japanne

[japanne]

its official: tumblr is selling our data to Midjourney

we'd been hearing rumors about this for a bit but now its open and out there. some details from this article

it goes without saying, but if @staff goes through with this its going to be an utter shitshow and im all but certain the website will not survive it.

[japanne]

Yall i just got an email from tumblr saying I interacted with accounts made by the IRA …… is this even real????

The internet is wild

[japanne]

Snow Forest by Roberto Gatto

[japanne]

Attn: Lesbian Knight Contingent

I just saw this music video which I think was made for the hot girl lesbian knight fans on tumblr

#lesbian #knight #sapphic #Youtube

[japanne]

[japanne]

(source)

Unsplash -  photography, illustration, & art

Pixabay - same as unsplash

Pexels - stock photos and videos

Getty Images - photography & illustration

Veceezy - vectors and clipart

Gumroad - photoshop brushes (and more)

StockSnap.io - stock photos

Canva - needs login but has lots of templates

Library of Congress - historical posters and photos

NASA - you guessed it

Creative Commons - all kinds of stuff, homie

Even Adobe has some free images

There are so many ways to make moodboards, bookcovers, and icons without plagiarizing! As artists, authors, and other creatives, we need to be especially careful not to use someone else’s work and pass it off as our own. 

Please add on if you know any more resources for free images <3

[japanne]

write your url by only using emojis

🍅✨✨

#🗾👩

[japanne]

A bill to restrict HRT to age 21+ has been proposed in Ohio.

They are currently taking comments on the issue via the MHA website linked above. The commentary phase ends January 19th at 5pm.

Please take this opportunity to make your voice heard while the window is open.

[japanne]

[japanne]

(Long post, sorry y'all)

A little more than two years ago now, my grandmother passed away. She and my grandpa had moved down to my home town a few years before so we could take care of them. I brought them groceries once a week, helped them write checks, fixed tvs, and found lost things. I was really close with my grandma.

In addition to her hilarious personality and dry wit, one of my favorite things about her was that she was a painter and a crafter like me! She used to crochet, and I took her to the craft store a couple of times so she could get more yarn and books on crochet. But her arthritis and the shaking in her hands kept getting worse, so she eventually had to stop.

She kept her most recent project, a granny square blanket, safely packed away in a plastic bin. She told all of us she was going to finish it one day.

Her hands never got better, and when she got sick, and we found out it was cancer, she rapidly deteriorated.

After she passed, I went to work helping my mom clean out my grandparents apartment so we could move my grandpa in with her. In our frantic cleaning, I found that bin again:

DOZENS of granny squares, dozens of half used skeins. I asked my mom what she wanted me to do with it, and she said she didn't care. I set it aside and later took it home.

Maybe a month later, that tumblr post about the Loose Ends Project was going around. It felt like a sign--I was never going to learn to crochet in order to finish my grandmother's blanket. But they might be able to help!

So I filled out the interest form. They got back to me SUPER quick. And maybe 2 weeks later, I was paired with volunteer in my state (only 2 hours away!) and the box of yarn, granny squares, and my grandmother's crochet hook were in the mail. That was at the end of January this year.

Over the next couple of months, my "finisher" emailed me regular updates on her progress, and asked me questions on my preferences for how she constructed the final blanket.

At the end of August, the blanket was done!

I had always intended the blanket to be a gift for my mother. So I cleaned it up, put it in the only bag I had big enough to fit it, and drove to my mom's. I gave the blanket to her and she was gobsmacked. I explained to her all about Loose Ends, and how someone volunteered to finish the piece for us. She was speechless. (I was quite pleased with this, because I am not the best at giving gifts, so this was a pretty exciting reaction!)

She said that it was the most thoughtful gift she had ever been given. She said "your grandma would love this". To which I replied, "yeah, I know she really wanted to finish it a couple of years ago". But that was when my mom dropped the bomb of a century on me--she told me that my grandma had started making those granny squares OVER 30 YEARS AGO. She had started the blanket when my grandpa was staying in the hospital, but that was back when my mom was younger than I am now! My grandma had packed them all away, planning on finishing it, when my grandpa was sent home from the hospital. Then it went from house to house, from condo in Chicago to their apartment in my hometown. All that time and my grandma had wanted to finish it, but couldn't. First because she was busy, then because she forgot how to do it, then because of her arthritis, and then because of the cancer. My mom said she had given up on expecting my grandma to finish it. 

She said I brought a piece of her childhood with her mom out of the past.

And really, all of this is to say, if you have seen or heard about the Loose Ends Project and have an uncompleted project or piece from a loved one who has passed away--these are your people. They were so kind and treated my project with such care. That box probably would have been found by my own grandkids one day if I hadn't heard about Loose Ends.

Five stars, absolutely worth it!

(From what I understand, you can sign up to volunteer too! If you have time to share, it might be worth checking out!)

[japanne]

[japanne]

Don't stop talking about them. We need to be their voice.

Inspired by the amazing poem by dana

[japanne]

Recently I’ve been getting a ton of emails of people asking me why A Little Rain Oracle doesn’t come with a guidebook or that they’ve “lost” their guidebook ( without proof of purchase)

Initially when these “lost guidebook “ email started to come in I was silly enough to not ask for proof of purchase and gave away my own copies of the guidebook only charging the cost of shipping. However as these emails started to accumulate, I realized something was wrong and realized that pirated copies of A Little Rain Oracle was being sold online with no guidebook, hence the emails.

If you see any decks on @Wish @temu @aliexpress it’s 100% fake. Even shops like @etsy @ebay @amazon are not free from counterfeit products either as I have often seen counterfeits of Oriens Animal Tarot or A Little Rain Oracle sold there.

Despite my best efforts, these pirated decks always reappear on market a few weeks/months after I report them. They know full well that small indie creators aren’t able to constantly report them as running a solo business already takes up most of their time.

If you’ve ever unknowingly purchased a pirated deck of mine or another creator, please do not feel too guilty over something you were tricked into. Instead please help to share this post or just help to spread awareness about the rampant piracy issues when you can.

As a small artist it’s really disheartening to see all these emails asking for the guidebook all while knowing that less than 3 people purchased the deck in the last few months. If you’ve ever been interested in getting A Little Rain Oracle or Pre-Order anything from Tales and Oracle of Eleven please checkout my website as I’m running a sale right now for my birthday month.

If you’ve read this far, thank you for reading all this. To other deck creators, has your deck been stolen? Have you received emails similar to mine? Do you know how to file take down reports? ( If not email me and I’ll send you info!) How do you deal/cope with it?

[japanne]

I told one of my coworkers I had a game night once. And she looked at me, "Dungeons and Dragons?"

I was dumbfounded. I'd never mentioned playing D&D before. My group was pretty silent on it.

"How did you know?"

She shrugged, "You just look like someone who plays dungeons and dragons."

Insult or compliment???

a coworker i don’t talk to much looked me dead in the eye at a christmas party today and said I ‘seem like someone who likes doctor who.’ i have never once mentioned doctor who at work and haven’t watched an episode of the show in like six years. how did he know.

[japanne]

One of my most consistent and pleasurable dreams is that time has ceased to exist so while I'm asleep I can spend as long as I want doing whatever I want.

I think it mostly developed as a way to not feel guilt over taking naps when I could be doing something more productive.

it's not that I need a quiet day or a day off exactly; it's that I need a pocket of time that exists entirely outside of linear time as we know it that would allow me to get things done without time passing in the real world, and frankly, I don't think that's too much to ask.

[japanne]

This is for explicitly DM EXTRAS! Things people dont necessarily expect from a DM but that are a fun perk when the DM does them!

This does not include things like "good story," "world building," or "session 0" as these are typically somewhat expected things, not "extras."

[japanne]

A Letter from Julia Baritz

To the Pillowfort Community, 

Transparency from myself and my Staff is part of the foundation that makes Pillowfort so great. The news I am about to share is not easy. But it is important for you, our community, to know what is going on.

Pillowfort has always relied on the generosity of our users. We are proud to be user funded. Over the years we have been able to operate using the funds from our 2018 Kickstarter campaign, which raised over $60,000, in addition to ongoing payments and donations from you.  I am extremely grateful for the support we continue to receive. 

However, despite cost-cutting efforts, we have struggled to break even in revenue since 2021. The funds from the 2018 Kickstarter have been depleted to cover operating costs and to ensure our Staff receives the compensation they deserve.  I will never ask my Staff to work without being compensated.  

We are now at a point where Pillowfort is in danger of exhausting all current finances in the next six months if we continue the current funding/spending trajectory. This is not hyperbole. This is the unfortunate reality of what the platform is facing. If we do not change course now I will have to end contracts with our entire team soon and, eventually, Pillowfort would no longer be able to operate. 

For the past two years I have not compensated myself for my work on Pillowfort. My commitment to Pillowfort is not for personal gain. I was fortunate enough in my privilege to have adequate savings to cover my own personal expenses for a while. I sacrificed what would have been my own compensation in order to ensure my third-party contractors (Staff) could be paid. 

I take full responsibility for the current state of Pillowfort. It has been challenging being a first-time business owner in such turbulent times. Looking back now there are ways I would have managed things differently with the knowledge I have now.  If we can recover from this, I will continue applying what I have learned these last several years to make sure we do not reach this point again. 

I knew Pillowfort was going to be a difficult enterprise due to the very things that I believe make us great: we don’t have shareholders or venture-capital investments (which often leads to shifts away from a company’s primary mission as they are directed to achieve revenue and profit growth to benefit investors); we don’t compromise your privacy by selling user data to third parties; and we don’t host third-party ads that would disrupt your experience. We also pay much higher payment processing fees because we host adult content. Compared to other social media sites that have millions of dollars in corporate investments backing them, things are much harder for us. 

In spite of every hurdle we face,  I truly believe  Pillowfort deserves to exist. I believe in Pillowfort’s mission and I am determined for this platform to succeed. I am not going to abandon this platform until every possible option is exhausted. That is why I have decided it will be necessary to initiate another, more ambitious fundraiser. Our goal will be to raise $25,000 by December 31, 2023. 

This amount is based on the following: We are at risk of the IRS reclassifying Pillowfort as a hobby instead of a business because Pillowfort has not been profitable for several years. If we are reclassified as a hobby this would prohibit us from deducting expenses which will make our financial situation more dire.  The $25,000 amount will make up for our existing year-to-date losses as well as cover our projected expenses (Staff Compensation & Operating costs) for the remainder of the year. 

Raising this amount will also buy our staff the time needed to complete the following projects geared toward increased long-term revenue: 

Finish Progressive Web App development to allow Pillowfort to reach a much broader audience on mobile platforms.

Add the ability for users to pay to promote their posts.

Add the ability for users to gift Pillowfort Premium to other users. 

Once these features are in place, Pillowfort will be in a better position to bring in reliable revenue than we have been recently and will hopefully be on the road to continued self-sustainability.

If you appreciate that Pillowfort is beholden to its users instead of shareholders– if you believe in Pillowfort’s core principles of user privacy control and freedom of expression and creativity–  then I ask you to consider supporting this fundraising effort.

We will post more information soon regarding rewards for reaching our goal (yes, we will be offering a profile badge to donors, and more!), so stay tuned for details. This time around we are also planning to have rewards geared toward users who help spread the word about us too. We understand that not everyone can support us financially right now.

If you can’t donate to the fundraiser there are still many ways to help us. Here are some examples: 

Talk about us to your friends and family.

Write about or make a video about us. (Psst: Use #Pillowfort on other platforms like X, Tiktok, Instagram, Facebook, Tumblr, and Bluesky so we can find your posts!) 

Invite your friends, family, and colleagues to Pillowfort using your Invitation Keys to allow them to join immediately. 

I am forever grateful for your past and continued support. Thank you for taking time out of your day to read this message. Let’s work together to make Pillowfort a robust site for years to come.

Best Wishes, 

Julia Baritz Founder & Lead Architect