#especially during the war

[fantastic-wizards]

Even though I love me some Snarr.y, I really enjoyed all of Harry and Luna's interactions on screen. Such a kind soul but wasn't afraid to make the Boy Who Lives listen.

[foxgirlmoth]

Okay, lets go through this apparent list of positives that Biden is in favor of.

Trans Rights: There have been multiple laws within states to fully close off especially trans kids rights to medical treatments and more. This is extremely current. Biden puts in minimal effort to look like he's doing anything at all for trans and queer rights, and there haven't really been any efforts aside from doing one or two proposals that immediately get shot down, and he's more than okay with that, hence why there's no longer really any push for this shit still. If you're trans, you can't piss in Utah without the risk of getting a fine right now. Even though these are state laws, the fact that there's been nearly zero effort federally to address this besides the title IX rule, speaks a lot about priorities in this area.

Abortion Access: Are we just forgetting the whole Roe V Wade getting overturned thing that happened in 2022? Are you really trying to say that this is good for abortion access? Abortion access has gotten actively worse.

Environmental Reform: Biden has endorsed extreme oil drilling projects and in general oil companies still love him! Not to mention the train crashes which we'll get to later.

Healthcare Reform: Covid-19 is still around and is sadly predicted to stay around for a long while. Healthcare is still private and a competitive field in the US and that causes major issues as well. If you look this up, you see articles titled along the lines of "Biden has lowered the cost of insurance" and meanwhile it just dropped in 2020 once during the pandemic but has been growing in cost.

Prescription Reform: Reading into this, not much has changed, which isn't surprising under genocide Joe. Drugs in the US are still higher than anywhere else in the world, and with healthcare issues still abundant, this is still a big issue.

Student Loan Forgiveness: Student debt is still extremely high in the US, and while Biden has rolled out some plans for forgiveness, it's a fraction of the debt, and he primarily uses the whole thing to win over swing states. This is a dangling carrot that provides very little overall.

Infrastructure Funding: Train crashes from 2020-present, worldwide, but notice the amount of US crashes! Neat! Quite literally just look up train crashes in the US during his presidency, there's too many to link here. It is also important to remember that Biden signed a bill to prevent rail strikes, preventing a lot of pressure to the government and the economy, which would have been a GOOD THING. Seriously, this guy has fucked up our environment and our rights in multiple ways.

Advocating Racial Equity: Structural racism within the US is still a huge problem, Biden hasn't addressed much. Also people are still in cages on the Mexico/US border (Which has been maintained by every president in office since it was established), with a very recent crackdown on the border.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: Just. Look at the racial equity and trans rights sections above. Biden does the bare minimum, loves focusing on swing states, and all around uses the ol' carrot on a stick.

Vaccines and Public Health: Once again look above at sections on healthcare, abortion access, and prescription reform. Its bad. Remember how Covid-19 vaccines aren't being continued for free?

Criminal Justice Reform: This is just structural slavery still. Disproportionate amounts of black people are incarcerated, police are still heavily funded under Biden. He does not care about reforming the justice system, he even supports cops breaking up campus protests! Cool!

Military Support for Israel: Yup! Both sides suck! Biden has a very long history of sure hating Arabic countries though! He's done nothing but ship weapons and participate in the genocide of Palestinian people. Would Trump also do this? Yes. Does this mean this is an issue you should just drop and call a non-issue? No, what the hell are you talking about.

Israel/Hamas Ceasefire: Netanyahu has no plans to accept any actual ceasefire, yet Biden still provides weapons and support. Wow! That sure is weird? I wonder if Biden really cares about a ceasefire or how he just looks publicly.

Biden is not a good president, much less a good human being. You provided such a flimsy chart with zero resources or support behind you, and it just feels like people are just making shit up at this point. Get your heads out of the liberal cesspool you grew up in.

[asexual-juliet]

no but ryo paul debut is actually making me care about paul as a character for the first time because holy fuck if a white darry & japanese american paul dynamic is not supremely compelling in terms of 1960s oklahoma race and class tensions

[nyracel]

the parallels between aegon and rhaenyra this episode really do contextualize how paramount it is to safe-guard figure heads during times of war.

we have aegon begging, pleading to be let out onto the battlefield, yet being denied due to the dangers only being held slightly at bay. how criston tells him he’s too important, how alicent tells him to sit and do nothing. we have rhaenyra announcing upon her arrival from the sept that she will answer lord staunton’s call for aid, that she will leave immediately to help them. aegon refuses to listen and see reason behind why no one wants him actively fighting, rhaenyra heeds her council’s words on the opposite, specifically rhaenys’ and jacaerys’, and allows rhaenys to go in her stead. two sides of a mirror, each with different outcomes.

a brash and egotistical decision leaves aegon burnt beyond recognition, betrayed by his closest blood in said brother’s pursuit of the throne he covets. we have a logical and cautious decision which still ultimately ends in tragedy, yes, but the black’s cause still has meaning behind it; rhaenys’ sacrifice will not be in vain, unlike aegon now being bedridden for the foreseeable future, unable to rule. this obviously puts a damper on the green’s own pursuits.

[adrift-in-thyme]

One thing that really got me about this update is that while they’re back on the road now and Twi is alright…it’s not a victorious departure. It’s sorrowful, it’s fearful, and it’s ridden with guilt and regrets about what just happened

Their body language says it even more than their words do. They’re slumped, they’re tense, they’re frowning rather than smiling. Hardly anyone cracks a joke this time around.

Their journey is beginning to take a toll on them. And although the Shadow just suffered a crushing defeat he doesn’t have the same emotional aspect that our heroes have had — and continue to have — to deal with.

I definitely foresee some arguments — maybe even physical altercations — in the future. That alone makes them vulnerable to the Shadow’s revenge (which previous updates have shown he doesn’t hesitate to exact. He’s angry. He’s coming for the heroes. Especially Twilight.)

I look forward to seeing how this will all play out

Credit to @linkeduniverse

[apricusapollo]

cody "nothing in the world belongs to me but my love mine, all mine" wan

[modawg]

I need an opinion!

So piper, jason and leo, were at chb for like 6 to 8 months till the argo 2 wasn't finished right?

And they prolly must have heard like a gazillion stories about percy.

Do you think they ( specifically piper ) ever thought, that the campers were just overglorifying percy, cause how can 1 guy do all that!?

hii i love giving my opinion :D

honestly yeah and i think it’s a very appropriate response too i think most ppl would be skeptical abt all that but i also don’t think any of them think camps lying at all

ik you were talking abt piper but i feel like the person who would be the most critical of it all would be jason not bc he’s jealous or thinks he could’ve done it all in his sleep but bc he’s been there he’s fought in wars he’s gone on quests and he knows the reality of a lot of those things in comparison to leo or piper or any of the new campers who weren’t there during the war

i also think a lot of the stories have been glorified or made to seem cooler then they were bc at this point his earliest win is like 5 years old and most of the people who were there when any of them happened have died so it’s kind of expected for the stories to be edited a little through word of mouth

i feel like a lot of the stories have been edited to be more kid friendly and “yay happy hero” type rather then the stories we get where ppl die and percy gets severely injured like the edits aren’t harmful but i just know jason can sense that and piper probably can too hearing stories from annabeth where she can see the pain is real

i think the ones everyone can agree are factual to some degree are ones they hear straight from annabeth

and i feel like during those months since the war and percy’s disappearance were the most recent things to happen they would hear a good amount of stories both from annabeth and other campers that would back up the things they hear abt him enough that it would be hard to not believe or take them as truth yk

however i don’t think that stops them (any of them; new campers piper leo jason) from looking at pictures of percy and think “how tf did this kid do all that”

[rocker-socks]

Hunger Games AU where literally everyone else is aware of What Happened Before except for Cale. Whether this be reincarnation, Hunter fuckery or godly nonsense is up to you.

To Cale some victor in district 7 is really keen on him winning, even though he has his own tributes. Then there's this well known Capitol family that has only ever sponsored in the game once, which was for the district 7 guy, and has now decided to sponsor him. for some reason. And the presidents son is also weirdly supporting Cale. They also keep saying weird things.

Meanwhile, Cale's family is trying to get Cale to Remember Them while also making sure he survives and that they get back to their original world.

Cale had protected them so many times before, so it's only fitting they do so now, even if it means others die.

[finelinens1994]

it always pisses me off a bit when i see people trying to use their platform to Educate The Public and the "educational resources" they provide are twitter threads, tiktoks, and carrds. like yes absolutely a social media post from a primary source is invaluably helpful when it comes to getting first-person perspectives on current events, but you just cannot learn extensive history from tiktok. idk. maybe you can. maybe i'm being too quick to write off tiktok as a whole. it's just rare that a tiktok is going to be well-researched and provide sources for the viewers to vet or use for further research on their own, so it's natural to be doubtful.

people easily believe anything on social media if it's well-said and seems sincere, which is just dangerously stupid. vet your sources. think critically. don't just blindly believe a tiktok because the person filming it is using smart people words

[transingthoseformers]

Thinking about unexpected megajazz right now

[twilight-zoned-out]

Things I noticed about The Great Gatsby that might help put the book in perspective:

-It takes place during Prohibition. Although the book is constantly filled with people drinking, the making and selling of alcohol was technically illegal and had been since 1920.

(Note: this is also why everyone gets mad at Daisy when she wants mint julep when they get to the hotel. Unless they smuggle in alcohol from home, it’s a ridiculous thing to ask.)

-1920′s humor included absurdism and wit, which combined humor and intelligence or ‘sharp’ intelligence. Daisy makes witty comments throughout the book. When she talks about Ferdie in a ridiculous way and Nick continues the conversation as if he thinks she is being serious, they are essentially joking with each other in the conventional way of the period.

-Nick is older than Tom, Daisy, and Jordan. He is not only an outsider in terms of location and wealth, but in terms of a (slightly) older culture looking in on the newer generation. When Nick leaves Jordan with the comment that he is “5 years too old to lie to [himself] and call it honor,” his insult carries extra weight because he is saying she is too young to mature herself enough for a reasonable conversation.

-It takes place after World War I, during a time when the US aggressively pursued an isolationist stance. The US did not want to become involved in any overseas wars. Most of the main characters in the book served in some way during World War I. 

(Note: This story was written before Germany began to loom as a threat in the years before World War II. When Nick calls the deaths at Gatsby’s mansion a Holocaust, it did not have the same connotation it has today.)

[edits made]

[navree]

"it's always hating on rhaegar for rhaenys and aegon's deaths never tywin" because rhaegar was their father and had a responsibility towards them that tywin did not, stay in school

[wonder-worker]

"As for the government of the kingdom, [Edward V] had complete confidence in the peers of realm and the queen."

"According to the Crowland continuator, [Elizabeth Woodville] seems to have taken the king's place in listening to his council immediately after Edward IV's death. It does appear that she expected to have some role in her son's kingship, and the Crowland continuator’s report of the letters sent to her by [Richard of Gloucester] indicates that she had good reason to expect to be able to work with him and the other councillors: 'the duke of Gloucester wrote the most pleasant letters to console the queen; he promised to come and offer submission, fealty and all that was due from him to his lord and king, Edward V, the first-born son of his brother the dead king and the queen'."

"[However], in what was Gloucester's first coup, Edward V was separated from his household and Woodville advisors. When the young king questioned the move, Buckingham was reported to have told the boy 'It is not in the business of women but men to govern kingdoms'. The blunt remark referred to the authority of Elizabeth Woodville as queen and the power she must have anticipated within the new political climate left by Edward IV's sudden death [...] While the veracity of this scene is questionable*, the words attributed to the duke no doubt seemed plausible to Dominic Mancini who believed they exemplified the popular sentiment held by men [...]."

-Dominic Mancini, The Usurpation of Richard the Third / J.L. Laynesmith, The Last Medieval Queens: English Queenship 1445-1503 / Alexander R. Brondarbit, Power Brokers and the Yorkist State, 1461-1485

*One of Mancini's key sources seems to have been Edward V's own doctor, John Argentine, who attended to him in the Tower. It's very likely that he was the one who recounted this scene to Mancini, which suggests that it should probably be considered more credible than not.

[infiniteglitterfall]

the cradle is not a valid news source omfg.

There are a lot of shitty news sites out there. Fact-checking is free, but you'd never know it from looking at a lot of the articles that get traction on social media.

you would, however, increasingly see the far right embracing the left.

me, in a weary sing-song, every fucking time I see an outrage-clickbait headline: "what does the article actually say."

thecradle.co: "The US House of Representatives passed an amendment on 27 June barring State Department officials from citing the Gaza Health Ministry’s death toll of the ongoing Israeli war on the strip.... Sixty-two Democratic lawmakers voted in favor, as well as all but two Republicans."

me: "i thought the problem was that the UN had inexplicably started giving totals from the Gaza Media Office, which had WAY higher total deaths for women and children than the actual Health Ministry, and then everyone found out the Media Office was lying its ass off when the UN switched to the Health Ministry numbers. What's their reasoning?

"Is it the thing where almost 78% of their casualty numbers this spring came from unspecified media sources? Or is it because yes, the Ministry of Health's casualty numbers lined up pretty well with the UN's and Israel's in past wars, but this is the first time that the UN and NGOs haven't been verifying the death count in real time? Or that the Associated Press found hundreds of duplicate IDs in even the list of fully identified recent deaths from the Health Ministry? Wait, is it that the Ministry of Health has been claiming that like 75% of the deaths were women and children, but releasing detailed reports that show that it's really 38%-52%, depending on the month? ok fine maybe there's a reason that this was an almost unanimous vote."

thecradle.co: "...that's not relevant"

me: "...seems like it is tho"

thecradle.co: "we're not here to answer questions"

me: "..."

thecradle.co: "anYWAY, Rashida Tlaib is a real-life Palestinian-American and SHE said, 'Since 1948... there has been a coordinated effort, especially in this chamber, to dehumanize Palestinians and erase Palestinians from existence... [Israel's committing] genocide in Gaza, and in real time, and this amendment is an attempt to hide it … This is genocide denial.'"

me: "how has there been a coordinated effort in the senate to erase Palestinians from existence for 76 years? the u.s. is the largest provider of foreign aid to palestine on earth. i've literally read the entire detailed record of the 1950 senate hearing on Palestinian refugees--"

thecradle.co: "again, i am NOT TAKING QUESTIONS, I am just TELLING YOU--"

me: "okay, okay, geeze"

thecradle.co: "my point is that she said, 'My colleagues want to prohibit our own US officials from even citing the Palestinian death toll. So let me read it into the record. Here are the latest casualties of Palestinians killed: 37,718 Palestinians, including more than 15,000 Palestinian children and more than 86,377 Palestinians have been injured.'"

me: "isn't that the old, blatantly incorrect, two-times-too-high number of deaths of Palestinian children, from the Gaza MEDIA Office? Not the Health Ministry? omg, it IS. The media office is claiming 15,002 children, and a total of 44,844 total deaths. You can only even find that shit printed in Al Mayadeen, which is also a fake news site."

thecradle.co: "I don't know that kind of stuff. I just report the facts."

me: "sure, if the fact is that she lied. wait. she's upset that they're telling the State Department not to use the Health Ministry's numbers and SHE'S not even using the Health Ministry's numbers? was she even listening?"

thecradle.co: "...In November 2023, US Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs, Barbara Leaf, said when asked about skepticism over the Gaza Health Ministry death toll that the numbers could actually be higher."

me: "did you actually just close by quoting someone speculating wildly nine months ago?"

thecradle.co: "listen, our about page makes it very clear that we are definitely journalists and we definitely aren't owned by anybody, and we will expose whatever shocking truths we want."

me: "...so...."

thecradle.co: "...did you hear that ben gvir is the most hated man on earth?" me: "i thought you claimed to report the NEWS."

anyway, I am just as thrilled as always to see my united states elected representatives getting their info from the least reputable sources possible. and then being signal boosted by the least reputable sources possible.

it's almost as thrilling as the knowledge that people react to "hey that's not true" as if you'd just murdered a Palestinian civilian right in front of them, instead of as if you were telling them that thousands of Palestinian children thought dead were still alive.

[getyinyusedtoit]

i saw a post the other day referencing feng xin and how it's mentioned that he's frequently in the mortal realm and it said something along the lines of "what if he was spending time searching for xie lian" and i love that and am personally 100% certain he was searching for xie lian or news of him during their time apart. HOWEVER i also got the feeling while reading tgcf that feng xin doesn't and never did give a shit about heaven. certainly not in the way xie lian or mu qing did. like yeah he takes his duties seriously and he's good at his job but i think between all the shit that comes with being a god and all of the awful prayers he has to hear he just wants to fuck off and get some peace and quiet and that's also a big reason why he's never around.

[bonefall]

naruto as a whole is a fucking mess and i say thisas somebody whos read the entireseries 3 times over. “naruto is going to change the system! haha teehee never mind hes not doing anytning about the child soldiers and slave castes and the genocides.” “sasuke can be upset at his brother for committing a genocide but actually genocide against an oppressed bloodline is good if theyre getting uppity and its sanctioned by the government and also have a genetic predisposition to be evil so he should just get over it and be okay with it” “sakura needs to stop obsessing over a guy whos not even interested and become strong for her own sake. actually shes a housewife now”

kishimoto im going to blow you up with my mind

YOU GET IT

For real though I think what they did with Sasuke's arc was one of the most baffling fucking things I've ever seen. "Actually. Your brother who carried out a genocide loved you :( he only put you in the Torment Nexus for several days because uhhh he wanted you to hate him and not find out about the government who ordered it. Everything he ever did was actually to protect you. And Uchihas are actually kinda rotten anyway so it's good an entire GROUP OF PEOPLE died. Don't think about any babies or children who were also slaughtered btw uhh nope all of them were bad."

Sasuke: "Yes I understand. I will now rule the world through fear. Actually nvm Naruto won our fight so, my philosophy is gone now."

Thank goodness that Evil Sasuke killed the three Bad Government Officials before that point, though. We had this whole theme going about toxic structures, cycles of abuse, and how oppressive regimes can propagate themselves even when a leader is well-meaning... but, like, Naruto REALLY wants to be Hokage, so actually if you just kill these Three Bad Governors it's gonna be fine.

There is no need for systemic change. Slave castes and child soldiers are fine. It's ok as long as the president is blonde :)