#hopeful not hopeless

[elizabro]

please consider how you engage with aaron bushnell's death. you may react to it as you will, but it's crucial to remember that his death was specifically a call to action. it was not meant solely to shock but to draw attention to a vast moral hypocrisy: that to many, a soldier dying in a campaign backed by the U.S. government is noble, even if the soldier kills innocents to do so, even if the cause is morally bankrupt--but this? this is insanity. a man taking his own life, on his own terms, in an attempt to help others while hurting nobody else, is somehow less rational and more horrifying than the mass killing of civilians.

of course aaron's death was horrific. but as he said beforehand, it is realistically no more horrific than what's happening in gaza. if we can't stomach this, then why can we stomach children being bombed? thousands being starved? for all that self immolation is, it brings death in a matter of minutes. it is a fraction of the amount of pain, fear, and grief that people in gaza are experiencing. it's just that we are able to quantify it. and this tiny, quantifiable sliver of horror is still so unbelievably awful. how can anyone bear to think about anything else when this horror is happening a millionfold in palestine? this is the question aaron bushnell was asking. and he wanted you to face it, head-on, watching him burn to death.

I've been seeing people make fanart. minimalist graphics to sell on t-shirts. to commodify his death, to mythologize it not a day afterwards, is not only in poor taste but a hindrance to his message. the answer is not commodification, nor is it defeatism, nor is it rejoicing in his death. if you want to honor aaron's legacy, take action. channel your horror and your outrage into making a material change. this wasn't about him. this was about palestine. remember that it was always about palestine.

[fumifooms]

People should talk about Yaad and Thistle more. Weird granduncle that killed your dad in a petty impulsive punitive act, leaving you very scared of him as you live under his control for centuries. Imagine growing up hearing stories of the King’s brother, the kind, clever, collected and calm advisor and right hand man. But only knowing him by how warped he’s become, violent and erratic. He punishes you, too, robbing you of any agency by putting you inside of a doll. And then despite, he becomes catatonic and you’re left to take care of him in his brother’s body while he thinks you’re him. And then you see those slivers of that nice caring person you heard so much about in your childhood a millenium ago, and as he babbles about Delgal thinking he’s you, recalling memories and old habits, you wonder about how things must have used to be, before, and how they’ve changed irreparably. Today is melancholic again.

Yaad being like, Thistle’s sort of great-nephew who’s lived most of his life seeing him as being out of his mind and only a mirage of the noble attentive person he once was, now having to take care of him, someone who was an older familial figure to him… Seeing him gentle, soft and unhurried after all this time spent in an emotional anxious paranoid frenzy... Yaad and Thistle post-canon is so special

[claitea]

god sorry i Cannot get over az being. a hotel manager of all things. like can you imagine if in bw2 you didnt find n in the castle, you found him working at the casteliacone stand instead

[maihonhassan]

"My favorite Urdu word is shayad. Filled with hope and hopelessness in equal measure."

[timetravelsong]

𝐒𝐨 𝐠𝐨 𝐨𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐞𝐥𝐥 𝐦𝐞,

𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐦𝐮𝐜𝐡 𝐝𝐨𝐞𝐬 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐨𝐚𝐭 𝐡𝐮𝐫𝐭 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐬𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐛𝐞𝐠𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐨 𝐚 𝐆𝐨𝐝 𝐰𝐡𝐨 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐧?

excerpts from a book I’ll never write

[akuma-tenshi]

happy coa8 everyone

[thermodynamic-comedian]

there's something so weirdly sweet about the fishing aspect of cruelty squad to me. like sure, we never get a proper backstory for john, but he knows how to fish (and the names of different species of fish in the cruelty squad universe), and a tattered rain hat is "nostalgic" for him. it's pretty clear that he used to be a fisher, maybe even a fisherman's son, someone who grew up with this completely ordinary and grounded hobby that he still understands and enjoys as an adult, despite whatever mental breakdown he had apparently causing him to lose touch with most of his memories (personal interpretation).

it's so strangely comforting that in a game notorious for its absurdism and jarring graphics and incomprehensible lore, a game where you literally kill and become god, a game that's essentially a parody of late-stage capitalism, you can ignore your mission and go fishing instead. you can put on a tattered rain hat and go fishing. to me, it feels a lot like a reminder that even in the absolute batshit world we live in, people are still people, no matter how hard you try to strip them of their humanity (you can fish on any difficulty; john's ability to engage in his one and only hobby can't be taken away even when his divine light is severed, or even when he apparently loses bodily autonomy).

and it's not like that hobby is somehow pure or untouched by the horrible reality around him; you still find human bodies in the water, you still ultimately find the fishes you catch on the stock market. you can't escape capitalism, it infects everything, but you're allowed to find momentary comfort in something you can control. something that was born of you and your humanity alone.

[raynavan]

O h…

He always did seem to encourage us to keep going in PLA…

[gentleaffirmations]

How do you not feel like giving up with things get too hard

Sometimes I do feel like giving up. I sit with those feelings and I let them wash over me. I remind myself that these feelings won't last forever. I can withstand these painful feelings of uncertainty and grief. I let myself rest in the feeling of wanting to give up, and then I get up and keep going.

[thewordfortheday]

1 Corinthians 3:11

For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ.

The world around us is full of uncertainty. We all saw the destruction and devastation brought about by the pandemic. Even today we hear of wars and rumours of war. People are fearful and apprehensive.

We as followers of Jesus, know that these are bound to happen. Jesus has already warned us. We don't put our faith, trust and confidence in the things of the world, but in the Lord Jesus Christ. We stand firm on the promises of God. As Hebrews 10:23 urges, “Let us, hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for He who promised is faithful."

Jesus said in Matthew 24:13, “But the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.”

Maybe, today, you feel shaky because of the circumstances that are threatening to drown you. Remember, nothing can overpower you because you are standing on the Rock Jesus Christ and His promises. He will keep you strong to the end and present you blameless before the Father.

[rickybaby]

L: CH came up to you on the grid. What did he have to say before the race? D: He said he'd ordered me waffles, so he was just going to keep them warm for me 😁 No, he just wished me well and to keep my head down and not be discouraged. Obviously, I know how I feel but not everybody does. It’s a very different situation to McLaren. Especially 2022 I was running on very very little confidence. I was kinda confused with the car and didn't really understand it. I This isn’t that. We’re certainly not achieving what we thought we would be, but it’s not through being lost or losing confidence or anything [...] We're not gunna start letting the noise creep in. We're going to stay true to the course and it'll turn around.

[buckevantommy]

i've seen a lot of talk recently about the uncertainty of tommy returning for season 8 (including comparing him to buck's previous partners) and like. why are you doing that? how did you even come to that conclusion? it baffles me how little story and media comprehension some of you guys have.

everything they've done with the bucktommy storyline is setting them up to be longterm (or at the very least: together in season 8). to name a few:

tommy is the first partner buck can be himself with (not just the bi thing, but his personality and vulnerability too) and that's not something to be easily swept aside.

tommy has relationships with everyone in buck's life (the og!118 from his own history, and they made a conscious effort to give him a friendship of his own with eddie) which means he can be written into the plot independant from being buck's boyfriend.

gerrard. hen and chim have history with him but so does tommy (they brought them both back in the same season, it doesn't make sense to not include tommy in that storyline).

abc is not fox. abc made bi!buck happen whereas fox shut it down. (they wouldn't introduce such a significant relationship for a main character only to sweep him under the rug the following season; if they wanted to introduce bi!buck without a boyfriend they could have, but instead they chose to go with a meaningful relationship where the feelings are reciprocated).

the cast and crew love lou and he loves working on the 9-1-1 set and he cares about tommy and is committed to the bucktommy storyline (this is huge).

we might not get much of lou in season 8 (depending on plot and contract stuff) but we will get some of him because the narrative and the interviews from tim and the cast and the co-interview with lou and oliver tell us bucktommy is significant to buck and the show in general. even when tommy is not in an episode we'll still know buck is with him - like we know hen is with karen - and that's not nothing.

the pessimism spreading on tumblr and twitter and discord rn is unfounded imho. even when you take the shipper goggles off the evidence is clear that tommy will be back for season 8.

[thyhauntedmansion]

“Why am I the only one who remembers?”

…

[hel7l7]

Some days I do feel hopeful.

But how do I hold on to that. I lose it all so quickly.