If nothing else before this had locked in that this era of Doctor Who was going to be incredible – this episode was it.
No Moffat-isms that made the Doctor or the Companions the special center of attention, nothing. The Doctor didn’t interfere, didn’t give Rosa Parks the magical courage to be a hero for standing up for what she believed in, nothing. The Doctor and her companions were just there, involved but just background to the amazingly powerful thing that Rosa Parks herself did.
A lot of people were surprised this was done well. But the writer was Malorie Blackman, one of the best living black writers in Britain and quite possibly our greatest young adult author. She wrote the incredible Noughts and Crosses series and has built her career on sensitive and impactful depictions of race in children’s fiction.
I highly recommend her books. They can be enjoyed and appreciated at any age. Her writing is always to an impeccable standard.
This day 65 years ago Pakistani police murdered Bengali students who protested the idea that Urdu should be the whole language of their country.
Bangladesh is the only country that had to fight for their mother tongue, and I am so proud to call myself Bengali.
Joy Bangla 🇧🇩
Might be misunderstanding something here but thousands of Irish people have fought and still fight for their native language too
Once again we have a case of white people trying to overshadow the struggles faced by POC
So I read up on the history of Irish/Gaelic and that struggle is not remotely close to what Bengalis went through to speak our mother tongue.
First off Bengali roots back to BCE, whereas Gaelic roots back to AD, and while Indian Muslims began transitioning into speaking Urdu, Bengali Muslims stayed with their language. When the entire country of India was changing, we stuck to our roots.
Once Bengal was partitioned, Pakistan made Urdu the SOLE language of East and West Pakistan, effectively making all Bengalis illiterate. This made sure that Bengalis would be poor and uneducated and left to the control of Pakistan. Ireland recognizes Irish as its first official language and is also recognized as an official language in the U.K., I also read something about Irish being a required subject in schools?
Bangla was immediately taken out of school curriculums, off of money, out of government etc. where as Irish continued to be spoken to this day (thought it seems most Irish people stick to English anyway). Also in comparison English is more widely spoken while Irish is the first language of a small minority, whereas Bangla was and still is the first language of millions (currently ranked 7th in the most natively spoken language).
People fighting for their right to speak Bangla and keep their identity was the catalyst of the Bangladesh Liberation War which ended in the death of over 3 million people and with somewhere between 200,000-400,000 women raped not to mention how many Hindus were displaced and went to seek refuge in India.
It was because of our bloodshed and endurance that 21 Feb was named International Mother Language Day by UNESCO in 1999 because no other country suffered the way we have for our Bengali heritage. And 65 years later people still don’t know or care about our trials and tribulations and we still get overshadowed.
Bruce has set up a makeshift lab in Wakanda, while the world takes stock of their dead and Wakanda mourns for their king. Bruce isn’t doing anything important, but he needs to do something, so he studies Wakanda’s vibranium supply and attempts to keep Shuri busy.
Otherwise, the grief might just be too much for the both of them to bear.
Bruce also tries very hard not to think about Tony and what form of matter Tony may or may not be at this very moment. He’s only moderately successful.
It’s on the third day of the second week after half of the world has turned to ash that Thor brings Bruce a little green snake. Bruce is baffled, but he tried to be polite about it. Bruce is heartsick, though, so that makes everything a little harder.
Then Thor asks for Bruce to see if the snake is Loki, and it takes every bit of willpower Bruce Banner poses to not burst into tears. Thor is so strong and so keen to smile, he makes it so easy for everyone to forget that he has lost nearly everything.
Bruce pokes at the snake without any further complaints. When nothing happens, the grief on Thor’s face is unimaginable.
Bruce begins spending time with both Thor and Shuri, in a desperate attempt to combat his own grief by combatting theirs.
All the while, every second or third day, Thor brings Bruce a small green animal and asks Bruce to see if it his lost brother. Bruce checks every time, with care and precision, but the result is always negative. It’s awful for both of them, but Thor can’t seem to stop and Bruce doesn’t know how to make him.
This pattern holds for a few weeks, until Thor brings Bruce a beaten and battered lizard. It’d been burned somehow and it looked like one of its limbs had been badly broken. When Thor presents it to him, Bruce honestly isn’t sure if Thor had just brought the little thing to Bruce to see if it could be saved.
“Could you check?” Thor asks, the question quiet and hurt after so many weeks of negative results from Bruce’s prodding and poking.
“Of course,” Bruce says softly, adding his portion of the call and response.
He gingerly picks up the lizard, as the poor also looks like he’d been through the wringer, and gives him a quick once over. Bruce’d been right about the broken leg and the burns were pretty –
The lizard fucking turns into Loki. A damaged, burnt Loki who scuttles backward on a broken leg while spitting blood.
Thor bursts into tears. Bruce bursts out laughing. Everyone has their own way of processing grief and shock and grief turned into shock, apparently.
It’s later, when they’ve gotten Loki a little patched up, convinced Okoye not to kill Loki (”He tried to destroy the world!” she says – “He’s gotten better,” Bruce says), and Thor’s eyes were mostly dry, that Loki finally says through clenched, bloodied teeth:
“They’re in a pocket dimension.”
“Who?” Bruce whispers, stunned.
“Everyone. I told him he’d never be a god. He was just a warlord playing at being something powerful. He should’ve fucking listened.”
Sunshine and Shit Jokes 