroh]

You know how Zuko and Azula were overhearing Ozai asking Azulon for Iroh's birthright and Zuko ran away before he could hear the rest of it? Well, what if didn't but stayed to hear Ozai's punishment and as a result ran away in fear. Basically it would like how Aang reacted when he overheard the monks planning to send him away except that Zuko would be even more scared. Anyway what do you think could happen? Like it would be a dark story of survival, hiding and secrecy for Zuko as he would probably have to stow away on ship to the Earth kingdom and be on the run from the fire nation. Maybe he could meet the gang while there and join them and Azulon might still alive at the time and Ursa and Iroh would probably do everything they can to find Zuko.

All I can think about is a 9 year-old Toph finding 13 year-old Zuko hiding in a cave and the unusual friendship that ensues. 

[willowallowsworld]

My mom has never read any fanfiction, and only seen like 5 episodes of ATLA. But I convinced her to read salvage by @muffinlance (because it is truly a work of art) and she’s already on chapter 4 <3

[yourgayfroggiefriend]

Real pictures of me rereading Salvage by MuffinLance

[irefy]

So I finally read Salvage (you know the one) and. Oh…my god?!?!??? This is everything I ever wanted and more why did I ever put off reading this?????

[purrincesskittens]

New gift fic for @muffinlance Zuko gets to now beat it into the rest of the fleet that womens work is work. He has female help with that. Do not mess with Anja she will set things on fire.

[hungergamesheadcanons]

Unrelated to Hunger Games but I got a fic recommendation from a friend for ATLA and I gotta say I love when you can tell a fic is absolutely adored BC the amount of collections Salvage by MuffinLance is in doesn't even FIT ON MY SCREEN

IT IS NEARLY 2 FULL PHONE SWIPES LONG

I'm so excited to read it I'm 100% sure this is gonna be amazing if it's in that many collections lol, I'm not even a massive fan of ATLA but it's on rec by both my friend and has literally 1.3 million hits it may make me a fan

[bingeingallnight]

I just started reading atla fanfics. Could anyone give any recs, please? I love all fics: hurt/comfort, angst, fluff, crack. All of it.

Although, I’m not a zutara shipper. But I’ll take everything else.