Ink-Blot-Bloom

There are 760,000 Australians on the National Disability Insurance Scheme, the system that - if they feel like it and your personalised plan says you get to have it - provides funding for everything from personal hygiene care to support workers to therapies to assistive technology. It's already very hard for disabled people to get on the NDIS, regardless of your disability. It's near impossible to access most support and equipment without being on the NDIS. And the government has announced that they want that number to drop to 600,000 in four years. 160,000 of us cut off the Scheme - and countless more denied access. This will cause deaths. People will die and people will suffer because there is no safety net. The NDIS is the only option for most of us. Even private health insurance doesn't cover most of these things. Nobody will swoop in to save us.

The bill wants to give the (non disabled!) NDIS minister basically unlimited power to cut our funding. They're already planning what they'd do with that power. What rights they'll strip from us. What dignity and freedom they'll remove to make their budget look better.

The bill wants to force people to try every treatment out there before they're allowed to be on the NDIS. Including if the treatment is literally impossible to access. There’s a lot of us living in regional areas or out bush who can't just pop to the capital cities for specialists. This will especially hurt disabled First Nations people in regional and remote communities, who already experience limited access to healthcare. Oh, and it includes chemical restraint, too. The government has directly refused to exclude chemical restraint from the required process, calling it "trialling medication".

If you're australian and worried, the ABC did a good breakdown of the proposed changes.

I know australia stuff doesn't really pop up on the radar on this site, but I want everyone to know what's going on. What we're fighting for here. Your australian disabled friends might be NDIS participants fearing for their life, rights, and freedom. They might not be a participant and afraid these changes mean they never will have access. We deserve better. The government built a system with no backup plan, and now they want hundreds of thousands of disabled people to pay the price for their bad planning.

Next up someone is going to claim that the Narnia series isn't kids books.

You want to study abroad? Show us proof that there is a quadrillion dollars in your bank account. Oh, an average monthly salary in your country is $400 and you plan to work when you arrive? You can't do that, silly, a student visa only allows you to work 2 hours every third Wednesday, and if we find out that you're working a second more we will deport you.

You want to work abroad? Better be a programmer, then of course you are welcome. Doctor, scientist, white-collar or, god forbid, blue-collar worker? You can fuck right off, your visa application goes straght into trash.

You will have to prove that you can afford a guest, have some income and also usually take responsibility for possible deportation cost.

But if you really are inviting a friend over, they will give you a formal document you can send to your friend. Then the friend applies for a visa while attaching the Very Official document with it. They will get the Schengen visa and most probably will get it expedited too.

its anatomy

Screenshot via Alejandra Caraballo @esqueer.net on bluesky

Tldr Amnesty International, global human rights organisation, published a report called 'A growing threat: the anti-rights movement in the UK'. In it is detailed, amongst others, a whole bunch of transphobic groups and organisations, including Beira's Place, JK Rowling's trans exclusionary sexual violence support service. JK Rowling threw a shit fit and got Amnesty to take the report down by threatening libel. This was obviously not enough, because you can't appease a fascist, so now she's going to bankroll a bunch of lawsuits anyway through the JK Rowling Women's Fund.*

You can read an archived version of the report here, please save it and share it.

in 1999, an italian named giancarlo pasquini released a europop song under the alias dave rogers called Deja Vu. this song was picked up as the theme song for the above anime. it in turn became a meme, a shorthand for drifting and Cool Moves as a concept.

in 1983, air canada flight 143, a full sized 767, ran out of fuel halfway to edmonton, alberta. this is not something you want to have happen to a huge airplane. the flight chose to try and make an emergency landing at a nearby decomissioned airforce base (as they were falling fast and could not make it to a proper airport), where they ran into a second problem: they were falling out of the sky at 500 feet per mile, but reached gimli (the base in question) while still too high to safely land. normally a plane would just do a big loop-de-loop to lose altitude, but they had maybe three minutes of airtime left before they hit the ground: not enough time to make any kind of circle. the pilot, therefore, decided to execute a side slip to lose speed and altitude. this is Not a move you want to do with a massive 767, because airplanes are not built for that and if you screw it up that plane is hitting the ground at a high speed at a weird angle and breaking into a million pieces. nevertheless, the captain tried it... and succeeded. the plane landed perfectly, and there were no major injuries! (a couple of people did get minor injuries when evacuating the plane after.) he did it so well, in fact, that the plane was refueled, flown out of gimli a couple days later, and continued to fly for another 20 years with the nickname "Gimli Glider."

what is a side-slip, you ask?

it's drifting.

the guy goddamn drifted his 767.

in 2008, the tv show Mayday: Air Disaster featured the gimli glider with full reenactments as an episode on season five of their show.

and so, in conclusion, the thing i have been giggling to myself about all weekend:

You know Anti-Force drugs and devices? Such as cuffs or collars?

Presumably, both rare and expensive, since Noteable Force Sensitivity is Rare AF? Not sure if it's more of a Fandom or Canon thing? But still, THOSE things? Yeah, you know THEM?

...... w-wouldn't... wouldn't they fucking KILL people?

Like? I'm not even joking here. We gotta remember, IN UNIVERSE, that the Force? Is FUCKING EVERYWHERE. All the Where. The LIVING Force is what CONNECTS and guides all LIVING things. "Guides" being the significant word there.

I'm not saying it would be IMMEDIATE death? Because Force Blanks exsist. Impossibly rare as they may be. But no one ever said they were HEALTHY. You CAN survive, for a pretty long while, after getting your internal micro biomes DEEPLY fucked up. Can even possibly repair them, depending on the damage.

And, what? Is the Midi-chlorian? If not a symbiotic microorganism? Living off you while giving you benefits in return? Health, durability, and The Force, in return for a place to thrive. Tied, inexorably, to your immune system and other vital bodily functions? To your SENSES. Your BRAIN FUNCTION.

Anti-Force drugs and Devices? Are awful... to those already a count of MULTIPLE THOUSANDS per drop of blood. What about much lower? If the device damages or suppresses all but the strongest Midi-chlorians? Does the average person HAVE enough to survive that?

Is it like radiation exposure? Deadly not in the immediate, but in the days to follow? In the sickness. The nausea. The weakness of limbs and the tiredness that drags. A seeping sense of unreality. Disconnected from others, who no longer feel "real". Do YOU no longer "real". As the interwoven connection you had, inside you, to the Force, is dying?

The Force is still there. You are still a part of it.

But you can't feel it anymore.

And it wasn't even something you knew you WERE feeling, until it was gone. Until people and the paintings of people, hold the same realness. Until you no longer feel connected to your own body. Sick, disassociating, and scared. Blood poisoned by the dying matter now floating in your veins.

There's a REASON, I would imagine, such devices are not standard issue. Mass produced. Expensive, dangerous, and deadly to those who DON'T have a high enough midi-chlorian count.

Even those who DO have a high enough count? Get sick wearing them! Need time to recover!

They are? Fundamentally?

ANTI-LIFE.

People throw them around in fanfic's a lot. As though just shutting off a major part of someone biology wouldn't have NASTY blowback. As though a Jedi probably doesn't fucking DESTROY those monstrosities, those ABOMINATIONS to the Force, every time they come across a set or vial of the stuff. Second only to the Sith, that sort of evil. Probably MADE by Sith. Evil. Nasty. Disgusting and no good.

Burn it.

You absolutely NEED to keep someone contained? Sleep. Nice lil Jedi enforced nap. Or drug enforced. Maybe both. They ALSO have FORCE rituals. Combine THEIR power against YOUR power. There are many ways. HUMANE and ETHICAL ways. They AREN'T SITH.

Just? Those things? Should be treated like the horrors they ARE, you know? They're not convenient plot devices! They are critical biology suppressing radiation collars and chemo drugs! Being PUMPED INTO PEOPLE by RANDOS!!

Shoved ON people! By FUCKING SLAVERS!

That SHOULD be HORRIFYING! They're ANTI-FORCE! <-!!! Which?

Is LIFE.