#web streaming

[rainy-day-revelry]

As many people have mentioned, Dream is very good about framing things to make himself sound right and other people sound unreasonable. But not a single video or post he has made so far can convince me that he is doing this with good intentions, because of the way he speaks towards everyone else involved and those he dragged in.

Now I mainly picked up on this with Tubbo and Tommy, but there are hints of it towards his viewers too: he speaks to us all like we’re children. The way a parent talks to a child they’re trying to gently reprimand, or the way a teacher talks about a subject in class. He speaks like we would never be able to come to these conclusions without his help and that he needs to guide us through it all or we’d get lost in the sea of information. And sure, plenty of his viewer base are kids, but the majority of people who would be watching this drama are fans from the Dream SMP era who knows all these people and remembers when they all used to talk and hang out. We may have been kids back then, but it’s coming up on half a decade since that server began; we’re not kids anymore. I myself started watching the DSMP when I was a underclassman in high school, I’m in college now. All the people he called the R-slur, the people who were offended and wanted an apology that he took days to properly deliver, most of us are adults. We can form our own conclusions, and we’re not an amorphous blob of opinions and views, we’re our own people.

This is especially bad when talking about it to Clingyduo, especially Tubbo. In his 3 hour stream he continually talks about Tubbo being misguided, and despite saying he has great respect for Tubbo and his opinions he skips context and actual criticism multiple times or, as Tubbo mentions, tunnel visions on one part of the criticism he can target and tosses the rest out with it when he’s done. He doesn’t give two shits about what Tubbo says unless it’s something he can use against the people criticizing him to make them sound disingenuous. With Tommy it’s worse, because when he’s not villainizing him beyond belief he’s using that condescending tone to talk about how proud he is and how he thought Tommy was special, which explains why Tommy felt so much pressure from him and like he owed him his success, or at least that Dream thought as much. He holds his approval over his head, like an abusive parent who just spent hours screaming in your face about how much of a disappointment you are before telling them “Of course I still love you.” It has the underlying tone of “you’ll make up for this slight, won’t you?”

And don’t even get me started about the DMs to both Tommy and Sarah. It’s fine to explain your feelings, but you’re not explaining them, you are blaming these feelings and reactions on them and telling them “You are the reason I’ve been suffering, it’s your fault for all of these horrible things that other people have been doing to me.” That’s not explaining your feelings, that’s guilt tripping and expecting an apology. That’s how long texts like that come across, that you don’t want the other person to be able to interject, you don’t want to make this a conversation, you want to drop your feelings and leave them to clean up the mess.

Dream’s a manipulative jerk, that’s all this has proved to me.

[leafatlaw]

Lifesteal s6, On spawn, causes worth fighting for, and hope.

Tumblr post by @/screenshots of despair and @/wearepaladin //Take it Back*** Princezam stream//Melissa Broder, Last Sext // Take it Back*** Princezam stream //Take it Back*** Princezam stream //Ellen Bass, The Thing Is //Take it Back*** Princezam stream //Toni Morrison, Guardian article // Twitter post by @/crowsfault //Take it Back*** Princezam stream //Minutetech fight with Manepear //Take it Back*** Princezam stream (screenshot from tumblr user @/heartcircus // Brennan Lee Mulligan // Rebecca Solnit, Hope in the Dark //No Manepear Day, Kaboodle stream //Light Before Dawn, Pangi stream //Unknown

[cateyeswrites]

I am not a bad person, you saw what they all did to me!

Schlatt and quackity art by @foolocracy_ in Twitter/ Rage poem by Marlon James, Black Leopard, Red Wolf/ Quackity art by @staripeYOO in Twitter/ Heart art by @violetta_n_n in TikTok/ Bathroom art by @moonlyst4rz/ Quackity art with the rings found in Pinterest /

[ekingston]

Hello! So sorry to bother, but have you had any updates on the Word-Stream/Speechify situation?

Just one: like I posted on Xitter and Bluesky last night, as of yesterday afternoon, the links to individual works as they were listed on WordStream are gone from both Google and Bing. Hurray, right? Surely we’re all sick of this whole debacle and there’s far more important things to worry about. If all is well that ends well, surely there’s no need to still be angry.

Well, I am. Here’s why:

When I checked on Wednesday, the links to my own work on WordStream were still listed. So rather than it taking a week after Cliff Weitzman first hid the fanwork from view, it took a little over a week from the moment he first promised privately that they would be deleted. Which, fine. Perhaps Cliff didn’t really know what he was talking about when he gave that timeframe. Or maybe he told a little white lie to create the impression that he always intended to do the right thing. It seems more likely to me, though, that Cliff still believed—even after the backlash he received—that he would get away with honoring only individual takedown requests. Or worse, that he needed just a little bit more time with the stolen material to figure out an alternative way to profit off it—preferably without us noticing, this time.

But who knows? I certainly don’t! All we can do is speculate, because publicly, Cliff Weitzman has remained completely silent on his copyright infringements. All we got was the initial justifications he and his sockpuppet accounts used in comments on the original Reddit and Tumblr posts. After those were so understandably ill-received, Cliff only ever communicated with a few individual authors who contacted him directly and repeatedly, blocking people who addressed the issue on Twitter and quietly distancing himself from WordStream by deleting a blog he’d posted to Speechify.com dated December 20th—where Cliff promoted WordStream’s platform specifically to fanfiction readers. (See my enormous timeline post for details and screenshots of said posts before they were taken down.)

And this is why I’m still angry: As long as Cliff Weitzman faces no real consequences for his actions, he won’t see a need to own up to his mistake; and as long as he’s able to delay taking responsibility, this isn’t over. This didn’t end well.

After all, wasn’t this the next-best scenario for Cliff, second only to him turning WordStream into a (for him) effortless, infinite money-making machine? He took something we provided for free and fed it to AI so he could more easily put it behind a paywall; we found out and protested; Cliff quietly erased all evidence of his crime; and we went—almost equally quietly—away.

I want to make sure you know that I continue to be genuinely amazed and intensely grateful for how quickly the news about WordStream’s copyright infringement was shared—and continues to be shared—throughout fandom, on tumblr in particular. If it hadn’t been for our collective outcry here and on Reddit, WordStream would very likely still be up in its original form, and Weitzman would be reaping the benefits (those subscription prices were steep) today.

But it’s been frustrating to see that, with the exception of mentions in articles on Substack and Fansplaining (the latter of which is a particularly awesome and thorough read on fandom’s decontextualization) and a Fanlore listing, our outrage never really spilled out beyond the safely insulated, out-of-the-way spaces that are tumblr, a handful of subreddits and bluesky. And I believe that—unfortunately—we are collectively responsible for that part, as well.

Most of us seemed content to only spread the word by circulating the same two posts on tumblr. (Have we all given up completely on every other social media platform? Am I the only remaining straggler?) And soon after Cliff Weitzman hid WordStream’s fanfiction category from view, our interest in the issue took a sharp dive even there. Are we genuinely deceived into believing the issue has been fully resolved? Do we truly fail to realize that Weitzman’s refusal to admit that what he did was wrong left the door wide open for the next greed-driven tech bro to wander through? Or is the true naivety in thinking that, as a community, we can keep this kind of attack on fandom from happening again? Has our disillusionment already gotten that bad?

However the situation spins out from here, Cliff’s actions will set a precedent. If we fail to show Cliff and his ilk that attempts to profit off fandom’s unpaid labor have consequences, their tech companies will keep trying until something eventually sticks. They might be a little smarter about it next time; obscure their sources a bit better, maybe leave the titles and the authors’ names off. Or maybe they’ll go a bolder route: maybe next time they cross the line they’ll do it boldly enough for IP holders to take notice and stop tolerating fanwork entirely.

Doesn’t that make you angry, too?

There’s this whole other mess of thoughts I would love to be able to untangle about how commercial influence is contributing to the steady erosion of fandom’s foundations, but I’m tired, and other people have said it all much more eloquently than I ever could. Seriously, go read that article on Fansplaining. Or listen to the podcast version of it. Better yet, as long as you’re wearing your noise-canceling headphones, go listen to a podfic of one of your favorite fandoms’ works, and enjoy the collaborative joy and creativity of the people who Cliff Weitzman refuses to believe exist. (In one of Speechify’s other blogs, Cliff claims there are only 272 podfics on AO3. Would you like to run that ChatGPT prompt again, Cliff?). Honestly, much like Cliff Weitzman’s infuriating denial of the fact that fandom fucking has this covered, thank you very much, there’s so. Many. More. Things for us to talk about. There’s the connotations of WordStream’s dubious ‘upload’ button, for instance, or the fact that the app scraped (and in some cases, allegedly, still lists) copyright-protected original fiction as well, or WordStream’s complete lack of contact information, which is illegal for an internationally operating app. And oh! Has anyone reported more thoroughly on Cliff’s app’s options to ‘simplify’ or ‘modernize’ uploaded works, or—my own very favorite abomination—to translate them into something Cliff calls ‘Gen-Z Language’? Much like his atrocious AI book covers, it would be hilarious, if it didn’t make steam come out of my ears.

Anyway, there it is. I highly recommend you do all of that. And then, if you aren’t familiar with it already, go do some research re: fair use and your rights as the copyright owner of your works. A good number of people commenting on this controversy expressed stunned surprise or fearful hesitation about claiming any sort of ownership of their fanfiction. The more informed we are about our rights, the more willing we will be to defend them.

Please don’t stop writing or sharing your work. If you can’t bring yourself to work on your WIPs today (trust me, I get it), post about this situation instead. Tweets, skeets, whateverthefucks—about WordStream’s theft, about how this reflects on Speechify’s already shady business practices, about how Cliff’s actions and justifications have personally affected you. You’re welcome to share or copy my posts on these platforms, but since Cliff already blocked me, I very much prefer you post your own. If you do, call Cliff Weitzman by his full name and tag or include both WordStream and Speechify to ensure Weitzman will recognize he has both a personal as well as a professional stake in handling the situation with integrity. Leave your concerns in reviews on the Speechify app. (We weren’t provided with a more appropriate place to put them, after all!) Consider calling for a Speechify boycott until Cliff accepts accountability for his actions.

Do avoid making exaggerated claims, and don’t call for physical retaliation against Cliff’s person or his property. We don’t want to give him or Speechify even the weakest of grounds to claim defamation or threats of violence. Focus on the facts: they’re incriminating enough by themselves. Show Cliff that we’re determined to keep bringing up his company’s wrongdoings in public spaces until he demonstrates that he understands why taking these freely shared fanworks and monetizing them was wrong, and takes steps to ensure it won’t happen again.

One last thing—and this is really more of a general reminder—please stop suggesting I handle this situation for you. People have come to me asking for action items. The resulting flashbacks to my days as an office assistant were extremely upsetting. In all seriousness, casting me as some sort of coordinator or driving force behind this backlash actively hurts the cause. Not only does it downplay fandom’s collective efforts, it also makes our message extremely vulnerable. It would be all too easy for Cliff to silence one singular source. Wikipedia will not maintain mentions of this controversy as long as it leads only to Easter Kingston’s attempt to summarize what happened as it was happening. You only know my name because I stumbled upon WordStream’s theft and decided to get my friends involved. I am not more knowledgeable, more skilled or more angrily invested in this issue than you are (or can, or should, be). I draw pictures and I write stories and I worry about the shift I’m seeing in fandom after having been on this ride for even a few pre-livejournal rounds.

I’m not going to stop doing any of those things. But I am going to allow myself to step away for a bit, make my wife dinner, and catch up on our shows.

I trust you’ve got it from here.

[petalpxl]

🩷 pink bandage channel points icon 🩷

[witchrealms]

(x)

[castillon02]

“The bad news,” Tim said, “is that you’ve probably been avoiding the whole retirement fund thing because you’ve consciously or subconsciously realized that you aren’t financially solvent enough to do it. The good news is that there are a lot of ways to diversify your revenue streams.”

Jason grimaced. “Branding.” 

“Branding,” Tim agreed. “Who does your marketing?” 

“Two high-schoolers, a PTA mom, and Velma at the senior center.” 

“Nice range of demographics.” Tim nodded approvingly. “We’re gonna do a line of merch—Red Hood t-shirts, water bottles, gas masks—but we should start other efforts at the same time. How do you feel about short-term investments? Crime Alley has a lot of small businesses, right?” 

“Uh, yeah?” Jason said. “Franchises never make it there.” 

“So, the laundromat could probably use a new washer,” Tim said. “Summer is coming up; one of the bodegas could probably use a slurpee machine. And one of the food trucks could probably stand to upgrade its fryer capacity. Do it like Shark Tank. People can come up with their own upgrade proposal and show you that they’re a responsible investment, and then they’ll have ownership of the idea instead of having Red Hood come down from his throne of duffle bags full of heads to ask if they need better lighting for their OnlyFans.” 

Jason opened his mouth, closed it again. “You want me to do Crime Alley Shark Tank.” 

“I want two of your lieutenants and two well-respected community members to do Crime Alley Shark Tank,” Tim corrected. “You’re a wanted felon and people’s attempts to kill you would be distracting. You can be a guest judge on the finale.” 

[webdiggerxxx]

꧁★꧂

[8thekat]

Webtoon 20 drawing request progress!

I wanted to share some of the progress I've been making on the 20 drawing requests I'm doing for hitting 20k subs on webtoon! So far I've sketched out 8/20 🥳

I've been spinning a wheel to pick a random number to draw out of the 20, so here's what I've made so far!

(My faves so far are the spaghetti dinner w/ Papyrus, the Uno card game and the gigachad sans 😂)

I've been streaming these request on my Twitch channel btw! So if you wanna watch me draw them, I've been trying to work on it over the weekends 😊

I plan on polishing them up more once I get the sketches done, and there's a few that I would actually like to fully render!

______________

Patreon • Kofi • DeviantArt • Discord • Webtoon • Tapas

[luminouslotuses]

q!aimsey - a moth trying to find the light

STARTING A NEW ADVENTURE…… twitch stream (all quotes and screenshots) // why are moths attracted to light? // moth and flame by krmayer // luna moth by maya hawke // a vote for the gentle light by charles bukowski

[rawdatafeeling]

[alicelairds]

"you're a really special girl, jenny, who deserves someone who's gonna see that." "not like you're available"

"number one girl" by rosé // jenny humphrey & nate archibald in gossip girl

(jenate screencaps from @senamarais)

[lpeeinsinks]

some stamps i made awhile ago that i only posted to deviantart + some new ones

[aurosoulart]

just remembered that Twitch is reducing its video upload limit for highlights so that means a bunch of my livestreams are gonna get deleted next month. 😔 (idk how many exactly - I don’t have the time to download and then reupload everything to YouTube so I haven’t even bothered to check lol)

anyways I’ve seen no mention of this change outside my own email, so PSA to anyone with a fav indie Twitch streamer - it’s likely you’ll see a bunch of footage disappear soon.

the current (just recently extended) deadline is May 19th. videos with the least views will be deleted first, until each account is under the new 100hr limit.

[reireichu]

[hyper-alice]

The Webby card actually really interesting to me

Heavy is the crown. She wants life to be safe from the Lords in Black, but she’s really the only one up against them. It’s all 5 of her brothers against her. She’s the only one who has enough power to try and stop them, but she fails continuously. Her own family members are her greatest enemies. In “The Web I Spin For You” she sings “Why do you haunt me like a ghost? You’re supposed to love me the most.” She doesn’t want to be the sole protector of earth. It’s a heavy burden. But if she has to take this responsibility to save the world from the most powerful evil there is, she will.