thestorytellersdepartment - Tumblr blog

[thestorytellersdepartment]

Someone needs to recommend me some shows because my faves are either ending or going on a break this month.

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I kinda want to start watching Doctor Who now. The new cast seems so fun and the episodes look so unhinged, I love it.

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I've really loved how carefully the Under the Bridge team has drawn the parallels between Reena wanting so desperately to fit in and falling in with the CMC girls with her grandparents and parents' immigrant story and finding community with the Jehovas Witnesses. It breaks my heart too that we saw Reena writing a letter trying to take it all back! I'm hoping that by the end of the series we'll see Suman finding it in herself to find a connection with Reenas spirit. Her "I never understood Reena" was so heartfelt and broken. 😭😭😭

Yeah, I love how aware of their faults many characters are in this show. How flawed, human, and real they truly are. Also, they worked very close with the family, and are not only "adapting" Rebecca Godfrey's book, they're also taking many things from the book Reena's father wrote. Which I just think is really neat because there's always many sides to a story.

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I love how UTB is slowly turning me into a Lily Gladstone and Riley Keough fan. Like, I just really love their acting and chemistry. And yet, I still haven't watch Killers of the Flower Moon or Daisy Jones & The Six. I've nothing against those projects, it just doesn't feel like the right time to watch them yet. Also, the fact that I found them both through random A24 movies?! 😭 Like, what do you mean that was them?! 😭

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Thinking about Rebecca’s legs thrown over Cam’s shoulders while she’s deep inside of her. Rebecca whining and moaning that she’s all hers while she desperately clings to Cam’s toned back.

Someone write this! 👆

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Which was more heartwrenching?

A) Cam's voice cracking on, "Why are you doing this to me?"

Or

B) Rebecca calling Warren "Gabe" when she was on acid. "I just need a minute Gabe."

I think both. But for very different reasons. Both of their pains and struggles are valid in equal measure but for different reasons.

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Do you have a list of favorite new things we learned about the characters after the latest Under the Bridge episode?

Did we actually learn anything new, though? This is a serious question btw. I feel like many things were already implied/hinted at or made sense character/story wise. I think the thing that I would call new info (or surprising) was Warren's "I wasn't supposed to be born" story. Everything else just seemed like it just clicked/made sense. More of a, "Yeah, that tracks." than "Oh, wow. I didn't see that coming." You know what I mean? I know it's hard to explain, I just know things. Like, nothing really surprises me. It's weird, I know.

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Rebecca's, "Well you look cool as a civilian."

Vs.

Cam's, "You look pretty today."

*which compliment do you think affected the person it was aimed at more?

I think Becca was the more affected here. For many obvious reasons, but I wanna point this out: Cam's reaction was more knowing than flustered. She's aware the uniform makes people uncomfortable and that dressing as a civilian makes people more open towards her. People have probably told her (or at least implied/reacted) something similar to her. Meanwhile, there was technically nothing different about Becca's appearance in that moment than the previous times they have met before. So, it probably made her more flustered because it's not that she looked any different, it's because Cam felt more comfortable/confident in saying it. You know what I mean?

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Cam. Cam. Cam. *Sobbing. Shrieking. W

Shaking.* I just love her so much!!!!

We all ❤️ Cam Bentland!

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I know Cam's dad kinda implies that her past abused was domestic abused but her expression in that scene to me screams "Yeah, dad, that was also a race thing!" Thoughts?

hello! so I'm going to preface this by saying I am not indigenous, I am not from canada or the US, and I have not studied this topic. I'm going to base my answer on things lily discussed in interviews about cam, but if anyone has more in-depth knowledge of this subject and wants to weigh in, please do. and cw for brief discussions of domestic abuse and mentions of gabe's death.

lily pretty much confirmed that cam's adoption was part of the 'sixties scoop', a term which,

was coined by Patrick Johnston, author of the 1983 report Native Children and the Child Welfare System. It refers to the mass removal of Aboriginal children from their families into the child welfare system, in most cases without the consent of their families or bands. Professor Raven Sinclair recounts that Johnston told her that a B.C. social worker provided the phrase when she told him “…with tears in her eyes—that it was common practice in B.C. in the mid-sixties to ‘scoop’ from their mothers on reserves almost all newly born children. She was crying because she realized—20 years later—what a mistake that had been.”

many of the reasons kids were taken away from their homes were related to euro-centric understandings of child welfare, and to social issues within reservations that were hugely related to discriminatory state policies regarding indigenous communities. a disproportionate number of indigenous kids taken from their homes were placed in white families who denied their identity, and a disproportionate number of them suffered domestic abuse in the families they were adopted into. the links i shared will have more information and further reading sources on that.

we know that cam spent time at seven oaks (foster care), most likely before she was adopted by her current family. we don't know the exact timeline but we know becca was her friend while was at seven oaks, that cam knew gabe, and that gabe died when becca was 13. maybe cam was closer to gabe's age, which i'm guessing would be at most about 2 years older than becca -- that would make sense with becca's dad asking about them having a relationship. all that in mind, it is very likely that before roy bentland adopted cam, she spent time with other families, in and out of foster care. the file her dad saw might have been accumulating over several years. and i think her feelings are that even if her biological home was a real and true risk to her, the state throwing her into foster care and white adoption without giving her community the opportunity to protect her is a race thing.

what cam is trying to communicate is that the fact she, an indigenous child, has ended up where she is, and her ties to her home, her family, her community, were cut, is absolutely a race thing, the same way simply locking up manjit and putting reena in foster care without thought or proof was a race thing, the same way dusty's presence in seven oaks is a race thing. the state was not protecting her, it was not protecting reena, and it is not helping dusty. it is, in fact, doing the opposite. it is enabling the harm their communities face in various more overt or covert ways that are all entangled with each other.

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I really feel for Cam in this episode because she's not "white and straight" enough for her dad but she's also not "troubled and struggling WOC" enough for Dusty. Her micro "where do I belong" expressions are breaking my heart.

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I love this show because just this tiny little shot speaks volumes. Kudos to the director of this episode, honestly.

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Okay, now. I think we've gotten to the point where we have to ask ourselves this question:

Did Jo corrupted Kelly? Or did Kelly corrupted Jo? Or was it mutual?

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Under the Bridge (2024) - 1.03 Blood Oath

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Cam’s storyline was busted wide open this episode but so little was actually said. The realization that this probably isn’t the first time Cam’s dad has paraded her around for diversity points. She is supposed to love this man that views himself only as her savior. But at the end of the day she will never be white enough, she will never be straight enough, she will never be enough. And she just has to…live with it? She deserves none of what she is handed and yet she continues to try.

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I know they're not 100% innocent... but those girls better not touch Dusty and Warren.

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Y'know. I really wonder what I'm gonna do once this show ends. Rewatch it, maybe.