#old facebook layout

[reliccipher]

just ended up sending in feedback about the layout to support. But I have to say it here too, this new layout is such a pain in the ass to figure out. I hated twitter's layout for the same reason, its so annoying to use and everything feels so cluttered and squished in and distracting... it's actually headache inducing.

I really wish I had the option to switch back. I wish there was an option to CHOOSE between the two layouts. I wish I had the choice to opt out of "testing" this thing.

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it" really should have been brought up before they even tried making this. It was fine before, and now the new layout is completely different and frustrating when it didn't need to be.

If I wanted Twitter's layout, I would have just fucking gone to Twitter.

[micahr238]

Ok who thought the new Tumblr UI was a good idea?? Because it sure isn't.

Everything is too crowded and for some reason they decided to put the info bar thingy on the side. It was so much more convenient and clean looking when it was on the top.

Sometimes you want less information not more.

[anotherpapercut]

my carrier forces me to get a new phone every year and I was very upset about having to redownload Tumblr bc I haven't updated my app since before Tumblr live was added and I didn't want to deal with it

turns out it's extremely easy to download old versions of apps! bullet dodged

[canadianlucifer]

god i love browser extensions

[amiritefellas]

can someone who understands the new layout tell me where i go to see my notifications please im really confused

[skyburger]

im watching hlvrai cast commentary & mr. radiotv himself called sunkist a "jpeg" and well. interally i went "Well actually 🤓 jpgs dont support transparency ☝️ so that would have to be a png" and dude it is finally setting in for me how much of a nerd i am. Who thinks that shit!!! well me i guess. but u know what i mean

[thecolombianviking]

i opened tumblr for the first time in a while on my desktop and oh god, this new layout is atrocious.

[im-a-goat-in-disguise]

hey, tumblr @staff , if you don't revert my dashboard back the way it was like two weeks ago [i.e - NOT LOOKING LIKE FUCKING TWITTER OH MY GOD. PUT THE HOME AND MESSAGES AND EVERYTHING BACK IN THE TOP RIGHT WHERE ITS SUPPOSED TO BE AND I KNOW WHERE IT IS AND I WANT TO CLICK] I'm just not going to use tumblr on the website. at all. my use of tumblr will severely decline. you were good the way you were before. at least mobile is still the same [For now...] Trying to blatantly copy the layouts and decisions of other companies and social media sites [which are burning to the ground *because of those decisions*] will not make you more popular or retentive to new users or old ones. You will only push away anybody who creates content and has used your site for a long time. I've seen some of my friends switch to tumblr recently and they are not using it because it feels like twitter, or because it feels like reddit, but because the content they want is right there, accessible, and not hard to get to. they have supreme control over what they see and no algorithm tries to lead them to other stuff. for this reason, one of my friends has literally described tumblr as "Reddit, but more wholesome" - based on the fact that reddit kept leading them towards content they hated and made them feel upset. Don't try to become reddit. Or twitter. Or facebook. You're tumblr, and that's all you need to be.

At the very VERY VERY least, let us have an option to opt-out of future UI layout changes. OR give *NEW USERS* the OPTION to customize the UI layout when they join, if they want it to resemble twitter or reddit or anything else.

[ @staff @changes @humans @engineering @brickwhartley ]

[powdermelonkeg]

Something websites (*cough* Tumblr *cough*) need to learn is that what retains an audience isn't an abundance of new bells and whistles to play with, it's a coherent experience overall.

When someone joins a website, you don't need to grab their attention and hold it. They're already testing the waters. They've agreed to sign up. You've won on that front, and they're there for something specific you already have that they're hoping works well.

What drives them away is frustration.

Frustration, frustration, frustration.

Learning curves are going to be a part of any new website experience; they're something the user comes to terms with, in their own time. But broken or bad features are going to make them jump sites.

On top of that, constantly adding new features makes them feel like all the hard work they've put in to learning what you have isn't worth it; your website looks unstable and your staff looks incompetent, because it gives the impression that you don't know what you're doing.

You are floundering. It makes your new users nervous. It makes your old users hesitate to bring anyone else on board. And why should they? Why should they put effort into it if you're going to throw that effort away next Tuesday? Why get used to a UI that you're not going to bother to keep? Why customize anything if you're going to whittle that customization away?

Between that and the broken, unattended features of this site—the tag organization failing, the inability to look up posts word-for-word, the video player either refusing to play or yanking you to the top of the dashboard, images taking forever to load, advertisements blaring at full volume when you scroll past, you have your problem.

You have the reason why your numbers are failing.

It's not that you're not interesting enough.

It's not that you're too difficult to understand.

It's that you aren't improving what you have, yet you keep adding more half-broken things and unwanted copycat features to the pile.

It's that you're losing your identity in pursuit of a hypothetical perfect customer.

It's that you are actively telling your user base that you prefer those hypothetical customers over them. And your user base, your real people who make you happen, are smart enough to know where your priorities lie.

The bulk of this post talks about Tumblr, but other sites have gone the same way. Twitter is dead and its corpse is decaying in the street. Reddit has sabotaged any trust its users had in its management. If you'd like a really old example—I used to use Fanfiction Net. It's not the most intuitive website in the world, but it was the first one I called home.

I used it to host my works. The adware now on it makes it a hassle to navigate. The bots make comment sections and private messages a dread rather than a joy. So I moved on.

I also used to use it to collaborate on stories with my now-roommate. The message limit was 300 a day. When you're writing dialogue between characters, that's nothing.

So I moved on. We started messaging on Facebook. It was better, it didn't have a limit. But then I learned Discord existed, and I could edit messages, make dedicated channels, etc. So I moved on from Facebook to Discord. And Discord had a steep learning curve, especially if you're trying to make your own server rather than contribute to one. But, most importantly, the payoff was worth it.

If Discord changed its layout every other month while I was learning it, and broke how its reactions worked, and kept shifting what it meant to create a channel? If it opted me into servers I didn't sign up for, in hopes of engagement? If its text never formatted correctly, or its search function only went back a day or two?

I would have gone right back to Facebook. Even if it's a more basic experience, basic is always preferable to unstable.

Figure out what you want, websites.

Slow growth, or a gamble?

You're paying for your magic slot machine in users.

[piosplayhouse]

Niche fandom happenings to take your mind after whatever stuffs happening in your fandom:

So as you can probably deduce, the model horse collecting hobby is made up mostly of older people. The hobby has been well established since the dawn of the Internet and I've talked a few times about how it's difficult to find some older resources about it/its history because of how every other link you click on which used to lead to a hobbyist artist's angelfire blog now is just a dead link or worse, bought out by some ad company sitting on the URL. Up until recently, a huge portion of hobby talk still relied on now-defunct Yahoo groups; now most have moved to either forums like Model Horse Blab or private Facebook groups. Individually most of these are pretty decentralized, but since model collecting by nature is a hobby that requires a significant amount of financial interaction (buying, trading, selling, commissioning, etc.), there has to be some kind of centralized marketplace for people to pitch their goods to as many corners of the hobby as possible.

Enter Model Horse Sales Pages (MH$P), a, well, site where people can post sales pages for model horses and accessories. It's an old fashioned sales pages site from the 2000s with a somewhat shitty layout but unparalleled detailed search functions-- to order things from a seller, you'd have to personally email them to negotiate for their listing. Though this seems somewhat inconvenient to our modern senses used to one click payments and speedy delivery, MH$P is undoubtedly a pillar of the model horse community.

... So that's why people are scrambling as it's allegedly been hacked and taken down for the foreseeable future. Worrying about personal information aside, now fans are left to wonder: what's the alternative? Well, the first one is of course eBay, which many hobbyists already use. However, eBay is obviously less catered to model horse hobbyists and is therefore a bit harder to search if you're deep in the hobby and can't be assed to look through 4000 "plastic horse" titled listings to find the 2008 SR glossy xX Devilish Girlfriend++ Thoroughbred you want. MH$P occupied a specific niche for long time fans looking for grails.

So what are our alternatives for people in the hobby looking to buy from others in the hobby? Well, there's a few decentralized official dealers like Chelsea's Model Horses or Triple Mountain who you can consign older models to, but going through a middleman takes time and you have much less freedom in your personal listings. Alternatively, you could go grassroots and post listings in Facebook groups and on forums, but those have reaches limited to the members of those specific, often small, groups, and it can be hard to move stock that way. So now people are looking for a backup marketplace platform, both for the current situation and longtime health of the hobby. But imagine my surprise when I went on Model Horse Blab and saw people suggesting an alternative site kickstarted by

STAR STABLE ONLINE YOUTUBER DENIS/DENISE WISESTORM. Denis has been a controversial figure in the SSO fandom (though there's pretty much no uncontroversial ssotubers especially on ssoblr because clickbaiting and weird reactionary takes are like the bread and butter of that side of the fandom) who's been called out for having some alt-right homophobic views in the past, as well as for his abject and unproductive negativity towards improvements made on the game. He's a lps customizer and pretty prolific breyer collector, though, so his drive to create a model trading and selling platform makes sense at least. But still! Why him!!!!!!

[blueiscoool]

A 2,600-Year-Old Unopened Etruscan Tomb Discovered in Italy

Community leaders and archeologists in central Italy recently gathered in the municipality of Montalto di Castro for the opening of a tomb that dates back more than 2 1/2 millennia, the municipality announced in a social media post last week.

"Today … we witnessed the opening of an ancient Etruscan tomb buried at the Osteria Necropolis in Vulci," the municipality of Montalto di Castro, which sits along the Mediterranean Sea about 100 miles northwest of Rome, wrote Oct. 27 on Facebook, calling the grand unveiling "a day of culture and history" in a translated statement.

Historians say the Etruscans built their civilization on a portion of the land that is now modern-day Italy, beginning as early as 900 B.C., and operated as a network of city-states not completely unlike the Roman Republic that came after it. The Etruscans dominated Italy until falling, as a result of the Roman-Etruscan wars, to the then-expanding Roman empire around the 4th century B.C.

Vulci, an archaeological site in the northern Lazio region not far from Montalto di Castro, was once a rich Etruscan city. Its ruins have become a popular spot for tourist visits and as well as a place of interest for archaeological excavations.

The tomb discovered there earlier this year was found remarkably intact when it was officially opened at the end of October, for the first time in about 2,600 years, according to the Italian online magazine Finestre sull'Arte, which focuses on ancient and contemporary art. It was opened and explored following the opening of a similar tomb in the area this past April, the magazine reported. Montalto di Castro Mayor Emanuela Socciarelli attended the opening along with Simona Baldassarre, the councilor of culture for the Lazio region, Simona Carosi, the manager of the Superintendency of Archaeology for the province of Viterbo and southern Etruria, and Carlos Casi, the director of the Vulci Foundation, which helped lead the excavation alongside archeologists.

Archaeologists found a collection of long-lost treasures inside the ancient tomb, including a collection of pottery and amphorae, which are tall jars with two handles and a narrow neck typically associated with ancient Greek or Roman cultures. The jars contained wine from Greece, likely from the island of Chios, Finestre sull'Arte reported. It could be a relic of the wine trade happening at that time in history.

Utensils, cups, iron objects, and a variety of ceramics and decorative accessories were also found inside the tomb in perfect condition, as was a tablecloth that may have been used for a funerary ritual offering called "the last meal" or "meal of the dead." A bronze cauldron was also found.

The stockpile of personal belongings found inside the tomb suggests the family for whom it was constructed was probably quite wealthy in their day.

The complex structure and layout of the burial site is also important to archeologists and historians, Casi told the Italian news outlet Il Messaggero, noting that the tomb "appears to be characterized by a partition saved in the rock which creates a passage arch between the dromos, i.e. the short corridor with steps, and the vestibule, from which the two rooms were accessed, the front one and the one on the left: the usual one on the right is missing, evidently because the space had already been occupied by other tombs."

By EMILY MAE CZACHOR.

[preciadosbass]

5/8/24

woke up at 9:30. when i wake up naturally early i always say good morning to boris so i did that and then decided that i’m not exhausted to the point i should go back to sleep. i just doomscrolled the entire morning and saved a few max green edits along the way. i looked through a few pin sharing urbex groups on facebook and saved a couple videos to my watch later on youtube. its a pain there’s not actually much around where i live, like, that’s why i cant go out on my own. as much as woods are beautiful and nice to be around/at there’s not any shops or town in walking distance.

the next time my family go on a road trip hopefully i’ll be able to explore a few places then. there was an abandoned housing estate about 40 minutes from where i live but apparently it’s being demolished soon, plus i’m not allowed to go there anymore. as for any of the other stuff close-ish, it’s not really anything you can explore. however, i did find an abandoned plane graveyard online and it turned out it was decently close by to me. when i went they didn’t even let me take photos but they did email saying someone could tour me and show me the planes if i arrange a date which is exciting. although i’ll most likely have to wait until october so the plants around it die down.

when it got to about 10/11am my dad came down so i said goodmorning to him and had breakfast as he made me it and i’d feel bad not to. luckily i’ve found breakfast option which has a lot less cals than that bagel so i feel a little, tiny bit more relaxed about having food in the mornings. at 1 i went outside with boris and cuddled him on the driveway. he seems a lot more energetic today. i was sitting on the sleepers across from the front door with my feet outstretched and he layed down leaning against my leg/shoes it was so cute i just had to record it. while i was outside i also fixed the lighting of a picture of jaime and changed my layout and things on all my socials.

i also followed lots of cool people in hopes of become their mutual or something. i stayed out there until 2:20. when i got back inside asked my mum about that list of things on depop that i want to buy and she sent offers on all of the uk items for me. with the rest, i just had to wait until people got back to me about shipping. since yesterday i added one more item to my wishlist, a frank iero tattoo poster from an old magazine, i sent an order regarding this aswell. my mum was getting frustrated and didn’t really understand why i wanted the stuff that i did. but she did see my point about buying the funko pops second hand from depop rather than the official website.

i think i had a nap and woke up at approximately 4/half five but i’m not too sure about times. i saw an informative video about taxidermy and how to tell if things are ethical or not and remembered i was texted a mutual and they kept asking for advice regarding stuff like that, so i sent it to them. at around 5 my hairdresser came round so i got dressed for once [i hate departing from my onesie don’t judge me 🤫] and had my ends touched up. having my hair cut is always kind of awkward for me because i have to stop myself from asking to get it cut short. my parents are fine with it, im just terrible with change. but i have been wanting it short for 4+ years now. its just scary that once it’s done, if i don’t like it, there’s pretty much nothing anyone can do. i’m fine with dye.

before she was about to leave i found out that she’s going to be looking after boris when me and my family go to butlins. she’s really nice and talked me through everything/asked me to text her if i have anything particular i want her to do but i’m scared about leaving him. i think i have a few weeks until we go. i feel guilty saying this, but i am excited, i think. i haven’t been away with my whole family before. that dosent take away the worry though. once my parents had payed and she’d driven off i went outside with boris again.

i was out there up until 7:20 when i went back into my room and put on coraline. i finally found the dvd after looking everytime i watch something for weeks. i’ve watched it so many times i know everything that happens so while i was listening to it i wrote this before i’d forget everything about my day. my phone was blowing up at the same time because some rando keeps submitting anonymous messages harassing me over making music my personality loll — anyways, i watched up until the scene where the other mother gives coraline the box with the buttons in it until i went on a walk with my mum.

we left at almost exactly 9 and went to that same field i’ve spoken about before where you can see london in the distance. the person who owns it must’ve just mowed everywhere so we were just walking on really thick piles of dead grass so it was 10x more tiring. it left like i was walking through snow. obviously it was even more tricky because we walked down and then up the really steep hills. we got home at 10ish and was out for at least 40 or 50 minutes.

when we got back my mum handed me an envelope. i immediately knew what it was; since i’ve been young [7] i’ve had this youth thingy send me and my sister arts and crafts stuff related to the stuff going on at the time. i took it into my room i continued listening to coraline while i made a collage out of the zoos map from yesterday. i opened the envelope once id glued in half of the stuff i wanted to and used this wooden flower from it. i finished it at 11, and i cant tell if i despise it with every fibre of my being or if it’s tolerable. ive never made a collage with so much untouched and plain space [photo at the end]

coraline conveniently finished when i’d completed the collage so i went out to the kitchen to see boris. my mum started arguing with me about how the questions don’t affect me at all and they only have a negative affect on her and my dad when i asked when i should come up. i’m gunna admit, this kinda hit really hard because nobody knows how much it truly affects me and i’m too far gone to even be able to speak about it/write about it. because if i do then it’ll make something bad happen. but i do appreciate that it’s really draining for them too. i just cant stop.

boris went into the living room so i sat out there while finishing the rest of that mcr 2011 concert and updated this at 12 while listening to fall out boy’s folie á duex. once i’d written what i needed to i rewatched a few videos i took at my pierce the veil concert back in april. i’m still not over seeing jaime. i went up to my parents at 12:50 because thats when my mum said they’re ready for me to ask questions about boris. it took about an hour because it was on and off and i kept on getting sidetracked. afterwards i went downstairs, had some breadsticks [and found this huge ass spider living above our food cupboard], did my teeth, and said goodnight to boris.

i cant recall how long i was speaking to him, but i finished at 2:50. i told him about my day and what’s going to be happening tomorrow so he knows i might not be able to be with him as much as id want to. [my prevision is coming round tomorrow]. i got into bed directly after id finished speaking with boris, and listened to three days grace + the used while wrapping up this entry. went to sleep at 3. i usually get to sleep the second my head touches my pillow but it took me a few minutes more today because all i could focus on was the sound of electricity and my radiator. it isn’t even that whirring sound you’d hear at your grandparents when you sleep over, it’s high pitched and inconsistent and weird. also my stick insects were being noisy.

* ughh i hate this page sm it’s probably my least fav one i’ll ever do here’s a picture of boris to make up for it

have a good day/night O_o

[hauntedestheart]

Ever Since The Accident (Male Possession)

Something's been... off, about my roommate Dermont lately.

I met Dermont on a housing search Facebook group (this city is expensive) and we've been living together for three years now; I wouldn't exactly call him a friend but we get along well and I like to think I know him well enough. So I think I'm qualified to say that something is definitely up.

Everything started after his near-death experience– the smoothie place he went to after work mixed up his drink with someone else's and he had an allergic reaction to strawberries that made his throat swell up and... well, I guess "near death" isn't really the right word to use considering he did technically die for a minute, but the doctors were able to resuscitate him before any permanent brain damage was done. A miracle, they called it. Welcome back to the land of the living.

They took him for examination: he'd banged his head on the way down and was suffering from some minor memory loss (apparently when he woke up he wasn't even able to remember his own name) but other than that he was in perfect health, and was free to go. I'm his emergency contact so when I picked him up from the hospital I spoke to the doctors and they asked me to keep an eye on him to make sure that his condition didn't worsen. Then I took him home.

The first day was the weirdest.

I could already tell something was off during the car ride back because he seemed... jittery? Nervous, almost, but in an excited way. He was doing this weird thing with hands where he kept staring at them and flexing his fingers, then he started patting himself all over. He was so distracted he didn't even realize it when the car pulled into the complex– I had to call his name like five times before he realized I was talking to him.

Apparently one of the things Dermont had forgotten was the layout of the house so I had to give him a tour– I'd never thought of our place as particularly fancy but he seemed amazed by it. I left him in the bathroom to take a shower and went to my room; thirty minutes later the shower was still running.

At first I was like, okay, the guy probably just wants to get clean after the hospital, I get it, but after forty five minutes I started to get concerned (he had just suffered a head injury after all) and I needed to use the bathroom too, so I went to check on him. As soon as I approached the door I heard the grunting- these were deep, aggressive groans, it sounded like he was struggling with something.

I panicked. The locks on in our apartment are shit so I jimmied the door open and immediately got an eyeful of him standing in front of the mirror, completely naked, pumping his cock like a horny virgin. If the mess already coating the sink was any indication, he hadn't exactly been struggling in there.

Needless to say this was MASSIVELY embarrassing for both of us. He apologized later, saying he "couldn't help himself" because it had been "so long" and I was like dude you were in the hospital for like a day, stop being so dramatic.

And since then things have just been getting weirder and weirder.

For one thing, he's been a lot more positive. He wasn't exactly gloomy before but he was kinda gruff and kept to himself; now he's all smiles. It's almost sweet in a way how excited he gets about the smallest things: he savors every meal, he loves to run, he laughs louder than ever. And he's more helpful too– any time he sees someone with something heavy he offers to lift it for them. I think he's proud of how strong he is.

I asked him about it once and he told me he's just happy to be alive, which I guess makes sense considering the situation, but doesn't explain the other stuff.

He dresses like an old man now, not sure where that came from because that had never been his style before. He's stopped playing video games but has started watching boring sitcoms from the '80s. I know he never learned how to drive but he's asked to borrow my car a few times. I had to remind him how to use an iPhone. Stuff like that.

I asked the doctors and they said that some changes in behavior are normal after a head injury, but some of this cannot be normal!

He spends a lot of time looking into mirrors now– basically any time he spots himself in a reflective surface he has to take a second to stare at himself. You'd think the guy had never seen his own face before!

I've noticed a pattern with his reaction: first he'll do a double take, then he'll touch his face, then he'll smile. And then he'll get distracted preening, turning his face left to right to study it from all angles, and he'll run his hands through his hair. He really loves to fluff his hair.

I know he's handsome but it just seems a little vain to me– and this obsession with his looks doesn't stop with his face.

Look, I won't beat around the bush, Dermont is ripped. He works out. BUT was always casual about it, and now suddenly he's obsessed with his muscles! I've literally seen him get distracted by them– he'll move his arm a certain way and then suddenly he'll stop, stare at his arm, and then start flexing. Sometimes he just randomly lifts his shirt up so he can look at his abs, and he's practically drooling while he does it.

There have even been a few times where I've had to kick him out of the bathroom because he was too absorbed in examining himself in the mirror, poking and prodding at all of his muscles. Groping himself really. I mean, maybe I'd do the same if I had a body like that, but surely he should be used to it by now?

In general he's been showing off a lot more. He struts around the apartment without a shirt, something he never used to do, and he doesn't even close the curtains! In fact, he'll actually walk right up to them and stare out at the city– I think he wants to be seen. We're on the third floor so anyone looking up will spot him in his underwear... or less, as has happened on a few occasions.

I actually had to put my foot down on this one because I didn't want to get kicked out for public indecency– I called a roommate meeting told him if he wanted to show off that badly he could make an OnlyFans. He somehow didn't know what that was so I (for some reason) tried to explain it to him and long story short, now he makes an extra $800 a month. But he pays the utilities, so I'm certainly not complaining!

But– and it's a big but –as you've probably noticed, he's most obsessed with his ass. Always with the ass with this guy now, it's absurd. I've never seen a guy play with his own ass this much, if you leave him alone for even a second his hands find their way to his butt and suddenly he's squeezing it. Even in public!

He's always arching his back and peeking at it over his shoulder, wiggling it around, smacking it... and there's always this dreamy look on his face, like he can't quite believe this thing is really attached to him. I just roll my eyes– we get it dude, it's nice.

And sometimes I'll catch him with his hands down the front of his pants too, smiling like he won the lottery. That's weird, right?

It seems like, well... it seems like he's kinda into himself? Like he'd absolutely fuck himself, which doesn't make any sense but that's the only way I can describe what I've been seeing.

But the most weirdest thing? He's gay now.

Dermont had a girlfriend when he moved in but they broke up a year ago and based off of a few drunken late night sob sessions I don't think he ever really got over her. Well he's definitely over her now because ever since the accident he's been bringing a parade of guys to the apartment and screwing their brains out. Every morning there's a different dude stumbling out of his bedroom– he must have fucked half the guys on our block, and he's showing no signs of stopping.

I'm happy for him, love who you love, but it did kinda come out of nowhere. He'd never mentioned that he was into guys before but maybe after the breakup he wanted to experiment with new things... such as being the village bike.

Maybe he's on to something– after all, he's had way more luck with guys than he ever did with girls. All he has to do is shake that magic ass of his and they come running.

I did get tired of the noise after a while so I tried to casually work it into the conversation that maybe he should slow down his apparent quest for a thousand dicks, but he just laughed and said he "didn't want to waste any time this time around." Whatever that means.

I know a brush with death is supposed to make you reconsider your mortality but it seems like he's a completely different person now.

But at least he's happy.

Gif sources: (1) (2)

[night-at-the-musian]

NatM Search End-of-Year Update

The Search site has new HTML, completely hand-coded by yours truly. Should be a lot easier to navigate on mobile! Also has a selection list for different fonts, in case you want to read it in Tahoma or Times New Roman!

We've come a long way in the six months since the Search site began on June 1, 2023. Passing through three different layout overhauls, expanding to around forty pages, and amassing nearly 40,000 visits. It’s been a hell of a journey!

Let’s recap what we’ve found in these past six months:

The original script for NatM (2006), and archived the original script for NatM:BotS (2009).

The lost Nick’s Tales novel, “Night of the Giants”.

The first fanfic ever posted for this fandom, in January 2007.

Tons of promotional material, ranging from Facebook posts to ads that remain on old DVDs.

Concept art for NatM:KRA by over fifteen artists.

Costume work and prop design by Marlene Stewart and Charmaine Husum, respectively.

Proof of old Flash games and mobile apps that have been lost to time.

Information about the upcoming musical.

Information about the theme park ride, down to its blueprints and manufacturers.

And that’s just in the six months the site has existed! Before then, it was just a page on my blog that listed books and trivia. Oh, how things change!

Thank you to everyone that’s contributed, but in particular to @pineapple-coffee for her nearly countless contributions, and @rivstyx for xir help finding books and transcribing the NatM original script.

Happy holidays, and here’s to more finds in 2024!

[hometoursandotherstuff]

I posted this abandoned 1928 Fairy Tale Tudor in Paragould, Arkansas a couple of years ago, and it finally sold. The couple that bought it, (for only about $55K, I think), just started working on it, and made it it’s own Facebook page. They’ve named it The Schrifstellerhaus.

They started by tearing down the old rotted wood and replacing it, then pouring a patio. 

Next, they had to redo the floors and stain the staircase. 

Priscilla, the new owner, researched the original layout of the main room and placed her furniture to try to duplicate it, but says the pictures don’t do it justice. 

She promised more pics soon, but it’s been months. I guess it takes a long time, not to mention money, to fix an old house up. So, we’ll revisit the way it looked when they purchased it. Apparently, the previous owners blocked the fireplace for a heat stove.

The dining room is at the back of the house.

I wonder if they’ll save that picture. I would. 

There’s a 70s era powder room. 

The previous owners painted the original knotty pine cabinets a bright red and Priscilla was researching old stoves and repros- they’re very pricey, and the kitchen will need lots of work.

Look at the cubby in one of the bds. 

Looks like the original hardware on the door- they did the blue trim in this room very sloppily. Now, that has to be dealt with.

Painted over the wood in here.

I wonder if they’ll strip the doors. 

This must be the main bd. b/c it has this lovely wainscoting.

Here’s a closet going in. 

The bath is in pretty bad shape.

Priscilla said that the basement was the former owner’s hangout space. It sure has a wonderful fireplace, but it needs so much work. Looks like water’s coming in the foundation, too.

But, the best part of the house is this secret tunnel. Priscilla has a video of it on FB.

The tunnel leads to the carriage house. Isn’t it beautiful? 

And, look at how nice the apt. in the carriage house is.

Adorable kitchen- love the sink.

The carriage house has 2 bds. 

Both baths are horrors. It’s a great house, but soooo much work. I’m glad that people who love it and are preserving it, bought it.

https://www.facebook.com/theschriftstellerhaus/    and   https://houseandhistory.com/abandoned-house-in-arkansas-own-secret-tunnel/

[nekrotiize]

In lieu of the Organization for Transformative Works (OTW), most well known for their fiction hosting website Archive of Our Own (AO3), formally warning a volunteer for expressing Pro-Palestine beliefs, and censoring Pro-Palestine adjacent content and phrases despite advertising themselves as an Anti-Censorship, No Holds Barred archival website, and various other companies and organizations committing to the same level of censorship or having staff members outright expressing Zionist beliefs, I’ve been thinking a lot about the centralization of the Internet. I do think AO3 is a good springboard for this conversation, since it’s the most familiar platform for most people on this accursed hellsite.

Not too many years ago, the Internet was very much so decentralized- everything was scattered across a million different smaller sites and forums, and while it could be a hassle to navigate, it did at least give you plenty of options if the site you were currently using had a sudden change, or the staff members began expressing opinions you did not believe in. If the site you were on was revealed to be ran by what you deemed as “unsavories,” or the overall vibe in the community or the site layout changed in a way that you didn’t like, you could simply move to another one that suited your needs more. Different websites for different niches, and different websites within those niches for different codes of honor. Tough to keep up with, sure, but again, it gave you a lot of options.

Things are widely centralized now, meaning most of everything is kept on only a handful of sites- Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit are the main sites online. Most reselling is done on eBay, most indie online stores hosted on Etsy, most fanfiction hosted on AO3, most videos hosted on YouTube. Instagram and TikTok are downloaded on an uncountable number of phones, and I’d be remiss to not mention them as mobile platform giants. There are other options- we’re on one of them- but most online activity is focused on those sites, to the point where if you need to change to a different one, you’re kind of out of luck. Most other sites don’t have nearly as much traffic, most people aren’t willing to follow you to what they will likely read as either archaic or a startup bound to flop. It’s a big deal. You lose your following, and you lose your revenue.

If you want to move to another one of the bigger websites, you’re simply forced to adapt to the fact that posting on all of these sites are such vastly different beasts with such vastly different cultures and algorithms that it’d be ridiculous to compare them, and you’re forced to adapt to the fact that since all of these main sites are ran by billionaire assholes, you really aren’t improving much by going from one to the other.

The options are minimal, and that’s shit. None of this is helped by how fast-paced the Internet is these days- art isn’t savored, it’s consumed within 5 seconds and then forgotten. It’s difficult to build loyal followings when most algorithms rely on constant posting. Some artists work themselves into the ground for that sweet, algorithm-friendly daily upload.

The only thing one can do about the dismal nature of the centralized Internet is get more vocal about supporting smaller sites… And then actually use them regularly. It hurts no one, and helps everyone, in the long run.

We need niche websites back. We need forums.

Bring back the old internet.