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vacantgodling · 7 months

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personally bothers me when ppl are like uwu Iago is gay for othello and completely ignore his racism let alone the racism throughout the play

lmao thank u for stopping by to talk old books with me :3c

but tbh thank god i’ve never seen this take in the wild because i just 👁️👁️ did we read the same play? are you okay??

iago’s like not even subtly racist. like the whole play is very racist in general when you start deconstructing it and thinking about it with a critical lens.

(such as: black/dark skinned men are going to come around and seduce your pure white daughters with either “magic” or their physicality, abuse them, black men are inherently violent and angry and good for their physical prowess, the only reason a white woman would love a black man is because she pities him… like i can go on)

however, aside from desdemona’s father, iago is the Most and honestly only maliciously racist character, and it’s not even just towards othello lmao (looking at his speech about how a black woman who’s smart would only be of value if she married a white man 😒) like, i understand the ideology behind wanting to read homoerotic jealousy into his actions because why is he so fixated and jealous of this (1) man who has “everything he wants” and tbh perhaps it could work if the play itself wasn’t saying, in part, that othello cannot be trusted with the things he was “freely given” stolen because he’s black/dark skinned/from the Moors, however ya wanna put it.

like it’s easier to read homoeroticism into fucking julius caesar (the play, and i suppose the man) than this play. in hamlet, CLEARLY, than this one. and then it creates a whole host of other issues with the play IF iago is gay because then *insert a slew of homophobic stereotypes here*

however, what gets me is the play already does give reasoning behind iago’s actions. like as i was reading wiki and analyses of it after i finished my first pass of it, there seems to be a lot of “discourse” around iago’s motivations and how they’re not clear… but they are? at least to me? like, he’s egotistical, and big for his britches. he’s petty and jealous and feels that he deserves things simply because he wants them. he wants the lieutenant position because he feels he’s owed it for being done the disservice of having to serve a Moor in the first place and for being a tenured soldier for so long; and whether or not cassio is competent are neither here nor there, the point is if you get passed up for a promotion at work: work harder, accept it, or just fucking quit. but iago decided to make it everyone else’s problem. it really didn’t have much to do with desdemona herself (though i could argue that he was perhaps jealous that othello had a pretty wife who actually loved him; because even though i mentioned the racist sentiments about white women and black men earlier i don’t think desdemona is a racist character in the slightest: she fell in love with othello for who he is and she is faithfully in love with him to the end. that doesn’t change the outside perspective of those who see their interracial relationship, which is very translatable into real life in how interracial relationships are viewed but that’s a whole different conversation), nor do i think did it have to do with this weird homoerotic tension people want to force into the reading.

whenever iago says that he ‘loves’ othello, people should understand that in this time period the word “love” was (1) more freely used to describe a wide variety of positive emotions (2) in this context probably meant something more akin to “loyal” that he wouldn’t betray othello or that he values him as a subordinate should (which is clearly sarcasm) and (3) be read with heavy damn sarcasm especially when iago is not talking directly to othello. he doesn’t care about othello in the slightest; and i would argue that even if iago was made lieutenant from jump he would be scheming about how to become general. we would still have a play about how iago hates and wants to “dethrone” othello. like he’s just fucking selfish in how he treats everyone throughout the play lmao. he doesn’t even describe othello in a “i hate that i yearn for you” type of way like there is Nothing that can construct this narrative to me in the text.

so like long story short (i didn’t mean to rant but yknow ya got me going) i think a homoerotic reading of iago is just kind of out there at best and just irresponsible at worst. there’s plenty of other characters you can read as gay in shakespeare’s works, even fucking desdemona and emilia in this play itself have a better gay reading than iago and othello lmao.

obviously shippers gonna ship and like do you but i just don’t see it.

#ren hot cakes #othello #ren reads

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sparxwrites · 3 years

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dude loved the dsmp fic u did with technoblade and quackity. The second part of the series where quackitys trauma with schlatt came up in the most unexpected way near the end- cool af. if u ever have time and the desire I'm sure many other people would love to see more dream smp stuff from u 💜💜😳💜💜!!! I'm so curious what made u think of such a raw scene b/een Q and techno in the aftermath of the butcher army execution in the first part

okay, so- context for this is that i wrote the redux because a friend threatened promised to actually fuckin pay me to watch techno's pov of the execution, and to write an alternate version where techno's braid got cut off. i genuinely enjoyed the video, ended up doing the fic for funsies and writing a lot more than intended, and got brainworms about doing a sequel.

however. that meant that basically i was working on a) two hours of footage, mainly of techno, and b) snippets i had picked up from fanart, animatics etc. for characterisation. so i wrote 2k of relatively generic "bully asshole guy dubcons woobie asshole guy into sex that he totally definitely doesn't want but kind of secretly does", because that's a solid chunk of my brand, just as a "haha smutty fic machine go brrr" kind of thing.

and then i actually watched some more content. and went, oh, whoops, hmm, this Absolutely Doesn't Work At All with the actual characterisation of these two.

because techno is an asshole, but he's a joy-of-the-hunt, intimidating-you-is-kind-of-funny asshole, not a sleazy dubcon asshole. and because quackity is... i was going to say "the complete opposite of a woobie", but actually he's kind of a woobie in function (victimised constantly), but the diametric opposite of one in form (responds by attempting to take chunks out of anyone that so much as looks at him kindly, as opposed to weeping in a corner somewhere).

so then i had 1k+ of smut machine go brr (i had written up to abt the first time techno pulls out, i think), and a suddenly really interesting character dynamic that didn't really work with the plot i'd had in mind. which is probably why it ended up so "raw", as you put it - because the only way out of the corner i'd written myself into, without discarding the whole thing, was to lean into how bad this would end up being for both parties involved. so it became instead techno throwing his weight around as an intimidation tactic (death is relatively cheap in minecraft; as far as he's concerned, if quackity really really didn't want this, he'd have taken the loss of inventory and opted for a quick kill/respawn) and ending up in over his head/doing something he wouldn't normally do but wasn't overly concerned about; and quackity acquiescing because schlatt (whilst mostly never outright "pin you down as you beg me to stop") was extremely bad at taking no for an answer, and so he got used to just taking whatever he was given because he'd otherwise be called a pussy for it and/or ground down until he agreed.

which is why everything falls apart at the end, and the dynamic flips - the minute techno realises this isn't hatesex-ish with quackity being a bitter mouthy shit as usual, he's like "uhhh Nope Nope Nope" and wants to get the fuck out of there asap, because sexual assault is really not part of his whole "good clean kill, joy of the hunt" thing. except quackity, laden down with trauma about this kind of shit and probably dissociating out of his fucking skull/in the middle of a flashback, interprets this as "he thinks i can't take it", and is absolutely desperately trying to avoid the verbal abuse and humiliation he associates with not being """strong enough""" to take whatever abuse his partner wants to dish out prove he's a big boy and doesn't need to be coddled.

so! that's how i accidentally ended up with plot and/or actual emotions in what was meant to be some fun, dubiously-consensual porn lmao. and now i'm slightly obsessed w this dynamic between quackity and techno, and the potential follow-through of them dealing with the fallout from it. watch this space maybe??? or don't, because i'm bad at following through on writing stuff, but we'll see.

(and thank u for the compliments as well! glad u liked the fics :3c more fucked up nonsense with quackity to come shortly, i promise~)

#anonymous #ask #the turning point was me realising that technoblade probably has sex in the missionary position w the lights out mostly hrghgh #dsmp tag #sparx chats #dubcon //#rape //#only obliquely mentioned but to be safe...............#i need to watch more quackity n schlatt content SO BAD bc their dynamic is already my favourite fuckin thing #so many LAYERS here #something something quackity as a bad victim and schlatt as a very sympathetic abuser #i'm gonna have so much fun playing around w that particular hot potato tbh

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softgrungeprophet · 3 years

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i liked agent venom when i read it, partially because it actually had a discernible plot and a story that wasn’t just half finished and abandoned from constant cancellations, but at the same time i hate it. i hate it so much.

i hate that flash became venom and suddenly, all of his relationships were completely erased except for like, betty and sometimes peter and that was it. mj and harry who? childhood friendship with liz? no she’s just going to... blackmail him for some reason even though they’ve known each other for literally like 15 years

i hate the agent venom origin slott wrote, i hate flash being pissy about peter confiding in MJ, who they are both friends with, because if you’re dan slott you can’t talk to girls unless you plan on fucking them, i hate how gung ho slott is about the military propaganda and the fucking american flag behind flash in superior spider-man, even though superior (a comic i don’t ever plan to read in full) actually had a good moment with flash and “peter” and flash’s tenseness in a domestic argument situation

(i also hate that that one pre-agent venom web of spidey comic could have been good, actually had good assistive devices, but then... the entire villain plot is about some Mysterious Terrorist or whatever who nonetheless congratulates flash for “constructively” letting out his anger on faceless middle-eastern soldiers, and this is played straight--disgusting)

i hate all of it even the things i like because they took a character who actually was fairly complex and flattened him into a football-loving, gun-toting, all-american patriot who loves god and his country, at odds with the previous 30 years of character development, at odds with the flash who when asked if he liked being in the army (after being DRAFTED into fucking vietnam) said that there is no liking the army, only dealing with it, and i hate every bro who thinks agent venom was the coming of the great whatever and acts like flash was completely nothing before then and that only in agent venom did he have any character when the opposite is true and agent venom trampled out every bit of nuance he had to focus on alcohol and football and nothing else (at least bunn finally put him back into a school again, had him working with youth again (andi in this case))

i hate, unrelated to agent venom, the fact that flash the complex character has been further and further stretched and distorted to have been a horribly violent schoolwide bully as a teenager rather than what he actually was--an obnoxious kid with a fucked up home life trying to fuck with one specific kid--to the point that even in the college stuff, even AFTER having “become good,” he’s the only one who gets repeatedly and purposefully excluded from official works and fan works alike because everyone thinks of him as nothing more than a bully, that every movie appearance of flash sucks except TASM (which is still barely a flutter but you can tell thought was actually put into his character by the actor himself), the fact that he’s the only living member of the friend group (because i assume gwen is dead) who doesn’t get more than a single-line mention in the ps4 game (but at least it’s positive, and i like to pretend that MJ was checking on him when she went to the veteran’s center since we know he works with veterans in the game, even if we never see him) (i still want to be able to go to coffee with mj, flash and harry all together)

i don’t like the bullying flashback in the bunn AV run (even though i liked the comic as a whole, especially with andi, and how bunn and shalvey moved away from the military stuff more toward neighborhood protector stuff), i don’t like bunn’s take on high school flash (he also wrote a different spider-man comic with high school flash a little bit before then)

i hate that flash’s growth wrt his disability, which he came to accept as a part of him that he didn’t need to find some miracle cure for, was completely thrown down the toilet so they could do their stupid supersoldier agent venom shit, which flies directly against the SPECIFIC endpoint of the stages of grief comic, which SPECIFICALLY used superserums and bionic military limb testing as the thing he did not need in his life--and then dan slott runs over like teehee here’s some bionic supersoldier military testing shit :3c

hate that he was killed for the stupidest reason by norman fucking osborn, hate that the disabled abuse survivor was killed by the man who killed one of his best friends, who abused another, who manipulated HIM, who drove him into a fucking building after force-feeding him hard alcohol, hate that norman got to “win” against flash one last time, hate that norman is now being treated as this fucking “couldn’t help it” case while harry is Actually Bad, and still, flash is what? a dream symbiote dragon? fucking stupid and i hate it, i don’t want any of it

every new thing i see about new spider-man and venom comics wrt flash makes me wish he would stay dead lmfao

but it’s not like there weren’t already a ton of bad comics about him but at the very least... i would like something that isn’t just about the Patriotic Soldier Boy who never actually fucking existed

the football thing is a really fun one--and i love that the TASM movie made flash play basketball in that movie because if you look at comics from the 60s through to the early-mid 2000s, preceding agent venom... flash stopped playing football after high school and started playing basketball instead. started doing other sports, probably stopped football because, gee i can guess who told him to play football in the first place, but somehow agent venom happened and decided that his entire life was just Football and Guns? when he hadn’t touched a football in literally like... 10 years in-universe

(TASM best live-action spidey adaptation)

there is not purpose to this rant i just needed to get all this shit out of my head

i am very On Edge the past few weeks and idk why, just ADHD brain shit I guess but everything makes me tense lately (probably why i played through 77% of the spidey game in literally four days by virtue of doing absolutely nothing else in my free time) (i’m taking a break for the sake of my hands but maybe i should go keep playing lol)

i know some people like the dragon and i’ve added it to my “flash trans” list but in the context of stories about flash over the past ten years i really am not interested, and this coming from someone who read eragon 9 times in middle school and grew up reading mostly high fantasy and dragon books. i just. don’t want it. not by the writers currently going at least. maybe if it was someone else or if i knew it would be anything more than a future of soldier boy alcohol football crap lmfao

#nadia reads comics #anyway if anyone has recs for pre-2000s issues that focus on flash i would like that #i have read the prom story though i like that one... nuance...#not interested in the hobgoblin comics either i think those fucked up his character #flash: calls sha shan a wench #me: literally who the fuck is this cause it's not flash

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xenrelay · 4 years

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Judith Mossman for the character ask meme? :3c

i love an excuse to talk about judith thank you

Sexuality Headcanon: once again bi mesa real. i don’t think she really accepts this until later in life? between spending all of her time working and plausible deniability w/ being attracted to men, she’s able to avoid thinking abt it too much for a while. being around openly lgbta+ people in the resistance helps

Gender Headcanon: i would say there is definitely some Gender here. i am fond of transfem judith but i don’t have a lot of solid thoughts

A ship I have with said character: i like judith x eli but also. I think it would be cool if judith mossman kissed a woman

A BROTP I have with said character: she patches things up with gordon after everything--neither are particularly socially inclined so a lot of their interactions happen in companionable silence but they’re good at building on each other’s thoughts when they talk physics

A NOTP I have with said character: obvious but her and breen like. i’ll laugh at the jokes but it’s just uncomfortable for me to think about in a serious context bc i can’t see any romantic relationship btwn them not being abusive

A random headcanon: takes up gardening post-canon. (i generally assume most permanent resistance bases have some kind of community garden) it’s calming and she enjoys being able to help people in a more direct way than her research work

also tends to accidentally say things with a harsher/more accusatory tone than she intends when she’s stressed and is not really aware of this so she’s like ?? when someone takes it that way. yes this is bc of her bme argument with alyx

General opinion over said character: my fave! i think a big reason that i actually got involved somewhat in the fandom w/ hl was having a lot of thoughts about a character that not a lot of people were talking abt. i get why people have mixed opinions but i care her

#transmissions #:3c #i've never been able to get really invested in any natural sciences #though not for lack of trying #so im like yeah they talk about things! and stuff! what stuff? you know. stuff #my brain only likes social sciences #also feel weird talking abt gender when i'm not really sure where/if i am on that myself #not gonna write a whole ass essay in the tags abt it more than i already have but the tried and true 'my gender is lesbian' works for now #benignmilitancy

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enchantedbride · 5 years

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I'm gonna do what I did to Tay. Gimme all of the nsfw asks with Claude!!

@blackquills-wife*wiggles eyebrows* ALL OF THEM? ALL OF THEM! (Since I have two self-inserts, I’m gonna use Claunna as my ship for answering these asks since that ship is the most developed at this point, and Joanna is well… basically me but a manakete XD).

Reminder that my not safe for work tag is #joey’s citrus garden. Do not interact with posts with this tag unless you’re 18 years of age or older, or you will receive an automatic block.

1. Is your f/o loud or quiet during sex?

Claude tends to be on the quieter side, but mostly because he’s very good at staying in control of himself in the beginning. But the more he comes apart, the harder it is to stay quiet. That being said, he’s never super loud, even at his most vocal. Although there are other ways for Joanna to tell she’s doing a good job, for example, if she gets him to start devolving into pure profane utterances or his sentences are more broken and scattered, that’s definitely a good sign. >:3c

Joanna on the other hand tends to be pretty good at staying quiet herself, and one of Claude’s favorite things to do is find out how he can draw out more sound from her, what will render unable to help herself.

2. What is your favourite sex position with your f/o?

…Do I have to pick just one? It probably flusters her to think about it, but Joanna really enjoys being bent over and taken from behind. She’s also quite partial to being face to face while she rides him. But really though, she’s down for almost anything and both of them do like to experiment.

3. Do you fantasize about your f/o in a sexual way often?

Joanna didn’t at first, but that’s not unusual for her as someone whose demisexual and just… doesn’t have a sexual interest in anyone right off the bat if/when sexual interest occurs at all. But more recently… she’s been thinking about Claude in that sort of context a lot.

4. Does your f/o prefer to be a dominant or submissive?

I think Claude has about an equal preference and gets enjoyment out of the experience whether he’s the more dominant or submissive partner. Joanna does have a strong tendency towards being a sub so he does tend to be the dominant partner more often than not because of it, but he does try to encourage her to take the reigns on occasion, and enjoys every minute of it when she does.

5. Does your f/o prefer giving or receiving oral?

Claude slightly prefers giving because he enjoys turning his partner (in this case, Joanna) into a mess but make no mistake, he’s totally down for receiving oral too. Wheras Joanna is equally interested in both giving and receiving.

6. What kink does one of you have but the other doesn’t?

Claude is probably more into bondage than Joanna is, so if there’s any tying up to be had, it’s generally him that’s tied up. Likewise, Joanna is more into the idea of being blindfolded while Claude’s not too keen on it, at least for himself, though he’s down for it if the other partner is the one blindfolded.

7. What kinks do both of you have?

Both Claude and Joanna like to experiment and explore each other’s bodies, and both of them definitely enjoy body worship. Both of them also really enjoy having sex while not undressing completely (although there’s a lot of fun to be had in undressing and redressing each other too), and in the case of a quickie there’s a certain thrill to cleaning up quickly and resuming their daily schedule as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened and laughing about it later when together before bed at night. Claude likes to tease in bed just as much as he likes to tease in general, if not more, and despite the fact teasing is a bit of a hit or miss subject for Joanna in general social situations, she loves being teased in bed.

8. Does your f/o like it rough and fast or soft and slow?

I tend to think Claude would actually prefer more soft and slow so he can take his time with Joanna and prolong their enjoyment, but things can get rougher and faster from time to time. When their schedules only allow for a quickie, those tend to be on the rougher side.

9. If you could live out one kink you and your f/o both share, what would it be?

Oh boy… another one where it’s difficult to choose just one.I guess what comes to mind is more of a scenario. I like the idea of the two of them being in perhaps a private office that Claude uses. Claude locks the door so they won’t be intruded upon, and the two of them start getting frisky in said office. After Claude has sufficiently gotten Joanna worked up and he’s removed a few articles of his own clothing, he bends her over his desk and lifts up her skirt, pulling down her undergarments and teasing her about how wet she already is for him. She teases him back, but he’s a bit better at goading her into pleading for him. Of course, he happily obliges her when he’s satisfied that she’s ‘demonstrated enough’ how badly she wants him. He tells her to be as quiet as she can, but warns her he won’t make it easy for her, and of course, he doesn’t.

10. Has your f/o caught you masturbating or vice versa?

Yes, it’s probably happened on occasion. Although the two of them sometimes like to make a game out of purposely watching the other and seeing how long it takes before the other one can’t stand it anymore and pleads to let them touch the other. I have a bit of a mild voyeurism kink so…

11. How do you two feel about shower sex?

*sweats* Uh… Joanna really likes it. Like, a lot. Claude probably isn’t as into it as she is, but he’s definitely down for it. For her it’s a sensory thing because she likes the feeling of being soaked from head to toe and running her hands all over Claude when he’s the same way. (Although she also really enjoys showering/bathing together as a form of non-sexual intimacy too, as a way of gentle touching and caring for the other person.)

12. Is there anything about your f/o that stands out sexually?

I’m not entirely sure how to interpret this question. Is this about kinks? Size? Stamina?

I do like to headcanon that Claude has good stamina and can recover pretty quickly to go for another round if he and Joanna are up for it. I don’t have any particular headcanons about his dick other than the fact he and Joanna fit very well together in a more… physical sense. *winkwink*

13. Do you think your f/o would roleplay with costumes or would that be too silly?

Neither of them really do that sort of thing much, although they’ve tried a couple of things at least once. They do like to tease each other and ‘play fight’ on occasion (although Claude and Joanna always make sure the other person knows it’s pretend and not a real fight, especially since Joanna’s autistic traits mean she’s more likely to read a situation literally without some help). Once Claude learns about Joanna’s past as a major religious figure in her homeland, he does at least once make a joke about how even though he’s not particularly religious, there is a goddess (or rather a goddess’s envoy) he’s quite happy to get on his knees for.

14. Does your f/o cuddle after sex or do they prefer to do other things?

Claude is definitely a cuddler and he’s a bit disappointed when he doesn’t get to cuddle afterwards. Although tbh Joanna’s very much the same way so it works out.

15. Is your f/o into pain during sex? if yes do they give or receive it?

I don’t think either of them are particularly into it especially, although Joanna does like to bite and nibble, especially on his ears and neck. He does a little bit of it himself to her, especially giving her pointed ears a little playful tug with his teeth every now and again.

16. Who finishes first during sex?

Joanna. You kind of need to be watchful with her because she’s got some major tactile sensitivity. There are some spots where if you really abuse them she miiiight come a little too quickly. Unless that’s what Claude’s aiming for, which is the case in some circumstances.

17. If you have more than one f/o, do you have sex with them individually or at the same time?

Claude isn’t currently involved in any polyships of mine (although Manakete!Joanna is in one version of her Awakening verse), but if he were Joanna would probably do both (have sex with her partners individually as well as at the same time) unless for some reason or more of her other partners wasn’t cool with that.

18. Did you two have sex on the first date?

No. But it took a while for both of them to come to the point of falling love with one another romantically (I don’t headcanon him as demi, but because he is slow to trust normally it still takes time for certain attractions to form and have staying power), and by the time they confessed Joanna’s sexual attraction to him was already beginning to bloom. So it wasn’t terribly long before they did start sleeping together.

19. Are there any specific things your f/o needs in order to enjoy sex? e.g. having the lights on or off, being on the recieving end of the pleasure etc.

I headcanon that for Claude, sexual and romantic attraction are difficult if not impossible to separate. And he needs to really trust a person before romantic attraction can form because of his past. So, indirectly, he really needs to trust someone in order to have/enjoy sex with them. Luckily with Joanna that’s not an issue as he trusts her completely (and of course the two are madly in love and hopeless romantic dorks about it). But other than that I don’t really see him as needing anything in particular.

For Joanna, she can’t really get into it if she thinks there’s a good chance they’re going to be caught/walked in on. As long as she’s certain they have some privacy or at least have a good chance of not being intruded upon, she’s good. (So semi-public sex or stuff that’s in an unusual location isn’t off the table, she just needs reassurance that they’ll generally be safe to do it there.)

20. What kinds of things does your f/o say during sex subconsciously? Is it just swearing or do they blurt out dirty talk?

He swears a little, although he doesn’t really devolve into just swearing until he’s close to coming undone. He tends more towards dirty talk for certain, and he’s learned the right kind can really have quite the enhancing effect with Joanna. There are some words he avoids though since certain words make her upset due to trauma reasons (degrading names for example, or any degradation really is absolutely off the table. he’s not really into that sort of thing anyway but he was thankful Joanna told him ahead of time anyway.).

#something worth everything (claunna)#joey's citrus garden #not safe for tumblr (n/s/f/w)#thekingaboo #oof this took forever to write

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kincringeemporium · 6 years

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The Promised Party Cat Callout (Long Post!)

Here we go, y’all. I’m not gonna go all-out with the salt and vitriol typical of my longer posts, because... this isn’t about me being salty. This is about highlighting the issues with Mod Party Cat of the fictionkinfessions blog.

Nor is it intended to bully or chase Party Cat off of Tumblr. Yes, this is a callout post; no, it’s not an invitation to attack the blog with hate or stalk their sideblogs. And no, it’s not just my personal opinion, which we will get to.

This is intended to show Party Cat exactly what is wrong with how they’re running the blog and how they’re behaving. If they learn from it, good. If they don’t... then, they don’t.

Last of all, we did gather opinions from both kin and non-kin in a survey. This isn’t meant to antagonize the entire kin community. In fact, the information from kin really helped to support this argument. Thank you to the kin people who did respond to the survey.

(Btw, survey is still open: https://goo.gl/forms/lDoffQVVmELDo2EZ2 )

Obvious content warnings for dark shit apply. (Abuse, depression/suicide, etc.)

With that being said... let’s begin.

The main reasons for the callout are these:

Passive aggressiveness to or about other mods

Passive aggressiveness to anons/senders

“Cutesy” or overly positive typing/behavior in serious situations

Material that is generally improper for this kind of confession blog

Hypocrisy

Majority of survey takers agreed with each other and with the points made in this callout

We’ll go one by one.

Passive-aggressiveness to/about mods

(The bottom half of the mod page was linking to Party Cat’s other blogs and crediting some theme elements. Not relevant to callout.)

There isn’t a lot of information about the other mods or why they left; the general consensus on Maude is that they left because of school, but nothing about Kuroocrow. Now, why is this passive aggressive?

There was no need to publicly say that there’d been a “catfight” (ha ha, funny) with Maude. We don’t know if Maude even gave Cat permission to say this. If not, it’s disrespectful. (Nothing wrong with saying they’ll be okay.)

What Cat is saying about Kuro is even more aggressive than that. “They refuse to do anything to help!” Okay. That could be true. There’s still no need to rant about it.

“Ask them on my behalf what the fuck is going on with them!” Adding ‘on my behalf’ comes across as incredibly self-centered. And saying ‘what the fuck’ adds to the aggressiveness. Even if not intentional, that is how it looks, and it needs to be changed.

All that needs to be said is something like this: “It’s just me, Party Cat! Maude is on hiatus, and Kuro is absent. If anyone knows what’s going on with them, please DM me!” There. That’s respectful and to the point.

Passive-aggressiveness to Anons/Senders

This section will be... long.

So.. there’s a lot of overlap here with the ‘cutesy typing’ issue, but I’ll get to that later. I had to crop the screenshot to just this because there was so much that wasn’t 100% relevant to the callout. (Context for this post: Cat promo’d a kin server, an anon found some unsavory things happening in the server, anon warned Cat, and Cat said this.)

“...Seriously there’s like a few thousand people following this blog” is an unnecessarily rude way to say this. The point itself is legitimate and understandable. It really just need to be reworded so as not to come off as salty.

Alright, I’d understand this one if there was anything in the blog description or about pages to warn people that the blog can get dark. Confessions about death, suicide, rape, incest, murder, violence, high emotional distress, etc are jarring to see when this blog tends to be lighthearted.

While this anon does look a little bit defensive or offended, that’s so slight compared to the defensiveness of the response. Personally, I read the question as confused. (Y’all, who agrees with me? Who disagrees?)

Cat... people don’t tend to expect very dark content on a blog like this, especially when there’s no warning, and they might not even bother to blacklist the tags you use because they don’t expect it. (That’s a guess. If I’m wrong, then smeone should explain it. ) There isn’t much of an answer here - you just answer their question with another question.

So, okay, I agree with Cat saying that this ask is vague. And it’s not good to add “but” after something like ‘No disrespect...’ -- because “but” does negate whatever precedes it.

Those are the only things in this screenshot that make sense. Now we’ll get to the things that are passive-aggressive.

“Maybe it’s because...” Vague in itself. ‘Maybe’ gives you wiggle room to get out of this perfectly legitimate critique, instead of saying “Hey, I seem this way because...”

“People keep asking me things without providing the barest amount of information...” People actually do provide information. Sometimes it isn’t enough. That doesn’t mean they aren’t trying, and they could be dropping the subject because of how you respond (nobody really wants to interact with someone being rude).

“I just fill up the dead air with jokes!” Plenty of people do. And it’s fine... just not in this situation. When something serious comes up, you shouldn’t simply make a joke and move on. This reads like an excuse, and even a way to shame people. (”Oh... it was only a joke? Now I feel bad! :(” )

“And then people get more mad because... I don’t know!” This looks like you are blaming people for their feelings. People are allowed to feel mad. It’s never okay for them to send hate or be dicks -- which they’re not doing.

“Nobody reads that page, lollerskates!!” This could easily be solved by a regular, repeated post linking to the FAQ. Or a regular, repeated post explaining why confessions sometimes aren’t answered. Or something like that. Just a bit more effort.

Okay: “This blog is only for kin. We want to keep it within our community. If you have questions, check out this FAQ!”

Not okay: “You have no business interacting! You don’t know anything!”

That ‘sincerely’ isn’t very sincere at all. Most antikin will respect kin not wanting anti interaction on their blogs. Those that don’t are being dicks. And non-kin people who don’t have anything against kin are not at all likely to be hostile toward you, so being this hostile to them is unwarranted.

It’s confusing that this community, in general, would like non-kin and antis to become educated about what kin is/means... then such an influential blog sends a message like this. Regardless of how people feel about Cat, she does have pretty decent influence and a huge following; it’s very easy for impressionable kids to pick up on this weird double standard.

There’s nothing wrong with preferring to let someone else educate non-kin. There’s nothing wrong with pointing non-kin in a different direction.

There’s a lot wrong with blatantly pushing them away like this. It’s rude.

Inappropriate Cutesy/Overly Positive Typing

Cat isn’t stupid and knows full well what this anon (same one from before) meant. There was no need whatsoever to make such a giant joke of the question.

(Not to mention... why the hell would she tell everybody that she has so much medical debt and can’t afford electricity? I don’t know her situation so I can’t say it is/isn’t a joke too. It is something that could genuinely upset people, and some would even believe it. It’s a terrible thing to say.)

“:3c” Not harmful in itself. Just doesn’t belong in a serious ask.

This anon meant a post in which they were venting about abuse... they were angry that a character had abused their kintype. Cat knew that, considering their abuse content/trigger warning tags. This response looks sugarcoated and mentions some random anecdote about a thing Cat does, which is not appropriate in a situation regarding child abuse.

This was in response to something that was legitimately annoying Cat and breaking a blog rule. It does not look like an appropriate or effective way to address the issue - even looks immature. Did people take this seriously?

Yes, this really is a tag on a venting ask about a real life abusive stepfather. A joke. In a venting ask... about an abusive home life. There is a tag saying ‘Your stepdad sucks’, which is good. A joke, though, is too far.

(Apologies for a repeat screenshot - I saved this one for right now, for the sake of organization.)

There is, as I’ve been saying, no need for this. It’s very strange to ‘roleplay’ and act cute when there’s possibly a toxic Discord server going around.

When asked if any of Party Cat’s mannerisms were bothersome, one person said this:

Others said these things:

Inappropriate Material

Shoutout to @queen-dragon-slut (damn Tumblr won’t link you) for getting me this screenshot.

What the hell, Cat? This is serious -- this is even more serious than people sending confessions saying things like “Ugh, I hate this kintype!” or “Ugh! I hate that character!” This person actually endangered their own health and safety to force themselves into a ‘kin shift’. And it’s in no way Cat’s fault.

However.

To not even provide the anon with links to help blogs or any kind of resources, list some tags, and move on, shows an incredible lack of effort. Not only that, but I feel bad for this person. One note. That’s it. Nobody seemed to care that someone was suffering this badly, Cat included, which is, quite frankly, disgusting.

Again, something this dark doesn’t belong on a casual confession blog (which is what your blog looks like it’s supposed to be). And again, it genuinely fucking worried me. Is this person okay?

And it’s not even tagged. Not as ‘suicide’, not as ‘depression’, not as ‘suicidal ideation’, nothing. Which is what this is. This person feels like they’re not needed, like they’re pointless, which exactly what suicidal ideation does to you.

You can’t DM an anon saying, “Hey, you alright?” You can, however, at the very least, link them to the help blog page.

Mod Ryan, who is also part of the fictionkin community whether we like it or not, has seen:

Confessions about incest

Confessions about being abused otherwise

Confessions about stalking and being stalked

People saying they liked to kill

People saying they weren’t at all sorry for violent things their kintypes did

Asks saying characters or people should’ve killed themselves

@queen-dragon-slut said about some of the suicide-ish confessions: “ Tbh when somebody sends in a confession saying “I killed myself in my canon” it just sounds like they have some fantasies of wanting to kill themselves but cover it up by saying that their kin kill themselves and try to play it off. That’s not healthy.”

Hypocrisy:

Alright. That looks reasonable -- but wait.

The asks and other screenshots I just posted do strongly come off as suicide wishes, if not actual notes.

Here’s what people had to say when asked if they’d seen Party Cat acting hypocritical. I did not even mention suicide asks or dark asks in the survey question:

____ I wish I had time to say more but class starts in twenty minutes. When I’m back, I will add onto the callout with one more thing: that people feel Cat isn’t doing enough to help distressed anons.

Huge thank you to everyone who helped out with this!

It’s something that people have wanted to say for quite a while, and something that should’ve been said a long time ago.

Nobody should be demonizing Party Cat; there is a real person behind the screen. This should be a learning experience for her. Not an attack.

-K

#party cat callout #tw suicide #tw abuse #otherkin #kin cringe #otherkin cringe

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quasarlasar · 6 years

Text

Another Black Hole Documentary! (NOVA’s Black Hole Apocalypse) Here we go!~_~

*epic bass noises*

Me: BWAHAHAHAHA HERE IT COMES

“They could swallow a star completely intact”

“They spew these huge jets”

Me: A-grade black hole awesomeness!

(This one is narrated by an actual astrophysicist…hopefully it’ll be better!)

“Black holes are invisible…”

Me: Not if silhouetted against a bright background…how many times do we have to go over this…

“Black holes even slow time!”

Me: Uh…not your own proper time. There’s a reason it’s called relativity.

“At a remote location in Washington state…”

Me: Oh sure, ignore the one in Livingston, Louisiana. Screw you.

“They record a message…it looks and sounds like *bwoop*.”

Me: It doesn’t actually look and sound like anything. For the gravitational waves to be audible you’d need to be so close you’d be inside one of the black holes when they collide.

“The signal traveled over a billion light years to reach us!”

Me: You make it sound as if it was intended for us as an audience, instead of just a weird noise.

“You will see the entire future of the universe (if you approach a black hole.)”

Me: AAGH, there you go again, Neil de Grasse Tyson! You can only do this if you hover at the event horizon, which takes infinite energy.

*Andrea Ghez appears*

Me: Well, there she is.

“So if you want a villain in a sci-fi movie, cast a black hole.”

(Interstellar movie poster appears in the background)

Me: BOO! NOT COOL! People keep talking about the black hole in Interstellar as being the antagonist of the story. It barely does anything in the film besides sit there ominously, and did less damage to the protagonist than a headbutt from Matt Damon. Darth Vader is a better black hole than ye, Gargantua.

(Poster for the Black Hole platformer appears)

Me: Hey! That’s not even a movie; that’s a video game on Steam!

…Speaking of which, I need to actually play it sometime.

“You might think a black hole is an object…but it’s not.”

Me: THANK YOU! This is a big misconception! But you got the “infinite future of the universe” one wrong…you got this right only because you got Kip S. Thorne to give his schpeal.

“…Karl Schwarzschild…”

[Interrupts video because then has idea to calculate how much alcohol it would take to get a supermassive black hole drunk. Realizes that nobody has given a mathematical relationship between BAC and body mass. Realizes this is stupid because black holes cannot get drunk, and video is over an hour long. Gives up. Resumes video.]

“That is the boundary…the event horizon…beyond which nothing can escape….not even light. And we’re going there!”

Me: Oooooh, gonna get dangerous…

[Narrator falls into black hole to describe what would happen]

“…Maybe if they waited millions or bilions of years, the ship would see me disappear.”

Me: Actually, you can calculate that the luminosity of an object just falling straight into a black hole decays exponentially (Note for physicists: This is done in MTW’s Gravitation). Your crewmates would see you disappear much more quickly than that.

“…I’m falling towards the center, where the mass of the black hole is concentrated.”

Me: The black hole’s mass is not localizable to a specific place like that.

[Talking about Cygnus X-1]

Me: OH MY GOD I HEAR THE RUSH SONG PLAYING IN THE BACKGROUND!

[Discuss the Cygnus X-1 bet between Stephen Hawking and Kip Thorne where the wager was an issue of Penthouse]

Me: …not that story again.

[Shows a grad student in the background behind one of the scientists they’re interviewing]

Me: Wait…I think I know that guy!

“Every galaxy that we’ve looked for a supermassive black hole in, we’ve found a supermassive black hole.”

Me: NdT at it again. There are many galaxies we’ve looked and found no evidence for SMBHs in them. The first one that comes to mind is Triangulum.

“Let’s say we release a swarm of autonomous robots into the accretion disk of the supermassive black hole.”

Me: WHOA THERE! This is getting too weird.

“…One robot will see its own back, the light forever orbiting in a complete circle.”

Me: The photon sphere is an unstable orbit. Light doesn’t collect there, and you won’t be able to stay on it.

[Note also all the accretion disks depict gravitational lensing. I swear that all the accretion disks show gravitational lensing now only because of Interstellar. We’ve known this was a thing for well before that movie was released, but I guess artists and documentarians needed an obnoxious Nolan piece to actually get cracking. ]

[The narrator constantly refers to supermassive black holes as “supermassives.” Ironically, the only other time I’ve heard that turn of phrase is when writing Tartarus’ dialogue in my science fiction novel, where he refers to other SMBHs as such. However, this is because Tartarus speaks using his accretion disk emissions and as such tends to swallow most of his words, and his dialogue is generally awkwardly cut short, drawn out, or broken up. It’s not because I think this is a good way to refer to supermassive black holes. Oh yeah…my novel…remember that?…Pretty much not going to get a chance to work on it much until I get my PhD. Derp.]

[A bunch of pictures of generic quasars are shown. One of them I recognize as 3C 273, but the rest look like they might just be computer generated, or even regular galaxies with the smudge and lens flare tools abused.]

“These black holes seem to know about their larger galactic environment.”

Me: Well yeah, you can’t be president of the galaxy without understanding the larger astropolitical context. [Note: Dammit, I haven’t even finished my first novel, and I’m already thinking of who Tartarus becomes after a several billion year time skip.]

“These black holes might control the growth of the universe.”

Me: RESPECT FOR THE DEAD STAR! RESPECT FOR THE DEAD STAR!

(Once you learn, once you learn, that you’ll never get out….there is nothing you can do…there is nothing you can do...)

[Oh yeah...that’s another thing I planned to do at some point. A parody of “Respect for the Dead Man” but with black holes in it. Too bad I lost the lyrics I wrote out..]

[Documentary goes on a diversion about the Event Horizon Telescope, aka the project that would be amazing to work on if it didn’t already have thousands of people working on it.]

[Documentary closes out on LIGO. Shows wave reaching Livingston first.]

Me: FINALLY! But you still waited until the end to show the Louisiana station, so I’m still deducting points.

Overall, I’d say this documentary was better than most. Still not perfect, but that’s to be expected.

#text #documentary #black holes #nova documentary #black hole apocalypse #black hole #astrophysics #astronomy #physics #general relativity #humor #space #science #space documentary

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eliweed-of-pherae · 7 years

Note

1, 8, 12 for that one eye-eating dude

Mopmop, not to be extra, but u fucked up :/ How dare u mistake in the ask meme for another ://///(Jk my guy ilu) (but I’ve told u he DOESNT EAT EYES HE STUFFS THEM INTO HIS EMPTY EYESOCKET WHICH IS ARGUABLY JUST AS BAD )

1. Your first OC ever?

… A self insert for a story with a friend, who was called Ekuru (??? wtf) and was a space cat princess from the planet of stars (??????????????????? WTF).

8. Do you RP as any of your OCs? If you do, introduce one of your RP OCs here!

Yes! Some of my ocs (Lennox, Manato, Layth, Tomohiko,Yuuya, Angelo, and others) have been created for french rp forums!

- Lennox is an immortal Alchemist in 1890 Paris, working in a cabaret for non humans as a pianist.

-Layth (although not played by me, but I created him for someone else to play!) is a djinn under contract with Lennox, and works as a waiter at the cabaret. He’s rebellious and brusque, but is a cool dude. “Wtf is a romance??????” - Layth, 1890.

-Manato was (the forum closed) a cursed human, because he messed with a yokai whom he shouldn’t have seen. He used to be a ray of sunshine, and quite a popular guy, but then locked himself in his house in fear of spreading his curse. He’s now severely agoraphobic and only has 10 years left to live. He spits out blood bcs hes a white haired anime boy. He only accepts to see his childhood friend, a priestess whom cant be cursed, and his younger cousin, who insists to stick around. The forum was abt a village who would soon hear the cries of banshees and experience a great change, but it never got this far.

- Tomohiko was (forum also closed) an onmyouji whose mother died in an attack, and whose father beat him. He used to be a delinquent, then discovered his talent as an onmyouji and acquired his first shiki, a dragon god. HE then went to a town called “Rengoku” that was known to have a sort of cohabitation between western demons and japanese yokai to work in his trade.

-Yuuya was (most of these forums are closed lmao) an emotionally numb shinto priest who lost everything - thus opening the street to a mysterious world called Tamashi no Higan. People who had lost everything met a man in a strange antique shop, who made them cross to Tamashi no Higan.

-Tsubaki (not the fox) was that man in the antique shop. I also played him, but it was the admin who made him, and allowed me to play, so I guess I inherited this oc? He had no memories of his childhood, but didn’t grow old, and was considered one of the 4 great Original Residents of Tamashi no Higan. He had a talking dragon mark on his body, whom only him could hear. He claimed not to remember passing people into Tamashi no Higan, but not even I knew if it was true or not. He spoke in riddles and messed with everyone lol.

- Siegfried (not the emperor, and from another closed forum) had a split personality he wasn’t aware of and severe paranoïa. He was placed into the asylum the context happened into by his politician father who didn’t want a bad reputation.He was getting gradually worse and worse.

-Naoyuki was ( I left the forum) a school doctor with severe insomnia and was in the middle of a divorce from his abusive wife he’d left two years before. She used to hit him, and made his insomnia a lot worse than it had ever been. She used to smoke a lot, and so did he, but the smell of cigarettes now is a trigger, so he vapes instead. He’s good friend with another player’s drama teacher who is a compulsive napper. He sleeps in the bed he cant use lol. He took a kitten named Tamaya, who made him mess up in cutting his hair, now uneven as fuck.

- Angelo ( unfinished character sheet…..) is a demon CEO in the same forum as Lennox and Layth, who owns a textile factory with hsi two brothers. I wanted to play a legit bad character, and he abuses his employees. He’s also a stupid fuck who’s dramatic. Sav can’t Succ him. he’s bad.

-Cecil was (closed forum tooo) …. The Eye Fetishist. He was a serial killer who would murder people (the forum had some kind of secret killers mixed in the players and he was one) and stuff their right eyes in his empty eye socket. He got attacked when he was younger in his clockmaking workshop, and lost an eye, as well as actually died. HE came back to life due to some complicated forum creature context shit but yeah. He developed this obsession with eyes and collects them in formol, and switches eye every few hours. Gross. Hes also genuinely a bad person.

12. Name an OC that isn’t yours but who you like a lot

I’ve already answered it, but I can give another one ;3c

I lov Dana, she’s a sweet naked baby and Dylan loves her very very much and I’m os glad they got a baby in the sims, congratulation Dana and Dylan. ( u dork u made our ocs in the sims :’D )

#mopmul #ocs #yetanotherOCmeme #TheManaReplies

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hanabiira · 7 years

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answer the following for your muse so people know how shipping works on your blog.

REPOST. don’t reblog. TAGGED BY: @sakanxde TAGGING: all y’all

WHAT’S YOUR OTP FOR YOUR MUSE?: I don’t really have one??? Seeing as she’s an OC. I mean. If u ship with her I will most likely like it.

WHAT ARE YOU WILLING TO RP WHEN IT COMES TO SHIPPING?: Mostly anything as long as it’s not abuse?? I just don’t want to write that. Plotting is always good though.

HOW LARGE DOES THE AGE GAP HAVE TO BE TO MAKE IT UNCOMFORTABLE?: Uh, as long as it’s not someone who’s like you know, underaged I suppose it doesn’t matter? Especially in the context of bleach where people are literally 100s of years old anyways.

ARE YOU SELECTIVE WHEN SHIPPING?: Yes, I can be, Miki can be a fickle muse and I do like a lot of development when it comes to ships. I just enjoy it that way! I love when things are nuanced and drawn out and there’s lots of chemistry.

HOW FAR DO STEAMY MOMENTS HAVE TO GO BEFORE THEY’RE CONSIDERED NS.FW?: When people start touchin the tiddies tbh

WHO ARE OTHER MUSES YOU SHIP YOUR MUSE WITH?: Kota @windstormwielding , Kensei @kmuguruma (sort of lmao), Kyoren @lightconsumesall (also sort of but not actively).

DOES ONE HAVE TO ASK TO SHIP WITH YOU?: Sometimes it builds naturally through interactions. At the same time I’m like overly worried that if I indicate an interest in a ship people will be like “ew they just want to rp for the ship” when that isn’t the case at all?? that’s my paranoid thinking tho lol. So unless it becomes super obvious I might not say something because I’m a baby. On the other hand you don’t have to ask but being like “lol i kind of ship it” will have me like “OH DO YOU? :3c”

HOW OFTEN DO YOU LIKE TO SHIP?: Shipping is A+

ARE YOU MULTISHIP?: Yes.

ARE YOU SHIP OBSESSED OR SHIP MORE-OR-LESS?: Uhhh too many ships can get overwhelming but I definitely do like them. I can’t say I’m always on the hunt for ships though at all.

WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE SHIP IN YOUR CURRENT FANDOM?: Renruki is cute lmao

FINALLY, HOW DOES ONE SHIP WITH YOU?: Interact with my muse. Talk with me.

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neptunecreek · 5 years

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EFF Urges Congress Not to Dismantle Section 230

The Keys to a Healthy Internet Are User Empowerment and Competition, Not Censorship

The House Energy and Commerce Committee held a legislative hearing today over what to do with one of the most important Internet laws, Section 230. Members of Congress and the testifying panelists discussed many of the critical issues facing online activity like how Internet companies moderate their users’ speech, how Internet companies and law enforcement agencies are addressing online criminal activity, and how the law impacts competition.

EFF Legal Director Corynne McSherry testified at the hearing, offering a strong defense of the law that’s helped create the Internet we all rely on today. In her opening statement, McSherry urged Congress not to take Section 230’s role in building the modern Internet lightly:

We all want an Internet where we are free to meet, create, organize, share, debate, and learn. We want to have control over our online experience and to feel empowered by the tools we use. We want our elections free from manipulation and for women and marginalized communities to be able to speak openly about their experiences.

Chipping away at the legal foundations of the Internet in order to pressure platforms to play the role of Internet police is not the way to accomplish those goals.

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Recognizing the gravity of the challenges presented, Ranking Member Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) aptly stated: “I want to be very clear: I’m not for gutting Section 230. It’s essential for consumers and entities in the Internet ecosystem. Misguided and hasty attempts to amend or even repeal Section 230 for bias or other reasons could have unintended consequences for free speech and the ability for small businesses to provide new and innovative services.”

We agree. Any change to Section 230 risks upsetting the balance Congress struck decades ago that created the Internet as it exists today. It protects users and Internet companies big and small, and leaves open the door to future innovation. As Congress continues to debate Section 230, here are some suggestions and concerns we have for lawmakers willing to grapple with the complexities and get this right.

Facing Illegal Activity Online: Focus on the Perpetrators

Much of the hearing focused on illegal speech and activity online. Representatives and panelists mentioned examples like illegal drug sales, wildlife sales, and fraud. But there’s an important distinction to make between holding Internet intermediaries, such as social media companies and classified ads sites, liable for what their users say or do online, and holding users themselves accountable for their behavior.

Section 230 has always had a federal criminal law carve out. This means that truly culpable online platforms can already be prosecuted in federal court, alongside their users, for illegal speech and activity. For example, a federal judge in the Silk Road case correctly ruled that Section 230 did not provide immunity against federal prosecution to the operator of a website that hosted other people’s ads for illegal drugs.

But EFF does not believe prosecuting Internet intermediaries is the best answer to the problems we find online. Rather, both federal and state government entities should allocate sufficient resources to target the direct perpetrators of illegal online behavior; that is, the users themselves who take advantage of open platforms to violate the law. Section 230 does not provide an impediment to going after these bad actors. McSherry pointed this out in her written testimony: “In the infamous Grindr case... the abuser was arrested two years ago under criminal charges of stalking, criminal impersonation, making a false police report, and disobeying a court order.”

Weakening Section 230 protections in order to expand the liability of online platforms for what their users say or do would incentivize companies to over-censor user speech in an effort to limit the companies’ legal exposure. Not only would this be harmful for legitimate user speech, it would also detract from law enforcement efforts to target the direct perpetrators of illegal behavior. As McSherry noted regarding the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA):

At this committee’s hearing on November 30, 2017, Tennessee Bureau of Investigation special agent Russ Winkler explained that online platforms were the most important tool in his arsenal for catching sex traffickers. One year later, there is anecdotal evidence that FOSTA has made it harder for law enforcement to find traffickers. Indeed, several law enforcement agencies report that without these platforms, their work finding and arresting traffickers has hit a wall.

Speech Moderation: User Choice and Empowerment

In her testimony, McSherry stressed that the Internet is a better place for online community when numerous platforms are available with a multitude of moderation philosophies. Section 230 has contributed to this environment by giving platforms the freedom to moderate speech the way they see fit.

The freedom that Section 230 afforded to Internet startups to choose their own moderation strategies has led to a multiplicity of options for users—some more restrictive and sanitized, some more laissez-faire. That mix of moderation philosophies contributes to a healthy environment for free expression and association online.

Reddit’s Steve Huffman echoed McSherry’s defense of Section 230 (PDF), noting that its protections have enabled the company to improve on its moderation practices over the years. He explained that the company’s speech moderation philosophy is one that prioritizes users making decisions about how they’d like to govern themselves:

The way Reddit handles content moderation today is unique in the industry. We use a governance model akin to our own democracy—where everyone follows a set of rules, has the ability to vote and self-organize, and ultimately shares some responsibility for how the platform works.

In an environment where platforms have their own approaches to content moderation, users have the ultimate power to decide which ones to use. McSherry noted in her testimony that while Grindr was not held liable for the actions of one user, that doesn’t mean that Grindr didn’t suffer. Grindr lost users, as they moved to other dating platforms. One reason why it’s essential that Congress protect Section 230 is to preserve the multitude of platform options.

“As a litigator, [a reasonableness standard] is terrifying. That means a lot of litigation risk, as courts try to figure out what counts as reasonable.”

Later in the hearing, Rep. Darren Soto (D-FL) asked each of the panelists who should be “the cop on the beat” in patrolling online speech. McSherry reiterated that users themselves should be empowered to decide what material they see online: “A cardinal principle for us at EFF is that at the end of the day, users should be able to control their Internet experience, and we need to have many more tools to make that possible.”

If some critics of Section 230 get their way, users won’t have that power. Prof. Danielle Citron offered a proposal (PDF) that Congress implement a “duty of care” regimen, where platforms would be required to show that they’re meeting a legal “reasonableness” standard in their moderation practices in order to keep their Section 230 protection. She proposes that courts look at what platforms are doing generally to moderate content and whether their policies are reasonable, rather than what a company did with respect to a particular piece of user content.

But inviting courts to determine what moderation practices are best would effectively do away with Section 230’s protections, disempowering users in the process. In McSherry’s words, “As a litigator, [a reasonableness standard] is terrifying. That means a lot of litigation risk, as courts try to figure out what counts as reasonable.”

Robots Won’t Fix It

There was plenty of agreement that current moderation was flawed, but much disagreement about why it was flawed. Subject-matter experts on the panel frequently described areas of moderation that were not in their purview as working perfectly fine, and questioning why those techniques could not be applied to other areas.

The deeper you look at current moderation—and listen carefully to those directly silenced by algorithmic solutions—the more you understand that robots won’t fix it.

In one disorienting moment, Gretchen Peters of the Alliance to Counter Crime Online asked the congressional committee when they’d last seen a “dick pic” on Facebook, and took their silence as an indication that Facebook had solved the dick pic problem. She then suggested Facebook could move on to scanning for other criminality. Professor Hany Farid, an expert in at-scale, resilient hashing of child exploitative imagery, wondered why the tech companies could not create digital fingerprinting solutions for opioid sales.

Many cited Big Tech’s work to automatically remove what they believe to be copyright-infringing material as a potential model for other areas—perhaps unaware that the continuing failure of copyright bots is one of the few areas where EFF and the entertainment industry agree (though we think they take down too much entirely lawful material, and Hollywood thinks they’re not draconian enough.)

The truth is that the deeper you look at current moderation—and listen carefully to those directly silenced by algorithmic solutions—the more you understand that robots won’t fix it. Robots are still terrible at understanding context, which has resulted in everything from Tumblr flagging pictures of bowls of fruit as “adult content” to YouTube removing possible evidence of war crimes because it categorized the videos as “terrorist content.” Representative Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-DE) pointed out the consequences of having algorithms police speech, “Groups already facing prejudice and discrimination will be further marginalized and censored.” A lot of the demand for Big Tech to do more moderation is predicated on the idea that they’re good at it, with their magical tech tools. As our own testimony and long experience points out—they’re really not, with bots or without.

Could they do better? Perhaps, but as Reddit’s Huffman noted, doing so means that the tech companies need to be able to innovate without having those attempts result in a hail of lawsuits. That is, he said, “exactly the sort of ability that 230 gives us.”

Reforming 230 with Big Tech as the Focus Would Harm Small Internet Companies

Critics of 230 often fail to acknowledge that many of the solutions they seek are not within reach of startups and smaller companies. Techniques like preemptive blocking of content, persistent policing of user posts, and mechanisms that analyze speech in real time to see what needs to be censored are extremely expensive.

That means that controlling what users do, at scale, will only be doable by Big Tech. It’s not only cost prohibitive, it will carry a high cost of liability if they get it wrong. For example, Google’s ContentID is often used in the copyright context is held up as one means of enforcement, but it required a $100 million investment by Google to develop and deploy—and it still does a bad job.

Google’s Katherine Oyama testified that Google already employs around 10,000 people that work on content moderation—a bar that no startup could meet—but even that appears insufficient to some critics. By comparison, a website like Wikipedia, which is the largest repository of information in human history, employs just about 350 staff for its entire operation, and is heavily reliant on volunteers.

A set of rules that would require a Google-sized company to expend even more resources means that only the most well-funded firms could maintain global platforms. A minimally-staffed nonprofit like Wikipedia could not continue to operate as it does today. The Internet would become more concentrated, and further removed from the promise of a network that empowers everyone.

As Congress continues to examine the problems facing the Internet today, we hope lawmakers remember the role that Section 230 plays in defending the Internet’s status as a place for free speech and community online. We fear that undermining Section 230 would harden today’s largest tech companies from future competition. Most importantly, we hope lawmakers listen to the voices of the people they risk pushing offline.

Read McSherry’s full written testimony.

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