Because I feel like kids of color don’t hear it enough: domestic abuse is not a part of your culture.
A lot of us were raised with the idea that “its normal for wives/children to get hit! it helps them learn– only white folk don’t get beaten when they misbehave”. That’s not true, white people aren’t the only ones who deserve a safe and abuse free environment. Black and brown people can and do have loving families.
If you’re in a situation where you are enduring abuse and people use your culture to justify it, I want you to know that what they’re telling you are lies.
as someone who studies this: statistically speaking, child abuse (including “spanking”, because all forms of hitting children are abusive) is pretty much equally prevalent in households of all racial, ethnic, and cultural backgrounds. so yeah, don’t let people use the “culture” excuse on you, but also, don’t believe others are experiencing it less just because it’s less normalized in their culture to talk about it. we all gotta work together to fix this shit.
Grace and Rocky, giving a tour of the Hail Mary to fascinated Eridian scientists and diplomats.
Pointing at things and explaining what they are and how the ship works, lots of awed and appreciative noises are made.
Until one of the visiting Eridians points out a specific item. “And that?”
It’s a strange, circular thing, a xenonite disk mounted upright on some sort of pivot so it can spin freely, but around the edges it has… spokes? Pegs? Sticking out of it, that hit against a stiff flap that would slow down the spinning.
It is also separated into sections decorated with crude etchings of a human and an Eridian.
“Ah,” Grace says.
“That,” Rocky says.
“That’s. Um.” Grace seems somewhat embarrassed. “That’s the sacrifice wheel.”
The Eridian visitors clearly do not know what to make of that. “We think we misunderstood Savior Grace’s word,” they say, apparently hoping this is a vocabulary mix-up. “Explain (question, polite)?”
“Didn’t misunderstand,” says Rocky, sounding very sheepish. “That is sacrifice wheel.”
“So. While we were on our way to Erid, we might have gotten… anxious about each other’s well-being,” Grace says, which everyone is already very aware is a wild understatement. “And, well, you heard what happened at Tau Ceti, and after. There were a lot of unexpected dangers for the whole trip that required a lot of, at least, attempted self-sacrifice to solve. We ended up almost dying for each other several times. And we had an argument about what we’d do if another crisis like that came up. And we couldn't agree.”
“Grace argued that Grace already was unlikely to survive long-term on Erid, so he should be the one to do any potential deadly but necessary maneuvers to make sure I was able to bring taumoeba back,” Rocky says.
“Which made sense.”
“Did not make sense! Grace already sacrificed so much for me and for Erid, wouldn’t be fair to make you do it again—“ Rocky cuts himself off with a huff. They have obviously had this conversation before. “So sacrifice wheel was compromise.”
“Yeah,” Grace says. He spins it to demonstrate; it whirls around in a blur and a rattle of the flap hitting the pegs, then eventually slows down, and stops—pointing at the segment depicting a very bad but very clear image of an Eridian. “Rocky made the wheel, I spin the wheel, and whoever it lands on, that’s who gets to sacrifice themself to save the other and the other person does not get to argue. This way, we wouldn’t waste time debating who does the self-sacrifice and who survives, it’s just a plain fifty-fifty chance. Or, eighteen-eighteen chance in base six. But the point is it could be either of us and we would have to accept the outcome.”
Rocky started fidgeting while Grace was explaining. When Grace finishes, proud of the equitable solution they came up with to allow them to die for each other fairly, Rocky says, “Now that we are back and we don’t need sacrifice wheel anymore… I have confession to make. About the wheel.”
“What about the wheel?”
Rocky doesn’t answer. Grace frowns, first confused, then suspicious, and spins the wheel again.
It lands on Rocky again.
He spins the wheel again, and again, and again, and it lands on Rocky every single time.
“Rocky!”
“I weighted the wheel,” Rocky admits.
“Rocky the whole point was that it was equal, that was why we even made it—“
“Never was necessary so doesn’t matter anymore!”
“But you WOULD have!”
“And you never noticed because you were hungry and cranky and distracted and so would have done bad job on heroic self-sacrifice anyway!”
“I would not! I would have done fine!”
(The Eridian scientists and diplomats are still here watching this btw. Slowly dawning on them that 1) these two are extremely not normal about each other 2) if Erid ever does another space mission they NEED to send a therapist aboard because this is what happens when they don’t)
I hope kids watching The Sheep Detectives walk away from it learning not only about the dangers of willful ignorance and systemic bigotry but also that the true villains are the white South Africans
The Sheep Detectives was amazing, but I must say, if Benoit Blanc had been there he would’ve solved it in five minutes and taken the Winter Lamb home with him
expectation: haha silly fun times movie about sheep solving a murder, hijinks and shenanigans ensue
reality: what if you and you alone carried the most painful memories of your community? what if only you knew the true shape of reality? what if you were cast out for no crime but the accident of your birth? what kind of life can we truly live if we don't know death? what is the point of grief? why must we remember painful things? well, because that is how you keep the ones you love alive even once they're gone. if we were to forget all things that challenge or disturb us, we would never leave our small worlds. we must carry the burden of memory together. we must cross the road from the meadow and we must not forget.
the ‘sheep detectives’ trio of lily, mopple and sebastian possess 2 brain cells in total. with lily and mopple passing one between them in constant motion while sebastian hoards the second on that cliff, occasionally sharing it with the winter lamb
Saw The Sheep Detectives. Expected a cute, low-key murder mystery. A fun, silly romp with a great cast. A chill, family-friendly whodunnit playing off a familiar plot with the cute and silly twist of the titular sheep as amateur detectives trying solve their shepherd's murder.
To be fair, it was absolutely all of that.
It was also somehow so much more than all of that? So much better than it had any right to be with a premise that cutely, shamelessly silly? So much more painfully, poignantly honest in the way it chose to deal with death than I ever expected? And still also a delightfully fun and silly romp about sheep trying to solve a murder (and succeeding!) based on your average murder mystery genre tropes?
mopple deserved to confide with sebastian over painful memories that no one else could understand or relate too. sebastian deserved to hear from another sheep that pain could be overcome and happiness be found in spite of bad experiences
and lily deserved to have another friend who understood humans like she did, appreciated her kindness and spirit, and could geek out about murder mystery tropes with her
The core of her project was, therefore, the sheep rather than the murder, though the book couldn’t exist without both. “Taking them seriously as sheep was really important,” she told me, as was not imposing human morals onto their perspective. “It was quite important to me that they don't have [our] moral background to work with. They have values, but they're not moral values; they're more like practical values. I find that refreshing, because it takes away a lot of things we take for granted, and it helps me to look at things the way they are or the way they would appear to somebody who doesn't come with all that moral baggage.” Though, of course, she does recognize that a truly realistic novel about the consciousnesses of sheep would be “grass and nothing else.” Fiction writers are allowed some creative embellishment.
In our latest, @morgan-leigh interviewed Leonie Swann, the author of Three Bags Full (originally published in German as Glennkill), aka the source for the film The Sheep Detectives. If you enjoyed the movie this weekend, read (or listen to) this piece—and then read the book! 🐑
"Three Bags Full’s Faithful Flock: How a German novel about Irish sheep (detectives) inspired a legion of devotees around the world."
mopple shows love by telling comforting lies for his friends and making himself a shoulder to cry on even when the other sheep don’t even remember what they’re upset about. every so often, a little truth slips through and he has to scramble to cover it up. eventually, his lies fall apart and he has to admit to the isolation that acting this way has caused him. (“you’ve carried this alone all this time?” “yes.”)
sebastian shows love by making his friends confront uncomfortable truths and forces them to keep their memories of george. all the while claiming that he’s separate from the flock, not acting as a source of comfort at all. yet, every so often, this facade is chipped at and he reveals he’s much kinder and willing to give grace than first appears. then the scene with the dogs forces him to drop his pretences and admit to his attachment to lily and mopple (“why did you come back?” “you’re my flock.”)
equal opposites with lily in the middle impressing them with her smarts, while also learning Deeper Truths from both. you get what i’m saying here???
