I sometimes feel out of time and space

Skill nostalgia?

Wed, 09 Sep 2026 13:40:10 GMT

When doing my hobby, I take comfort in that - aside from preserving fanfiction and/or interesting documentation - I am creating something tangible and useful with my own hands. A way of having my own physical work in an era of the digital. I also take heart in the community I have found and the knowledge that I am a continuation of a skill that is valued across the world, bridging peoples and faiths across the winds of time and distance.

And from what I've been hearing, I'm not the only one. A recent Guardian article reported how many people now value traditional 'hands-on' trades such as metalwork and boatbuilding since most office jobs are in danger of being replaced by LLM's. Weaving and crocheting took off during the pandemic, introducing many people to a tactile hobby that is still larger than it has been a decade ago. I myself went to an illustration fair earlier this year where original artists showcased their work to a packed audience.

With the ubiquity of computing, people are taking more attention to crafts, skills and trades that have physicality.

But late last week, I stumbled across an article that asks us to question this return to hands-on labor. Are we doing this out of nostalgia? For a past that is seen through rose-tinted glasses? Are we doing this for self-improvement, or for escapism? If physical skills are valued, are we aware that it can lead to some dark messaging about labor? Of what sort of person to idolise or demonize?

For me, at least, I do bookbinding because it served several things: to help me pass the time; to save and conserve stories from internet deletion; to document histories people prefer to forget; to show my love and appreciation for media that has often been seen as childish, trite, or disgusting. From joining the fanbinding community, I also see myself as continuing a tradition that, for some cultures, errs close to the divine.

I don't see myself as being on a poster with a chiseled jaw and emphasizing masculine labor, but I can also see why some people would like me and others like mine to be that. For our case, a lot of us don't fit that image and would laugh at such an attempt. So my response to that article is this: so long as we take hands-on trades and crafts with an open mind, so long as these repopularisation of labors come with acceptence of the queerness of ourselves, we will never become the people on those masculine posters. And may we be all the better for it.

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Three things that happened over the weekend

Mon, 07 Sep 2026 13:55:04 GMT

Had to work overtime on a Saturday for six hours. Apparently due to company stuff that shall take place next weekend, everyone is mandated by the boss to work overtime this weekend. On the plus side, the office is super quiet. On the minus side, I have no one to turn to if I need help. Heeeeelllppppp.

Watched the chinese animated movie "All Wishes Come True" on the local cinema on Sunday. Why? Because I needed to fill my head with whimsy after Saturday. That, and I saw a gif of one of the leading men giving very sexy bedroom eyes at another man hOLY FUCK IS THIS FLICK SO FILLED WITH GAY YEARNING. Verdict: so much better than it looks! (seriously, if this is a Disney or Dreamworks film it would have gotten faaaaar more attention)

Finally finished editing the main text of two of my current bookbinding projects! Now all that's left is the ancillary stuff: copyright pages, appendicies, and picture layout. Oh god, picture layout. Why did I design these two books with lots of pictures!? With the limited time I have, it will take days or weeks to completely find the right images for these!!

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Stumbled on a rec list of Tommyinnit fics

Thu, 03 Sep 2026 14:50:24 GMT

One of the things I have never really let go off from the pandemic days is the Dream SMP, and there is a part of me that misses how it was an internet phenomenon. So when I scrolled through Twitter and stumbled across a rec list of Tommyinnit fics, I was instantly intrigued.

Ben’s Ultimate Collection of TommyInnit Vigilante Fics : Sheet1

My first impression is how they are all fics where Tommyinnit has superpowers or live in a superhero / supervillain / vigilante AU. During the latter days of the Dream SMP, these AUs were really popular among fans and such fics garnered massive views as fans shared them widely across social media.

These AU fics were a bit of a hit and miss for me - I liked Tommyinnit's Clinic for Supervillains and a few others, but much of them felt too My Hero Academia-ish for my taste (I always thought these fics were inspired more by MHA than the Dream SMP). That said, I now feel a sort of nostalgia for these fics, given what happened to the SMP and to some of the players. That era was wild in more ways than one, but it was also a time where fans were on overdrive to create some incredible works.

One of the fics on the list is now deleted, which induced me to download every other fic on the list so that I have a personal archive. If any of them get wiped away, I'll now have them to enjoy offline.

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List of links from my mobile & PC (that I should close) - PART 2

Mon, 31 Aug 2026 16:36:14 GMT

My phone is slowly filling up with tabs again, and my desktop is slowly becoming cluttered with notepad files full of links. So in the interest of sprucing them up, here's some of the webpages and links I have opened, noted, and now aiming to close.

Meet the Saudi Arabian fighter joining Tekken 7's lineup – A link to a Polygon article about a Saudi Arabian charcater that eventually appeared in the fighting game Tekken 7 and Tekken 8. I remember saving the link because the character, Shaheen, is reeeally hot lol.

City Secret – Polish Connection – A post from the blog The Karachi Walla about how the city of Karachi housed about 30,000 Polish people during World War 2.

anythinglah.my – A dead link, but if I had to guess... this was supposed to be a local site where people could connect over anything and everything under the sun. Looks like it didn't made enough connections to save itself. There is a Facebook page under the same name, but it has not been updated since June 2021.

natemaingardmusic.com - Another dead link. This time to an independent musician and motivational speaker, Nathan Maingard. While this site in particular is dead, he has another official site that's active along with his YouTube and SoundCloud. I think I saved this link because some of his songs sounded nice during the pandemic.

locked photo from Facebook - A deleted photo from the similarly deleted local queer group PELANGI Campaign. I can only assume the photo was important enough for me to have a link to it.

Sketchbook.com - A link to an art program called Sketchbook that works on desktop, as well as Android and Apple tablets. I think I was looking out for any Photoshop alternatives when I saved this link, though I eventually settled on Krita. Might still take a gander though...

macmillerswebsite.com - a site created as a tribute to the deceased rapper Mac Miller. The thing is, I don't think I am ever a fan of the artist. But his death in 2018 came as a surprise to the point that I wanted to find something to remember him by.

And that's all for now. Given the amount of links I have saved here, there, and everywhere, I might make this into a periodic series.

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Of Birthdays and Milestones

Sun, 30 Aug 2026 14:02:07 GMT

Several days ago, my birthday came and passed by with barely a change. Part of this was due to everyone being busy, but part of it was also because I wanted a day to myself, especially given the Independance Day holidays. That said, I did indulge myself by buying expensive macaroons and pairing them with nice bitter tea after dinner. My personal celebration marked with a sweet tooth.

Then came today, where my family and I went to my sister's housewarming party. I realized early on that the party was also to celebrate my birthday at at a time when everyone's schedules allowed for free time, and sure enough, I spotted a 'Mango Jasmine Cake' in the car. Intriguing.

During the housewarming/birthday, my parents asked me about my milestones; now that another year has come and gone, what do I want to do for the next earthly cycle? And to be honest, I don't know. I could easily focus for a better job or a room filled with bookbinding tools. I could have asked for millionaire money or a house that is self-cooling. But when that question was asked, I really didn't know what to answer.

I don't know if that means I'm indecisive, or clueless, or unambitious. But I also wonder if it's because I'm now in a time of life where I don't really need anything else. I have my parents, my siblings, a house, tools that are enough to make books, etc. and it feels like I have ticked-off everything that an aspirational person could ever want.

Or maybe my milestones don't need to be settled instantly upon my birthday. No one ever said it is a mandated deadline. All I want right now is to enjoy the holidays, and maybe that could be a milestone in of itself: to enjoy time.

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To be challenged in reading is no bad thing

Mon, 24 Aug 2026 16:19:28 GMT

I think we've all been bombarded with enough news about how LLMs (I refuse to call these programs 'artificial intelligence' for they are not intelligent, sentient, or sapient to deserve the term) scrape information from the world around us to power to create output out of their ones and zeros.

I also think we have heard of how many people today - students, adults, people in-between and beyond - have become extremely complacent about reading to the point that they are struggling with long prose, difficult words, and uncomfortable topics. A number have even started to use LLMs as a crutch to their reading habits, trading convenience and efficency for reduced meaning, comprehension, or understanding.

Which is why this article 'In Praise of “Wordy, Old Prose.”' was such a surprise when someone shared it in a Discord server of friends. The writer challenges us to sit with the uncomfotability of reading, to struggle (in a good way) to understand difficult topics, unfamiliar prose, and tolerate a little cognitive dissonance.

As someone who read foreign books in a foreign country, I feel the lessons imparted by this piece very deeply. Others may disagree, but I do think challenging yourself to read beyond your comfort zone can open doors to new worlds. There's a reason why I read a non-fiction book about muslim househusbands and a fiction book about typewriters within a single month.

To be challenged is far from easy, but it can open oneself to a much deeper, richer, and more fulfilling experience.

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Book Review — Evertype by Richard Polt

Sun, 23 Aug 2026 03:55:45 GMT

The thing about reading is that sometimes you have to push against your comfort zone to try something new. This book is certainly not one I would have picked up if not for curiosity.

Typewriters are a machine that most people imagined to have gone extinct, yet they have had a surprising revival as people began to search for a way to write without delving into the surveillance-ridden digital world. This forms the backbone of Evertype, a fiction novel by Richard Polt.

( more in the cut )

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Broad Bottoms, a shocking web click, and shared satire

Mon, 17 Aug 2026 11:07:15 GMT

So there I was, surfing the web when an innocuous article about political satire caught my eye. I clicked it, expecting something mildly funny...

...and was greeted with a drawing of people showing their butts and pooping out.

The picture was part of a guest post in a blog run by the University of Cardiff, highlighting their special collections in their archives that go deep into the history of the British Isles. The drawing in particlular was from satirical pamphlet from Britain in the 1740s, highlighting public anger at the duplicity of politicians and what they do in power despite their promises. I let the blog post do the talking:

An Address of Thanks to the Broad-Bottoms, for the Good Things they have done, and the Evil Things they have not done, Since their Elevation’ (1745) is a curious eighteenth-century satirical pamphlet in Cardiff University’s Rare Book Collection that is about politics rather than bottoms (alas). But it feels surprisingly modern and pertinent in its message, full of biting comments against untrustworthy and greedy politicians who immediately abandon their principles and pledges for a seat in a coalition government.

For a centuries-old text, the satire is very much topical in lampooning the antics of the politically powerful. I highly recommend giving the blogpost a read, as it really shows that we have more in common with the people of the past than we thought.

Also, you all must share in my shock at the drawing.

Basically, if I had to see this, so will you all.

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Fanbinding Peek: adding-in a crest

Sun, 16 Aug 2026 03:05:59 GMT

To not end the weekend on a sour note, I managed to finish editing an image to be used for my next bookbind.

I'm currently typesetting a TurnSaps fic for future fanbinding. For the uninitiated, think 'Militaristic dictator falls deeply in love with political refugee.' In the fic, the dictator Turntapp wears a crest on his chestplate that's described as "fancy" and "unique":

It was fancy, much nicer than most of the ones he’d seen in passing, though just as scratched and dented. He stares at it for a bit, trying to memorize the unique pattern until it seers into his brain.

But then there is also this remark later on:

[...] simple and neat, no fancy embellishments or decorations or anything that would impede movement.

Normally, a writer would just expect the reader to make something up. But I am a stubborn person when it comes to hyperfixations and I want to visualize this simple-yet-fancy-crest.

So I searched. I searched through websites and images about ornaments, I looked through dozens upon dozens of crests, I waded through watermarked designs and AI-generated results. Eventually, I made a folder containing all the designs that might be most suitable for the bookbind. Chief among these was an old page about war-like ornaments from 1896 that contained an intriguing draft.

It was a forestry sketch, yet it seemed to match the dictator's nation pretty well: a sword-knife down the middle, an axe to the right and an implement that can be construed as a pickaxe on the left. It also had tree leaves flowing about and an empty scroll that I could edit-in a motto.

From there, I started to edit. I wasn't sure if the tree leaves were too much embellishment and so scrubbed it out using Krita. I made two different versions of the edited crest, compared them, put them both into the typeset, and eventually made my decision.

A crest that is both fancy and unique, yet also simple and neat. Weapons fitting a militaristic nation, surrounded by a circle—the outline of another crest I edited-in—and scrawled with an abbreviation of the nation's motto: May Only the Strong Survive.

Not a bad way to end a tiresome weekend!

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Double-suck Saturday morning

Sat, 15 Aug 2026 00:23:44 GMT

Yesterday, I discovered to my surprise that someone wrote a fanfic crossover between Formula 1 RPF and the Minecraft speedrunning community. Apparently the particular fanfic has blown up beyond AO3/Tumblr and was openly discussed in public spaces to the point that people were sending asks directly to F1 players and minecraft streamers. More darkly, the author received a spike of harassment and even death threats!

So on the 14th of August, the very day I discovered the fanfic, the author deleted it from AO3.

Oh my god, do people forget fandom etiquette exists for a reason!?

On top of all that, I received an email from Dreamwidth saying that someone else tried to log in to this account. Motherfuck!?

The user was suspended, but these back-to-back events made me crawl out of my bed on an early Saturday morning to change my password and scout out the damage. No more peaceful morning routine, just scrambling to find out what else I have missed. Can the people of the internet be peaceful for one single day?!

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KL Zine Fair 2026

Sun, 09 Aug 2026 17:40:17 GMT

I have heard of zines and have brought a few of them over the years, but I have never been to a zine festival before. That changed on the 8^th of August when I finally attended my first ever zine fair hosted by a group called Kuala Lumpur Zine Etc.

The fair ran from 7^th to 9^th August and was held at the Kuala Lumpur and Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall. However, what they didn’t say was how the fair was held on the smaller spaces of the second floor and not in the main hall. In fact, there was even a wedding photoshoot on the front steps when I arrived!

Despite the small space, I was surprised at the diversity of stuff around. Zines were aplenty, but there were also several booths selling indie books and even one stall that sold indie rock cassettes and CDs! There was one booth that was full of youth works from Kelantan, the northeasternmost state of Peninsular Malaysia that's known for being very conservative. So to see rebellious indie youth books and posters from there, especially in the Jawi script, was an eyebrow-raiser.

Sadly, I didn't get a photo of their booth 😔But I did find this! One booth brought the one tool all bookbinders want!

Of course, I pestered the artists on where they got a book press! Apparently, these book presses are super rare locally because there aren't that many around to begin with, being only used by typesetter shops who had the money to import them. So the only way a bookbinding hobbyist can get one is when these shops are closing down. And almost all are out of business.

Up till today, the only other place I recently know off that had these are in Melaka. But apparently the artist group, Lostgens', has a place at Jalan Panggong that houses several. They even say they sometimes host bookbinding classes!

All in all, I spent about two hours at the fair before my aching feet and hungry stomach forced me to leave. This book fair was, despite the small scale, definitely enjoyable.

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Oh no, I have a new rarepair (from a Civ event)

Sun, 02 Aug 2026 02:54:35 GMT

I have been watching Minecraft Civilization videos over the past month, which are these massive events where hundreds of players join a minecraft event where they either create civilizations or try and work together against massive challenges.

Among these are the reaction videos to these civilization events, and they can range from entertaining to crass (but still fun to watch). But along the way, I began to notice something… interesting. It took me until this video to finally confirm it but yep, I now have a new pair to ship.

It’s a rarepair. It’s unexpected. It’s a framed fugitive and the hit squad leader. It’s TurnTapp / Saparata.

I am so predictable. *sobs*

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Of Harry Potter and fanbinding

Wed, 29 Jul 2026 11:01:36 GMT

Several days ago, the Renegade Bindery server got informed that a fic writer in the Harry Potter fandom shall hide all of her AO3 works by the end of July. This was due to J.K. Rowling's behaviour towards transpeople and abusers of human rights being too much.

As someone who once read the books religiously as a child, I fully understand why the fic writer wants to do so; it feels disgusting to consider bring in the fandom - to write fanfiction and draw fanart - when all of that brings continued attention to the author's work and thus more money to fund her activities.

But I am also part of group that tries to save fanfics from deletion. And for all that writing fanfics about the canon brings continued attention to the series, I can't deny that some of those fanfics are beautiful and meaningful to me.

To be honest, I have a few HP fics that were on my to-bind list, but I have placed those in hiatus for the last year. I couldn't stomach making them into books and posting my handiwork because of the potential eyeballs they might bring. Of the continued attention to the series.

So I shall mourn. I shall mourn the writers who have to private, orphan, or delete their fanfics because of what the authors have become, or what their fandoms have become. And I hope that one day, we can play around in these fandoms and create beautiful things without any fear or shame. And I hope that day will come soon.

P.S: With this said, I will post my HP bookbinds I made till last year into my bookbinding blog (in time). Despite my feelings today, I have made them with love back then and I refuse to let that woman tarnish my personal joys.

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Book Review — Suami Rumah Tangga by Syed Imad Alatas

Fri, 24 Jul 2026 13:51:35 GMT

I bought this book from a reading festival almost a month ago, but it's only now that I finally managed to finish reading this.

Househusbands as a topic is not really talked about in Asia, much less in muslim-majority countries. While the past was fluid, modern society and religion have traditionally set household divisions between husbands and wives in a way that's more rooted than in the west. Additionally, most househusbands in Asia don't signal themselves as such openly, so to have this book published is really an eye-catcher.

( Read more... )

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Goodbye to my old laptop

Sun, 19 Jul 2026 08:56:38 GMT

Yesterday, I gave up my 10-year old Lenovo Z50-70 laptop away to be recycled.

It was a heavy laptop, meant more for business use than anything gamey. It was one of the last laptops that had a spinning HDD/disc drive, an in-built CD drive, as well as a replaceable battery module. All are features that are removed from laptops today, but back then I (and many others) believed that CDs and replaceable batteries were forever.

I got the device because it was the most advanced-looking personal computer in the local store that was within my budget. It was large and packed noticeable weight in my backpack, but it also got me through my last year of university, as well as bridging my online activities in the latter half of the 2010s. Some of my computer habits were born or developed using that Lenovo, such as saving good fanart or hanging out till the early morning.

Eventually, the laptop began to slow down. Windows updates and various programs became more and more bloated till I couldn’t use it as smoothly as before. The HDD drive couldn’t keep up with the march of memory, and the rise of new games also made it more and more difficult to play on the Lenovo’s specs. Funnily enough, it was how the PC refused to launch No Man’s Sky due to missing the bare minimum requirements that finally led me to buy a better, up-to-date laptop back during the pandemic.

Even then, I still kept the old laptop around. Even when I forgot my laptop password, I held on to it. Around last year, I got interested in Linux and installed Linux Mint to give the device a new life, even though the new operating system will erase everything on my hard drive. In fact, I upgraded the RAM, replaced the battery, and took out the HDD drive for an SSD drive to improve performance. The laptop ran faster than I had seen in years. I even managed to burn a few music CDs, the first time I’ve done so in a while!

Sadly, when I tried to turn it on a few weeks back, the Lenovo screen didn’t do anything. Nothing showed up. If I took out the power cable, the laptop beeped loudly. After trying again and again to the same result. I knew then its time had come.

Goobye, my Lenovo. It was fun while it lasted.

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Indie Web, namecheap, and the reality of website-building in the Global South

Thu, 16 Jul 2026 13:41:33 GMT

So I have a mobile browser tab that’s been open for months, and it’s about why and how someone could join the IndieWeb. As someone who grew up in the late 90s and 2000s in Malaysia, where internet service did not become widespread for half the populace until the touchscreen phone came into being, I completely missed the early era of personal websites. Besides that, my first forays into internet culture was through YouTube and LiveJournal, so vlogs/blogs were the centre of my online world.

Recently, I have also watched several YouTube videos of people advocating viewers to make their own personal sites. One of them listed namecheap.com as a place where a person could obtain their own domain. Given by the former paragraph, I agree with the ethos of creating your own personalized garden – I tried doing that with my own LiveJournal, but I was too young and too distracted by other stuff to maintain it for long, even after moving it to Dreamwidth.

But a part of me wondered if website building is something that could even be affordable in the Global South, where much bigger issues predominate. Malaysia is lucky in that regard, but the exchange rate between our currency and the U.S Dollar have sometimes made me wonder.

Today, I thought I’d take a gander at namecheap to see if owning a domain would be costly for the average Malaysian. Typing ‘al28894’ showed a list of domains for sale, with the .com going for $11.28 per year or 45.94 MYR. Not too shabby. ‘alnumbers’ (.com) got the same results while ‘al-numbers’ already got registered in 2022.

But when I typed ‘keystonepublishing’, the title of my bookbinding blog, the .com results show that I have to pay $6,955.00 upfront, or 28324.93 MYR.

Fucking hell. There’s no way I can pay that.

And that really makes me wonder of how viable creating a website for self-expression costs in countries where the Dollar or Euro isn’t king. Doubtless I could have chosen a simpler name, a different domain (keystonepublishing.org is only $8.48 = 34.54 MYR), or another domain register. But Keystone Publishing has been my imprint for 3 years and counting, and I would want to have a URL that matches my bookbinding title. I might sell something down the line from such a URL, and thus prefer the .com over the .org. It would be saddening if a creative site for my own hobby as a form of self-expression costs as much as a college fee.

And again, I am lucky that I live in a nation that is prosperous as Malaysia and that I could even have these options. A person living in other parts of the Global South might have to face greater expenses. Expenses that feel so much more wasteful when compared to other needs. No wonder than that people outside the U.S. / Europe flock to Facebook or TikTok or Instagram, where their homepages are already in-built and the payment is in data, not cold hard cash.

There are places like Dreamwidth and Neocities that offer a personal refuge without paying a cent. I’m here after all. But I feel like… if there is going to be true internet freedom, there needs to be a way someone from Asia or Africa could make their own online presence, without depending on tech giants or anyone, but without breaking their own bank.

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Weekend and Monday happenings

Mon, 13 Jul 2026 14:23:58 GMT

Weekend bookstore search

On Saturday, I decided to do something that I had been wanting to do for a while: scout two independent bookstores near my home to see what the premises are like, check out their book selection, and maybe inquire if they have any job openings.

The first independent bookstore was in a local shopping mall that had seen better days. I assumed the store was open on weekends, so I was surprised to walk up the escalator to find the place closed! There was no schedule I could see online or on the windows so I have no idea if this is a normal thing or something new. It did put a damper on my search though.

The second independent bookstore was a ways away and in fact took 40 minutes to reach by car. I know the store looked upscale from online photos, but I didn’t expect the premises to be in a rich neighbourhood of the city, located beneath a condominium, and packed so full with cars that there was no parking space. After 10 or so minutes of driving around for any open spot, I decided to call it quits and return back home.

Minecraft civilization videos

I have always loved watching Minecraft videos and the latest trend in the space have seen players of the game building civilizations and taking part in grand storylines. This weekend, several YouTubers had planned to release highly-anticipated videos of them playing in more civilization events — multi-hour affairs that required a large slice of free time to enjoy.

Given my bookstore rounds, I initially sought to watch these videos on Saturday night and the entirety of Sunday. However, I underestimated the amount of attention and energy to watch them back-to-back, resulting in staying awake past midnight and sleeping far too late in the early morning, followed by waking up too early on both Sunday and Monday.

Project Hail Mary fics

Adding to this was my drive to close as many browser tabs on my phone as possible. As my phone browser had a lot of open AO3 tabs, I endeavoured to finish reading as many of them as possible. This has led me to consume far too many words in far too little time, and I’m sure I may not have enjoyed them as much as I should.

As many of the fics are from Project Hail Mary, here is a short list of what I read over Saturday to Monday:

Equilibrium by Wenber — A platonic Grace/Rocky/Adrian soulmates fic where Grace and Rocky discover themselves sharing traits of each other on the way to Erid. I’ve already subscribed to this fic and was mostly invested in the latest chapter.
Your Petrova Line by Princess_Cutie9 — A much shorter soulmate AU of Grace and Rocky, also with sharing of traits. Now complete!
Nap Time by IntrovertAtHome — Wanna see pebbles watching over teacher Grace as he sleeps?
dear future self (hands up!) by menaciingly — the fic that took up the most reading time over the weekend and today. PHM + The Fall Guy crossover, with a pairing that’s slowly becoming a fandom darkhorse: Ryland Grace/Tom Ryder. Perhaps the best deconstruction I’ve yet seen of Ryder as he breaks down from many issues and starts crawling to become a better person for asexual Grace.

Given all the above, no wonder I felt so tired today. And there is still so much to see and read and do that I’ve resolved to sleep early for the next few days to recalibrate my body clock.

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Longest running bookbind project COMPLETE

Sun, 12 Jul 2026 15:36:23 GMT

After nearly 2 years of off-and-on work, in-between completing other projects and starting new ones, I have finally finished one of my longest bookbinding goals: create a custom bind of 'and the goddess said let there be chaos' fic series that is as lush as the story’s depictions of magic and small enough to fit into a chocolate box.

To put into perspective, the chocolate box is shorter than an A6-size book but wider than an A6-size book. This is coupled with how I wanted the book to have a medieval woodblock theme on the inside. This meant that every single page had to be hand-torn to the exact measurements, or the book will not fit into the box compartment in the first place.

I also took weeks and months to find the right combination of fonts, graphics, and templates that flow together to create the woodblock aesthetic that I am so proud of. I looked through literal hundreds of designs to find the ones that ‘looked’ right and will often delete previous designs if I found a better one.

It is now far too late at night for me to continue rambling, so I’m just gonna say that if you have a Tumblr account, PLEASE READ MY POST. IT TOOK ME SO LONG TO FINISH THIS PROJECT AND I CAN FINALLY REST.

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List of links from my mobile (that I should close)

Thu, 09 Jul 2026 15:04:19 GMT

Given how my phone’s browser is now filled with up to 85 tabs, I figured it is time to do some spring cleaning, or at least close a number of tabs that are unseen for some time.

But there are also some tabs that are about interesting stuff, and it would be a bit of a loss to just close them without giving their due. So, may I present a selection of stuff that are on my to-be-closed tabs!

Royal Crown Zine PDF download – A Google Drive link that houses the PDF of the Royal Crown Zine, a fan-publication about the world of Empires SMP, a Minecraft survival multiplayer series that ran from 2021 to 2023.

[Watch] A Canadian Moved To The Town That Inspired Malaysia’s Most Famous Jungle Shoe, Then He Reviewed It – Basically, a man from Quebec is now living in the highlands of Sabah state and made a short-form video of his pair of local rubber shoes. It went viral, and the article notes how the shoes were said to have been invented in the very town the man lives in today, Keningau.

Presenter jobs – A Google search for any local jobs that require presenters. Since several people have noted how my voice is deep and compelling when I talk passionately about stuff, I’m dipping in to see if there’s a career I can make out of it.

OpenShot Video Editor – A free and open source video editor that I am interested in downloading, chiefly because I want to join together a fragmented documentary from YouTube that is split into three parts (Rebuilding Word On The Water, a documentary about repairing a London riverboat that got converted into a bookshop).

Best Discord alternatives – Since last year and especially earlier this year, Discord made waves by rolling out age verification to users in selected countries and planning to do this to all users by the end of this year. The move provoked massive backlash and forced the company to backtrack, but that hasn’t stopped some people from switching to alternatives (of all of these, Stoat Chat looks the most Discord-like. Now to convince my bookbinding group to jump ship…)

dear future self (hands up!) – A Project Hail Mary + The Fall Guy crossover fic! With a pairing that is halfway to being crack if it wasn’t so beautifully written! (Ryland Grace/Tom Ryder). What happens if a stuntman brings his schoolteacher twin brother onto a film set? What happens if a hotshot movie star gets annoyed and then down bad? I’m currently on chapter 6 and the feelings are scrumptious.

Negative space in book layout – A Google Images search about, uh, negative space in book layout. Over the time I’ve bookbinded, I’ve been wanting to make some personal zines full with fanart from several fanartists. Given the fanarts are of different shapes and sizes there’s going to be some negative space in the zine pages, so I’ve been slow-cooking on how to use negative space to my advantage in the zine layout.

There’s a lot more tabs, but this is enough for one post lol. Maybe if I still can’t clear them all in a few months, I’ll make another one of these. At the very least, some of these links are useful if I truly need them later.

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Searching for a background for my bookbinding blog

Sat, 04 Jul 2026 15:43:08 GMT

So for weeks and weeks I have been trying to think of a good background for my bookbinding blog, something that's like the background of this blog, but with a pattern of literature. Something that is evocative of books and writing, but would not overshadow the main posts and images.

A few days ago I immediately discovered my answer: seamless handwriting patterns.

But unfortunately all the good patterns are owned by stock image sites. Then I checked Canva and there are handwriting patterns but they are all under paywall.

aaaaaaaaaaa would it kill the internet to have a good handwriting pattern that can be repeated like tiles that are also editable and free? Is that too much to ask?

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Fascinating Links

Wed, 01 Jul 2026 14:55:54 GMT

This shall be a place where I place the most interesting links:

Simple links

Wiby — Search engine for the classic web

PetitTube — YouTube videos with 0 views

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Deep links

The Bored Button — "Press the Bored Button and be bored no more."

The Useless Web — "Take me to a useless website →please←"

Cloudhiker — "Discover the most interesting, weird and awesome websites of the Internet" (not really a rebrand of StumbleUpon; it's a different person running it but they have the same intention in mind)

Astronaut.io — "These videos come from YouTube. They were uploaded in the last week and have titles like DSC 1234 and IMG 4321. They have almost zero previous views. They are unnamed, unedited, and unseen (by anyone but you)."

Marginalia — "This is an independent DIY search engine that focuses on non-commercial content, and attempts to show you sites you perhaps weren't aware of in favor of the sort of sites you probably already knew existed."

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Hak Menjadi Malas / The Right To Be Lazy by Paul Lafargue

Tue, 30 Jun 2026 14:28:14 GMT

Not exactly a book that will be favored by most people or even a fair number of leftists, but I was interested on the title alone after seeing it advertised by an independent publisher.

Hak Menjadi Malas / The Right To Be Lazy by Paul Lafargue is a very short treatise – only 52 pages long – that was written in a very different era. Turn the clock back over 100 years and 12-hour workdays were still forced onto people even in countries like France, regardless if the workers were men, women, or children under twelve years old.

Lafargue argues that it is an outrage that humans would work this way, instead advocating for 3-hour workdays and that laziness is part of the human experience. In his eyes, the era of machines could bring forth enormous prosperity and free time for all, so why do the rich and powerful expand the abuse of workers and advance the march of capitalism to swallow regions like Africa into colonialism and the peoples of Polynesia to alcoholism? (via whiskey from the British Isles!)

( More down here... )

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KL Reading Festival 2026

Mon, 29 Jun 2026 14:43:05 GMT

After so many festivals and conventions, I thought I have had my fill for at least a good while. That was before I heard of the Kuala Lumpur Reading Festival, a convention that is primarily devoted to books, reading, and literature. Instead of other book conventions, this one emphasizes the act of reading above all, with phones discouraged and an entire floor dedicated to reading books without distractions.

Even then, I was hesitant to go until it was revealed that there would be panel talks on self-publishing and running an independent bookstore. After hearing those, I had no other option.

( more down here... )

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Is it a good sign that I crouched and hugged myself in a restroom stall on my work floor?

Thu, 25 Jun 2026 11:21:18 GMT

And I did so twice?

And it was because of the news that I will be answering customer calls by myself from next Monday till July 10th? With the unspoken part being that I have to start answering calls tomorrow to prepare myself for the full deluge next week?

While fully knowing that I cannot remember sizable parts of my training?

And having my inner child screaming that I promised myself years ago to never work in such an environment?

( Read more... )

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A maddening idea...

Sat, 20 Jun 2026 10:22:50 GMT

For the past few weeks now, I've been recalling back to the post I made about the book about women's imperfections. The book is actually really small and slim – almost as small as an A6 pamphlet and extremely thin despite having 100 pages.

I've seen many simple zines much thicker than the book.

That made me wonder... a small publishing firm, making books small enough for the handbag and thin enough to slip into pockets, yet 100 pages deep and full of stories.

I'll call it 'Slow Publishing', and institute an 8-to-9 hour workday, with one hour reserved for reading books or zines. We typeset and publish stories slowly instead of going fast, prioritizing depth over speed akin to the Delayed Gratification magazine. On the outside of the building, there would be cubbyholes where people could rent one to display or sell their books or zines, like some bookstores in Tokyo.

I know there is a lot more to running a publishing firm than this. Delays, deadlines, suppliers, bad workers, etc. But I can't help but wonder about such a place, especially as small published zine-like books are in fact mainstream in Malaysia, but almost always used for religious texts like Yasin recitation.

Definitely beats working in corporate.

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