#state officials say

[hinamie]

post-graduation trip airport looks

[illuminatedferret]

I loooooove E-ming not only because it is a cute murder-saber but because everyone assumes Hua Chebg must have sacrificed a bunch of people in some dark ritual when, no, all he sacrificed was his eye. And I love that message: that the sacrifices you make of yourself will always be more valuable than the sacrifices you demand of others.

[izzystizzys]

There is a scratch mark on the floor of the Council chambers that Mace has never noticed before. Not a deep one, mind, quite shallow. This matters because it’s making the white-hot pulse of agony stabbing through his eyeballs ebb momentarily. Then, he chances a glance upwards at the fidgeting Knight in front of them, and it returns in full force.

Huh, he’s never seen Oppo Rancisis’ face turn that colour before.

“Hmm”, Master Yoda hums, deep and scratchy. His expression is unreadable even to Mace beyond a baseline gremlinness, and the force with which he grips the edges of his seat is making his bones creak. Master of the Order you should become, they said. Follow the calling of the Force, you should. A fulfilling purpose, it will be. Mace is going to hunt the little goblin for sport when this is all over, and he’s going to laugh the whole time.

“Show us the livestream again, could you, Knight Parvo?” Yoda asks. Mace bursts a capillary, he’s pretty sure, and so does poor Knight Parvo, whose orange Mon Cala skin tips all the way into blood red with stress. “Most unusual, this is.”

“Absolutely not!”, Ki Adi intervenes before Mace has to, thank the Force for little mercies. Plo Koon’s tusks tremble slightly with either suppressed laughter or abject horror, maybe both, and Stass Allie has her head in her hands. “The holo stills should be enough”, Ki Adi proceeds to add, and Mace has to reconsider all feelings of grace he just felt towards his fellow Councillor.

He never wants to watch Yoda zoom in on someone’s abs again. Or Depa raise her eyebrows at the curve of thighs bent over the dripping front of a speeder.

“Speeder Wash For Our Troops”, his former padawan reads out loud from a still of what has to be hundreds of the things gathered in the public senate parking lot. “Fund Our Boys And Get A Wet Seeing-To!” The series of images features dozens of Coruscant Guard troopers in various stages of unkitted, gleaming and shining with soap suds and water. The fact that the whole thing is also massive shatterpoint after massive shatterpoint is, quite frankly, insulting.

“Well hello- oh dear”, Obi-Wan’s blue form crackles to life in his chair, followed by several sounds of choking that are definitely not him. Good, Mace thinks acidly. If he has to deal with this, then so does kriffing Skywalker. “I’m sorry, why am I looking at Commander Thorn using a washrag like a lasso on top of a speeder?”

“Oh, the Guard’s little fundraising project”, Bail Organa says, as he steps into the Council chambers. Normally, Mace likes the man well enough. Now, he just smiles and adds on, “I’ve already donated, in mine and Breha’s name. Remotely, of course.”

“The Guard’s fundraising speeder wash?”, Obi-Wan repeats, edges of his holo form flickering with what Mace suspects is Skywalker very unsubtly trying to edge in. Force, but the man really is horrible at any and all stealth, like kissing his secret wife in an open arena in front of his Master. “And they are fundraising for…?”

“GAR budget allocations have to come from somewhere”, Organa shrugs. “And with the tide of public opinion turning, they’ve been tending towards cuts. The Guard feels them more keenly than any other sector - they’ve been reduced from half to quarter rations, and medical supplies have not made more than a token appearance in the last draft. The Chancellor has cancelled three consecutive meetings on the matter, and thus it was agreed that a more hands-on approach was needed. Any surplus will go into the Army fund.”

“Surely it can’t be that dire”, Oppo protests, a slightly less concerning shade of purple now. Senator Organa shrugs again, jostling the smattering of cracks slowly building around his person in a way that makes Mace wince quietly. “It’s all publicly available data, Masters.”

It really can be that dire, as it turns out. And quarter rations is only scratching the surface of how dire, considering the Guard has apparently never had access to bacta in all their posting, and also includes requisitioning forms available to the Senate for reconditionings and decommissionings, two words Mace has only heard Ponds whispers amidst shuddering in the early days of the war before Shaak Ti went off and just about tore some throats out over it.

“Alright”, he concedes, rubbing at his temples. “Fair enough, we have failed to tackle a massive blind spot in the Guard’s well being. There is no Jedi assigned to Coruscant, and that’s an oversight on our behalf. But how in the everloving kriff did this get past the Chancellor and Commander Fox?!”

Who have both signed, black on white. Bail Organa smiles cryptically. “Well, if you scroll a bit past that one image, up to the industrial speeder in the back - Commander Fox is currently having credits stuffed into his codpiece in the back, I believe.”

“HE’S WHAT IN THE WHAT NOW”, Commander Cody screeches through the speaker of Obi-Wan’s holo image, and Mace has to summon every bit of Jedi-serenity he possesses in his body to keep from dropkicking a cackling Yoda through the chamber windows.

[wikitpowers]

the fact that ty is sure that he is in love with kit is making me go feral. like there is absolutely no denial of his feelings, like he knows knows. to have it officially confirmed is making me so emotional stop

[unfortunatelyilikebnha]

Bnha makes me so mad because it could’ve been good. It had a lot of good aspects. But in the end none of them were satisfyingly resolved so it just feels bad.

[stinkrascal]

trying to make a drs appointment only to be told the soonest opening is at the end of april 😀

[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.

[unloneliest]

the A in LGBTQIA2S+ stands for asexual and aromantic, yes. this absolutely is not a post arguing against that. but it is absolutely, critically vital that the A does also stand for ally. the plausible deniability that ally being a part of the acronym offers closeted people is a necessity. it's a matter of safety.

[illuminatedferret]

Love, Not War

Revenge is a big theme in tgcf. We see quite a lot of people engage in it, largely to the detriment of others. Lang Ying, Jun Wu, Hua Cheng, Xie Lian himself, He Xuan, Lang Qianqiu- it's a whole list. While definitely there's a lot to learn from these characters and their actions, I realized something about Hua Cheng.

Specifically, I realized how much his motivations differ from the other Calamities. He Xuan and Jun Wu both want revenge upon those who've wronged them(and Jun Wu to perpetuate harm). Hua Cheng remains in this world not for revenge, but for love, and he's very serious about it. When Xie Lian asks after Hua Cheng’s ashes, he replies that they're in a safe location, and if that location is somehow destroyed anyway, he would no longer have a reason to live.

What he means is: if you are killed, I would rather die with you than have the chance to avenge your death. It's the logical conclusion of his state of being, but it's also very significant when compared to other characters in similar positions. Lang Ying and He Xuan both lose loved ones, and both prioritize revenge over returning to them. Hell, Lang Ying tries to trap the soul of his wife within him rather than leave this world with her. He Xuan, it seems, doesn't even know how to die. The only person we see come close to returning this sentiment is Xie Lian when his parents die, and it’s not fair to compare the two considering everything else Xie Lian was going through at the time.

The truth is that Hua Cheng’s appeal to Xie Lian(and most of us) is that his love for him is unconditional. It doesn't matter what he's done or will do, what station he holds, what he even has to offer, Hua Cheng will always choose Xie Lian. That means he'll choose him over revenge, too.

[thebookworm0001]

anyway hi stop fucking saying voting doesn’t matter because as a public school English teacher in Texas it absolutely fucking does

[7swordsmen]

no yeah miri's mom was NOT the ""villain"" and she definitely was not presented as such either.

with the smile spell miri mentioned earlier, and just overall despite the situation she was forced into, misaki clearly did her best with miri even with her conflicting emotions.

the only obviously "bad" choice shes made so far was sending miri, a 4 y/o all alone into the city but 💀 to some degree the thought of sending her to be with her dad is also. yeah. like shes not in a place where she can take care of miri properly, and even if miri seemed to be some sort of... bargaining chip?? miris dad has the resources to help miri more than her mom could

and kazuki isnt the ""good guy"" either nor was the situation presented as so black and white. both parties said things that they've internalized due to their own separate situations, and while kazuki was mostly projecting due to his own losses and experiences, itd be good if he manages to learn about some other worldviews.

but yeah tldr: neither misaki nor kazuki were villains, and they werent PRESENTED as such either. they just said whatever and you the viewer have to interpret it.

i am aware a lot of series often demonize women who dont want their children or are in similar situations etc. but thats not what happened here luckily

[br1ghtestlight]

no tina belcher isn't canonically autistic yes she is canonically autistic. u understand

[jacobglaser]

I bought the official spn advent calender for the jokes and my god, the stuff in it is hilariously bad. If I paid for it expecting it to be good I'd be so mad.

I've opened 6 days so far and we've had;

A 6 page 'notebook' big enough only for ants

A few pages of a miniature version of the beastiary book (that I already own)

4 gift label stickers

2 recipes from the spn cookbook (that I already own)

A pencil

A shitty badge

[cloverpurr]

wait wait wait about this warrior cats instagram confusing mothwing and tree thing

THIS is the novella book from which mothwing and tree's pictures are from

people are saying that the cat on the left is tree, while the cat on the right is mothwing

but the ultimate guide and the insta says the left is mothwing, while the right is tree.

but from this novella cover alone did we. like. know for sure that the left was tree and the right was mothwing? these novellas aren't released with single covers like the old novellas anymore right? so there's no standalone mothwing's secret cover with the portait on the right on it. does that make sense

point is what if the left portrait was always mothwing and the right was always tree. the only thing i can find that actually says the left portait is mothwing and the right one is tree is the fandom wiki, what if they're the ones who are wrong?

or am i stupid and was it for sure confirmed that the left portait is tree and the right portait is mothwing

[agueforts]

u know. i watched the seven when it first aired, and ofc it was fantastic, but it did not do a lot for me personally at the time. revisiting it now.... i will not lie. it is kinda doing something

[tenrose]

So you're telling me in the US they put their ballot votes in a box in the streets????

Learnt that because apparently they are being sent on fire which is exactly what I'd expect with that kind of system...