Fuloki

You put a water bottle back, get hunted down by the store owner and his family who shoot you because they claim to think you were stealing (Cyrus Carmack Belton), and said murderers walk away not guilty. 😐

"I'm really sorry that lockdown and the ongoing pandemic interrupted pivotal educational and social/emotional development moments for you. You have an uphill battle towards adjusting to a lot of community based efforts because you experienced a mass trauma during an incredibly important time in your life where you should have physically been around your peers learning to engage in shared community. There is no "but" here, I'm genuinely really sorry. Something many of us consider key points in our interpersonal growth as youths was taken from you, not without reason but without care for its impact on you. I hope you know we are eternally allies in our struggles and if that is something you struggle to know I hope you can learn it someday."

Because so many of the angriest, most disenfranchised people I see on this website are under 24 and I often try to put younger people's behavior in the context of where they might have been 2020. I've seen the impact on my siblings and their peers+friends first hand, all ages 18-24. We've talked about how its impacted them, the isolation, the attachment to the internet, the anxieties and phobias and fears it developed in them due to the pandemic, the political unrest, and the responses to both that we've seen since. I know they're not the only ones and I know how much being marginalized also influences that impact too.

Sabine, who went to the imperial academy and learnt she was being lied to by the empire and tricked into making a mandolorian killing machine. Sabine whose family she had to break away from because they were pro empire. Sabine, who was a bounty hunter until Kanan and Hera found her. Sabine, the resistance hero. And now apparently: Sabine the Jedi?

To this day I still don't understand why they decided in the Ashoka show to give her the force. I genuinely hate it. Most women in Star Wars are either inspirational leaders with a blaster, force sensitive or just evil. Sabine isn't any of that, she gets the treatment that's usually only for female jedi or men. She's a fighter who can keep up with anything and anyone. She never needed something other than her paint, explosives and blasters to win a fight.

So I find the decision to make her force sensitive so strange. Especially because in Rebels there's no lead up to this. When she's being trained by Kanan so she can learn to wield the dark saber, (in my opinion the most logical place to hint at force sensitivity) there's no indication of it.

And why this moment? She's been in dire situations before, why now the connection to the force? Why now the push? And don't get me started on midi-chlorians. Have we just completely thrown that out?

polite greeting (it's me, boy)

introduction (i'm the ps5)

establish credentials (speaking to you inside your brain)

establish purpose (leave the girl, we don't need her)

I know that sounds simple, but sometimes it really is not. Sometimes there are days where every task feels heavier than it should. Days where getting started feels impossible. Days where you spend more energy convincing yourself to begin than actually doing the thing.

And yet, you started.

Maybe you answered that message. Maybe you did the dishes. Maybe you worked on an assignment. Maybe you made a phone call you had been dreading. Maybe you only got a small part of it done.

But you started.

And that matters more than you think.

I know people often only see the finished result. They do not see the hesitation, the exhaustion, the overthinking, the fear of getting it wrong, or the amount of effort it took just to begin. But you know. You know how hard it was, and I think you deserve credit for that.

So this is your reminder that progress does not have to be dramatic to count. Small steps count. Partial victories count. Trying counts.

I am proud of you for showing up today, especially if it was difficult. I am proud of you for doing what you could with the energy you had. And if nobody else has said it yet, good job.

Could I explain the actual rules of how they’re used? Absolutely not.