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robbybirdy · 1 year

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66. Baking therapy on a budget Ft. Genshin Characters: Tighnari

Hello, every birdy. Today we are going to be making a recipe that I have always loved. And honestly, it just confirms the fact that my tastebuds are childish, haha. Even after saying that, these cookies are a bit sweet for my liking. If I make them again I am just going to make my normal peanut butter cookies. We are going to be making Peanut Butter Blossoms.

So… we are going to be talking about the Character known as Tignarhi. (tig-nar-e). He is one of the first characters the traveler (main character) meets when entering Sumeru. He is a Forest Watcher and he is a scholar. His favorite food is one of my least favorite food, mushrooms. They just have a weird mouth feel for me and just don’t taste good.

When I saw that his favorite food was mushrooms, I was a little apprehensive and unsure about what I should make. And then my oldest brother brought home a huge bag of Hershey kisses. And I knew that I would make Peanut Butter Blossoms.

The recipe and the measurements will be in the description down below. Feel free to check it out for yourself.

You will want to preheat your oven to 375 F and DO NOT grease your cookie sheets. The sugar on the outside of the cookies will caramelize and burn if you grease your cookie sheet. Unless you are like my dad and prefer your cookies like that, I suggest you not.

The ingredients that you will need are:

Hershey Kisses

butter/margerine/shortening

Cream Peanut Butter

Granulated Sugar

Brown sugar

Milk

Vanilla extract

All purpose flour

Baking soda

Salt

Granulated sugar for rolling (optional)

Using a large bowl you are going to cream together your butter and peanut butter until it is well blended.

Add in the granulated sugar and brown sugar. Beat the mixture until it is light and fluffy. This takes about 2-3 minutes.

Add in the egg, milk, and vanilla. Beat until they are all incorporated.

In a separate bowl, you are going to mix together your dry ingredients: Flour, baking soda, and salt. Gradually add this to your peanut butter mixture.

Now we are going to be working on the shape of the cookies. You want them to be about 1-inch balls. You can either do that with a cookie scoop or two spoons that are teaspoon sized.

Roll each cookie into granulated sugar, and place them on an ungreased cookie sheet.

Bake them at 375 F for somewhere between 8 to 10 minutes or until they are lightly browned.

Once they are out of the oven, immediately add in your chocolate to the center of the cookie. The cookies will crack around the edges. Let them cool completely before eating. Because you don’t want the Kiss to melt.

These cookies were so much fun to make. But one thing that I would recommend is removing the wrappers from the chocolates before you even start making the cookies. It will help with time management.

I was a little nervous about these cookies because I brought some with me to my Volunteering I do every week at my local Food pantry. These were the first cookies that I had given people. And they loved them. I had put multiple signs on the Tupperware that was brought in that said that they had Peanut butter in them.

I hope that you liked this recipe. Feel free to check it out for yourself. See you in the next post. Thank you.

Pinterest: Here

Recipe: Here

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orbmanson7 · 7 months

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What are the others' thoughts on Logan?

Patton thinks Logan is lucky for not having to deal with strong emotions, that he isn't bogged down by them and can keep doing his job every day, seemingly unaffected and staying calm, cool, and collected all the time.

Roman thinks Logan is confident and knows everything, always able to back up what he says with facts and research, and never needs to lie to save face or feels any need to dramatize or exaggerate to entertain or win approval. He may understand Logan doesn't like failure, but he doesn't think Logan understands true rejection and betrayal and how deeply it cuts one down and demotivates them from trying again.

Virgil can more easily tell Logan does experience some emotions and sees that maybe Logan isn't quite as confident in himself as he acts, but he believes Logan is brave enough to carry on despite that, and that Logan doesn't spend lots of time thinking about all his past mistakes, allowing them to weigh down his current and future decisions. He thinks Logan keeps his chin up and keeps moving forward and doesn't ruminate on how things could go wrong or went wrong already.

Janus likely recognizes Logan's necessity to Thomas, his aim to provide knowledge and objective reasoning when Thomas makes his decisions, but he thinks Logan enjoys being useful and hardly longs for anything beyond that. However, he knows deeply well that Logan lies, both to others and to himself, quite a lot.

And Remus only had to stop and observe Logan for a tiny bit of time to realize Logan hated being ignored and that Logan was trying to fix all of Thomas' problems on his own, and while he'd rather see what kind of chaos could come from Logan demanding attention of his own, he may not believe Logan truly understands what it means to be lonely and desperate to be seen in a positive and accepting light for your passions. Even if he can agree with Logan's desire for attention, he doesn't think Logan's struggles run as deep as his own do.

All the other sides believe they know a lot about Logan, that he has strength in his supposed weaknesses, but none of them have the full picture.

It's interesting, though, that Patton and Roman seem to know him the least, but Janus and Remus seem to understand him the most.

#i wrote this back in February but i never posted it #so here have this maybe it'll be useful?#sanders sides #logan sanders #long post #orbs thought bubbles #sanders sides analysis #technically

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mirrortouchedsea · 4 months

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Day 15

“Tatsumi-senpai, have you ever kissed anyone?” Kaname asked, sitting across from the other boy in the catacombs. Everyone else had left for the night leaving the two of them alone.

“Why are you asking?” Tatsumi replied, confused as he moved one of his chess pieces on the board. Kaname didn’t know anything about how the game worked and was mostly just guessing at where the pieces moved.

“A-ah it’s nothing, I was just wondering…I haven’t kissed anyone.” Kaname could feel his face heating up. God this was embarrassing, why was he doing this?

“I haven’t kissed anyone either.” Their game of chess forgotten for the moment. Kaname’s face burned even hotter.

“Would you--would you like to try kissing?” He barely squeaked out. How was the great Kaname Tojou such a loser when it came to his crush? He should be confident and yet here he was.

“Can you repeat that, Kaname-san?” He loved the way his name sounded in Tatsumi’s voice. It made him want to die in the moment though.

“Can I--Can we try…kissing?” His voice was still soft but evidently loud enough for Tatsumi to hear if the slight blush on his face was evidence of anything. Tatsumi gently moved their chess board to the side and slid closer to Kaname. Kaname felt his heart rate pick up at the proximity as Tatsumi leaned in closer.

How was he supposed to kiss? He tried to remember the movies and how they did it, closing his eyes and letting Tatsumi guide him, his lips slightly parted. The moment Tatsumi’s lips touched his he thought he would fly, and evidently his mouth moved before he could think, as Tatsumi let out a yelp and brought a hand to his lips.

Kaname bit him. Oh how embarrassing! It wasn’t enough to draw blood but still!

“I’m so sorry Tatsumi-senpai! I didn’t mean to do that! Oh god--”

Tatsumi laughed. Kaname stopped in his tracks as Tatsumi continued laughing. He wasn’t laughing at Kaname, though, or at least not at Kaname as a person, but rather at his reaction to the whole thing.

“It’s okay, Kaname-san. We can try again if you’d like.”

“Y-yes I’d like that very much.”

They leaned in again and Kaname clenched his jaw to keep himself from biting Tatsumi again, but he got a little overeager again and felt their heads bump into each other and not where their lips were (which was where he was aiming for). Kaname curses under his breath but Tatsumi giggles again (a heavenly sound to Kaname’s ears) and cups his face before gently guiding him to Tatsumi’s lips.

Kaname was too in shock to do anything for a moment. He was kissing someone. And not just someone. He was kissing Tatsumi Kazehaya, heartthrob of Reimei Academy. He closed his eyes and relaxed, reaching to grab Tatsumi’s blazer and pull him closer. He felt their teeth clack together but it wasn’t as bad as their first attempt and for Kaname, that was enough.

They pulled away, panting heavily, and Kaname noticed that Tatsumi’s pupils had dilated. He wanted to pull Tatsumi in for another kiss but held himself back, at least for a moment.

“That wasn’t so bad,” Tatsumi spoke, breathless and full of affection.

“No, it wasn’t.” Kaname pulled Tatsumi back in for another kiss, narrowly avoiding bumping their heads together again. He could do this forever, just him and Tatsumi in the catacombs, kissing to their hearts content.

#shay writes #tatsukana #january writing challenge #WE'RE BACK ON TRACK BABEY #i already wrote tomorrow's fic too i will have to edit it #but i'm on a roll today i might work on one of my longer fics #if i dont work on something longer i will die i swear. sobbing #options options.... kaokana fic. big bang fic editing.... the newest longform wip edition which is the madaleo fic #umu what else.........#idk actually there probably is another longer wip somewhere #ignoring the madashu part 2 fic i promised IM SORRY I HAVE NOOOO MOTIVATION FOR THAT ONE RECENTLY #i should do a different madashu fic though. for funsies. i should start a new one #OH THE MADATATSU ONE I WAS WORKING ON RIGHT RIGHT RIGHT #yes yes okay but that one i think i am also putting on the back burner for a bit #but yeah i'm going insane i need to write something longer #i am going insaneeeeeeee just writing short stuff so expect less posting from me in february #for a while anyway we'll see if i can maybe get some chapters of other stuff up #but yeah. anyway cutesies tatsukanas today #cutesies rinniki tomorrow that i've already had people read on discord #and we'll follow it with cute madaleos on thursday i prommy i prommy

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hannah-heartstrings · 17 days

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The wind carries a distant sound my way: the melodic ring of wind chimes.

#wind chimes #prose #my writing #writeblr #writers on tumblr #i wrote this one back in february but was worried about posting too much or something #and now its the fourth thing i've posted this week

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rosyjuly · 11 months

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If you’re still taking prompts……. Galex + cry (😈)

When they get down from the podium, Lewis squeezes his elbow on last time and lets Angela whisk him away, leaving George feeling like a bruise, throbbing tenderly with every heartbeat.

“Congratulations, boy,” Alex says from out of nowhere, his honey-blonde hair sticking up in every direction. George makes a sound and before he can catch himself, he’s stepped into Alex’s space, wrapping his ams around Alex’s strong back.

He thought the tears have dried now that he was drenched in champagne, but when Alex pulls him closer with an amused little noise, George hears himself take a wet breath, and then he’s burying his face in Alex’s shoulder, trying to stop his body from trembling again. Alex rubs the small of his back, makes some soothing sounds; the bright bliss of victory tangles together with the relief that Alex was happy enough for him to find George, after.

#i’m doing ask amnesty and ignoring my back that’s killing me #galex #george/alex #little fic #five sentence prompts #rosy.ask #hey anon i got this IN FEBRUARY #wrote it on some overnight transport i think #and got SO mad because it disappeared when i tried to post it and i thought tumblr ate it #but no it was in my drafts all along!!!!!!!

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questinwitchface · 1 month

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I have a little fic planned, and normally, I write the whole fic out before I post (or at least I try to, some fics take on a life of their own once I start), but I'm, like, really tempted to just post the first part already. Mostly because it's angsty, and I feel compelled to share the heartbreak.

#me and my nonsense #I haven't posted anything since January and I feel weird about it #but I was taking a break from fanfic in February to write a novel #and I did write that novel - the draft is complete #but then I was so so tired because I wrote 60k+ in a month #and like I had a fic planned for Bucky's birthday but obviously that didn't happen whoops #so I really feel like it should be time for me to come back to fic writing #but I don't have any fics DONE and my brain is like CANNOT POST IF NOT DONE which is just silly tbh but whatever #anyway this is me shaming myself for not writing more over the last two weeks I guess?#anyway do people actually prefer fics with consistent update schedules or do people not really care?

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moonlight-seraph · 3 months

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🪐

A rapidly blooming anger is beginning to boil in his chest, chewing through his stomach and heart. It just grows. Until he can feel it pushing at his skin, demanding to be let out. Biting and nipping and burning. He can’t even feel Kushiel in the back of his head anymore, the anger drowns it out.

Finally, the shadow catches his eye through the snarling visage of his mask, and he doesn’t process anything but the horrible, inexhaustible anger that nigh instantly ticks up from a boil to an inferno.

And before he knows it, agony is lancing through his skull like the worst headache he’s ever going to have in his life. He thinks he remembers yelling, and someone saying something, but he can't pull it to his mind through the adrenaline and the pain in his head.

There’s a loud, all consuming howl of laughter in his skull, and after that stutters to a stop, a familiar phrase seems to echo in his skull.

I am thou. And thou, art I.

He can hear something like a choked scream, and it takes an unnervingly long time to realize that he’s the one screaming. Then suddenly everything pulls back into a focus so sharp it borders on agony.

From the depths of thine fury, I have risen.

One hand claws at the floor, grinding at skin and nail until they tear and blood stains their trail. Catching between tiles and ripping sickeningly, peeling from the bed until all that remains is pain and blood. His other hand seems to have busied itself with trying to break those same tiles, and itself, judging by the fact that his fingers are burning with a sharp, unyielding pain. The tiles seem far worse off, though, considering the shattered remnants of tiles from where his hand is resting.

I will grant you the ability to unchain yourself, if your will is strong enough.

He thinks he might be in shock, because he starts laughing. Howling with it as he forces himself up on trembling legs.

Rise. And take what you are owed.

The fury is gone, replaced with some kind of morbid humor as blood works its way over his hands. His laughter stutters and goes quiet as he stands there, shoulders heaving.

His hand- now bleeding and nailless, creeps up from the bottom of the mask to the opposite temple, drawing five long, vibrant trails of blood in their wake before they curl around the edge and he laughs, voice rasping like broken glass with his scream-roughened throat, and despite the low volume, it almost seems to echo in the silent room. “Take what I’m owed, huh?”

And then his hold tightens and he- Rips- -Skin gives way, tearing wetly- Away- -Blood drips down the cheeks as Drak curls over- The- -His other hand, bruised and broken, curls tight around the other temple- Mask-

-And fire boils away the false him, the pure silver veneer he had clawed for melting away under the hellfire of hatred seething out of his soul.

Kushiel crackles into existence, blank body spasming and lurching, before his body breaks down into a tightly contorted sphere of ceramic and fire, then he explodes.

The angel that remains is massive, wrought out of iron and fire and blood, haloed with chains and sunlight. His eight wings are gilded and studded with gems and stakes, dangling broken chains.

Lucifer laughs with a mouth made of fractal light and every shadow in the room explodes into pillars of golden fire.

#asks #ooc #ask games #pkmn irl #pkmn rp #oc rp #Alternate Universes #//This draka is he/him and his name is Drak :)#//also this work is out of date i wrote it back in february 2021 and only edited the formatting and the ending bit for posting #//hi persona pokeblogs.#writing

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sweetmage · 1 year

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Rating: T

Words: 669

Pairing: Sebastian Vael/Celestine Vael (f!OC)

Tags: Flirting, Sappy Romance, Innuendo, Chantry/Fictional Religion

Sebastian could never acclimate himself to the presence of his beloved wife. Although their union was once a mere obligation, it had flourished into something exquisitely tangible, rending him breathless in even the most inopportune moments.

#i posted this once but then deleted it right after because I do that lol #sebastian vael #oc: celestine #dragon age 2 #drabble #jun fics #i actually wrote this for the dragon age lovers event back in February but forgot to post it back then

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911onabc · 1 year

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wait do u guys wanna hear my Shannon Diaz song

#no you don’t #I wrote it back in February #I’m gonna post it anyways

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fang11803 · 10 months

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Sex on an elevator, call that Level Grinding

#wrote this back in February and it's still funny to me #so let me just slam that Post button

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thethingything · 2 years

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I just realised it's almost time to refill the @affirmationsfromants queue and right now it's midnight and I'm drinking espresso and listening to Mouth Silence and I can think of no better time to write a month's worse of daily posts comprised of absolute nonsense - Sylvain

#personal #thoughts #affirmationsfromants was an idea we had as a joke back in February (I think?)#the entire idea was that it'd start off as just normal positive affirmations and slowly get weirder #when we first made it we wrote about 100 posts in one go so like the first few months' worth #and now we tend to write maybe a month's worth of posts at a time to keep it topped up #Sylvain post

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jesterjamz · 1 year

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“could be worse. could be the person intentionally writing things to bait said post reading” you think that was bait??

#if i was good at bait i’d have more veteran wins in tos than i currently do LMAO #it’s not bait. i don’t remember why i wrote that post though it was back in february or something #in hindsight maybe i shouldn’t have been shittalking you on my tumblr dot com blog so that’s kind of my bad #but still. y’know

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gothhabiba · 6 months

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Rabat - A Lidl franchise in France has been marred in controversy following accusations from customers who suggested that the supermarket has been mislabeling Israeli products as Moroccan to mitigate the impact of boycotts against Israeli products.

Lidl, the German international discount retailer chain, is operating in many locations worldwide, notably in Europe and the US.

Many people have shared a video of a customer warning other clients to pay attention to the labels while shopping.

The video documents the customer showing avocado products labeled as “from Morocco.” Upon inspecting the box, the label shows that the product is actually from Israel.

Upon fact-checking, one of the videos was discovered to date back to February and older tweets from 2020 resurfaced, expressing similar concerns from customers.

Many other netizens have asserted that the issue is still persisting.

“Same thing [happend to me] this morning at the Lidl in Vallauris in 06 - avocados from Morocco on the store label, and on the avocado, an Israeli label. These scammers, you really have to be careful before buying,” an X user wrote on November 8. “I think there are plenty of stores doing this to sell their stocks.”

Another X user also posted a video about the situation, calling on fellow customers to be “wary of false displays in Lidl ad Carrefour supermarkets.”

“The boycott is working so well that these supermarkets label products as coming from Africa or Morocco instead of Israel. Check the packaging and report it to fraud control authorities,” the user added.

(November 10, 2023)

#France #Palestine #israel #BDS

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colleendoran · 3 months

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Great Big Good Omens Graphic Novel Update

AKA A Visit From Bildad the Shuhite.

The past year or so has been one long visit from this guy, whereupon he smiteth my goats and burneth my crops, woe unto the woeful cartoonist.

Gaze upon the horror of Bildad the Shuhite.

You kind of have to be a Good Omens fan to get this joke, but trust me, it's hilarious.

Anyway, as a long time Good Omens novel fan, you may imagine how thrilled I was to get picked to adapt the graphic novel.

Go me!

This is quite a task, I have to say, especially since I was originally going to just draw (and color) it, but I ended up writing the adaptation as well. Tricky to fit a 400 page novel into a 160-ish page graphic novel, especially when so much of the humor is dependent on the language, and not necessarily on the visuals.

Not complainin', just sayin'.

Anyway, I started out the gate like a herd of turtles, because right away I got COVID which knocked me on my butt.

And COVID brain fog? That's a thing. I already struggle with brain fog due to autoimmune disease, and COVID made it worse.

Not complainin' just sayin'.

This set a few of the assignments on my plate back, which pushed starting Good Omens back.

But hey, big fat lead time! No worries!

Then my computer crawled toward the grave.

My trusty MAC Pro Tower was nearly 15 years old when its sturdy heart ground to a near-halt with daily crashes. I finally got around to doing some diagnostics; some of its little brain actions were at 5% functionality. I had no reliable backups.

There are so many issues with getting a new computer when you haven't had a new computer or peripherals in nearly fifteen years and all of your software, including your Photoshop program is fifteen years old.

At the time, I was still on rural internet...which means dial-up speed.

Whatever you have for internet in the city, roll that clock back to about 2001.

That's what I had. I not only had to replace almost all of my hardware but I had to load and update all programs at dial-up speed.

Welcome to my gigabyte hell.

The entire process of replacing the equipment and programs took weeks and then I had to relearn all the software.

All of this was super expensive in terms of money and time cost.

But I was not daunted! Nosirree!

I still had a huge lead time! I can do anything! I have an iron will!

And boy, howdy, I was going to need it.

At about the same time, a big fatcat quadrillionaire client who had hired me years ago to develop a big, major transmedia project for which I was paid almost entirely in stock, went bankrupt leaving everyone holding the bag, and taking a huge chunk of my future retirement fund with it.

I wrote a very snarky almost hilarious Patreon post about it, but am not entirely in a position to speak freely because I don't want to get sued. Even though I had to go to court over it, (and I had to do that over Zoom at dial-up speed,) I'm pretty sure I'll never get anything out of this drama, and neither will anyone else involved, except millionaire dude and his buddies who all walked away with huge multi-million dollar bonuses weeks before they declared bankruptcy, all the while claiming they would not declare bankruptcy.

Even the accountant got $250,000 a month to shut down the business, while creators got nothing.

That in itself was enough drama for the year, but we were only at February by that point, and with all those months left, 2023 had a lot more to throw at me.

Fresh from my return from my Society of Illustrators show, and a lovely time at MOCCA, it was time to face practical medical issues, health updates, screening, and the like. I did my adult duty and then went back to work hoping for no news, but still had a weird feeling there would be news.

I know everyone says that, but I mean it. I had a bad feeling.

Then there was news.

I was called back for tests and more tests. This took weeks. The ubiquitous biopsy looked, even to me staring at the screen in real time, like bad news.

It also hurt like a mofo after the anesthesia wore off. I wasn't expecting that.

Then I got the official bad news.

Cancer which runs in my family finally got me. Frankly, I was surprised I didn't get it sooner.

Stage 0, and treatment would likely be fast and complication-free. Face the peril, get it over with, and get back to work.

I requested surgery months in the future so I could finish Good Omens first, but my doc convinced me the risk of waiting was too great. Get it done now.

"You're really healthy," my doc said. Despite an auto-immune issue which plagues me, I am way healthier than the average schmoe of late middle age. She informed me I would not even need any chemo or radiation if I took care of this now.

So I canceled my appearance at San Diego Comic Con. I did not inform the Good Omens team of my issues right away, thinking this would not interfere with my work schedule, but I did contact my agent to inform her of the issue. I also contacted a lawyer to rewrite my will and make sure the team had access to my digital files in case there were complications.

Then I got back to work, and hoped for the best.

Eff this guy.

Before I could even plant my carcass on the surgery table, I got a massive case of ocular shingles.

I didn't even know there was such a thing.

There I was, minding my own business. I go to bed one night with a scratchy eye, and by 4 PM the next day, I was in the emergency room being told if I didn't get immediate specialist treatment, I was in big trouble.

I got transferred to another hospital and got all the scary details, with the extra horrid news that I could not possibly have cancer surgery until I was free of shingles, and if I did not follow a rather brutal treatment procedure - which meant super-painful eye drops every half hour, twenty-four hours a day and daily hospital treatment - I could lose the eye entirely, or be blinded, or best case scenario, get permanent eye damage.

What was even funnier (yeah, hilarity) is the drops are so toxic if you don't use the medication just right, you can go blind anyway.

Hi Ho.

Ulcer is on the right. That big green blob.

I had just finished telling my cancer surgeon I did not even really care about getting cancer, was happy it was just stage zero, had no issues with scarring, wanted no reconstruction, all I cared about was my work.

Just cut it out and get me back to work.

And now I wondered if I was going to lose my ability to work anyway.

Shingles often accompanies cancer because of the stress on the immune system, and yeah, it's not pretty. This is me looking like all heck after I started to get better.

The first couple of weeks were pretty demoralizing as I expected a straight trajectory to wellness. But it was up and down all the way.

Some days I could not see out of either eye at all. The swelling was so bad that I had to reach around to my good eye to prop the lid open. Light sensitivity made seeing out of either eye almost impossible. Outdoors, even with sunglasses, I had to be led around by the hand.

I had an amazing doctor. I meticulously followed his instructions, and I think he was surprised I did. The treatment is really difficult, and if you don't do it just right no matter how painful it gets, you will be sorry.

To my amazement, after about a month, my doctor informed me I had no vision loss in the eye at all. "This never happens," he said.

I'd spent a couple of weeks there trying to learn to draw in the near-dark with one eye, and in the end, I got all my sight back.

I could no longer wear contact lenses (I don't really wear them anyway, unless I'm going to the movies,) would need hard core sun protection for awhile, and the neuralgia and sun sensitivity were likely to linger. But I could get back to work.

I have never been more grateful in my life.

Neuralgia sucks, by the way, I'm still dealing with it months later.

Anyway, I decided to finally go ahead and tell the Good Omens team what was going on, especially since this was all happening around the time the Kickstarter was gearing up.

Now that I was sure I'd passed the eye peril, and my surgery for Stage 0 was going to be no big deal, I figured all was a go. I was still pretty uncomfortable and weak, and my ideal deadline was blown, but with the book not coming out for more than a year, all would be OK. I quit a bunch of jobs I had lined up to start after Good Omens, since the project was going to run far longer than I'd planned.

Everybody on the team was super-nice, and I was pretty optimistic at this time. But work was going pretty slow during, as you may imagine.

But again...lots of lead time still left, go me.

Then I finally got my surgery.

Which was not as happy an experience as I had been hoping for.

My family said the doc came out of the operating room looking like she'd been pulled backwards through a pipe, She informed them the tumor which looked tiny on the scan was "...huge and her insides are a mess."

Which was super not fun news.

Eff this guy.

The tumor was hiding behind some dense tissue and cysts. After more tests, it was determined I'd need another surgery and was going to have to get further treatments after all.

The biopsy had been really painful, but the discomfort was gone after about a week, so no biggee. The second surgery was, weirdly, not as painful as the biopsy, but the fatigue was big time.

By then, the Good Omens Kickstarter had about run its course, and the record-breaker was both gratifying and a source of immense social pressure.

I'd already turned most of my social media over to an assistant, and I'm glad I did.

But the next surgery was what really kicked me on my keister.

All in all, they took out an area the size of a baseball. It was hard to move and wiped me out for weeks and weeks. I could not take care of myself. I'd begun losing hair by this time anyway, and finally just lopped it off since it was too heavy for me to care for myself. The cut hides the bald spots pretty well.

After about a month, I got the go-ahead to travel to my show at the San Diego Comic Con Museum (which is running until the first week of April, BTW). I was very happy I had enough energy to do it. But as soon as I got back, I had to return to treatment.

Since I live way out in the country, going into the city to various hospitals and pharmacies was a real challenge. I made more than 100 trips last year, and a drive to the compounding pharmacy which produced the specialist eye medicine I could not get anywhere else was six hours alone.

Naturally, I wasn't getting anything done during this time.

But at least my main hospital is super swank.

The oncology treatment went smoothly, until it didn't. The feels don't hit you until the end. By then I was flattened.

So flattened that I was too weak to control myself, fell over, and smashed my face into some equipment.

Nearly tore off my damn nostril.

Eff this guy.

Anyway, it was a bad year.

Here's what went right.

I have a good health insurance policy. The final tally on my health care costs ended up being about $150,000. I paid about 18% of that, including insurance. I had a high deductible and some experimental medicine insurance didn't cover. I had savings, enough to cover the months I wasn't working, and my Patreon is also very supportive. So you didn't see me running a Gofundme or anything.

Thanks to everyone who ever bought one of my books.

No, none of that money was Good Omens Kickstarter money. I won't get most of my pay on that for months, which is just as well because it kept my taxes lower last year when I needed a break.

So, yay.

My nose is nearly healed. I opted out of plastic surgery, and it just sealed up by itself. I'll never be ready for my closeup, but who the hell cares.

I got to ring the bell.

I had a very, VERY hard time getting back to work, especially with regard to focus and concentration. My work hours dropped by over 2/3. I was so fractured and weak, time kept slipping away while I sat in the studio like a zombie. Most of the last six months were a wash.

I assumed focus issues were due (in part) to stress, so sought counseling. This seemed like a good idea at first, but when the counselor asked me to detail my issues with anxiety, I spent two weeks doing just that and getting way more anxious, which was not helpful.

After that I went EFF THIS NOISE, I want practical tools, not touchy feelies (no judgment on people who need touchy-feelies, I need a pragmatic solution and I need it now,) so tried using the body doubling focus group technique for concentration and deep work.

Within two weeks, I returned to normal work hours.

I got rural broadband, jumping me from dial up speed to 1 GB per second.

It's a miracle.

Massive doses of Vitamin D3 and K2. Yay.

The new computer works great.

The Kickstarter did so well, we got to expand the graphic novel to 200 pages. Double yay.

I'm running late, but everyone on the Good Omens team is super supportive. I don't know if I am going to make the book late or not, but if I do, well, it surely wasn't on purpose, and it won't be super late anyway. I still have months of lead time left.

I used to be something of a social media addict, but now I hardly ever even look at it, haven't been directly on some sites in over a year, and no longer miss it. It used to seem important and now doesn't.

More time for real life.

While I think the last year aged me about twenty years, I actually like me better with short hair. I'm keeping it.

OK. Rough year.

Not complainin', just sayin'.

Back to work on The Book.

And only a day left to vote for Good Omens, Neil Gaiman, and Sandman in the Comicscene Awards. Thanks.

#good omens graphic novel #good omens #terry pratchett #neil gaiman #dunmanifestin

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bengesko · 2 months

Text

AI Sellout

Used an email mask to read the whole article, pasting it below the cut.

Quick important points:

The tweet content is a list of things that are currently included, but were not SUPPOSED TO BE, and engineers are working to scrub it.

Automattic is supposedly going to add an opt out option.

Automattic did not respond to a question from 404 Media about whether it could guarantee that people who opt out will have their data deleted retroactively.

Tumblr and Wordpress are preparing to sell user data to Midjourney and OpenAI, according to a source with internal knowledge about the deals and internal documentation referring to the deals.

The exact types of data from each platform going to each company are not spelled out in documentation we’ve reviewed, but internal communications reviewed by 404 Media make clear that deals between Automattic, the platforms’ parent company, and OpenAI and Midjourney are imminent.

The internal documentation details a messy and controversial process within Tumblr itself. One internal post made by Cyle Gage, a product manager at Tumblr, states that a query made to prepare data for OpenAI and Midjourney compiled a huge number of user posts that it wasn’t supposed to. It is not clear from Gage’s post whether this data has already been sent to OpenAI and Midjourney, or whether Gage was detailing a process for scrubbing the data before it was to be sent.

Gage wrote:

“the way the data was queried for the initial data dump to Midjourney/OpenAI means we compiled a list of all tumblr’s public post content between 2014 and 2023, but also unfortunately it included, and should not have included:

private posts on public blogs

posts on deleted or suspended blogs

unanswered asks (normally these are not public until they’re answered)

private answers (these only show up to the receiver and are not public)

posts that are marked ‘explicit’ / NSFW / ‘mature’ by our more modern standards (this may not be a big deal, I don’t know)

content from premium partner blogs (special brand blogs like Apple’s former music blog, for example, who spent money with us on an ad campaign) that may have creative that doesn’t belong to us, and we don’t have the rights to share with this-parties; this one is kinda unknown to me, what deals are in place historically and what they should prevent us from doing.”

Gage’s post makes clear that engineers are working on compiling a list of post IDs that should not have been included, and that password-protected posts, DMs, and media flagged as CSAM and other community guidelines violations were not included.

Automattic plans to launch a new setting on Wednesday that will allow users to opt-out of data sharing with third parties, including AI companies, according to the source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, and internal documents. A new FAQ section we reviewed is titled “What happens when you opt out?” states that “If you opt out from the start, we will block crawlers from accessing your content by adding your site on a disallowed list. If you change your mind later, we also plan to update any partners about people who newly opt-out and ask that their content be removed from past sources and future training.”

404 Media has asked Automattic how it accidentally compiled data that it shouldn’t share, and whether any of that content was shared with OpenAI, but did not immediately hear back from the company. 404 Media asked Automattic about an imminent deal with Midjourney last week but did not hear back then, either.

Another internal document shows that, on February 23, an employee asked in a staff-only thread, “Do we have assurances that if a user opts out of their data being shared with third parties that our existing data partners will be notified of such a change and remove their data?”

Andrew Spittle, Automattic’s head of AI replied: “We will notify existing partners on a regular basis about anyone who's opted out since the last time we provided a list. I want this to be an ongoing process where we regularly advocate for past content to be excluded based on current preferences. We will ask that content be deleted and removed from any future training runs. I believe partners will honor this based on our conversations with them to this point. I don't think they gain much overall by retaining it.” Automattic did not respond to a question from 404 Media about whether it could guarantee that people who opt out will have their data deleted retroactively.

News about a deal between Tumblr and Midjourney has been rumored and speculated about on Tumblr for the last week. Someone claiming to be a former Tumblr employee announced in a Tumblr blog post that the platform was working on a deal with Midjourney, and the rumor made it onto Blind, an app for verified employees of companies to anonymously discuss their jobs. 404 Media has seen the Blind posts, in which what seems like an Automattic employee says, “I'm not sure why some of you are getting worked up or worried about this. It's totally legal, and sharing it publicly is perfectly fine since it's right there in the terms & conditions. So, go ahead and spread the word as much as you can with your friends and tech journalists, it's totally fine.”

Separately, 404 Media viewed a public, now-deleted post by Gage, the product manager, where he said that he was deleting all of his images off of Tumblr, and would be putting them on his personal website. A still-live post says, “i've deleted my photography from tumblr and will be moving it slowly but surely over to cylegage.com, which i'm building into a photography portfolio that i can control end-to-end.” At one point last week, his personal website had a specific note stating that he did not consent to AI scraping of his images. Gage’s original post has been deleted, and his website is now a blank page that just reads “Cyle.” Gage did not respond to a request for comment from 404 Media.

Several online platforms have made similar deals with AI companies recently, including Reddit, which entered into an AI content licensing deal with Google and said in its SEC filing last week that it’s “in the early stages of monetizing [its] user base” by training AI on users’ posts. Last year, Shutterstock signed a six year deal with OpenAI to provide training data.

OpenAI and Midjourney did not respond to requests for comment.

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