amaze amaze amaze

Grace going “oh!! But!” and teaching them about starfish, to their absolute delight

Hogwood (the man who sold the twins the mill) and the KKK are very obviously bad, they are outright malicious bigotry, they use the n-word and plan to lynch the moore's and their community, they are so blatantly racist and hateful it's unavoidably obvious

remmick and the vampires however say that they believe in equality, say that they want to create a community, and yet remmick's goal throught the movie is to both metaphorically and literally steal sammie's ability for his own goal of reconnecting with his irish ancestors, a white man wants to harm a young and upcoming black man and use talents for his own goals without giving any regard to said black man's autonomy or agency

when sammie sings 'I lied to you' in the juke joint and calls forth the spirits from the past and future, it's a blend of cultures; west african, east asian, native american, and african american song and dance blend together across time and space to tell the stories of blues; where it takes its inspiration from, the music genres it then inspired, the complex history of black american culture and its intersections with other peoples of colour in the USA

when remmick and the vampires kill and turn the people in the juke joint, and then perform rocky road to dublin, only remmick's irish culture is on display, there is no influence from the black and asian people he has forcibly assimilated into his song, it's juxtaposition with the earlier scene is blatant, remmick is more than happy to assimilate people of colour into his 'community' of 'equals', and yet its only whiteness that is celebrated, that is normative

remmick claims that he's doing people a favour by turning them immortal, conviently ignoring that he literally has to suck the life out of them to do so, trapping their spirits on earth, he claims that he's the good guy, that the KKK were gonna come and lynch everyone at the joint in the morning anyways, conviently ignoring that he's doing the exact same thing; a white man leading a mob to kill a bunch of black people

in the final confrontation with sammie remmick repeatedly dunks him into the river, a forceful baptism. both the celtic irish and enslaved west africans had their religions suppressed and destroyed by colonialsm, had christianity forced upon them by the british empire, and in that scene we see remmick repeating that cycle, using christianity to inflict harm, and sammie reclaiming christianity, despite all the complex emotions he has arround it, as many colonised peoples have and still do, when he recites the lord's prayer

remmick and the vampires are no less racist than hogwood and the KKK, are no less predatory or evil, they're just less blantant about their bigotry, they represent the system, the normalised white supremacy that is seeped into the very foundation of culture in america, the point isnt that remmick would call any of the black characters in the movie the n-word, i dont think he would, the point is that his exploitation and desacration and inserting-himself-into-when-he-wasn't-invited of the juke joint is a microcosm of what white people have done to black american arts and culture since ever since there have been black and white people in america, and even before that

5 times Dan and Phil click baited us

link to gaza soup kitchen

I’m currently trying to get a member of the british peerage to give me £50 because we’re distant cousins. I appreciate her.

she travels around for these videos and one day she went to Manchester and parked on a road called Collier Street.

Collier Street has (or had, at the time) another car park at the end of it - the SIP car park. SIP is a private company that runs these. the signage on Collier Street indicated that the payment machine there was where you’re supposed to pay, so Zoë and a fuckload of other people assumed that that was where you got the tickets. Zoë put it on her car and went about fucking with whoever she decided to confuse today

she gets back to her car, has a parking ticket, and is confused

again - she paid for a ticket. she wasn’t trying to get out of paying.

because she’d bought a ticket from the machine that the SIP car park instead of the council run machine that is actually on a different road, she’d been ticketed. and, rightly so, she contests it and the person at the council says that the rules are the rules and there’s clear signage

Zoë: the signage is misleading

council: we don’t believe it is

Zoë: well, I was misled

council: we believe the signage is adequate

Zoë, being Zoë, doesn’t agree with this. she pulls up literal years’ worth of data on the history of that sign, the parking on the road, and the number of people who got ticketed. very early on, she says she’s not actually bothered about her own ticket, but she’s upset that people are being caught out and sees that it’s a money-making scheme for the council. she speaks to parking wardens, who mostly seem to agree that the signage is misleading. she has data. she calls them back. same response.

Zoë, being an artist, makes her own sign. which she puts up below the official one. and then she waits to see how long it is before it’s taken down.

[note: there was a side quest sometime during this - it went on for months - where she put cones in the parking spaces. the council moved them onto the pavement/sidewalk. this made it inaccessible for wheelchair users, people with prams, other people who can’t just move around them, which is illegal. so she called the council repeatedly to complain about the cones and monitored them until they were moved. this took ages - we are talking weeks.]

Zoë’s sign gets taken down.

the signpost it was attached to, with the misleading sign, becomes a point of pilgrimage for British people who appreciate a good bit of humour with the intent of bullying the local government. it is COVERED in stickers.

her sign is taken down. the sign is not changed. more people get tickets.

[there was a second side quest, where Zoë discovers that the SIP car park - the private one - doesn’t have planning permission. she doesn’t let this slide.]

not happy with this, Zoë calls in to the local radio station. which has a Q&A with Andy Burnham. the Mayor of Manchester. she calls in and asks him about this. Andy Burnham says he’s taking her concern into consideration and will look into it, and get back to her if she calls in next week.

she’s not put through next week.

she contacts his office.

no response.

she calls in again and brings it up.

[all this is happening while she’s repeatedly ringing the council to ask them about it]

she has gone from “harmless tiktok prankster” to “calling out government incompetence”. with a MASSIVE platform.

eventually, after her being interviewed by the BBC, Manchester City Council puts up a sign saying where the actual car park for Collier Street is (there is a running bit where a council worker misheard her and thought she said “Collyhurst Street”, which to my knowledge does not exist. Zoë now exclusively refers to it as that, including in her radio appearance and on her phone calls)

she isn’t done. she now has a petition to force the government to change vague signage. the government said no, all their signage is adequate. she’s now fighting with them. in one of her most recent videos, she was on the phone with the House of Commons enquiry department trying to figure out how to contest it. she’s brilliant.

So the government just defunded PBS and NPR which is fucked. That being said, the public can cover the damage if we orginize and donate.

Only about $1.60 of tax dollars per US citizen per year are spent on the public broadcasting budget. NPR and PBS offer beong able to make small monthly donations, some being 7$ per month or lower if you want.

If you want to donate 1.60$ per month to your local station, you can multiply how much funding they get from you by 12. If you do their monthly donation of $7 per month, your donation can equal the tax dollars of 54 people spent on public broadcasting per year.

If you want to donate to your local station, look them up by your town here to make sure your local stations get helped specifically:

Why is Ruby magically able to cause snowfalls and why does she have 'a song in her heart' (or something along those lines)?

Why is Mrs Flood able to break the 4th wall?

Why is the Doctor able to hear non-diegetic music and what's going on with all the references with DW actually being a TV show?

Why was it important to mention that Belinda had a descendant, who the doctor met in 'Boom', that looked exactly like her if we're never going to explore the meaning of it again?

How is it possible that during Jodie Whittaker's era UNIT was gone, and just in a couple of years the organization is back with virtually unlimited funds and a whole avengers-tower right in the middle of London?

What happened with Rogue and how was he able to communicate with the doctor whilst still being trapped in superhell? (I reiterate that I don't like him as a character but I feel that this particular plot should have been resolved with Ncuti as the doctor as it would have been coherent with their story arcs)

Now that the doctor changed reality to bring back Poppy, what happened to the original Captain Poppy and the other space babies? Who were Poppy's original parents? And what happened to Bel's original life, wasn't it important as well? What about his housemates? How do we know that they weren't by accident erased from existence because the Doctor altered reality?

How tf is it possible that Timelords can't have children? The 10th doctor (who is written by RTD as well ffs) specifically mentioned a couple of times having children?!?! Make it make sense. 

The whole bigeneration concept. I understand the idea, but I feel a more in-depth explanation would have been nice.

I'm sure there are more plot-points I'm forgetting, so feel free to add more, but the point I'm trying to make is: why would you set up so much stuff, if all Disney+ is giving you are 8 episodes per series?

It's frustrating, because the premise of those ideas are very interesting but they would require more time and more episodes to explore those concepts with a satisfying conclusion. Not to mention that RTD2 has been filled with fan-service galore, way too many characters (old and new) and publicity stunts, especially in the finale.

And of course the main victims of what happened in the end are Ncuti and Varada, because they were brilliant in their roles, and they deserved better and they deserved more. I just hope that they're getting lots of love and compliments from the fans, at least as consolation.