#there’s a few old pieces on wayback machine

[amethystsoda]

laios and falin’s room layout 👀

[abrandnewshadow]

the only proof I can rely on in 2024 that frank/ft willz were one and the same.

ft willz myspace blog poem "shits bananas when you're disinterested" exactly matches the one posted on franks 2013 website- crediting himself at the end. a very unique title for it to be coincidental.

this and the eyeball

this eyeball thumbnail from the 2008 skeletoncrew website is labelled as f.t.willz and will bring you to their poems. (eyeball w/ text) the other pictures of the respective artists bring you to their work.

The one that looks like it could be franks eyeball is the one that will bring you to ft willz poetry. i'm all but convinced.

upon investigating the poems, there are no matches for ft willz poems on franks website except "shits bananas"

here is how you can search frank's old website for keywords. no known texts from ft willz can be found. besides "shits bananas"

by that same method, you can search for ft willz or ftw from 2005-2014 skeletoncrewonline.com here

this image below has long served as the main piece of evidence of ft willz. reposted tons but no source.

The first is supposedly from ft willz myspace blog, the second is the same poem on franks website.

The ft willz version of this cannot be sourced. maybe someone can find it. but the source to that image has never been around. just reposted.

wayback machine has very few captures of ft willz myspace blog (like 10) and only one poem can be traced to frank.

I get that it is almost as crazy to believe the "I really like you" myspace screenshot is fake than to believe it's real.

If it's fake, they did a real good job making it look real. but text is so easy to shop, even in 2014.

So I have disposed of the "from my head to my middle finger" aspect of this theory. there just is not enough proof.

another impossible to source thing: the weird bible ft willz fans worship

there is a master compilation of "frank and ft willz" poetry pdf that an entire subreddit uses as its main resource- and most everyone who believes ft willz just accepts it as legitimate.

but whos to say the person that made it didn't just open word and get angsty? no one knows where it came from and no one can say how they got it.

this pdf is troubling because it provides many new works supposedly by frank/ft willz and many accept it all as franks words- without any proof of who the words it came from.

eyeball links: jpg, jpg with text, authors page with thumbnail "writings"- link is dumb and old)

ftw myspace

frank iero 2013 website

petition for frank to either deny/confirm the pen name (for what it's worth)

@myxchemicalximbalance edited this post with your frank photo. thank you so much for finding the eye pull frank picture so I could compare and contrast with the ft willz eyeball. it's pretty close I thought it was the same damn picture at first.

[oldschool-lolita-archive]

hi! I have a couple of very old brand pieces that aren't on lolibrary. where would you suggest I look to hunt down additional info and maybe add them to the database? thanks!

Hello! I’m very excited by this question.

I have a few suggestions depending on how knowledgeable you are on the item- if you aren’t sure where to start at all you might have some luck with narrowing down the general era or release date of the item judging by its label or wash tag.

Various tag guides have been published- this one by How To Become An Angel on neocities and this one on Raine’s Crimson Reflections blog.

But since you have checked lolibrary and it isn’t there, i’m assuming you have some information already (release year or print name or something along those lines). It’s possible to access old versions of lolita brand’s websites through the wayback machine and adjust the year to suit your best guess. From the homepage you can go to the brand catalogue and see the dresses / jsks / undergarments / ect and see if any have descriptions that will match your mystery item (even if there is no stock photo available). For example:

- Angelic Pretty 2002- present

- BTSSB 2000- present

- Metamorphose 2000- present

- Victorian Maiden 2001- present

- Innocent World 2001- 2004

- Innocent World 2005- present

- MmM 2001- 2010

- Atelier Boz 2001-2003

- Atelier Boz 2004 to 2017

Lolibrary is an extensive database, but it doesn’t cover every single piece in existence. If I haven’t found it on lolibrary and I haven’t found any information on the brand’s original website, I will usually turn to my lolita magazines and see if I can spot the item anywhere. Lolita History is a great resource that most of you are already aware of. It’s great for GLB scans and even other niche publications that have been kindly submitted. You can filter by Keywords to narrow down your search.

All of the advice above is if you are the kind of person that likes to take your time with research and look into the item personally. If you don’t have time for that, i’d just post it on social media and ask if anyone knows anything. U can post it here on tumblr or u can send it to me! There will always be someone happy to help, and if it’s something I can’t do myself I will volunteer to submit it to some senior lolibrarians and see what can be revealed.

[wizardarchives]

The Wizard And His Pets by ©Sylvia Körner (2001)

This was a hard one! This one is definitely recognized most as being used by DJ Rozwell for the album cover “NONE OF THIS IS REAL” but I wasn’t sure who actually created the image for a good bit and had seen a sparkly gif version a few times too. This piece is by german artist Sylvia Körner or simply Sylvia who has a beautiful personal website showcasing their art drachenbande.de (it’s only visible using the wayback machine). This one was fun to find and I even found an earlier portrait version this one is based off of :-)

Was curious why the site was down, looks like it was abandoned some time in 2004 after a 4 year run based on a news post on the site the artist made. Not sure if there is a new website but if there is I believe they are under a new name. It’s always fun seeing bits of peoples lives preserved online like this. On the news post it wrote “And otherwise - take care and be patient with your old dragon here. Even a thick armor of dragon scales can't keep out all the hardships of life, no matter how much I would like it to. And even dragons get tired sometimes.” I think that’s cute.

[sunniedesi]

Sakae Esuno's Old Blogs (Author of Future Diary)

If there is one thing Sakae Esuno is known for, besides being the creator of Future Diary and three other manga series, is his privacy. He’s never had a very active presence online like other mangakas, given that he doesn’t post much on Twitter and he’s also not given many interviews. That being said, Esuno did have a few blogs back in the day with interesting content to look into. While not active anymore, the blogs can still be accessed through the Wayback Machine, albeit lacking some of its images.

Esuno’s official blog was originally hosted on the site Sakura. The page went through many changes throughout the years, to update the blog whenever a new project or volume of his current manga was on sale. 

This is what the page looked like during 2005 - 2006, dedicated to his first manga “Hanako and the Terror of Allegory.” All the page shows are the history of changes to the site (top right of the page) and his schedule for publishing the volumes of the manga (bottom right).

Snapshot from April 2005

Snapshot from December 2005.

The top of the page says “As previously announced, a new series titled "Future Diary" will begin its publication in next month's issue of Monthly Shonen Ace. Since I'm busy with work, there won't be any major updates to the homepage. Please be patient and wait for next month's issue.” The other two changes in this snapshot were the addition of Amazon links for each volume of “Hanako and the Terror of Allegory” and changing the schedule to feature Future Diary’s release in January 2006.

When Future Diary came out in 2006, the page went through a major overhaul to center on this project.

Snapshot of June 2006

The text here features a synopsis of Future Diary

Snapshot from February 2007

The text here is announcing the sale of volume three, and at the bottom requesting for assistants.

The updated blog also featured three new subpages: 

The character vote, where people could vote for their favorite characters and leave their opinions in the comments.

The webstore for all of Esuno’s mangas.

And the official picture section, where Esuno displayed different pictures and banners free to use for people’s personal blogs, as long as Esuno was credited. While this page is saved on the Wayback Machine, none of the pictures load. It’s possible some of these were illustrations from the manga, but it’s also possible that a few of these were unique drawings from Esuno, meaning we might have some lost media here, unfortunately.

In 2009, Esuno moved his blog to a different domain, though still powered by Sakura. This new version of the blog brought about more personal posts from Esuno, such as updates on his work progress for both Future Diary and Big Order, sales announcements, his thoughts on the series and its many iterations, etc. This blog was active until June 2018.

Most of his blog entries are visible through the Wayback Machine, with the exception of 13 entries from 2009 and two from 2011. Many of the pictures are also inaccessible through the Wayback Machine. While I won’t translate every blog entry (since they’re mostly updates on sale dates), I decided to translate a few excerpts that I felt were interesting enough to look at in this post, particularly those about Redial and Esuno’s interviews.

Excerpt from entry of December 26th, 2012:

* About Future Diary: Redial It’s already been announced in the Big Order Obi (note: Obi is a strip of paper wrapped around manga that usually displays information about the product, special announcements or ads), but both the anime and manga of Future Diary will receive an OVA in July of next year. Both the comic and anime will feature new content (the book will not be sold as a standalone piece.) Both stories take place in the third world, and follow Yuno’s journey to meet Yukiteru again. They’re a sort of sequel to the manga and anime. I’m in charge of the plot, while Takayama-san (FD’s screenwriter) is in charge of the screenplay.  (I’m very thankful for the fun script he’s provided.) It wouldn’t be fun to write the exact same story for the manga, so I’m planning to go in a different direction.  Lots of characters will make an appearance in the anime (Akise included). Please look forward to it!

Now, onto an entry from March 12th, 2013:

* About Future Diary: Redial I sent the manuscript for Redial a few days ago. I’ve been taking a break from Big Order since last month to work on Redial’s manuscript. I apologize to the readers of Big order for this short wait, the series will resume publication on April’s issue of Ace. (Photo unavailable) (Here’s a drawing of Yuno trying her hardest to reach a candy that’s high up… lol) I asked my assistant to read the manuscript, and she pointed out that some of the pages were quite dense in content, so I should provide some explanations for the plot.   Hence, today I’d like to explain Redial’s plot a little. As I mentioned earlier, Redial is a story of how third-world Yuno regained her memories of Yukiteru. The anime will be sold in bookstores with the manga attached. Please preorder it through Kadokawa’s website or your local bookstore.  I wrote the plot for the anime, and participated in the script meetings. The manga is a little different from the anime, but they both share the storyline of “third-world Yuno recovering her memories of Yukiteru.” I’m sure that the anime will turn out well because Takayama-san’s script and Hosoda-san’s storyboards are very fun. It seems like it’s still in the works, though. Now, about the manga. You could say the Redial anime and manga are in competition with one another. The anime production team may not think so, but I do (lol). The anime and manga productions each took their own approach to the theme of “third-world Yuno regaining her memories.” Of course, I participated in the creation of the anime, so the basic premise for both is the same. (questions like “what happened to Yuno’s body after she died?” or “what happened to first-world MurMur?” will be answered in both.)   Both the anime and manga have their merits, I didn’t try to make any weird adjustments to the manga; I just had fun while making it. So, I think it will be interesting to watch and compare the differences between style and media. ーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーー A side note. I started considering them competing projects after “Next Project” was announced (we still hadn’t decided how to go about it). Kadokawa: “Let’s do another book store release.” Esuno: “Uh, there isn’t much to draw from the third world.” (in terms of story for the manga.) Production: “Please write us a premise, and we’ll decide what to do from it.” (hopefully, we’ll get material for the anime from there.) Esuno: (Huh? I was supposed to be making the manga, but now I got dragged into this…?) (Now I have to write a plot with the anime in mind.)  ~ After many meetings, the script was finished (a good one, of course). Esuno: “Well, I’ll take the more favorable aspects and write the manga on my own.” Esuno: (Ehehe, I’ll just do what I want, I’ll change the plot to suit the manga…) … That’s kind of how it went. ーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーー Well, the first part of the manga version will be published in this month’s issue of Ace. (It’s about 15 pages). I hope it will give you a feel for the rest. Though, please remember that for the reasons mentioned before, the content will differ from the anime.  Redial feels like killing two birds with one stone.

I’m adding these excerpts in because it explains a lot of things about Redial. If you’ve seen the anime and manga versions of Redial, you know that they’re substantially different. Finding out that not only were they purposely written to be different, but that the anime script was made before the manga, is also very interesting to me. I was always under the impression that the manga came first, and then they based the anime off that, but it’s the other way around. Though it’s very easy to tell they were written by different people; the anime went for a more fan-service/slice of life approach, while the manga centered more on Yuno’s mental dilemmas. Maybe I’m biased towards Esuno, but I always preferred the manga version of Redial for its more serious approach. 

Entry from March 21st, 2013:

I came across a lot of things while working out the manuscript.

This is Minene’s Mosaic cover. In the end, we only used the top part of the illustration, even though the bottom part was fully drawn. There’s more stuff, but I’ll only upload it if I find the patience…

Excerpt from June 25th, 2013: 

Incidentally, when I was interviewed in Italy, a reader asked me: “which is your favorite character?” (I often get asked this in interviews.) My answer was something like this: “If your kids asked you which of them is your favorite, you wouldn’t be able to rank them. So, in that sense, when I talk about my favorite characters, I’m referring to the ones I had the most fun drawing.” You might think my favorites are Akise, Minene or Reisuke (of course, I like them all), but there are no characters that I dislike. If that were the case, I wouldn't have drawn them in the first place. For example, my assistants really disliked Funatsu, but I still enjoyed drawing him… (lol) (As a side note, when I first heard Maruyama-san playing Funatsu in the anime, I was so impressed. I thought to myself: “he’s the real Funatsu!”)

I also remember reading that Esuno had a picture of a limited edition shirt in his blog. I’m not sure if this is true, but it might be on one of the 13 missing entries. I’m bringing this up because I’ve been meaning to obtain a better picture of the shirt’s graphic (I want to recreate it lol), or at least figure out what the circle surrounding Yuno is. I can make out what it says on the inside, which is Yukki (ユッキー) written over and over again, but I have no idea what the outer rings say since it's not Japanese. 

Before ending this post, I want to add that Esuno had at least two other side blogs before his official site, which are also accessible through the Wayback Machine. This is a personal blog that dates back to 2003 and a Bulletin Board Site, which is sort of like 4chan, where several people can comment on a forum dedicated to a specific topic. BBS sites were very popular back in the day, particularly in Japan, and Esuno seemed to be quite keen on them since it is a topic that’s often brought up in his first manga: Hanako and the Terror of Allegory.

These sites are more focused on the release schedule for Hanako, so they don’t contain anything Future Diary related (since they predate the manga), but I think it’s relevant enough to add for anyone interested. I assume Esuno must’ve been active on other board sites, but these are the two only ones linked on his official website, hence they’re the only ones I’m aware of.

Lastly, here are all the recoverable images from the Wayback Machine:

[wilderun]

I saw your post on fur farms trying to farm wolves, and was wondering if you had any sources for that? I know it happened, but I have yet to find articles or evidence of it happening in history. Could you point me in direction that has info on it? (If you aren’t comfy showing it in public just lmk and I’ll dm you)

Here's an ooooold flyer from the Davidson Fur Farm. Sorry the quality is awful, it was pulled from an old archived website lol. Davidson Sr trapped his wolf stock in Alaska and bred from that for a little more sociable temperament to be easier to handle. Zephyr's breeder had a website about 10-15 years ago with a "who's who in the wolfdog world" page that had little snippets and fliers like this on it, its no longer active but if you use the wayback machine and search "cottonwoodz.com" you can poke through it.

Another fur farm with wolves that sold to thr public was the Matz Fur Farm. Herald Matz died in 1978 so that was old time stuff as well.

There's a facility in called Furever Wild that is a fur farm/petting zoo that came under fire recently because they were selling pelts from their wolves (most of which were actually wolfdogs 🙃). Lots of FEW animals in private ownership since they sold pups thru a broker.

Some lines go back to more modern fur farms in Canada, again thanks to brokers selling their pups for them.

There's not really any like. Official sources on this stuff, though. Its mostly a situation where if you're around wolfdogs and dig into their pedigrees and ask people where they got x animal from or who produced y animal, you'll be able to piece it together and see where the original stock came from.

[female-buckets]

what was the tea on diana and cappie drama?

This is the one piece of Mercury lore that I was never able to figure out. I've read through articles from that time. And I've read the old wnba forums and gossip forums. I've even used the wayback machine to scrub through the old L-Chat that got deleted (I know I'm crazy). And it's all still a mystery to me.

Diana, Cappie, and Penny were considered a dynasty back then. They won two championships in 3 years. After 2009, Cappie said she was excited to run it back and try to win a third championship. But then a few months later, she left.

I know Diana was really upset about Cappie leaving. There are some articles that talked about that. She would visit Cappie over and over in the 2009-2010 off-season trying to convince her to stay. But Cappie left. And the first time she played against the Mercury, she hit Penny hard! That was pretty wild.

Considering everything else that went down that year, it's hard not to speculate about how that effected Cappie. It did seem like Lauren and Cappie were friends. Maybe Lauren told Cappie something about Diana and Penny that upset her.

But years later, Cappie and Penny played on the same WNBL team! So I think those hard feelings faded.

But!

Cappie did not stop punching Diana's co-stars 🥴

I can't help but wonder if maybe she regrets leaving the Mercury. She played the best basketball of her life with Diana and Penny as her teammates. They were unstoppable together. But they were stoppable apart. I love Cappie a lot and the whole thing makes me kinda said.

[ausetkmt]

The non-profit Internet Archive has been in the news a good bit in recent weeks, after losing a high-profile legal challenge from four major U.S. book publishers over the digital archive’s National Emergency Library that launched in 2020 during the pandemic to lend e-books for users stuck at home during lockdowns and self-quarantines.

Put simply, the publishers — HarperCollins, Hachette Book Group, John Wiley & Sons and Penguin Random House — challenged the Internet Archive’s practice of lending multiple copies of some of their digital books at the same time. The Internet Archive has lent digital copies of books for well over a decade, but only the number of books the library physically had on hand (basically, the same way a brick and mortal library can only lend the amount of book copies it physically has in house). The Internet Archive argued the expanded lending library fell under fair use, while the publishers characterized the practice as “mass copyright infringement.”

The publishers won the case, which looks to put a stop to the expanded digital lending practice. The Internet Archive isn’t giving up the fight, planning to appeal the ruling.

But even without that emergency library, the Internet Archive still has a whole lot to offer. From concert archives, classic films, TV shows, software and the internet itself via the Wayback Machine web page archive.

Thousands of old concerts

If you’re reading Paste, there’s a decent chance you’re a music junkie. To that end, you could spend weeks getting lost in the internet Archive’s massive Live Music Archive. The collection includes more than 200,000 concerts from artists as varied as The Grateful Dead, My Morning Jacket, Blues Traveler, Elliot Smith, Guster and hundreds more. If you love live music and are looking for a new spot to find some performances, it’s one of the biggest archives out there. And, of course, it’s all free.

The Internet Arcade & Console Living Room

Want to revisit some of the classic arcade and console games from the 16-bit era (and before, and a bit after)? The Internet Archive is home to a massive catalog of classic video games, one of the few places where these works are being preserved and made available for fans to discover and revisit. Visitors can emulate thousands of games straight from your web browser, including arcade classics like NBA Jam, Pac-Man, Defender and more. The Console Living Room project is much the same, featuring classic video game console games available to play thanks to emulation from a web browser.

The Magazine Rack

Print might not be the mainstay it once was as many publications have gone digital-only. But there are still decades upon decades of old print magazines, which represent a snapshot of the world as it was at that moment in time. The Internet Archive’s Magazine Rack project features more than 300,000 digitized magazines, ranging from mainstream publications like Cosmopolitan, Sports Illustrated and Esquire; to video game and tech mags like GamePro, Retro Gamer; and even classic issues of TV Guide. It’s useful for research, and a great way to revisit some print journalism and reporting that would otherwise be lost to history.

Vast films and TV libraries

The Internet Archive is also loaded with films and TV shows, especially a lot of older and obscure titles that can prove hard to find on modern streaming services. Want to revisit Disney’s Song of the South (a racist piece of period cinema that has largely been erased from the Mouse House’s repertoire) for some reason? It’s there. Looking for classic black and white films and westerns? You’ll find plenty. On the TV side, you can find archived newscasts for posterity, along with seasons of television shows ranging from Farscape to Kojak, 1990s-era TV movies and hours upon hours of old children’s shows. It’s a big mishmash, but there are plenty of gems hidden in the stacks.

The Wayback Machine

Trying to track down an old article from 10 or 20 years ago? Want to relive the Yahoo! homepage as it looked a decade (or two) ago? The Wayback Machine is an invaluable resource for internet historians, archiving more than 800 billion web pages and counting from across the internet. It’s an amazing resource, as easily the biggest and most expansive archive of the internet available to the average person.

Still a whole lot of books

This is still a library we’re talking about, and yeah, there are thousands upon thousands of books. From the classics, newer releases and public domain materials. If you’re just wanting some fresh books to read, the Internet Archive can keep you in books until the end of the world. Then probably a little longer than that, considering they never stop adding new books to the archive.

[the-technicolor-whiscash]

I need to have the time to really sit down and dig for old mash fic archives cause like I’ve found a few bits and pieces but I’m certain there’s more going on out there (that isn’t hidden in yahoo groups you can no longer access) that I just need more time and the wayback machine to find

[stravagatefaster]

The Fourth Wise Man

The following short story written by Mary Hoffman is from the official Stravaganza-website, which doesn't exist anymore. It is accessible through the Wayback Machine, but I am uploading the short stories here to a) act as a secondary archive and b) to make them accessible to fans. If this story is ever re-published somewhere or I am asked to delete it, I will do so. This post will be unrebloggable, but feel free to link to it if you wish to add comments/discuss the story. I do not own the story, and it is directly copy-pasted from the old website.

---

No one knows his name now and very few knew it when he was alive. He was, and is, just the Mosaic Master. Some said he had come to Classe from the east, and it is true that he had studied his art there, but he was not one of the Gate People. He was Talian through and through and his name was actually Baldassare.

He wasn’t the only mosaic-maker in the city; it was known throughout the Middle Sea as a centre for the art and people gravitated towards it. There were rich commissions to be had to decorate churches, public buildings and private houses, and artists swarmed in the city, where workshops rang with the sound of hammers breaking the sheets of enamelled glass into tiny tiles. It was hard to keep up with the demand for all the many large-scale schemes being worked on.

But Baldassare was the busiest of them all. The birds that he designed, though made of hundreds of tiny pieces of metal and glass, looked so lifelike that people expected them to flap their wings and sing. His fishes and dolphins darted so realistically between foam-crested waves that onlookers stepped back lest their clothes get splashed. And his mosaic lions and leopards bared their teeth and lashed their tails so convincingly that the mosaic mules and sheep shrank from them.

So when the commission came to decorate the apse of a just-finished and very grand church dedicated to the Nativity of Our Lord, no one was at all surprised that that Baldassare was the artist chosen.

He spent many hours in the church, measuring the curved space with his eyes and then erecting ladders to climb up and check his calculations. Then followed weeks of work at his drawing table, chalking designs and scrubbing them out until he had reached a final version that satisfied him. It was a crowded scene, with the Holy Family at the centre, shepherds on the right and the three wise men coming in from the left with their rich gifts.

Above the manger and the stylised stable floated an archangel, and the ray of the star that guided the men from the east pierced downward like a blade. Baldassare understood that in such an expensively constructed and decorated church, it would not be a realistically humble stable that was required.

And if even the maid and her husband and the shepherds who had come in from the fields must be shown in a glorious transformation, how much more grand must the angel and the wise men be?

‘I am going to need more silver tesserae than there are in the whole of Classe,’ muttered the Mosaic Master, putting in an order for twice the quantity he thought he might need. He knew from experience that he always underestimated.

The whole scheme took five years to carry out. Baldassare had many workmen to help him but it was a complicated design and could not be hurried. At last the angel blazed over the stable — a miracle of silver and white, with a gaze that caught the onlooker’s eye with a promise of glory and salvation.

Baldassare had left the three wise men till last. The space behind them was decorated with flowers and ferns in jewel-like colours and finishes, against a background of silver tesserae, subtly mixed with many shades of grey and white. The wise men, or kings, had complicated flowing robes in red, green and blue, trimmed with silver and spangled with geometric designs. Their cloaks were pinned with mosaic brooches, mimicking rubies, emeralds and sapphires.

He had begun their faces — the young man, the black-bearded one and the white-haired leader. But there were no crowns or presents as yet; the kingly hands stretched out into the bare wall empty of any burden. Then Baldassare heard that there was to be a royal visitation to match the one on his mosaic: the Emperor was coming to the dedication of the church.

In just a month’s time, the Emperor and his beautiful Empress would visit Classe specially to see Baldassare’s work. He and his men threw themselves into their work on the last sections of the apse. And then, with so little time to finish the kings on the wall as royally as their Imperial Majesties’ presence deserved, he ran out of silver tesserae.

Pirates had boarded the ship that was bringing Baldassare’s latest order from Bellezza and, along with the silks and jewels and other merchandise that would be much easier to sell, had captured the materials he to complete the mosaic.

Baldassare was tearing his hair out. He visited all the other workshops in Classe but could not find enough for his needs. And the worst thing was that he had modelled the black-bearded king on the Emperor. Of course, he had no idea what the real man looked like, any more that most of his subjects did. But the black beard was a given: all Reman emperors were dark, since that was the commonest colouring in Talia, and all men at that time grew a beard as soon as they could.

What was distinctive and would mark out the king’s portrait as a tribute to the Emperor was the Talian Imperial Crown. It had been hard to portray in mosaic, with its characteristic loops and spikes, and it was too late to change it.

While Baldassare eked out his dwindling supply of silver tiles on the crowns and caskets of the kings, his workmen were finishing off the carpet of flowers and plants that spread across the bottom of the apse. The Mosaic Master had even designed extra foliage so that he had more silver tesserae to use on his kings. But it was still not enough.

A week to go and the Imperial Crown was still not finished when the Emperor’s chamberlain arrived in the city. When he entered the great church there was no mistaking that he was a visitor from the Imperial Court. His fine clothes made him stand out from the coarsely clad workmen who were busy on the mosaic or finishing off other details in the building.

A messenger climbed the scaffolding to let Baldassare know the chamberlain was there. The Mosaic Master groaned but he climbed down straight away and greeted the grand visitor with all the courtesy he could muster.

‘I came to see your work for myself,’ said the chamberlain, ‘before my master comes to view it. But I can see very little through the forest of wood in front of it.’

Then of course Baldassare had to offer to take him up the ladder and on to the series of platforms that allowed him and his workmen to do their work.

The chamberlain was an acute observer and soon noticed the unfinished king with the incomplete Imperial Crown.

‘My master will be pleased,’ he said.

Baldassare sighed. He still had to create the massive diamond that hung from the centre of the crown over the Imperial brow. Even though the kings were shown in profile, this giant diamond would take at least fifty silver tesserae, and he was down to his last ten; what was he to do? Something that should have been a subtle compliment to the Emperor was in danger of turning into a crude insult.

‘What is the matter?’ asked the chamberlain, and Baldassare was so downhearted he told him the whole story, from the pirates onwards.

‘What will His Imperial Majesty do?’ asked the Mosaic Master. ‘Will he order my head to be removed from my shoulders?’

‘He is a compassionate man,’ said the chamberlain, ‘but I doubt he could ignore the lack in your picture.’

‘Then I am finished,’ said Baldassare. ‘At the very least I shall have to go into exile and start my life over again in a new country.’

‘That would be a poor reward for your great genius,’ said the chamberlain, who had taken rather a fancy to the Mosaic Master. It was very unusual for people to tell him the truth and he appreciated Baldassare’s honesty, as well as his great skill. An idea was forming in the back of his mind. ‘I must get back to Remora as quickly as possible,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry. I shall be back here the day before my Imperial Master. All will be well.’

And with that he was gone.

The next week was the worst of Baldassare’s life. He went back to every mosaic-maker in Classe to check that no one had even a few silver tesserae left in their workshops. But no one did, or if they did they were not prepared to tell him.

The thought that his consignment from Bellezza might be lying at the bottom of the sea, jettisoned by pirates, made him feel that his own black hair was turning silver.

All the scaffolding in the Church of the Nativity had been taken down except for one last ladder leading up to the unfinished king. It all looked magnificent from a distance, but at a closer look, such as a visiting Emperor might be expected to give, there was a noticeable patch of raw plaster where the jewel in the Imperial Crown might be expected to be.

It was the day before the Emperor’s visit and Baldassare knelt in the church, praying. How could it all have gone so wrong? His intentions had been good and he had been so pleased with his designs. Now his only hope was the chamberlain, but unless he arrived bearing a hefty bag of silver tesserae even he would not be able to help.

As if summoned by the Mosaic Master’s prayer, the chamberlain appeared at his side, beaming and carrying . . . not a bag of tesserae but a large wooden casket.

‘What is it?’ asked Baldassare.

The Chamberlain opened the casket and the Mosaic Master gasped.

‘The Imperial Crown!’

The Chamberlain smiled. ‘No. It is merely a fake. My master had it made from silvered tin and glass some years ago. It is to deceive and confuse thieves. But the Emperor will wear the real thing tomorrow and I thought perhaps you might find this one useful.’

*

The day of the church’s dedication arrived and the party from the Imperial Court all sat at the front while the Bishop of Classe conducted a High Mass of celebration. The church was thronged with visitors, most from the city itself.

The mosaic, which had been kept secret for all its five years, now blazed in all its glory and every eye was drawn to it. And especially to the three kings at the bottom left. Everyone could see that the black-haired one was wearing the Imperial Crown and everyone was stunned by the light that gleamed from the diamond set into the mosaic.

It was agreed to be a bold step; no mosaic maker before had incorporated a precious jewel into such a realistic design. Baldassare, trying to be inconspicuous behind a pillar, overheard the gossip and was filled with relief.

At the end of the service he was presented to the Emperor, who allowed him to kiss his ring and gave him a bag of silver. ‘Excellent work,’ he said. ‘You have made me feel present at the birth of Our Lord.’

Then he moved on to take dinner with the bishop.

‘What did I tell you/’ whispered the chamberlain.

Baldassare was weak with happiness and relief. ‘How can I ever thank you?’ he asked.

‘Well you can let me have that “diamond” back as soon as you get some more tesserae!’ said the chamberlain. ‘And I must hope that my master has no need of the fake crown before then.’

Word of the ‘real jewel’ in the crown of the king that looked just like the Reman Emperor soon got out and people came to Classe specially to gaze at that part of the mosaic. In time Baldassare was able to replace the fake jewel with silver tesserae, but all this happened hundreds of years ago and the strange thing is that everyone who visits the Church of the Holy Nativity in Classe remarks on the shining realism of the ‘diamond’ in the Imperial Crown. Even though it is now made in just the same way as all the rest of the picture.

Which only goes to show that people see what they expect to see and that a good story wins out over reality every time.

© Mary Hoffman

[yumenosakiacademy]

bc tht 1 blog has been terminated, ive lost a few of my old art pieces bc it was an old ask blog of mine.. lmao.. rip..,,,, i thought id b able 2 find it on wayback machine, but i 4got what the url it has b4 i changed it 2 a saved 1 was, so alas...

all tht remains is this ask reply tht i used as a playl!st cover 4 a mix past!me had made 4 the blog.

[candorsky]

You’re moving way too fast

Last night and some of today I continued to read those old blog posts, until I couldn’t find anything more on the wayback machine — by the end, I wasn’t even sure what I was looking for in them. A certain feeling? Like whatever I felt when I originally read them in my 20s, in the years around when my mom died, and nothing felt stable. I imagine that reading about someone’s life in the South of France sounded exciting and romantic at the time, but I don’t have a specific memory of that. It’s not a stretch since I had barely gone anywhere in my life. (Arguably, I still haven’t ventured very far.)

The obsession could just be a distraction from my own sadness, looking for some kind of milepost for my current emotional location. A certain smile, a certain sadness. I should know online records of any kind are far from complete. Yet I still want some kind of answer from them, if I can just search the right thing. I feel like I’ve had a few moments of nostalgia recently, tied to different eras and interests. The desire to revisit feelings from the past may be more of an obstruction than a lighthearted recollection.

I’ve been at the country house for the weekend with the dogs, the first time I’ve been here without my ex since the summer, when I was so desperate to leave. I’ve felt largely powerless to make true change in my life since then; we are in a protracted separation that keeps feeling clouded. This weekend, I feel myself being pulled into old patterns again. Even coming up to check on things after a big snowfall last week was something I absolutely didn’t want to do at first, and it felt like a familiar manipulation of my time. But the anxiety spread to my psyche, and then I wasn’t going to hope for the best over a cold weekend. I've made the most of it. Even when I managed to leave both physical and digital books currently reading behind in the city, I downloaded a pdf and used the phone app instead. I got my tax documents together — this happening so late in March is a sign of how things have been with me, not usually a procrastinator on that front. I closed my rings by shoveling snow. I soaked in the hot tub, even though it needed more shocking. I feel like I’ve been productive. Not sure that I've slept any better, but I’ve at least not stayed up late every night.

Maybe it’s the lack of stability that is the commonality. If reading blogposts by people who were at the time a little more adult than me (in age and practice) made me feel hopeful for the future then, is that kind of hope still possible for me, even if I am now older than they were then? There are pieces of it that are familiar to me now, like I’ve already lived the experience of moving to the country (though not in another country). Am I looking for aspirations?

More likely it’s just that I keep returning to the desire to really start writing regularly again, even if it’s just banal details of my life. (I set this up last year for that purpose, after all.) Reading twenty-year-old banalities could be a misdirection of the impulse. And I’m trying to relearn the confidence in writing things down and not caring if anyone reads it. Because paper journaling just feels too laborious for a regular practice and typing seems to open more. Well, I will try to be more active in this regard.

[faeriekit]

@undead-essence​ Nope!

Usually when an artist or author quits a social media site altogether instead of just moving, something Not Good has happened. Either they were in an argument or scandal, or received threats or is in danger, or is trying to move away from this phase of their life or their career or something else... I find it disrespectful to drag someone back onto stage when they’re clearly trying to leave the limelight.

I generally think that any media left behind is fair game for someone to archive and discover, but if clear efforts have been taken to erase something, I’ll keep a copy for my own interests, perhaps, but I’m not going to publicize an artist or author or art piece that someone has gone through the effort of burying.

If there’s something someone wants help looking for, I’d gladly help someone find missing art or media and give them tools to look for it, but I’m not going to repost or post about someone’s hard-deleted effort! Privacy and personal respect and so on and so forth.

So, that being said, if you lose something you liked:

1) Wayback machine! Was it hosted on a popular site, for a long time? have an old url? It may be archived :)

2) Google image search! Google image search hosts a lot of “ghost” images, and sites like tumblr leave a lot of reblogs in the ether. The original posts may be gone, but a reverse image search, or a few good key words, may do you a lot of good!

3) Published media may be findable on Worldcat.org! It can certainly get you closer to a certain published piece if you know anything about the item, like title, author, year of publication, so on and so forth-- and the closest library where you could get a copy 👀

Go forth be free, etc. etc.

Found a new use for my MLS, which is "where the hell did this tumblr artist go?? I want this meme back??" Anyway google images and some quotation makes do wonders for finding images which are apparently not findable ANY OTHER WAY.

[somethingusefulfromflorida]

In the late 80s some guy tried to design the Board Game of the Future™, something to rival chess in the 21st century, and it was called Terrace, published 1991.

I found a copy at a thrift store in high school. It was missing a bunch of pieces, but it had tons of vintage memorabilia in it because the guy who donated must have been a huge fan; it's got newsletters, newspaper clippings, a mail-in catalog for Terrace merch (well, a mail-in leaflet), the whole shebang.

It's not a great game (I've played it exactly once against my little sister, but neither of us understood the rules so it was the blind leading the blind), and it's main claim to fame is being featured in the background of a few episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation because the producers liked how futuristic it looked, but I just love how earnest and optimistic the creator was. He had plans for the future, big plans, he thought Terrace was gonna be the next big thing; every household in America would have a Terrace board, there would be international Terrace tournaments with grandmasters and named opening moves and countless books on Terrace strategy, mathematicians would try to "solve" Terrace with supercomputers, he really thought it was gonna be the Game of the Millenium.

I can't find any evidence of the Terrace Times newsletter online, so I may well be the last person on Earth who still has a copy of any of them. Issue 001 is lost to the aether, and I don't know if there ever were any issues 005 or above. The Wayback Machine archived a few old Terrace webpages, but most of them are 404 inaccessible and the rest are just single paragraphs of blue text on a light blue background telling me stuff I already know, classic dotcom bubble site.

I wonder how many kids got a Terrace set for Christmas '93

I wonder if Terrace ever got ported to PC, and how many floppies it moved

I wonder if that Michael Winslow commercial ever aired anywhere

I wonder...

[hikari-kaitou]

Capcom's Official AA Fanclub Surveys - DGS Edition

Many Western fans may be familiar with the Turnabout 4koma comics that get posted on the official AA fanclub site that Capcom runs, thanks to some lovely fans on tumblr and elsewhere who have shared their translations. What fewer people seem to know about is the character surveys.

Back in the old days, they used to hold a survey on Capcom's official AA fansite every few months where they'd write about the seasonal activities of a handful of characters and ask fans to vote for the funniest/most pleasant/strangest/etc answer.

They stopped doing them in like... 2016? 2017? The original text is lost for good as far as I can tell. Even the wayback machine couldn't help because the content was password locked and you can't get past the password wall while remaining in the archived version.

Fortunately, I saved some of my translations of them so I thought I’d share them.

Cut for length...

"February has begun, and the DGS cast is nearing the end of their journey aboard the RFS Alacrei. Which of them acted the most strangely?"

Ryuunosuke ~ Exhausted from his intensive study session, he decided to try some katana swinging practice as a change of pace and to combat his recent lack of exercise. But because he wasn't used to handling the katana, he swung it too hard and it went flying out of his hands and got stuck in the wall right next to Sherlock, who had just entered the room. Sherlock asked him, "aren't you supposed to be studying right now, Mr. Naruhodo?" and handcuffed him to his desk.

Susato- worked on developing a curriculum for Ryuunosuke. 'If we keep going at this pace, he won't be able to learn it all in time... It'll be hard on Naruhodo-sama, but we'll have to work hard through a couple of nights together.' With that thought, she created a harsh study schedule, and almost seemed to be looking forward to it for some reason.

Sherlock- Driven by excitement over the thought of returning to England after a long absence, he went up on deck to stare at the ocean. Being February, it was very cold out there and he ended up being chilled all the way to the tips of his fingers. He returned to the ship cabins and amused himself by putting his frozen hands on Ryuunosuke, who was stuck in his room studying.

Van Zieks- Upon hearing from Vortex that there was a Japanese exchange student coming to England to study law, he smashed a Lord's Bottle. He apparently also didn't care for the fact that that Japanese student wouldn't be alone, because he proceeded to shatter his chalice, too.

Hosonaga- in order to provide a respite from studying, he provided some hot chocolate. They enjoyed a pleasant tea time, marveling over how sweet and delicious the drink was until Sherlock piped up with some unnecessary trivia: 'Actually folks, chocolate has long been used in Europe as an aphrodisiac!' Everyone promptly spat it out."

"The long winter is nearly over and spring is on it's way, putting the DGS cast members in a celebratory mood. Who found the best way of enjoying spring?"

Ryuunosuke: the Yuumei University faculty members were holding a flower viewing event, and he joined the assistance committee. He exhausted himself keeping the blankets clean so the intense shower of flower petals wouldn't pile up too high on them, delivering sake and snacks, and mediating whatever pointless fights arose. To top it all off, for some reason his compensation was only a single piece of leftover candy. Talk about a sad result!

Susato- her father and the others living in his dormitory were  holding the flower viewing event, so she got up early to prepare the bentos. But her father carelessly forgot to tell her that they wanted tea cakes, so she had to go around the house and neighborhood collecting sweets. For some reason, she ended up being able to gather caramels, biscuits, candy sticks, basically everything but tea cakes, for the tea ceremony.

Sherlock- he disguised himself as a beat officer and infiltrated Scotland Yard to have some fun. There was a real beat officer napping on his feet in the spring sunshine, and while observing him, Sherlock ended up falling asleep too. Detective Gregson gave them a good scolding when he found them, but then Sherlock revealed his true identity with a "hey, it's me, folks!" "What the blazes do you think you're doing?!" Gregson shouted, his rage growing even more, and Sherlock ended up making a run for it.

Van Zieks- went to the vineyard to oversee the production of the contents of his Lord's Bottle. As he viewed the still unopened grape blossom buds, he thought about how they would someday grow up to fill his Lord's Bottle, and ended up going around to look at each one. But the farm hands couldn't stop wondering whether the bottle itself or its owner's heel might come flying at them and were quite uneasy.

Asougi: exhausted himself running around since early morning helping with the professors' flower viewing event. When it was over, he took a break, sharing his reward candy stick [the name of the candy literally translates to 1,000 year candy] with Ryuunosuke, who had also been helping out. 

"I wonder if the candy's effect is halved if you share it with someone."

"That still gives us 500 years."

They laughed and enjoyed looking at the flowers until dark. Then they parted ways with a handshake and a "see you later, best friend."

(This one was something about celebrating New Years. For some reason I didn't save the original question)

"Ryuunosuke ~ To celebrate New Years, he planned to pound mochi with everyone at the office. He somehow managed to get his hands on some mochi rice and he and Sherlock started pounding. Iris was having such fun watching them that she steamed a whole bunch more mochi rice so they could have some to share, and he and Sherlock spent the whole evening pounding mochi like crazy.

Asougi~ Because it's New Years, he went around to a bunch of shrines. When he drew his new year's fortune, he got a "horrible luck" result. "I'm not worried about it," he claimed, and headed up to the mountains early on New Years morning and work hard on a full training course of purification by water, meditation under a waterfall and wooden sword practice. It seems that he was working really hard to clear his mind of all earthly thoughts

Sherlock- Agreed to help Ryuunosuke pound mochi. As Ryuunosuke was flipping the mochi over, he carelessly dropped his badge into the bowl and Sherlock mixed it in without noticing, so they had to crack open both the hard and soft mochi to look for it. Fortunately they found it in the 4th one they checked, but apparently Sherlock got his hands and face covered in sticky white mochi in the process.

Susato- Wore a furisode and went with her father to do the first shrine visit of the year. The shrine was incredibly crowded and they had to wait in line for a long time, but she brought the Encyclopaedia of British Law and a copy of the Strand Magazine in her sleeves to secretly read as they waited so she actually ended up enjoying the wait.

Van Zieks- Ryuunosuke cheerfully gave him some mochi as a New Year’s (which at that time was celebrated at the same time as the Chinese New Year) gift, which he accepted confusedly, wondering “...Can the Japanese not even keep track of when the New Year is?” Because Ryuunosuke referred to it as a rice cake, he tried to eat it like a regular cake without softening it with heat first. It was so hard that he couldn’t imagine how it could possibly be food, and ended up misunderstanding the Japanese even more!

"Autumn has arrived, and the weather is starting to cool off, which means that everyone is becoming more active. Which character chose the most pleasant autumn activity to keep busy with?"

Iris was making bread but her hands are small and it’s difficult for her to knead the dough, so she asked for Ryuunosuke’s help. She wanted to make enough to hand out to Gina and all the other homeless children in the East End, so she made a massive amount and Ryuunosuke was stuck kneading this massive mountain of bread dough all day. Apparently he became such a expert at kneading that he could be a baker now.

Asougi was practicing with his sword, slicing autumn-colored ginko leaves as they fell from the tree. He cut so many leaves, though, that he ended up making a big mess on the ground, the number of fallen leaves now having increased, and it took him a long time to clean it all up.    

Sherlock: Ryuunosuke told him that he was making anpan (bread filled with sweet red bean paste, the bane of my Asian-dwelling existance) and asked Sherlock to help by being in charge of getting the poppy seeds they’d need to sprinkle on top, so Sherlock went out and gathered a ton of poppy seeds. In fact, he got so many of them that no one knew what to do with them all cuz they had a huge amount of leftovers. Sherlock said, “Well, they’re only the size of poppy seeds! Surely you two can deal with them somehow! Ahahaha!” and Iris scolded him.   

(I couldn’t capture it in English, but Sherlock’s line contained a pun, and a pretty stupid one at that, so that’s part of why he got scolded)

It’s grape harvesting season, so Van Zieks commutes to the winery regularly to direct the production of the contents for his “Lord’s Bottle.” He demands perfection in everything from the selection of the grapes to the way they’re squeezed, and the winery staff is terrified by the “grim reaper’s” gaze and heel swinging (i.e. the leg thing he does in court) so they grumble as they work. 

"Hearing that there’s a holiday in the West called Halloween, the people involved with the court in Japan decided to try it out themselves. Naturally Halloween is a big deal in England as well. So, which member of the DGS cast had the best celebration?"

Team Ryuunosuke and Asougi- Asougi got Naruhodo up on his shoulders and they draped a white sheet over themselves to make a ghost costume. They went out like that, but Naruhodo had such exaggerated reactions to the fear of the people who saw them and to bumping his head on tree branches that they ended up losing their balance and falling on top of each other?!   

Sherlock Holmes- went wearing a horse’s head mask. Iris used her skills to make it a fancy horse covered in stars, but the eye holes weren’t well made and he had to wander around blindly. Because of that he tripped hard over a pile of coal! He ended up getting so dirty that the stars on his costume were covered up!

Van Zieks- took inspiration from his nickname and dressed up as the grim reaper. He covered himself up with a skeleton mask and hood figuring no one would know it was him. Unfortunately he got angry when he saw Megundal (McGilded) pass by and started throwing bottles and glasses and ended up giving himself away.

"November has arrived, and autumn is nearing its end. However, the DGS cast is still keeping busy, even on their days off. Which character chose the most interesting way to spend their late autumn day?"

Ryuunosuke- Thinking that he’d better learn more about British culture if he was going to be a defense attorney in Britain, he went down to the East End with Gina for a little observation. However, because an Asian like him stood out so much, he got mobbed by the other children. On top of it all, his arm band got stolen from him and he had to send a replacement request to Yumei University on the other side of the ocean.

Asougi- He went for a meal at La Quantas. The customer at a nearby table got a persimmon for dessert and scarfed it down, saying “Mm! This is it! This sweetness makes it worthy of being called a treasure among foods!” Asougi tried to comment on this by saying, “The customer at that table sure is enjoying his pershim--gak!” but he may or may not have accidentally bitten his tongue in the process and been unable to finish his sentence.

Iris- She accepted Ryuunosuke’s request to learn more about British culture and prepared a bagpipe and kilt costume for him. “This outfit sure is breezy,” Ryuunosuke said shyly upon trying it on. With Ryuunosuke now dressed, he, Iris, and the others from their office headed over to Gregson’s place to get him to treat them to some fish and chips.   

Sherlock- He accepted Ryuunosuke’s request to learn more about British culture and cooked up some European style curry for dinner. Thanks to the fact that his secret ingredient was a large amount of Chinese herbal medicine style spice, it caused some strange side effects and Ryuunosuke, who’d eaten it, ended up passing out and falling over.

“Another taxing trial for Ryuunosuke has finished and now it’s December. As the year draws to a close, which character acts the strangest?”

Ryuunosuke- he was recruited to help with snow removal around Yumei University and the courthouse and he enthusiastically began his task with the help of a large shovel. He got a little carried away, though, and ended up accidentally burying his umbrella, which he’d left propped up against the side of the building, in the snow he’d just finished shoveling.  He had no choice but to share Asougi’s umbrella on the way home.

Asougi- On the way home, he nods silently to Ryuunosuke’s question of whether he’d finished his travel preparations and changes the subject: “...Come to think of it, it seems that tomorrow is celebrated in the West as God’s birthday.” “I’ve heard that they eat chicken as part of the traditional celebration. Wanna try it?” Ryuunosuke asks invitingly. Asougi is strongly opposed to that particular menu item, however, and they end up going out for their usual beef stew that night instead.           

Susato- in addition to her year-end travel preparations, she also was busy with straightening up the book room in her home. She managed to get the law books in order when she suddenly stumbled upon some old issues of Strand Magazine! She hurried through the rest of her cleaning, then began flipping through the magazines she’d found, trying to decide which to take with her on her trip. She accidentally lost herself in her reading and didn’t realize it until it was already the middle of the night.

Sherlock- he was in the middle of a long ship voyage when Christmas night came. His mind on his partner in a far-off country, he made a toast alone on deck, when suddenly the crew began shooting off fireworks with a cry of “Merry Christmas!” Sherlock had to dart back and forth across the deck to prevent the fireworks from hitting him and setting off the explosive chemicals he carries with him.

Main series edition

[thestrifeisrife]

I know what’s beneath the snow fields (old FF7 fanfic) HELP NEEDED

Edit: 

Since this post is making the rounds more lately, here’s an update. I have found more of the images since I posted this originally, but I’m still missing around 18. At the top of the post is my artwork checklist, taken right from the author’s web page. The internet archive didn’t save any of the images from the site, so all the ones I have came from elsewhere (the other two snow fields websites, the artists’ personal sites, old ElfWood accounts / DA accounts).

Green = I have this image

Red = I have this image in very low res and know a bigger version existed

Yellow = I think I have this image but I can’t confirm

Black = I don’t have this image

If you have any of the non-green images or know of the artists, please message me. I have already spoken to Leigh Bader so please do not bother them.

Context:

Alrighty, so “I know what’s beneath the snow fields” was a very long and very popular FF7 fanfic back in the early days of the fandom (we’re talking back in 1998-2004 here). In its day, it was regarded as a must-read fanfic for any FF7 fan online, which is really funny because it was an AerVin fic of all things. It was written by an author called “Zahra”, and was 100 chapters long. Unfortunately, time is a cruel mistress, and due to the story being as old as it is, much of the related contents have been buried under two decades of internet, or have been lost altogether.

I, along with a few other people, have been working to preserve as much of the content surrounding the fic as possible. The text of the story, along with many pieces of fan art, can be found here:

https://nibelheim.rusted-icon.net/snowfields.html

That site reflects more or less what we have at the moment, but I know there was much more.

WHAT I NEED:

I’m hoping by making this post I can attract the attention of some oldbies from back in the day who may have more of the images saved. I have done everything in my power to find what I could, wayback machine searches and going 12 pages deep into google search results, but I’m at my limit. I don’t know where else to look.

Does anybody out there remember this fic, and still have some of the fan art sitting in a disused CD, folder, etc.? Does anybody know where else I might look? I really need the help. I just feel like this is something worth saving.