#but also as they said don’t use their shittiness to spread misinformation about climate change

[chasing-rabbits]

Whilst I appreciate there are some vegans who are 100% ableist and shitty human beings because in every group ever you will have extremists and shitty people because shitty people exist all around us regardless of beliefs race religion etc etc I have encountered such ableist vegans but one thing to note the plastic straw ban as far as I know wasn’t propagated largely by vegans and if anything I saw a LOT of vegans complaining about it because all it served to do was look like activism and patting people on the back making them feel good about themselves for accomplishing a ‘win’ against climate change when they did basically fuck all because it makes up like 0.01% of all plastic in the oceans. I don’t doubt there were vegans promoting it too but all I’m saying is I don’t ever remember it being an entire movement caused by vegans. Personally I think it’s fucking stupid that we get served our iced coffees in plastic cups whilst being forced to use paper straws it’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve seen. And you’re right absolutely ignores people with disabilities including those on the spectrum - my partner hates these new straws and it seems to be a similar issue amongst many on the spectrum. As someone whose disabled and been vegan for 9 years this year actually I’ve had to go from cooking completely from scratch to relying on ready meals almost entirely well that and quick stuff I can shove in the oven. I also have a host of dietary needs including Gluten intolerance which has made it very expensive to do so because gluten free foods are super over priced. I’ve actually been eating fish since the pandemic but I’m still vegan and I’m still accepted by the vegan community or at least those in my circle at present incl a local vegan FB group I’m in. The fact that I’ve currently had to include fish in my diet makes me no less vegan because unlike popular belief veganism isn’t a diet and a plant based diet is separate from veganism. I don’t buy leather or wool. I don’t consume other animal products. I don’t buy makeup but in regards to other items I always look for the cruelty free sign and vegan if applicable. I am living proof of a disabled vegan on low income ( I’m on benefits including disability benefits/PIP I live in the UK) who’s not currently following a completely plant based diet. You could eat an entirely non plant based diet so change none of your eating habits right now and technically still be vegan if you were contributing in other ways i.e not buying leather etc etc. Also many people can do meatless Mondays or reduce their meat intake to some degree and those who genuinely cannot are not the majority. My grandma had issues with Iron as well and not out of any love for animals (although she loved cats) ate a mostly vegetarian diet because it’s honestly just what she preferred but she did eat meat specifically i forget whatever organ it is that’s high in iron uh liver I wanna say it was. She’d every month have that and she did eat meat don’t get me wrong she just preferred other foods. And that’s not me suggesting you could do what she did not at all. This is just me saying that I understand people who cannot eat a vegan diet hell not even a vegetarian diet because of issues such as iron intake because my Grandma had the same and actually they first went veggie because my Granddad had heart issues and she got a bit of a scare as it runs in his side of the family so she was feeding him pulses and all the healthy stuff to try and improve his health but her iron levels got affected because of it plus veggie food in the 60s-80s was not nice apparently according to my mum. Plus my dad used to sneak him a burger every now and again on a Friday as a treat. Anyways now I am rambling but they make a good point above and

Okay listen I’m all for people doing their part to be more environmentally conscious but one thing I really wish was talked about more is how ableist vegan and zero waste communities can be.

A lot of disabled people NEED single use plastic straws. A lot of disabled people NEED precut, packaged vegetables. Same with veganism. I have severe anemia to the point where I have to get iron infusions because my body doesn’t absorb it properly. I tried being vegan but it was not sustainable for me because it made my health issues a lot worse. Veganism is not possible for a lot of people.

And it’s not just physical disabilities either. If your depression prevents you from cooking your own food, go ahead and get the pre made meals. Doing what you can to make things more accessible to you does not make you a bad person. This is not even getting into the financial privileges needed to have an “eco friendly” lifestyle.

If you’re zero waste or vegan that’s great, I’m happy for you but please do not try and push other people to do the same. No one owes you an explanation on why that lifestyle isn’t for them, and no one is a bad person for having a different lifestyle than you.

[splatoonpolls]

Anyway! With the two big elections this year, and the current wars going on. Here’s some ways to fact check! (I’m stealing this from social studies haha. I am not an educator in this subject email your professor or seek a greater source than this please)

Picking a source

What is the political position a news source have? Is it right wing, left wing? Is it even Marxist or hey even gives literal Nazis their opinions to voice it? Google up the news site and you will probably find a Wikipedia article of even a site saying the news source political leaning. Learning about that it’s important because political news sources will be biased.

Do they cater to a specific crowd? Political leaning and this is different while they might overlap. Do they cater to mainly an lgbtq audience? An animal rights/climate change movement one? A more religious/ethnic audience? This will help you to see through different biases.

If it is public service/gets money from the rulers (two different things), check if the current government/rulers isn’t a dictatorship/or just really shitty. One example is the Turkish public service which has been used for pro Palestine news, but you need to keep in mind they do deny the Armenian genocide and also supported the invasion of Artsakh. So be critical of those too.

Does it get funding from a non government agency? Let’s say they get funding from a lobbyist group that focus on fossil fuels. Then learning about the environment wouldn’t be as good of a source now wouldn’t it?

If you’re using a non profit organization. A quick reminder they’re also not perfect.

Also compare different news sources! Especially on the opposites of stuff.

Don’t use the big 3 Ts (twitter, tumblr, or TikTok) as a main go to for big political information unless it is from a trusted journalist with a proper education.

TLDR: there is no perfect news source. But ouch one you think suits your current needs for the current situation.

Now when you’ve picked a new source. Here’s how to check the article!

Check if the source is true. They might use misformation and even disinformation. It’s really common with far right news organizations to spread misinformation about lgbtq people. One time libsoftiktok posted how a university had period products in the men’s bathroom. While a quick image reverse showed articles saying that university were just adding free period products.

When was it written? And who told it? Let’s say a car crash happened where you live. You may hear it from person A who was on the bus while the crash happened. However there is also a chance you may hear it from person G two weeks later. One will have their information more tangled up. (And this is also a way to see if something is a conspiracy theory or not)

Is the source in general trustworthy or has it on several occasions said misinformation (like Alex jones). If it is the latter. Don’t use it

If it has had people of two different opinions together. Please make sure it isn’t like “hey person A and B!” Will you please talk about the housing crisis” and they give person A four minutes while person b gets 30.

If anyone wants to correct me or add info! Feel free to do it!

[short-wooloo]

From the reviews section of ff.net A Thing Of Vikings chapter 87:

Every single “trump supporter” in these comments has immediately, without any consideration for any of the points made in this or the previous chapter, proved them entirely correct. I’m reading at least two death threats, multiple condemnations that are straight up lying about things Trump’s done and have misstated facts about the COVID-19 outbreak, etc. The Trump stuff is all politics, but essentially; He didn’t drag the economy up, somehow. Those are remnants of Obama’s economic policy combined with a small global uptick. Economic policy takes years to go into effect, so we won’t know how successful his policies were until at least another half a year or more. And we won’t even know that because COVID-19 exists. So far, though, doesn’t look like he’s done much. He’s completely decimated the robustness of the economy; fallback systems that were formerly in place for all sorts of emergencies, economic, health, and otherwise, including the CDC(which he cut the budget of), pretty much every single department with a relation to population and earth/climate studies(which, contrary to Trumpist belief, doesn’t just have to do with climate change but also with things like *how we can avoid viruses jumping between species like coronavirus did* and *how we can get maximum yield out of our agriculture*, and more), dismantled or attempted to dismantle or is in the process of dismantling pretty much the entirety of the US healthcare support system(slashing federal contributions to medical think tanks and regulatory organizations, scaling down operations of said facilities, cutting government spending on hospitals and hospital plans), etc. All of the above, whatever your opinions on their budgetary necessity, have for a fact caused one thing. You know what that is? The current COVID-19 crisis. Medical supplies; gone. Many hospitals; now underfunded. Medical plans for most people; kaput. Unemployment support for every class of unemployment, including temporary or transitional unemployment; nada. CDC; has been instructed to NOT do anything, it seems. Since, y’know...they haven’t done anything this entire crisis. Trump’s two biggest flaws, regardless of politics, are his impulsiveness and his ego - ie, his need to take credit for anything good that happens, essentially. That means disassembling the CDC so his task force can do everything and he can say, “Look! I did that!”. That means holding press conferences where he answers all the questions, instead of Dr. Fauci, or any other medical experts, or even Pence, who’s actually being the more reasonable one and letting medical experts do their work. That means going on Twitter, while hundreds of thousands have died, and peddling theories about the Democrats making up statistics about the COVID-19 outbreak, which directly contradicts the statistics provided by the very experts he appointed and approved. At the very least, Mr. Trump has been a font of misinformation that is stemming efforts to fight the disease. More realistically? His inaction is the reason the outbreak has spread so far in the US. His inaction is the reason why hospitals don’t have funding or supplies(enacting the DPA without using it? ️). His inaction is the reason there isn’t any cooperation on a state to state level to fight the outbreak; each state is going at it alone. His inaction has killed upwards of 20 thousand people, at this point; and it is slated to kill 60 thousand plus more, with how things are going. Not only that; the sheer misinformation here about the outbreak is stunning. The Chinese federal government actually took pretty direct action as soon as they heard about it; issue being, it was the inherent corruption of their own government that prevented the federal government from hearing about the outbreak. Records show the city government had blocked any efforts to try and communicate the severity of the outbreak - and even news the outbreak existed - from the federal government. The instant the federal government heard, they sent investigation teams and started making moves to shut things down - most likely a PR move for the most part, to get their own butts out of the fire, but ultimately still the most effective move they could have made at the time. They lie about stats, true, but their methods of controlling the outbreak are effective. The reason why it spread so fast is not just because of global inaction - it’s because China is China, and the disease is exceptionally infectious. If I remember correctly, it’s twice as infectious as the flu; kills on an order of magnitude more people; has an extremely long period of time in which patients are both infectious and asymptomatic; can jump between species, as already shown; has at least three strains jumping around; is completely new to modern medical science; and is a coronavirus, a class of virus that has very few actual treatments as of the modern age. SARS and MERS, the other two most similar coronaviruses, had basically no reaction in terms of medical development; they were too “small” and localized. Not enough time, or sample.a, to even effectively develop treatments. All these things combined caused the current crisis. It’s one of if not the most infectious disease we’ve seen in centuries, perhaps millennia, or perhaps even ever. And that makes it a lot more dangerous than a disease that kills 100% of those it infects, or anything that lethal. As for these responses and this story; Are you all really right-leaning Americans? Does freedom of fucking speech ring a bell? AToV is allowed to say whatever they want; as a more right leaning moderate, I agree with some of the things said(everything about Trump’s response to COVID-19 reeks of politics and not science), and I disagree with some of the others. But I can certainly see the point being made, that y’all are fucking toxic - and you know who I’m talking about. Death threats are unacceptable. The responses aren’t that bad, for the most part - even many of those disagreeing - but the disagreements with death threats and those complaining about the mere expressing of opinions need to stop. Y’all complaining about double standards, but in your fucking retarded self-righteousness you are applying a double standard. So you’re apparently allowed to express your opinions, not to mention for some in a way that’s illegal and can be investigated by law enforcement, but AToV isn’t on their own fucking story? Get a fucking life. To the few who disagreed and responded civilly, without the “WaaAh you’re NOT allowed to express your opinions if they disagree with me! Shitty person!” Or “Go die for having an opinion!”, kudos to you. Although, please. Stop spreading misinformation about the virus. What we need right now is a coordinated federal and international response, not each state hammering in different ways at the same problem, and each country following suit. If one state fights it off, and a single person crosses over from another state - outbreak number 2 happens, and it never ends. Trump needs to at the very least stop talking about an economic reopening, because now that’s completely infeasible because he reacted too late, and start coordinating a unified federal response. Companies are sitting on their asses not doing anything; the DPA is here just for that. Private individuals with fucking 3D printers are contributing to this fight more than some corporations with professional factories and injection molds for masks/equipment.

[eevachu]

There once was a girl called kate/most think she’s very great/some people are wrong/They’ve been bad for very long/for their standards no person can abate

EDIT: The person who sent this came forward and clarified that this ask was meant to poke fun at anti-Kate trolls, not Kate fans. I misinterpreted it and flew wildly off the rails (as I am oft want to do lol). The person who sent this couldn’t have known the depths to which I have grieved over this issue as of late, so do not fault them for it. They wanted to send me a joke and I took it the wrong way (ah the similarities here to Kate’s comedy). 

I appreciate someone trying to make me laugh. I don’t really appreciate further spreading this drama, but people are entitled to their opinions, so they are also entitled to the consequences of those opinions. I will say, however, I don’t really like comedy that punches down (accidentally or not), because I think many of the people, who, wrongfully justified and misinformed about her or not, are doing it out of a genuine desire to help trans people. I think the puritanical environment that spaces like tumblr create for this type of discussion creates a toxic mindset that looks ridiculous compared to a properly moderated formal debate environment.

I’m keeping the full version under the cut, because they are things that should be said and I am so very tired of seeing people drag her name through the mud based on hearsay. You may use the examples I’ve provided to draw your own conclusions on the matter, as I have drawn mine. I’ve included some footnotes and clarifications. Skip down to the bolded paragraph above the video to avoid the majority of my emotional outburst.

Thank you for sending needless and harmful negativity into my inbox, I really wish you had instead put your time towards a positive goal like volunteering at an animal shelter, working to raise awareness over the plight of indigenous people in Canada or even just telling someone their hair looks nice today. (The thank you was sarcastic, in case that wasn’t clear.) Or hey, maybe you could have just said, “I know you love Kate, but here’s some problematic things she’s done you should be aware of.” Not write a patronizing little ditty. Catch more flies with honey than with open condescension and all that?

Since you seem like one of those sick people that get off to seeing people feel bad and subscribe to tumblr’s toxic black and white morality and witch hunt culture, here is what you accomplished with this ask:

You’ve made me upset, and I’m sure that was your goal. Congrats. I am an adult woman of 25 and I am crying now because of how upset this made me. This is nothing special, I am weepy person, so don’t pat yourself on the back. I tend to care too much and feel too freely; but anon, did you want me to cry? Because here you are. I am crying. Trembling a little too. You getting your rocks off to this? Happy to be of service then.

My being upset has triggered my anxiety over the issue of my admiration of Kate as an openly lesbian comedian versus the occasional problematic content of her comedy. I think about it a lot, because I am a critical person. The anxiety is going to affect me for several days. Right now I’m nauseous. I will now sleep poorly because of it. I will get less work done because of it. I will be in a foul mood for a week, which affects the people around me. I may self-medicate with alcohol or take what I like to call “a gravol nap”. I will lose money because of lost productivity. So you’ve lost me money anon, I’m sure you enjoy that. What is it about suffering that gives you your jollies, anon?

I work freelance, and you’ve interrupted my work day, because I cannot let this stew, so I have to take time out of my day to write out my thoughts as a reply you probably won’t see and take other measures for my own well-being. This really isn’t for you anon, this has been stewing in me for months and this is the last straw.

So here under the cut are my full thoughts on Kate Mc /.Kinnon Berth/ old, they will be rambly as, hey look, I’m dissociating a little (how fun):

Did you know from 2007-2010* Kate played a problematic character called Fitzwillia m that portrayed a dmab character that wanted a vagina? I’m sure you did. Anon, have you actually watched the Fitzwillia m skits? Here’s a link to all of them:

Watched them? Opinions? I want your real opinions on them, not just what the witch-hunters have told you to think. You’re probably a smart person, you can make up your own mind.

They’re in poor taste certainly, but a lot of comedy is. I think in the grand scheme of life, in the grand scheme of all human suffering and portrayals of queer characters, Fitzwillia m isn’t the worst. Certainly not great and certainly transmisogynistic, but like… watch a lot of TV from this time, this is practically progressive.

Is Kate maybe attached to this character because so many people loved them, approved of this character, and brought this character back for 3 seasons? That sometimes you do bad things because you don’t know they’re bad or that you do, but damn if you don’t need the money? That sometimes you’re ill-informed about something? That to create a character is to send part of yourself out into the world, and you always will love them even when you shouldn’t? That she hasn’t addressed it because to do so would be a PR nightmare for her publicist? That she likely doesn’t know this is even an issue because she’s not on social media? Probably. I’ve made some terrible characters, who did much worse things, who I am lucky to let die on paper stuffed in a folder where no one can see them. She was 22* when she made this character, in a completely different cultural climate than in 2017. Does it make it right that a whole team of people approved this character out into the world? Not to me. However, I don’t have the right to decide anything about the trans-related nature of Fitzwillia m as a cis person, but context is always important to me.When I was looking for a compilation video, I found trans people who genuinely enjoyed this character. I know I love some absolutely problematic gay characters.

Let’s put this into MY context anon, 2010 is when I met my first ever trans person. Ever. I was 18 and in college. I think it took me like… 2 years to figure out what trans actually was in a healthy way that wasn’t tainted by my culturally ingrained transphobia. I didn’t know dick all about social justice or politics or the queer community. I thought I was maybe bisexual. I thought I knew everything. By coincidence, I’m actually going through my blog today and clearing out posts from that time because they’re terrible, because I was terrible. I’ve changed so much from then, I don’t even recognize this person on this very blog. I’m not famous and those words are entirely mine, so I lose nothing by saying I’m wrong for what I said. Kate could lose jobs and colleagues and friends for addressing her past in a similar manner. She worked collaboratively on those works and people will take offence at her backtracking. It’s all very damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Is it right? Probably not, but it’s understandable. She works for Saturday Night Live, a place where they are constantly making things like:

That was made in 2015 and this is very mild. In 2015, I had a more senior coworker make a joke about how a couple we could see in the building across from us were “swapping their gay AIDs blood.” I think that’s a much worse “joke” than anything on SNL. I didn’t tell HR because I was afraid to lose my job, as shitty as it was. She wasn’t exactly in a position of power when these things were made, and she isn’t really in a place to speak out against them now. She’s just now hitting her stride. If I can’t stand up in my own workplace, I can’t fault her for not standing up in hers.

Did she joke about never seeing a penis in an interview? Yes. Did I make the same type of jokes until someone came along to tell me what was wrong with it in a nice way? YEP.**

Does she even know it’s an issue is another thing. She doesn’t use social media, certainly not tumblr. I learned basically all I know about the queer community from tumblr. I have no idea where I’d be without it; probably still making transphobic gold star lesbian jokes.

Anon, I’ve read her receipts. I always do. I know what I’m doing by supporting her is a bit problematic, but so are most of the things I do in my life. I eat meat from factory farms. I have a pedigree dog. I live on unceded First Nation’s land. I benefit from systematic racism. I don’t know what the hell my mutual funds are actually invested in. I’ve made rape jokes and said r*tarded. I was a schoolyard bully redirecting my anger onto other because of my home life. I’ve ruined people’s lives by things I’ve said. I have been a truly godawful person.

Here’s why I still love Kate, if always cautiously and never uncritically: from 2014-2015, I had a mental breakdown, until 2016 I lived in this sort of haze. I remember wanting to die a lot. I remember staring at the subway tracks and thinking, “what if I just jumped?” Do you know what that’s like anon? To constantly want to die? To be in a dead end job, to feel like you’re absolutely worthless? To have a pet die and just think “I deserve this suffering, I’m a failure”?

And then I saw her as Jillian Holtzmann and just… something changed. Something truly changed in my life. She helped me figure out I was a lesbian. She helped me see that out lesbian women could succeed. She got me through that 2016 election where I lost all hope again.

Did she actually do anything? I mean, not really. But she represented something to me and to watch people tear her down is to watch a part of myself be torn down with her. 

Why do I still love Kate, even if only as an idea, not an actual person? Because her saving my life outweighs the blights in her career. Because I give people the benefit of the doubt that they don’t mean harm, because they aren’t aware of the underlying social issues they are dealing with. Because I do not minimize the harmful way that ra// dical fe /.minists are recruiting young lesbians into the T /.ERF community by calling anyone who creates transphobic/transmisogynistic content TE /.RFs. Because I do not idolize, I admire. Because her job is to make people laugh and I truly don’t think she wants to hurt anyone by doing so. Because people are complicated and good intentioned people can do bad things. Because I want to believe she’s a good person under everything.

Because I am willing to forgive other people for things I have done myself if they seem the sort to be open to learning.

If all else is still unforgivable to you anon, I leave you with this: there’s a part in the movie Julie & Julia, where the main character Julie finds out that the Julia Child, this woman she has idolized and who’s cookbook inspired her to change her life, doesn’t like her work. She is devastated. And her husband says that there’s two Julia’s: the real one, and the one in Julie’s head, who she sees as her savior. The Julia Child in her head is the one that really matters.

Let me have the Kate in my head.

In conclusion: anon, I wish you all the best, just very very far away from me.

Notes:

* I was wrong about the original dates that this aired, BGSS aired from 2007-2010, not 2008-2010, which means season 1 was likely shot in 2006 with Kate was 22-23 when she created Fitzwilli am. I was pretty stupid at 22.

** I am actually really angry about being misled by this quote, because I had never watched the full interview, which you can see here:

The interview was filmed in 2007, 10 years ago when Kate was 23, she’s 33 now. 10 YEARS. I know I don’t want to be compared to 15 year old me, or really even 23 year old me. Like I really don’t want to be out here “making excuses” but you have to think critically about the context of the things she’s said and how blowing them out of proportion is harmful to people who are actively trying to harm the trans community. Sure, she’s buying into the gold-star rhetoric for a laugh (because it’s a funny joke straight people in my life STILL make to me and so that’s what most young lesbians think is what you do), but she immediately says after “I don’t think [penises] are gross, I think they’re fun! Fun to play with.” That’s not a typical transmisogynist lesbian dialogue (they usually say penises are disgusting). Which yes, equates genitals with gender, but like… I remember in this time period of my life I was doing the same thing. Not out of malice, but because I didn’t know any trans/genderqueer/nonbinary people, I didn’t even know trans men were a thing! In the same interview she says she’s more 98.5% lesbian, it’s very clear that she’s not sure about these things.

You can tell this interview is more an open dialogue between friends trying to have an honest conversation about sexuality in a time that information about sexuality and gender was much harder to obtain. 2007 is long before it became standard for people to qualify that genitals didn’t equate gender. And it’s definitely still not comedy’s standard, and I get what it’s like to constantly be bombarded with cissexist rhetoric that sometimes you just give in to make it easy.

So in real conclusion: I personally think, from my standpoint as a cis lesbian of 25, that tumblr needs to forgive and needs to draw their own conclusions by watching these examples, not repeat this cycle of screaming examples at people without linking those examples. Let people draw their own conclusions and be open to being wrong about something. I was wrong about the entire catalyst for this post, and I am so deeply sorry about it, and will be more careful in the future.

And for the love of god tumblr, stop holding people to such high standards when you probably wouldn’t meet those standards yourself if you were in that same person’s position.