I am one of those melodramatic fools

my entire life, i have seen leftist educators throw mentally disabled people away as "lost causes" because they couldn't engage with the material the way it was being presented. leftist outreach and education does, genuinely, have a massive lack of accessible material. to be blunt, people are not interested in retrofitting their leftist outreach to be accessible to people who learn best through episodes of sesame street.

as in, i have repeatedly faced outright laughter and cruelty over the idea that this could be a priority. or even something that we consider doing at all.

"people who are that mentally disabled don't need to know about these things," the kindest interpretation goes. ("people who are that mentally disabled don't interact with the world, anyway, they're all in institutions or monitored 24/7 by their parents," the uncharitable underlying assumptions go. "they wouldn't be a worker who needs a union. or a library attendee. or a member of the community garden. or a volunteer at the food bank. or or or")

the people i have seen this hurt the worst, over and over again, are profoundly mentally disabled people of color whose lack of access to accessible antiracist education is causing real danger in their lives. institutionalized disabled people of color who have learned racist ideology and behaviors from white authority, whether they were adopted by white families or incarcerated in care institutions run by white staff. who are treated lower than garbage by leftist educators, who view them as "lost causes," as unworthy of time and effort and attention, as deserving of their abuses because they... what... internalized the abuses that make up every aspect of their lives since birth?

i see people saying things in this conversation like "disability isn't an excuse for racism or transphobia or whatever, people have the obligation to improve themselves." oh, believe me, i have seen again and again how many privileged disabled people utilize their disabilities to punch down on others, try to escape accountability for their punching down by citing disability. but individual weaponization of identity is just that: weaponization of identity.

the power structures at play are what they are. it is a noble and admirable goal to want leftist outreach and education to be more accessible to all. if that is truly your goal, you must eventually reckon with the existence of people who do, actually, really need it presented in a picture book. or an episode of bluey. or a conversation where you only use examples of people they know in real life, using things that happened to them personally. the existence of people who cannot grasp forms of abstract reasoning, who need information presented as rules, or as guidelines, or as categories. the idea that yes, fully grown adults who need daniel tiger to explain racism to them are human beings who not only deserve access to that very thing, but who also deserve to be a part of leftist spaces and benefit from leftist organizing. are people for whom it might be INTEGRAL they get to be a part of leftism. are victims of racism themselves and suffering without access to antiracist spaces and community and support.

But turning to the dark side changed his physical appearance. Most notably his eyes, which became yellow (a very typical Sith transformation in many species)

And while I know that Wookies are not supposed to be able to be force sensitive and therefore cannot become Jedi or Sith, all I am saying is that

Now, don't get me wrong: I'm not saying that Jake wasn't affected by losing Tom, because he very obviously was. Tom was his entire reason for joining the war in the first place and part of him held onto hope until the end that Tom could still be saved. And I'm also not saying that Rachel didn't think Jake didn't care about her at all, because that's not true either. She knows Jake does, but that he's doing what he has to do.

But when you think back to the conversation they have when Jake gives her the assignment, and he tells her that he won't have a way out for her, Rachel's concern for him isn't how her death would affect him, but Tom's. "It won't just be the yeerk. It'll be Tom." And while she acknowledges that of course Jake doesn't want her to die in her opening narration in book #54 and is making this call because he has to, at the same time there isn't a sense that Rachel thinks her death is going to be the one to hit him hardest here. It's Tom's, she's sure of it. Emotionally, Jake could afford to lose her, but Tom? That one gives her pause.

But one year after the war . . . again, Jake does still mourn Tom, obviously. He carries the guilt and grief of everything. But one of the strongest images of #54 that has always stuck with me is Jake sitting at Rachel's grave for several hours at a time, after hours, with regularity. It sticks out to me because you know Tom must have had a grave or memorial as well, I'm sure Jake's parents would've had one set up, but in all of Marco's stalking he doesn't see Jake sit and visit with it. Jake doesn't visit Tom. He visits Rachel.

And it just, to me, speaks to a complete subversion of Rachel's expectations, which were predicated on her own perception of how the rest of the team saw her. They "loved [her] in their way" but she was also a monster, blood thirsty, the garbage disposal, the one to do the dirty work. And she was as fine with that as she wasn't. (It was the biggest point of inner conflict for her—the war between her fear and her need to appear brave, her need to protect her friends from the gruesome vs her revulsion at what her actions said and made her out to be, etc.) Jake cared, sure, but also he saw her as a blood knight who might as well die in battle because that was her role, that was what SHE did, better her than anyone else on the team. Jake knew that, it would help him recover from his correct choice, far more than he could ever recover from losing Tom, who—unlike Rachel—was wholly innocent.

I cannot believe that people actually tried this

So there was a glitch in Chase’s check deposit system. Usually when you cash a check, only a fraction of the full amount is available to you immediately until the check clears. The glitch made it so you could cash a checks full amount right away no matter how big.

So. People were writing themselves massive checks and immediately withdrawing cash they technically didn’t have and then closing their bank account. They were calling it an “infinite money glitch” like it’s the Sims or something.

But it’s not like a cheat code that was suddenly discovered. It’s just check fraud. It’s just straight up a felony. And a good chunk of them filmed themselves doing it.

So people are waking up finding they’re in the negative however many thousands of dollars they pulled.

What BAFFLES me is that people are calling Chase demanding their accounts be reopened, demanding their money back. Work from home Chase agents have shared the calls they’ve been getting from people angry they’re in the red. Like it’s not your money anymore, love, you STOLE it and they took whatever you had originally to try to pay the balance back!! That’s not yours anymore!

People are being SNIPPY on tiktok when people tell them that they did a CRIME. This one lady was like “you don’t know the law, my lawyer knows the law” and it’s like honey! Your lawyer is going to do his fuckin best but you did a crime and then you FILMED YOURSELF. You’re going to jail! Now is the time to start practicing what my therapist calls radical acceptance!

Why do they have the Escafil device?