With our massive Shouoto and Lost Universe blowout yesterday, Rebmastu mentioned our current financial predicament involving the domain name renewal… And you guys stepped up to the plate. Hard. I mean it, that goal was knocked square out of the park, and I am totally baffled by how amazing you all are. I really don’t even know how to thank you guys ;_; We currently have nearly $90 in the pot (so to speak), meaning not only has the domain renewal fee been paid, but now we’re also able to pay for last month’s issues of Aria and Asuka, which… okay, I’ll admit it, we’ll be lucky if anywhere still has them in stock OTL But thanks to you guys, we still have a shot at getting current content!

So this is where I’ll open the floor for comments. I can’t make any guarantees, but what series do you guys want to see us release? Is it Barajou? Birdcage Manor? SLH? Junketsu+Kareshi? Mebius Gear? Lost Universe? Flower Thieves? Or perhaps some new projects? Like I said, I can’t make any guarantees, but this is a good place to let your comment be heard if you’re really itching for something =D

And again, we love you all so bad it hurts. So bad.

Comments closed! We still love you guys, but I think we’ve got enough to go on now =D Oh my God, I can’t believe no one wants Flower Thieves ;_;

THE SERVERS ARE CRASHING!?

No, the servers aren’t crashing… BUT WORLD SURE AS HELL IS COMING TO AN END.

In 2012, that is. (I heard that was a pretty garbage movie, BTW. I walked in on my fam watching it a while ago and this lady was trying to give her kids to some monk to escape the impending Armageddon. “Please,” she says, “Wouldn’t you want the same for your own children?” BITCH, MONKS ARE CELIBATE. I giggled obnoxiously and left the room shortly thereafter.)

But we’re not here to talk about 2012 now, are we? HELL NO! That’s right, half of you want your Shouoto eye-candy, and the other half of you are here to put Mimori in your pocket! Guess what, guys? TODAY, YOU GET TO DO BOTH. After a million years of waiting, we finally managed to finish chapter 4 of SLH, thanks in no small part to Melly, once again putting pinch-hitting editor duty, and Zippy and Magmar on the typesetting front. On that note, this chapter of Barajou is also brought to you by Melly (who seems to have a monopoly on the Shouoto front, IF YOU ASK ME), and Baki at the typesetting helm, and finally, we’ve got Shae pulling editing duty for this chapter of Omamori, with EpikWonder typesetting.

I HOPE YOU GUYS CAN TELL OUR STAFF IS GROWING, AND I COULDN’T BE PROUDER. But enough of my HEE-HAW, go read the new chapters!

Download/Read Barajou no Kiss chapter 15: Audition! ☆ The Band of Many Faces
Download/Read SLH chapter 4 (end volume 1)
Download Omamori no Kamisama chapter 4: The Lost Omamori

And while we’re at it, Melly (JEEZE, MELLY) has overhauled the reader in a pretty amazing way. As always, it’s still a new thing, so go check it out and tell us what you think!

BY THE WAY, FOLLOW US ON TWITTER! All the cool kids are doing it… And you do want to be one of the cool kids… don’t you?

Guess who’s got cream puffs?

Today, I bring you not one, but TWO pieces of awesome! Ranked in order of how awesome I think they are. Or not. YOU’LL NEVER KNOW!

First of all, we bring you the special chapter of Barajou no Kiss, entitled “24 Hours with the Roses” or something like that. It hasn’t been published in any volumes, and it might not be, since it was an Asuka special chapter. That’s still great though, right? Right. It’s worth giggles at least!

Second! (and maybe the most awesome but that’s for you to decide!) I’ve spent the last week whipping up an online reader for the site, so now you can read our releases… online! It’s designed in the same style as the forum, so don’t worry if the page looks quite a bit different from the main. Chapters 1 and 2 of Barajou (and the first three volumes of Evangelion Datenroku) aren’t online currently because they’re all pending re-release.. more info on that later! For now, consider the reader in beta, and if you find any problems at all, please say so in this post so I can fix ‘em!

Visit Turtle Paradise’s Online Reader!
Or download the special chapter of Barajou no Kiss!

NOW ENJOY YOUR GOODIES

I’d also like to note that with this upgrade we’re participating in SMF’s 2.0 beta testing. So if you run across any strange error messages or behavior, please tell us so we can report it!

Trust me on this one.

(where’s my facepalm.jpg when I need it?)

Yeah, it's that good. (also, CONAN dkljflakdslkjo;di)

After a slew of hosting issues, domain problems, and screwups on my end, we’ve finally got Turtle Paradise back up and running, which is pathetic since we’ve been down since November 13th. Anyway, kudos to everyone who kept up with the group at our livejournal community and offered those words of encouragement and advice, since imposing our rage on others worked for excellent stress relief. For everyone else, if the site ever goes down like it has been, the LJ community will always be online with a mirror of our releases, and it’s updated whenever something is posted (not days later). The restoration process took much, much longer than it should have, so I think we owe you guys an explanation, but I’m warning you. It’s crazy long.

ANYWAY FROM WHAT I UNDERSTAND THE NEW SERVER IS CRAZY FAST ISN’T THAT COOL AHAHAHAHA

Short version: everything should be up and running smoothly, but even though I have made every effort to transfer everything as smoothly as possible, I can’t guarantee things won’t be broken here and there. So if you run across any issues, please comment to any of our posts and I will fix whatever issues arise immediately.

Now for the long version. Sometime during the night of 11/13, right after we released the newest chapter of Evangelion Datenroku, our [previous] hosting provider, Dreamhost, suspended the entire turtleparadise subdomain without warning. Lucky for us, they were stupid and left the FTP up so we were able to copy all of our files before contacting Dreamhost (for the search engines: DREAMHOST SUCKS) about our status. Turns out that someone over there had taken a look at our site and decided they didn’t like what we were posting and pulled the plug, which was a screwy move on their part. Hosting providers usually wait for a C&D (cease and desist order) before using such drastic measures, but in this case, no one even contacted them. Normally I wouldn’t have a problem with this since they were our host and all, but it turns out that Dreamhost pulls this crap with legit sites, too.

Anyway, it takes for-freaking-EVER to transfer 15 gigs to a computer back to a webserver, so that explains most of the wait. That, and I fubared the server so bad I didn’t think I’d be able to fix it without contacting tech support AHAHAHA OH MAN THAT SUCKED

But enough of that! Welcome back to Turtle Paradise, everyone! We’ll be back on track with our releases in a jiffy! I’LL BET YOU ALL LIKED HOW TERRIFYINGLY ANTICLIMACTIC THAT POST WAS, HUH

This is a treat for all you awesome lurkers and posters alike. Because you're awesome.

I think something like this deserves a post of its own. Thanks to you lovely people who have donated in the past, Turtle Paradise has met the funds required to stay on the net for another year! This wouldn’t be possible without you guys, so you all deserve a pat on the back, round of applause, slice of pie, etc. Sadly I can’t give the donators the ego stroke they all deserve with a roll-call, because we don’t keep handles on record; just the emails, and I’m sure these nice people don’t want that stuff public.

For the next order of business, this is just a notice that the site is semi-officially deb0rked. I’ve gone through and edited all the pages that don’t look like they should and redone how comments are displayed and spiffied up the template a little bit, so it’s about 3x less ugly. We’ve also integrated spoiler tags for those who want to get down and dirty in discussions. To use it, just enter [spoiler] text [/spoiler], and you’re on your way. Finally, if you ever run into any broken links (although our 404 page is kind of amusing) or pages that look like they’re not working as they should, please comment to one of the posts and I’ll fix it ASAP.

And for now, I’ll just leave that lovely thing up there as a teaser for one of our upcoming projects. Well, if I ever finishing editing it , anyway. Now, to rewriting that FAQ page! Man, why do these posts of mine always turn out so long, anyway?

Rebmastu jumped the gun and announced it much earlier than I’d have liked, but here, consider this the official “Turtle Paradise is now only half as ugly” layout post! I tried to do a complete overhaul of the site’s front end, but obviously I still haven’t gotten around to the staff or FAQ pages yet. Aside from the layout-with-a-header-that’s-too-damn-big and completely redone navigation, we also have AWESOME GRAVATAR SUPPORT, which means you can get an AWESOME icon next to your name when commenting. EXTREME!! It’s as easy as going to Gravatar.com, entering your email, and uploading a picture! DO IT!

Please feel free to bring up any issues, bug reports, or plain hiccups in general here. I do enjoy changing the site around based on what visitors say, so I’d like to make this as smooth a browsing experience as possible for everyone!

Welcome to TP’s first independent release, without having to use scan providers or anything, we’ve got Eva Gakuen (also known as Evangelion Academy: my title is far too long) chapter the 8th on the menu, ready to be digested. Not guaranteeing any sort of nutritional value, but enjoy your empty calories regardless. Hey! Potato chips and Eva Gakuen have something in common! NO NUTRITIONAL VALUE! Hooray!

Click here to eat Stage 8! DELICIOUS?

Putting aside my personal dislike for a certain project, a message for our lovely lurkers.

Here at TP (toiletPAPIER), we don’t particularly care for the ban hammer, but Reb’s fuse is short and mine is shorter, and our patience with obnoxious commentators has worn thin. So here’s the deal. First off, we acknowledge that our scanlations are available at many other sites and only a small percentage of members come here for their scans, and we don’t have any particular problems with that. Banning is meant only to deter stupid behavior and is highly temporary: unless you have been a particularly gigantic douchebag or done something completely ridonculous, bans last for roughly 48 hours. During that time you can access no part of the site, and this includes direct links. The only types of comments resulting a ban will be posts like "can I have the next chapter?", or other more ridiculous things like "where can I download the next chapter?". Anyone who acts in a normal way is safe, and even questions like "when is the next chapter going to be released?" are legitimate and will not result in a ban.

To make it short, it’s our way of smacking you upside the head and telling you to chill out. Remember, bans are TEMPORARY and will be removed within 48 hours under normal circumstances.