#Future of Web Hosting

[jhponestop]

Unlimited Storage, High Bandwidth, and Cheaper Hosting Packages: The Future of Web Hosting

The digital landscape is evolving rapidly, and businesses and individuals alike are demanding more from their web hosting providers. Unlimited storage, high bandwidth, and cost-effective hosting packages have become key considerations for anyone looking to establish or expand their online presence. This article explores the benefits of these hosting features, how they work, and why they are…

[ekingston]

SO HERE IS THE WHOLE STORY (SO FAR).

I am on my knees begging you to reblog this post and to stop reblogging the original ones I sent out yesterday. This is the complete account with all the most recent info; the other one is just sending people down senselessly panicked avenues that no longer lead anywhere.

IN SHORT

Cliff Weitzman, CEO of Speechify and (aspiring?) voice actor, used AI to scrape thousands of popular, finished works off AO3 to list them on his own for-profit website and in his attached app. He did this without getting any kind of permission from the authors of said work or informing AO3. Obviously.

When fandom at large was made aware of his theft and started pushing back, Weitzman issued a non-apology on the original social media posts—using 

his dyslexia; 

his intent to implement a tip-system for the plagiarized authors; and 

a sudden willingness to take down the work of every author who saw my original social media posts and emailed him individually with a ‘valid’ claim,

as reasons we should allow him to continue monetizing fanwork for his own financial gain.

When we less-than-kindly refused, he took down his ‘apologies’ as well as his website (allegedly—it’s possible that our complaints to his web host, the deluge of emails he received or the unanticipated traffic brought it down, since there wasn’t any sort of official statement made about it), and when it came back up several hours later, all of the work formerly listed in the fan fiction category was no longer there. 

THE TAKEAWAYS

1. Cliff Weitzman (aka Ofek Weitzman) is a scumbag with no qualms about taking fanwork without permission, feeding it to AI and monetizing it for his own financial gain; 

2. Fandom can really get things done when it wants to, and 

3. Our fanworks appear to be hidden, but they’re NOT DELETED from Weitzman’s servers, and independently published, original works are still listed without the authors' permission. We need to hold this man responsible for his theft, keep an eye on both his current and future endeavors, and take action immediately when he crosses the line again. 

THE TIMELINE, THE DETAILS, THE SCREENSHOTS (behind the cut)

Sunday night, December 22nd 2024, I noticed an influx in visitors to my fic You & Me & Holiday Wine. When I searched the title online, hoping to find out where they came from, a new listing popped up (third one down, no less):

This listing is still up today, by the way, though now when you follow the link to word-stream, it just brings you to the main site. (Also, to be clear, this was not the cause for the influx of traffic to my fic; word-stream did not link back to the original work anywhere.)

I followed the link to word-stream, where to my horror Y&M&HW was listed in its entirety—though, beyond the first half of the first chapter, behind a paywall—along with a link promising to take me—through an app downloadable on the Apple Store—to an AI-narrated audiobook version. When I searched word-stream itself for my ao3 handle I found both of my multi-chapter fics were listed this way:

Because the tags on my fics (which included genres* and characters, but never the original IPs**) weren’t working, I put ‘Kara Danvers’ into the search bar and discovered that many more supercorp fics (Supergirl TV fandom, Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor pairing) were listed.

I went looking online for any mention of word-stream and AI plagiarism (the covers—as well as the ridiculously inflated number of reviews and ratings—made it immediately obvious that AI fuckery was involved), but found almost nothing: only one single Reddit post had been made, and it received (at that time) only a handful of upvotes and no advice. 

I decided to make a tumblr post to bring the supercorp fandom up to speed about the theft. I draw as well as write for fandom and I’ve only ever had to deal with art theft—which has a clear set of steps to take depending on where said art was reposted—and I was at a loss regarding where to start in this situation.

After my post went up I remembered Project Copy Knight, which is worth commending for the work they’ve done to get fic stolen from AO3 taken down from monetized AI 'audiobook’ YouTube accounts. I reached out to @echoekhi, asking if they’d heard of this site and whether they could advise me on how to get our works taken down.

While waiting for a reply I looked into Copy Knight’s methods and decided to contact OTW’s legal department:

And then I went to bed.

By morning, tumblr friends @makicarn and @fazedlight as well as a very helpful tumblr anon had seen my post and done some very productive sleuthing:

@echoekhi had also gotten back to me, advising me, as expected, to contact the OTW. So I decided to sit tight until I got a response from them.

That response came only an hour or so later: 

Which was 100% understandable, but still disappointing—I doubted a handful of individual takedown requests would accomplish much, and I wasn’t eager to share my given name and personal information with Cliff Weitzman himself, which is unavoidable if you want to file a DMCA.

I decided to take it to Reddit, hoping it would gain traction in the wider fanfic community, considering so many fandoms were affected. My Reddit posts (with the updates at the bottom as they were emerging) can be found here and here.

A helpful Reddit user posted a guide on how users could go about filing a DMCA against word-stream here (to wobbly-at-best results)

A different helpful Reddit user signed up to access insight into word-streams pricing. Comment is here.

Smells unbelievably scammy, right? In addition to those audacious prices—though in all fairness any amount of money would be audacious considering every work listed is accessible elsewhere for free—my dyscalculia is screaming silently at the sight of that completely unnecessary amount of intentionally obscured numbers.

Speaking of which! As soon as the post on r/AO3—and, as a result, my original tumblr post—began taking off properly, sometime around 1 pm, jumpscare! A notification that a tumblr account named @cliffweitzman had commented on my post, and I got a bit mad about the gist of his message :

Fortunately he caught plenty of flack in the comments from other users (truly you should check out the comment section, it is extremely gratifying and people are making tremendously good points), in response to which, of course, he first tried to both reiterate and renegotiate his point in a second, longer comment (which I didn’t screenshot in time so I’m sorry for the crappy notification email formatting):

which he then proceeded to also post to Reddit (this is another Reddit user’s screenshot, I didn’t see it at all, the notifications were moving too fast for me to follow by then)

... where he got a roughly equal amount of righteously furious replies. (Check downthread, they're still there, all the way at the bottom.)

After which Cliff went ahead & deleted his messages altogether. 

It’s not entirely clear whether his account was suspended by Reddit soon after or whether he deleted it himself, but considering his tumblr account is still intact, I assume it’s the former. He made a handful of sock puppet accounts to play around with for a while, both on Reddit and Tumblr, only one of which I have a screenshot of, but since they all say roughly the same thing, you’re not missing much:

And then word-stream started throwing a DNS error.

That lasted for a good number of hours, which was unfortunately right around the time that a lot of authors first heard about the situation and started asking me individually how to find out whether their work was stolen too. I do not have that information and I am unclear on the perimeters Weitzman set for his AI scraper, so this is all conjecture: it LOOKS like the fics that were lifted had three things in common:

They were completed works;

They had over several thousand kudos on AO3; and

They were written by authors who had actively posted or updated work over the past year.

If anyone knows more about these perimeters or has info that counters my observation, please let me know!

I finally thought to check/alert evil Twitter during this time, and found out that the news was doing the rounds there already. I made a quick thread summarizing everything that had happened just in case. You can find it here.

I went to Bluesky too, where fandom was doing all the heavy lifting for me already, so I just reskeeted, as you do, and carried on.

Sometime in the very early evening, word-stream went back up—but the fan fiction category was nowhere to be seen. Tentative joy and celebration!***

That’s when several users—the ones who had signed up for accounts to gain intel and had accessed their own fics that way—reported that their work could still be accessed through their history. Relevant Reddit post here.

Sooo—

We’re obviously not done. The fanwork that was stolen by Weitzman may be inaccessible through his website right now, but they aren’t actually gone. And the fact that Weitzman wasn’t willing to get rid of them altogether means he still has plans for them. 

This was my final edit on my Reddit post before turning off notifications, and it's pretty much where my head will be at for at least the foreseeable future:

Please feel free to add info in the comments, make your own posts, take whatever action you want to take to protect your work. I only beg you—seriously, I’m on my knees here—to not give up like I saw a handful of people express the urge to do. Keep sharing your creative work and remain vigilant and stay active to make sure we can continue to do so freely. Visit your favorite fics, and the ones you’ve kept in your ‘marked for later’ lists but never made time to read, and leave kudos, leave comments, support your fandom creatives, celebrate podficcers and support AO3. We created this place and it’s our responsibility to keep it alive and thriving for as long as we possibly can.

Also FUCK generative AI. It has NO place in fandom spaces.

THE 'SMALL' PRINT (some of it in all caps):

*Weitzman knew what he was doing and can NOT claim ignorance. One, it’s pretty basic kindergarten stuff that you don’t steal some other kid’s art project and present it as your own only to act surprised when they protest and then tell the victim that they should have told you sooner that they didn’t want their project stolen. And two, he was very careful never to list the IPs these fanworks were based on, so it’s clear he was at least familiar enough with the legalities to not get himself in hot water with corporate lawyers. Fucking over fans, though, he figured he could get away with that. 

**A note about the AI that Weitzman used to steal our work: it’s even greasier than it looks at first glance. It’s not just the method he used to lift works off AO3 and then regurgitate onto his own website and app. Looking beyond the untold horrors of his AI-generated cover ‘art’, in many cases these covers attempt to depict something from the fics in question that can’t be gleaned from their summaries alone. In addition, my fics (and I assume the others, as well) were listed with generated genres; tags that did not appear anywhere in or on my fic on AO3 and were sometimes scarily accurate and sometimes way off the mark. I remember You & Me & Holiday Wine had ‘found family’ (100% correct, but not tagged by me as such) and I believe The Shape of Soup was listed as, among others, ‘enemies to friends to lovers’ and ‘love triangle’ (both wildly inaccurate). Even worse, not all the fic listed (as authors on Reddit pointed out) came with their original summaries at all. Often the entire summary was AI-generated. All of these things make it very clear that it was an all-encompassing scrape—not only were our fics stolen, they were also fed word-for-word into the AI Weitzman used and then analyzed to suit Weitzman’s needs. This means our work was literally fed to this AI to basically do with whatever its other users want, including (one assumes) text generation. 

***Fan fiction appears to have been made (largely) inaccessible on word-stream at this time, but I’m hearing from several authors that their original, independently published work, which is listed at places like Kindle Unlimited, DOES still appear in word-stream’s search engine. This obviously hurts writers, especially independent ones, who depend on these works for income and, as a rule, don’t have a huge budget or a legal team with oceans of time to fight these battles for them. If you consider yourself an author in the broader sense, beyond merely existing online as a fandom author, beyond concerns that your own work is immediately at risk, DO NOT STOP MAKING NOISE ABOUT THIS.

PLEASE check my later versions of this post via my main page to make sure you have the latest version of this post before you reblog. All the information I’ve been able to gather is in my reblogs below, and it's frustrating to see the old version getting passed around, sending people on wild goose chases.

Thank you all so much!

[jcmarchi]

How to Manage Your Website's Technical Debt – Speckyboy

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/how-to-manage-your-websites-technical-debt-speckyboy/

How to Manage Your Website's Technical Debt – Speckyboy

The web seems to move at the speed of light. The tools and best practices we use today will soon be outdated. It’s a vicious cycle we repeat again and again.

That often leaves us with some form of technical debt. It could be a WordPress theme that isn’t compatible with the latest version of PHP. Or a hacked-together layout that won’t adapt to future needs. The worst case is software that is no longer supported.

It will impact every website sooner or later. There are ways to manage or even prevent it, though.

So, how do you keep technical debt from becoming a nightmare? Let’s review a few tips for minimizing the impact.

Unlimited Downloads for Web Designers

Starting at just $16.50 per month, download 1,000s of HTML, Bootstrap, and Tailwind CSS, as well as WordPress themes and plugins with Envato Elements. You will also get unlimited access to millions of design assets, photos, video files, fonts, presets, addons, and much more.

Build with Sustainability in Mind

The first step is to reduce the chances for technical debt to take hold. In practice, it’s about building with sustainability in mind.

There are several things you can do. For one, use tools that are popular and well-maintained. It’s not a guarantee of smooth sailing. It does increase the chances of future viability, though.

Let’s use WordPress as an example. The content management system (CMS) has existed for over 20 years. It is continually updated. A large ecosystem of themes and plugins is also thriving.

Perhaps there’s another CMS that catches your eye. It hit the market only recently – there aren’t many users yet.

There’s nothing wrong with this new CMS. But is it sustainable? Only time will tell. Therefore, it may not be the best long-term solution. Using it comes with some level of risk.

Best practices also guard against technical debt. Use the latest standards when writing code. Don’t rely on CSS hacks to build layouts. Comment your code and take detailed notes.

The idea is to think about the present and future. That could save you some headaches down the road.

Perform Regular Audits of Your Website

The status of your stack can change in an instant. Thus, it’s a good idea to perform regular audits.

A website audit should cover both hardware and software. On the hardware side, make sure your web hosting is still viable. Check your site’s performance and resource usage. The results should tell you if you need to upgrade.

You’ll also want to look closely at the software you’re using. Start with the server’s OS. Move on to versions of PHP, MySQL, or whatever you have in place. These items are crucial to your site’s well-being.

From there, it’s time to look at your CMS, themes, and plugins. Also, review any software dependencies – JavaScript libraries are a good example.

Look for outdated items. Are updates available? Is it still actively maintained?

This process will help you identify potential problems. From there, you can take action.

So, how often should you audit your site? A yearly review is fine for small websites. Large and mission-critical sites would benefit from biannual or quarterly inspections.

Use Change as an Opportunity

Perhaps you found an item or two that needs addressing. That’s OK – change is inevitable!

The good news is that change also presents an opportunity. You can reassess how your website is working. There is a chance to build a more stable foundation for the future.

In some cases, you may have to swap one item for another. For example, maybe a WordPress plugin you use has been abandoned.

Now is the time to find a replacement that will offer better longevity. It’s also possible that you no longer need what the old plugin offers. That’s one way to reduce technical debt.

You might also need to modernize your code. We often do this when dealing with PHP compatibility issues.

It’s not only a chance to use the latest version of PHP. You can also look for ways to improve functionality and security. After all, reviewing the code you wrote years ago can show how far you’ve come. There’s a chance to build it better and stronger.

You can do more than bring your website up to date. You can also make forward-thinking changes. The hope is that you can lessen the technical debt you have today – and for the future.

Take Control of Your Site’s Technical Debt

Every website will deal with technical debt. That’s part of its lifecycle.

The difference is in how much debt you’ll face. Critical thinking early in the site-building process can reduce your burden. To that end, always search for the most stable and functional solution.

Changes will come eventually. That’s an opportunity to recalibrate your approach. You can review what works and what doesn’t. The lessons you learn will come in handy as your site evolves.

The key is to think about each step you take. Consider how it will impact your site today, tomorrow, and a year from now.

You probably won’t eliminate the need for change. However, you can learn how to make change more manageable.

Related Topics

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[pressplaytech]

Embracing the Future of WordPress Development with Full Site Editing (FSE)

WordPress, the veritable titan of the content management system (CMS) world, never ceases to evolve and innovate. One of the most buzzworthy subjects circulating in the WordPress development community is Full Site Editing (FSE), a feature that promises to revolutionize how users and developers interact with the platform. The advent of FSE will certainly impact how themes are developed, used, and extended, both for developers and end-users.

What is Full Site Editing (FSE)?

Full Site Editing is a part of the WordPress project’s Phase 2 in the implementation of Gutenberg, the block editor introduced in WordPress 5.0. FSE extends the utility of the block editor beyond posts and pages, allowing users to manage and customize all elements of their website using a block-based interface. With it, you can control and design headers, footers, sidebars, and more, all without having to delve into theme code. The global styles and settings can be modified to control the entire site's design from one place.

The Impact on Theme Development

Traditional WordPress themes may experience a seismic shift with the proliferation of FSE. This feature is bound to streamline the theme development process, as the dependency on intricate PHP files and CSS will be diminished.

Simplified Development: Developers can focus on crafting block patterns and styles rather than juggling numerous template files.

User Empowerment: FSE empowers users with little to no coding knowledge to have more control over their website’s design and layout, thus widening the user demographic.

Modular Design: The modularity of block design makes it easier to manage, update, and swap out design elements without affecting the overall site functionality.

Unified Experience: The integration of a consistent block editor throughout the entire site management process affords users a harmonious and unified design experience.

Challenges Ahead

Despite its many perks, FSE comes with its own set of challenges that developers and users need to navigate.

Learning Curve: Traditional developers have to acquaint themselves with the nuances and intricacies of FSE and block theme development.

Compatibility: Ensuring that existing themes and plugins are compatible with FSE will be a substantial task.

Performance: Managing the performance and ensuring that the site doesn’t get bogged down with numerous blocks and dynamic elements will be crucial.

Customization Limitations: Although FSE is highly customizable, there might be limitations that could potentially restrict highly specific or complex design implementations.

Embracing FSE in Your WordPress Projects

Adopting FSE into your WordPress development projects may seem daunting initially, but the long-term advantages for both developers and end-users are palpable. Here are a few steps to help you get started:

Educate and Update: Keep yourself and your team updated with the latest developments in FSE through WordPress official channels, community forums, and tutorials.

Experiment: Create a staging or local environment to test FSE and experiment with block theme development.

Feedback: Engage with the WordPress community to share experiences, learn from peers, and perhaps even contribute to the ongoing development of FSE.

Prepare: Update your existing projects, plugins, and themes to ensure compatibility with FSE.

Conclusion

The rollout of Full Site Editing in WordPress marks a pivotal moment in web development, democratizing website design, and enabling a more extensive range of users to implement their visions online with ease and flexibility. While FSE introduces a novel methodology of developing and managing websites, it is also an invitation to innovate and explore new horizons in the digital landscape. By aligning with FSE, developers, designers, and businesses can stay ahead in the digital curve, ensuring that their platforms are robust, future-proof, and user-friendly.

Remember, the future is blocky, and it’s here to revolutionise the way we conceive, create, and interact with web content. So, let’s embrace it, explore it, and innovate within this dynamic new framework to carve out novel digital experiences for users across the globe.

[bisexualbaker]

Why do people keep recommending Dreamwidth as a Tumblr alternative, when Dreamwidth and Tumblr are so different?

To be flat-out honest, it's because Dreamwidth has so many things that Tumblr users say they want, even if it's also lacking a lot of features that Tumblr users have come to love:

Dreamwidth has incredibly lax content hosting rules. I'd say that it's slightly more restrictive than AO3, but only just slightly, and only because AO3's abuse team has been so overwhelmed and over-worked. Otherwise, the hosting policies are pretty similar. You want to go nuts, show nuts? You can do that on Dreamwidth.

In fact, Dreamwidth is so serious about "go nuts, show nuts", it gave up the ability to accept transactions through PayPal in 2009 to protect our ability to do that. (It's also one reason why Dreamwidth doesn't have an app: Dreamwidth will never be beholden to Apple's content rules this way.)

Dreamwidth cares about your privacy; it doesn't sell your data, and barely collects any to begin with. As far as I'm aware, it only collects what it needs to run the site. The owners have also spoken out on behalf of internet privacy many times, and are prepared to put their money where their mouth is.

No ads. Ever. Period. They mean it. Dreamwidth is entirely user funded.

Posts viewed in reverse chronological order; no algorithm, opt-in or otherwise. No algorithm at all. No "For You" or "Suggested" page. You still entirely create and curate your own experience.

The ability to make posts that only your "mutuals", or even only a specific subset of your "mutuals", can see. Want to make a post that's only open to Bonnie, Clyde, Butch, and Cassidy? You can do that! Want to make a post that's only open to Bonnie and Butch, but Clyde and Cassidy can't see shit? You can do that, too!

The owners have forsworn NFTs and the blockchain in general. Not as big a worry now as it was even a year ago, but still good to know!

We are explicitly the customers of Dreamwidth. Dreamwidth wants to make us happy, so any changes they make (and they do make changes) are made with us in mind, and after exploring as many possibilities as they can.

Dreamwidth is very transparent about their policies and changes. If you want to know why they're making a specific change, or keeping or getting rid of a feature, they will tell you. You don't have to find out ten months later that they're locked into a contract to keep it for a year (cough cough Tumblr Live cough cough).

So those are some things that Tumblr users would probably love about Dreamwidth.

Another reason Dreamwidth keeps being recommended is that a significant portion of the Age 30+ crowd spent a lot of earlier fandom years on a site known as LiveJournal. Dreamwidth may not be much like Tumblr, but it it started out as a code fork of LiveJournal, so it will be very familiar to anyone who spent any time there. Except better.

Finally, we're recommending Dreamwidth because some of the things that Tumblr users want are just... not going to happen on the web as it is now. Image hosting is the big one for this. Maybe in the future, the price of data will be much cheaper, and Dreamwidth will be able to host as much as we all want for a pittance that a fraction of the userbase will happily pay for everyone, but right now that's just not possible.

Everywhere you want to go that hosts a lot of images will either be running lots of ads, selling your data, or both.

Dreamwidth knows how much it costs to host your data, and has budgeted for that. They are hosting within their means, within our means.

Dreamwidth is the closest thing we may ever get to AO3 as a social media platform. One of the co-owners is from, and still in, fandom; she knows our values, because they are also her values. It may as well be the Blogsite Of Our Own.

[running-with-kn1ves]

⋆˙⟡Webbed Infatuation⟡˙⋆

A/N: My submission for monstermag summer '25! I encourage yall to submit soon!

Summary: On a summer abroad trip in Italy, you find yourself getting flustered by your happy-go-lucky program guide. Little do you know, he's hiding more than just his feelings for you.

Warnings: Mercreature transformation, scratching, needy merboy

Your eyes melted at the sight of the computer screen before you. Again, you had stayed up far too late scrolling in the dark. Pinterest, TripAdvisor, pricey travel agents-- your retinas aching while looking at pictures of avant-garde French cities and Greek coastal villages.

It was all so enchanting, so foreign from the urban, dead-end life you were beginning to loathe. You had fantasized so often of an escape that it was beginning to grow into an obsessive form in every area of your life. That night you dreamt of opaline cathedrals and tasting hand-crafted delicacies, a faux afternoon of pure self-indulgent bliss. 

It was only a matter of time until you caved, taking the leap and signing up for a summer exchange program with a private university in Italy. Maybe it was a cliché destination to choose as a university student with no future financial plan and far too little self preservation; but nothing was as enticing as the crystal blue skies of Milan and a suave Italian accent that whipped you into butter. 

When you finally landed in the sweltering, overcrowded airport, you were quick to latch on to other students and your program’s native guides. Amongst bumbling foreigners like yourself were the sunny, pearly-toothed Italians who had the boldness and vocal cords necessary to lead you through seas of tourists. Before you could find someone to clutch at for safety in the winding streets, someone had already latched onto you. 

He was a peculiarly handsy guide who called himself Amadeo, kissing you on both cheeks and pulling you with an arm around your shoulder. He was rumored to be studying a masters in architecture at your host university, not that it mattered. He rarely answered any questions about the school or its courses, instead opting to finger feed you sweets and steal your wrist to lay an entwined bracelet upon it. 

If he wasn't leading you to new horizons he was trailing close behind, berating locals who had no problem ripping you off, swindling shop owners who seemed to melt after he said something along the lines of “l'amore della mi vita,”  with a quick kiss pressed to your cheek. If you didn't know any better, you might've thought he was flirting with you. But the not-so-subtle sensuality of Italians that you'd seen in dozens of young, loitering couples made you doubt any genuine romantic affection. For heaven's sake he kissed everyone on the cheek, often bumping shoulders with other students; it was in his nature to be a flirt. Why would his hand snaking to interlock with yours mean anything?

It all seemed so cut and dry, even if you laid at night pressing your fingertips to where his soft lips once kissed, fumbling with the keychain of an Italian flag he bought you. So, you ignored the beating of your heart, letting him string you along another field trip for the weekend, even with your gut telling you to turn around and crawl back home. 

 A small town of limestone resting on the breast of the ocean was your main source of exploration this time, Amadeo’s soft, tanned hands pulling at yours from rocky beaches to wineries. He was noticeably more eager in the past evening than normal for him, capricious in his decisions and erratic tugs at you. There was a nervous look as he watched the sea, almost as a child would appear when gazing from afar at the deep end of a pool. 

Amadeo arranged for your group to stay in a local inn, the inside just as dingy as you'd witnessed from the outside. But your guide promised it'd be worth it, that it had the best view of a shiny canal opening to the Adriatic, propped against the west of the inn’s cracking bricks. Like a fool, you yielded to trust him, smitten by his smile and silly auburn glasses that made his ocean eyes sparkle. 

While your fellow exchange students shared rooms with balconies adorned by woven flower baskets, you stayed on the tiny bottom floor with Amadeo, your low beds right next to a floor-to-ceiling open gap that was once a window, measly pale curtains protecting you from a ledge leading to the bottomless water. Even with bright shops sparkling from across the canal, the unlit areas of dark green sea were deep with lurking creatures, occasional blips flicking up to create torn ripples.

Amadeo had gone quiet once the lights were shut out, not a word released from him as the innkeepers and students went off to their rooms. The small town quieted besides for gentle laps of water against stone. A part of you wished you could ask him what was wrong, why he spent the entirety of dinner locked in your shared room watching the canal with a foreboding gaze, distancing himself.

 Even with your body exhausted and the thick clog of salt and sea up your nostrils, your heart fluttered at being in a place you once only saw in your dreams. The day’s long hours of walking in the summer sun with only acquacotta and gelato filling your stomach left you craving for sleep. Slowly, concern for Amadeo drifted into pleasant dreams of him, his blurring body curled away from you in a quivering hunch. 

Your sleep only lasted what seemed a few minutes, an abrupt sound causing you to stir. The open space between you and the canal was almost frightening, a silver moon bouncing off of old family photos laying the walls, dim picture frames and polaroids of the Amalfi coast. The only thing that familiarized you was Amadeo, watching over you. 

“...deo?” You muttered, your voice cracked and dry. The arid night left your throat parched. 

“Shh, cuore mio. Sleep.” He hushed, seemingly out of breath as beads of sweat trickled down his neck.  

Your legs were scrunched up, held still by him as he sat at the edge of your small twin-sized mattress, squeaky from a rusty bed frame. 

“What time’s it?” You mumbled, delirious and looking for your phone in a mess of faded bedsheets. 

Amadeo grabbed your forearm, gently brushing his fingers down it at a jagged pace. He held your limp wrist with a tender squeeze, trying to affirm and control it. 

“Just rest, my love. Ignore it.” 

His whine held a touch of needy desperation as you squirmed. With a free hand Amadeo rubbed at your knee, massaging it with a roughness that made it seem like he was ready to pry apart your leg. He was quick to make a trail from your outer thigh to beneath your pajama shorts, where the cotton’s end met your flesh. His hands were warm, almost sweaty in their attempts to caress your skin.

“What’s the matter, huh?” You try to fight sleep, knowing something must be wrong if he dared to come and harass you in the middle of the night. If it weren’t for the exhaustion of your endeavors only a few hours ago, you might’ve even been flustered at the way he touched you. “Can’t sleep?”

“Could say that,” He teases, huffing as he presses kisses to your knee. “Not without you, bellissima. Not here anymore.”

An array of small, devotion-like kisses fall from his pouty lips, decorating from the tops of your knees down to the middle of your thighs. 

Slowly the wetness of his tongue, like that of a slick eel, began to wake you up. A perspiring grope at your thigh made you flinch, your foot pressed at his abdomen as a warning. 

“Wasting your time, darling,” He smiles, still hunched against your right leg laying in his grasp. Your sleepy lips turned into a taught, worried frown, scanning over the bright moonlight that once shone sweetly on his opal-white, slightly crooked teeth, instead now illuminating needle-like razors. They almost seemed painful in his gums, thick as bone in his stretched mouth.

The horror reached your eyes before it could escape your parting lips, a webbed, sickly green-grey hand slipping over your mouth. 

“Shh, hush now,” He whispered, sibilant and harsh. “tu sei speciale, it's okay, you’re with me.”

A dark tongue left his mouth, a hint of purple running over his teeth that appeared sharp enough to pull the skin from your muscle. What had happened to him? Was this all part of some wicked dream induced by your fatigue?

“Ama..eo….p..ease,” Your voice was muffled beneath his wettening hand, his skin covered in a thin layer of moistness that seemed to transform him into something inhuman. Slits of skin carved in the sides of his throat, widening with each pant that left his mouth.

Amadeo’s body had slowly become gaunt and long, collarbones jutting out as his thin cotton shirt pooled around him. The soft green of his eyes transformed into a murky color that lightened as he let out a hiss of a laugh. Slowly, his damp lips came down to kiss your navel, putting the entirety of his newfound weight on the lower half of your body. 

“Divine… So divine all for me,” the hand covering your mouth scratched at your cheek in time with your jaw’s frightful flinch. Brittle nails drew a stinging pain as his hand flung away, the sight of blood shocking even Amadeo. 

His ease has disappeared as he brought the back of his webbed fingers to graze the four scratches, almost tearing up at the sight. If you had thought he was unpredictable before, his temperament had gotten a world of a lot worse.

“È colpa mia, no no,” He wiped the blood away, licking it from his knuckles before coming to clean the rest of your scratch. “I’m sorry, I promise, it will be fine.” 

He seemed to forget his knowledge of English, babbling in broken Italian and heaving as he grasped at your clothes, kissing up your stomach in repentance. 

“What’s wrong with you?” You ask, fear laden in your voice as the burn from your cut started to rise, slower than the blood had. “Amadeo please! Are-- are you sick?” 

You were no longer hazy with sleep now; something was very, very wrong here. Even the slapping waves of the once still canal thought so, pounding against the stone inn.

“This is what I am,” He grunted, digging beneath your shirt like a child throwing a tantrum, tightening it over his head. “It’s what I always do! But I can’t leave without you, even if you are hurt.” He mumbles, now raspy beneath your shirt as the slick of his skin and tears soak into your stomach. 

Was it right to push him away, as your mind had told you to do, or should you pull him close in a sympathetic embrace? He seemed untouchable in the sun, grabbing your chin and nuzzling your cheek each time you met for a new adventure, leading you by the hand to teach the rich history of seafaring towns and rustic cities. But this…. You didn’t know this distraught, monstrous man; maybe you never really knew him at all. 

“What….are you?” You look at his slippery feet, something akin to a vast fish’s tail grazing at his tailbone. His sharp hands dug into the flesh of your stomach, holding it against his cold face. “You’re not…”

“You hear of Colapesce legend? Il monstro delle acque nere, the sea snake?” Your guide unleashes his claws into your hips, like a cat preventing its prey from squirming. “Sirena Leucasia may be more famous for your Hollywood movies.”

“I have no idea what those words mean. Please, just let me take you to a hospital--”

“No!” He huffs, slinking off of you in a slippery fashion. Amadeo tries to pull you toward the edge of the bed by the wrist. “No doctors. Just… maybe I will show you.”

His accent grew thicker, the words almost garbled in his mouth as he hunched forward, beckoning you to come off the bed with him. Round glasses once pushed against his nose sat broken on the floor beside your slippers, the lenses cracked and wet. 

“Come, I promise you will be safe,” His weary smile was frightening, the poorly disguised deception hidden by a cold kiss to your knuckles. “Come, come.”

You stumble out of the creaking bed, following him more out of pity as he skitters towards the open ledge meant for sea gazing. The curtains were billowing roughly towards you, salty wind airing the room in a nauseating flutter. With small steps you observe his tail dragging against the ground. It appeared to grow heavier with each movement, walking becoming impossible for him as he practically crawled. 

“Follow, you see, vita mia.” He murmured, ushering you forward with a webbed hand. His fingers shook, growing bluer with each fingertip. 

“After this, we’ll go to the hospital, okay Amadeo?” You looked at him, weary of the gleam in his eyes. “Right?”

“Yes, yes,” He sputtered too quickly, pulling you onto the stone ledge of the canal. The once safe, emerald water had turned an impossible black. Only a few street lights and a passing boat made Amadeo’s sickly face visible. 

His smile was so wide, delusional in its giddiness as he held both of your hands in his. He stepped closer to the water, only a foot away as he didn’t dare to look back. 

You had followed to pityingly entertain him; perhaps a breath of fresh air would do some good for whatever illness he had concurred. But somewhere along the sight of his animalistic grin, the nail marks digging into your skin, it dawned that your naivety had gotten the best of you.

“Ama…” His hands found your elbows, digging viscous fingers into them to drag you into his chest. He had no need to take another step, your weight and the slip of your feet providing all the power necessary to fall splashless into the canal. 

A short shriek fell from your lips before you were submerged into warm, cloudy water. The tips of something slimy touched the bottom of your foot, causing you to thrash about in Amadeo's arms. 

You desperately opened your eyes, ignoring the sting behind your eyelids as bleak water blinded your vision. Amadeos’ body shone like a twinkling, scaly blue hue. What looked dulled and grey on land was reflecting the minimal light shining in the canal, his skin covered in thick, silvery sapphire scales, occasionally broken by the tan human skin he once wore. That evening his sweat was a sweet scent of summery orange blossom that you once shyly inhaled. Now, water overflowed in your nose and lungs, brined dirt coating the back of your throat as Amadeo clutched you in his arms. The stench of fish and seaweed became suffocating.

‘Cuoricino’ he mouthed, wiping at the scratches left on your cheek in an unfitting tenderness. His distress had become a gentle, benevolent smile, still haunted by the features of a wild creature. The intense gag of salted water down your throat had turned your broken screams soundless, shivering at the sensation of a slippery tail making its way around your legs. 

[swindle-comic]

Where will Swindle go if Tumblr goes down for good?

Hello, everyone, Artsy here.

So I'm aware that a lot of people are worried about tumblr potentially being shut down, and while that isn't necessarily the most likely case scenario, we wanted to make sure people had a way of reading this comic without having to download it in the event that we could no longer host it here.

The solution to that was to make a dedicated website for Swindle! This link should open up your web browser if you're accessing us from the tumblr app - please bookmark the website! I tried to code it in a way that would make it appealing and easy to use from either desktop or mobile devices!

In the future, it might be interesting to implement a sort of comments section, though I'm not keen to do so while we're still on hiatus, and don't see the point of it if tumblr is still up and running. Otherwise, I think it's about as complete as it could be! If you have feedback, please let us know! And if you've visited the website before, you may need to clear your browser's cache/cookies/site data in order for it to properly update (your browser is still storing the old HTML code and you need to clear that!)

[stellophiliac]

you should make a website!

"my favorite social media site is shutting down!"

"the CEO of the site i use just committed another atrocity!"

"i want a webspace that's all my own!"

if any of these sound like you (and if you're on tumblr, i know at least one applies) you should make your own website!

why make a website?

incredibly customizable

you can put whatever you want on it

it's, well, your own! like a house you build with your own hands

things you'll need

a computer. you can maybe get away with doing this on a mobile device, but i have zero experience there

a code editor. i like VScodium, which is a de-microsoft-ed version of VScode.

a will to learn ;)

site hosting

neocities. everyone knows neocities. at this point i do feel like it's become a bit too centralized, but it's a good option nonetheless. do note that there are filetype restrictions for free users, but that shouldn't be a huge issue for most. what may be an issue, though, is that there's a content security policy that prevents sites made after jan 1st, 2024 to use outside scripts. also, you have to pay to use your own domain

nekoweb. similar to neocities, but there's no filetype restrictions or a content security policy. some differences are outlined in the FAQ (thinking about moving here... i am a traitor...) i'm not sure if domain support is free or paid.

github pages or codeberg pages. you'll need an understanding of git for this

pages.gay: run by besties.house, uses git

teacake: free hosting is currently closed, but paid hosting starts at 2 bucks a month.

leprd.space: i know next to nothing about this.

a web server. don't recommend this if you don't know computer stuff but it is an option (you'll likely have to provide your own domain though)

gripes & solutions (?)

i'm not comfortable maintaining pages in pure HTML / templating with JS sucks!

with a static site generator, you can write pages in markdown and they'll be converted into HTML and (if you'd like) be put into a template of your choosing. my personal choice is 11ty but there are tons of options!

static site generators can be a bit of a learning curve (and you will have to write some html for templating) but if you're making a lot of pages or blogging regularly it's something to consider

there are starters for 11ty online but i might make a more beginner-proofed starter and/or guide in the future? don't count on it

i don't want to write/maintain CSS

simpleCSS is a tiny CSS file you can use to make semantic HTML ("naked" HTML) look nice. it's got decent customization options too. it's not particularly fancy or opinionated, but it's a good starting point if you need something

i don't know what to put on my website!

small list of ideas:

weblog

art/writing/music gallery

movie/show/book tracker

place to store bookmarks/links

scary! i'm scared!

my askbox/messages/e-mail inbox/etc. are open to anyone who'd like to ask for help!

[piplupcola]

Hey Watcher fans, if you guys are looking for new content to listen to now that Watcher is disappearing into a paywall I reccomend checking out Red Web!

They're also an unsolved mystery podcast with 2 hilarious hosts Trevor and Fredo and they used to be part of Roosterteeth but now that RT is shutting down they're going indie and making their own channel to continue the show in the future. (We aren't sure if they're changing their name yet but for now it's still called Red Web) They have some topics that cross with Watcher and Buzzfeed Unsolved but they also dive into modern internet mysteries, mysterious historical artifacts, ARGs and even a few ghost hunts of their own and they're extremely passionate about it that they wanted to continue their show even after their parent company shut down.

I reccomend checking them out and supporting them as they branch out from their main company just like Watcher did with Buzzfeed many years ago. Who knows? Maybe we can help them become the new Watchers in the future?

[eyekonvivi]

The Seventh Star - Prologue-

A Katseye Imagine

When y/n , a French trainee with undeniable stage presence, is chosen as the unexpected seventh member of global girl group Katseye, she's thrown into a dazzling world of music, fame, and found family. But behind the lights, cameras, and meticulously choreographed performances lies a web of complex relationships, hidden emotions, and quiet rivalries.

-------------

The stage lights bathed everything in gold.

The crowd roared, cameras panned across glistening eyes and trembling hands. It was the Dream Academy finale—the moment when futures would be written in the stars or slip away like forgotten dreams.

I stood at the back of the formation, breath shallow, heart pounding louder than the music that had faded only seconds ago. Tears rolling down my cheeks, I extricate myself from Ezrela's embrace, the burning taste of defeat in my mouth. I could still feel the warmth of the spotlight that had followed me across the stage minutes earlier during the final performance—my last chance to prove that I belonged is gone...

My name wasn't called, maybe I joined training too late, maybe I didn't train hard enough, maybe I should have spent more time working on my weakness : dancing. I realise that it's over, I remember the laughters shared with Ezrela and Lexie, the disastrous cooking sessions with Sophia, Adela's reassuring encouragement, the improvised rap sessions with Lara. All these memories, all these moments that brought me to this end, which unfortunately for me did not lead to my dream. But that wasn't the case for all the girls.

Katseye—elegant, powerful, untouchable—stood just a few meters ahead. Sophia, Manon, Lara, Megan, Yoonchae, and Daniela held hands tightly, their bodies trembling, faces glowing with a mixture of disbelief and joy. Their names had been called. Six stars in the sky. The final lineup.

"—and now," the host announced in breathless English, "for a surprise that none of you saw coming..."

Gasps rippled through the audience. y/n's throat tightened.

The camera panned to the judges—artists, executives, legends. One of them nodded. Another smiled, eyes glimmering with mischief.

"This journey was about more than performance. It was about transformation. Growth. Fire."

The host turned—directly toward you

"And tonight, Katseye will shine with seven stars."

Everything went silent.

For a second, you was sure time stopped. Then—

"From France,  Y/n , bienvenue. You are the seventh member of Katseye."

The crowd exploded. Fireworks went off behind the stage. Someone screamed my name. A spotlight blazed to life above me. But all I could hear was the blood rushing in my ears and the sound of six footsteps—running toward me.

Arms wrapped around me. Sophia—always composed, now crying. Manon—giggling like a child, her accent warm and chaotic. Daniela—whispering something fast and sweet in my ear, in half-Spanish, half-English.  Megan clutched her hand. Lara and Yoonchae pulled me into the circle.

"We're seven," Sophia whispered, "We're complete."

I could barely speak. My eyes burned, my lips trembled. "I—I don't know what to say..."

"Say yes," Lara grinned. "Say you're ready."

"I am," y/n breathed. "I'm ready."

The cameras caught the tears on my cheeks and the way the members squeezed me tighter, already one of them. In that moment, I wasn't just a dreamer anymore.

I was Katseye.

-----

To be continued / the whole story is gonna be on Wattpad too

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

Hello, I am an amateur writer, and would like for people to see my original fiction. I've never posted writing anywhere, so I would be starting from scratch. My question to you though is, why host your writing on your own site, rather than somewhere like AO3? Is that an avenue you would recommend to someone who doesn't necessarily want to sell their writing at the moment?

AO3 is for fanfiction and is non-commercial. While it is true that they don't remove original fiction, and it's probably possible to solicit funding for fics on it by linking somewhere like Tumblr and then to Patreon or whatever, me taking advantage of their free labour and their server space to host my original fiction that I write to pay my mortgage would be what we like to call a "major dick move". I have no interest in skeevy bullshit like that. If you ever intend to sell your fiction, I'd recommend not posting what you want to sell on AO3 at all because you're just creating future issues for yourself when you monetise. (AO3 is, however, an excellent place to post to get readers who will give your other fiction hosted elsewhere a try. The first Curse Words readers were all people who liked my fanfic on AO3 and wanted to see more of my writing.)

Having my own website just works out best for me and the way I like to do things. It's certainly not the only option. There are plenty of web serial hosts out there, and they're a good way to get readers since people go to those places specifically looking for web serials. Royal Road and Scribblehub were the big names last I checked, and that's probably still true. If you don't have any particular interest in running your own website, a site like that is a good place to start, since there's a ready audience, a ready community of fellow writers, and it's all set up to add chapters to your stories as easily as possible without you having to add your own links or do anything fiddly, the reader is built into the website already.

[alilobsessive]

I’m going to push more of the Mayday!reader agenda trust🫡. I really really hope that it becomes canon pls😭

Ideas:

Mayday!reader who hates the fact that these weirdos (the Batfam) speak to them like a complete and utter baby (they’re five).

Mayday!reader who not only has spider powers but is also the host of Venom (at some point Mayday was) and will turn into a tiny little adorable Venom and chase after Joker’s goons laughing gleefully.

Mayday!reader who was hurt in the confrontation leading to their parents deaths. As a result, they gave a slight gap in their teeth, showing that they are a future spider (all Spider Women ,but we can just make in gender neutral if needed, have a tooth gap).

Mayday!reader who openly mocks all of their niblings EXCEPT Tim. Tim’s behaviour (cocky) reminds them of their other parent (Spider).

Mayday!reader who is somehow best friends with loads of really, really peculiar people. Deadpool, Penguin’s granddaughter , Falcone’s grandson…etc

Mayday!reader who’s crush is Wonder Woman and who ‘proposed’ to her with a webbed bouquet of flowers and a gummy ring.

Bro there is no canon, we make canon as we go. Also slightly correction Nibling is a gender neutral version of niece and nephew. So readers the nibling, the others are there uncle’s. 

Reader is about to throw hands the second they start to baby talk them. Maybe even web them in the face, if there from a universe where they naturally produce webs at least.

Reader also being a secret vigilante with there venom suit is hilarious. Because readers 5 and was raised as a civilian(or as civilian as you can be with a one vigilante parent and the other the child of a vigilante) they constantly underestimate them dispute their powers. Which results in them regularly escaping and causing mayhem. Omg Mayhem, Mayday, I’m onto something here but I don’t know what I’m on.

I did not know that about the spiders! But something like that is something you’re born with. What I’m thinking is

NW playing with toddler reader: Hu, I just noticed, are baby has a gap in there front teeth

Spider spouse, instantly filled with nothing but dread:

Reader making Tim there favorite uncle because they remind them of there spider parent is just, mow chefs kiss! Lovely angst, everyone is so confused about why Tim of all people is Reader’s favorite. Only to look through old Spider spouse footage of them on the job and realizing there very similar in behavior.

Now I’m just picturing an itty-bitty justice league that consists solely of 3-5 year old superheroes. A less murderey baby Deadpool, Penguins granddaughter who as a nerf gun they carry around to fight crime with, Falcon’s grandson who plays softball and so carries around a bat everywhere. Some other kids from readers kindergarten class both meta and not, OMG Trinity! Elizabeth wonder woman’s daughter, she’s apart of this now! But all the crimes they fight and solve are a weird mix of playground level threat’s and actual threats.

That’s adorable, Elizabeth is side eyeing Reader the whole time

Elizabeth crying angry tears: I don’t want you to be my step parent!

Reader: I won’t be your stepparent! I’ll be the parent that stepped up!

Wonder Woman: oh honey that’s very sweet but I still deeply love my husband, even if he’s not with us anymore.

Elizabeth: See! Besides, she’s too old for you!

Reader: I can age up like John did!

Wonder Woman, panicked: please don’t age up like John did

[witchpassing]

my sister, @empress-em-kaldwin, has requested that i make a small announcement on her behalf: as of tonight, she is retired from the craft of writing.

i will not expand here on her reasons for doing so, as i wish neither to put words in her mouth nor infringe upon her privacy, but i will say this much: it is my opinion, as one who loves her dearly, that the course of action she has chosen is for the best.

what she has already shared remains publically available via her blog, and will remain so for the foreseeable future; works hosted elsewhere on the web will, similarly, remain as they are.

to those who have found catharsis in my sister's body of work, i offer my condolences and my gratitude. attached to this post are her notes on how she planned to conclude there is no allegory. there is no more to come after this, and there never will be.

thank you, and goodnight.

Morgana backfills current events. Fascist administration is actively self-cannibalizing and will lose control of the press soon, which will be the last straw. Multiple demihuman holdouts across the country are experiencing great success, except the ones who tried nonviolence. Time passes. The administration loses its grip due to main incompetence, and as the chain of command shatters the officer responsible for besieging St. Clotilde's decides to push into the compound as a vanity project. The firefight claims twenty U.S. infantry and six of the private security team, including, as graphically as possible, Val and Lito. The push ends as news breaks that there's been a mass shooting in the Cabinet Room and the administration no longer meaningfully exists. The opposition party steps in immediately to restore order, offering pardons to nonviolent demihuman resisters and "fair trials" to others. Insert a direct reference to the theft of homes historically experienced by people displaced to and subsequently returned from concentration camps. The St. Clotilde's fighters hold conference. Sophie says she's leaving the country to hop train cars in Europe and maybe reconnect with her heritage in Ukraine. Director Lynn, via Isperia, announces his choice to comply with the new administration to reintegrate the hospital into society to continue what he sees as his medical mission. Emily thinks about disappearing into a quiet life with Cordelia. Cordelia indicates lucid understanding of the tragedies they've undergone and a clear unwillingness to accept a return to the previous status quo, again citing the lifetime of abuses Emily has faced. Thus encouraged, Emily and a large portion of the St. Clotilde's team shake hands, exchange contact information, and disperse into the city to continue a program of violent resistance. End. If I were writing this again, I'd be more careful to introduce people longer before killing them, and I'd include an arc about Emily continuing as a camgirl during the siege.