Late to the game as I’ve kinda been kinda non-here for a minute but I scrolled through the Dot and Bubble tag, and thought I wanted to write this post into existence.
There's this part in Doctor Who Unleashed where RTD says this:
“What we can’t tell is how many people will have worked that out before the ending. Because they’ve seen white person after white person after white person, and television these days is very diverse. I wonder, will you be ten minutes into it, will you be fifteen, will you be twenty, before you start to think, everyone in this community is white. And if you don’t think that — why didn’t you? So, that’s gonna be interesting. I hope it’s one of those pieces of television you see, and always remember.”
And I'm like. Yeah. But the reason this works even as well as it does is largely thanks to the work of the previous showrunner with the previous creative team, which was notably the first era to have any writers of color (amongst other firsts in terms of inclusivity in directors, composer, actors). While Chibnall fumbled whenever he tried to write about race himself, he did have the self-awareness to have Black and South Asian writers writing the episodes where race is the focus (and a female writer for the episode where sexism is a focus; my point is, he seemed to know his shortcomings).
I wonder what the current creative team looks like? (not really, but I wasn't 100% sure for all of them)
To quote RTD:
“...before you start to think, everyone in this community is white.”
This is pretty non-self-aware, right? It's pretty “It is said, and I understand this, there was a history of racism with the original Toymaker, the Celestial Toymaker, who had ‘celestial,’ and I did not know this, but ‘celestial’ can mean of Chinese origin, but in a derogatory way,” right? (from The Giggle Unleashed) It's pretty “and I had problems with that, and a lot of us on the production team had problems with that: associating disability with evil,” right? (from Destination Skaro Unleashed)
—none of which are issues that should be overlooked, but think how much exponentially better they might’ve been addressed if he’d consulted with Chinese writers and wheelchair-using writers before going straight to giving the Toymaker weird fake accents and making Davros walk?
How many Black or non-white people do we think saw the Dot and Bubble script before it landed in Ncuti’s hands?
And this just keeps happening.
And like, from some of the shocked responses I've seen from white viewers to the ending of Dot and Bubble, maybe the episode's unsubtlety was needed? From the way RTD talks about it in Unleashed, the episode was written with a white audience in mind, Baby's First Microaggressions (where of course the microaggressions come from people who are pretty self-admittedly white supremacists). Ricky September, a more seemingly normal depiction of someone in the racist bubble of Finetime, seemed like an interesting element, up until the way he died.
The ending worked for me, because I do think the Doctor's reaction is true to how the Doctor would react. I just keep thinking of how much better the core themes could've been handled by someone with actual lived experience on the subject matter.
46 notes
·
View notes
"Star Wars isn't dead y'all are just haters"
"Disney saved Star Wars"
"It's the Woke Agenda that ruined Star Wars"
My mans, Disney single-handedly destroyed the Sequel Trilogy despite the Force Awakens being the gateway to something potentially fantastic; MCU'd the Mandalorian (a story which originally had nothing to do with the Prequel and OG Trilogy aside from sharing a universe and exploring a sect of a completely different culture/ideology); ego-boosted both Filoni and Favreau to the point where their OC Verse is not only canon but openly disregarding the Star Wars Universe Bible/Lore; gave us a snippet of what an extremely misunderstood indigenous culture is actually like (instead of portraying them as the savages one of the white leads mislabeled as animals that deserved to be slaughtered) only to then wipe out the tribe we got to know for no reason other than shock value thus alienating indigenous/poc viewers in the most disrespectful way possible; completely threw away the entire message of TCW (that being a clone does not make you incapable of being your own person who has their own thoughts, ideals, moral compass and overall identity) by making TBB (a show that does have it's strong points in set design, soundtrack orchestration and overall sound design, but is extremely weak on both characterization and storytelling because they either make the meaningful plot points stretch too thin or focus on the wrong character completely) their go to show marketed for kids instead of the actual kids programming that people shit on for being for, surprise, kids; constantly disregards valid critique from their consumers (to the point where infighting in the Fandom has gotten extremely ugly) that people either give up on interacting completely or simply vanish and take all their things with them (because no one seems to understand where these critiques come from, or how being unable to admit your special little show is imperfect is actually not a good thing for both you and others).
This isn't even accounting for the fact the Fandom seems to have doubled in it's overall toxicity since Disney took over.
Which is par for the course when a mega corporation takes hold of something that started out extremely political in nature anyway.
The Cash Cow machine needs feeding after all...
21 notes
·
View notes
went and cleaned a table and upon time for self reflection i may have been previously engaging in a bit of making up a guy to get mad at in my post about dnd. i once was a 5e player scared of branching out into other systems bc i feared their complexity & also i haven't read every sourcebook and i don't think you need to in order to run or play a good dnd game. i just find it frustrating when people take pride in these positions because there is so much to be gained by 1) having a deeper understanding of the rules of the game you play, be that dnd or anything else, and 2) playing systems besides dnd and learning what is even possible in tabletop
anyway. whom wants to hear a list of ttrpgs i recommend for branching out. this is a rhetorical question i will subject you to it whether you want to see it or not. unless i get bored or tired part way through making the list, in which case you won't see it.
9 notes
·
View notes
Hear me out. Brad and Janet, and Tom and Shiv— two failmarriages who may have more in common than you’d think:
inversion / parody of gender roles hetero romance
they are trying SOOOOOOO hard to be a normal married couple and it is just Not Working Out
very very hot sex symbol girlboss woman obsessed with another more powerful guy (Logan, Frank) and extremely unreliable but sometimes present sense of self-awareness and craves independence
dorky asshole malewife bottom trying desperately not to be a malewife as hard as he can for the entire media but yet the malewife genes overcome his efforts valiantly again and again and aGAIN
they cheat on each other a bunch of times (but they don't mean it guyssss 😩)
YES. they cheat on each other. BUT it's made known to the audience that they feel really bad abt it Imao
a premature WEIRD proposal done in a close-proximity-to-death situation yet they’re still like “okay 😊!” like would you rather I propose to you in the hospital while your dad is in intensive care from his brain hemorrhage OR in a graveyard after another person’s wedding while a funeral goes on right next to us featuring a suspiciously child-sized casket? romance central am I right
dedicated loving relationship struggling to survive in a crazy environment that is directly corrosive to dedicated loving relationships
horrible communication where the lack of communication in their marriage is kind of essential to the plot in and of itself
a threesome kinda happens in canon (more an orgy. this is abt rhps obviously) vs they almost had a threesome and then didnt... basically a threesome could've fixed all of them
"yes I cheated on you. Yes I still love you and would protect you as best I can in a traumatizing situation where a key extremely complex and kinda shitty person we both kinda love dies in front of us. We exist."
protection motif is a huge thing for both of them and in the end it's pretty clear that delusion is really what's actually been protecting them
most importantly: getting into marriage and being like "wow bitch!!! you are not who I thought you were"
they both end up in this really subjective completely destroyed irrevocably changed and entirely mortifyingly known position in their relationship like "who knows if we even love each other anymore"
"lol we both betrayed the other's trust beyond repair. does the love matter anymore lol Imao"
way too many people rightfully think there's no way to work their issues out but I am so delusional I don't give a shit <3
married couple that gets pitted against each other and have all these reasons to hate each other but you can tell that all of the love can’t be gone and like the evolution somehow emphasizes the love that was there before = PEAK ROMANCE. TO ME
22 notes
·
View notes
for the LONGEST time ive asked for chickens and finally got a trio! i baby-sat a lamb and their clutch (in an incubator) over the last week for my mom's friend and these guys hatched early, they were supposed to hatch tuesday but hatched sunday instead!
I'm gonna do the thing where you take a picture of them everyday to track growth and post them here. They're 4 days old today
haven't decided on names yet, but i do have a name theme in mind :3
62 notes
·
View notes