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sorry I'm still reeling from that tweet thread like "trans men and nonbinary people are just collateral damage, trans women are the real targets" is really giving "bi+ people don't ACTUALLY experience unique bigotry for being bi, it's just misdirected homophobia" but like 8000% worse somehow

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a child came into the nature center and saw tadpoles for the first time and when i told him they're baby frogs he thought i was lying and i suddenly realized that if you're 3 and don't know that tadpoles become frogs it does sound pretty fake. this kid will not fall for made up shit online he is a born skeptic.

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Every protein bar is called something like "double chocolate indulgence caramel cookie dough delight crunch" and tastes like clay and sawdust

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IT FUCKIN YURI DAAAAAAAAAAAY

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im thinking abt sinners and The Scene: how Sammie played so beautifully that the house caught fire and showed the people inside, but he wasn't the center of it - there was so much movement in that scene!!! so much to SEE - no two people danced the same way - you're focusing on the spirits of the old and the new and how Together everyone looked even without four walls around them.

And then you have Remmick and his song. There's uniformity in the dancing!!! in the singing!!!! in the movements!!!!!!! Those same people who were dancing so freely and expressively!!!!! Now following remmick step after step!!!!!

Whiteness as vampirism!!! Leeching away individuality!!!! culture!!! freedom!!! ughhgghh this movie !!!!!¡!!! so good !!!!!¡!!!!!!!

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background actors in sinners, photographed by eli joshua adé, smpsp.

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There is something to be said about how Sinners isn't saying to lock the door on black culture and never let anyone else in. A big part of the scene of Sammie singng at the juke joint is the fact that there are other cultures involved. The chinese characters are accepted gladly and their culture is also shown in the process of looking back and forward.

In my opinion Sinners does point to the issue that white supremacy and a lot of white people who don't think they are racist like to iron over the culture they take in. Seperate it from the context and the people who created the culture until the heart of it is basically gone.

Remmick is a racist, but he also would have likely had a chance to interact with the culture in a normal way and connect with his own if he had just accepted that he wasn't the center of Sammie's music. The need to rip away Sammie's memories, talent, and culture and assimilate it into the hoard for his own gain without caring about what that culture means for the people it came from is the issue with Remmick. It is also the issue with a lot of people who want to view and interact with black culture, but get icked out when they actually have to be faced with the centuries of struggle that led to that genre of music, or dance, or hairstyle being created.

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SINNERS (2025) dir. Ryan Coogler

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Sinners (2025) dir. Ryan Coogler

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Oh my GOD saw Sinners again… everybody trying to take Sammie’s voice (Remmick wanting to take it and use it for himself, his father telling him to give his voice to God, even Smoke telling him to give up the blues for his own good). But in the end his voice belongs to HIM!! it’s HIS gift it’s HIS power and he holds onto it and builds a life for himself with his music!!! It’s is his connection to his past and his avenue to his future

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The Best of Us.

Stack, Smoke and Sammie Moore from Sinners (2025).

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the choctaw vampire hunters in sinners, photographed by eli joshua adé, smpsp.

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remmick and the vampires present a false dichotomy

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

theres a reason vultures are shown early on in this movie

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Something something vampires have no reflection so he can't even try to see his brother's face anymore when he looks into the mirror

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"There are legends of people born with the gift of making music so true, it can pierce the veil between life and death. Conjuring spirits from the past and the future." SINNERS (2025) dir. Ryan Coogler

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preacher boy

(EDIT: now on inprnt!)