fresh meat, page 75 (finished)

alright, next page... a little bit late, because i had another pain flare.

i feel like i should have so much about this page, and i really don't! a lot of the dialogue, i feel, speaks for itself!

i already kind of explained during the stream that a lot of tabitha's viewpoint here is informed by her faith. the way she views the distinction between animals and people is notably secular in her explanation, but with knowledge, is demonstrably informed by her upbringing. i won't get into it, but a few points of interest:
1) know that judaism is a faith that usually demands action over belief.
2) her veganism is undoubtedly formed by views of jewish vegetarianism (and, less popularly, jewish veganism), which are themselves informed by sections of scripture involving idyllic descriptions of total peace among all species.
3) despite the ideal described in scripture, it's acknowledged that people have a deep craving to eat meat, and that they are placed above other animals, and are allowed to eat them, so vegetarianism, much less veganism, is not required by her faith.
4) moreover, consumption of forbidden food is allowed under the concept of pikuach nefesh, or preservation of human life. pikuach nefesh overrides most other obligations, as does the obligation to preserve health, ultimately connected to the preservation of life. from this, you can see that she is not practicing commonly accepted hierarchies of faith-established values in her actions.
5) know that nefesh as a hebrew word refers to a specific type of life energy or sentience and soul that animals and people share. even though pikuach nefesh refers to preserving human life, be aware that the potential to interpret the phrase and obligation a specific way to mean preserving all animal life is possible and somewhat easy to do if you already wanted to do that.
6) know that the concept of the soul can get somewhat complex when it comes to judaism, and that generally speaking, one is expected to raise in quality the soul that they have to ascend. if i can simplify a little sloppily, know that tabitha's views of her humanity mean being righteous, and that to have a soul unique from an animal worth redemption this means she must earn merit through righteous acts. you should also know that so as to not imply jewish people have no soul if they are totally wicked, as it were, that these acts are viewed in some ways as compulsory; you feel compelled to do them.
7) put this all together and you have some understanding of the underpinnings of tabitha's rhetoric and values, and you can also understand that tabitha is not written to be a perfect observant jewish character (if you want to argue that's possible, haha), but she is written to be someone interacting with the material in her head and personality. she's meant to be analyzed and all, but i explain in the hopes that the analysis of her shortcomings as a character don't transfer to beliefs about what the faith is like exclusively.
basically, feel free to analyze tabitha's motivations critically while knowing some key things to not turn it into, i don't know, disagreeing with basic ethical concepts in judaism haha. outside of her faith, she clearly desires some form of respect and autonomy that the institution desperately wants to deny her, and i think that's universally intelligible.

getting off of the topic of tabitha specifically, there were a lot of things kim could have said in response to her fairly philosophical question. i decided she'd say that humans are a type of animal because this is what i think a high schooler would find the most cutting, intelligent, and edgy. kind of a "well, technically" mentality. i think tabitha could have disagreed and continued her point despite what kim said in pretty much any direction, though.
that said, i'm a little excited/nervous (same emotion for me) because this scene actually does not stick to the topic of veganism or eating meat at all come the next page. i try not to hype myself up about writing i think won't be predicted... but because there has been so much analysis about what has been going through kim's head for the last few scenes, and it hasn't really hit the mark, i'm hoping the writing will be kind of like a nice twist rather than nonsensical.

i think that's all i'm going to say for this one. there are some other things i could say, but i'm hoping to save them for the next page, where they'll be a little firmer rhetorically. the next page is pretty much all the way sketched out already because i did 75 and 76 in one big sitting.