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Futureporn May 2025 Update
🕑 Added 2025-05-15 12:52:25 +0000 UTCRebuilding Futureporn—for Developer Sanity, and for the Future
Futureporn's software stack and I have been in an abusive relationship for years, and it's time to sever that relationship and replace it with a healthy one. This means we're going to see some changes in the website appearance and function, with the ultimate goal of returning to a place where it's possible to produce new updates and features.
I'm sharing a bunch of screenshots today of the work-in-progress. Think of this like peering into an active construction site. Doors are missing, half the walls aren't up yet, and a lot of the electrical wiring is exposed. It's a mess right now, but the ultimate product is sure to look wonderful!
Why we're rebuilding
The existing site focuses on using cutting edge, hot topic metaframeworks, while entirely ignoring Developer Experience, routine workflows, and state of the art.
Don't get me wrong, I love using the latest new tech, but this is an illustration of my experience with them.
Great, we're using the latest and greatest, unopinionated, modular JS framework. Ok, so we need tags on our website. How do we implement that?
Week 1: Create relationships between tags, toys, vtubers, streams and vods in the database
Week 2: Create API routes for creating, reading, updating, and deleting tags.
Week 3: Create views in the frontend which make requests to each API route
Week 4: Cognitive load maxed out, take a break.
Week 5: Re-learn everything I just did, because nothing was documented
Week 6: Find bugs, fix some of those bugs
Week 7: Give up and move on to something else
It's this problem over and over, having to switch contexts between learning and implementing, fixing things that broke, and keeping the site up to date. It's too many things for one guy to manage.
Whereas if we're using an established, battle proven Content Management System (CMS), the implementation goes more like this.
Day 1: Enable the tags plugin. Job done.
Another problem is a complete lack of codified workflows for routine tasks. When there's a new ProjektMelody vod, I have to pull out my checklist and go through each item as a manual task one at a time. This has been a repeating issue for the life of the site which I know how to fix, but I don't have time to work on the solution because all my time is going into fixing the issues of the main codebase which re-invents the wheel at every level.
What's Next
Our mission is to preserve lewdtuber history, and that means scaling up and embracing automation for tasks we do an a regular basis. I'm codifying my VOD processing checklists to make new uploads fast and reproducible. Starting with the entrypoint for adding new content onto Futureporn, uploads. The Upload workflow is now the same whether it’s me or a patron submitting them.
Historically, uploads were done by me only, and I can only do so much. Opening uploads to patrons enables the cooperation and collaboration needed to grow the archive. Viewers and archivists dedicated to their favorite H-streamer will be able to share what they have saved, and collectively work towards 100% archival rate. Was one of your vod recordings incomplete? A partial vod is better than no VOD, and it's a great starting point.
(Note: Twitch shows up in screenshots only for testing — Futureporn remains focused on R18 content.)
Stream Archive is a big table showing who streamed, on what platform, at what time, and whether or not we have a VOD.
The Stream Details page shows what we know about a stream. Who's stream it was, when it was, how it was announced, along with all lewdtubers who appeared.
Behind the Scenes
When a VOD is uploaded, we use a backend task processor to get it ready for playback.
One strategy I've read about for tackling problems is to first visualize them. This helps me to better understand the problem and it's easier to come up with a solution. To that end, all my backend tasks now have reactive flowcharts, with each node being a script that solves a part of the overall task. When the task hangs or failures occur, it's clear which script is causing the trouble.
For archival purposes, the original VOD is kept in pristine condition and unaltered, available to visitors for downloading. However, the original vod is not always the best format for playback in a web browser, so part of the task processing is to generate a HLS playlist with an encoded selection of alternate formats.
Displaying video data to visitors
The VOD playback page shows who uploaded the vod, along with any notes they supplied during the upload. There are playback options, download options, date and time of the original stream, and a comment section.
With this latest iteration, we're using Plyr.js for video playback. There are tons of video players to choose from, each with their pros and cons. Plyr strikes a balance between features and simplicity, and is just enough player to get the job done while being compatible with the HTTP Live Stream (HLS) playback we're implementing.
Upcoming Challenges
I'm going to be real honest here. Futureporn is going to die this year, unless I can turn things around. It's entirely a finances issue, where it cost more to keep the site running than I have available to pay. Patreon signups have dropped off and there are clear and understandable reasons on my end for that-- issues like degraded user experience and lack of meaningful updates.
I’ve been operating at a personal loss for years, sacrificing health, comfort, and financial security, because I believe this archive matters. But belief alone doesn’t keep the lights on, and I could use all the help I can get.
This is a YOLO moment. All-in, full commitment for 2025. Time to achieve the goals I started with, it's now or never. One last huzzah to realize the Galaxy's Best VTuber Hentai site.
Thank you, patrons
If you've been here for awhile, thank you for sticking around! This has been a wild journey. If you're new, thank you for being here! I think together we can build something great.
