Rise Up, Oh Heart, For There is Another Battle to Win

Do not trick people into trying vegan versions of food

academicfeminist:

kristen-the-rageful:

ableist-vegans:

Why?

Let’s say you make some vegan chocolate chip cookies. (I looked a recipe up for the sake of this post). These cookies are made with almond milk.

You have a friend that you’ve known for a few months now, and you think it would be nice to surprise them.

So, you offer them one of the cookies. You don’t tell them they’re vegan. As far as your friend is aware, they’re made with cow milk and chicken eggs.

Your friend takes one bite, and a few minutes later you’re using their epi-pen on them and calling 911.

See, what just happened is that your hypothetical friend here has a nut allergy that you didn’t know about, and the almond milk in the cookies was enough to put them in the hospital.

You could have avoided this whole situation by informing your friend that they’re vegan, thus prompting the question “It’s not made with almond milk, is it?”

This doesn’t just apply to cookies. While I’ve never found one, if you happen to know of a vegan fake meat that’s not made with soy and looks and smells exactly like the meat version, don’t serve it to someone and not tell them until after they eat it.

“But I, a vegan, would never do that!”

Great, then this post isn’t about you. This post is about the people who post shit like “when you give your friend vegan food without telling them and they like it *insert gif here*”, and it’s also about the thousands of people who reblog it.

- Avery

And some people have dusgestive issues or health issues that conflict with some vegan ingredients too

I can’t have soy products. At all. It makes eating anything a real pain in the ass, but it’s also one of the top reasons I’m not vegetarian or vegan - a LOT of substitution is done with soy-based products and those will put me in the hospital real quick.

owlmylove:

sapphicshepard:

sapphicshepard:

sapphicshepard:

sapphicshepard:

i’ve definitely told you about this before but my dad and my uncle have this whole star wars vs star trek rivalry where they’ll get each other passive aggressive gifts (my dad is a star wars fan, and will always get my uncle star wars merch. my uncle claims star trek is so much better and star wars is lame. he will always get my father star trek merch. this has been going on since my parents got married.) 

this is going to be a good year for arguing 

my uncle just arrived. my mom shouted “kids, uncle rich is here!” my dad bellowed “MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU” down the stairs. my uncle shouted back “YOU CANT SEE IT BUT IM GIVING YOUR DOG THE VULCAN SALUTE” i love christmas here

dinner was alright until over dessert my dad brought up “so, richie, you see the new star wars movie” until it devolved into a wine fueled shouting match. highlights include “WELL AT LEAST WE DIDNT HAVE JAR JAR GODDAMNED BINKS” “AT LEAST WE DIDNT BLOW UP–” “YES YOU DID. FIRST MOVIE. YOU BLEW UP A PLANET” “shit”

this years argument, like every year before it, ended with “nice to see you.” and them slapping each other on the back which i think is a guy way of hugging goodbye.

this is the best thing i’ve ever seen

(Source: lesbianshepard, via yea-lets-do-this-shit)

vrabia:

Have I ever told you guys the true story of the Revolution Christmas Tree?

This one absolutely 100% happened (unlike the drunk zombie geese story which likely only 35% happened, but maybe I’ll tell you about it one day). It happened to my family when I was 4 y/o. 

So imagine Evil Commie Land in the late ‘80s: severe food shortages, no heating (seriously, people slept with their stoves on for heat and sometimes the gas was cut off and came back randomly during the night and carbon monoxide poisoning was a thing). Also large, beautiful, historical chunks of our capital city were being bulldozed into oblivion because our megalomaniac shithead supreme leader wanted to build the biggest fucking thing there was. Anyway, it sucked. 

On top of that we were also technically not supposed to celebrate Christmas, because religion is the opiate of the masses etc. etc. But we did anyway, every year and with great enthusiasm, running as we did on the sweet fuel of go ahead and tell a motherfucker they’re not allowed to do something.

So. Christmas. The way we did Christmas back in the day was to make it as secular and proletarian as possible: officially no church services, no religious carols, no Jesus thingy, no calling Santa Claus Santa Claus (we called him Old Man Frost idk)

The only thing we did exactly the same as regular Christmas, in the privacy of our homes, was the Christmas tree. This is how you got a Christmas tree:

• you went to the marketplace where Christmas tree sellers were
• these were not like, official, state-sanctioned commercial workers, but people with the capacity to somehow provide you with 1 pc. coniferous for Proletarian Christmas celebrating purposes
• I have no fucking idea who they were or how they got them
• anyway, you went to the marketplace where Christmas tree sellers were and you talked to one of them and you told them what kind of Christmas tree you wanted (options were: fir/spruce, medium-ish/small)
• you paid them in advance and agreed on a date where you’d come by and pick your Proletarian Christmas tree
• you picked up your Proletarian Christmas tree, brought it home to the family and decorated it with stuff you inherited from your great-grandmother or your mom made out of candy wrappers like 15 years before
• you celebrated Christmas. Proletarianly. 

So along comes 1989. Shit boils over and by December 21st, we have a violent revolution right on the streets of our capital city. 

Now, I was 4 and my brother was 6 months old and our parents decided that we absolutely cannot go without a regular Christmas in our house, especially now that the world is about to go to shit. We didn’t have anything, presents or nice food or. Anything? Basically. The one thing we had was dad had arranged to get our Christmas tree on the day. So he tells my mom that he’s going to pick it up, and instead of knocking him cold and chaining him to the radiator, like the sensible woman she usually is, my mom goes ok just put on an extra sweater you don’t want to catch a cold haha right?

Let me break this down for you in case there’s any misunderstanding as to what we’re talking about. Outside:

• violent riots
• army
• snipers
• tanks
• plainclothes secret police randomly shooting people dead in the street
• I seriously cannot stress the snipers enough

So off goes my dad to pick up our Christmas tree. And he’s gone for five hours, on a trip that normally takes like 30 minutes at a casual stroll. And the more time passes, the deeper my mother sinks into an all-out nervous breakdown. She’s barely keeping it together, my grandmother is trying to comfort her, while my brother is sleeping quietly, which is a good thing, because at some point there’s a weird rumbling outside our building. 

‘What’s that?’ say I, 4 years old and desperate for some straight, no-bullshit answers

‘Nothing,’ says my mom. ‘Nothing’ is the second stupidest thing to say to an observant, intelligent kid who’s been locked up for a week and kept in the dark about shit that’s very obviously happening just outside.

‘No, really, what is that?’ say I, seriously determined to get a straight, no-bullshit answer. 

Years later, after piecing bits of memories together, I realized there are only so many ways to skirt around ‘It’s a tank, dear’, which is the single stupidest thing to say to a child who’s been locked up for a week if you expect them not to run outside because they want to see, damn it. 

So when my dad finally comes home five hours later, with the goddamn tree, she’s either too exhausted to say much, or doesn’t want to have that conversation in front of her kid, who is seriously right on the brink of smashing something out of frustration. 

It wasn’t until I was in highschool that he told me he’d actually been shot at several times, because sneaking around street corners carrying a large tree is not at all suspicious when everyone is so strung up. Any sniper who might have been around absolutely did not think he was probably a revolutionary agent smuggling weapons or w/e instead of a dad trying to make a nice Christmas for his family BECAUSE WHAT THE ACTUAL EVERLOVING FUCK

So this is the story of the Revolution Christmas Tree, aka the story of how my dad almost got shot lugging around an overpriced bit of spruce in the middle of violent street fighting so his kids could have Christmas. 

There are some levels of parenting you just can’t beat. 

(via bonehandledknife)

Someone Needs to Take Away J.K. Rowling’s Twitter Account

lupinatic:

alliecat-person:

madeofpatterns:

slashmarks:

madeofpatterns:

doomhamster:

captain-ameribunny:

doomhamster:

feathersmoons:

lolmythesis:

English, Notre Dame

The Author-Who-Lived: J.K. Rowling’s Refusal to Accept the Death of the Author in the Internet Age

Man I fucking hate this attitude. I especially hate that Rowling gets this shit thrown at her. God FORBID she continue to engage with her own fucking work.

I don’t get why this is even a thing? I mean, why WOULDN’T one be interested in the author’s intentions and the ideas they had that didn’t make it into the finished work and so forth, regardless of whether one actually thinks they managed to express them well?

People seem to think they’re entitled to take over someone else’s work.  News flash: JK Rowling created the Harry Potter series, not you.  If you don’t want to hear what she has to say about it, stop looking at her twitter account then. 

Yes. This. Now I’m all in favor of AUs and headcanons and whatnot, and in Rowling’s particular case I can certainly see reason to criticize the way she’s revealed some things, but talking about it like she should just “accept” that once she’s published something nothing she has to say about it matters? Ridiculous.

Everyone *else* gets to have headcanons, why shouldn’t she?

Like - it annoys me when people jump on Harry Potter meta or interpretations because of something JKR said on twitter or in one interview, because there is no way to keep track of everything she’s said and she changes her mind sometimes, and ultimately my meta is about the books, not what the author was thinking. I understand being annoyed if a lot of people have jumped on you for it, too. 

But that isn’t her fault, and she has the right to talk about her own books.

Agreed.

All of this.

Rowling is under no obligation to accept Death of the Author. Nor are we as readers necessarily–if you want to, that’s great, but it isn’t the only way to be a reader.

On that note, it isn’t just a matter of ‘if everyone else can have headcanons, why can’t the author?’ it’s a matter of the author’s headcanons being canon, even if that josses someone else’s headcanon. She gets to decide this stuff, because she made the world we’re playing in. She was the one who sat down and did the hard work. Just because she was gracious enough to share it with us, some people seem to feel entitled to grab it and shout “No, you’re wrong! This is OURS now! MINE! All mine!”. Believe in your headcanons as much as you want, but don’t expect anyone who isn’t you to accord any importance to them, and don’t be surprised when people get amused at the entitlement inherent in the notion that your opinion is somehow every bit as legitimate as the opinion of the woman who did all the hard work.

I was very attached to the idea of a Ravenclaw Teddy Lupin. Guess what? He’s a Hufflepuff according to the woman who created him and his parents, and I’ve no right to insist otherwise.

freaoscanlin:

poptarts-for-breakfast:

the princess diaries was anne hathaway’s first movie and like can you imagine being in her place and just casually being told oh btw julie andrews is your co-star no pressure welcome to hollywood

So I saw Meg Cabot speak when she came to St. Louis and I did not do anything like fall flat on my face or embarrass myself horribly (a miracle, considering that the writer I wanted to grow up to be was Meg Cabot). But more importantly, she talked about The Princess Diaries, and I learned several things:

• the movie was being made before the book was published, which she said was very weird for her
• Whitney Houston’s production company was the one that made it, so apparently both Meg Cabot and Anne Hathaway really could regard Whitney Houston as their fairy godmother
• the reason Mia’s father is dead in the movie (he’s alive in the books) is because the original draft of the movie didn’t have that many lines for Mia’s Grandmère. When the production company approached Meg Cabot about this, they said “Julie Andrews wants the part, but she’d like more lines so we think we would have to kill Mia’s father and–” “YES KILL HIM KILL HIM DEAD.”
  
• Which I feel is the only proper reaction to that.
• Also according to Meg Cabot, Anne Hathaway is a sweetheart.
  

(Source: arnvgrg, via cthulhu-with-a-fez)

Anonymous asked: 12 girls on tumblr complain about a problem they all had and make it out to be some grand injustice that happens to anyone when really they can't think beyond themselves. Are you going to ignore all the good done just because it didn't happen to you?

Hi, anon, I’m gonna be honest and say I’m…genuinely not sure what you’re talking about here?  I’m guessing it has something to do with either the one post or another one of the recent posts that I’ve reblogged about medical equality lately, though, based on the tone, so I’m going to answer this assuming that.

First of all, no, I’m not, as you seem to believe, acting out due to personal insult.  I’ve been reasonably fortunate in medicine, actually, from a certain perspective: when there’s something wrong with me, it’s spectacularly wrong and generally speaking impossible to write off (too concussed to speak, intolerant of a medication to the point of seizures, etc.).  My experience is actually coming from my training as an EMT and in reaching out to doctors to learn what it’s like working in the medical field.  Thanks for the assumption, though.

Second of all, this isn’t an issue of a few girls on Tumblr, it’s increasingly an issue that has the potential to affect a lot of people.  Women, yeah, are a part of that group.  So are trans individuals, people with existing disabilities, or people of color.  Is it going to affect all of those people?  No, of course not, that would be an absurdly generalized statement.  But it affects some, and when you look at the sheer number of people who fall into the group, ‘some’ of them becomes a not-insignificant number.  However, this does not change the fact that the medical field at large has helped innumerable people, nor would I ever want to devalue that.  It is completely possible to acknowledge both the flaws in the medical system and the vast good that the same system can do and has done.  Since the goal of medicine as a discipline is always to help the most number of people possible, I would say that acknowledging the flaws in the system and acting to change things is actually quite in spirit with the same attitude that leads to all that good being done in the first place.

Third of all.  Okay.  Look.  I’m eighteen.  I am first-aid certified.  I am a trained EMT looking for somewhere to take my certification exam.  I am a junior in college (on SUCH a scholarship, I might add, because my family’s broke) currently on the pre-medical studies track.  I am looking into which medical schools I should apply to.  I am talking to doctors and nurses to see what field I might like to specialize in.  I keep a medical kit and provide first-aid care to my friends and classmates when they need it.  So you just damn call me when you decide what else I need to be doing to be qualified to make a note of the fact that some people do not consistently receive the attentive listening and respect they are entitled to.  Not to sound like too much of an idealist or whatever, but in my personal opinion, if only twelve women had ever experienced this sort of thing, it would still be unacceptable.

If you weren’t talking about the medicine thing, feel free to consider this a free lesson in specificity.  Tip: it pays to be particular about the post you’re griping about, because otherwise you get a long rant about medical equality you weren’t looking for.

bootyscientist:

If shawty not feeling you and YOU choose to stick around, then you’ve accepted a friendship role. She didn’t “friend zone” you, you friend zoned your fucking self

If ass is all you want and she’s not putting out, then say your farewells and stop wasting both her time and your time. Don’t be a fucking lame and pretend to be her friend so you can fuck later down the road, AND THEN act like a fucking child when she doesn’t let you fuck later down the road. She don’t owe you shit.

You were a good friend to her? Congrats, she owes you nothing.

You always listened to her whine about her boyfriend? Congrats, she owes you nothing.

You chose to stick around in hopes of getting some pussy when she made it clear she didn’t want to give you pussy? Congrats, she owes you nothing.

(via cthulhu-with-a-fez)