angelbl00m

[angelbl00m]

I think one of the biggest reasons I enjoy jjba is because I envy this level of confidence and sincerity in storytelling. See, I would not have just said something as fucking stupid as "bullet-deflecting oil." I would've come up with some kind of Watsonian bullshit magic-science explanation that at least squared with the logic of the story instead of just saying "Oh, it's an oil that deflects bullets" and moving on to the next thing. But that is not because I am a better storyteller, no, quite the opposite. It's because I'm a coward.

[angelbl00m]

had a dream I went to a hozier concert and mr. hozier stopped singing and pointed to me in the crowd and asked me to go get him some extra crispy tofu and a blueberry shake for after the show and then the crowd passed his debit card to me and when I got it I could see his real legal name was Horace Bob-omb

[angelbl00m]

in los angeles, the historically Black community of altadena has been decimated by the ongoing eaton fire.

afropunk has created a spreadsheet of gofundmes of displaced Black individuals and families affected by the current los angeles fires. the list is constantly being updated.

please donate what you can and share widely.

[angelbl00m]

Imagine this:

You once had a warm, safe home filled with love and comfort. Your children laughed and played with their favorite toys, cuddled in their cozy beds, and wore clothes that kept them warm through the seasons. But now, all of it—your home, your children’s comfort, and your family’s security—has been reduced to nothing but memories.

Images: Images of Rana's home in Gaza, before and after the attacks.

@ranafam2

Story written by @visionsofaselfmademan

For Rana Abdul-Jawad, a wife and mother of four from Gaza, this is her heartbreaking reality. Her beautiful home, once a haven of joy, was destroyed, leaving her and her children in a torn and worn-out tent. They now face the unrelenting cold of winter with no warm clothes, no covers, and no reprieve. Her children shiver through each moment, vulnerable to illness from the freezing temperatures, and struggle to survive the harsh conditions.

Recently, the winter rain storms have flooded their fragile tent, soaking everything inside. Rana has spent entire nights desperately trying to stabilize it against the wind and rain, fearing it might collapse entirely. Despite her efforts, the tent cannot properly shield her family from the bitter cold or the relentless rain.

Image: Rana's tent, flooded with rain and barely holding up under the heavy winter rain storms.

Rana’s family needs your help. The soaring prices caused by war have made basic necessities like clothes and blankets unaffordable.

Rana’s plea is simple yet profound: “Please, save my children.”

Images: Rana's beloved children.

Your donation, no matter how small, can bring warmth, comfort, and hope to this family. It can mean the difference between enduring the cold and finding safety and security in these desperate times. Let’s stand together to help Rana’s children find warmth and peace again.

You can donate to Rana's GoFundMe [HERE].

This campaign has been vetted by association [LINK].

[angelbl00m]

Hello, my name is Jaafar from North Gaza. I previously created a GoFoundMe donation campaign, and when I got $2,400, they deleted the campaign without knowing the reason. Please support me in my new campaign, Chuffed. Any amount you donate, even if it is small, will help buy flour and vegetables for my family. The price of everything we have is many times its normal price. Please help save my family from starvation! 🥹🙏

✅️Vetted by @gazavetters, my number verified on the list is ( #299 )✅️

Please know that the beginning is difficult for everyone, donate even a small amount, it will definitely mean a lot to us 💔🥲

https://chuffed.org/project/helpjaafar

[angelbl00m]

Let's try this again

[angelbl00m]

My name is mahmoud mohammed jaafar jaafar i studied computer engineering and graduated from university in 2023 i worked as a software engineer in a local company here in gaza unit the war started, then the company got destroyed and became unemployed and our house is destroyed partially and became inhabitant to live in but nevertheless we stayed in it because we do not else to go i currently live in north gaza where is a scarcity of food and i have 3 brothers and 4 sister one of them died while he was trying to find food for the family so i am the eldest in my family now i have to provide a living for them

Any amount you give me will help me a lot in supporting my family in Gaza in light of the fear and lack of food, medicine and drink

Any amount you give me will help me a lot, even if it is $10.

[angelbl00m]

he fun

(youtube under)

[angelbl00m]

Please don’t skip 🍉🇵🇸

I am Ahmed from Gaza, 26 years old. I stand before you as a person trying to support my family of 7: me, my father, my mother and my sisters, in our miserable circumstances, which we live in after the occupation launched the war on Gaza. We were displaced from our home and it was completely destroyed. We are now living in shelters. Due to the circumstances and low income, we are unable to provide the necessary benefits such as food and drink due to the crazy increase in prices. Thus, my source of livelihood has been destroyed, but it has been completely destroyed, as we are no longer entitled to work; and we expect to live in miserable conditions in the shelters. It is difficult for me to find the words to describe what we face every day in the shelters; without food, medicine or clean drinking water; with the oppression, helplessness, psychological pressures, doubts and daily shocks caused by everything around us and the inability to care for our loved ones. The fear of danger, disease and death never leaves us.

Now, I find myself in this difficult situation, and I humbly ask for your help to save the lives of my family, especially my father and mother, by getting us out of Gaza to Egypt and building a new life outside Gaza or helping us get money to buy the necessities that we may be able to afford. Asking for help is not easy, but we had no choice because we want to survive and strive to rebuild our shattered lives. We are very grateful for any help you can offer, no matter how small, as your help will go a long way in alleviating our suffering. I hope you will share my story with your family and friends.”

Donation link⬇️⬇️

[angelbl00m]

✅️Vetted by @gazavetters, my number verified on the list is ( #329 )✅️

Urgent Appeal: Help My Family Before the New Year

My name is Ahmed, and I am asking for your help. My family – my parents, brothers, and sons – are in a desperate situation after our home was destroyed in an airstrike in Gaza. We are now sheltering in a flimsy tent, exposed to the cold and rain, with no food, clothing, or shelter to survive the coming days.

My sister-in-law is nine months pregnant and is severely malnourished and anemic. She is weak and vulnerable, and we have nothing to prepare for the baby due in a few days.

We urgently need to raise $15,000 by the beginning of the new year to provide us with the basics: food, warmth, and a safe place to stay.

Your support, no matter how small, can make a life-changing difference. Together, you can help my family and start the new year with hope and dignity.

To donate:

Your kindness today may bring us safety, warmth, and a chance to heal.

[angelbl00m]

They're dressed as their tarot cards :)

[angelbl00m]

@linakhames5 is from Gaza. She has no home, no mode of transport, and no financial stability due to the genocide. Her husband, Mahmoud has sustained a severe leg injury and has also lost his brother.

She needs your help to raise €100K to find a secure environment for her family until they can rebuild their home as well as covering Mahmoud's medical costs.

She has currently only raised €8,090

VERIFIED; (#103)

[angelbl00m]

Surnames are just as important as given names. So, I compiled a list of the websites I use to find my surnames.

English Surnames

Dutch Surnames

Spanish Surnames

Scottish Surnames

German Surnames

Italian Surnames

Irish Surnames

French Surnames

Scandinavian Surnames

Welsh Surnames

Jewish Surnames

Surnames By Ethnicity

Most Common Surnames in the USA

Most Common Surnames in Great Britan

Most Common Surnames in Asia

[angelbl00m]

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.

Again, please, please PLEASE reblog this post instead of the one I sent originally. All the information is here, and it's driving me nuts to see the old ones are still passed around, sending people on wild goose chases.

Thank you all so much.

[angelbl00m]

WHAT???? Fuck him

[angelbl00m]

Kids these days smh

(RIP Mista 🕊️↓↓)