#Web Apps for Ebook

[techygrowth]

PWAs, or progressive web apps, are transforming the e-book reading experience by fusing the finest aspects of mobile and web applications. Readers may enjoy dependable, quick, and captivating ebook experiences right in their browsers with PWAs, eliminating the need for frequent updates or large downloads. By providing offline access, seamless device synchronization, and fluid performance, these apps increase the accessibility and usability of ebook reading. 

[moonlit-tulip]

What's your favorite ebook-compatible reading software? Firefox EPUBReader isn't great, but I'm not what, if anything, works better.

Very short answer: for EPUBs, on Windows I use and recommend the Calibre reader, and on iOS I use Marvin but it's dying and no longer downloadable so my fallback recommendation is the native Apple Books app; for PDFs, on Windows I use Sumatra, and on iOS I use GoodReader; for CBZs, I use CDisplayEx on Windows and YACReader on iOS; and I don't use other platforms very often, so I can't speak as authoritatively about those, although Calibre's reader is cross-platform for Windows/Mac/Linux, and YACReader for Windows/Mac/Linux/iOS/Android, so they can serve as at least a minimum baseline of quality against which alternatives can be compared for those platforms.

Longer answer:

First off, I will say: yeah, Firefox EPUBReader isn't great. Neither, really, are most ebook readers. I have yet to find a single one that I'm fully satisfied with. I have an in-progress project to make one that I'm fully satisfied with, but it's been slow, probably isn't going to hit 1.0.0 release before next year at current rates, and isn't going to be actually definitively the best reader on the market for probably months or years post-release even assuming I succeed in my plans to keep up its development. So, for now, selection-of-ebook-readers tends to be very much a matter of choosing the best among a variety of imperfect options.

Formats-wise, there are a lot of ebook formats, but I'm going to collapse my answers down to focusing on just three, for simplicity. Namely: EPUB, PDF, and CBZ.

EPUB is the best representative of the general "reflowable-text ebook designed to display well on a wide variety of screens" genre. Other formats of similar nature exist—Kindle's MOBI and AZW3 formats, for instance (the latter of which is, in essence, just an EPUB in a proprietary Amazon wrapper)—but conversion between formats-in-this-broad-genre is generally pretty easy and not excessively lossy, so you're generally safe to convert to EPUB as needed if you've got different formats-in-this-genre and a reader that doesn't support those formats directly. (And it's rare for a program made by anyone other than Amazon to work for non-EPUB formats-in-this-genre and not for EPUBs.)

PDF is a pretty unique / distinctive format without any widely-used alternatives I'm aware of, unless you count AZW4 (which is a PDF in a proprietary Amazon wrapper). It's the best format I'm aware of for representations of books with rigid non-reflowable text-formatting, as with e.g. TTRPG rulebooks which do complicated things with their art-inserts and sidebars.

And CBZ serves here as a stand-in for the general category of "bunch of images in an archive file of some sort, ordered by filename", which is a common format for comics. CBZ is zip-based, CBR is RAR-based, CB7 is 7-zip-based, et cetera; but they're easy to convert between one another just by extracting one and then re-archiving it in one's preferred format, and CBZ is the most commonly distributed and the most commonly supported by readers, so it's the one I'm going to focus on.

With those prefaces out of the way, here are my comprehensive answers by (platform, format) pair:

Browser, EPUB

I'm unaware of any good currently-available browser-based readers for any of the big ebook formats. I've tried out EPUBReader for Firefox, as well as some other smaller Firefox-based reader extensions, and none of them have impressed me. I haven't tested any Chrome-based readers particularly extensively, but based on some superficial testing I don't have the sense that options are particularly great there either.

This state of affairs feels intuitively wrong to me. The browser is, in a significant sense, the natural home for EPUB-like reflowable-text ebooks, to a greater degree than it's the natural home for a great many of the other things people manage to warp it into being used for; after all, EPUBs are underlyingly made of HTML-file-trees. My own reader-in-progress will be browser-based. But nonetheless, for now, my advice for browser-based readers boils down to "don't use them unless you really need to".

If you do have to use one, EPUBReader is the best extension-based one I've encountered. I have yet to find a good non-extension-based website-based one, but am currently actively in the market for such a thing for slightly-high-context reasons I'll put in the tags.

Browser, PDF

Firefox and Chrome both have built-in PDF readers which are, like, basically functional and fine, even if not actively notably-good. I'm unaware of any browser-based PDF-reading options better than those two.

Browser, CBZ

If there exist any good options here, I'm not aware of them.

Windows, EPUB

Calibre's reader is, unfortunately, the best on the market right now. It doesn't have a very good scrolled display mode, which is a mark against it by my standards, and it's a bit slow to open books and has a general sense of background-clunkiness to its UI, but in terms of the quality with which it displays its content in paginated mode—including relatively-uncommon sorts of content that most readers get wrong, like vertical text—it's pretty unparalleled, and moreover it's got a generally wider range of features and UI-customization options than most readers offer. So overall it's my top recommendation on most axes, despite my issues with it.

There's also Sigil. I very emphatically don't actually recommend Sigil as a reader for most purposes—it's marketed as an EPUB editor, lacks various features one would want in a reader, and has a much higher-clutter UI than one would generally want in a reader—but its preview pane's display engine is even more powerful than Calibre's for certain purposes—it can successfully handle EPUBs which contain video content, for instance, which Calibre falls down on—so it can be a useful backup to have on hand for cases where Calibre's display-capabilities break down.

Windows, PDF

I use SumatraPDF and think it's pretty good. It's very much built for reading, rather than editing / formfilling / etc.; it's fast-to-launch, fast-to-load-pages, not too hard to configure to look nice on most PDFs, and generally lightweight in its UI.

When I need to do fancier things, I fall back on Adobe Reader, which is much more clunky on pretty much every axis for purposes of reading but which supports form-filling and suchlike pretty comprehensively.

(But I haven't explored this field in huge amounts of depth; plausibly there exist better options that I'm unaware of, particularly on the Adobe-reader-ish side of things. (I'd be a bit more surprised if there were something better than SumatraPDF within its niche, for Windows, and very interested in hearing about any such thing if it does exist.))

Windows, CBZ

My usual CBZ-reader for day-to-day use—which I also use for PDF-based comics, since it has various features which are better than SumatraPDF for the comic-reading use case in particular—is an ancient one called CDisplayEx which, despite its age, still manages to be a solid contender for best in its field; it's reasonably performant, it has most of the features I need (good handling of spreads, a toggle for left-to-right versus right-to-left reading, a good set of options for setting how the pages are fit into the monitor, the ability to force it forward by just one page when it's otherwise in two-page mode, et cetera), and in general it's a solid functional bit of software, at least by the standards of its field.

The reason I describe CDisplayEx as only "a solid contender for" best in its field, though, is: recently I had cause to try out YACReader, a reader I tried years ago on Windows and dismissed at the time, on Linux; and it was actually really good, like basically as good as CDisplayEx is on Windows. I haven't tried the more recent versions of YACReader on Windows directly, yet; but it seems pretty plausible that my issues with the older version are now resolved, that the modern Windows version is comparable to the Linux version, and therefore that it's on basically the same level as CDisplayEx quality-wise.

Mac, EPUB/PDF/CBZ

I don't use Mac often enough to have opinions here beyond "start with whatever cross-platform thing is good elsewhere, as a baseline, and go on from there". Don't settle for any EPUB reader on Mac worse than the Calibre one, since Calibre works on Mac. (I've heard vague good things about Apple's native one; maybe it's actually a viable option?) Don't settle for any CBZ reader on Mac worse than YACReader, since YACReader works on Mac. Et cetera. (For PDFs I don't have any advice on what to use even as baseline, unfortunately; for whatever reason, PDF readers, or at least the better ones, seem to tend not to be natively cross-platform.)

Linux, EPUB

For the most part, my advice is the same as Windows: just go with the Calibre reader (and maybe use Sigil as a backup for edge cases). However, if you, like me, prefer scrolled EPUB-reading over paginated EPUB-reading, I'd also suggest checking out Foliate; while it's less powerful than the Calibre reader overall, with fewer features and more propensity towards breaking in edge cases, it's basically functional for normal books lacking unusual/tricky formatting, and, unlike Calibre, it has an actually-good scrolled display mode.

Linux, PDF

I have yet to find any options I'm fully satisfied with here, for the "fast launch and fast rendering and functional lightweight UI" niche that I use SumatraPDF for on Windows. Among the less-good-but-still-functional options I've tried out: SumatraPDF launched via Wine takes a while to start up, but once launched it has the usual nice SumatraPDF featureset. Zathura with the MuPDF backend is very pleasantly-fast, but has a somewhat-unintuitive keyboard-centric control scheme and is hard to configure. And qpdfview offers a nice general-purpose PDF-reading UI, including being quick to launch, but its rendering backend is slower than either Sumatra's or Zathura's so it's less good for paging quickly through large/heavy PDFs.

Linux, CBZ

YACReader, as mentioned previously in the Windows section, is pretty definitively the best option I've found here, and its Linux version is a solid ~equal to CDisplayEx's Windows version. Like CDisplayEx, it's also better than more traditional PDF readers for reading PDF-based comics.

iOS/iPadOS, EPUB

My current main reading app is Marvin. However, it hasn't been updated in years, and is no longer available on the app store, so I'm currently in the process of getting ready to migrate elsewhere in anticipation of Marvin's likely permanent breakage some time in the next few years. Thus I will omit detailed discussion of Marvin and instead discuss the various other at-least-vaguely-comparably-good options on the market.

For general-purpose reading, including scrolled reading if that's your thing, Apple's first-party Books app turns out to be surprisingly good. It's not the best in terms of customization of display-style, but it's basically solidly functional, moreso than the vast majority of the apps on the market.

For reading of books with vertical text in particular, meanwhile, I use Yomu, which is literally the only reader I've encountered to date on any platform which has what I'd consider to be a sensible and high-quality way of handling scrolled reading of vertical-text-containing books. While I don't recommend it for more general purposes, due to awkward handling of EPUBs' tables of contents (namely, kind of ignoring them and doing its own alternate table-of-contents thing it thinks is better), it is extremely good for that particular niche, as well as being more generally solid-aside-from-the-TOC-thing.

iOS/iPadOS, PDF

I use GoodReader. I don't know if it's the best in the market, but it's very solidly good enough for everything I've tried to do with it thus far. It's fast; its UI is good at getting out of my way, while still packing in all the features I want as options when I go looking for them (most frequently switching between two-page-with-front-cover and two-page-without-front-cover display for a given book); also in theory it has a bunch of fancy PDF-editing features for good measure, although in practice I never use those and can't comment on their quality. But, as a reader, it's very solidly good enough for me, and I wish I could get a reader like it for desktop.

iOS/iPadOS, CBZ

YACReader has an iOS version; following the death of my former favorite comic reader for iOS (ComicRack), it's very solidly the best option I'm aware of on the market. (And honestly would be pretty competitive even if ComicRack were still around.) I recommend it here as I do on Linux.

Android, EPUB/PDF/CBZ

It's been years since I've had an Android device, and accordingly have very little substantial advice here. (I'm expecting to move back to Android for my next phone-and-maybe-also-tablet, out of general preferring-open-hardware-and-software-when-practical feelings, but it'll plausibly be a while, because Apple is much better at long-lasting hardware and software than any Android manufacturers I'm aware of.) For EPUB, I recall Moon+ reader was the best option I could find back circa 2015ish, but that's long enough ago that plausibly things have changed substantially at this point. For CBZ, both YACReader and CDisplayEx have Android versions, although I haven't tried either and so can't comment on their quality. For PDF, you're on your own; I have no memories or insights there.

Conclusion

...and that's it. If there are other major platforms on which ebook-reader software can be chosen, I'm failing to think of them currently, and this is what I've got for all platforms I have managed to think of.

In the future... well, I hope my own reader-in-development (slated for 1.0.0 release as a Firefox extension with only EPUB support, with ambitions of eventually expanding to cover other platforms and other formats) will one day join this recommendation-pile, but it's currently not yet in anything resembling a recommendable form. And I hope that there are lots of good reader-development projects in progress that I currently don't know about; but, if there are, I currently don't know about them.

So, overall, this is all I've got! I hope it's helpful.

[deadsmaidens]

pookies i have questions … if you read ebooks / listen to audiobooks, which apps / services can you recommend that are not kindle+audible ? 🥹

[archivlibrarianist]

This is huge: You can now buy ebooks from Bookshop.org, a website that helps boost sales to local independent bookshops!

To read an ebook purchased from Bookshop.org, you must use their own app (for a mobile device) or read it in a web browser. So, unfortunately, you can't (yet) send it to your ereader, but still, you're able to buy ebooks and also share a little bit of that profit with your local bookstore, if they're an affiliate!

[survivetoread]

I'm a big fan of extensive reading apps for language learning, and even collaborated on such an app some 10 years ago. It eventually had to be shut down, sadly enough.

Right now, the biggest one in the market is the paywalled LingQ, which is pretty good, but well, requires money.

There's also the OG programs, LWT (Learning With Texts) and FLTR (Foreign Language Text Reader), which are so cumbersome to set up and use that I'm not going to bother with them.

I presently use Vocab Tracker as my daily driver, but I took a spin around GitHub to see what fresh new stuff is being developed. Here's an overview of what I found, as well as VT itself.

(There were a few more, like Aprelendo and TextLingo, which did not have end-user-friendly installations, so I'm not counting them).

Vocab Tracker

++ Available on web ++ 1-5 word-marking hotkeys and instant meanings makes using it a breeze ++ Supports websites

-- Default meaning/translation is not always reliable -- No custom languages -- Ugliest interface by far -- Does not always recognise user-selected phrases -- Virtually unusable on mobile -- Most likely no longer maintained/developed

Lute

++ Supports virtually all languages (custom language support), including Hindi and Sanskrit ++ Per-language, customisable dictionary settings ++ Excellent, customisable hotkey support

-- No instant meaning look-up makes it cumbersome to use, as you have to load an external dictionary for each word -- Docker installation

LinguaCafe

++ Instant meanings thanks to pre-loaded dictionaries ++ Supports ebooks, YouTube, subtitles, and websites ++ Customisable fonts ++ Best interface of the bunch

== Has 7 word learning levels, which may be too many for some

-- Hotkeys are not customisable (yet) and existing ones are a bit cumbersome (0 for known, for eg.) -- No online dictionary look-up other than DeepL, which requires an API key (not an intuitive process) -- No custom languages -- Supports a maximum of 15,000 characters per "chapter", making organising longer texts cumbersome -- Docker installation

Dzelda

++ Supports pdf and epub ++ Available on web

-- Requires confirming meaning for each word to mark that word, making it less efficient to read through -- No custom languages, supports only some Latin-script languages -- No user-customisable dictionaries (has a Google Form to suggest more dictionaries)

[fangweaver2099]

𝐅 𝐀 𝐖 𝐍 𝐓 𝐄 𝐄 𝐓 𝐇 - Prologue pt 3

MINORS DNI 18+ FIC

You’ve always liked the idea of having a dominant partner - BDSM was something you’ve read about, watched videos about.

Something you made Pinterest boards and aesthetic tumblr posts about when you were 18 and curious, the idea always sounded nice, but you’ve never done it in practice, not really. Sure you bought fuzzy handcuffs at a gag gift store once, but that didn’t really count.

You’re still a virgin.

You’ve always had that chronically awkward, workaholic type of vibe that made typical dating near impossible at worst and frustrating at best. Normal dating apps have proven fruitless and agitating. So poor curious little you talked yourself into making a fetlife account. You weren’t looking for true love, but at least you could get laid.

DM Request from: 10:13 PM - WebRigger2099 - “Hello, Fawn.”

College was for new experiences after all.

CW: BDSM heavy/centric fic. Safe, Sane & Consensual. Miguel is your professor, but you both don't know that. Age Gap (Y/N is 23, Miguel is mid 30's)

TAG: @slut4oscarissac23 @iamtheprincess227 @haveclayeveryday @sphynxfoxslut69 @junehasnotbeenfound

PART 1 - PART 2 - CHAPTER 1

It had been almost two months since Web first messaged you. As it turned out, you liked not being the caretaker for once. Considering you grew up the eldest of your six siblings, you were the second mom, the babysitter, the caretaker . 

Being the eldest daughter was a curse. 

You still had embarrassing flashbacks while laying in your bed of your father screaming at you over getting a B in AP physics in your junior year of highschool. 

You liked not being in charge. No responsibility, no obligation, no pressure. Web gave that to you. 

He’d become a friend as much as he was a dominant. You found yourself asking him about mundane things, restaurants he liked or opinions on your going-out clothing. 

He never really broke character, or, well - what you assumed was a character. Suave, domineering with a hint of playful possessiveness... you weren’t entirely sure if you were ready to sacrifice as much clothing as he wanted to rip off you. 

Clothes were expensive and you worked too hard to let him rip apart your nice lingerie.

Still, you weren't entirely opposed to the idea of him tearing apart clothes that he bought you. You thought about suggesting it once, but chickened out as he'd already spent a decent amount on you. Asking for more felt selfish, and you would not reduce yourself to being anyone's sugar baby. 

(Even if the thought did tempt you, sometimes.) 

He had plans for you - or so he said. You got the hint that he enjoyed that you were new and that he was the one ‘teaching you the ropes’,  but he took it seriously. He made you buy an ebook and learn about your nerves and blood flow. 

He didn’t want you to risk nerve damage and went out of his way to ensure you knew to see the signs. 

You had even suggested buying your own rope and testing some self ties, but Web refused. Worried that you’d mess something up and end up losing a limb, he expressly forbade any experimentation that you’d otherwise have tried. 

He hadn’t really revealed much of himself other than he traveled occasionally for work. You had about a dozen different photos in your telegram media chat of him in different hotel bedrooms, but he never told you why he was traveling - just that he was. 

You still hadn’t gotten an answer out of him of what he did for work. He was more active when he was traveling - during the week he practically disappeared but when he was traveling, you’d get a good extra half an hour or so to chat with him. You got used to the routine and you may or may not have adjusted your sleep schedule to spend the most time with him.

Your roommates were beginning to notice, though. It was obvious, with how you started taking much better care of yourself. You dressed up more - did your makeup regularly, you always walked to work… 

You began cooking, for god’s sake, breaking out your grandmother’s precious recipes and putting them to use. 

You tried to not think about the improvement of your mental health hinged on a 36 year old man bossing you around and making you fuck yourself silly on a toy he bought you. 

Aurora had dubbed you ‘Dorm Mom’ despite the fact that the five of you didn’t live in a dorm. Technically your house was a duplex that was converted to one house for college student rentals. 

He hasn’t asked you to use the lovense yet. It was pink and had a weird wider clamp bit you assumed held it in place. You hadn’t tried to put it on, remembering Web’s words.

“No using them without my permission, understood?”  

So, obviously, you didn’t. You didn’t expect yourself to be so rule compliant - you’d convinced yourself you’d be a brat or sassy like a kitten. Now you just fantasized about sitting between Web’s legs as he called you a good pet.

You still hadn’t decided what you were - dog, kitten, bunny? No clue - so he just started calling you pet. It was kind of hard to roleplay being nonverbal online. You had sent him a few videos now - happy to take it nice and slow. 

He made it clear he was comfortable with that. He was always direct and clear with you. You found yourself adoring his communication skills and learning a thing or two. It was refreshing compared to your singular previous relationship - he… he was sure a teenager.

Clear commands were comforting in an odd way, even if said commands were some of the filthiest things you've ever had sent to you. The commands he gave were easy to understand and impossible to fuck up without distinctly trying. 

 He made you nervous, but that was from anticipation, not from anxiety of making yourself look like a total idiot.  

He'd scold you and punish you if you'd call yourself that anyways, and your hand still hurt from the first round of lines he'd made you write in a notebook he also made you go out and get. Punishments long distance were difficult, but that was a surefire way you wouldn't forget his instructions and rules anytime soon.

It was a Thursday night - Web had told you he’d be around at 9pm, so you’d been twiddling your thumbs agonizing over the wait as you stared at the clock. There were a hundred things you could be doing to pass the time, but none of them seemed particularly fun against the rising concoction of excitement and dread churning in your belly. Instead, you figured you’d clean your room - the stage in which you’d male your grand debut. 

It was hardly the first time he had seen you, of course, but it would be the first time he’d see you live. You remembered how the first video you sent accidentally included the messy pile of clothes in the corner of your bedroom that you had forgotten about for an embarrassingly long time. He must have thought you a slob. You nearly cried a day after sending it when you scrolled through your conversation and saw it in the thumbnail. 

Not again. No, your room would be fucking spotless , if you had anything to say about it. 

First thing first, the hamper. Heaving the pile into your lattice-work bin, you trucked it over to the laundry room, the half-faded writing on its handle reading your name to make sure no one accidentally swapped clothes.

Next thing was vacuuming, and not just turning on the communal roomba and letting it wander for a few minutes in your room like the last time you ‘cleaned’. Your eyes lingered on the pink disc affectionately dubbed ‘Kirby’ by the household. Not this time, old friend.

You were a mostly clean person. Mostly. Maybe it was time to get back on your anti-depressants, you mused, picking up another glass to bring to the kitchen. 

After a half hour you felt pretty satisfied, your room looking better than it had in… Probably since a week after you moved in. Maybe you were messy?

The thought was interrupted by the click of a door closing in the living room. You winced. No, this could not be happening. They were - were supposed to be out tonight! Didn’t they all have a show to be at?

You peeked your head out your door to spy who had come in, feeling a tad like a ninja without the skills or cool costume or, really, anything that would make you a ninja. 

It was Aurora - huffing as she made her way inside. As always, the strawberry blonde had that characteristic coloring, all colorful care-bear themed clothing and highwaisted jeans, a literal rainbow shaped into a person and set loose to run wild. She was scowling, but that quickly evaporated when her brown eyes met yours. 

“Looks like you’re stuck with me tonight. The drag show ended early because one of the Queens made one too many jokes about cops and I guess some guy had a brother that was one.” She rolled her eyes, “‘Throwing bricks is assault’, he said. ‘Yeah that’s the point’, the Queen replied. You know how it is.”

“The others are bar hopping, but I have a doctor’s appointment in the morning so I have to turn in soon. Don’t mind me if you uh.. Had something special planned with all of us out, wink wink,” she said while literally winking. You wished you exploded on the spot.

“S-Something special? No-no, why would you think that?” you stammered, stepping out from your bedroom, hands growing clammy and wet.

“Because it's not often you have the apartment to yourself. You don’t maybe.. Have a boyfriend coming over or something?” She leaned forward, lips curling into a grin as she leaned closer. 

“ NO, ” you replied firmly, definitely too firm. It wasn’t a lie, he wasn’t exactly a boyfriend and he wasn’t coming over either. 

You were just going to get naked in front of him on camera and masturbate. 

Now you just had to do that with your roommate a few doors down. 

This was fine.

Everything was fine.

(everything was definitely not fine, and you could feel yourself getting paler, a bit lightheaded.)

“Suuuuure you don’t. If I hear knocking on the door - or in your room - I’ll just turn up my laptop while I watch netflix.” She hummed to herself, waltzing over to the fridge to grab a snack before she disappeared into her equally brightly colored bedroom.

This… complicated things, but of all the people to be home while this happened, you supposed Aurora was the least bad. She was a heavy sleeper and she wore earbuds when she watched stuff in her room, so it was possible that she wouldn’t notice at all. 

Your eyes darted to the clock as she left, checking the time. It was past time. You had been so busy worrying that you -

Shit. 

Rushing back to your bedroom, you snagged a towel on the way there, spreading it on the floor as you moved in. There was a risk of you needing it later, and you really, really wanted to be prepared. 

Taking a deep breath, you settled, laptop in hand, sitting cross legged on the towel. You opened your laptop, setting it down in front of you and taking a big, deep breath, losing any of the composure you’d gained all at once as you saw the notification waiting.

 9:10 PM - WebRigger2099 - “Are you free, pet?”  

“ I am. ” - Fawnteeth - 9:18 PM

 9:19 PM - WebRigger2099 - “I’ve been thinking about the video you sent me a few days ago.”  

“ Oh? I just did what you asked, Sir. ” - Fawnteeth - 9:19 PM

 9:19 PM - WebRigger2099 - “That you did, and you looked so nice squirming with those clamps on. You have very beautiful breasts, Fawn. Are you enjoying all the toys I provided you? Which is your favorite?”  

“ Thank you. I am, but I don’t think I have a favorite yet. ” - Fawnteeth - 9:19 PM

 9:19 PM - WebRigger2099 - “How are you adjusting to the dildo? Can you take it completely to the flare yet?”  

“ Same as last photo I shared, so not quite. ” - Fawnteeth - 9:19 PM

 9:20 PM - WebRigger2099 - “As much as I’d like to hilt myself in you when we meet, I understand that’s not always realistic. Don’t feel too bad if you reach your limit. If you do, however, I’ll need to get you something bigger to practice on.”  

“ I’m happy to keep trying with encouragement. :p ” - Fawnteeth - 9:20 PM

 9:20 PM - WebRigger2099 - “Aside from praise, is there something I can offer as a reward?”  

“ Pics, maybe. I do quite like the praise. ” - Fawnteeth - 9:20 PM

 9:20 PM - WebRigger2099 - “Alright, how about this: You get a picture for every inch you can manage starting at four. That’s twp potential pictures total if you reach all six.”  

“ I like that. ” - Fawnteeth - 9:20 PM

 9:20 PM - WebRigger2099 - “How would you like to show me your progress live?”  

“ I can try another video, I wish we could just facetime or something. ” - Fawnteeth - 9:20 PM

 9:20 PM - WebRigger2099 - “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about tonight, actually.”  

“ Oh? ” - Fawnteeth - 9:20 PM

 9:20 PM - WebRigger2099 - “Zoom. I will be muted and you still won’t see my face.”  

“ Can I ask why? ” - Fawnteeth - 9:20 PM

 9:21 PM - WebRigger2099 - “Why do you wear your mask?”  

“ Because I’m a college aged woman posting nudes on the internet. Point taken, I guess. ” - Fawnteeth - 9:21 PM

 9:21 PM - WebRigger2099 - “We all have our reasons. Would you like to or not?”  

“ Yes, sir. ” - Fawnteeth -  9:21 PM

 9:21 PM - WebRigger2099 - “Good girl. Always so polite.”  

“ I try. ” - Fawnteeth -  9:21 PM

 9:21 PM - WebRigger2099 - “It saves me some time disciplining it into you.”  

“ We’ll see, I like the idea of being a brat, remember? Just hard to do across the web. ” - Fawnteeth - 9:22 PM

9:22 PM - WebRigger2099 - “I’ll try not to scare you too much the first time I show you the crop then.”  

“ So scary :p. ” - Fawnteeth - 9:22 PM

9:22 PM - WebRigger2099 - “Let’s see what you think when you’re crying and you can’t sit for the next three days.”  

“ We’ll just have to see. ” - Fawnteeth - 9:22 PM

 9:26 PM - WebRigger2099 - “Get your lube, lovense and dildo. Find somewhere comfortable where you won’t be interrupted. Join when you’re ready: [Zoom code]”  

“ Okay, can you see me?. ” - Fawnteeth -  9:30 PM

9:30 PM - WebRigger2099 - “There’s my pet. Yes, I see you beautiful.”

Web’s video flashed on, bare enough to give you a generous view of his muscular frame, sculpted torso painting him like some god in human form. A pair of gray boxer-briefs were all that he wore on his bottom half, the bulge of his flaccid penis intimidatingly large. The man was a shower, not a grower. Even soft as it was now, it strained against the fabric and ran down his leg, head nearly threatening to peek out from the leg-holes. 

It was unfair how hot he was.

As always, the frame cut off before you could see his chin. Just what could a man like this have to hide, truly? So mysterious.

You found yourself staring for a moment, hunched over in your baggy t-shirt and underwear. All the confidence evaporated from your body - you didn’t realize he would have his feed on. 

You swallowed, your throat suddenly dry, struggling with the camera of your laptop. 

“Can you hear me?” you asked. 

The man leaned forward, the barest hint of his chin coming into frame only to be obscured by a simple medical mask. His long fingers typed something out and a moment later his message pinged into existence.

9:30 PM - WebRigger2099 - “I can.”  

Your eyes rested firmly on the mask for a moment, your brow raised. 

“Same idea, but mine is easier to breathe in.” You pointed at your own mask, black cloth and far more comfortable. 

It was technically made to be worn over a medical mask, after all. You were trying so hard to play it cool, as if you couldn’t feel sweat sticking your hair to the back of your neck. You sit up and back far enough you’re in view of the camera but you can still see his text.  

9:30 PM - WebRigger2099 - “Here I thought you might ask me where I got the idea from. I hope you don’t have a copyright.”  

You grinned under your mask, eyes scrunching. “I don’t. I-I’m glad you got the idea from me.” Flinching at the stutter, you glanced around the room, one of your hands brushing over your mask and down your neck awkwardly. 

9:31 PM - WebRigger2099 - “Nervous, Fawn? It’s normal to be. This is your first time doing something like this, isn’t it?”  

Sat there, you stalled, before nodding as physically hard as you could - you didn’t want to stutter again. Your hands eventually grabbed at the edge of your shirt and twisted it together, revealing a hint of your stomach.

9:31 PM - WebRigger2099 - “We can go slow, pet. Remember our safety tools. Shall we test them?”  

“I- yeah. Sorry. I want to. Just… It feels more real, ” you admitted.  

9:32 PM - WebRigger2099 - “This will make it easier when I meet you in person. A stepping stone. I want you to feel comfortable. Safe.”  

You know he couldn’t see you blush, but you sure felt your face warm, your eyes drifting over his hands as they disappeared to type. 

“I know. I trust you,” you finally spoke, voice a bit more sure. 

9:32 PM - WebRigger2099 - “Color check. How are you feeling?”  

“Green,” you answered, hands moving to finally wrench your top over your body, tossing it… somewhere.

Idly, your gaze brushed over your hips, fingers touching the half-faded marks that you had written on yourself the week before at Web’s instruction. 

9:32 PM - WebRigger2099 - “Still not fully faded, I see. Good thing it was a compliment and not something else.”  

“What would something else be?” you asked, again cringing at your stumbling of words.

9:32 PM - WebRigger2099 - “Some pets prefer degradation. ‘Whore’, ‘Slut’, ‘Stupid Bitch’. You seem like the type that works on praise.”  

Your brows furrowed, “What do you prefer?” 

Belatedly, you realized that it was probably a terrible idea to ask. You knew you’d try desperately to enjoy whatever he liked. 

9:32 PM - WebRigger2099 - “Depends on my mood, and how bratty they’ve been. You’re a good girl, aren’t you Fawn? Stay like that and we’ll keep doing praise.”

Slowly, Web reached down to his thigh, thick-veined hand sliding across the bulge of his member which had slowly begun to swell and harden.

9:32 PM - WebRigger2099 - “You’ve barely done anything and you’ve already started to get me hard. Your voice is beautiful, Fawn.”

You swore you felt your heart skip in your chest, shifting on your knees almost uncomfortably. You felt the urge to sit up straighter - it was hard to tell if it was to hide the rolls on your stomach or because you felt lifted by his compliment. 

He was almost inhumanly attractive. You swore a man like him couldn’t be real, but here he was. 

“I.. Uhm…,” you stumbled over your words, glancing at the toy laid out beside your hip. 

9:32 PM - WebRigger2099 - “How about you start taking off the rest of your clothes for me, Fawn? Show me your beautiful body.”

Web’s hand shifted, fingers hooking the edge of his underwear and dragging it down enough that you could begin to see the neatly trimmed bush of pubic hair leading to his manhood. It lingered there, just an inch away from revealing the base of his cock to you. 

In all honesty, how wet you already were was more than enough humiliation alone for you to squirm - he didn’t need to contribute. You reached your arms back, struggling for a moment to unclasp your bra. It was on instinct as you tossed it down and wrapped one hand over your breasts. 

You tried to not notice him typing one-handed, knowing it would be like that for the rest of the night. 

9:33 PM - WebRigger2099 - “There they are, those pretty breasts of yours. Don’t hide them from me, pet.”

“I’m trying ,” you admitted, squirming in your kneeling position. You were hunching forward ever so slightly, eyes waiting for his next message.

9:33 PM - WebRigger2099 - “Color?”

“Green,” you mumbled, forcing yourself to drop your arm and sink your fingers into your thigh. 

Part of you was thankful the AC in your room barely worked so it wasn’t freezing to be naked right now. 

Taking the initiative for the first time in weeks, you shifted, sitting back on your haunches to display the wet spot quickly spreading across the seat of your panties. 

9:33 PM - WebRigger2099 - “So wet for me already, eager little thing. Take those off too; Show me your pussy, Fawn.”

You tried… so hard to do it quickly - sexy, y’ know? Smooth. Hooking your thumbs under the waistband and tugging, just like he had, but…

Instead of a smooth descent, your underwear caught at your knees, and you froze, shifting back on your hips to try to dislodge them, but that only had you falling quickly off balance. It took both arms to catch yourself and keep you from toppling over, panties still tangled at your knees, and you whimpered, trying desperately not to look at your screen while you smoothly (read: jerkily) kicked your underwear off.

Now nude, you had to take a moment to soothe your panic. You were convinced that, to some extent, he was charmed by your awkwardness - he'd all but told you as much a few times, but it didn't stop your cheeks from burning and your mind from considering hanging up, giving up, and hiding away from the rest of the world for the next year or so.

For a moment you lingered half-laid before rolling back onto your knees, now completely nude. Eager to pretend that nothing happened, you raked your hair from your face, risking a quick glance to the screen, and - 

You swore you could see his chest rise like he was chuckling at you. It was almost enough to make you wish he could see you pout. 

Crossing your arms, you frowned, all too cognizant of how the motion propped up your breasts for him while he typed. 

9:33 PM - WebRigger2099 - “Good girl. Take those tits in your hands now, squeeze them. Pinch your nipples for me. Do what you would want me to do to them. Color.”

“G-green,” you managed to get out, wiping your sweaty palms over your torso.  Taking a deep breath, you reread the order, before letting your eyes drift back up to his video. Watching the broad, built man palm his crotch, squeezing his massive cock through his pants,you couldn’t help but remember that the black dildo was two inches shorter and more than a bit thinner. 

He was massive.

Slowly, your hands uncrossed and cupped your breasts. Hesitantly, you tweaked at one of your nipples, cautious and careful. You had always been sensitive, it was hard to even sleep without a bra much less masturbate. Now Web was telling you to… oh dear. Your eyes pinched close, thumb and pointer coming together to squeeze the sensitive bundle of nerves between them. 

You massaged it gently as you felt electricity run up your spine, forcing a little gasp from your throat. You straightened your back, tensing and releasing the nipple with a whimper. Your fingers lingered again, knowing every touch would jolt through you like lightning.

9:34 PM - WebRigger2099 - “You seem hesitant. Color.”

Taking in a sharp breath, you swallowed, glancing between the chat and the camera. It took effort to maintain ‘eye contact’, but you forced yourself to do it, to open your mouth and answer him. 

 “G-green.” 

A pause, and then-

“‘M sensitive ,” you managed to mumble, twisting your head away from the camera.

9:34 PM - WebRigger2099 - “So it seems. Do you have the clamps I bought you nearby? Maybe it will be easier hands-free.”

You glanced back, leaning forward to read his words. On instinct - you went to type your reply, only stopping yourself at the last second

“I- yeah. I think so,” you shift on your knees and grab one of the ‘secret’ boxes from under your bed where the dildo and lube was stored. Your hips were the only thing in view to Web. 

When she turned around with the clamps in hand a new message awaited her.

9:34 PM - WebRigger2099 - “So pretty. Turn around for me first, let me see your ass. Spread your cheeks and show me your pussy.”

Your cheeks burned and you were thankful for your mask, but you doubted he needed to see your blush to know how flustered you were.

“I-O-Okay,” you stammered, stumbling over your words, warring between your nervousness and excitement, hands pressing down on your floor to help you turn. Before long your rear was facing the camera, cunt on full display. As you buried your face in a pillow, your arms reached back to grab your own butt. You took a deep breath and pulled your cheeks apart, giving a teasing wiggle as your back arched for him. 

You sat there, face pressed into your pillow for maybe a minute before finally turning around, checking his response. The sight of his cock on full display greeted you, properly hard with a hand stroking it lazily as pre-cum beaded at his tip. It was one thing to see it in a picture, but on video… Your hands went up to your face, covering your masked cheeks out of pure instinct. 

9:34 PM - WebRigger2099 - “Such a nice, wet pussy. Are you eager for me to fill that hole with my cum, pet? Show me where you want my cock.”

You swallowed again, resisting the urge to roll over and squeal like you did sometimes when you two were sexting. You were not sexting - well. 

Kinda. 

Cybering? Yeah. You were cybering. 

You moved your hands down to your pubic mound, fingers lingering in your curls before sinking your fingers into the flesh, pulling upwards to expose a hint of your labia.

9:34 PM - WebRigger2099 - “That’s it, good girl. My lovely Fawn, so obedient.”

“Thank you, sir,” you gasped out, forcing a deep breath and settling your voice. “I-I want to be a good girl.” You rolled your hips back, showing off more of your groin. You weren’t exactly soaked - but you were wet. It was getting worse as you watched him stroke himself. You wondered what it would feel like under your touch.

9:35 PM - WebRigger2099 - “Now put the clamps on, Fawn.”

Swallowing hard, you nodded grabbing at the clamps you had left sitting on the floor beside you. The black tweezer tips were soft to the touch, colder metal giving way to a small adjustable crank that could tighten them into place. The two clamps were held together by a string of metal link, quietly twinkling as you brought them up to yourself. .

Your nipples were already hard, small buds poking out from your breasts like they were begging to be pinched and pulled. It would be so much easier if he was here himself, you thought. Then, you wouldn’t have to worry about spasming each time you brushed against them. He could make you do whatever he wanted. His hands looked strong, those arms clearly able to pin you. 

You felt saliva pool in your mouth, and you swallowed. Hard. 

You winced as the first clamp tightened onto your nipple, the sensitive flesh burning with pain as you adjusted the tightness. Too tight - you let a sigh of release loose as the pain relieved itself, more of a comfortable ache than an outright pain. You liked this sort of discomfort. 

The next one quickly followed, you biting your lip as you pressed your breasts together with the sides of your arms to show the clamps off to Web.

“How’s this, Sir?”

9:35 PM - WebRigger2099 - “Good, Fawn. Now pull on that chain for me.”

You clenched your teeth, eyes shutting for a moment before nodding. Mean. He was mean . 

You really shouldn’t have liked it as much as you did. 

A hand rose, sheepishly curling a finger over the chain and pulling ever so slightly. It was enough, forcing you to gasp aloud.

“Ah! Fuck .” You couldn’t help the curse, tears beading at the edges of your eyes from the sheer sensitivity.

9:35 PM - WebRigger2099 - “Good girls don’t curse. Do I need to punish you for that foul mouth? How about this: Again. Harder this time.”

You nodded again, pulling harder and locking your hips into place to help stifle the powerful jolt of pleasure through your spine. It still had you nearly jump, butt clenching and shoulders shuddering.

9:35 PM - WebRigger2099 - “Again. Color.”

All the while, his other hand had been stroking his intimidating length, swollen veins running along his tan shaft while his dark balls hung beneath, drawing tight and high. You could almost imagine how close he was to his peak, just from watching you. 

“Green. Green,” you gasped, releasing the chain as your body shivered. 

9:35 PM - WebRigger2099 - “Good girl. Sweet little Fawn. How about you start using some of that lube now, get yourself ready for your dildo? You want to show me how you’d take my cock, don’t you?”

“Yes, Sir.” 

For a moment, you sat there, glancing over at the small lube bottle and the black toy. Slowly, resisting the urge to squeeze the dildo like a stressball, you picked the thing up, staring at it. 

He was seriously bigger than this? 

Instead, you squeezed out a palm-full of lube and applied it generously to the dildo, stroking over the toy until it was coated in a layer of slickness. Next was yourself, though you gave yourself a minute to breathe before inhaling a lung-full of air and nodding. The somewhat cold liquid alerted your senses as you lathered it across your opening and slipped your fingers inside yourself.

 You were already wet, but lube could hardly hurt . It’s not like you were used to taking insertions like this, only ever really using your fingers before now - and even then, that was sparing .

You had ridden the dildo a few times by now - but only ever in short, contained clips for Web, and never in front of anybody like you now were. 

9:36 PM - WebRigger2099 - “That’s a good pet, prepare that pretty pussy for me. Let’s see how deep you can take it.”

Your hand shook a little as it rested on your lips, dildo in hand to tease along your seam, the slightly curved edge giving it an ever-slightly realistic shape. Teasing yourself like this was agony, you would have far preferred to lay back and let him do whatever he wanted to you, but you were eager to please.

“Oooookay. Just.. might take a minute..,” you managed as your hand lingered, nervousness freezing your muscles in place. 

You could take a few inches without much issue, you knew that mechanically. Objectively. Experimentations had proven that you could get pretty far down, if you were relaxed and tried hard enough. 

You could even film it for him, but to do it while he was watching, stroking his cock openly in front of you? Your eyes shifted back to the screen, the man’s hand tightening around the shaft of his lengthy member. He had said before he was eight inches. This dildo was six, and that was already scary. 

You swallowed hard, watching him pump out a few strokes to you, shifting your hand placement so that he would have a better view of your pussy. Slowly but surely, the lube did its work and before you even meant for it to properly slide inside there it was, an inch deep.

Your butt clenched, thighs quivering while the arm supporting your weight behind you shook faintly, an aching soreness beginning to spread.

“I want you, Sir,” you admitted, biting your lip as you half teased him, half tortured yourself. It was the most you could manage, and despite the burning at your cheeks you were proud. You could see by the way his cock twitched in his hand he was too, his massaging strokes growing more rapid.

9:36 PM - WebRigger2099 - “That’s right, Fawn. Put it inside. Show me how you want me to fuck you, pet.”

You inched yourself down, feeling the dull ache intermixed with pleasure as the toy pressed into your pussy. You let out a ragged gasp, pausing to lift your hips back up, slowly settling back down. You settle into a shallow rhythm, desperately trying to not play the pathetic, anxiety ridden virgin you really were. 

Right now, you were Fawn.

You stuttered for a moment in anxiety, rolling your arms to settle your hands back behind you as your legs shivered in discomfort. After a moment, you tried to force most of the dildo into you, forcing a gasp to leave your lips as the aching pressure only got worse. 

You could barely take 3/4ths of this damn thing - you sure as hell couldn’t think about trying to take Web right now. Thankfully, your furrowed brows were mostly out of view. 

Web was muted, but you swear you could hear the clap of the edge of his hand against his balls, each pump up and down his cock faster than the last. You took it as encouragement, a small smile forming on your lips despite the pain inside you. You were never too worried about pain, it so often came hand in hand with pleasure to you. 

Rolling your hips, you half-rode, half-ground against the dildo as you lifted your butt higher, desperately searching for that special nook that promised your peak. 

Eventually, a little surprisingly, you did. Your slender fingers and sensitive body could only do so much to yourself, but this was perhaps as close as you had ever gotten to a proper orgasm. You leaned into it, smile widening as you took control of your own pleasure. Up and down you bounced against the dildo, each drop sending it deep inside you. Surely you could reach a new record tonight and earn those rewards he promised, you mused to yourself. Or you would later, since your brain was quickly becoming putty in the present.

As nice as this was, it wasn’t sustainable, not forever. Your legs were quickly getting tired, aching muscles ready to give out. You had to readjust, your torso leaning forward so that you could sit on your knees and ride it that way, hands and knees holding you up.

As your weight shifted, you underestimated just how much pain your thigh would spike with. The adjustment made it kick out, foot striking the bottle of lube and knocking it into your bed frame with a loud bang. You winced, mortified, head whipping around to look at what had happened. Your second mistake. The quick motion had you collapsing on your ass, falling straight on your tailbone and sending a jolt of pain up your spine. You cursed. 

Loudly.

Your cheeks burned . You half wanted to dive for the computer and shut it, but his message popped into view just in time.

9:38 PM - WebRigger2099 - “You okay, Fawn?”

“I’m so fucking stupid,” you muttered, not even thinking about it as you lurched and grabbed your aching tailbone. Your whole body hurt now and you were pretty fucking positive Aurora would have heard that. Desperately, you sat up on your knees, looking over the laptop at your barricaded bedroom door. 

“I-I fuck. Fuck, I’m dumb. Should’ve expected, honestly,” you were just rambling to yourself at this point as you went to retrieve the slightly spilled bottle of lube, clipping the cap closed and sitting back on your knees. Eyeing the computer, you frowned, seeing that Web had paused and was leaned forward, both hands on the laptop. You glanced down at his text.

9:38 PM - WebRigger2099 - “Stop. Breathe. Don’t you dare call yourself that again, understood?”

“Sorry,” was all you could manage to say. You took a deep breath, unsure what to do at this point. Your hands basically wandered around the floor as you sat back down on your knees. Anxiety was completely eating you up at this point.

“I always fuck everything up,” you mumbled again, moving to pick up the black dildo, assuming that well - you two were done. You ruined the mood and you hated yourself for it. 

9:39 PM - WebRigger2099 - “You don’t. You’re beautiful and - fuck - I nearly came. Good girl, it usually takes me a while. Take a moment. Deep breaths.”

He had obviously stopped stroking himself at that point, but his head was slick with pre-cum, his cock twitching with sensitivity as it stood hard as a rock despite the miscalculation. You could see just a hint of it as he shifted in his seat. You couldn’t tell if it was a bed, couch or something else. 

You took a deep breath again, wiping your teary eyes. “That’s good,” you sighed. You rubbed over your arm, fingers drawing over the massive tattoo on your upper arm. The fawn’s teary eyes sure fit how you felt right now.

9:39 PM  - WebRigger2099 - “Set the dildo aside, get out the lovense.”

You remembered setting up the controls when you first got it with him, but you had been too shy to bring up trying it just yet. To do so live would be exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. A simple slide of his finger on the app and the toy would start buzzing harder. 

Doing as you were told, you placed the dildo on a towel you had set on the ground nearby quickly followed by your bottle of lube. Producing the lovense, you looked it over, frowning. The big device was like a big U shaped hook, the big bulbous end seemingly meant for insertion. The site called it an egg vibrator. With the sheer amount of lube still coating you, you skipped pumping out another squirt and instead pressed the fat end against your entrance, slipping cozily inside with ease now that you had been stretched open. 

The device went deeper than you were expecting, but it wasn’t uncomfortable by any means. What did alarm you is where the smaller hook had ended up resting, the thinner tip nestled right up against your clit. 

You got the feeling it wasn’t just for keeping it in place anymore. You swallowed hard, looking back to the camera and clearing your throat.

“I’m-I’m ready, Sir,” you said sheepishly.

9:41 PM  - WebRigger2099 - “We’ll start on a low setting. Let you get used to it.”

Nodding to show you saw the message, you hummed, eyes watching him produce his cellphone - a sleek black android without a single decoration, even the case plain and boring. You couldn’t help the snicker that almost left your lips - of course he would have an android. 

His thumb slipped across the screen and without delay you felt a vibration against your walls. 

Subconsciously, you clenched, grimacing at the unfamiliar sensation. It wasn’t bad , just strange, awkward. 

 9:43 PM - WebRigger2099 - “Color.”

You shifted on your knees, ignoring the discomfort still in your tailbone and hip. 

“G… Green,” your voice was softer now, more nervous. Every so often, you risked a glance at the door, but nobody showed, blessedly. Maybe everyone was watching a movie together or something. 

 9:43 PM - WebRigger2099 - “Eyes on me. Focus, fawn.”

You saw Web raise the settings a tad without warning, a small punishment for your distracted glances. You clenched around the toy, sitting back and glancing at his feed.

His hand had returned to his cock, slow kneading strokes trailing the length of his manhood up and down while his other hand held the phone. As if simulating his own strokes, the thumb at his phone drew up and down, sending waves of vibration inside you. It had you bite down on your lip, leaning forward and placing a hand on the floor. 

Clicking a button on his phone, the vibrator returned to a constant, dull stimulation before he went to type out another message, his cock bobbing as he released it.

 9:44 PM - WebRigger2099 - “Should I turn it up higher, pet? Color.”

“Green, please,” you gasp out, placing your other hand down on the floor to steady yourself. 

He turned the settings up bit by bit, sliding his finger slowly up the phone. The buzzing within you grew intense, almost unbearable, but it was reaching a spot you had finally discovered today after so many sessions of sheepish masturbation attempts and picture taking. You felt a deep ache within you waiting to finally be released, pent up frustration building like steam in a kettle.

 9:44 PM - WebRigger2099 - “More?”

“Please - fuck , please,” you begged, your fingers digging into the carpet beneath you, desperate for something to cling to.

 9:44 PM - WebRigger2099 - “Language.” 

He scolded you, his message was dripping in the warnings of swiftly approaching punishment. Would he push the settings to max, watch you squirm uncontrollably as the vibrator made you buck?

No. Everything stopped, that blissful feeling inside you halted all at once. He had turned it off. You could scream, you wanted to snap at him for his cruelty. You were getting so close and he - he robbed you of your peak. 

“Sorry,” you mumbled, not particularly meaning it. It wasn’t hard to tell there was no regret in your tone, not with how petulant you sounded. 

 9:45 PM - WebRigger2099 - “I’ll make you sorry. Turn around and spank yourself. Hard. You’ve said that word six times since we’ve been on video, so you’ll give yourself six spanks.”

You whimpered audibly at his command, begrudgingly turning around to expose your oozing cunt to him.

“ Is… Isn’t edging me enough ?” you complained like you could hear him reply.

Of course you were only speaking to the air. You had already turned around, obedient as ever to Web. You did things without fully thinking them through often times, his daily commands overriding any natural instinct or desires that usually distracted you one way or another. He kept you responsible and healthy. He was good at this. 

Your thighs were slick with arousal by now, a desperate need for his cock suffusing every thought in your brain - what thoughts were left, anyway. Your torso collapsed forward, a forearm being used as a pillow against your face while your other arm reached over to squeeze your own rear tentatively. 

You lifted your hand high, arm trembling as you tried to aim for your own cheeks without sight. This wasn’t the most humiliating thing he had asked you to do, this should have been easy… As long as no one interrupted and saw you spanking yourself in front of a computer screen, all would be fine. 

That was not a conversation you wanted to have with any of your five roommates, especially Taylor. 

She was just - judgmental sometimes. Not that she didn’t engage in stuff like this herself in person, probably. God knew she brought home enough girls to your house to convince you that she dabbled in some questionable stuff. She just… Well, you didn’t need your roommates to know what you were doing right now.

Your arm stiffened before coming down, a light clap sounding in the air. You winced in pain, the aim clearly off as you smacked against hard bone instead of soft flesh. You adjusted your aim, wrist trembling, and crack ! Another down, aim better this time. It had you hissing from the sting, surprising yourself at your own strength - or maybe your sensitivity. 

You opted to be a tad gentler for the rest, firm enough to leave a red blush but not so hard as to sound like thunder and disturb anyone. You had to be at least a little careful with the noise. You were thankful your bedroom was so far away from everyone else’s.

When you turned back around, Web’s latest message was waiting for you.

9:46 PM - WebRigger2099 - “You’re lucky you won’t have to be the one spanking you when I meet you in person. Your inexperience is showing, Fawn. Still, you did well for a beginner. Good girl.”

Web had stopped stroking himself by now, hard cock still in clear view but untouched. Almost as soon as you finished reading his message the buzz began again. It took you a fraction of a second to realize it was on max settings.

You nearly buckled then and there, your knees turning to jelly.

You bit your lip to stop yourself from cursing again. The last thing you needed was another punishment. Instead, you simply collapsed, face in view of the camera and eyes shut tight as your hands went to your sex to help rub out the swiftly approaching orgasm.

Your own touch was nervous, as if you had never masturbated before in your life. This simple little toy was a godsend, or maybe it was Web’s skilled manipulation of both the toy and you, you weren’t sure. Whatever the case, your head touched the clouds as you climbed your peak for the first time.

You were too dazed to speak when it was over, the contractions inside you clenching around the toy as your hips weakly spasmed. Tears from your hard orgasm blurred your vision, breath shot as you took in inhales with stuttering gasps.

 9:49 PM - WebRigger2099 - “Good pet. So obedient. You did very well today. How did you enjoy my gifts?”

“Yes,” you croaked out, voice tired and worn, rolling your head to the side as you watched his messages. 

 9:50 PM - WebRigger2099 - “You’ve earned yourself some rest, Fawn. I won’t keep you. Message me when you wake up tomorrow, understood? I have much to think about. I’ll have a treat for you to wake up to.”

You took a moment to stabilize yourself, pulling the toy from your vagina with a gasp and just letting it drop to the floor. You’d clean it in the dead of night… later. Slowly you lifted yourself up onto your arms and nodded. 

“O…okay. Uhm.. goodnight,” you said, eyes still on his torso, seeing that he was breathing hard. 

 9:50 PM - WebRigger2099 - “Goodnight, Fawn. You did very good. I’m proud of you.”

His screen clicked to black an instant later. 

 9:50 PM - WebRigger2099 - Has gone offline.

So, you tossed the wet toys and lube in the small plastic tote to take out after everyone went to bed, wiped yourself off with baby wipes and redressed. You ended up checking on your roommates and found them all home from the bar, somehow and extremely invested in another Chris Chan documentary on youtube, using the projector as a TV hooked up to Taylor’s laptop. 

So, thankfully nobody noticed. You got water, you cleaned your toys and hid them back under your tiny bed. 

The first thing you did the next morning was check your messages, a hand covering your face as you smiled and blushed at the image sent. 

Web’s torso was on full display, cock angled up so she could see its undercarriage. Along his stomach and past his belly button was a pool of sticky white, stray spurts seemingly shot further up his torso before the main gush was emptied out. The text with it was simple:

 7:04 AM - WebRigger2099 - You gave me a lot to think about. 

 7:04 AM - WebRigger2099 - Message me when you wake up and we’ll discuss how everything went.

You could squeal in joy. You did that to him. You did that despite falling on your ass and nearly bruising your hip like an idiot. 

You were not in love - who could fall in love with a stranger on the internet so quickly? - but damn did it help you feel good about yourself. 

[robotslenderman]

Man enshittification has sent me down a tech rabbit hole and I really appreciate the skills I'm developing and the way they've enriched my life.

Don't like Spotify so I got SpotDL. Fuck paying god knows how much for streaming programs I'm barely using, I'm learning to torrent that shit. I set up a killswitch and a split tunnel and everything. I know people keep saying that you shouldn't pirate books but I got fed up with Amazon letting me buy stuff only to take it back and not let me read it any more without a refund, so if I can't get something from the library or the second hand book fair I absolutely pirate that shit now because FUCK the "you won't own anything and you will be happy" economy, I don't care if you're a struggling independent or a juggernaut I am NEVER letting that happen again. As soon as I can figure out Calibre I'm stripping the DRM from my legal ebook collection so I can hold on to it. Fuck Amazon.

I bought a new ereader because fuck Kindle and I didn't have to get a subscription and FUCK SUBSCRIPTIONS, I have two three subscriptions and one is two bucks a month for iCloud and the other is for YNAB because it saves me more money than it costs (and the last one is my local gym). I bought a handheld PC and installed Apollo and Moonlight and Playnite so I can stream games directly from my desktop PC so I can play them at higher settings, and I want to install Tailscale so I can do it even when I'm not at home, should the internet connection cooperate. But also I still have to learn how to get it to cooperate with PureVPN because I have port forwarding set up there with a killswitch for my torrents, and I don't know if I CAN make them play nice but I'll give it a go. I'm going to learn about wake on LAN so I can try and turn on my computer remotely so I can still access it when I'm away and the inevitable circuit breaker events happen without having to nag my brother into turning on my computer. I want to learn how to dual boot Linux for my next build but no idea if I'll be able to get it to cooperate with Moonlight lmao

Anyway even though my budget app saves me more money than it costs, the Mormons who run it are absolutely squeezing its users so I went. fuck it. new app time. and I found some open source software online that basically runs the same and still requires a subscription but this time instead of fifteen bucks a month it's two bucks a month, and it requires setting up a server on some website I've never heard of but it was easy and I did it, and there's no app I have to use a web browser but it's mostly set up now, I just have to do battle to export my YNAB budget and import it into Actual Budget and then I'm spending less than five bucks a month on subscriptions that aren't the gym.

I feel like I've slowly turned into an anti consumption kind of person without even meaning to. I still buy a lot of things brand new, but I very rarely buy things that I don't actually need in some way. I've started thrifting clothes, I get tech second hand or refurbished. I don't like to waste the bin liners at work so I won't use the bin in the store room at work because if I do the cleaners will empty it even though it'll only have whatever I threw out in there so I always bring my rubbish to the front desk and use that bin instead. I'm learning to cook so I can finally make food nice enough I stop buying fucking lunch. I want to one day buy an apartment on a tram line in Melbourne so that I don't have to use a car, but before I get there I'm using my mother's car until she either wants it back or it dies. One thing that'll bug me about being on my own is that I'd be producing a lot of food waste as groceries are sold in portions meant for households, not single people, so I want to get a chest freezer so I can reduce that as much as I can, but that's years down the line.

I never really set out to become this person I've become but I feel good about it. I'll never be able to opt out of capitalism but I can still reduce how much I participate in it by buying refurbished and second hand, and reducing how much I toss. I found a store yesterday at work that has books out, encouraging people to donate some and take others, and I might go back this week and take some of the books I bought from the second hand book fair that I've read to make some more space. After I read them I pirated my favourites so I'll always have them on my device now anyway, but I don't want to throw them out, I'd rather let someone else have them and then pass them on in their turn.

[mariacallous]

If you actually measure the amount of time you spend scrolling through algorithm-led social media feeds each day, it will probably add up to more hours and minutes than you’d guess. Time can quickly slip away while you're checking up on friends, celebrities, the news, and the viral memes of the day.

The term doomscrolling has sprung up to describe this behavior, which, let's face it, isn't usually the most edifying or the best for our mood. It's no surprise that the word began to gain traction at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, a period of lockdowns and social isolation that we're still feeling the effects of.

There are ways to fight back against doomscrolling though, some of which are built into your phone and can be enabled with a couple of taps. See how much time and mental well-being they can help you reclaim.

(The Android instructions below apply to Pixel phones running Android 15 or later. If you're using something different, you should be able to find similar features and settings, though they might not be in exactly the same place).

Turn Off Notifications

News and social media alerts can drag you into apps when you weren't even thinking about checking them. Disabling notifications can keep you from getting sucked in. You can shut off notifications altogether or just quieten them.

On Android, head to Settings, then tap Notifications > App notifications. On iOS, from Settings choose Notifications to see an app list.

Delete Apps

For a more extreme approach, you can delete these apps from your mobile devices entirely, which stops you from checking them at all. On Android, you can drag an app from the app drawer up to the Uninstall button at the top of the screen. On iOS, tap and hold on an app in the app library, then choose Delete App from the pop-up menu.

Deleting apps on an iPhone Courtesy of David Nield

This may just lead you to check these apps more often on the web—but you can always delete your accounts entirely. This is usually not too difficult to do: In the case of X, for example, head to the website and log in, then click More > Settings and privacy > Your account > Deactivate your account and follow the instructions.

Put Your Phone in Another Room

You could consider putting your phone in a different room during parts of the day—especially at bedtime, to avoid doomscrolling when you should be sleeping.

Note that several studies have shown that just having a phone in the same room with you can have an impact on your attention and focus, even if you don't actually pick it up and use it.

Set Screen Time Limits

Modern phones come with built-in tools that allow you to limit your screen time, so you can put restrictions on how long you use specific apps and how long you're on your phone overall. Of course, you're able to disable these limits as easily as you can enable them—it's your phone after all—but you can use them in combination with your own willpower to change your habits.

If you're on Android, you can open Settings and choose Digital Wellbeing and Parental Controls, then App limits, to put some restrictions in place. Over on iOS, from Settings tap Screen Time, then App & Website Activity. On both platforms, you get a pretty detailed breakdown of how you've been spending your time on your phone.

Scroll Something Else

If you must spend time on your phone (what else are you going to do on the subway platform?), you can replace social media and news with apps like Calm for mindful meditation; Blinklist for reading summaries of books, podcasts, and talks; and Kindle for ebook reading, which will also be synced to your actual Kindle, if you have one.

Tell Your Phone It’s Bedtime

Enabling a bedtime schedule on Android Courtesy of David Nield

Both Android and iOS now let you set a specific bedtime on your phone, the idea being that it helps you wind down properly by steering you away from opening apps and doomscrolling into the early hours. These bedtime modes put limits on incoming notifications, dim the screen, and give you the option of using a more simplified phone interface late at night.

If you're on Android, open the Clock app and switch to the Bedtime tab: You can set start and end times for the mode and access settings such as turning the screen gray at a specific hour. On iPhone, head to the main iOS Settings screen, then tap Focus, then Sleep. The next screen will show all the available options and timers.

Get a Reminder to Stop

This is iPhone only, but Adam Davidson over at How-To Geek has a neat idea: Create an iOS shortcut to generate a snarky message from ChatGPT or Claude AI that warns about the harm of doomscrolling, and have it go off every time you open certain apps. The message can be shown on screen or read aloud.

[autumngracy]

Humble Bundle is offering a charity bundle of 39 ebooks by Terry Pratchett for just $18!

Proceeds go to support Room to Read. 3 and 9 book bundles are also available for a lower price.

The ebooks are available to US residents only, through Kobo.com (to use them you need to make an account, which is free. You can read them on a web browser or through their app, but you can also export them to read on any device as an epub or pdf file).

Bundle details:

Mighty and mundane magic. Discover Sir Terry Pratchett's Discworld, the beloved comic fantasy universe that’s brimming with wit, wisdom, and wonder. Start where it all began in the seminal novel The Color of Magic, which follows the misadventures of the inept wizard Rincewind as he serves as tour guide to Twoflower, Discworld's first-ever sightseer. The hapless duo’s journeys continue in The Light Fantastic and Sourcery, where the scale of world-threatening hazards (and accompanying absurdities) increase exponentially. You’ll get over 35 Discworld novels in all, touching all corners of this whimsical realm and all manner of its denizens, and you’ll help Room to Read with your purchase!

[sonkitty]

Finished Re-Reading Good Omens

I've finally finished re-reading the Good Omens book. I prefer to read books as ebooks, so I did. I use Kindle in particular.

On the last spread, whether through the web browser or the app on my PC, there are three instances of the word "pocket" (two versions in plural form). Rule of Three. Pockets!!!

There's a chapter break, then the overall ending paragraphs that have eight instances of the word "imagine".

I double-checked my paperback copy out of curiosity. I confess I bought this paperback copy because...David Tennant's on the cover. But it's convenient to have a more readily tangible version of the book to check this stuff.

So, in the paperback copy, those three instances of the word "pocket" are on the last numbered page for the contents of the story itself.

The section that uses the word "imagine" eight times is on the next page and not numbered.

...

So, to anyone new around here or wants a general reminder of my theory stuff...

Earthly Objects is a large, difficult hidden game in Good Omens 2. It's a layered game the characters play, and then an audience member can play trying to figure out how the game works.

It has a Rule of Three. It has 6 Threshold Tricks (3 Simple, 3 Complex) as findable, solvable puzzles. Each one is special in its own way, but one in particular—The Pocket Trick—is a hidden giant with a giant impact on many things, including the other 5 Threshold Tricks.

The Threshold Tricks are very, very complicated but based on simple ideas I call "core concepts". That's part of the puzzles to solve.

The Pocket Trick's core concept is, "Think outside the pocket," because it requires using one's imagination with assorted word play to solve the puzzles within it.

Another of the 6 Threshold Tricks is The Sunglasses Trick. It has eight touches.

One of the interesting hidden messages for The Pocket Trick that I'm not sure I have properly down in the wording and never posted goes something like the following..."If you played far enough to find The Pocket Trick to begin with, you've been using your imagination with word play all along." It's a small comfort when dealing with The Pocket Trick's astronomical level of difficulty.

Anyway, the reason I bring up that message is because to solve The Sunglasses Trick—the one with eight touches—I had to imagine the sunglasses were a door to Crowley. The core concept I eventually named for it was, "Crowley's sunglasses are his door to himself." It was the next-to-last Threshold Trick I solved (in a broad sense).

While Crowley himself isn't actually in this last spread of the book since it's about Adam, there is mention of a "cobra" (a snake) in the following sentence, "With the speed of a striking cobra the boy was up the tree."

...

This reading hasn't really helped me solve things further in my desperate attempt to improve my play, but it does make me feel I'm on the right track and have been on the right track with the Earthly Objects game, the Threshold Tricks, and The Pocket Trick in particular.

...

I don't know if I'll have more to say later, but I really wanted to get something out of my system after seeing the word "pocket" used three times.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Object permanence: Sony payola; Curated Computing, UK volunteer "police reserve"; Fintech bullies vs school lunches

Hey, German-speakers! Through a very weird set of circumstances, I ended up owning the rights to the German audiobook of my bestselling 2022 cryptocurrency heist technothriller Red Team Blues and now I'm selling DRM-free audio and ebooks, along with the paperback (all in German and English) on a Kickstarter that runs until August 11.

#20yrsago Canadian telco that blocked union websites is breaking all kinds of laws https://web.archive.org/web/20051028181259/http://www.michaelgeist.ca/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=914&Itemid=85&nsub=

#20yrsago Damning Sony payola memos: “I’m a whore this week” https://somafm.com/payola/payola2.pdf

#15yrsago What “curated computing” can and can’t deliver https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2010/jul/27/curated-computing-environment-apps-choice

#15yrsago UK govt proposes volunteer “police reserve” https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2010/jul/26/cameron-budget-cuts-diy-policing

#15yrsago Street-Fighting Math: down and dirty guide to approximation and problem-solving https://web.archive.org/web/20100605090020/https://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=12156

#15yrsago EFF wins enormous victory against DRM: legal to jailbreak iPhones, rip DVDs for mashup videos https://memex.craphound.com/2010/07/26/eff-wins-enormous-victory-against-drm-legal-to-jailbreak-iphones-rip-dvds-for-mashup-videos/

#5yrsago Lovely video review for Poesy the Monster Slayer https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/26/fierce-slayer/#fierce-poesy

#5yrsago Green Growth https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/26/fierce-slayer/#green-growth

#1yrago Fintech bullies stole your kid's lunch money https://pluralistic.net/2024/07/26/taanstafl/#stay-hungry

Support me this summer in the Clarion Write-A-Thon and help raise money for the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop! This summer, I'm writing The Reverse-Centaur's Guide to AI, a short book for Farrar, Straus and Giroux that explains how to be an effective AI critic.

[ultramarine-spirit]

Ultramarine's Bookwalker Guide

A (hopefully) simple guide to how to use Bookwalker! See my Ridibooks guide if you are interested in manhwas and Korean web-novels.

What is Bookwalker? Bookwalker is Kadokawa's official website/app for reading mangas and light novels! There, you can read your favorite series in Japanese, and also their official English translations. It's not region-locked, so anyone can use it!

Before continuing, here is something very important to consider: Bookwalker's website and app have two versions each, a Japanese one and a Global one. The Japanese version has, well, all the mangas and light novels in the original Japanese. Meanwhile, the Global version has official English licenses.

Global version of the app (the one that you'll be able to download, unless you have a Japanese Google account) vs the Japanese browser version. Of course, you can also access the Global version in your browser.

This is relevant because you'll only be able to find WMMAP's (or any other series') Japanese edition on Bookwalker's Japanese version. If Bookwalker doesn't have the translation rights for the series in particular, you won't be able to find it on its Global version. Such is the case for WMMAP, licensed by Seven Seas (Maybe one day this will change).

Screenshot of Bookwalker's JP website.

Alright, alright, but how do I use Bookwalker? As with any other platform, you first need to make an account (top-right corner of your screen, 👤 icon). A nice thing about Bookwalker is that you can register using your Google, Twitter, Facebook, or Apple account! If you are using Bookwalker's Japanese version, I recommend using Chrome or other browsers with a MTL function, so the page is easier for you to navigate.

Buying mangas and light novels. Once again, I'll use WMMAP as an example. As I said above, if the series you want to purchase doesn't have an English version distributed by Bookwalker (such as WMMAP's case), you won't find it on its Global version, no matter if you are using the website or the app. Searching 「ある日、お姫様になってしまった件について」 or "Who Made Me A Princess" on the Global platforms won't give you any results.

Similarly, because of these copy-right issues, you won't be able to find any English translations on the Japanese version of the website.

So, tl;dr, we need to use Bookwalker JP! Once you have your account (which will work on both Bookwalker versions, Japanese and Global), you'll be able to search for 「ある日、お姫様になってしまった件について」 (WMMAP's Japanese title), and buy any of the 9 Japanese volumes released so far. Unlike Ridibooks, here you can only buy WMMAP's full volumes (ebooks), not chapters. The prices will vary depending on the volume, but they are all around 1,000 yen (older volumes are cheaper, and there are often sales).

Using the Japanese version might also be convenient in general because of the favorable dollar-yen exchange rate.

Screenshots of Bookwalker's JP website. I'm using Chrome's MTL function so the pictures are easier to understand.

Bookwalker's Coins. As with most manga platforms, Bookwalker has its own currency that you need to buy to then purchase any manga or light novel. It works in the same way as Tapas' ink and Tappytoon's points. The coins are worth almost the same as yen, but with a 1% accumulation rate. Selecting the "buy coins" option in your user profile will allow you to recharge the currency.

There, you can choose how much you want to recharge. Another nice thing about Bookwalker is that it accepts overseas credit cards (see the picture for the ones that work) and Paypal! Also, remember to check the purchase confirmation. After that, you just write your credit card/Paypal information, and you should be ready to buy your favorite manga or light novel!

Screenshots of Bookwalker's Global app.

If you want to use Bookwalker's Global version to purchase a series in English (as I said, you won't be able to find WMMAP here, please keep this in mind, or you could waste your money), the system is very similar, you have to buy "Points" in USD. Pictures for reference.

Screenshots of Bookwalker's Global app.

Once you have already purchased WMMAP, you'll be able to find it in your library (📚 icon).

You can filter out other books writing 「ある日、お姫様になってしまった件について」 in the search bar!

Also very important information: You will be able to read WMMAP on Bookwalker's Global version too (be it the website or the app) if you have already purchased it on the Japanese site. In the pictures shown above you can see screenshots of said app. At the bottom, you have your library, where all books you have bought are organized according to their date of acquisition. Here you will be able to read anything you have bought, in English or Japanese. It's only to buy Japanese titles that you have to specifically use the Japanese site, but only for purchasing purposes. After that, you'll be able to read it on any of Bookwalker's versions.

[thoughtportal]

Librera Reader is a highly customizable and feature-rich application for reading e-books in PDF, EPUB, MOBI, DjVu, FB2, TXT, RTF, AZW, AZW3, HTML, CBZ, CBR, DOC, DOCX, formats.

With its intuitive, yet powerful, interface, Librera makes ebook reading a veritable pleasure. It even features a unique auto-scrolling, hands-free Musician's mode, with controllable speed.

F-Droid version is based on the latest MuPDF and support Android 4.1+.

The only difference between Librera FD (F-Droid) and Librera PRO is the absence of Google Play services and Google Drive book synchronization in Librera FD.

Just a few Librera main features:

Easy document discovery by configurable criteria:

Auto-Scan (user-specified folders)

Browse folders (using an in-app file explorer)

Recent (featuring a reading-progress indicator)

Support for bookmarks, annotations, and EPUB3 tables of contents

Configurable Day and Night modes

Configurable link color (hence, footnotes and endnotes color)

Support for many popular offline dictionaries

Vertical-scroll lock

Auto- and manual centering of documents

Custom ad-hoc CSS coding

Single-page view of two-page documents

Musician's mode with configurable scroll speed

Customizable TTS reading and built-in media player

Page-wise TTS recording to MP3 or WAV

Multi-word text search

Support for archived (.zip) documents

Support for RTL languages (Thai, Hebrew, Arabic, etc.)

Import and export of settings, auto-backup of current session

Leading initials in FB2 documents

RSVP reading (à la Spritz)

Movable bookmarks, w/ a floating indicator

And a whole bunch of other features for you to check out.

You can read books in your web browser with the Librera Book Reader https://librera.mobi/online-book-reader/

The best way to fully appreciate Librera Reader, however, is to use our restriction-free Librera PRO version from Google Play.

If you enjoy Librera, please consider making a donation: https://www.patreon.com/librera

[beauvandalen]

Indie authors asking people to stop stealing their books should not be ‘controversial’. You are NOT entitled to stealing our books. If you want to read our books, if they add value to your life and entertain you, please read them officially. We cannot live off ‘exposure’. As a reader YOU are responsible for the future of art and literature—if you want creators to continue making the works you enjoy consuming, read books ethically. Using pirate sites, regardless of which author you pirate from, is not ‘nuanced’: it is a known fact these platforms steal then make pr ofit off the back of struggling indie authors like me with every read they receive from YOU: either you support websites that actively exp loit us or you don’t. There are countless legal and ethical alternatives to pirating that allow you to read literature for free such as: 📚 Libraries & library apps (ebooks & audiobooks available too!) 📚 Free web-serial platforms (Wattpad, Tapas, Royal Road, etc. I even have a book i write for free on there too called WHERE THE TALLEST TREE GROWS so you really do not need to pirate my work to read my writing.) 📚Free online lit' magazines (Strange Horizons, Uncanny Magazine, etc) 📚 itchio community co pies 📚Author ARCs or review co pies (where the author or publisher gives you a book for an honest review) 📚 Public domain books are free. These are just some of many examples that let you read literature for free—you CAN read ethically, it is possible to read stories for free without stealing them!!! And if our books do not add value to your life, if you feel they are worthless, then do not read them - but stop justifying stealing from indie authors or defending websites that actively harm our livelihoods. Authors are working people just like you, we work hard and long hours, we spend countless nights working overtime so that the book is as good as it can be for you once it comes out, what you are demanding from us is unpa id la bor & hopefully I do not need to explain why unpa id la bor is bad! Thank you to every reader who chooses to read books ethically, it is thanks to your support and ethics that indie authors can still be here today.

[luminafleure]

It’s been a while since I’ve written here. TBH, I haven’t picked up a book in months, life outside just got a bit too hard on me. I didn’t really have the time or energy to do the things I used to love. I hit a deep slump and kind of forgot to take care of myself anymore.

But now, about six months later, I’m slowly finding my way back to who I was...or maybe even becoming a better version of myself, idk. I’ve picked up a few new things along the way, and I’ve realized I don’t need to stress so much about how I read, where I read, or whether I catch every little detail. What matters most moving forward is not letting myself drift away from the things I’m passionate about again.

This is just a quick update. I wanted to jot this down in case my memory decides to go foggy again. Here’s where I usually read books, both physical and digital, and I'm happy to share them with you:

Physical books at home – of course...

Kindle Paperwhite (2019) – mainly for purchased ebooks, comics, manga from Amazon, and borrowed titles via Libby US.

Kindle app – I use it on my web browser, Windows 11 laptop, and tablet.

Foliate eReader – works on my ThinkPad (w/ linux distro) and also on Windows 11 (via an Electron port).

Thorium Reader – used to read on Windows 11, but I might stop using it now that I’ve discovered Readest.

Readest – a nice alternative to Foliate, also on Windows 11 & iPadOS.

dslibris (epub only) – for some cozy reading sessions on my 3dsxl.

DS games! – for example, 100 Classic Book Collection. love it. <3

Internet Archive (web reader) – handy through the web browser.

Libby – I use it across my web browser, phone, and tablet.

MangaDex, MangaFire – mostly for manga and webcomics that aren’t easily available in my country, accessed through the browser.

[pratanumindpowerdevelopment]

25 innovative ways to earn money without investment as a web content writer

Here are 25 innovative ways to earn money without investment as a web content writer — all designed for minimal to zero upfront costs but leveraging your writing skills, internet access, and creativity:

 1. Start a Niche Blog with Free Platforms

Use Blogger or Medium.

Monetize later via AdSense, affiliate links, or paid guest posts.

 2. Offer Content Writing Services on LinkedIn

Use LinkedIn to offer your services directly to small business owners, coaches, and startups.

Share writing samples as posts.

 3. Write on Medium Partner Program

Earn money based on read time and engagement.

Focus on trending topics like AI, productivity, or self-help.

 4. Create and Sell Email Templates

Design copy for eCommerce, marketing, or re-engagement campaigns.

Sell them on Gumroad or directly to startups.

 5. Offer WhatsApp Marketing Content

Provide short sales messages, product descriptions, and stories for WhatsApp campaigns.

Great for local businesses.

 6. Approach NGOs and Small Businesses

Offer to write their web content, brochures, or social posts for free.

Ask for testimonials and referrals.

 7. Guest Post for Payment

Many websites pay for high-quality guest posts (e.g., Listverse, A List Apart).

Focus on niche topics like tech, travel, wellness, or finance.

 8. Write and Sell Micro-eBooks

Use Google Docs to create eBooks (5–10 pages) on topics like freelancing, budgeting, etc.

Sell via Payhip or Gumroad.

 9. Start a Newsletter on Substack

Offer free tips on writing, freelancing, or digital marketing.

Monetize later with paid subscriptions.

 10. Edit and Reformat Resumes or LinkedIn Profiles

Offer services to job seekers, especially freshers or mid-career professionals.

 11. Offer Product Description Writing for Online Sellers

Reach out to sellers on Meesho, Amazon, Flipkart, or Etsy.

Offer 5 free samples, then convert them into paying clients.

 12. Write SOPs and Admission Essays

Cater to students applying to foreign universities.

Join education-related Facebook groups to find leads.

 13. Use Canva to Create Content + Visual Packs

Bundle social media captions with images (like 30 captions + 30 designs).

Sell as digital products.

 14. Create Content Writing Courses (Text-Based)

Use Google Docs or Google Sites.

Sell via Telegram, WhatsApp, or Facebook groups.

 15. Become a Quora Partner

Start answering questions strategically.

Some users still receive bonuses for high-performing answers (depends on the invite program).

 16. Review Apps or Websites

Send cold emails to app developers offering reviews or user guides.

Ask for a small fee in exchange.

 17. Use Affiliate Links in Blog Posts

Join programs like Amazon Associates, Hostinger, Canva, or Grammarly.

Write SEO-optimized content and embed links.

 18. Offer Language Translation + Content

Combine writing with translation if you know regional languages.

Create bilingual website content.

 19. Write Sample Lessons for EdTech Platforms

Contact online tuition or learning platforms.

Offer demo lessons, notes, or practice tests in English.

 20. Partner with Local Shops for Google Reviews

Write polished business descriptions or Google Map listings.

Charge ₹200–₹500 per listing.

 21. Join Facebook or Telegram Freelance Groups

Post your skills daily, share samples, and network directly.

 22. Offer Tagline and Slogan Writing Services

Brands always need punchy copy for ads or banners.

Create a portfolio on Behance or Google Drive.

 23. Write Scripts for YouTubers and Reels Creators

Many small creators need writing help for intros, narration, or subtitles.

 24. Write Press Releases

Offer low-cost PR services to startups and artists.

Submit to free PR sites or offer syndication.

 25. Conduct Writing Challenges or Classes

Run 5-day writing challenges on WhatsApp or Instagram.

Offer a certificate + upsell a full writing course later.