FYI iPhone users!

Oh... oh that's disgusting.

For emphasis - YOU HAVE TO TURN THIS OFF FOR EACH INDIVIDUAL APP

You can get to all these faster (marginally) by going to Settings > Siri > Apps.

do people who live in countries that don't have snow know about the snow silence? When you get a nice big dumping of fresh snow and you step outside into an infinitely harshly contrasted world and there's no sound because the snow absorbs it all? I believe it fits the traditional use of terrific both wonderful and incredible but also causing a great terror.

Hello again, I am Aseel from Gaza, I live in war, fear and destruction, we have been living for almost a year now but we do not know how long, we have been displaced from our home more than 11 times,

every time I was displaced to another place I prayed that this would be the last, but then came the idea of ​​​​forced exit to search for safety where there is no safety, we got very tired and our bodies were exhausted, we no longer had the energy to continue, we lived hunger, thirst, cold and all the difficult conditions that humans cannot imagine,

we did not imagine that a day would come when we would live all of this, I lost my family and my childhood home, even my friends are no longer there, I was left alone!! I am looking for salvation from death, I fear death and I dread it, the idea is terrifying to leave your dreams, ambitions and the life you planned for and go from this world, we do not deny death but we do not want to live it now,

I had a beautiful life, suddenly I do not know how I lost my life, we live in a tent that can only accommodate 3 people, made of nylon that no human can bear, just standing in it for more than two minutes during the day is enough to melt you, in addition to insects, diseases and lack of privacy, imagine all this!! Can you live??

In addition, my father had a stroke due to the loss, and my mother also needs care due to chronic diseases and the lack of treatment, and her condition is getting worse. I am the only one who takes care of them. I really fear loss and I do not want to lose, as I lost a large part of my family, my home, my work, and my entire previous life.

Things here are more difficult than you imagined, reality is painful

We wake up every day to the smell of death, I have been surrounded by tanks and helicopters more than 4 times, each time I do not know how to survive? It seems that my death has not come yet

Please help me save my life and get out of here, life is impossible

Your donation will save my life, it is the only way, hand in hand we can achieve the goal please

carlos' eyes in the meeting room........ carlos' eyes at the hospital..... at the IC room..... his guts are boiling with hot rage!!! this very stubborn hope. it's in the clench of his jaw since the funeral. the lump in his throat that he swallows back every time because that's how the gut-wrenching vestige of murder that hasn't received its justice yet feels like."i see it now. the eyes.." because that's the glimpse of the resolute unswerving gabriel in him that echos 'if there are tears to weep we do it when the time comes, not before'. you grief but you don't get defeated when there is still work to do in order to rest in that grief. and GODDD carlos is so righteously resolved about getting there. i want him so so bad to solve the case. finally bring that retribution and avenge his family and himself. he's been in the waxing and waning throes for too long he only deserves the purgation and finality of it more than anything!!!!!

because no way all of this relentless endeavour and sharp stubborn wit would culminate to anything but cracking it. even storytelling wise that would be disheartening not to bring it to its desired ends. because imagine. all this time carlos was so right about the rangers from the start. then he looped in. was kept so close under their wing. and then he now realises that he wasn't really truly '''stuck''' but he was trapped and misled instead and it's all tumbling down now over their heads and he's seeing through the cracks. finally the darkness makes sense and he can move in action through the pinnacle and into the resolution!!!

I hope you don't mind me adding your tags to my reblog @lonestardust because I think they're important and I do think this is a take I have not really seen in all the various discussions and discourse. I love the conflict, I love the angst, I don't love the way that it can sometimes feel as if what Carlos is going through is being dismissed in fandom discussions with a handwave of "his feelings are valid" but then a lack of engaging with what his feelings actually are and what this all means to him.

Especially if our speculation is correct and that Ranger Bridges is actually the one at fault for all this, because then it will turn out that Carlos was right last season when he wondered if people would care more about finding justice for Gabriel if he wasn't a brown man. The Rangers have seemingly just pawned Gabriel's case off on his son, a brand new Ranger with very little experience in this kind of work, and they have kept vital information from him as Bridges admitted in the last episode. Last season Carlos's suspicions of racism were invalidated, but this season they might just be confirmed, and there is something that feels deeply unjust about fans acting as if this potential restorative justice is unimportant because it's been a year and TK is tired.

The idea that both their perspectives are valid is undermined when Carlos's perspective isn't properly grappled with, and this is an inextricable part of that perspective. I know people don't like to talk about race. But race is wrapped up in this whether we like it or not and denying that results in an incomplete analysis of this story arc.

Fandoms and Marginalized Communities

Before I say anything, I want to make it known that everything I say, I am saying as Muslim WOC. I am also saying it as someone with a best friend who is the reason I got into Lone Star to begin with. This best friend is a gay, Jewish man who is also a recovering addict. One of the first things he said to me about the show was that it felt like TK Strand was written especially for him. However, my friend (who was in the fandom since the beginning) left a while back because he finally decided he was sick of feeling unsafe in the fandom. This was a feeling he had since the beginning that had gotten progressively worse.

As disappointing as it has been since s4 to see the way people turned on Carlos, I do appreciate how many people are calling it out. Even though I don't come from the same background as Carlos, I do know what it is like to come from a culture that pushes you into a heteronormative role and so I can empathize with Carlos on his reasoning for marrying Iris and then keeping it a secret even if I wish he had told TK sooner. But then of course he felt like he couldn't because when you have spent your whole life feeling like you could be rejected for revealing something about yourself, it's extremely hard to move beyond it.

That said, I do think it is important as a fandom to talk about reactions we have to characters and why we need to check our own biases. I'm not saying that people have to agree and love every single thing that Carlos does but we can and should give grace to him and consider why he is doing something. It is deeply problematic to assume that he is going to be a bad, neglectful husband the way people were prior to 5X05. Same with how people reacted towards him in s4. You can be upset about a character's decisions while also being compassionate about why they are behaving that way. To go "well they suck and are bad" and interpret every single thing they do with the worst-faith interpretation is deeply problematic when discussing a character of color.

I have been having conversations with the friend I mentioned before about all this stuff and one thing that he said to me that has stuck with me is how one big reason why he left the fandom was because he kept seeing people bring up the ableism TK has gotten since the start of the show in conversations about Carlos and racism and to him it felt deeply insulting because it felt like those people were just using ableism as a way to deflect from the conversation about Carlos and not because they actually care about the issue. Especially since so many of them are the same ones that never had anything to say about the ableism in the past and even indulged in it before s4 when they turned on Carlos. @paperstorm and I have also talked about this and how it's so frustrating that when a conversation is being had about racism, people who have never cared about ableism before will bring it up as a weapon. I do feel like it is extremely important to have conversations about ableism in the fandom because just like racism, misogyny and homophobia, it has been an issue in every fandom I have ever been a part of but bringing it up in the context of a conversation about racism towards Carlos is not the right time and only serves to diminish the seriousness of ableism as an issue. It is not a weapon to be used to deflect and silence people who are hurt by how Carlos has been treated since s4.

That said, I do want to acknowledge the frustration and hurt that I know a lot of people are feeling when it seems like conversations about Carlos are being had in a way that conversations about TK have never really been had. There are people who have talked about TK and ableism but those conversations have been on a pretty small scale. I get the hurt because I feel it too seeing big blogs talking about Carlos and racism and even unintentionally making it seem as though TK has always been favored by the fandom because he is white. I know that it can be hurtful to see people say that Carlos is only getting hate because he is no longer perfect for TK as though TK wasn't the one on the receiving end of hate since 1x02. It is important to acknowledge that Carlos was put on a pedestal right up until s4 and defense of him was done at the expense of TK. When 3x13 aired, people were outright accusing TK of cheating with Cooper and just generally hating on him because they felt he made Carlos sad by excluding him. This was actually deeply triggering for my friend because he is in recovery himself. Let me tell you, it was painful for me to see how much it hurt him seeing the way TK was called selfish and all kind of other things because it is something he has to live with on a daily basis in his own life. There have been so many times since the show first started that people have said things about how Carlos deserves better and how TK just doesn't love Carlos as much as Carlos loves him. How TK gets all the care and attention and he never does anything for Carlos. How TK gets special treatment from the fandom. All of these things and so much more. And then in s4, when these same people turned on Carlos and started using TK as a weapon, it became too much for my friend and he left the fandom. I know he is not the only one who did so for the same reason.

I just wish that people would understand that conversations about TK and Carlos can both be had and we can even talk about how bigotry towards different groups are ultimately the same in the way they are perpetuated. That is to say, it's not always they obvious ways of using slurs but in the way of microaggressions. I also think it is important when defending Carlos to not ignore the hate TK has gotten. I'm not saying we have to bring it up in detail in every conversation but simply just not making it seem like TK gets favored. There was a double standard against TK right from 1x02 and it's not fair to ignore that. Actually, even the way people weaponize TK is a big microaggression. To act like somehow he has no agency in his own marriage and that he is going to fall apart if he doesn't have Carlos' attention is a big microaggression because it leans into this idea of addicts being selfish and weak. The TK that exists in the show is the opposite of both these things and it is just as offensive to speak about him as though he is those things as it is to make Carlos out to be a terrible, neglectful husband.

Overall, we all need to be more careful about how we speak and write about characters. And even if our only intention for wanting a character to make a mistake is to maximize angst, we need to be careful about how we project our desire for angst. Wanting Carlos to mess up because the angst potential of it is exciting is still a microaggression both because it villainizes him unfairly and because it takes agency away from TK. The same applies the other way round too. Wanting TK to mess up for the sake of angst (as has happened) is also a microaggression because it villainizes him unfairly and it takes agency away from Carlos. When we talk about characters that represent marginalized communities of any kind, we need to take these things into consideration. We also need to listen to others when these issues are called out. If your response to someone pointing out something that is offensive is anger and deflection, that is on you. As someone who has been in this fandom since the beginning and has seen people leave because they feel unsafe for any reason, I don't want that to happen to anyone else. We can have fun and escape real life in fandom while also calling things out. We can also call out one issues without ignoring or minimizing others. I know it can be a hard thing to balance sometimes but the best thing for us to do when it comes to situations like this is to be open-minded and willing to learn and grow ourselves rather than lashing out at others for speaking up about something that hurts them.

Looks like there will be a week's break between episodes 5x08 and 5x09.

On Monday November 25th Fox is airing a repeat of 5x01 "Both Sides, Now" and the fall finale will air on December 2nd with 5x09

hey, all! please go check out this fundraising auction for Trans Lifeline (description of organization and auction below). with over 120 awesome items ranging across different mediums it's both a great way to support a worthy cause, and an easy way to start your holiday shopping.

If you're in the market for something cozy, you can check out my Cozy Handknit Hat to start with :)

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About Fundraising for Trans Lifeline

This auction is being run by author Leigh Harlen to raise money for Trans Lifeline

Trans Lifeline is run by and for trans people. Trans Lifeline is a grassroots hotline and microgrants 501(c)(3) non-profit organization offering direct emotional and financial support to trans people in crisis – for the trans community, by the trans community.

About Our Auction

We're raising money to benefit Trans Lifeline. With all of the Everything, trans people need a safe place to call for emotional support, resources, and information. Trans Lifeline is run by and for trans people. Their work centers on peer support and harm reduction and, importantly, does not involve the police in mental health crises. We need survival resources more than ever right now and we all need each other more than ever. So help keep us here and fighting.

Reblog to add that this auction goes through November 18th (this Monday!) at 6 pm PST. And you're in the mood for some instant gratification, there are some very cute earrings and bookmarks in the Buy It Now category :)

DOECHII via Instagram (2024)

Do you play daily NY Times games like Wordle, Connections, Spelling Bee, or Strands? The NYT Tech Guild workers who make those games possible are currently ON STRIKE and asking you to not cross the digital picket line.

Spread the word! For other ways to help, you can also contribute to their strike fund here.

I told my boyfriend, who plays these!

Show me love, show me happiness I can’t do this on my own

911: Lone Star | S5E1 -> Judd + his readers

I think that as a culture we’ve gotten way too comfortable pretending like celebrities are our friends. They’re not. That musician you like who is “so relatable” is not your friend. That actor on your favorite show is not your friend. You don’t know them and some of you need to learn really fast not to take fandom into someone else’s personal life. Learn to appreciate your favorite celebrity’s art while keeping in mind that they’re allowed to exist in this world without performing for you all the time.

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