asker portrait
Anonymous asked:

Hey Sam! Since it's currently AO3 donation time, I'm wondering what your thoughts are on it? I'm asking because you've written RPF and it's one of many "anti-AO3/anti-AO3 donations" people's favourite things to bring up when they're complaining about AO3 getting so many donations that it continuously obtains an excess of its donation goal whenever donation time rolls around? (Wow, how many times can I say "donation" in an ask?)

Sorry if this question bothers you! I don't mean to offend or annoy.

copperbadge:

Hey anon! Sorry it took a while to get to this, I don’t even know if the drive is still going on, but the question came in while I was traveling and I didn’t really have the time for stuff that wasn’t travel-related. In any case, let’s dig in! (I am not offended, no worries.)

So really there are two issues here and as much as some people who are critical of AO3 want to conflate them, they are different. While some criticism of AO3 may be valid, rhetoric against AO3 tends to misinterpret both in separate ways.

First there’s the issue of what AO3 hosts – RPF, yes, but more broadly, varied content that some people find distasteful or think should be illegal, which is a misunderstanding of the purpose of the archive and more broadly a dangerous attitude towards the concept of freedom of expression.

Second, there’s the issue of AO3 generally outpacing its fundraising goals while not allowing monetization, which is a misunderstanding of the legal status of AO3 and to an extent a misunderstanding of philanthropy as a whole.

The longer I watch debates about content go on, the more I come to the conclusion that I was fortunate to have a teacher who really wanted to instill in us an understanding of free speech not as a policy but as an ongoing dialogue. It’s not only that freedom of expression “protects you from the government, not the Justin” as the meme goes, but also that freedom of expression is not a static thing. It’s an ongoing process of identifying what we find harmful in society and what we want to do about it.

Should the freedom to shout “Fire!” in a crowded theater be restricted? Should the freedom to yell slurs at drag performers? Should the freedom to teach prepubescent kids about gender, sexuality, and/or safe sex? Should the freedom to wear a leather puppy hood at Pride? Who gets to say, and why?

I was nine when my teacher did a unit on freedom of speech and the intersection of “harm prevention” and “censorship”, which is (and should be) a discussion, not a set of ironclad rules. This ambiguity has thus been with me for over thirty years, and I’m comfortable with the ambiguity, with the process; I’m not sure a lot of people critical of AO3’s content truly are. Perhaps some can’t be, especially those affected by hate speech, but RPF is not hate speech. It’s just fiction. Or is fiction “just fiction”? This is a question society as a whole is grappling with, although fandom seems to be a little out ahead of society in terms of how explicitly we discuss it.

Keep reading

image

Sweaty man

Also this is both a dogblr and a horseblr now so if you followed me for only horse content, I’d recommend blocking the tag #not horses.

image

She is so smart and so forgiving and I love her sm.


We’ve been working on “get up on the thing I point at” lately and she’s picked up on it so fast- I started with one book and it only took about 3 repetitions with a lure for her to get the idea. And she’s always so happy to be Doing Stuff, engaged, her tail is wagging the whole time we’re training no matter how clumsy I am with my markers/rewards. Honestly it’s made training a ton of fun. She tries really hard to please- I’m just so happy with her. And she’s quite comfortably jumping up on to a stack of 4 of my textbooks, which is almost as tall as she is, lol!

image

My darling little gremlin got a pink bow collar the other day and personally I think it suits her.

image
image

So… I may have done a thing. Meet Annie, she’s a one year old, 4lb Chihuahua.

image

I made my feeder roaches a bioactive tank, just for fun. I’m still waiting on isopods and a few more plants! But I think it’s cute.

if i had ADHD i would simply stop being hyperactive and inattentive

i would simply um

um. so i would just

image

Yup that's what it's like

image
image
image

Fucked off to the Appalachians for a few days. Petted goats. It was nice.

The spring peepers and cricket frogs were singing last night and it was lovely.

image

Perks of my mom visiting: pictures of me riding Chai :)


We had a nice ride tonight- he’s still quite sticky to the right so we’ve been working on flexing a lot, and he gave me a few moments of nice bending that way. And picked up the correct lead! He’s building up some decent muscle (his neck and rump aren’t nearly as weeny as they were 4 months ago lmao) and getting much better at balancing himself. All in all, I’m really pleased with how he’s coming along considering he’d more or less been a pasture puff from like 2018 until last November lol. I also put him in a loose ring Waterford, and I really like how he goes in it- he seems to like it a lot better than the last few bits I’ve tried on him as well.


image

So what I’ve learned from the breeds poll is that 1/3 of you just want them BIG, 1/3 of you have a death wish, and the rest of y'all are very much a mixed bag between “colorful”, “sensible”, and “gaited” lol.

image
image

Went for a trail ride yesterday. He was an angel on the way out and a complete ass on the way back, lol. We compromised by trotting back to the barn instead of galloping hell for leather the entire way. He’s also finally gotten clipped again!

I need a favor. Could y’all reblog with:

Your horse’s favorite flavors:

Your horse’s most disliked flavors:

I’m curious about a few trends I’ve seen.

The responses to this have been great so far, please keep sending them!

For Dallas it’s:

Likes: Sour fruits. Strawberries, mango, and sour apples are IT. (Very convenient place to get rid of all my strawberry tops)

Dislikes: Any mellow flavors. Banana, pumpkin, etc

Kiddo’s basic- absolutely loves applesauce, peppermints, any and all horse cookies, and will eat pretty much anything else, up to and including my turkey sandwiches… He hates bananas though. Will not consume them. Doesn’t like sour candy either. I offered him a sour gummy worm once and it got mouthed and then immediately spat out lol.

Chai’s favorite flavor is probably mango or orange? (He goes ham for mango popsicles and clementines). He also really likes fresh apples. I haven’t yet found anything he dislikes though.

Whiskey’s the picky one of the bunch. He really likes peppermint flavored stuff and most fresh fruit, but if you offer him something new it takes him a couple tastes to decide whether it’s acceptable or not, usually- he’ll mouth it and then spit it out, pick it up again, suck on it, spit it out, then finally decide whether he likes it or not. He also doesn’t like banana.

All three of them loooooove fresh watermelon! They always make quick work of the rinds when we offer them after cutting up a melon.

1 2 3 4 5 Next