Manacled
June 6, 2022
It’s Ashlee here! I ended 2021 and began 2022 by reading Manacled. It’s a Harry Potter fanfiction book written by SenLinYu and the first fanfiction I’ve ever read. I hadn’t heard of it until I saw a TikTok about someone receiving all three handmade volumes gifted by a friend. I had just finished re-reading Harry Potter so I decided to dive in. The premise is dark (trigger warning):
“Harry Potter is dead. In the aftermath of the war, in order to strengthen the might of the magical world, Voldemort enacts a repopulation effort. Hermione Granger has an Order secret, lost but hidden in her mind, so she is sent as an enslaved surrogate to the High Reeve, to be bred and monitored until her mind can be cracked.”
Note: I read it through the app Inkitt on my phone. You can find it by searching for the author SenLinYu.
The story was so well written and engaging that I knew I needed to make my own copy (3 volumes). Fanfiction is challenging because it’s illegal to get printed, due to copyright laws. There is a great post that goes more in-depth about it here. Luckily, Heather took months of bookbinding classes last year and was able to guide me as I embarked on making my very first book(s).
I didn’t expect it to be easy (and it wasn’t), but I feel like I had the advantage of understanding more about the process ahead of time because I had picked up things through witnessing Heather take her classes and her sharing things with me. I started making it in January and finally finished it at the beginning of April. I shared my process on TikTok, which you can find here if you scroll back.
The process was expensive and time-consuming, but definitely worth it in the end. I’m so proud of my creations!
I did get asked a lot during that process if I would be taking commissions for these and my answer is no. It’s just not possible to make it worth my time. However, there are a lot of resources out there such as omgreylo’s Patreon where I purchased the typeset and bookbinding classes like Heather took from Anne Davnes if you want to learn how to make your own.
Now, it might just be time for me to re-read it again.
