Alright, You Have Got to be Kidding Me

WHAT ARE YOU DOING!? WHAT ARE YOU ACTUALLY DOING?!

ARE YOU FOR REAL RIGHT NOW?!

I am laughing my ass off. My cheeks hurt. Am I on some Youtuber’s prank show? Are you kidding me with this? I thought they were, at the very least, purposefully avoiding recycling my content theft posts for VERY obvious reasons, but nope. Five minutes ago I got this notification because, again, I had links to my own content in the post so it notified me that someone else was posting the links.

Either they’re mocking me or they’re using a bot who just crawls a bunch of different anime blogs, puts the posts in some kind of filter and then posts them automatically. That’s the only way this makes sense.

I know I said I was done with them, and I am now, but I couldn’t ignore this. Beautiful self-report. Mwah. Bravo, Mangarabe. Thank you for one last belly laugh.

Ya know what? I’m going to put another link to a post of mine in here just to see if they take this one too. I’ll update this post if they do. Geez, I was angry before. Now I’m just doubled over in laughter. You can’t make this stuff up, man.

EDIT 4/27/23: Yup! They took this one too! Thank you, WordPress notifications. Unreal. And my other post is still up there as well. Literally no one is keeping an eye on that place. It’s weird as hell. Also, I just now realized they aren’t even hosting the images themselves. They’re direct linking to the images on my posts. Can these people do nothing themselves?

Content Theft UPDATE #2

*sigh*

Mangarabe’s back. Somehow, they got their account unsuspended and they’re back up and running. Not only that, but

Yeah, they’re still stealing content – including mine. They just stole my most recent Hell Girl manga review and my newest Flint the Time Detective SDC entry.

HOWEVER, they noticeably didn’t steal my recent posts about content theft. Golly gee fuckin’ willikers. I wonder why. What a mystery.

They had to have read those posts and yet guess what else returned?

Yup, that giant abyss of a sinkhole in their security is right back up there, front and center. Do you not just not care? Is your view on community so accepting you’re just opening the door for anyone to become an admin of your site? Talk about working on the honor system, which is ironic given the, ya know, thieving you do.

Oh and they’re also still reporting on morbid QVC facts for…..some reason.

At this point, I don’t know what to do. I don’t really think there’s anything I can do if someone actually managed to get them suspended and they were able to, I guess, appeal and get their account back.

I’m sick of this whole situation. I’m just leaving this at don’t go to this place. If you do, only do it to check to see if your content or the content of someone else has been stolen so they can know about it – use an adblock extension to avoid giving any ad revenue to them. Otherwise, just help spread the word of what this place is doing so either people can avoid it or maybe someone with more knowledge/skills/power than me can do something about it.

Oh by the way, as a final note that I didn’t mention before, just because I’m that salty, they even stole their logo from Flaticon.com.

Yes, it does say free for personal and commercial use, but with attribution, which Mangarabe doesn’t give anywhere on the site. Also, their logo is weird, isn’t it? Their name, as written all over the site, is Mangarabe, but the logo says Manga Arabe. Did they put that through a crappy translation program too? This whole site defies logic.

For those anyone missing context, please see these posts:

PSA – Content Theft

Content Theft UPDATE

Content Theft UPDATE

Greetings my blog readers. It is I, Twix, again with an update on the content theft/Mangarabe situation.

I had actually written up a fairly long update post yesterday that I decided against posting because….Let’s just say my investigation into this situation lead me to some places that concerned me. Long story short, I had looked up the domain information to try and find a valid email, which showed me that the owner was using a hosting service, NameCheap, that was suspected as knowingly covering up for scammy/criminal websites – the words of several reviewers, not mine – and their information when searched on WHOIS was being masked through a website called “withheldforprivacy” despite WHOIS’s guidelines demanding that information be public.

To be clear, both of those services are seemingly very legit and legal, it’s just that they might be used for shady things by third parties, and they both, seemingly, turn a blind eye to those activities if their reviewers are to be believed.

Once I had hit those dead ends, something else happened…..I had accidentally signed up as an admin for their website.

See, the site originally had a “Sign-in/join” option. It was public, right at the top, right next to the date.

I decided to join with a spoof temporary email (Because I didn’t want any spam or what have you that I might get using my real email) for the sake of trying a last resort in contacting them because absolutely no other avenue reaped any results.

Commenting? Needed moderator approval, and it never went through.

Contact Us form on their website? No confirmation that the message went though, just basically refreshed the page on submit, and no response.

Social media links? Pretty sure all of them were just the company that made their website template and had nothing to do with them. Their social media links were likely used as placeholders that were meant to be replaced by the website owner when they altered everything else for their own use.

Emailing them directly via the email address in the footer? Immediately got a bounceback notification saying that the email didn’t exist.

So I signed up. I clicked the link sent to me in my spoof email. That directed me to WordPress. I was confused, but I logged in under the credentials I signed up with on their website anyway.

And I was greeted with their admin dashboard.

Full access to everything. My jaw dropped and I was speechless for a good five minutes. There’s not being security savvy with a website and then there’s putting up a welcome mat for people to infiltrate your website and do what they want with it. It’s not even infiltrating. That implies there was some measure in place to stop people. The link tells people to sign up! And you only need a valid email to do it. It doesn’t ask for any other information.

I want to be clear here that I didn’t do anything while I was there. I didn’t even leave the main dash screen. I promptly logged off, exited my spoof email, cleared my cookies from that website and left Mangarabe in the dust. I also decided then to not post about it.

That may seem like an overreaction, but considering how shady their background was and how paranoid I am, I didn’t want to take a chance that maybe there were actual criminals behind that site who may track me down for “hacking” into their website, even though, again, I did nothing. Hell, I could have taken down my posts myself, but I didn’t. The integrity of my little anime blog is not worth meddling with whatever shady individual might be behind that site.

Anyhoo, with all that said, you may be wondering why I am posting this now. The short answer is, I don’t think it matters anymore.

I decided to peek back into Mangarabe about an hour ago out of pure curiosity just to see what new weird nonsense was being posted (as I was writing the update post yesterday, they had posts up about, and I quote “Which QVC Host Dies of the Most Cancers?” and “Which QVC Host Not Too Long Ago Died?”

I don’t know why two morbid QVC posts were suddenly on their site, but it was darkly funny while it lasted.)

This is what came up when I clicked the link in my previous post.

Yup. Their account was suspended and, subsequently, their website was taken down. I have no clue who managed to track down someone who could suspend their account or who made the case to do so, but all of my hats off to you, kind person. I’ll buy more hats just to take them off for you. I really thought this was a hopeless situation, but I guess good things do happen sometimes.

I don’t know if this is the last we’ll see of Mangarabe. I really hope so, but places like that just seem to pop back up under other names. We’ll see. I’m just happy that, for now at least, my content and those of talented anime reviewers/writers is not being stolen…..Also whoever is writing about dead QVC hosts…..

Happy writing, everyone!

PSA – Content Theft

Hey everyone! Twix here with a PSA for all you bloggers out there.

I’ve had numerous reviews taken by a website called Mangarabe. I don’t want to direct anymore traffic to that website since I know for a fact that they’ve stolen other people’s content as well, such as Beneath the Tangles and 9 Tailed Kitsune, but I’m posting the link anyway just to help directly warn people.

I had been made aware of them taking my posts in the past through a couple different means a few weeks ago, but this time was different. Before, they were pretty much just lifting my content word for word so I naively thought that maybe they were just making some sort of aggregate site for blog posts, even though they weren’t crediting the original author (All posts on this website seem to just be accredited to ‘admin’) but this time…..Hoo boy, this time they clearly, and I do mean, CLEARLY, ran my review through some crappy AI or some content spinning software or something to avoid being detected as a copy.

The post in question was my recent review for Pikachu’s Ice Adventure, the 13^th Shorties review.

In a way, I guess this is ‘better’ because what they made was ad libs from a person who doesn’t know what ad libs are – I mean a good 40% of the post is nonsense, but on the other gigantic hand that has a particular finger pointed up, this proves that they know they’re stealing content and have to take measures to avoid people finding out that they’re stealing content. (Although, pro tip, guys. Maybe next time check if the author at any time refers to themselves in the article by name. Unless the person running your site just happens to also go by Twix.)

“Snow White with the PURPLE Hair” Eh?

If you write anime reviews or the like, I suggest checking out Mangarabe (with Adblock on – just to prevent them from getting revenue) to see if they have taken any of your content. There are many anime reviews and other anime posts on that website, and I really don’t believe any of it is original content by their own writers, if they even have any, especially considering every post is credited to ‘admin.’

I have no idea if they’ll take posts down when requested. I posted a comment on the stolen Pikachu’s Ice Adventure an hour or so ago, but it needed to be approved by moderation, and it hasn’t yet. While I was writing this post, I also sent them an email requesting them to take down the posts as well as any other content they’ve stolen and cease doing so in the future, but I feel like they probably wouldn’t do it anyway. Or maybe they would do it for your own content so you’d leave them alone, but if everything they post is stolen then just asking them to stop stealing would be akin to asking them to take down their entire website, which I doubt they would. It’s worth a shot anyway.

If you can, just warn people of this website anyway. Content/art theft is one of my biggest hot buttons, and this is just a waterfall of it.

So, since they stole my content, I’m going to steal their stolen content because their gibberish version is pretty funny. Allow me to share the story of “Pikachu’s Ice Journey Evaluation.” (Which, by the way, still says “Pikachu’s Ice Adventure Review” in the URL.

Good job.)

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

(Pre-Posting edit: And what a surprise. As as I was looking around the website some more after getting these screenshots, I noticed they also recently stole my Tokyo Mew Mew New Episode 4 review, my Here is Greenwood review and my most recent Space-Time Detective Genshi-Kun SDC and AI filtered them as well.

Also, I don’t know what compelled me to look this up specifically, but I searched for Cyborg 009 in their website, and, sure enough, they’ve taken at least my volume 7 review, filtered it through their garbage disposal, and posted it….on my birthday.

All the fuck you, Mangarabe. That project is a labor of love.

I really don’t care if each of these posts only has a few views. It’s the principle. Write your own content.)

Update: 5/1/2022 – Did I ABANDON the Madhouse?! *gasp*

Short answer, no.

Hello my lovely word readers who direct their browsers to my little blog’s URL. It is I, Twix. Person who writes the words that sometimes make sense.

It’s been two months since I last posted in here, but if you missed my tweet about this a while ago, fear not. I did not abandon my blog baby. I’ve been here every day, actually. I’ve been on a mission to deep-clean my blog for sake of improving past mistakes, fixing issues with the blog, and removing some overly harsh/unfair/flatout incorrect/poorly articulated statements. I know I’ve said I’ve done this before, but those were very cursory cleanings. This was a ‘get some overalls, a power washer and press ‘edit’ on everything’ cleaning. Most were just spruced up a little bit for the sake of consistency and proofreading, some got a bit more of an overhaul. I thought it wouldn’t take that long, but I was obviously wrong. I’ve been working on this bit by bit since March. It didn’t click with me that I had over 1100 posts to go through, soooo…..womp womp.

My review of Pokemon the First Movie and Pokemon Movie 09 were some of the most changed with the first getting an update because I’ve had a slight change of heart and recognized a good deal of bad writing on my part, and the second was to include a significant note about the voice actor changes to Pokemon that I thought was very important to include.

Most notably across all posts, however, I have been working to purge my reviews of all number ratings. This change might be a bit confusing or maybe even annoying to some people, but I honestly think it’s for the best. I have gone without number ratings in my reviews for a year or so now, prompted by someone else posting that they weren’t including number ratings anymore, so I thought I’d give it a try, and, honestly, it’s made my blogging life a lot easier. Giving set ratings based on numbers or stars has ALWAYS stressed me out since way, way, way back when I first started writing reviews around 15 years ago (oh god….the oldness…ow.) I was always bad at it, and I always struggled trying to settle on a number, even when I allowed it to go into decimals. I don’t even like leaving number/star ratings on MAL or Anime-Planet because it seems like people always just make snap judgements without wanting to hear why I rated it that way. And, even when they do read why, they still seem focused on the number. Granted, it’s not like a cheat into getting people to agree with me, people still disagree with me all the time, and that’s fine, but I’d rather be rid of the stress of coming up with the number at all and worrying how people will accept that, as if that’s the most important part of the post, than stick with it just because that’s what a lot of reviewers do.

Other updates: Officially canceled Analyzing the Criticized: Sakura Haruno. This has been quietly canceled for some time, but just officially announcing it now. I’m probably not going to do anymore ‘Analyzing the Criticized’ again. I just didn’t think I did a good job even with how much effort I put into it. I had read more to prepare for the fourth entry, even wrote some of it and read some of the Sakura Hiden novel, but I just didn’t enjoy writing it anymore and I still think I wasn’t doing it ‘correctly’ if that makes any sense.

If you want my final say on Sakura, here it is. She’s gotten a lot better as an adult than she was ever allowed to be as a kid/teen. I respect the living hell out of her efforts to improve the mental health of children in their war-torn world – not just in Konoha, but everywhere. I also have a fair amount of respect for her as a ninja and a medical practitioner. How she was treated as a character through basically the entirety of the series was one of the story’s biggest sins. She could have been so much more, but, then again, we can say that about so many characters in Naruto – Sakura is just one of the worst examples. It’s weird how neither Sakura nor Sasuke was meant to exist in the series in the first place, but Sasuke was made into a creator’s pet because Kishimoto wound up loving him so much, and Sakura just puttered through the story on Sasuke’s leash for the most part until Kishimoto finally decided ‘Oh yeah, let’s give her something to do.’

I do stand firm in my assertion that her relationship to Sasuke is one of the worst-written most toxic and unhealthy relationships put to page or screen, and the fact that they ended up together and had a kid still rattles my brain cells. I don’t care about the pittance of affection he shows her after he becomes a good guy again. I don’t care about him smirking when she shows off her strength or him catching her after she nearly fainted in the final battle or him booping her on the forehead (Which I find far more weird than romantic. That’s more like a sibling/familial gesture of love, not romantic.) – it’s bad. He should’ve wound up alone, and she should have taken several years to mature emotionally in her romantic life before pursuing literally anyone else.

Even Sakura Hiden, which I was kinda enjoying otherwise, was constantly marred by Sakura’s annoying yearning for Sasuke. You wanna hear some of my notes from the novel?

– “We started at “You’re annoying.” and we’ve made it all the way to “I’ll see you soon.” Along with the remembered sensation of that poke. My heart feels a little warmer somehow when I think about it like that.”

Sakura, can I be real with you for a second? That is, without a doubt, the most pathetic thing I’ve ever heard in all my days of breathing oxygen.

In the course of like four or five years, much of that time being spent with Sasuke being a horrible crate of fresh assholes/a terrorist and trying to kill you twice, you went from “You’re annoying.” to “I’ll see you soon.” and got a little poke on the noggin, and that puts you on cloud nine? You have severe problems, Sakura. I’m not even joking right now. This is disturbing.

– Sakura is jealous of Naruto and Hinata when she sees them on a date. She’s jealous of Ino and Sai, who are close to confessing their feelings to each other. She’s jealous of Shikamaru and Temari. She’s even jealous of Choji and Karui.

– Sakura has a dream where she gets to see Sasuke again. It actually seems like it’s developing into a genuinely sweet and romantic moment for the two of them, capped off with a….head pat…but nope. It was just a dream. Sakura is so hard up for Sasuke’s affection, that she’s dreaming of him patting her head like a dog.

Another uneasy thing about her dream is that dream!Sasuke has a new arm courtesy of Hashirama cells, and he tells her that he’ll contact her if he has any problems with it. Thing is, real!Sasuke didn’t get a new arm, and it really feels like she’s dreaming this detail just so he’ll have a slightly bigger chance of visiting again in the future.

I never finished reading Sakura Hiden, and I’m not sure I want to. Granted, Sakura is, in my opinion, at her best here, but maybe that’s because this story isn’t even written by Kishimoto.

In conclusion, for the last time, finally, Sakura deserves a very hefty amount of criticism for a variety of reasons, but, at the very least, I can say that they could have done a lot worse. At least near the tail end of everything they made an effort to improve her, which is a lot more than I can say for some other characters. I don’t really think there’s any real defense for Sasuke as Sakura as a couple, though. If they’re happy the way they are, fine, I guess, but that doesn’t change the fact that it is a dumpster fire within a dumpster fire.

Officially Canceled Smile Precure SSBSs and SDCs. Sorry, but I felt like a few series needed to be dropped to help me stay on course, and my heart just wasn’t in this anymore. However, if you do want to read some reviews and SDCs on Smile Precure/Glitter Force beyond what I’ve written, by someone much more qualified than I, please visit my friend GlitterInformer’s blog.

Officially put Dinosaur King on hiatus. I feel like I’ll probably revisit this one somewhere in the future after I’ve finished a different SSBS project, but it’s just not entertaining enough for me to keep in my list for now.

I’ve now added episode titles (both original Japanese and English dubbed) to all of my archives. I’ve been meaning to do this for a while. I realized that it could be very difficult to navigate the episode lists if you only know the title but not the episode number, so hopefully this will make things a little easier.

I’ve added “Next episode….” and “….Previous Episode” links to every episode-by-episode review and SDC. This is also meant to help people with navigation. Now you can just immediately jump to the next episode or visit the last one to easily read the reviews or comparisons in succession.

I have acquired the rest of the Cyborg 009 manga beyond volume ten and the novel. So, in theory, I should be able to review quite literally everything Cyborg 009 now. However, big-ass asterisk, the thing about the manga beyond volume ten (and the novel) was that no company ever acquired or translated the rest of the manga (or novel) in English. I….do not speak Japanese. I am currently learning it and enjoying it, but I am nowhere the level I would need to be to read this properly. It’s going to be a struggle, and I guarantee manga updates will slow to a crawl once I get to that point, but I’m just thankful I have the files and can maybe sorta kinda talk about them…..maybe…..I hope.

I’m gonna have the same issues with the 1968 anime series beyond episode 16 as well. Subs stopped for that series, and I am forever sad. I’ll do my best.

Some minor updates: I fixed the Twitter social media button at the bottom of the posts, and fixed my Twitter feed over on the side. This may have just been a problem on my end, but neither was loading no matter what browser I used for months, and now they are, so hopefully I fixed whatever problem that was.

You can now see likes on comments. I had no clue how to turn that functionality on despite seeing it everywhere else, but now I’ve found it, and you can like comments and see other likes on comments.

And I think that’s all folks. I am still not done with the cleaning, but I am nearing the finish line. I think I can finally start posting again, likely sometime in the next few days, and once I’m finally done I should be back to regularly scheduled shenanigans. Thank you for being so patient with me! Thanks especially to the people who have dropped by to comment around here in the meantime. I love all your faces, and I’ll see ya soon!

~Twix

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If you enjoy my work and would like to help support my blog, please consider donating at my Ko-Fi page. Thank you! ♥

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all my beloved readers! And a Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanzaa, Happy Solstice and just an overall happy holiday season to everyone!

I know things have been pretty slow at the ol’ Madhouse, and I want to thank you all for being so patient and still reading/liking/commenting on what I have been able to put out while I’ve been dealing with all the hecticness this past several months. I was finally moved in just this last weekend (moving around Christmas is not recommended in case you’re wondering.) and we’re mostly settled in, though these are still various things that need to get done and some problems to deal with. I wasn’t able to do nearly as much for Christmas as I usually do, and moving just sucked all the Christmas cheer out of me, but I’m trying to make the best of it. My Internet is workable, and hopefully I’ll be back to a more regular posting schedule after the holidays while still squeaking out one or two more things for AVAHS.

Through all the stress and headaches, you guys continue to make things so much more bearable, and I couldn’t be more thankful to you all. Have a very merry and safe holiday, and I hope next year is awesome for you. 🙂

~Twix 💚❤️

The Anime Madhouse Made Feedspot’s Top 100 Anime Blogs List

Hey all you people whose brains are consuming my words right now! I have some good news for a change! Prompted by the D&A Anime Blog’s recent announcement about making it onto Feedspot’s Top 100 Anime Blog list, I decided to give it a go myself and submitted The Anime Madhouse for consideration. I honestly didn’t think it’d make it, but lo and behold IT DID! We were placed as 60th, and I am tickled purple, which is better than pink, fight me. This was such a nice surprise in what has been a very rough handful of months (and few years…) Thank you all for reading, liking, commenting and being overall awesome people over the years. You guys keep the lights on in the Madhouse, and I love you all bunches. Hope you continue having a great holiday season! 🌟

Blog/AVAHS Update | 11/27/21

Greetings and happy holidays to anyone directing their attention to this little blog of mine.

I have a good news/bad news situation. The good news is that I am going to finally, actually for real this time moving within the next couple of weeks. I’m excited, but also just completely burned out on all the stress that this has caused me over the past many months. It’s not over yet, there’s still a LOT of work to do, but the finish line’s there.

The bad news is that the place I’m moving to doesn’t have internet and won’t until frickin’ February. Because apparently every single task you need to have done for anything will be put off for months now.

I live out in the middle of nowhere, so I can’t get any other internet provider to come out and do the work required to set up the internet besides the lovely and ever so frustrating, coming straight from the pits of hell, Spectrum. SO, I will be entirely reliant on my mobile hotspot and regular data plan for internet for the next 2+ months, which will be kinda frustrating. I have no idea how this will affect my ability to watch anything that is required for me to do my bloggin’. Maybe it won’t really affect me that much, maybe I’ll have to deal with slow af speeds. I don’t really know because I am also switching my cell phone provider very soon too. Hopefully, this won’t affect much and I’ll still be able to come out with content on the somewhat regular, BUT I wanted to give you fair warning because, as much as it pains me to say this, A Very Animated Holiday Special might be very sparse this year.

I will do my damnedest to come out with holiday reviews this December, especially since making the reviews will be a good dose of holiday spirit for me as I try to get things settled down, but I most likely won’t be able to do the one-review-a-day format that I typically have in December. It sucks that I have to do that because I just gypped you guys out of a lot of Halloween content, but I can’t really help the circumstances. I can’t even do much IRL Christmas stuff at this point.

Anyway, enough rambling and pity parties. I still wish every single reader of the Madhouse a very happy holiday season. I hope it’s merry and jolly and ho-ho-hopefully leads to a much better new year. 🙂

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If you enjoy my work and would like to help support my blog, please consider donating at my Ko-Fi page. Thank you! ♥

Animating Halloween 2021 Update

Hello visitors of this little ol’ blog. Hope you’re all staying healthy and happy.

October is just around the corner, which means Animating Halloween is coming up real soon. With that, I have some good news and some bad news.

The good news is Yami Shibai has released two new seasons since the last Animating Halloween, which is AWESOME because I really thought Yami Shibai was over and done with. The tradition continues!

The bad news is things are kinda hectic right now. I’m moving soon-ish (numerous variables are keeping that up in the air. It’s kinda frustrating.) and I still have to do a bunch of stuff in preparation of that. Plus I have other personal things to handle. Animating Halloween is still on for sure, but posting once a day as I usually do during October may not work for me right now. To not rob you of Animating Halloween goodness, I will do a rollover AH day into November for each day I miss in October.

I know my posting habits aren’t spot-on either way, but I wanted to at least give you guys a heads up this year. I love doing these month-long review specials and it always makes me disappointed when I don’t manage to complete it, both for you guys and myself. Halloween is one of my favorite holidays, and I want you guys to be able to celebrate alongside me. 🙂

Finally, if you have anything you’d like to see me review for Animating Halloween, feel free to make suggestions. As a reminder, I will review anything as long as it’s mostly animated or is a graphic novel/manga of some sort and, of course, related to either Halloween or horror.

Have a Happy and SpooOooooOOOOoooookkkkyyyy Halloween, everyone! And thank you all for reading! 🧡

Animating Halloween 2020 Close-Out + 1000 Posts! + Other Updates

With the rise of the sun in November’s first dawn, we close out this year’s Animating Halloween. I hope you all had some ~spooky~ fun with it. I certainly did, even if I nearly didn’t manage the one-post-a-day schedule. (Sometimes I posted past midnight…. D: )

As per usual around the Madhouse, though, the end of Animating Halloween means it’s time for me to slow my roll. I tend to take November easy blogging-wise since it’s sandwiched between two months in which I have everyday posting events. I’ll still be posting regularly, but not as often as normal. In the mean time, if you guys have anything you’d like to see me cover for A Very Animated Holiday Special this December, feel free to throw them at me.

In other news, as of my Corpse Party: Tortured Souls review, I’ve reached 1000 posts on my blog! I had no idea I was close to this milestone and I have no idea of anything I can do to celebrate, but it’s really cool to think that I’ve got 1000 posts under my belt. And I thank you all for reading however many of those 1000 posts. 🙂

I hope you all have a happy and safe November! ♥

~Twix