restless [she/her]

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Joined 3 months ago
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Cake day: January 28th, 2025

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  • If you drop-in replace “x does not consent” with “x is being exploited” (making necessary grammatical adjustments), I feel like I’m still basically saying the same thing with the same takeaways

    Consent violation and exploitation are fairly intertwined concepts, but exploitation generally sells better as a term to highlight injustice. For that reason perhaps it would have been better to use that term instead, but I’ve already spent enough time on my writing half-baked analysis on a 20 second clip from regular show


  • As the core of veganism is consent, there are several elements to consider:

    1. Consent of the substance’s sentient source: The coffee bean seems more than willing to give this up… almost too willing. I don’t think there’s a direct issue here, but definitely warrants further consideration when other parties are involved.
    2. Consent of the substance’s consumers: neither Mordecai nor Rigby seem to want what’s going on. While Rigby signed the contract, and could be held to its terms under ideal circumstances, it’s a rather predatory situation since it’s presented in a language he doesn’t understand. Mordecai didn’t sign anything, did not consent even on paper, and is a complete victim here.
    3. While mostly related to point #2, contracts are often wielded as a tool of the powerful against the weak, and in an inequitable exchange ends up being little more than a justification to continue a coercive arrangement one party would back out of if given the choice.

    So I’d say while the events depicted are not vegan, but the coffee itself as a substance is most likely vegan. It’s a little hard to say for certain without more context tho, for instance if the bean is also coerced to act this way by outside forces.