Keep Your Head Up to the Sky (As Your Day Unfolds) by alphera [Twitter]
Illustrated by Shirou_UOHS @shirou-oh-sakura
Fandom: 全职高手 | The King's Avatar
Rating: General Audiences
Category: M/M
Words: 9 270
Time is rarely kind, and impossible to escape. At the ripe old age of 30, Han Wenqing retires from the Glory Professional Alliance and moves forward the only way he knows how: fearlessly and without hesitation.
About the Book
FONTS: Coelacanth, Segoe UI Emoji
IMAGES: Illustrations by Shirou; pastel sky ID: 7007221 from Rawpixel; dark blue sky ID: 7044483 from Rawpixel; Han Wenqing & Desert Dust image from The King's Avatar Wikia; Ye Xiu & Lord Grim image also from TKA Wikia; Glory card png also made by Shirou via Discord
MATERIALS: regular ol' printer paper (8.5"x11", 20lb, 96 bright); ~1.5mm chipboard; Neenah cardstock (8.5"x11", 65lb, bright white); Iris bookcloth (Madeira colour); paper from Gilded Ink paper pad by Recollections; waxed linen thread (30/3 size, white); wheat paste (1:4 flour:water)
PROGRAMS USED: typeset in Affinity Publisher 2; endpapers designed with Affinity Designer 2 and Affinity Photo 2; imposed with Renegade's Community Imposer (settings: Quarto, snug against binding edge, signatures of 2 sheets).
Text & QR codes printed with colour laser printer (duplex, flip long edge), images printed with inkjet printer (HP Envy 5055; one sheet at a time, single sided, place facedown in tray)
BINDING: quarto (quarter-letter) size, sewn board binding with french link stitch and breakaway spine.
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Absolutely LOVED this story! I've reread this one a number of times, and keep going back for more. Alphera's writing is so good! Ye Xiu is the series protagonist so things usually follow him, which makes it refreshing to see a story through Han Wenqing's eyes. And the author does it SO WELL! AHHH!
It's been a while since my first read-through, but I'm pretty sure this was the first TKA fic that I actually downloaded and started typesetting. Absolutely chuffed to have it finished! (Love me some growth-- the typeset looks a LOT better than my earlier attempts!)
RAMBLES
Another sewn board binding and breakaway spine! Since this isn't my first go at it, the construction of the book was considerably faster and smoother than my last one. It's just as well, because I ran into a speed bump that stretched out how long it took to typeset and print.
The culprit: (very pretty) illustrations. My laser's colour printing capabilities are shot to hell, so I used my inkjet for the artwork. This involved creating 3 copies of my typeset: 1) the completed typeset; 2) just the text, images hidden; 3) just the images, text hidden/white. Then I ran them through the imposer and printed the text version. The real issue was figuring out how to feed the sheets through my inkjet printer to print the images where I want them. Had to go one page at a time, single-sided. (Just need to place sheet facedown in the tray. So flip along vertical axis.) It took a while, but I got there in the end. And the results were SO worth it! 😊
For the scene breaks I left them as written. I had tried inserting images of the Glory Logo and account card, or using crossed swords emojis ⚔️, but nothing I tried worked as well as what the author did. (It's really neat! Different characters were used to indicate the direction of the timeskip: >>>> for a jump forward in time; <<<< for a flash into the past; and ==== for regular scene breaks, a 'next' rather than 'before' or 'later/after'.)
The cover and endpapers were based off of Shirou's fantastic cover illustration of HQW and YX walking hand-in-hand down a beach at sunset. The art itself is phenomenal so I had it stand alone as a frontispiece and didn't do anything fancy with the title page. For the covers, I looked through my decorative paper stash for something red or black to represent HWQ or Team Tyranny. What I found was paper with pinks, oranges, and purples similar to that illustration -- and that was that. I liked how the colours matched the art, and the gold splashed across it. (Gold for victory, gold for wedding rings and a happy golden future together.)
(Sidenote: I love how the beginning of the end of HWQ's career as an e-sports player "starts with a tingle in his ring finger", leading him and YX to taking the next steps in their relationship and eventually getting married 💍🖐)
I went with a red bookcloth for the spine because it's a common team colour for Tyranny, Excellent Era, and Happy. It also represents good fortune, courage, passion, and love -- things that come to mind when I think about YX, HWQ, and HanYe. The particular shade of red I used is Madeira. It's darker than Ruby Red and leans a little cooler, which suits the decorative paper more.
The endpapers use two background images (overlayed, adjusted, using multiple blending modes) and some images of HWQ and YX from The King's Avatar Wikia.
The background images are from Rawpixel -- I was just minding my own business looking for images of clouds and maybe some mountains to represent overcoming challenges/glory/looking up to the sky, when I found some clouds with the same sunset colours of Shirou's art. Figured it was too perfect, and if I'm going to lean into that design-wise, I might as well go whole hog and full-ass it. Then I found a starry night sky to add some darker blues and stars to it to match. After that it was a matter of overlapping them and positioning them to fit. I also grabbed some images of HWQ and YX from the King's Avatar Wikia and added them to it because HanYe. (After removing the backgrounds).
87 mikey saying that he needs to get a job followed immediately by everyone telling him he has no marketable skills runner up as most relatable moment of the show so far, right behind leo making one (1) mistake that did not have consequences and right away deciding that the only solution was Complete Self Exile
guy trapped in a hell of his own creation: haha ive never done anything wrong in my entire life. and im always right:] anyway. why did my little brother move out:(
its so funny to me that at first glance tashi seems like hed be the most 'normal' out of all the clones but at least all the others are slowly healing n shit while hes just getting more and more insane each day and one day hell snap and explode and maim someone
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I’ve seen a lot of posts praising the intertwined love stories of Hadestown - their songs, their themes, their acting, their emotional impact - and all of it is absolutely deserved. But can we take a moment to appreciate the weight of "If It's True"?
“If it’s true what they say, what’s the purpose of a man? Just to turn his eyes away?”
“If he turns his back on everyone that he could’ve stood beside?”
“If it’s true what they say, I’ll be on my way.
But who are they to say what the truth is anyway?
‘Cause the ones who tell the lies are the solemnest to swear.
And the ones who load the dice always say the toss is fair.
And the ones who deal the cards are the ones who take the tricks
With their hands over their hearts while we play the game they fix.”
“I believe in us together more than anyone alone.
I believe that with each other, we are stronger than we know.
I believe that we are stronger than they know!
I believe that we are many. I believe that they are few.
And it isn’t for the few to tell the many what is true.”
I was expecting star-crossed lover feelings. I knew there would be an archetypal tragedy that seems both preventable and inevitable. Those elements, I could brace myself for somewhat. But nothing prepared me in the slightest for the CLASS CONFLICT arc, and it gave me chills like Eurydice had in that storm.
Watch the American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 now: https://youtu.be/bWiW4Rp8vF0?feature=shared
The American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 broadcast recording is now available on ecoAmerica's YouTube channel for viewers to be inspired by active climate leaders. Watch to find out which finalist received the $50,000 grand prize! Hosted by Vanessa Hauc and featuring Bill McKibben and Katharine Hayhoe!