#these hands that bind

[heartofspells]

Today hasn’t been the best day, has it? So, here. Have a bit of fluff, complete with an infatuated Sirius.

"Sing for me, Remus," says Sirius.

"You must be joking."

"I'm not. I want to hear what you sound like. I know you're not big on music, but you must know one song well enough to sing it. So, sing for me. Like you're driving down the road in a car, sound blaring from the speakers and you're belting it out, untamed, uncontrollable. Or like you're in the shower and performing for thousands. I refuse to believe you've never done either. Sing to me like you're in your shower, Remus."

"I know songs," grumbles Remus, still trying to avoid the request. "I hear things during the day. Music is difficult to avoid, and I don't try to avoid it. I just don't avidly listen on my own. But I used to listen to stuff with my mum and dad. Tears for Fears, Beatles, Kate Bush, Smiths."

"I'm still waiting, Remus," remarks Sirius.

"This is a test," declares Remus.

Sirius turns and grins up at him, propping his head in his palm, resting on his elbow, looking completely comfortable. "Maybe," he replies. "I like to hear people, what they sound like." Sirius considers him for a moment before saying lazily, "Beatles, you said? What's your favorite? Do that one."

Remus sucks in a deep breath, opening his mouth to deny the request, but something about the look Sirius is giving him makes him pause and reconsider. The man's grin is still firmly in place, but his grey eyes are almost pleading, curious and desperately wanting, like he senses something he needs to find out for certain. Remus' mouth closes again and his brow furrows before his shoulders drop as he relents.

"Fine," he mumbles, and Sirius practically beams up at him.

Remus clears his throat, feeling nervous, though why he isn't sure. Sirius has seen every part of him at this point, at least what's on the outside and a decent bit of what Remus keeps locked up inside as well, so why is doing something as ridiculous as singing in front of him so nerve-racking?

Remus shakes the rattling under his skin away as best he can, clears his throat once more, and begins to sing, the words from Let It Be memorized in his head so long ago flowing out of him. He tries to look away from Sirius, at anything other than those piercing grey eyes fixed on him, but Remus can't seem to force himself, locked into the gaze. Sirius' grin slowly fades away as he watches Remus, his face smoothing out, like he's falling into something, though Remus has no idea what. His eyes shift, something settling into them, something sparking in their depths, like they're slowly being set to flame, burning down the grey haze and leaving gleaming light behind.

When Remus finally finishes and falls silent, singing nearly three-quarters of the song before he can't make himself go on, Sirius continues to stare up at him with an odd expression. His eyes are creased in the corners, mouth twitching before spreading out into another smile, softer this time, lighter, not tamed, but more intimate and specific. Remus swallows, the nervousness returning along with what feels greatly like something he doesn't want anymore, Remus shoving it back down and locking it away.

"Now, that's a voice," murmurs Sirius, bright gaze shifting over Remus almost reverently. "I had a feeling about you."

[mortiscausa]

something i've been working on, having a little fun combining etching and bookbinding

[goatsandgangsters]

Jack Alston, Lord Hawthorn, from A Power Unbound by Freya Marske @fahye

Alan looked at his hand engulfed in Jack’s. He said, coming to the realisation along the way, like a sentence that only revealed itself word by word as he wrote it down: “You’re still the kind of arse who’ll pick two fights before breakfast, but you’ve been desperate for someone else to look after, haven’t you?”

[bindeds]

“save your breath for ones who want it, your majesty.”

the rest of my stuff (x reader fics hehehehehe)

i’m gonna post the colored version as soon as i finish it. in the meantime, do lmk what else you’d like to see <33

[sayornispress]

A fanbinding of Hawks and Hands by Dira Sudis @dsudis from AO3

This one ended up at almost 600 pages, set in EB Garamond! About 200k in total. It’s in the mail today, so I can post photos I’ve already shared with the author. Hopefully it will be delivered before Week 1 of @ds30below is done!

[magpiethepunkfairy]

Fenrir

[slavhew]

Wippy of the besties

[heartnosekid]

🧡 for my best friend, @daytimewhisper. 💚

💛-🧡-💚 | 💛-🧡-💚 | 💛-🧡-💚 | 💛-🧡-💚 | 💛-🧡-💚

[etherati]

My first REALLY tiny book, a bind of Four of Swords. A sextodecimo! This lil guy is about 3" x 2 1/4" and is bound with actual cards from the miniature edition RWS deck. Because of the fun tarot imagery I'd been wanting to bind this one, but it's so short, just about 5000 words, so it had to go really little :3

Printed on pop-tone white from French, spine and sword detail done with HTV. I printed the main narrative in black and the flashbacks in blue, for visual separation, and the endpapers are of artwork done for this fic by the incredible @sandwichartistdatzu !!

[sosnastudios]

Folklore Fish

Three miniature books inspired by folktales involving fish.  Full semi-limp bindings in salmon parchment made by the binder (me), sewn on salmon parchment tapes, red-orange Lynweave tipped endsheets.

Dragon Gate (Chinese): Rough edge gilding on three sides, surface gilding

Salmon Boy (Haida-Tlingit-Tsimshian): Marbled top edge, extra tapes woven across the cover, copper tooling

Salmon of Wisdom (Irish): Nine salmon parchment sewing tapes tanned in hazelnut shells and plaited into the covers

[heartofspells]

Hello 🥰 please.can I know more about 'These Hands that Bind'?

🧡

You absolutely can! Thank you for sending this.

These Hands that Bind is actually already posted, the first two chapters, at least. The third is coming, but slowly. But it's essentially just a way to explore Sirius and all his little quirks through Remus' watchful eyes.

They meet at a club, have their fun, but Sirius, being himself, sinks his nails in and refuses to let go. Remus is a bit more stubborn. It's filled with music, talks of careers (Sirius is a music producer, while Remus is a struggling writer), nosy friends, sweet moments, me trying to be poetic and greatly failing, and Sirius just trying to work his charms however he can to make Remus see that maybe this isn't so bad, using the excuse of casualness to do so. (and Sirius sings; that's a personal headcanon i have broken spectacularly for this thing)

And I've got a snippet from chapter three for anyone who's interested!

Sleeping with Sirius Black on a semi-regular basis isn't at all what Remus had initially expected. For instance, it isn't even semi-regular. It becomes regular incredibly quickly. Remus tries to enforce a measure of distance there almost immediately, attempting to limit their exposure to one another to no more than a couple times a week, but that doesn't work. As soon as his phone dings with a one worded message, or worse, sometimes only a smirking yellow face, or Remus finds his mind drifting a little too far away, Sirius is typically there with him within an hour, one of them against the wall or pressed into a mattress or both sprawled over the floor.

Sirius is like a siren in the middle of an expansive sea of rolling waves, calling to Remus until he treads the water, navigates its dangers, finds him, finally, and lets Sirius takes him, pull him under the surface and never release. All it takes is the thought of dancing grey eyes, the image of upturned lips, the remembrance of a cockily arched eyebrow, and Remus is gone, lost to it all, encasing himself in arms and a body he'd once thought he could banish away so easily. He feels foolish now.

Sirius plays out some sort of unheard, unnamed tune on Remus' skin with long, slender fingers whenever they're together. The heat of them blazes and scorches, leaving him ravaged, bared, exposed, a nerve shown the light of day and twinging with it, vibrating almost painfully when there isn't skin on skin or just the simplicity of grey eyes watching him with every move he makes.

Borderline public shags become a more frequent thing. Whereas Remus had previously limited these to desperate one offs in club lavs or the occasional backrooms of seedier pubs, with Sirius, everywhere suddenly seems like a possibility, presenting almost like a challenge to the dark headed man, the wickedness around his eyes and mouth clear.

Sirius has no filter, or so Remus is learning, not on his mouth or any other areas of himself. He also has little to no regard for customary rules of polite society, going so far as to tug Remus over his lap one night in an abandoned train car of the tube and all but full-out take him right there, hands groping freely before pulling Remus off with practiced ease, his own hips grinding up, erection straining against trouser fabric and Remus' arse. He'd left Remus gasping for breath and his own shirt obviously stained, but Sirius hadn't seemed to care, only smirking up at Remus as he'd gently tucked him away from sight again.

Remus, to put it simply, is a wreck of himself. His entire world seems to have shifted on its axis, winter turning suddenly to glowing, too bright summer days, sometimes subtly shifting into the embracing arms of a crisp and welcoming autumn. Where his time had once been his own, a little lonely, a bit grey and drab, now he finds it filled with the presence of a larger-than-life figure who's all wild hand gestures, chaos of the best sort, cigarettes hanging from stretching lips or beautiful fingers, and a grey that's dazzling and more breathtaking than Remus cares to admit.

[arsenicflame]

i think the thing for me about edizzy is the potential of it all- we know they have history together, but we don't know what it is, how long it went on for, what it meant for them. there's endless possibilities there to explore, and any of them could be real! or not! but theres so much to explore with them and its so fun to imagine all the what-if's and could-have-beens of their relationship

[beetlesanbutterflies]

Just realized, Lisa starts painting her nails red to help hide the blood under her nails

[a-room-of-my-own]

It's impossible to find a video about fashion history without an airhead who self-identifies as a fashion historian - because she LARPs on week-ends and owns a sewing machine - inserting a 5 minutes tirade in defense of corsets.

[fallingsunbindery]

The Interrogation by magdaliny 51,263 words | 280 pages Completed August 20, 2023

This story is sweet and haunting and cathartic and so many moments have stayed with me since I first read it. It was a joy to typeset and bind <3 Even when the HTV fought me and had to be applied twice.

[uwmspeccoll]

It’s Fine Press Friday! 

Today we’re taking a deep dive into Songs for Gaia, a slim edition of poetry by Gary Snyder (b. 1930). This understated, beautifully-crafted letterpress volume was printed in 1979 for Kah Tai Alliance at Copper Canyon in Port Townsend, WA, a fine press dedicated solely to poetry since its founding in 1972, and was handbound by poet and bookbinder Samuel Green. It features woodblock illustrations by poet and printmaker Michael Corr (b. 1940), who learned his craft while living in Kyoto from block printer and illustrator Takeji Asano (1900-1999). Asano was a notable figure in Japan’s Sōsaku-hanga woodblock printing movement. The book is quarter bound in cloth with a cover marbled in a finely executed combed feather pattern, a touch that lends a hint of psychedelia to its otherwise traditional aesthetics. It was released in a limited edition of 300 copies.   

Snyder, who is popularly known for his time amongst and spiritualist influence on the Beat poets and the counterculture of their generation (along with Kerouac’s portrayal of him as Japhy Ryder in the 1958 novel The Dharma Bums) spent 13 years in Japan (1956-1968) studying Zen Buddhism, forestry, and ecology. A scholar of Asian languages versed in cultural anthropology, he also studied calligraphy with accomplished calligrapher and seal carver Charles Leong during his time at Reed College. Snyder’s calligraphic signature graces the half-title page of this edition.  

This modest yet potent edition of Songs for Gaia is a fitting form for the work of a poet whom writer Bob Steuding once characterized as cultivating an “accessible” style and “a new kind of poetry that is direct, concrete, non-Romantic and ecological.” As Snyder wrote of his own work in A Controversy of Poets, “I try to hold both history and wilderness in mind, that my poems may approach the true measure of things and stand against the unbalance and ignorance of our times.”  

View more Fine Press Friday posts

View more woodblock illustration posts

View more marbling posts (shout out to Alice, our resident marbling expert!)

-Ana, Special Collections Graduate Fieldworker