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who else is feeling like a poor banished children of eve? who else is mourning and weeping atm ? just me? am i the only one @ the valley of tears right now?

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Rinko Kikuchi as Mako Mori and Charlie Hunnam as Raleigh Becket PACIFIC RIM 2013 | dir. Guillermo Del Toro

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Stop memorizing my attack patterns. That's fucked up. Who let you do that.

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I know European Starlings are not everybody’s favourite in America (for good reason, and I know it is not the bird’s fault), but can we for a moment sit down and admire their most beautiful plumage?

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On the Subject of Sinners and Christian Push Back

I have quite a few pet peeves, and one of them is when people go out of their way to feel uncomfortable and complain about it.

I'm a Christian woman. I absolutely LOVED Sinners. I've gone to see it twice now, and am fighting the urge not to go see it a third time for the sake of my wallet. I've gone with different people both times, most of whom are also Christian. I've recommended it in high regards to those who haven't seen it, yet (who, too, are Christian), in certainty that they would also find enjoyment in it. The one time I felt any type of wierdness watching the film was during the particularly spicy moments--and that's only because my parents were right next to me (watching cunnilingus with your parents is freakin awkward). Not only did I adore this film, but the transition from seeing it (again) Saturday night to arriving to Easter Service Sunday morning felt amazing. The celebration of Black music woven into the story made me feel wonderful walking into church and immediately seeing a choir full of booming Black voices. I almost teared up.

It's no secret that anytime a form of media (specifically Black media) gains traction, the "Demonic" claims aren't too far behind. Now I have a seperate post rambling about the full scope of my thoughts on the film coming, so I'll keep this to the point. This movie is deep, and inspires so much conversation. I believe there's a lot that Christian viewers can get out of watching it and discuss. However, people can't converse with brick walls. If you know that you have no interest in these introspections, if you know that the subject matters within a horror-genre vampire movie literally titled Sinners are going to offend you, then WHY are you spending time and money to see it?

I want this film to have all the support and success it can, but it makes no sense to engage with something you already have disdain for. Again, I highly encourage watching this movie, but no one is holding a gun to your head. Stop making yourself uncomfortable on purpose if all you're going to do is get upset about it and declare it "evil". God gave you free will.

As for those countering these complaints with "It's just fiction; it's not that deep", wait just a minute. Last I checked, one of the praises going around for this movie was for how spiritual it was. It may not be "demonic" or "evil", but it is most definitely deep. Let's not do this film a disservice by calling it surface level just to brush off people who are offended by it.

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There's a beautiful message in Sinners about following your passion.

It would have been very understandable if Sammie dropped that guitar and gave himself to the church after the trauma he experienced from Remmick. Remmick is not the only vampire or evil entity that would be pulled by his music. He's not the only one who would take advantage of him.

But the thing is this--Do you stop living the life you want just because there are awful people out there? And if so, is living a life you DON'T want worth it even if it's safer? Could you truly be happy?

One of many uncomfortable truths illustrated in this film is that living the life you want comes with consequences. You will run into awful people who will want to hurt you while smiling in your face. And you will have to accept that this kind of thing may happen and it may happen more than once. But giving up on that life you want might not be the best answer. Living under another's expectations (like the church) may offer peace, but peace is not always ideal and can become a prison itself if it's not really what you want.

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Like the movie is called SINNERS and the characters sin thoroughly throughout, and we are even warned at the very beginning of the movie by the Horror Movie Harbringer that Sammie's music will draw the devil to him. And horrible violence and destruction follows, and it has nothing to do with the characters sins and nothing to do with god or the devil. Racism and greed and cultural appropriation cause the violence in this movie. And the concept of god is not shown to be a help to the characters, the vampire is unharmed by the lords prayer, it's Sammie's guitar that saves him. It's the mojo bag around Smoke's neck that stops Stack's bite, not the archetypical vampire movie cross necklace. It's Annie's ancestral knowledge that arms them against the vampires. And in the end at the church Sammie's father tries to make him swear an oath that would bind him and his music in service to a colonizer's god, that would force him to let go of his ability to connect with his ancestors and descendants and to assimilate his gifts into the church. But in this movie Sammie isn't wrong to sing or sin or find freedom and joy in his music, in his culture and community, and so he leaves

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After seeing Sinners (2025) last night, I'm having a lot of thoughts about Remmick's accent. I knew he was Irish going in, and I kept expecting the facade of his Southern accent to be cast aside as a ruse and replaced with his real one. But it never is. The only time his Irish brogue really comes out is during his performance of "The Rocky Road to Dublin." And I've realized that choice serves as shorthand for Remmick's transformation from the oppressed into the oppressor.

"The Rocky Road to Dublin" is a 19th C folk song about the discrimination Irish people faced, which makes it a deeply ironic choice for Remmick to sing while surrounded and accompanied by a racially diverse crowd of Americans he's forcibly converted to vampirism. He's a Irishman, yes, but he's also a white man in the Jim Crow South, and his accent reflects who he is now. His literal feeding on Black and Chinese people is another part of his assimilation.

All the kudos to Ryan Coogler for giving cultural nuance and complexity to all his characters, including the villain. He could have just made Remmick an Evil, Racist, White Southerner (and this film has several of those!), but instead he recognizes that all the peoples of the American South came from somewhere, that we all have a heritage that lives on in us but does not absolve us of the choices we make.

In short, Coogler is not coming for the Irish in his representation of Remmick. He recognizes the history of oppression that led to so many Irish immigrating to America. But he is commenting on the way Irish-Americans historically bought a seat for themselves at the table of American power through exploitation of other races, notably Black people.

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"READ MY DNI" no. use your block button like an adult. i'm not scrolling through the many-paragraphs-long pinned posts of every blog i reblog something from. if you insist certain types of people aren't welcome in the notes of your posts then it's your responsibility to curate that. or choose a closed social media platform like facebook or instagram. or go and live in a barn away from humanity if you really don't like sharing the world with people who are different from you

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Lakes and graveyards are very similar in that if you detonate a large explosion inside either one a lot of dead bodies come to the surface.

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going wild thinking about the use of Rocky Road to Dublin in Sinners. It’s a really tight microcosm of a lot of the film’s themes just by itself. Credentials: I’m a retired Irish dancer, I went to worlds and the whole bit. My family is appalachian and I grew up on bluegrass

It’s played on a banjo, an instrument with origins in West Africa formally invented in the US by enslaved people (and then popularized in Irish music through Irish American immigrants, largely in the South and Appalachia). Even the instrument telegraphs an attempt at cultural exchange morphing into theft and exploitation, especially because the history of the banjo has been purposefully obscured by white people

It’s got a strong down beat, making it the musical opposite of the swung blues sound (emphasis on 1/3 as opposed to 2/4). The scene is clearly meant to evoke klan imagery, and giving it this marching feel ABSOLUTELY contributes

It’s in 9/8 meter (with some mixed—it’s a uniquely weird song), making it, traditionally, a slip jig. Historically, this is a light shoe dance for women only (he’s dancing hard shoe in the movie) meaning that Remmick’s attempt to reclaim his own culture has been botched, obscured, and lost as he’s been alienated from it and co-opted into the symbolic hive of American whiteness/cultural orphanage/cultural patricide.

The song itself is about a guy cutting a shillelagh (a walking stick/club with a folkloric purpose of warding off evil spirits) to protect himself on his journey to Dublin, but winding up using it against a few Englishmen mocking him for his Irish accent. It’s a parallel to exactly what Remmick was not able to do—protect himself from monsters, and protect himself from colonization. It also highlights that this number is being used to threaten violence against the leads

It’s such a clever combination of inverting swing/jazz sounds and showing ways Remmick is missing the point. Since he sold his soul for power, comfort, and conformity, he’s only able to access a shadow of his culture, while misunderstanding and misrepresenting major pieces of his own traditions. Even his attempts to culturally “share” through the banjo is plowed over by his use of it and Black bodies and voices for his own individual pleasure and as a threat of further violence. It’s such a smart pick

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I want to highlight that this is work by NOAA which is under fire by our current administration. The availability of this kind of data is not something we may have longterm is funding continues to be an issue here

y'all it's about to get really fucking humid and hot

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vegans make peace with honey

no shut up do it