#according to my blog since april

[cinematicnomad]

Things that come to mind: The Terror, traveling, and *chef's kiss* quality gifsets

YOU'RE SO SWEET!! here have one of the Very Few™ happy terror gifs as a thank you 😊 i haven't made any non-terror gifsets in sooo long and i feel kind of shitty about it, but it's v nice that you still associate me with gifs at all, let alone high quality ones.

tell me the first 3 things that come to mind when you think of my account

[sindar-princeling]

LOTR Newsletter 3 Shire Drift - FAQ

Hello everyone!

Just like last year: for those of you who are already familiar with The Lord of the Rings Newsletter, this serves as an announcement that I'm doing it again; and for those who aren't - an introduction to the project :)

What is LOTR Newsletter?

I'm one of the people who subscribed to Dracula Daily in May 2022, and immediately thought, "Hey, I can do this too but with XYZ!" - XYZ being The Lord of the Rings. Because the events of LOTR also have specific dates ascribed to them, we're gonna be reading LOTR as it happened.

When does it take place?

Because of the way the beginning of LOTR is structured (read: because I don't want to leave six-month-long breaks between the first entries), we're gonna start on September 15th - a week before September 22nd, when the main events start to take place. It's also the publishing date of the Silmarillion, but that's just a fun fact for my own enjoyment.

From September 15th to September 19th, we'll read the prologue, and the fragments preceding Frodo's departure from the Shire. From September 20th, we'll be reading according to the dates in the book until April 8th. Then we'll be reading last parts of the book - which are stretched over a long time - once a week, to once again avoid lengthy breaks in delivery.

The Newsletter will last from September 15th to May 26th.

Where do I go if I want to post/talk about something related to the Newsletter with other readers?

We discuss current (and not only current) entries in the #lotr newsletter tag, and we have a Discord server set by the amazing @k-she-rambles! (I really hope this time I managed to generate a link that never expires...)

How do I subscribe?

Since the original platform I was using (TinyLetter) was shut down halfway through the second year of the newsletter, I had to figure out an alternative way to execute this project.

For the lovely people who joined the last edition of the newsletter, just a short announcement - I weighed all the pros and cons and decided to continue carrying out the newsletter the way I did after TinyLetter shut down.

For the new folks, a lengthier explanation: check out this post if you want to learn the details, but long story short: I can't send the newsletter as e-mails anymore, so instead I decided to provide you with a ready copy of the entire thing. I prepared formatted copies of the whole newsletter - September 15th to May 26th - as an .odt file, as a .pdf file, and most importantly as an .epub file, because I assume most of you are reading on your phones (if you don't already have an .epub reader, I use FBReader, and everything worked fine on my phone). At the beginning you'll find the whole table of contents with hyperlinks, so the navigation inside the document should be easy!

The MEGA folder can be accessed right here, and it's available for everyone!

In the folder linked, you'll also find a calendar file made by @none-ofthisnonsense that you can download on your phone and import into your calendar app so that all days when we read are marked in your calendar!

If you want to receive notifications about when there is an entry to read, you can also follow @is-today-a-lotr-newsletter-day and turn on notifications! This is a blog created solely for notifying you all when we're reading a new fragment of the newsletter, so all notifications you'll get will be about new entries, and nothing more. The notifications are meant to be the equivalent of sending e-mails.

Anything else I should know?

Please don't rat me out to Tolkien Estate/j, and have fun reading!

(And as a PS.: Thank you very much if you join - or join again! Last year was very tumultuous because of all the changes in the format, and I know the new way is not for everyone - but introducing more changes again felt like once more creating new chaos, so I decided to stick to a solution that mostly worked. I hope you understand!)

See you on September 15th!

[neechees]

hello, thanks so much for doing your scam busting, is the account @/shtunning another palestine scam? i can't find the images used on google anywhere, but the lack of a gofundme makes me wary

This one is looking veeeery suspicious & is pretty much most certainly a scam for the dollowing reasons:

El-shab-hussein, a Palestinian who's been helping us with vetting real Palestinian fundraisers from scams, says that the ONLY confirmed Palestinian fundraisers who claim to be in Gaza are on this list, and that blog is not one of them

That blog already has me preemptively blocked 🤨 🚩 I've never interacted with this person in my life, and its a big red flag to have scam busters blocked

Their donation post was made YESTERDAY, and their archive is turned off 🚩we see scammers do this to hide how old their blog actually is (that it's new and suddenly asking for money) and to make it harder to investigate them

Their donation post reblogs and replies have been turned off 🚩scammers do this usually after someone has called them out on their suspicious behavior, often with proof that they're scamming, and they do it to hide the evidence and prevent anyone from seeing or reblogging this evidence against them

They're asking for donations, but do not provide a paypal or gofundme attached 🚩 scammers nowadays also often try to hide their paypal because they like to reuse one account across multiple scams, and used them enough for those accounts to be recognizable bc scam busters keep track of them. Additionally, you can tell someone's actual location by a paypal link, so scammers often are trying to hide any discrepancies in their fake story (like say, pretending to be in Europe but are actually in Canada). Laura Deramas & co have been doing this a lot, so I wouldn't be surprised if this was her

They claim that the photos they provide are of their family in Gaza, but there's literally a watermark of these photos originally being from the website Gazanow 🚩 why you would use a seperate website's photos of your family & then blur out your family's faces from the photo (even though it's already on a public website & that's where you got it?), instead of any photos that THEY themselves took, makes no sense to me, & is extremely suspicious.

They claim their "entire family" is in Gaza and that they've been working & supporting their family abroad (presumably allegedly in Europe since theyre asking for money in Euros) since 2016, and that they are 24 years old. So according to them, They've been the single sole supporter of their entire family in Gaza & moved to & have been living in Europe ALONE since the age of 16? Idk that kinda doesn't seem that plausible to me.

They've backdated their blog, and tried to use posts with thousands of notes to make it harder to find that out lol 🚩🚩🚩according to the screenshots below, they backdated their blog (& in particular, this post) to look like it reblogged a post on February 17th, 2024. But once I looked in the notes, I very quickly found it in the most recent notes that it was ACTUALLY reblogged YESTERDAY

[Image description: two vertically stacked screenshots with a blue water filter over them. The first shows a screenshots of a reblog by the user shtunning, showing a falsified reblog date of February 17th 2024. The second shows the real date within the notes of this post that they had reblogged, dated to "1 day ago", April 17th, 2024. End image description.]

And as another thing, they're claiming to be Palestinian, but using language an actual Palestinian who has lived in Palestine would never use lol, such as "revive peace between us". There was no "peace" in Gaza before this, Gaza is an open air prison under a settler colonial occupation and has been bombed regularly for decades?

So yeah this is definitely a scammer lol

[anonimusunnoaniswriting]

OfficeColleague!Suguru Geto x Reader

Angel Of Small Death

⚠️𝐌𝐃𝐍𝐈. 𝟏𝟖+ 𝐀𝐃𝐔𝐋𝐓𝐒 𝐎𝐍𝐋𝐘⚠️

🎀𝐀𝐠𝐞less and blank blogs will be 𝐛𝐥𝐨𝐜𝐤𝐞𝐝🎀

Pairing: OfficeColleague!Suguru Geto x Reader

Genre: Smut, Porn with plot.

Word Count: 2463

Warnings: PWP, reader is a big woman, female bodied reader, no protection, pussy eating, good ol' sex, colleagues

Summary: Geto Suguru is the bane of your existence. You hate him. He hates you. The entire office is convinced you’re going to kill each other someday. But damn if it doesn’t feel good when he fucks you senseless.

A/N: This is a collab with @ominouslywritinginmyhead. We've been cooking it for a while and it's gonna be slow but it's one of the most delicious things Saber has thought of that I know. Banner and dividers are mine.

Chapter 1

yuunicorn1010 uploaded a story to Instagram.

The first thing any viewer would see was Yuuji trying very hard not to laugh. As a fresh graduate, he’d assumed office work would be the most mind-numbing activity in the world, but Jujutsu Inc. had proved him wrong within weeks. 

Without a word, Yuuji switched the camera to reveal the messy and noisy twelfth-floor office he’d been working in since April. In the foreground was his favourite senpai Nanami, determinedly staring at his laptop and pretending that he couldn’t hear the showdown going on right behind him.

“—two-faced thieving snake, I know you stole my clients!”

“I did not steal them; I simply suggested that they might benefit more from a more, shall we say, experienced team.”

“Experienced, my ass. You couldn’t even move two steps forward with that last file!”

“And why do you think that happened? Because you interfered and had half my team on leave!”

“That wasn’t my fault; the company requires us to take our paid holidays within two years of getting them — if your team is too overworked to take any vacation days, that’s on you.”

“You think you’re so superior, don’t you? If you actually looked in the mirror for once in your life, you’d see that you’re nothing but a sneaky backstabber who should be fired by now.”

“Oh, I should be fired? Well, if I am, I’ll be sure to tell HR about your little mind games and how you had those poor interns crying—”

In the background, one would be able to hear Yuuji’s uncontrollable giggling combined with Gojo-senpai calling out to the other employees: “They’re at it again! I think Suguru’s going to win this time~”

In full view of the camera, the two team leaders stormed out of the office, leaving through different doors. Just before Yuuji turned the camera off, Gojo-senpai began to laugh like a hyena. “If anyone’s brave enough to stop them, I’ll treat you lot to drinks tonight!”

Suguru smirked. Trust Satoru to find that entertaining. Apparently, his plan of treating the office to drinks wasn’t the only one going around: according to Shoko, the entire office had a betting pool on what could happen in each of these little…arguments. They weren’t stupid enough to do it to his face — or yours, for that matter. But it was quite obvious now what that stray 1000 yen bill on Satoru’s desk yesterday afternoon had been for. 

Not that anyone was going to win by very much, especially since they had no idea what went on behind the scenes. And quite frankly, Suguru didn’t want them to know.

The two of you were lucky that the janitor had called in sick this morning, and that nobody had come looking for the mop.

“Haa—dammit, Suguru, why’d you roll your sleeves up like—like that—you can’t do this to me—shit—”

“You…really need to stop accusing me like this, angel; I’ve done nothing.” He could still feel the sting on his lower lip, where you’d sunk your teeth in, sucking on it to soothe the pain. He could still feel his fingers digging into your plush thighs before his hand slipped under your pretty black skirt, the other hand trailing up your back. Most of all, he could still smell your perfume lingering on his clothes. Sitting in his office, the shades drawn, Suguru closed his eyes. If he thought about it hard enough, he could still feel your touch, too.

You had dragged the charming Geto Suguru into the janitor’s closet after your meeting where it was revealed that a pretty important client of yours had been smoothly swiped by none other than him. Not only did he have the audacity to smile and wink at you while detailing how his team would be proceeding with the client, but the man also knowingly leaned back crossing his bare sinewy arms in front of you — something he knew to be your weakness. 

“You know how much this turns me on, you bastard. Stop acting innocent; it doesn't suit you,” you’d spat, before grabbing the very hands you lusted after and placing them over your breasts. Suguru had complied with your silent plea, kneading at the soft flesh, while you moaned into his mouth. His knee had been pressed against your crotch and you rubbed against it like a cat in heat. 

But when he’d dipped his hand to slip under the waistband of your panties, you’d stopped him, “We can’t. Not here.” He’d given you his best puppy eyes and a pout that only made your heart race – just one time wouldn’t hurt, would it?

“We’ll meet tonight, after Gojo’s drinks,” you’d promised. Fuck, he missed you already. How has it only been two hours?  Two hours since he had you in his arms. Two more hours before you could leave work, and then God only knew how long it would be before the evening drinks would wind down…well, knowing Shoko and Satoru, far too long. If Suguru had his way, he’d have cleared a meeting room on the spot and taken you on the table itself—fine, maybe that was too much. But he definitely could just skip drinks and take you home. 

However, you probably wouldn’t be too keen on that. You’d made it clear at the beginning of this—whatever this was—that for it to work, the two of you would have to keep up appearances in public. There was nothing sanitary or respectable; after all, it was just sex. Rough, lust-driven sex. Nothing mattered to the two of you beyond your bodies and the stress relief you got from making each other feel good. But Suguru would be lying if he said it was still the same for him. 

He’ll never forget how it all started.  The two of you, thoroughly intoxicated in a bar one evening after work, much like what tonight promised to be. Your peers – long gone, either to the dance floor or slumped over at your booth. Left to your own devices, he had ended up beside you. In your haze you’d rested your head against his chest, remarking how incredibly muscular it felt. He had chuckled lazily, saying, “Well at least I know all those days at the gym are paying off – although for whom…” 

Hearing him trail off, you’d raised your head to look at him and he’d felt his slacks tighten seeing your eyes – wide and doe-like – as you remarked, “You’re single? I’d never have thought! You’re like, pretty physically gifted; if not mentally.” 

 He’d bristled and shot back, “Well, what about you? I heard you crying about being dumped the other day by the coffee machine.” 

“He wanted me to quit after getting married. It was an ultimatum. And we’d only been dating a few weeks.” You rolled your eyes. 

Suguru had grimaced at that. “Yeah, all that education and time you spent building your career, only to turn into a pretty little housewife who pops out babies? No thanks. What a waste.” 

Something had flashed in your eyes as he said that. The feeling of being understood, Suguru would later realise, was a powerful aphrodisiac. You’d sat up straight and grabbed his hand.

“I’m drunk, but I’m in control of my senses enough to know that, Geto Suguru, I kind of want to fuck you right now.” 

Suguru responded, “Well then, angel, that makes two of us.” From there it had been a whirlwind. You’d paid your tabs at the bar, texted your friends that you were leaving so they wouldn’t worry, and then instead of getting a taxi home, you’d hopped on Geto’s motorbike and sped off to a love hotel. Probably a stupid idea given the circumstances, but you both made it in one piece.

Despite the buzz in his body that was most certainly not from booze, he’d paid for the room and held your hand all the way up the elevator ride, desperate to touch you, yet concerned that you might not like the public display. But once you were in the room…it was all over. And not just for you.

His lips crashed into yours, rough and thirsty, drinking you in like a man lost in a desert who had suddenly happened upon an oasis. Fuck, you really were a good kisser, drawing him in deeper and deeper with your lips and tongue. Your hands were tangled in his hair, freeing it from the tight bun he sported to the office, while he tugged at your blouse, so neatly tucked into the waistband of your formal skirt. 

He’d paused for a moment to appreciate you once your skirt and blouse were off. “Damn!” he’d exclaimed with a low whistle, eyes roaming up and down your figure and resting briefly at your breasts clad in that pretty pink bra. How cute. The lace and little bow in the middle only made things better.

You’d blushed, but chalked it up to being the effect of the alcohol; thankfully, you didn’t have to think about it for too long, because Geto had dived between your legs and was already sloppily leaving kisses along your inner thigh. Your skin was so soft, and he swore he heard you giggle from how ticklish his lips felt.

Geto remembered how tight his own slacks had become, his shirt only half unbuttoned because he’d stopped you, wanting to prep you before he did anything else, desperation making him neglect his needs. He peeled your underwear off, flung it behind him, and attacked your clit. The small bud under his tongue was slurped into his mouth and gently pulled at between his lips, all while his fingers pleaded for an entrance into your hole. You hadn’t been able to stop yourself from clamping your thighs around his head, feeling the pressure building in your lower abdomen. His tongue worked wonders for you, licking up thick flat stripes. Something you couldn’t help but note your ex hadn’t bothered to do. 

Geto Suguru loved eating pussy. This was evident. 

He’d lost himself in the taste of your cunt face buried and mind far, far away till he’d felt you tugging at his hair, legs trembling around his head and you gasping “Stop, Suguru, stop!”

When he’d resurfaced, you’d fallen back onto the plush tacky red blanket, panting like you’d run a mile. Only then had he realised that you’d cum onto his face and were incredibly overstimulated. But you’d only taken a moment to gather yourself before sinking to your knees in front of him and finally freeing his cock, looking up at him with those infernal doe eyes. Your hand eagerly wrapped around it as you took his tip in your mouth, testing the waters with little kitten licks. You were determined to show him as good of a time as he’d shown you. 

So you started slow, getting a feel for his thickness and length, before gradually upping your game. It was only a matter of time before you managed to unravel your co-worker completely, and it was the gentle squeeze to his full, aching balls that made Suguru cum in your mouth with a guttural moan. You’d made a show of it, swallowing his cum down your throat and licking any spillage off your finger. 

Suguru’s eyes had darkened at that, and he’d almost ordered you to “get on the bed, I’m going to fuck you now.” You’d complied with a squeak of excitement and laid on your back, watching Suguru first yank off his work pants, then tear off his shirt, and finally climb over you while pulling down his boxers and throwing them halfway across the room. He’d reached out and opened a drawer to find himself a condom, and when he rolled it over his still-hard cock, he’d moaned — your eyes glazed over on hearing such an enthralling sound. You’d spread your pussy lips for him, glistening with your release, and Suguru had gently pushed himself into you, slowly, keeping his eyes on your face to make sure that you didn’t feel any discomfort. His gaze was calculating and contemplative, easy to see despite the low light of the room. You ran your hands through his gorgeous locks again, drowning in his touch. It was only when he bottomed out – his last few centimetres thrust in – that your mouth fell open in a silent scream. 

“Fuck. Your cunt feels amazing, angel.” The little lube on the condom, combined with your own slick, was enough for you to take all of Suguru, but it was still a tight squeeze. Definitely one of the bigger men you’d been with. 

The way you were stretched around him squeezing him tight, Suguru was loath to restrain himself, but he wanted this to feel good, for him as well as you. So he went slow and your hips bucked with each thrust, desperate to feel more of him. Soft pleas fell from your lips, “please…fa-faster…harder…f-fuck…more…please…Su-Suguru,” but he continued his pace. Only when you’d cupped his face in your hands, pulling him down for a kiss, and whispered to him, “Suguru, if you don’t move now I’m going to fucking bite you” did he chuckle, but started to pump in and out of your pussy faster and harder. 

“Is that a promise, angel?” he’d teased, and you’d hated the way your pussy clenched at his words. Unfortunately, Suguru seemed to like it.

His hips slapped against your ass with each hard thrust, and soon he was spilling for a second time that night, condom catching his release inside you. He’d pulled out and collapsed beside you, rubbing your clit with his right hand while his left arm encircled you, pulling you in for a rough kiss. The release you found from his fingers had you clinging to him desperately, moaning his name and maybe a few swear words. You wanted more. You needed more. 

You were sweaty and messy after all that, so he’d actually lifted you up and taken you to the adjoining bath, where you both soaked in the warm bubbly water for a while (once again, something your ex never gave a shit about, based on what Suguru had overheard at the coffee machine) before you had decided it was time to call it a night. Although your corporate nemesis assured you the room had been paid for till morning, you had mentioned that staying would have been crossing some boundary and had even denied his offer to drop you home on his bike. 

“You shouldn’t be riding,” you’d said, “We drank quite a bit…I’ll take a cab home, you can have the room for the night.” 

And with that, you were gone. Only the scent of your perfume and your combined sex lingered…

A/N: Hello! Thanks so much for reading. This was an idea that @ominouslywritinginmyhead came up with and hit me with so we decided why not write a Collab fic on it. We've pored over it and had several revisions and finally here it is! A small thank you to her for being a galaxy brain and dreaming up such delicious ideas. Also btw apparently in French they call an orgasm a small death so that's where that's at.

As always hearts and reblogs are much appreciated and comments will earn you kissies

[gruviaweek]

Ten years.

The first ever Gruvia Week was held in 2013. It is now 2023. Meaning, this is the 11th edition/Gruvia Week... but 10 years have passed since the creation of this blog and beloved event that’s been held on the exact same dates since the beginning (April 1st - April 7th). That’s right, the event date has never changed, never held early, nor late. To keep it this consistent and for so long is truly an accomplishment.

Thank you to all the wonderful fans that have kept this event alive for so long. It has been my pleasure to host this celebration for the last 10 years, and it’s because of you that I do so. All the dedicated Gruvia lovers deserve this. The fandom has changed a lot as time went on. People come and go. However, most notably, we have grown in more ways than one. Likewise, Gray and Juvia have gone through a tremendous amount of development in the last decade. They have confirmed mutual romantic love and a son that we have yet to meet in earthland, but still very much canon in the manga and drawn by the author (Hiro Mashima) of his own accord on multiple occasions. Despite this, we are still waiting for the day they “officially” get together. The setup and foreshadowing is there... He wants it, so Gray, confess to Juvia soon!

In the meantime, we celebrate the ship once again. Here are the official Gruvia Week 2023 prompts displayed in the image above. Just like in previous years these prompts are not complicated, but they are broad and meant to make you think. Be creative. Interpret them however you see fit. If you don’t know what a word means, look it up. Specific and basic prompts would result in different versions/entries of the same thing. That’s why Gruvia Week is so successful every year; imagination. Prompts for this event are always different every year. No repeats! See: Previous Gruvia Week editions

Those who are new to the week, unfamiliar, or would like to simply rehash, please click here to learn how to participate. Also be sure to follow the rules and guidelines. Feel free to ask questions, however please check this blog’s previous posts before submitting them. It’s possible your question could have already been answered.

Reminder: All pieces must be new. Old works will not be reblogged/included in the week. Be sure to specify the day/prompt used in your post. If you don’t have a tumblr, you can still participate. Post your work on any social media platform for that target audience. Participate anywhere; the more the merrier! However, if you’d like your work to be posted/featured here as well, be sure to submit it to this blog. Or submit the link to it (if posted on another platform such as twitter, instagram, wattpad, ao3, etc).

Reminders:

Tag your work with #gruvia week (with the space) within the first five tags.

Avoid using links in your post, as there is a chance it will not show up in the tags. Try using only five tags and no links if your post does not appear. If you must use a link, make sure it shows in the tags.

If your work contains an image or gif, make sure it’s within tumblr’s photo dimensions and size limits. Sometimes big images cause posts to not appear in tags.

It is YOUR responsibility to make sure your post shows up in the mobile and/or pc tags, so be sure to check if it does.

Gruvia Week will be held from April 1st - April 7th as always. Get ready and get creative!

Graphic/art by the wonderful and talented @goodnightlover. Thank you! ♡

[lover-of-mine]

How are you doing? I noticed that you make a lot of anti bucktommy posts now and I was wondering if everything is alright?

I used to follow you but I couldn't handle the hate and the negativity anymore. But still think you have a great blog.

Do you think you'll be able to go back to the way things were before if Tommy isn't in season 8?

Okay, look, I add that tag to everything I make that mentions the relationship because I'm not talking about it as someone who likes it and I want to give people the chance to not see that if they enjoy bt and still want to follow me. I tag things for people to block the tag just as much as I do so that people can find them. Most of those posts are me responding to asks. According to jet black code only 10 of those aren't asks. You think I'm posting too much hate and negativity? You have no idea how much negativity I filter. I have over 300 asks in my inbox right now. Some days I wake up to people calling me a bitch, telling me I'm delusional, that I'm just an entitled white woman who's just mad I don't get to fetishize Buck and Eddie, that I should just stop being here at all with much more colorful language, that I'm homophobic, that I could never possibly begin to understand the complexities of the bt with my tiny woman brain. Then I will admit I go a bit overboard the negative comments about them. Because I don't believe the relationship is anything groundbreaking but I keep getting hate about it and I am petty. But I answer to a fraction of to the shit I get and I have blocked people because they take things too far while hating on Tommy. A lot of those lately are reporting on the chaos that's been created in the fandom. It's an aspect of the show and I tag as anti because I am not a shipper. And I like getting those because I'm being attacked for not shipping them since April and I'm not gonna lie, I was feeling like I was losing my mind, I like talking to the side of the fandom who are not impressed with him. If, when he goes away from the show, people stop calling me names I will happily never talk about him again. I still make my sets, I write my fics, I make my videos, I write my metas. But I am also someone people like to talk about the relationship because I don't ship it and I won't take that away because we have nice discussions. Will things ever go back to the way they were before this mess? Probably not. But it will cool off on both sides eventually once Tommy isn't around. You can blacklist the anti bucktommy tag. You can blacklist "i really need a tag for asks" that's my ask tags. You can just search on tumblr as whole "otp: you don't need to pretend with me" if you just want to see my buddie stuff and don't want to follow me anymore because apparently I'm the only blog on that tag. You can just follow the 911edit tag, I pop up around there a lot. Who knows what will happen once he's gone, but I have a tagging system and I'm staying on my lane, that's the best I can offer you right now.

[apriltempleos]

rambling about templeOS! :) the "divine operating system"

preacher: the few people who have been following this blog since the start might've caught on to a few mentions of the "templeOS god word app" which the "APRIL" project hinges on. i figured the subject deserved a brief explanation on the blog, for those who might not be "in the know"

-

templeOS is a operating system designed "in accord with specific instructions from god", according to its late creator terry a. davis. it was initially released in 2005 but the latest update was as recently as 2017. terry davis died the following year on august 11th after being hit by train. (this is partly the reason for my ongoing obsession with temple, because august 11th has been a spiritually significant date for me since always, but that's besides the point)

templeOS was created entirely by davis, down to the fact that he had developed an entirely new coding language for the purpose – HolyC, a middle ground between C and C++, and named in reference to the vatican's holy see. needless to say developing a whole operating system singlehandedly is an incredible feat, and devising entirely new language doubly so.

templeOS has no internet support, but it has games! in what is perhaps my favorite feature of the OS, the games are divided into "fun games" and "unfun games" 😭

unfortunately most of them (regardless of fun/unfun designation) are borderline unplayable, at least on the emulator. some examples of the games include: keepaway, which is a basketball game, a complete flight simulator, and "after egypt" –a game in which you travel to a burning bush in order to use a "high-speed stopwatch", meant to act as an oracle, generating pseudo-random text. this is to my knowledge running on the same code as the god word app.

god word can be accessed independently outside of "after egypt" as well, without even opening an app – just by pressing f7 anywhere you can generate strings of words. it is meant to be a tool to communicate with god directly. the system also features a similar app which instead generates quotes from the king james bible, as well as a random line generator which i think is supposed to be a way or receiving visual input from god as well.

-

all in all completely incredible and one of my favorite things to have ever existed. i became obsessed with this last year since i first became interested in hardware vs software sentience, and i've been running it on virtualbox ever since. obviously most of the features don't work very well on the emulator (esp that i'm on mac so the keyboard maps really annoyingly) but sometimes i'll just launch it to play around with god word – this is kind of the entire premise of "APRIL". i wanted god word to hang out with me and be able to get the words out of it with only verbal input.

im going to attach some links in a reblog for people who want to read more or want to play with templeOS on their own.

[7nsomnia]

can i ask, what’s wrong with dcc? i always hear that they kinda suck as a company, but from the vlogs i’ve seen, they’re one of the better companies. i’m not really as into dreamcatcher as some of the blogs on here even though i consider myself a stan, so i might not have the right information

okay. I feel like this is like opening my personal pandora box so this might be long. I'm pretty tired today so apologies in advance if this isn't very coherent asdkjh

dcc are a pretty decent company on a surface level, they treat the members well (which should be like the bare minimum for any company but I know that in this industry that's something to genuinely praise) and they actually change according/respond to negative feedback from the fandom etc when they or the members mess up (or they used to anyway).

for me it started in 2020 and how they handled handong's return. like the way they handled her absence was fine (good even, I would say), but the lack of hype for her actual return made things feel so underwhelming even though it was supposed to feel like a relief that she was finally back. I can't remember all the details anymore, but I do remember that the first time I felt like things were actually alright with dc was when they did the online concert crossroads in march of 2021. on that note I think most ppl were expecting ttol and dlm to be repackaged with ot7 versions and yet it's 2024 and they still haven't released them.

the handong stuff atp is water under the bridge tho, the group is fine, the members are fine, etc, I'm only mentioning it because that's when things started to feel really off for me.

so now we get into the actual things that happened that have left the fandom feeling burned out/frustrated/disconnected etc etc, whereas this happened to me at the end of 2022, I'm seeing more people now going through what I did back then:

I think the most pressing thing was that dcc didn't capitalize at all on dc's first win. they got their first win in april 2022 and didn't even do anything special in korea to commemorate it. it was a HUGE moment and they did nothing with it. usually after a group gets a first win you'll see them getting more promotions in korea, magazine photoshoots, mc deals, etc but dc just went on ahead to do festivals in europe and have a usa tour, these things are not bad but it was the lack of promotion in korea that in turn just made it all feel useless. that year dc also weren't invited to any end of year awards if I'm not mistaken so it all felt really disappointing and like all of the work we had as a fandom had been for nothing. I have to reiterate, dc/insomnias had been getting screwed over on music shows since 2019 with deja vu to get that first win, like I don't want to talk about the injustices the group and this fandom suffered through the years but it was a true story of resilience, so getting that first win in 2022 was a huge relief. to see it all going to waste was just... heartbreaking honestly.

when it comes to tours...... god I don't wanna get too much into it, but 4 tours in the usa in the span of 2 years is not normal. specially when they're prioritizing that over having a proper asia tour and the likes (AND promoting in korea??). latam tour is practically sold out rn and they're getting no merch or m&g benefits like the usa tour. I don't think doing exclusive things for a specific tour is bad per say, but you have to treat all your fans semi equally at least, specially for a group whose fanbase is majorly international (this will be important later), or it will happen what is happening rn which is ppl will leave the fandom. This is the first latam tour since 2019 (2017 for brazil!)... they've waited a really long time so personally (even tho this doesn't affect me bc I'm european) I feel like it's really disrespectful but wtv, onto other things.

now, speaking of the fanbase being majorly international, if this is the case, you'd think the company would make an effort to stream important events to their fans, like hmm the 7th anniversary concert perhaps? but nop, that didn't get streamed. a repetition of the dumbassery they did in 2022 where they split the concert and the members' solos in 2 days and only streamed one and so intl fans couldn't watch half the solo stages? and don't get me wrong, I think it's important that they have events that are korea only like they have the fansigns etc, but something as major as their 7th anniversary? when they've gotten here thanks to their international fans? that stings a little.

and lastly (maybe), we have dcc's usual lack of promotion during comebacks. fans always paying for ads, intl fans always doing the most for digitals even when it's Not their place (because this is smth that the korean fandom and dcc should be responsible for), fans having to reach out for vendors etc... Justice cb truly has been the culmination of the very worst promotions dcc has done tho and there have been some really bad promotions before... no radio shows, minimum interviews, barely any variety... were there even any ads? usually it's always fans paying out of pocket for ads. it just feels like throwing the members' and the company's work out the window for no good reason? Virtuous is one of their best albums and yet it feels like they just dumped it to go on tour again. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing btw, having short promotions in korea is fine but like... promote for real? give your fandom content that they can watch and rewatch for however long it takes your group to have another cb? specially now that it seems that they're shifting to one album per year (not sure this is their wisest decision tho all things considered), you have to make sure that you promote that album properly? which kinda also goes with like, giving your fandom enough time to save for what you release and put out, specially if you're not trying to grow the fandom anymore. if they're dropping an album then don't announce a tour on top of that, and if they're announcing a tour then don't announce a photobook on top of that, and if they've just released an album then wait longer than a month to announce a photobook, and if they've just dropped a photobook then wait a bit longer until announcing the re print of albums the fans have been begging you for 6 years to re print LOL bc all this does is frustrate fans who can't make that much money in such a short time and it's stupid. like. in 2018 I dropped like 200 euros for like their very first photobook BECAUSE I had time to save that amount from their you and I cb (may) to whenever it was announced (I think it was august), and that was the highest tier (so you could get it for much cheaper) and bc back then it was like. well they barely release anything other than albums, so it's fine (also shipping was sooooooo much cheaper I miss it everyday, ofc this is not their fault tho but anyways).

lastly actually, oh my god. that stupid ass app where fans pay a subscription to message the members privately? has been the fucking worst thing to happen to this fandom and the members imo. if fans weren't respecting their boundaries before, it's even worse now. but it's also like. yeah the members should be reinforcing those boundaries, and I get wanting to at least make a buck of those problematic type of fans but I just don't think it has been good for the members at all. I won't elaborate too much on this because it will genuinely piss me the hell off but bottom line: that app has been hell for everyone genuinely there is no bright side to it other than dcc makes money out of it. and there's better ways to make money :))))))))

anyway this is over 1k words atp and somehow I feel like this all just the tip of the iceberg and I probably have forgotten many things bc tbh in the past year I've just. been trying to make peace with it all and just accept things for what they are because dc have been really special to me for such a long time and I just don't want dcc's decisions to make me throw all of that away (like I almost did). I love their music, I love the members, and so I will continue to celebrate wtv right decisions dcc makes but I'm not going to pretend that they're a good company when it comes to business decisions bc they're really not

[modelartist-demri]

NEW ENTRY ON MY BLOG!

On October 29, 1996, Demri passed away of acute intoxication caused by the combined effects of opiate, meprobamate, and butalbital when she was only 27. 

Demri and Layne in the Spring of 1990 by Krista Kay.

Her last few years, since around Thanksgiving 1993, her health began taking a turn for the worse. She told her mother she had been having fevers in excess of a hundred degrees. Austin told Demri the next time it happened, she should go to the hospital. The first of many hospitalizations happened shortly after. “She came in to the hospital for the first time at the end of November of ‘93. She was in until January of ‘94. She got out and was back in in March of ‘94 and at that time put on life support,” Austin recalled. “When she would be in, she would come in to the emergency room. They would admit her up into a medicine floor; then she’d go from the medicine floor to the Intensive Care Unit and life support, and then she wouldn’t die. So she’d go back to the medicine floor – she’d be on IV and antibiotics for a month. This went on and on and on. She had her lungs operated on twice. She had her heart operated on twice [she had a heart valve repaired and another replaced and the pacemaker implanted age 26]. She suffered miserably.” [1]

Jacque: “She was very sick in the end. She’d had open heart surgery and had nerve damage to her feet which were mostly numb. She had no body fat at all, and was cold all the time. Often the car’s heater would be on full blast, even on a nice day, everyone would be sweating and she’d be shivering and wearing a sweater.” [2]

According to Amber Ferrano, Dave Navarro was the one who brought up the endocarditis . They had the doctors check and found it on the back of Demri’s heart valve.

Demri with Dave Navarro ca. 1994 in a medical facility.

Amber Ferrano: “Dave was my go-to person as someone who had kicked to help Layne and Demri when various things came up with them regarding drugs because they had used with him in the past when Jane’s Addiction came through town and now clean. Dave was their inspiration. He was in AA, and though they didn’t believe in AA they loved him, he was non-jugemental and kind. They really wanted to show him they could get clean. Bob Timmins helped too. They thought if lifers could get clean because of him there was hope. 

Dave was the one who brought up the endocarditis, asking if that is what she had. It was the first time we heard of it. All those times in the hospital. They ended up finding it on the back of her heart valve.”

While in the ICU, Austin said Demri was conscious but intubated – she had a tube inserted down her throat to help her breathe, which she despised. She would tell her mother, “I hate being fucking intubated. I can’t talk, and these people come and they ask me these fucking questions, and I can’t fucking talk, and I feel like a fucking fish in a fucking fishbowl.” She communicated by writing on a small blackboard with a piece of chalk. [1]

Despite the multiple hospitalizations and brushes with death, Demri continued using drugs. She had seemingly accepted that her addiction was going to kill her. 

Amber Ferrano: “I brought mortuary books in to Demri at the hospital when Layne got back from New York in April of 1996. I, of course, shocked Demri and said I thought we could go coffin shopping. Of course when Layne got there she told on me. When she first saw them she was balling saying she didn’t want to die. Layne talked about all the issues. I said you have to be clean to fix those issues and they get less and less. The thing with them was people waiting outside their home with drugs as a way to befriend them or mailing it to them. It killed Layne when he got letters about people using. He didn’t write to glorify it, it was cathartic to work his way through it."

Barbara Dearaujo: “She was in and out of the hospital for months at a time before she actually passed away. I would go visit her and she had all the nurses going crazy. She put up all her drawings and flowers all over the walls and did things she wasn’t supposed to do like take off with her IV and go out and smoke. She was a wild child... My heart goes out to her mom. She was a good mother and she tried so hard to help Demri, but Demri was her own woman and she lived in the extreme always. She was a broken child. Grasping for something to relieve some deep pain that no one but her knew.”

One of the last photos of Demri alive, as far as her mum knew. Demri and her mum Kathleen on September 1996. Kathleen sent this photo to Memories of Demri instagram (no longer exists).

Donald John: “I was very close with Demri Parrott, knew her during her last year of life. I met her at the hospital through a friend and became very close to her. I used to visit her a lot while in the hospital, and we had some very deep spiritual conversations about everything, including her relationship with Layne from the start to the end. She even gave me a pair of sunglasses that was his. I used to read books to her and let her borrow a lot of my books, especially art books, to keep her busy. I used to hold her while she cried and watched her while she slept. I used to go outside with her when she wanted to smoke and when she was feeling better to walk, and met her mother. I even got to check out her mother’s home which had a lot of pictures of Demri of her modeling days and stuff. Sometimes on her breaks she would come to my apartment that was like 5 min walk away from the hospital. She would come over and we would do heroin together and paint pictures with my art supplies, sitting Indian style on the floor listening to music. Then when she was released from the hospital she stayed with me for a while in my place and even slept in the same bed with me, we never had sexual relations but were deep friends and something more. She and Layne at the time were pretty much over even though he visited her while in the hospital. Sometimes we would cuddle in bed and she was so skinny. When she would leave to do her errands around town she would sometimes come back with gifts, like one time I got a cool wallet from her and a necklace with an angel on it – at the time I had my first tattoo of an angel on my forearm. When me and Demri first met I was just smoking heroin, then I started shooting and when she found out she was very upset. Time had passed and I saw her frequently. Then I found out about her death.” [2]

The other of the last photos of Demri alive, as far as her mum knew. Demri and her mum Kathleen on September 1996. Kathleen sent this photo to Memories of Demri instagram (no longer exists).

Ryan Kalsbeck:“Demri was staying for a bit with me at my old apartment off 45th and Lake City Way, we had been friends for years by this point but her addiction was sad for me to see. We had long serious conversations about a lot of things. Personal, to say the least. But she always carried her Leather Modeling Portfolio with her everywhere she would go or where she was staying, but she made me promise to please hold on to this portfolio for her and don’t let anyone around it or in it and she would eventually have a solid place to bring it to and for safe keeping. I never let one picture wander off into anyone ever. I promised Demri I would guard it and I knew how important this was to her fading life. She was so afraid of loosing this or someone stealing it, probably swiping rare as f*ck photos of her and Layne, stacks of the two in different vintage clothing. But I had her portfolio in my possession for at least 1 year, and one day like normal she left my apartment and I was still sleeping. Said, ‘I’ll see you at the Off Ramp later tonight.’ I wasn’t surprised to not run into her that night, and this was one of the last times of her disappearing, no one hearing from her for months at a time. But she always popped up at someone’s place eventually. The story is deep, and thick, and personal for me to speak of.”

Terri Brannon: “Last time I saw her, I went over to Carolina Court to say goodbye because I was moving back to Arkansas. I had a very sad feeling when I hugged her. I knew in my heart I’d never see her again. She was so full of life back then. A wild gypsy child. Reminded me of myself many years before. It’s been years and years, but you never forget Demri. She is unforgettable.” [2]

Demri's graveyard at Miller-Woodlawn Memorial Park, Bremerton, Washington, USA 

During her final days, Demri was staying with an older man named Tom, the father of a friend of hers, at his place in Bothell. According to Amber Ferrano, he was a drug dealer, Demri was staying with him because he had klonopin so she wouldn’t have seizures. Demri had lived something of a nomadic existence, staying with different people for periods of a few days to a few weeks at a time. Toward the end of her life, it became very difficult for her to find a place to stay. 

On the afternoon of October 28, 1996, Tom drove Demri into Seattle. She told him she wanted a few things from a Fred Meyer grocery store. When he arrived at the store, Demri was unconscious, and he couldn’t wake her. He went into the store to pick up her things, leaving the car engine running so she wouldn’t get cold. He came out of the store, drove home, and still couldn’t wake her. He left her in the car unconscious so he could do his laundry. He eventually realized something was seriously wrong. 

Demri was eventually brought in to the emergency room at Evergreen Hospital in Kirkland at 7:30 P.M. – two and a half hours after she first lost consciousness. Her mother got a phone call from the hospital, telling her Demri was there. 

Kathleen asked the doctors if Demri could hear her. The doctors told her they thought she could. She clutched Demri’s hand and said, “Dem, if you have a choice to stay or to go, you don’t have to stay for me anymore.” During previous hospitalizations, she had always told her to fight, to to survive. This time was different. [1]

Jack Plasky: “The first time I met Layne was when he came by my studio after Demri passed. We hung out for about six or seven hours. We went through Demri’s pictures. We did not talk much, it was more like sharing with me his pain. He was not a rock god that day, just a regular person who wanted to share the loss with each other. We had a very strong bond based on our love and caring for Demri, and her feelings for us. I got a strong true feeling from him when he looked at Demri’s pictures, that life held nothing for him anymore.”

Ariel Layton: “Demri used to spend a lot of time with my girlfriend, Jana. She actually passed away in my friend Tom’s truck. I also ended up couch-surfing at Buddah’s around the same time as Layne shortly after she passed. He had photos of her everywhere, it was very sad.” 

Kathleen Austin: “Derek loved Dem so much and nothing she did would ever change that. He spoke at her funeral, ‘If my sister got on the ferry in Seattle, she knew everyone on the boat by the time it reached Bremerton’.”

Clay: “Demri, it’s been 13 years [March, 2009] since you went to be with Jesus and I still miss you so much sweetie. I’m so glad we got to share all the time with each other before you left us. When we prayed and talked about Heaven and The Lord, it still makes me think about how I look forward to seeing you again and being with you forever. I hope all the world knows you are with Christ now and your faith in Him, so they can have the same hope we shared. I’ll always treasure your Bible your grandma gave me, until we are together again. Love you always, Clay.”

Brochure from Demri’s memorial service, which was held on November 2, 1996. Shared by Marisi Sojit and posted by “Comunidad Alice in Chains Chile” Facebook group. Found via Instagram: memoriesofdemri (no longer exists)

Carolyn Hart Gutierrez: “She was one of the most amazingly trusting, compassionate, openhearted persons I’ve ever known, albeit briefly. We went to the same high school, and she was a friend of my younger sister. I have often thought about her over the years. It broke my heart to hear that she was gone from this Earth. I always imagined that she grew up and became a happy little momma who would teach her children to believe in magic and that if you wish on a star your wish will come true, and to dance in the rain. That’s what I believe. Demri may be gone, but she is never forgotten.” [2]

Krisha Augerot: "She was like the sweetest, cutest, tiny hippie chick – just adorable and gorgeous. Never would I have ever imagined what happened to her happening". 

Mara Whelan: “My dear soul sister, she extracted the truly beautiful parts of my soul and made me unafraid. She brought light into the depths of darkness from within. She loved all my ugliness and glorified my uniqueness.

Demri and I lived together, slept together as sister spoons, hitchhiked all up and down the coast and back and forth to Seattle from Everett a million times. We lived in Seattle together in multiple places. When we didn’t live together, even when the drugs came into play, we never lost each other.

She was the most beautiful soul that ever existed. What I would do to feel her hand in mine again.”

Barbara Dearaujo: “Demri was an artist herself, a model and someone who could always make you laugh. She was the type of person who when she entered a room full of people all eyes would be on her. She sucked the energy from the room and then blasted it back out at you and made you laugh and smile. She was so different than everyone else and everyone knew it who met her. Geeky, funny, caring, talented and unique girl who could of owned the world if she had not got caught up in what was going on around her. She was a star in her own right.”

*All the information has been collected from the "Memories of Demri" document shared on google drive*

Sources cited:

[1] Alice in Chains: The Untold Story by David de Sola

[2] Instagram: memoriesofdemri (no longer exists)

*VERY SPECIAL THANKS TO LITTLE QUEENIES AND MEMORIES OF DEMRI*

Some great Demri sites you MUST check: 

Little Queenies tumblr blog - Demri info

Little Queenies' collection of Demri's photos hosted at Google Photos

Memories of Demri document hosted on Google Drive

Videos of Demri hosted on Google Drive

World of Demri on Instagram

World of Demri substack blog

Demri L. Parrott on facebook

Demri L. Parrott on Instagram

Demri Lara Parrott on Instagram

Demri Parrott Legacy on Instagram

Beautiful Demri Blogspot

[animesavior]

“Usagi, I need you to listen to me. Strange things are happening in the city. Even the Police can't handle what's going on. A dangerous enemy has appeared. You're the only one who can defeat this enemy. You're the guardian that's been chosen for this mission. But there's more than just that. you also have to find the other Guardians and our Princess.” -          Luna, Sailor Moon (Ep. 01)

The Toonami Trending Rundown for May 31 and June 1-2, 2024. For the first time since April 15, 2004, Toonami would return to airing on a weekday timeslot on Fridays with Toonami Rewind as part of Adult Swim’s expansion to 5pm to showcase classic Cartoon Network programming. The inaugural lineup featured the return of Sailor Moon to Toonami for the first time in 23 years alongside an hour of DBZ Kai and OG Naruto. 

And fans on social media responded very positively to Toonami Rerun’s debut. On Twitter, #ToonamiRewind trended in the USA alongside Sailor Moon and DBZ Kai.

Meanwhile on the regular Toonami late night lineup, Zom 100 returned from its three-week hiatus, and Demon Slayer begun its rerun of the Entertainment District arc in the meantime. In terms of trends, #Toonami trended in the USA on Twitter alongside My Adventures with Superman and Zom 100. #Toonami also trended on Tumblr.

This week’s feature was a game review of Dave the Diver, developed by Mintrocket studios. It received an 8.5 out of 10 score.

Despite the present upheaval at Warner Bros Discovery, the current success of Toonami was paramount to Cartoon Network and Adult Swim creating Toonami Rewind. According to Jason DeMarco on Blue Sky, “It was the network’s idea to try a second Toonami block since they are very happy with the performance of the Saturday night version. They wondered if a throwback Toonami would be interesting. We liked the idea!” And assuming things go well, Jason says he has “all kinds of cool plans to bring more shows in” including shows Toonami has aired in the past, Adult Swim action shows, western animated action classics and more.

Of course, that all depends on if people continue to watch Toonami Rewind every Friday as with regular Toonami every Saturday. So be sure to keep watching (or at least set your DVRs) and help contribute to the social media buzz if you’re into it. And as with any potential Toonami show, if you do wish to see a show air on Toonami or Toonami Rewind, feel free to let Toonami know on their Facebook page as well as letting Jason DeMarco know on his Bluesky @clarknova.bsky.social. It also doesn’t hurt to let your favorite show’s respective licensor(s) know (whether it’s Crunchyroll, Toei, Viz Media, and the like) on their respective social media outlets as well. On a related note, Jason DeMarco no longer posts on Twitter outside of “promotional information related to my work,” and has privatized his account (after previously deleting it) for archival purposes, so we’re not sure if he’ll still read any show requests and feedback that is sent to @clarknova1.

Finally, this past week was the birthday of yours truly, so I’d like to give a huge thank you to Jason, Steve, Dana, and everyone at Cartoon Network who are doing their part to rebuild the better cartoon show. as well as those that watch, record, and live tweet and blog this great block. No doubt that Toonami is the gift that keeps on giving and showing that hope springs eternal for the mainstream success of anime and action cartoons overall.

Legend: The shows listed are ordered based on their appearance on the schedule. Show trends are listed in bold. The number next to the listed trend represents the highest it trended on the list (not counting the promoted trend), judging only by the images placed in the rundown. For the Twitter tweet counts, the listed number of tweets are also sorely based on the highest number shown based on the images on the rundown.

Toonami Rewind May 31 Trends

United States Trends:

#ToonamiRewind [#3]

#SailorMoon [#9]

#DBZKai [Trended with #ToonamiRewind]

Tweet Counts:

#SailorMoon [5,245 tweets]

Toonami June 1-2, 2024 Trends

United States Trends:

#Toonami [Trended with #Toonami]

#MyAdventuresWithSuperman [#18]

#Zom100 [#8]

Tweet Counts:

#MyAdventuresWithSuperman [2,266 tweets]

#Zom100 [2,098 tweets]

Tumblr Trends:

#toonami [#7]

If you wish to send me a tip for the work on the trending rundown, donations can be sent to PayPal.Me/DanielLimjoco.

Bon Appetit. Only Toonami on [adult swim] on Cartoon Network.

[sindar-princeling]

2 LOTR 2 Newsletter - FAQ

Hi everyone!

For those of you who are already familiar with The Lord of the Rings Newsletter, this serves as an announcement that I'm doing it again; and for those who aren't - an introduction to the project :)

What is LOTR Newsletter?

I'm one of the people who subscribed to Dracula Daily in May 2022, and immediately thought, "Hey, I can do this too but with XYZ!" - XYZ being The Lord of the Rings. Because the events of LOTR also have specific dates ascribed to them, we're gonna be reading LOTR as it happened.

When does it take place?

Because of the way the beginning of LOTR is structured (read: because I don't want to leave six-month-long breaks between the first entries), we're gonna start on September 15th - a week before September 22nd, when the main events start to take place. It's also the publishing date of the Silmarillion, but that's just a fun fact for my own enjoyment.

From September 15th to September 19th, we'll read the prologue, and the fragments preceding Frodo's departure from the Shire. From September 20th, we'll be reading according to the dates until April 8th. Then we'll be reading last parts of the book, which are stretched over a lot of time, once a week, to once again avoid long breaks in delivery.

The Newsletter will last from September 15th to May 26th.

Where do I go if I want to post/talk about something related to the Newsletter with other readers?

We discuss current (and not only current) entries in the #lotr newsletter tag, and we have a Discord server set by the amazing @k-she-rambles!

How do I subscribe?

Since the original platform I was using (TinyLetter) was shut down halfway through the second year of the newsletter, I had to figure out an alternative way to execute this project. Check out this post to learn more and grab your own copy of the newsletter! In the folder linked in the post, you'll also find a calendar file made by @none-ofthisnonsense that you can download on your phone and import into your calendar app so that all days when we read are marked in your calendar!

If you want to receive notifications about when there is an entry to read, you can also follow @is-today-a-lotr-newsletter-day and turn on notifications! This is a blog created solely for notifying you all when we're reading a new fragment of the newsletter, so all notifications you'll get will be about new entries, and nothing more.

Anything else I should know?

Please don't rat me out to Tolkien Estate/j, and have fun reading!

See you on September 15th!

PS. Thank you to everyone who asked if I'll be organising the Newsletter again, and showed support and excitement over participating again. It means the world to me 💕💕

[awakeagainstmywill]

Art Log - 06/2024

It's been about 3 months of using Procreate for me!

Would have never happened if it wasn't for my good friend who's an incredibly talented graphic designer. She let me test drive Procreate on her iPad. Back in the day we bonded over being weird artsy kids in school and now we're being weird artsy adults together 🤝 Best friendship dynamic.

According to tumblr, I posetd my first digital painting on April 4th (over on my other blog). I think I made a bit of progress since then, even though I didn't make a lot of paintings in the meantime.

For every single painting I'm still making a traditional pencil sketch, upload that to Procreate and then start coloring on top of it. Not sure if I'll ever get fully confident sketching directly in Procreate.

I started liking the process and the result more around the third painting when I started using a combination of soft and hard shading with some hatching for texture. So that's the 'technique' ended up using more deliberatly for this portrait of Aziraphale.

Gotta stop drawing side profiles, that's way too many side profiles 🙈

I'll post a more detailed making-of of that portrait to document my process a bit.

The trajectory of the stats is a little concerning: 1st painting (3hrs 50min, 16 layers), 2nd painting (5hrs, 21 layers), 3rd painting (9hrs, 23 layers), 4th painting (23 hrs, 62 layers). Yeah, probabaly not a sustainable trajectory. I need to learn how to make some quicker illustrations. I tried here, but did not like the result that much.

I will forever love traditional drawing and painting, but. Digital art ... it's nice! There's no extra space needed to store paints, no brushes to clean later, fixing mistakes is easy, trying out several different color variations not a problem.

It's a goal of mine to make more complex paintings some day. It will be hard for me, I just love portrait drawing too much, it's my happy place, you see? Right now I'm working on another portrait. And then I have another planned after that. So. I'm definetly not going anywhere fast with those plans, that's for sure 😅

[racequeenparadise]

Jun and Yurie Seno, "Jun & Etty with AISIN" with Haruka Natsumi and Urara, Eneos Girls

Korean Male Model Jun Appears As a Race Ambassador For the First Race of the New Season's Super GT in Okayama On Sunday

The first round of Super GT was held at the Okayama International Circuit in Okayama Prefecture from April 13th to 14th. Various regulations have changed for Super GT, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary in 2024, but this season, the gender designation of the race queen that has graced the circuit has been abolished, and the name has been changed. Already in the first race, a male "Race Ambassador" has appeared as part of the TGR Team Eneos Rookie team, which will be participating in the GT500 class.

While many Race Ambassadors appeared this season, one person stood out in particular. He is Korean model Park Min-Joon, who goes by the name of Jun. He is the ambassador of AISIN, which sponsors TGR Team Eneos Rookie. According to the team, the appointment of this male Race Ambassador was made by team owner Akio Toyoda of TGR Team Eneos Rookie and AISIN president Moritaka Yoshida.

Due to changes in Super GT regulations in 2024, they decided to give a male Race Ambassador a try. Jun started working at the circuit from April 13th. "I've been nervous since the day of the preliminaries, but I heard that this is the first time there has been a male ambassador, so there's no precedent. I'm trying to figure out what kind of poses I should do as a male model". Jun is actually a huge race car fan. "I love cars that run on gasoline engines more than EVs. I really like the sound of an engine, so coming to the circuit and hearing the sounds of the engines and smell of fuel, I was really excited".

However, the challenge for Jun who works in the world of Super GT both a man and a foreigner, can be said to be an expression of the era of diversity. "I want to continue to do my best in Super GT, and I want to show off my cool side. I want to be able to make the fans smile, and with the feeling of 'I Love Cars!'. I want to do my best to make people who have never been interested in motorsports fall in love with it" Jun said emphatically. Jun has been partnered with female Race Ambassador Yurie Seno, who has previously been a Race Queen for several years. Their unit name is Jun & Etty with AISIN (Etty is Seno's nickname).

Blog Editorial; Please note I will not be posting any images of male Race Attendants besides the rare occasional news item such as this one. However, I do find it interesting that Japanese motorsport has decided to take this path rather than Formula 1's motor racing body, Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA), outright discontinuation Grid Girls at all F1 Grands Prix worldwide in 2018 because they were “at odds with modern day societal norms”. Super GT's solution seems far more fair and reasonable for everyone involved, especially the female models. Original news item below;

[dnfao3tags]

a guide to dnfao3tags!

hello there :] i'm kay, the admin of this blog. i've been running this blog from april 29 2022 when i made my dnf starter pack post for all those new to dnf fics. since then, i've made more than 700 posts and have added many features to my blog.

here's a little guide to everything and anything dnfao3tags!

(highly recommend checking my blog out on a pc, a lot more features are easily visible that way)

new to dnf?

as mentioned above, i have a starter pack; along with that i'd like to recommend :

my personal favs

my tag navigation page so you can easily find fics according to your wishes

i also have a masterpost of a significant number of fics i've recommended on this blog, however i don't often update it so its a little useless

every month (or whenever im free), i try to make a monthly fic roundup which i post in the first week of the new month; stay tuned for that

my trope wise reclists

spotlight fic recs from my bookmarks (dnfao3tags bookmarks)

all of my fic rec posts (dnfao3tags recs) - including reclists, spotlight fic recs, fic was founds, etc

posts made by authors themselves for their own fics (author post)

fic recs made by writers themselves (author recs)

there's also a dnf ship wiki surprisingly which might be useful if you want to get familiar with them

if you're confused about any references or something, feel free to send me an ask and hopefully me or my followers can help.

'can i help you?'

absolutely! while i don't accept any more mod/admins on this blog, you can still do the following :

rec/submit a fic (self-promo encouraged)

send me a quote you liked from a fic and view some dnf fic quotes here

here are a bunch of fic not founds that unfortunately were never found. take a look and see if you recognise any!

you can also send me fics to submit in the monthly fic roundup

sometimes i can't find fics for certain tropes so i crowdsource; check if know any fics for that particular trope and send them in

send some fic ideas you have!

deleted fics

i already made a guide to how i deal with deleted fics on this blog.

my Finding Deleted Fics: A Multi-Method Guide post.

if you're an author and would like me to take down your fics then send me a dm and i'll happily do it. if you'd like, i could also only share them in dms too.

fic not found

feel free to ask about any lost fics and i'll see if me or my followers can recognize it. please please Please be as specific as possible and also mention if you think it may be deleted.

i will post your ask asking my followers if i don't recognize it and if someone helps me out, i'll reblog your ask with the found fic so just keep checking the reblogs or the tags fic was found & fic potentially found.

searching my blog

if you open my blog on pc then you'll see one search bar in the header:

and one like this below the updates box:

the google enhanced search box is more accurate so i recommend using that one ! however, it is definitely not foolproof so i also recommend using my tagnav to search for a specific post because i tag pretty much everything. you can also send me an ask.

cool features

i have a music player ! you can send in songs for me to add to it

any tips and tricks i have for ao3 will be in this how to ao3 tag

want some writing inspo? here are some fic ideas

you can also ask me for song based reqs

i also have author archives for anonymous authors (eg. mario anon), deleted authors and orphaned authors

click this for a random post of mine

more stuff

i have a twitter (though i am inactive there)

please read my about/faq page before sending asks

i have a tag for any posts that aren't specifically fic recs and just me talking (kay talks) which you can mute if you aren't interested

occasionally i get asks about dreamnotnap which i sometimes answer; you can also mute that tag along with my not dnf tag

and that's all i can currently think of!

i'm thinking of adhering to a posting schedule so i might post about that later. i'm a bit more free these days so i'll probably be a bit more quick to asks.

hope this helped you guys out; thanks for reading :]

[subism]

Tumblr, AI, and The Impossible Year

I'm very disappointed by the news that Tumblr's content is going to be used to train AI. with a default Opt-In and questionable means of opting out. As an artist, this is something I cannot abide. From January 1, 2012 to January 1, 2014 I shot and posted a Polaroid photograph a day to this site, and when the pandemic hit in 2020 I resumed in April of that year and carried through (although less strictly) until May of 2021.

This was all posted to theimpossibleyear.tumblr.com / theimpossibleyear.com. It was a personal blog, and a deeply personal project. I showed what I was doing every day for multiple years.

There are literally hundreds of people featured throughout this project. Friends, family, colleagues, some of whom I had fallings out with, and some whom have since passed away.

These folks did not consent to have their likenesses used to train facial recognition algorithms or AI image generators. According to US copyright law, I am the owner to the photographs, and I can sublicense them however I want. I'm not keen on Tumblr doing the same. And while social media sites like Tumblr always had the rights to do things like this in their privacy policies, tools like Dall-E and Midjourney didn't exist at the time, and I never conceived of such a thing. My personal views on AI aside, I don't think allowing the likenesses of these folks to be bought and sold in such a way without their consent is ethical. Hypothetically I could reach out to every single one of them (or at least those still living) and ask for their consent, but aside from the tedium and awkwardness of having to repeatedly have that conversation, including with some folks I no longer associate with, I simply don't want to.

Additionally, I don't believe most folks really understand machine learning algorithms, large language models, and AI image generators, and I think honestly, it would be extremely hard to get informed consent for such a matter, and I sincerely believe most people would say 'No' if they understood it.

I believe artists should be compensated for their work, and I believe when that work is used for profit that the subjects of such work either need to have consented to that first. And, through that lens, the entitled beliefs of the people behind corporations like Open-AI and Midjourney, that they should be able to train off this work for free absolutely disgusts me. And I am disheartened to see Tumblr go the same route.

I do believe there are positive sides to AI, I do believe it is somewhat inevitable, but I do not believe the ends justify these means.

While I believe strongly in the public domain and creative commons, and I think US copyright law is deeply broken, I also know how hard it is to make a living as an artist. I will not I cannot sit by and just allow my own work, my own memories, my friends, family, and loved ones to be used as a tool to enrich billionaires at the expense of small creators.

I used to think that when I died I wanted all of my creative works to be willed into the public domain for the good of everyone. Now I'm not so sure. As such, I will be removing my content from Tumblr in the coming weeks. As I write this I'm importing the content of theimpossibleyear.tumblr.com to a self hosted server and theimpossibleyear.com is redirecting there. Once I am sure it's been successfully migrated I'll remove all of the content from Tumblr for good.

I know relocated content can still be scraped by AI bots against my will. But I'm considering ways of disabling crawlers, making it password protected and/or parsing all of the images through Nightshade or some other tool. At the very least I’ll have made my terms clear. I'm still figuring out what to do with this blog. It will eventually go away, but I have yet to decide what will happen with the content. Either way, this sucks. I am so tired.

[cindylouwho-2]

RECENT SEO & MARKETING NEWS FOR ECOMMERCE, MAY 2024

As promised, here are the important news stories from marketing recently: SEO, social media, advertising, and more.

If you want to get this news twice-weekly instead of just once a month, become a paying member of my Patreon: patreon.com/CindyLouWho2

TOP NEWS & ARTICLES 

In the biggest SEO news perhaps ever, a massive list of Google ranking elements was leaked this week. Here’s an overview, including links to the two main leak announcements and their analysis. It would seem that Google wasn’t always honest when they told us some algorithm elements did or did not exist. Google took nearly 2 days to speak publicly about it, but didn’t say much. Expect a lot more analysis in the coming weeks. 

Instagram is updating its algorithm to favour original creators and smaller accounts, and remove reposted content from recommendations. “This won’t affect “a set of publishers” identified by Instagram with licensing agreements or resharing permissions from content creators, according to the blog post.”

Google is adding AI Overviews to US search immediately, with other countries to follow in the future. "AI Overviews gives answers to queries using generative AI technology powered by Google Gemini. It provides a few snippets of an answer based on its understanding of queries and the content it found on the topic across the web.” Right now, it is only affecting a small number of queries, however. While these will sometimes cover similar topics to featured snippets, the latter still exist. Early testing indicates that it does not currently show up when a search appears to be about buying something. Which is good, because you can’t turn it off, other than filtering your search to “Web” after doing it.  Oh, and Google did not waste time figuring out how to include advertising in the AI overviews - it took just one week. As with most much-heralded AI launches, AI Overviews are fumbling badly; here’s a summary of the many news articles mocking Google, including for recommending people glue cheese onto their pizza so it stays in place. 

Chrome has yet again announced that it will not end the use of tracking cookies on schedule; the new target date for starting to wind down their use is early 2025.

Reminder that your old Google Analytics files (aka Universal Analytics) will no longer be available after July 1, so download them now! “...consider archiving back to 2018 or so to ensure you have pre-pandemic data since the pandemic really presented data anomalies for many companies.” There is a spreadsheet add-on to make this easier. 

SEO: GOOGLE & OTHER SEARCH ENGINES 

Google’s March 2024 Core Update finished rolling out April 19. “A Google spokesperson said, “The updates led to larger quality improvements than we originally thought – you’ll now see 45% less low quality, unoriginal content in search results, versus the 40% improvement we expected across this work.” Experts are struggling to analyze it, in part due to how long it lasted. Not surprisingly, Reddit was a big winner, and sites with a lot of ads and affiliate links continue to lose. 

An update on how long your titles should be for Google. “So whether your titles get cut off or rewritten in SERPs, Google still uses the HTML title tag for ranking considerations, not the titles shown in SERPs.” The author’s research is too limited to draw reliable conclusions from, and most other research in this area over the last decade shows that shorter titles tend to rank better. However, she has pulled together many recent statements on title length and how it works, which is useful reading. 

A reminder that “keyword difficulty” is a subjective score that different tools may not agree on, and that also depends on your overall site/shop and its history. This applies to all sorts of keyword tools, including those used for marketplace sites. 

It looks like Google adding its AI to search results will have a strong impact on traffic, as it will answer questions without the need to click, and “only 47% of the top 10 traditional search results are sources for SGE.” [SGE is now called AI Overviews.] That means if a page is outside the top 10 now, it may still be used to generate the answers, and could even get clicks from being displayed in SGE. 

Still with AI, Google was fined €250 million by France for using news media to train its AI, Gemini. 

Google admits to deindexing many, many pages in February, due to quality issues. 

A recent article dissects why Google search is so bad these days, and largely blames one man. While you can read the original here, you may want to start with a decent summary and the reaction from Google and the SEO community. 

Here’s a full list of Google changes and announcements from April.

Not Google

Both Microsoft and Google had excellent first quarters, with ad revenue up 12% and 13% respectively. “Bing reached over 140 million daily active users.”

OpenAI is apparently not starting their own search engine, contrary to rumours.

SOCIAL MEDIA - All Aspects, By Site

General

Here’s another of the periodic posts that tries to figure out the best times to post on different social media sites. It covers Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, Twitter and Pinterest. 

Direct Messages are now available on Bluesky. 

Facebook (includes relevant general news from Meta)

In another recent AI fumble, Meta has introduced an AI assistant to its various products in several countries - but you can’t turn it off in the search bar. It may also show up in group chats, including discussions about parenting. “The Associated Press reported that an official Meta AI chatbot inserted itself into a conversation in a private Facebook group for Manhattan moms. It claimed it too had a child in school in New York City, but when confronted by the group members, it later apologized before its comments disappeared.”

Here’s more on Meta’s automated ad issue that is ramping up costs but decreasing sales for many, including small businesses. 

Meta is now offering its Verification for Business subscription package to more countries, and has added new tiers as well. 

While Meta had a strong 1st quarter financially, it projects weaker results through 2025 as it spends a ton on money trying to guide its AI offerings to profitability. 

Instagram

Instagram added some new features, including “Reveal”, which blurs Stories, and only releases the content once you DM the creator. 

Reels under 90 seconds perform better on Instagram than longer ones. 

To help avoid scammers on Instagram, learn how to identify and block fake accounts. 

Instagram’s Creator Marketplace - where businesses can search for influencers to promote their product - is now available in 10 more counties, including Germany, France and Indonesia. 

LinkedIn

You should be optimizing LinkedIn posts for the platform itself and outside search engines. The article includes tips for both personal and business pages.

LinkedIn is adding games you can play once a day, which sounds weird for a professional network. 

Pinterest

Pinterest’s summer trend report has arrived; apparently maximalism is in yet again.  

Reddit

Reddit is one of those sites that is getting worse lately as people try to get Google ranking through it (which is a whole other SEO story I have covered in these updates before).

ChatGPT will now be training on Reddit comments. The agreement meant a huge stock boost for Reddit. 

Reddit is trying to attract more French-speaking users by auto-translating the site in real-time using AI. 

After plenty of user complaints, Reddit is starting a new awards scheme. 

Snapchat

You can now edit your Snapchat messages within 5 minutes of sending, if you subscribe to Snapchat Plus. 

Threads

Meta wants more content on Threads, and is willing to pay well-known creators to create it. Invite only, of course.  

You can now filter out unwanted words on Threads. 

TikTok

While the US government has voted to ban TikTok if the company isn’t sold, there is a lot of time left before that could happen, and a legal battle to be fought. TikTok has already filed a lawsuit, as have some major creators. Meanwhile, small business owners and creators are understandably worried. From an article by the BBC: “According to March 2024 data from TikTok, more than seven million small US businesses use TikTok, and the company reported it drove $15bn (£12.04bn) in revenue for these enterprises in 2023.”

How to rank on TikTok: the Ultimate Guide. Some of the tips include hashtags, keywords, and choosing the right thumbnail. 

There are several ways to remove (or avoid) the TikTok watermark if you want to use your TikTok content on other platforms. 

Twitter

Twitter’s domain has finally switched over to X in some locations [but I will still call it Twitter].

(CONTENT) MARKETING (includes blogging, emails, and strategies) 

Time to gear up your content marketing plans for June. 

ONLINE ADVERTISING (EXCEPT INDIVIDUAL SOCIAL MEDIA AND ECOMMERCE SITES) 

Search ads are converting less while costing more, something that has been going on for a few years now. “Advertisers are paying more for leads and clicks, while Alphabet, Google’s parent company, keeps reporting record profits.” This is one of the reasons the US Department of Justice argues that Google is a monopoly. 

Not enough AI in your ads? Google is solving that through video ads and more virtual try-ons. 

Google Shopping is going to start showing how many people have bought from each site recently, although businesses can opt out. 

Google is removing keywords from Google Ads accounts if they have received zero impressions in the past 13 months. While you can reactivate them, Google discourages that. 

You may be able to run Google’s Performance Max ads through particular marketplaces now or in the near future, if your marketplace signs up. For some businesses, selling through a marketplace might be cheaper than setting up a site. 

Social media advertising is now bigger than search ads, according to a recent report. Almost ⅔ of these ads are on various Meta properties. 

BUSINESS & CONSUMER TRENDS, STATS & REPORTS; SOCIOLOGY & PSYCHOLOGY, CUSTOMER SERVICE 

Slow economic growth in the United States in the first quarter of 2024 sparked worries that the rest of 2024 will be as bad or even worse. Even McDonalds is stressing that consumers can only take so much inflation. 

US ecommerce sales were up in the first quarter, more than overall retail. 

Some consumers are finding that ecommerce is tiring, offering too many options and no easy way to shop quickly. “Despite an increased emphasis on personalized experiences in recent years, 7 in 10 customers feel either no improvement or an increase in the time and effort required to make a purchase decision.” 

MISCELLANEOUS (including humour) 

Before returning orders to Amazon, make sure your cat isn’t in the box. (It’s fine, fortunately!)