#"Bookish Broads"

[604to647]

Husband Material

3.1K / Detective Tim Rockford x fem!reader

Summary: You come home drunk after a fun night out and Tim takes care of you.

This one shot is based on that Tiktok trend where girls refer to their boyfriends as their “husband” to see what their reaction will be 🤭🤭

Warnings: 18+ Content (MDNI pls) but it’s all fluff!  Maybe Tim gets a little handsy when he helps reader undress 🤷🏻‍♀️ (she’s into it). Drunk reader, consumption of Chinese food. Established relationship, petnames (Shutterbug, gorgeous, baby), soft!Tim. Reader wears a dress and heels (but they hurt her feet).

A/N: After writing Marine Attraction, I couldn’t shake the Tim brainrot so I decided to start a series of non-linear fluffy one-shots for Detective Rockford and his Shutterbug – the series will be called The Rockford Portfolio (… you know, like The Rockford Files but ‘Portfolio’ because reader takes photos 😁😁)

Masterlist

Photography aesthetic dividers by @saradika-graphics 😍

Tim pushes his reading glasses up his nose as his settles in under the fluffy duvet cover, two of your matching pillows propped up comfortably behind his back, ready to dive into his book.  You’re not home yet, but Tim doesn’t mind waiting up.  Since the two of you exchanged keys six month ago, he’s probably spent more time at your place than his own – he prefers the warmth of your apartment, with the soft décor and personal touches that remind him so much of you to the cold, sparse feel of his own place.  He had originally worried that you might mind that most days he comes straight here after his long day at the precinct, but you hadn’t minded one bit. 

You didn’t mind making room in your closet for his sharp, if slightly monochromatic suits among your more colourful wardrobe.  You didn’t even mind the gun lock box that sits on the top shelf of that same closet; a safe place for Tim’s service firearm where it remains for you, out of sight, out of mind.  You certainly didn’t mind the permanent home his gun holster had found on your bed post – within arm’s reach should the mood strike you to see it frame your boyfriend’s broad shoulders.  And if the little pile of police paperwork that lives on a corner of your dining room table or any of the other little ways you’ve made room for him in your place didn’t convince him, you would tease that you’d never dare keep him from reading his way through your Agatha Christie collection.

It tickles you to no end that your big bad police detective boyfriend spends all day solving mysteries, only to choose to spend his free time reading books about detectives solving mysteries.  When you shared your amusement with Tim, he had winked at you, tapped his finger against his temple and recited, “If the little grey cells are not exercised, they grow the rust.”  So delighted at Tim quoting your favourite Christie hero you had immediately attacked his face with your lips, planting breathy butterfly kisses over every inch of his handsome face, the book he was reading consequently knocked to the ground and forgotten for the rest of the evening in lieu of decidedly less bookish activities.

He’s right in the middle of a Hercule Poirot soliloquy when he hears the front door open and then your loud, breathy giggle as you bump into the foyer table; shortly after, your keys jingle when dropped in the key bowl, clinking with his own that he had placed in the same bowl several hours earlier.  Tim listens to you struggle a bit with kicking off your shoes, realizing you must finally be free of your work heels when you let out an exaggerated sigh of relief as your tired feet touch the cool hardwood.  He emerges from the bedroom just in time to see you wobblily padding towards the kitchen and grins to himself - you’re drunk.  Tim calls your name softly and when you see your handsome boyfriend smiling at you, delicious and all at home in your apartment, wearing only a wifebeater and his boxers, your eyes open wide – you were on a way to get a snack, but he’s a snack. 

“Timmy!!!!!” you launch yourself in those strong, muscular arms that you know will feel so good around your tired body; Tim catches you easily and envelopes you in his welcoming embrace, his grin only getting wider – you only call him ‘Timmy’ when you get tipsy.  You've been so excited to go out with some old work colleagues that didn’t work at your firm anymore, finally able to arrange a get-together that worked with everyone’s busy schedules.  Evidently you had a great time tonight – Tim’s glad, he pulls you in for a soft, tender hello kiss before steering you over to the kitchen where you were undoubtedly headed to get something to eat.  Sitting you down at the breakfast counter, he fetches you a fresh glass of water and two preventative Advils, and encourages you to tell him all about your evening while he heats up a plate in the microwave.

“What’s that?  You made me food?” you exclaim, giddy.

Tim chuckles, “Nothing fancy like that, Shutterbug.  I ate dinner at the precinct and brought home my Chinese takeout leftovers.  Just plated it so I could heat it up quickly for you when you got home – figured you’d want an après bar snack.”

He’s so sweet.  And thoughtful.  And hot, you smile dopily as you thank him.

“You know, gorgeous, I could have come picked you up,” Tim looks over at you from the open microwave door.

“You’re so sweet, baby!  I know you would have, but you’ve been working so hard on the Pie case – I knew you would already be working late, and I knew we would be late too with all the picture taking.  I didn’t want you to get home and then have to go out again.  It was easy enough to share a cab.  Oh!  That reminds me – I gotta check in with the group chat.”

Your fingers are still flying over your phone keyboard as Tim places a plate of steaming hot Chinese food in front of you – you smile gratefully up at him.

Tonight’s night out had been double duty for you – in addition to seeing some friends that you haven’t seen in forever, a local food blog that features your photos regularly had put out a call for cocktail photos, so your group had gone out with the mission of trying as many different mixed drinks as possible. 

As he always does after you go out and shoot photos, Tim sits next to you and listens to you as you swipe through your camera roll and happily chirp about the pictures you took: the subjects, lens choices, angles and lighting options.  He does his best to concentrate on the pretty pictures on your screen but can’t help stealing glances at your sweet face, alight with enthusiasm and joy.

Finally putting your phone down, you start to dig into your cooled down food as you catch Tim up on the rest of your night, tipsily chatting non-stop in between bites of delicious, greasy food:

“Ok remember when I told you about Vicky’s deadbeat boyfriend who she basically carried through her internship?  He apparently tried applying for a job at her new boyfriend’s restaurant??!”

“Guess what they had on the menu, baby??  A flight of spareribs – isn’t that such a cute idea?  I thought, ohhh Tim would love this, he can never choose between crispy and bbq. Ha!”

“And she ended up getting two dogs from the shelter!  Do you ever thing about getting a dog?  I kind of wish we had a dog but we’re both so busy…”

“… should have made him clean the toilets, is what I said.”

“Ooo!  Dumplings!”

“They had that Chablis we liked so much at that wine bar in New York!  I didn’t get any because we were only getting cocktails for my photos.  But no one ever has Chablis – we need to go back!”

“So then you’ll never guess what she said: I would rather eat a lightbulb.”

Your unrestrained laughter rings throughout the kitchen, eyes twinkling in mirth, thoroughly amused by you and your friends’ antics.  You’re leaning back in your chair, your feet resting in Tim’s lap as he rubs your sore feet, the very picture of happiness that Tim imagines whenever the stress and realities of his work threaten to envelope him and he needs a little light to guide him forward.

With amazement, Tim watches as you gracefully manipulate your chopsticks and pick up cube after cube of salt and pepper fried tofu and pop them in your mouth, your elegant movements belying your state of inebriation, “Sounds like you had a great time tonight, Shutterbug.”

“Oh we did!  I miss those girls so much.  It’s hard for us to find a time to all get together but when we do it’s always soooo much fun!  We just pick up like we used to when we were all juniors at the firm, it was perfect… well except for those two guys that couldn’t take a hint.  Yeesh.”

“What guys?” Tim looks up, eyes darkening, his big, firm hands stop their caressing of your arches.

You wave your chopsticks wildly in the air, as if to dismiss his concern, “Just a couple of guys at the bar that kept sending us drinks.  We kept sending them back.”  You wiggle your feet in Tim’s grip and he catches on – immediately starting to massage them again.

“Did they give you any trouble?”

“Not really.  Too laughable to be trouble – they came over before dessert was brought out to ask why we didn’t accept their drinks?  I mean?? We told them that we were drinking for work, like my photo thing, not for fun.”

“And they got the message?”

“I mean, it took a while, but yes – they kept trying dumb lines like, Work hard, play hard!” you scrunch up your face at the ridiculous memory, “I finally had to tell them that my husband’s a cop in order for them to leave us alone!”

Husband.  Tim wills himself to keep his expression neutral, as if you hadn’t said something that piqued his interest and sent his heart racing.  Husband.

“Oh yeah?  What did they have to say to that?”

“Ugh!  One of them tried to convince me that he’d be a better husband than 'some meter maid,'” you roll your eyes as you shove black bean chicken chow mein into your mouth, “Timmy, did you splurge for extra crispy noodles?!” Your delight fills Tim with pride – he doesn’t know how you can tell after the sauce practically drowns the noodles, but you always can.

He nods, entertained by your cheery chatter, “You know, everyone has to do a rotation in Parking Enforcement – it’s a legitimate part of training.  So, what did you say?”

It takes you a beat to answer, so tickled by the image of your hulking Tim in a little cap and vest writing parking tickets, “I quoted Clueless of course: As if.  My husband is the biggest, baddest detective in the LAPD.  He’s the smartest investigator on the squad and has cleared more cases than anyone else in the precinct.   And he’s a ferocious guard dog who would rip apart any one who would dare make a woman feel uncomfortable.”

“You told them all that, Shutterbug?” Tim’s half proud and half shy at your praise, and still unable to get over that you’re calling him your husband in public.  It’s making him unspeakably happy. 

You nod vigorously, eyes wide and innocent, as if you couldn’t imagine a world in which Detective Tim Rockford and his accomplishments aren’t being praised to the sky at every given opportunity.  “I also told them that my husband is the sweetest and kindest person I’ve ever met.  And that even though he has hardened criminals scared shitless, he only ever makes me feel loved and supported, 100% appreciated and taken care of.  I love my husband!”  You look so happy you could cry, and Tim can’t help but feel his entire chest swell at how you described him to those two bozo strangers - that this is how you see him, what he means to you.  He loves you so much.

He tells you so as he kisses the top of your head, taking your empty plate to the sink and fetching another glass of water before wrapping his arm tightly around your waist and leading you to the bathroom.

From under his chin, you look up and coo, “And he’s hot too, you know?”

“Hmmmm?” Tim smiles down indulgently to find your cute, drunk face grinning at him mischievously.

“My husband.  He’s so fucking hot.  I want to climb him like a tree and sink my teeth into all his hard muscles and mark him up so everyone knows he’s mine.  Oh my god!”  You step in front of Tim, startling him with your sudden movement, the two you continuing to make your way through the bedroom.  Under Tim’s watchful eye, you walk backwards as you babble eagerly, trying desperately to make him understand, “You don’t even know how handsome he is?!?  He has the perfect nose and the deepest brown eyes.  His lips are so soft, perfect for kissing.  He is SUCH a good kisser.  OH!!! His facial hair looks sooooo good… I wonder what he would look like with a full beard.  Probably just as fucking hot as he does now.  My husband’s face is DEVASTATING!” You sigh dramatically.

Now starting to get embarrassed at your compliments, Tim turns you around gently and marches forward.  Once in the bathroom, you stop abruptly so that Tim bumps into you – giggling, you wiggle your butt into his crotch, wordlessly asking for help you don’t actually need to undress.

Tim disrobes you swiftly – wanting to help you get to bed as soon as possible, but makes sure to kiss a gentle path along the skin he reveals as he unzips the dress he watched you put on for work this morning; after he helps you step out of your dress, he dots kisses down the back of your thighs and calves that leave you shivering in pleasure.  Left in just your matching pastel floral lingerie set, you brush you teeth and start your night time skin care while Tim watches you fondly from his seat on the edge of the tub.  No matter the circumstances, you’ll never go to bed without washing your face and putting on some of the elixirs and potions that overrun your bathroom counter – Tim’s convinced they must work though - you’re radiant, stunning; if he didn’t often find himself distracted by the soft curves of your enticing body, he would never look away from your beautiful face.

“Did you know your husband has the best wife?”

You look over at him and giggle into the face towel you’re using to dry your cleansed skin, “Oh yeah?  Tell me about your wife, Detective Rockford.”

As you start to apply your creams and moisturizers, Tim comes up behind you, gently skimming his fingers up and down your bare sides, leaving little goosebumps in their wake, “My wife is gorgeous.  Prettiest woman I’ve ever met, inside and out.  She’s smart, kind, and hilarious, and I think the most considerate person on this planet.  Did you know when I first met her, she volunteered to wait and be the last to be interviewed by a grumpy detective, so that school trips and families with kids could go first?”

Your eyes crinkle at the memory of when you met Tim at the aquarium nearly a year and a half ago, “How do you know your wife wasn’t just angling to be interviewed by the hot detective?”

Tim points a finger at himself comically, arching his eyebrow at the you in the mirror reflection, Me?  Do you mean me – I was the hot detective?

You nod heartily, Of course you.

“Well, looks like my wife had my number from the start.  She’s smart like that.  Her brain is the sexiest part of her you know?  And that’s saying something because everything about her is sexy,” Tim starts kissing your neck.  His hands trail up to your breasts and he softly gropes your curves over the lacy fabric before reaching one hand between your bodies and undoes your bra clasp, his other hand ready to help you drag the bra down your arms, exposing your bare chest to the detective's lustful gaze.  Nuzzling into your ear, he whispers, “My wife is so fucking hot,” as his fondles your breasts in his big, meaty hands – rolling your nipples between his rough fingers then lightly tugging before releasing them, causing your tits to jiggle. 

You turn in Tim’s arms, your lips immediately meeting his, mouth open with an unspoken invitation he eagerly accepts.  Tim licks into your mouth hungrily and you match each stroke of his tongue with a brush of yours, every nip of his teeth with an equally playful nibble.  You sigh into Tim’s mouth as his lips press to yours over and over, mapping your soft cushiony lips and sucking them swollen to mark you as his.  He hardly allows you to take a breath, and you’re not sure anymore if your dizziness is from tonight’s alcohol, or the way Tim’s lips slot so perfectly over yours, stealing all your air.  You love it - air is nothing when you have Tim.  Moaning softly so the sound fills his mouth, you hear Tim whisper huskily, “Arms up, Shutterbug.”

“Anything you say, Detective,” you shimmy your half naked body playfully in Tim’s arms and raise your arms over your head as requested, and for a second, you can’t help but gaze adoringly at Tim’s devilishly handsome face before your vision is obstructed.

“Hey!  What th-?”  When Tim’s grinning face comes back into view, he lowers your arms to your sides and you look down at your chest.  You realize that Tim has slipped one of his oversized band t-shirts over your head to wear for sleeping.  You give him an exaggerated pout and a silly whine before pressing your now t-shirt clad body to his, your final drunk attempt at seduction.

Tim dispenses a soft kiss to your lips, nose, then forehead, “Not tonight, gorgeous.  You’re drunk.  You don’t need sex, you need water.”  He points to the glass of water he brought from the kitchen and leaves to place the drink on your bedside table so that you can finish getting ready for bed. 

Snuggling under the covers after taking three big gulps of water from your glass at Tim’s insistence, you sleepily arch you butt against Tim’s bulge, giving it a half-hearted shake, stopping only when he gives you a pinch on the bum, murmuring, “Tomorrow, Shutterbug.”  You grin at the promise and yawn, “Goodnight, Timmy,” before finally succumbing to your alcohol fueled exhaustion and passing out.

Tim wonders if you’ll remember calling him your husband tomorrow.  He wonders if you meant to say it or if it just slipped out.  He wonders what it could mean that you said it at all.  He wonders if you somehow know about the ring box that’s hidden in a pair of old sport socks he never uses at the back of his dresser drawer in the bedroom of a house that he’s hardly at anymore. 

Tim tightens his arms around you - he wonders a lot of things, but the one thing he never wonders about is how he feels about you.  Pressing one last soft kiss to your shoulder, Tim breathes in your soft scent – a mixture of perfume, lotion, home, and whispers, “Good night, Mrs. Rockford.”

[inapat17]

Text-screen relationships 4/4: Godard and Faulkner

I'm interested in the relationship, in a broad sense, between text and image. This article explores the relationship between literature and cinema through the works of Jean-Luc Godard and William Faulkner. It proposes a different vision from the traditional perspectives of adaptation and cases of influence or confluence. Rather than directly comparing written narrative and filmic narrative, or applying the techniques of one to the other, this article examines how their encounter produces a new form of expression: cinema as the transformation and rewriting of literature, and vice versa. The idea is to see writing not just as a process internal to a text or a film, but as the result of their interaction.

Jean-Luc Godard has always had a special relationship with literature. For a long time, he dreamt of being a writer, and his films are full of people reading (from Pierrot le fou [Pierrot the Fool], which opens with Jean-Paul Belmondo immersed in Elie Faure's History of Art, to the bookish argument in Une femme est une femme [A Woman Is a Woman], via the filmmaker himself reading The Idiot in Soigne ta droite [Keep Your Right Up], to the sublime reading of The Oval Portait in Vivre sa vie [My Life to live]). He has also ventured into the realm of adaptation, obviously with a twist (as in the case of Le Mépris [Contempt], Pierrot le fou and King Lear).

Last but not least, Jean-Luc Godard's work is riddled with quotations: Pierrot le fou is entirely under the aegis of Arthur Rimbaud, Alphaville is part of the world of Jorges Luis Borges but also summons Henri Bergson, Paul Éluard and Louis-Ferdinand Céline. And, of course, the films at the end of his career encapsulate all the figures of his aesthetic: Histoire(s) du cinéma and Le Livre d'images, for example, are packed with literary quotations and references, so many that it is impossible to list them here.

But there is one author whose presence is even more pervasive than the others, and who haunts all of JLG's work: William Faulkner.

From Jean-Luc Godard's first feature film to his last, Faulkner's work seems to hover like a shadow, more or less palpable, over the work of the famous Franco-Swiss filmmaker.

In À bout de souffle (Breathless), Jean-Luc Godard reworks the story of the Wild Palms: criminal lovers on the run. He also quotes its most emblematic phrase: “between grief and nothing”, to confront his character (Michel Poiccard) with the same dilemma as Harry Wilbourne in Faulkner's novel: total sacrifice in a quest for the absolute, and the choice between suffering (grief) and death (nothing). In this case, it is both a thematic and narrative reprise, but one that is integrated into the dialogue of the film itself: the characters are aware that they are part of the literary reference, which makes them literally second-degree characters.

Dans Grandeur et décadence d'un petit commerce de cinéma [The Rise and Fall of a Small Film Company], Godard quotes Sepulture South: Gaslight, a short story by Faulkner, inspired by a cemetery photograph by Walker Evans. It describes the impressions and feelings experienced by a young boy at his grandfather's funeral (and that's maybe the most beautiful things thah have never been written):

 « And three or four times a year I would come back, I would not know why, alone to look at them, not just at Grandfather and Grandmother but at all of them looming among the lush green of summer and the regal blaze of fall and the rain and ruin of winter before spring would bloom again, stained now, a little darkened by time and weather and endurance but still serene, impervious, remote, gazing at nothing, not like sentinels, not defending the living from the dead by means of their vast ton-measured weight and mass, but rather the dead from the living ; shielding instead the vacant and dissolving bones, the harmless and defenseless dust, from the anguish and grief and inhumanity of mankind ».

–      « Sepulture South : Gaslight » [1954], in Uncollected Stories [1979], Random House, coll. « Vintage Books », 1997, p. 455.

In the film, which tells the story of a search for an actor for a film whose producer has been murdered, Faulkner's phrase plays an essential role, as it is broken up to be spoken by unemployed people marching in front of a camera. This sequence can be divided into seven movements corresponding to the seven repetitions of the phrase in different orders, the sequence of words initially making no sense, until gradually the order of the original phrase is restored.

The actors' search thus essentially corresponds to the search for multiple speech, emanating from different bodies, which can convey meaning, rediscover meaning, which requires work figuratively through repetition, “stammering”, but also the movement of bodies in the filmic space. This movement is, moreover, opposed to the immobilitý of those whom the phrase describes, but Godard having removed its context and its beginning, the ‘all of them’ no longer refers to Faulkner's statues. Yet the final image of the sequence, in which we finally hear the last words of the sentence spoken in the correct order, is a photograph of James Dean, frozen forever in his splendour. We can guess that the dead we are trying to protect are, as the rest of the film makes clear, the great past figures of cinema history.

Godard thus displaces the Faulknerian theme: it is no longer the South that forms a gigantic sepulchre, but cinematic art. At the same time, through his deconstruction of the sentence, he reveals its very nature: its very reduced punctuation, its strange lyricism, the difficultý we experience in grasping its rhythm on first reading. Above all, the effects of loop and repetition added by the filmmaker indicate the vocation of the writer's style: to capture the time of myth in the fleeing movement of the present.

Another Faulkner phrase, this time from Requiem for a Nun, runs through Godard's work: "The past is never dead. It's not even past".

It appears in several films: in episode 3a of Histoire(s) du cinéma, in JLG/JLG and Hélas pour moi. The three films use the phrase in three different ways: fragmenting it through caesura in Histoire(s) to underline the division of the French between resistance fighters and collaborators (the reprise of the phrase is superimposed on a sound extract of Pétain's voice), inverting it through editing in JLG/JLG to reveal another dimension (the present is only repetition) and appropriating it for a touching confession (he now lives as much in the past as in the present), and repeating it tirelessly in Hélas pour moi to unfold a crystalline conception of the image (each version of a story, each image of an event constitutes the virtual face of another narrative and another image, there is no dichotomy between past and present, but a single image of time whose different faces are captured).

Repetition, loop, inversion: the figures of speech reworked by the film end up redefining not only Faulkner's style, but perhaps also his literary ambition, the very essence of his writing: the impossible quest in the order of language and text for a crystalline representation of time. If Faulknerian time has been defined as a time of return, of repetition, of circularity, without this being sufficient to define the relationship that the writer himself presupposes between the time of the sentence and that of the narrative, it is perhaps because we had to wait for a filmmaker, envisaging his writing as the object of his own work, to reveal its unfulfilled ambition : If, by its very nature, the cinematographic image cannot say that was constitutes a dimension of is, as Faulkner wrote over and over again, it can, on the other hand, literally fulfil this idea in its twofold present and virtual face. Writing is not enough to agglutinate time: it needs an image in which to reflect.

[rebelliousmagazine]

Get a Good Read on Women's History Month with These 3 Titles

Get a Good Read on Women's History Month with These 3 Titles #bookreview via @bookwormsez

Fifty percent of the population. Give or take, that’s how many women there are in the world, women who work, raise families, care for others, paint and create and dance. So this month – Women’s History Month – why not celebrate those who wrote, explored, and made change? You know how much you love a really good book, so look for this one: “Bookish Broads” by Lauren Marino, illustrations by…

[nataliquee]

Shut your mouth and open your mind to different perspectives

[libraryinthecountry]

★ Do you collect any bookish art? I do! I have several framed prints around our house featuring characters I love or quotes from favorite books. Today I am happy to help reveal an exclusive character illustration from @leiastoneauthor and @julie.hall.author’s upcoming YA fantasy, Shadow Angel! This chibi artwork by @hazelnutchann features the character Tatum. 😍 Shadow Angel releases January 21st, but you can read the description below, and visit shadowangelseries.com to preorder! Description: Yesterday I was a teenager waiting tables in Manhattan, and today, monsters exist and I can see them.

Overnight I’m thrown into the realm of the Watchers, a society of earthbound angels split into two factions: The Shades, whose powerful dark magic is given to them by the fallen angels, and the Lumens, whose abilities are bestowed on them by the archangels of Avalon.

They’re on opposite sides of a brutal war, and I only have a few days to pick which side I want to join. I’m ready to choose when the Shades force my hand by cursing someone I love.

The only hope I have of saving them rests on the broad shoulders of the prickliest Shade alive, Gage Alston. He’s cold, arrogant, and quite possibly the most attractive guy I’ve ever laid eyes on.

Do I trust him? No.
Do I need him? Yes.
Do I want to kiss him? Maybe.

Perhaps I’ll choose darkness after all. ★ HASHTAGS // #ShadowAngelSeries #ShadowAngel #ShadowAngelIllustrationReveal #ShadowAngelCharacterArt #Tatum #LeiaStone #JulieHall #fantasybooks #yafantasy #homelibrary #bookshelf #shelfie #librarylife #bookstagram #bookseverywhere #booknerd #bookishlife #bookaholic #bookhoarder #bookworm #booklover #bookstagrammer #booklove #bookobsessed #bookaddict #fantasyromance #booksbooksbooks #bookstack #bookcart https://www.instagram.com/p/CXtxpYJPM5b/?utm_medium=tumblr

[caltropspress]

FEEDBACK LOOP #7: Curly Castro’s “Weapon 13X” featuring Breeze Brewin

There was a very old man, an old white man out in the crowd, and he started screaming and crying like a baby and he kept crying and he said, “God damn, God damn, what is this God damn country coming to that the niggers have got guns, the niggers are armed and the police can’t even arrest them!” He kept crying and somebody led him away through the crowd.

—Robert F. Williams, Negroes with Guns (1962)

Gun flash beats the child’s head in, maniac teeth dance in a bloody grin blue lies, badge confessions, yng dude dead just beyond his mama’s arms

—Amiri Baraka, “Stop Killer Cops”

Police said Cleaver and Hutton were holed up at 1218 28th Street with two 9 mm automatic pistols, two AR-15 and one military-type M-14 automatic rifle, and a large supply of ammunition, some armor-piercing.

—Berkeley Barb, Volume 6, Number 15, Issue 139

1.

“Weapon 13X” is a diptych. Two verses; one pivot—or volta, for you bookworms. Curly Castro is first with a séance that summons the mysteries of Clarence 13X and Weapon X. These nullified variables and Roman numerals come together in an elixir mix so potent that it would make Aes Rock choke on the amalgam. Castro opens the fission gate and discharges two-hundred forty thousand mega-therms on the city of brotherly love, the city of bombs from above onto a 6221 Osage Avenue row house. Shameek just got bust in his arm, leg, leg, arm, head. The Black man is God personified, and Logan is regenerative. Adamantium claws. Mathematical jaws. Science dropped and experiments performed. Spark this like metal does when dragged across concrete.

2.  “Harriet would grab her balls, / This my gun, and this my rifle.”

Harriet Tubman gets cast by Kubrick for Full Metal Jacket, recites the Rifleman’s Creed, but it was actually a pistol she kept buried within the folds of her calico. She sallied forth seeing visions from the overseer’s heave of a weight—made her skull snap. Don’t sleep. “When the caliber’s inside you,” you can’t necessarily count on “the muzzle smoke revival.”

3.

Quelle Chris provides production, lest we forget his 2019 Guns album with its Dada-bullet, double-barreled barrage album art. The title track armed to the teeth: “Ain’t no cracking that code, / Ain’t no safety on locks, / Might as well get you one, / Procrastinating will get you popped.” The machine gun funk outs finks and COINTELPRO cooperators, conspirators, dispiriters. Here, Castro’s got those same turncoats and sucker MCs in his sights, so to speak.

4.  [The oppressor] teaches the Negro that he has no worth-while past, that his race has done nothing significant since the beginning of time, and that there is no evidence that he will ever achieve anything great. (Carter Godwin Woodson, The Mis-Education of the Negro, 1933)

Castro makes a promise, provoked by those who came before him, those who brandished firearms in the faces of their enemies:

We never will disarm: these are the lies that you were sold, When your glory tripped up, you trade your weapons in for gold. With Yakub in the schools, trade your dreams, knowledge folds. Found the tome, Mis-Education Negroes…

Dr. Yakub sloshing liquids in the lab—Bunsen burners explode and the lab leak is viral whiteness. Tricknology replaces Biology. Castro is looking back while moving forward. “Doomed to repeat it”-type forewarnings. He knows the ledge and also wants his people to.

5.

aim     get your sights & its sound in abstract or journal movements to a peace settlement

dude shot my man

dead,          precious lord blow off theres no willy in th blues theres no you.

—from Tom Weatherly’s Maumau American Cantos (1970)

Castro is a “gunhand, cybernetic with spray cans, / Basquiat, baklava, Mau Mau.” That’s likely an intentional malaprop—surely his militant stance calls for a balaclava. Even still, Castro doesn’t stutter. He will still sh-sh-shift his voice on you—the dynamics of his delivery raise stakes and get guttural, scraping against sewer plates. He’s potent, even if Basquiat’s pistol appears flaccid with its hand-scrawled linework. In another piece, Basquiat starts the decolonization process at the point of a safari helmet. The image detonates.  

6.  Free country? Man, I should fuck you up for sayin’ that stupid shit alone.

“This film is a call to racial violence!” a film critic shouted at Roger Ebert after a screening of Do the Right Thing. She worried Bed-Stuy would set fire to theaters, but Lee’s 1989 film wasn’t The Rite of Spring in Paris in 1913. An amerikan psychotic turn to theater violence would be postponed until Aurora in 2012, and it would be white violence, which would come as a shock to none who have tracked the trajectory of white violence. Displacement is white violence, too. White violence is a sine qua non for gentrification. And so Castro allies himself with “Buggin’ Out battle brownstone houses, some Bird fans, / While Mookie turns the radio up and launched the trashcan.”

7.  “We are the weapons.”

Of late, Castro has consistently been proving you’re out your depth, with verses so allusive they suggest a strong “Erick Sermon and Parrish Smith, nobody blink. / They don’t now who the fuck that is” vibe. So what, though? At this point, Castro’s a vet, an elder. The youngins need to catch up or cash out. Get KRS-One bookish, kiddies, or be left behind. Be the weapon or never prosper. Create your own mythos: “Omega built a mother by the sun and Cyclops sent / a blurred Baraka poem capable to raise the dead. / Yet instead I use the sword...”—with Wu-Tang pronunciation of the w in “sword,” of course. History moves backwards and forwards at the same time. Language is lost and recovered. The poem is “blurred” because it’s been duplicated on a mimeograph—a machine that involves a “drum.” The words are ink-smudged. Baraka’s former partner, Diane di Prima, shouted, “"Power to the people's mimeo machines!” Accuse and attack, Baraka sloganeered. We’re talking about agency—by hand-crank, handgun, or mic check.

8.

Castro creates imagery like Emory Douglas did with paint: painfully bold and saturated with color like blood soaks clothes. Baraka called Douglas’s art a combo of “expressionist agitprop and homeboy familiarity,” which applies to what Castro does on the track. I quote Mao who called literature and art “part of the whole proletarian revolutionary cause,” and Mao quotes Lenin who called lit and art the “cogs and wheels in the whole revolutionary machine.” And Baraka also said Douglas’s work:

functioned as if you were in the middle of a rumble and somebody tossed you a machine pistol. It armed your mind and demeanor. Ruthlessly funny, but at the same time functional as the .45 slugs pouring out of that weapon.

The Panthers were trapped and tear-gassed in a West Oakland basement. Eldridge Cleaver told Bobby to go out naked—unarmed as the day he was born not quite eighteen years earlier—but he emerged from the burning house fully dressed, with dignity, and he was searchlighted and shotshotshotshotshotshotshot dead.

Castro needs Brewin to make the cypher complete—a two-man killarmy using loud words in quiet wars, no silencer.

9.  “Before blurting out, try analysis, brother.”

Breeze’s Yo, listen… at the start of his verse is comparable to Sir Thomas Wyatt intoning Whoso list to hunt… to begin his 16th-century sonnet. The amalgam here is less Five Percenter plus clandestine government experimentation and more a deconstruction of the both violent and sexualized language of braggadocio. “Anything you say isn’t played like Miranda Rights,” and so we’re already with our hands behind our backs, silenced by an pig officer’s gag order. The competition doesn’t get played; they play themselves.

Sir Thomas Wyatt sets it off like so:

Whoso list to hunt, I know where is an hind, But as for me, hélas, I may no more. The vain travail hath wearied me so sore, I am of them that farthest cometh behind. Yet may I by no means my wearied mind Draw from the deer, but as she fleeth afore Fainting I follow.

Breeze has wanted to stay pleasant to the ears—you know, like Lauryn Hill phone sexing—so this isn’t new territory but rather a well-worn path. Wyatt’s wearied and “so sore” by “the hunt,” the pursuit of his love interest, even though he knows “where is an hind.” Still, “as she fleeth afore / Fainting [he] follows.” He can’t help himself.

Love is lost within violent pursuit. Breeze speaks of a “plan to strike” and “zero in” on a “target,” his quarry. He and Castro are “talking about broads often, no doubt, / We broad and burly as hell, / Brag about the hunt, you was jukin’ a girly gazelle.” Breeze’s assault is dizzying, a salvo from all angles: “Hit ’em with some counter clay rebuttals that’s subtle but still befuddle if dude slow.”

10.  “It’s nothin’, I gotcha, and that’s word to Super Lover Cee.”

Super Lover Cee and Casanova Rud’s 1988 single “Girls I Got ’Em Locked” articulates the carceral embrace of “locking” a girl down, which—consequently—requires violence to enforce: “Don’t ever touch a girl owned by me or I’ll ruin ya’, / Slap you with my mic simultaneously as I’m doin’ ya.” The girl is commodified, and Super Lover Cee takes a proprietary attitude toward the relationship. If you overstep, you’ll be ruined, that is, you’ll fall. And while you’re prostrate, you’ll be slapped with the phallic mic simultaneously. Is the Super Lover doin’ her or you, though? What’s truly getting him off? That hypermasculine posturing skews homoerotic. Breeze Brewin laughs at you for subscribing to the nonsense: “Dag, if that was what you believe then your world be a hell.”

11.

Liberal discourse suggests policing your impulses. Put down the gun—don’t touch it. “Touchy subjects,” like racism (apparently), get the “We need to have a conversation” treatment. Look, don’t touch. Don’t touch the exhibit of stolen artifacts—those Benin bronzes in the British Museum. Beneath the topic of orignoo gunn clapping, Curly Castro’s track is about the x’s and o’s of eros as well. Many gestures meant to protect women are merely some other man staking his claim, adorning her with “diamonds in letters plain,” as Wyatt writes of the collar around the deer’s “fair neck.” Wyatt’s sonnet warns against overstepping (or even half-stepping). The collar reads Noli me tangere (touch me not)—she belongs to someone else. It’s a bad touch example. Like his fellow Indelible J-Treds, Breeze Brewin is the living circle-circle-dot-dot: nobody can touch him.

12.

Let’s bring it back to Little Bobby Hutton. When Eldridge Cleaver told him to leave the ambushed basement naked, he was thinking of Bobby’s safety. He thought the extreme measure of appearing on the street without clothes would be enough to convince the pigs he wasn’t armed. Cleaver was naïve to think so. Bobby Hutton was right to emerge clothed. In doing so, he rejected the indignity of the auction block, the lynching, the mutilation and spreading of souvenir flesh. The searchlight made Bobby Hutton the subject of a spectacle, yes, but he refused to consent to the psychosexual desires of white supremacy. He refused the castration ritual. Little Bobby Hutton, in effect, threw down a challenge to the cops: Use your imagination once again. Try to think of a few situations where your own weapon might be used against you…used against you…used against you.

Images:

Emory Douglas, The Black Panther, Vol. IV, No. 78, 1971 (detail) | Weapon X (detail, issue unknown) | Emory Douglas, Rat Subterranean News (1970) | Harriet Tubman with gun sketch | Anti-Mau Mau British propaganda poster | Newspaper headline from Negroes with Guns | Jean-Michel Basquiat, Untitled (date unknown) | Jean-Michel Basquiat, Native Carrying Some Guns, Bibles, and Amorites on Safari (1982) | Screenshot from Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing (1989) | Two images from the Berkeley Barb, Volume 6, Number 15, Issue 139 (1968) | Emory Douglas, The Black Panther (miscellaneous poster) | Medieval depiction of the hunt (unknown) | Image detail from the Berkeley Barb, Volume 6, Number 15, Issue 139 (1968)

[jbird-the-manwich]

is it just me or are digital tarot decks not very accurate

of the admittedly few I’ve played with, I generally get cards in positions I could argue for as being relatively near to ballpark, and thus could get something off the cards themselves, but I find the descriptions are always just fail. They’re either too bookish and dense and broad or too short and narrow and either way it makes it very difficult to read the cards cohesively, I find, unless you ignore the text entirely, or use it sheerly for memorization of rote meanings. 

That said, I do find physical cards to be more accurate and less trouble. 

TW literally just boring shit below the cut you’ve been warned

(I’m working on a digital grimoire program in C here-and-there with some bells-and-whistles applets to handle things like basic divination, and that’s going to be using a random generation algorithm seeded in part with planetary kamea in attempt to get more contextually useful readings out of a computer, but I haven’t got any “decks” bracketed on yet, as the algorithm would work for any sort of random-chance sortilege, and I keep getting new stuff on the to-do-list. I’m hoping after the new year I can devote more time to that. But yeah there’s definitely something lost in most computerized divination, and I’m still fucking around trying to see if it isn’t something that could be helped with more thoroughly dedicated “occult” programming.)

 There’s  an old, old, freeware/homebrew rune divination program for the Amiga, that’s been ported to a few other platforms, and I don’t have a link to the rom handy, but I’ve gotten way better readings off of that little program than I ever have off a phone. I’ve also gotten fairly accurate stichomancy readings through the GNU Fortune unix program, with it’s default database detached and a new one dropped in, compiled from quotes I selected for the purpose, but that’s been many years ago.

[morlock-holmes]

@flakmaniak

Timmy Turner and Finn aren’t from ensemble casts though, right? I mean, there are recurring other characters, but they’re The Main Character, with one or two nonhuman sidekicks along for the ride.

Well, yes, but that’s kind of my point, actually.

Maybe I’ll just try writing out that essay...

Early on in the run of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, series creator Lauren Faust wrote out a short article for Ms. Magazine laying out her goals and intentions for the show. I think it’s a very interesting article, so much that I kind of want to quote the whole thing, but one thing Faust said that really stuck with me was,

There are lots of different ways to be a girl. You can be sweet and shy, or bold and physical. You can be silly and friendly, or reserved and studious. You can be strong and hard working, or artistic and beautiful.

I think the show is quite successful at that, depicting many different kinds of people, er, pastel ponies, with different strengths, weaknesses, and interests without denigrating any of them.

Faust also talks about being mostly completely alienated by the girls shows of her youth, which is interesting to me because I was extremely into at least a couple of girls shows. As a little boy, I was obsessed with the My Little Pony cartoon, and then, later, Sailor Moon.

Around the late 70s and early 80s, kids shows in the US kind of bifurcated, with shows becoming very explicitly “for girls” and “for boys”. This was especially true during the 80s, and this division wasn’t just about whether you had angular, primary color robots or soft pastel horses, the characters and story structures were very different as well.

I liked the boys shows, but I also liked some of the girls shows, because they addressed feelings and ideas I had that just weren’t going to be addressed in the boys shows. I especially liked the original My Little Pony series.

Now, the 80s version of My Little Pony has a lot of flaws. Particularly, the animation is terrible even by the standards of the 80s and the voice acting can be grating. But rewatching it, I still see what I liked as a kid, which was that it paid a lot of attention to motives and feelings. Like, here are some of the motivations for villains in the show:

I remember when my villainous boss used to be nice, so maybe if I stay with her I can keep her from causing too much trouble and help her go back to how she was.

I was kidnapped by a weird monster and he’s threatened to hurt my loved ones if I don’t do his evil bidding.

I made a deal for fame and fortune with a genie and now I know he eats souls but I’m afraid if I reject him I’ll go back to being poor.\

Our Queen stole a magic rock to revitalize our frozen country, and even though she’s overbearing I have to do right by my country.

These are fairly complex motivations for a kids show, especially when you compare them to, say, Transformers or Ninja Turtles. Shredder or Megatron are just bad because they’re bad, and so are most of their minions. Even if you have somebody like, I don’t know, Jetfire, the story there is that he discovers that his old friend Starscream is bad, at which point neither character has any further compunctions about blasting his old friend with laser guns.

Meanwhile, villains in My Little Pony would be conflicted, have divided loyalties, and be genuinely unsure what the right thing to do was. Even as a very small child, I thought that was more interesting and more honest then other shows were being.

Later, I had many of the same feelings about Sailor Moon. Hell, I still do. Even in the bowdlerized American version, I could still relate to Ami wondering if being a nerd meant she wasn’t properly into the things girls are “supposed” to be into and Usagi’s complete loathing of schoolwork and studies.

Even though these shows weren’t “for” me I really loved them, because the shows that were “for” me, the boys shows, never really expressed the kinds of ideas I’m talking about here. Like, especially during the early nineties, the answer to the question, “Does being a quiet, studious nerd make me less of a boy?” was, “Yes.”

I actually remember, as a child, constantly wishing I had been born a girl, not because I had some inner girl nature, but because girls (or so it seemed from outside) were allowed to be quiet, to be studious, to talk about feelings and to like predictability and calm. The idea of a boy wanting those things was largely foreign.

So... put a pin in that.

Okay, I want to describe a young boy to you. 

He’s energetic, but a bit scatterbrained. He isn’t bookish at all; trying to sit still for long periods of time makes him antsy, and he’d rather be out in the world doing physical things than reading or thinking. In fact, he tends to act without thinking things through, and this gets him in trouble. 

Despite being energetic and physical, he isn’t really into sports; he chafes under authority so teamwork isn’t always his strong suit, even though he cares deeply about his friends. 

I would argue that I’ve just described pretty much every adolsecent male protagonist of every cartoon released over the last 15 years or so. Aang. Danny Phantom. Timmy Turner. Ben 10. Finn from Adventure Time. I’m  sure more will come to mind later. 

This character shows up again and again in boys cartoons, and he’s almost always depicted as the default, with other characters understood through their relationship to this default boy.

Okay, I’m going to get into representation politics, and specifically I’m about to criticize Adventure Time, so I think a disclaimer is in order. One of the problems with talking about representation is that you end up criticizing broad patterns, but the same people aren’t in charge of the whole media landscape, and any single instance of the pattern is probably actually extremely defensible.

So. Okay. I haven’t seen all of Adventure Time, but I’ve seen the first couple of seasons, and they are very well written, and I think Finn in particular is a very well observed character who is very true to life, and in order to change what I’m going to complain about you’d have to rework the show from the ground up. So it’s not that this is a terrible decision, but...

Okay, something that bothers me about early Adventure Time is that Princess Bubblegum is a science nerd only because Finn isn’t. Princess Bubblegum kind of represents, to Finn, the mysteries of adulthood and sexuality. She’s part of this mysterious world of women and adulthood that Finn longs for but hasn’t grown up enough, or had enough experience with, to really understand.

And so to hammer that home her personality and life are also full of things that Finn can’t understand... Like sitting still, and doing meticulous, complex experiments and researching in books.

It’s not that the show denigrates this, not at all, it’s just that it’s positioned as incomprehensible and distant from the audience stand-in character. The Boy doesn’t like to sit still and study, he likes to go on dangerous, physical adventures! And he certainly couldn’t ever prefer to sit still and study over going out and having a physical adventure. Doing that would be incomprehensible.

She’s well-written and I’m sure lots of kids relate to her, but fundamentally her nerdiness is portrayed as foreignness.

A lot of the shows I mentioned above aren’t even really ensembles, but those that kind of are, e.g. Avatar: The Last Airbender, or Ben 10 give The Boy special powers that differentiate him from the rest of the cast.

Go back to the early episodes of My Little Pony and Twilight Sparkle is kind of the viewpoint character; the framing device of the early episodes is letters she writes, but she doesn’t really have, like, one special power that the others don’t, and structurally she’s a tertiary character in a lot of episodes. 

Contrast that to Aang, who is central to the story of Avatar, the Last Airbender. Like... you can have episodes that aren’t really about him but he has a special, important power that no other character does or can have, and the fate of the whole plot rests on his shoulders. Like, if the Avatar dies the natural order is upended and the Fire Nation almost certainly wins; you could kill off any other supporting cast member and then replace them without completely upending the world.

This is not to say that any of the shows I have called out are bad or harmful, but, to go way back, I remember being genuinely upset as a child not to see boy characters who had the feelings and struggles I did, and if anything, I think the situation might be slightly worse than when I was a kid. Go back to that Lauren Faust quote up there. How many cartoons feature a boy who is “Reserved and Studious”? Dexter’s Lab... Maybe Invader Zim... How many with a boy that is “Sweet and Shy”? Have you ever seen one about a boy who is “Artistic and beautiful?”

What about a show with all those boys portrayed as friends and equals, rather than one for you to relate to and a bunch of sidekicks and side characters?

Like, one of the only male, American cartoon characters who has ever made me go, “Yeah, that’s what it was like for me as a kid” is fucking Butters from South Park.

[useyourrwords]

Month Ahead // Going Off Grid – April

Oh it’s been two months since I last went on hiatus? Sounds about time for another one.

Listen, would it be Use Your Words without a hiatus every couple of months? No. Absolutely not.

March was…a lot, to say the least. So I’m switching off and going into hiding for awhile.

But first I want to share what I have planned for while I’m away!

If you would like to buy any of the following books please consider using my Book Depository Affliate link!

           ContemporApril

ContemporApril is the topic this month for Devour Your TBR.

Time to read all those contemporary books sitting on your shelf!

     UnsolvedAThon 

UnsolvedAThon was created by Laura @ The Book Corps!

This readathon is based on the Youtube series, Buzzfeed Unsolved, where supernatural believer Ryan tells his friend, skeptical Shane, about a famous supernatural or true crime case — all of which are unsolved.

I love Buzzfeed Unsolved! Ryan and Shane’s dynamic is perfect and I can’t help but think about how much more perfect it would be if my mum joined them because that woman has seen some shit.

When I saw Laura’s new readathon I knew I had to participate.

Now, the rules are to pick either Ryan’s or Shane’s path and to read a different book for each clue, ten in total. But I’m terrible at following rules so I’m bending them to fit me. Also I can’t read 10 books in a month at the moment, it’s just not possible.

So I’m picking a clue from either Ryan’s or Shane’s path for each step. They will still be in order, I’m just skipping between paths a little. Also for some of the clues I have books for each path so I’m including those as well. And I’m using books more than once! SO my TBR is gonna look a little different!

     UnsolvedAThon TBR

*Means that I had books for both clues.

Clue 1*

[Ryan’s Path] The Search for the Mysterious Mothman – Read a book about a mythical creature or a monster.

[Shane’s Path] The Harrowing Hunt for Bigfoot – Read a book about a mythical creature/monster.

│The Rook│The Checquy Files #1│Daniel O’Malley││││││

Clue 2

[Shane’s Path] The Strange Disappearance of D.B. Cooper – Read a mystery or thriller book.

│The Rook│The Checquy Files #1│Daniel O’Malley││││││

Clue 3

[Shane’s Path] The Haunting of the Salem Witch Trials – Read a book involving witches.

│Toil & Trouble│Tess Sharpe││││││

Clue 4

[Shane’s Path] The Horrifying Murders of the Zodiac Killer – Read a retelling.

│Toil & Trouble│Tess Sharpe││││││

Specifically – Daughters of Baba Yaga by Brenna Yovanoff

Clue 5

[Shane’s Path] The Secret Society of the Illuminati – Read a book about or involving a secret society.

│The Rook│The Checquy Files #1│Daniel O’Malley││││││

Clue 6

[Ryan’s Path] The Enigmatic Death of the Isdal Woman – Read a book involving spies or espionage.

│The Morning Star│Shadow of the Templar #1│M. Chandler│││││

Clue 7

[Ryan’s Path] The Haunting of Hannah Williams – Read a book involving ghosts or spirits.

│City of Bones│Cassidy Blake #1│Victoria Schwab│││││

Clue 8*

[Ryan’s Path] The Historic Disappearance of Louis Le Prince – Read an unknown book or a book that has less than 500 ratings on Goodreads.

│Rad Girls Can│Kate Schatz││││││

[Shane’s Path] The Thrilling Gardner Museum Heist – Read a book involving a heist or thieves.

│The Morning Star│Shadow of the Templar #1│M. Chandler│││││

Clue 9*

[Ryan’s Path] The Haunted Town of Tombstone – Read a book about an outlaw/a group of outlaws.

│The Morning Star│Shadow of the Templar #1│M. Chandler│││││

[Shane’s Path] Horrifying Cases of Ghosts and Demons – Read a collection of short stories/anthology.*

│Toil & Trouble│Tess Sharpe││││││

Clue 10

[Ryan’s Path] The Odd Vanishing of Amelia Earhart – Read a book with a female main character.

│The Rook│The Checquy Files #1│Daniel O’Malley│││││

│Toil & Trouble│Tess Sharpe││││││

│City of Bones│Cassidy Blake #1│Victoria Schwab││││

     TBR

│I’ve Got This Round│Mamrie Hart││││

│Murasaki Shikibu│Khutlun│Sayyida Al-Hurra│Mochizuki Chiyome│Doña Ana Lezama De Urinza & Doña Eustaquia De Sonza│Bygone Badass Broads│Mackenzi Lee│││││

│”Stagecoach” Mary Fields│Yennenga│Annie Jump Cannon│Wilma Rudolph│Alfhild│Calafia│Keumalahayati│Marie Marvingt│Iara│Jane Dieulafoy│Rejected Princesses│Jason Porath│││││

  Structured TBR

│Must Read:  6/5│ 1/1│ 0/0│ 4/2│ 5/3│ 10/10│ 5/5│

│Allowances:  0/1│ 0/0│ 1/0│ 0/0│ 1/1│

Past Grey Reads

 Book Review // Girl Made of Stars – I Am Broken

 Grey Reads // Everything’s On Fire and I Couldn’t Be Happier – Girls of Paper and Fire

 Grey Reads // Bloody Moors & Candy Castles – The Wayward Children 2 & 3

       TBW

│Game of Thrones│Season 2-3││2011│ David Benioff, D.B. Weiss│ Emilia Clarke, Peter Dinklage, Kit Harington│

│The Bold Type│Season 3││2017│ Sarah Watson│ Katie Stevens, Aisha Dee, Meghann Fahy│

│Brooklyn Nine-Nine│Season 6││2013│ Daniel J. Goor, Michael Schur│ Andre Braugher, Andy Samberg, Stephanie Beatriz│Watching weekly episodes│

│RuPaul’s Drag Race│Season 11││2009│ RuPaul│RuPaul, Michelle Visage│Watching weekly episodes│

│On My Block│Season 2││2018│ Eddie Gonzalez, Jeremy Haft, Lauren Iungerich│ Sierra Capri, Brett Gray, Diego Tinoco│

│Captain Marvel││2019│ Anna Boden, Ryan Fleck│ Brie Larson, Samuel L. Jackson, Ben Mendelsohn│

│Avengers Endgame││2019│ Anthony Russo, Joe Russo│ Brie Larson, Winston Duke, Karen Gillan│

│Us││2019│ Jordan Peele│ Lupita Nyong’o, Winston Duke, Elisabeth Moss│

Past Grey Watches

 Grey Watches // I Hate It So Much I Love It – A Christmas Prince

 Grey Watches // It Has To Be A Shit Show – A Christmas Prince: The Royal Wedding

 Grey Watches // I Wanna Bone Jude Law and Kate Winslet – The Holiday

I’ll be taking the rest of the month off blogging because I need to centre myself or whatever. Last month took a huge toll on me and I need some breathing room and to relax a little…well a lot, actually.

Blogging isn’t the only thing I’m taking a break from. I’ve also taken a page out of Elise’s @ The Bookish Actress book and decided to delete social media apps off my phone.

Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr are all gone. Those are the three I waste the most time on and I need to take that time and apply it to books instead. Also it always makes me sad or angry, with very few bursts of happiness in between that come in the form of animal and baby videos, which I can find on Youtube. If this goes well I’ll be continuing with it and just checking my notifications maybe once or twice a month. We’ll see!

I’m also visiting my Aunt for a few days this month to get away and get some clean air and be one with nature…More like I’ll sit on my ass for most of my time there talking non-stop with my aunt and cousins and playing with their babies. It still blows my mind that I’m at the age where my cousins have kids! But I’m determined to still go for walks while I’m there, but with a change of scenery—the beach! And hopefully I’ll read a fair bit too!

     Goals

 Get back to going for walks on most days, if not 6 days a week. Baby steps again

 Read and read and read and read

 Keep Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr deleted off my phone

 Get some blog posts banked up

 Enter quotes and finish reviews for all read books

 Try to use Google Calendar more and make some digital planning spreadsheets because physical planner is too time consuming and annoying but I still need to stay organized

 Maybe start writing??? Like just one scene. Please

Past Monthly Posts

 February Ahead // I’m Finally Going To Read The Raven Cycle Series & It’s Black History Month + A Great Resource for Education!!!!!

 Month in Review // I FINALLY CHANGED MY NAME – February

 Month Ahead // Writers Week, Comedy & Too Much To Do – March

 Month in Review // The Month From Hell – March

See you again in May

What are you doing this month? What are you reading? What are you watching?

│Blog│Goodreads│Instagram│Twitter│Tumblr│

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[ashlyreads]

It is an art, this autumnal procession, this concert, this dance to the season. Deep down I think we all know it is.

“Broad from Abroad” from Ten Women Who Shook the World by Sylvia Brownrigg

[missmusiclove]

“As colours came to take on meanings and cultural significance within societies, attempts have been made to restrict their use." ✨🎨✨🎨✨ Kassia St Clair’s fantastically beautiful The Secret Lives of Colour is one of the most fascinating books I have ever had to the pleasure to read (as seen by the amount of tabs I’ve used!). Filled with a broad range of colours and shades, each entry is a mix of information about the colour itself, its history, the dates and processes involved, the creator/founder, its role in society and art, as well as a few interesting facts and quotes. This layout made it an incredibly fun, engaging and quick paced read. It’s the type of book you can read as a whole, or just flip to a colour that sounds interesting. Another alternative is just to read the section of colour, as the book is spilt into the categories - white, yellow, orange, pink, red, purple, blue, green, brown and black - that touches on a handful of specific shades in that colour. ✨🎨✨ The cover of this book is simply stunning! The dots of colour and the texture behind them make it so special and I’m incredibly glad to have this one in my collection. In saying that, the end pages, and start of each category of colour are also simply gorgeous as well. The use of the colours talked about are incredible. ✨🎨✨🎨✨ The Secret Lives of Colour is book 9 for 2020. #bookstragram #books #booksofinstagram #booklover #bookphoto #reading #aussieswhoread #avidreader #booklover #aussiereader #bookdragon #reader #readersofig #booksofig #bookcommunity #bookish #bibliophile #readersofinstagram #bookstagrammer #booklife #bookaddict #girlswhoread #readinggoals2020 #bookquote #thesecretlivesofcolour #kassiastclair #fantasticnonfiction #beautifulbooks #tabbedbooks #colouronwhite #favouritebooksever https://www.instagram.com/p/B7s9w0KAoHb/?igshid=1gw8e5312ga5

[humanoid-lovers]

My son loves it, but I'm not so happy about some of the "records" My son has been reading and quoting this book since he received it for Christmas. It is a very large hardcover book, and the pictures in it are great. The only thing I don't like about it is that some of the records just seem really gross to me now and I don't remember my childhood copy having all those "records". He has given me examples of multiple gory injuries that somehow didn't cause death, like a man falling off a ladder with a drill bit that goes through his eye and pushed his brain to the side, and other unpleasant things, like the person with the most holes in their face who can run a string through his mouth from the hole in one cheek to the hole in the other. Go to Amazon

Some of the facts in this book will stump you This is Christmas gift. It was not wrapped in any plastic. Just book. So I read it. Interesting articles. Book is hardback and bright in color. This book has a lot of trivia in it. If anyone still gives a trivia party this book would put you leaps on everyone else. Last trivia party I went to. Everyone wrote on slips of paper different trivia questions and answers. The slips were put in hat. One person pulls slip of paper out of hat and ask question. Who ever answers it write get points. Go to Amazon

I was expecting a Guinness like ones I've seen in my past Should this truly be Guinness then standards have fell, coverage is broad general and spare. I was expecting a Guinness like ones I've seen in my past. Dictionary type bible depth stuff of feats and such, thick and packed in at that. This seemed responsible maybe true from Guinness but I also imagined after seeing this that maybe the position for reference facts is a nose frowned unfilled job of risk in and of hard locate. Go to Amazon

Fun for kids and adults. I buy these every year for my son, but everyone enjoys looking through it. I get these every year for my son, even though he has kind of outgrown them, he still likes them. I almost skipped this year but he said he is really glad I got it again. He has a collection. I think it's a fun book to browse and although he is almost 14 now, during the years when he was between the ages 8-12 he excitedly went into hiding every year and read them cover to cover. They are picked up again and again throughout the year by him and his friends, so I know they were well liked. The stories peaked interest and curiosity, and prompted many interesting discussions. Some of it is downright weird, but fun and interesting for kids and adults. Some of it is a little gross, but that is probably the most appealing thing to kids, lol. Go to Amazon

Highly Recommend! I highly recommend this book! First of all you cant beat the price. I shopped around before purchasing this for my son for Christmas and Amazon had the best price! I get the new one for my son every Christmas, this has kept my son who is 12 and my daughter who is 9 enthralled with reading for countless hours. My son loves to look at it before bed at night and tells us all the interesting facts and details he has learned from it throughout the week. He is excited to get time to look at it. I would highly recommend this for the young or old, it offers countless hours of entertainment! Go to Amazon

Same price as Costco! I buy this book every Christmas for my son. I usually buy them at Costco because the price is awesome. Cheaper than anywhere for a good quality, hard cover book. Last year, I realized I had forgotten to purchase one, so I jumped on Amazon Prime and was so excited to see the same book I usually get at costco...SAME PRICE INCLUDING SHIPPING! The book is identical. It's a wonderful value and will give you hours of reading time over and over! This book won't bore you, no matter how many times you look through it. I'm going to order this book every year from amazon now. Go to Amazon

Great book for kids and adults! My 7 year old loves the Guiness record books. He got this one as an early Christmas gift and he has really enjoyed it! It is such an interesting book. It's filled with facts about sports, video games, travel - you name it, it is in there. It's such a big book, I don't think he'll ever run out of interesting facts to read! The print is high quality as well., Images are bright and the pages are strong. This would be a great gift for a child or an adult. I've enjoyed reading it myself! Go to Amazon

Engaging and delightful! I remember back in the day, GWR was a small, thick paperback with record after record... this NOT that book. The book now is definitely more engaging, has photos, all color pages, and each 2-page spread has a particular theme. The new format (I don't know how long they have had it like this though?) has a thick hardback cover in a shiny yellow metallic that makes it look like a rockstar is gonna pop out when you open it up. I think the old format was more my personal style... but for my 9 year old brother--of this digital age--he will LOVE this come Christmas time. For kids that aren't as bookish but that you want to engage in an ipad-less activity, this will definitely keep their attention. Go to Amazon

Two Stars Five Stars Five Stars Bought this for my kids for Christmas. I had ... Three Stars Five Stars Five Stars Five Stars Five Stars Five Stars

[ashlyreads]

As I mentioned, there is little need in this environment for forgiveness, because no one ever says anything to give offense. No one ever says anything at all. While this does have the unfortunate effect of creating a culture without a culture, a land without an art, you must at the same time see the advantages. Think what we live without: anger, scorn, contempt, snobbery, bigotry, stupidity. I won't say it's all love and roses, because it isn't. But fewer words means there's so much less pain. Not like here, you know. City of the talking wounded.

“Broad from Abroad” from Ten Women Who Shook the World by Sylvia Brownrigg

[useyourrwords]

Month in Review // The Month From Hell – March

This month has given me more breakdowns than I can count.

So maybe it’s not the single worst month I’ve ever lived but honestly, it’s pretty high up there!

Between a car accident, still going through the mess of changing names, pain, oh so much fucking pain, a new doctor who doesn’t know how to help me, and an altercation I wish to just forget, I’m just about ready to hide under my blankets and never leave my room.

Unfortunately, that’s not an option and so I am sitting at me desk at work writing this instead.

If you would like to buy any of the following books please consider using my Book Depository Affliate link!

         Month’s TBR

│The Dream Thieves││

│Skylarks││

│The Surface Breaks││

│The Female of the Species│││

│Sharp Objects││

│Blue Lily, Lily Blue││

│Truly Devious││

│Khutulun│tatterhood│Agnodice│Te Puea Herangi│Moremi Ajasoro│Sybil Ludington│Kurmanjan Datka│Andamana│Mary Seacole│Florence Nightingale│Gráinne “Grace O’Malley” Ni Mháille│Rejected Princesses││

│Empress Xi Ling Shi│Hatsheput│Agnodice│Trung Trӑc & Trung Nhi│Fatima Al-Fihri│Bygone Badass Broads││

     Read

│The Surface Breaks│Lousie O’Neill│││││★★★★│Read Mar 13│

This book was so unapologetically feminist, I loved it.

│The Dream Thieves│The Raven Cycle #2│Maggie Stiefvater│││││★★★★★│Read Mar 25│

I think I jumped into this book too quickly after finishing the first so it took me a while to get through it but I got there eventually.

│Truly Devious│Truly Devious #1│Maureen Johnson│││││DNF Mar 22│

I don’t think fiction audiobooks are for me! at least not ones I haven’t already read. I’m switching to Non-Fic/memoirs and I’ll try rereading a fave eventually to see how I go with that.

│I’ve Got This Round│Mamrie hart││││

After realising ficiton audiobooks weren’t for me I needed a win so I returned Truly Devious for this because i love Mamrie and there’s no way I wouldn’t love this. I was right.

│Skylarks│Karen Gregory│││││

I’ve just been super invested in this one. I don’t know if it’s because i wasn’t reading it regularly since I normally read ARCs while I’m exercising…and I’ve not been exercising like at all this month. I don’t know. I’ll give it another go next month if I have time but otherwise it’ll probably be pushed back to May.

│Rad Girls Can│Kate Schatz│││││

I switched to this ARC since it’s only 112 pages and I figured SURELY I can finish this before the month is up. Nope. So April it is!

│Khutulun│tatterhood│Agnodice│Te Puea Herangi│Moremi Ajasoro│Sybil Ludington│Kurmanjan Datka│Andamana│Mary Seacole│Florence Nightingale│Gráinne “Grace O’Malley” Ni Mháille│Rejected Princesses│Jason Porath│││││

│Empress Xi Ling Shi│Hatsheput│Agnodice│Trung Trӑc & Trung Nhi│Fatima Al-Fihri│Bygone Badass Broads│Mackenzi Lee│││││

I didn’t do much but at least I got my entries read for both of these!

Book of the Month

│The Female of the Species│Mindy McGinnis││││││★★★★★│Read Mar 31│

Once I realised just how little I read this month and made myself power through this one and omg it was soooo good and worth it. I needed this book this month.

│Average Rating: 4.5★’s│ 5│

Structured TBR Pass or Fail?

│Must Read:  3/5│ 0/1│ 0/0│ 2/2│ 3/3│ 10/10│ 5/5│

│Allowances:  1/1│ 1/1│ 0/0│ 0/0│ 0/1│

Clearly this was a terrible reading month. I got hardly any reading done. I started off relatively strong but then I stopped exercising (for reasons I’ll go into further later in this post) so that was less time spent reading. And then I spent far more time watching TV when I should have been reading because Depression. And the audiobook wasn’t really working out for me so I didn’t get that read either. FUN.

     Haul

│Barbed Wire Heart│Tess Sharpe│││

I loved Far From You so when I saw this was available on Netgalley I knew I needed it! And it wasn’t even a request, just one you could immediately download and my international blogger heart is v. v. thankful.

│Vicious│Villains #1│V.E. Schwab││

│Vengeful│Villains #1│V.E. Schwab│││

If you’ve been paying attention to my hauls sections you’re probably thinking “doesn’t Grey already have both of these books and the answer to that is yes absolutely but listen.

I have the paperback copy of Vicious in the old cover art because i bought it years ago…Well my mum bought it for me years ago but same same.

Then it was announced that with the long-awaited release of Vengeful we’d get all new cover art so I knew I’d be re-buying the first no matter what.

And then the collector’s edition came out for Vicious.

So I bought that and then Book Depository listed the hardback for Vengeful as a collector’s edition and so I ordered that as a birthday present to myself.

Only I don’t actually think it is a collector’s edition because it doesn’t say so on the cover or anything but oh well.

So I finally have both books with new covers only I don’t want to read them because if I do, I’ll want to annotate them and I don’t annotate collector’s edition as a rule for myself.

So I had to buy the paperbacks. I just had to. My hands were tied. Did I really have the money to? No, but I’ve had a hard month so fuck it.

Past Grey Reads

 Book Review // Girl Made of Stars – I Am Broken

 Grey Reads // Everything’s On Fire and I Couldn’t Be Happier – Girls of Paper and Fire

 Grey Reads // Bloody Moors & Candy Castles – The Wayward Children 2 & 3

       Film & TV

Honestly I barely remember what I did actually watch.

Month’s TBW

│The Bold Type│Season 2││

│Brooklyn Nine-Nine│Season 6││

│RuPaul’s Drag Race│Season 11││

│I Am The Night│Season 1││

│The Umbrella Academy│Season 1││

│Russian Doll│Season 1││

│Sex Education│Season 1││

     Watched

│The Bold Type│Season 2││2017│ Sarah Watson│ Katie Stevens, Aisha Dee, Meghann Fahy│★★★★★│

This show is so fucking good, I’m not not so patiently waiting for the third season to come out next month!

│Brooklyn Nine-Nine│Season 6││2013│ Daniel J. Goor, Michael Schur│ Andre Braugher, Andy Samberg, Stephanie Beatriz│Watching weekly episodes│★★★★★│

The episode with the murder in the apartment and the making stupid promises to the mum and Jake slowly going crazy and Rosa with a different hair style every scene??? Iconic!

│RuPaul’s Drag Race│Season 11││2009│ RuPaul│RuPaul, Michelle Visage│Watching weekly episodes│★★★★★│

Between Miss Vanjie being the narrator of the season (and maybe my fave of all time), her hoemance with Brooke Lyn Heights, Yvie’s take no shit, own your shit attitude and Plastique’s fish???? I am in love with this season.

I could do without Silky’s obnoxious everything and R. Kelly style Untucked breakdowns but whatever.

│Russian Doll│Season 1││2019│  Leslye Headland, Natasha Lyonne, Amy Poehler│ Natasha Lyonne, Charlie Barnett, Greta Lee│★★★★★│

I am in love with Russian Doll and everything about it. It’s short, it’s smart, it’s quality TV and it’s fucking funny.

│Sex Education│Season 1││2019│ Laurie Nunn│ Asa Butterfield, Gillian Anderson, Emma Mackey│★★★★★│

This show is stupid funny but it’s also super intelligent and important. This is such a good show for teens to have easy access to and I can’t wait for the new season.

│Queer Eye│Season 3││2018│ Bobby Berk, Karamo Brown, Tan France │★★★★★│

This season had me crying my eyes out and I loved every second of it.

But my favourite moment is when Jody, on the first episode, comes out for the big reveal and the guys all lose their fucking minds! Especially Karamo’s and Antoni’s reactions. They were absolutely fucking gold.

│Game of Thrones│Season 1││2011│ David Benioff, D.B. Weiss│ Emilia Clarke, Peter Dinklage, Kit Harington│★★★★│

I mean, yes I am well aware of the problems Game of Thrones have and I am trash for it anyway. Is it as amazing as I initially thought?? Not at all but I’m in too deep now I can’t just not watch the final season.

So here I am re-watching the entire show with my mum to drag it out just a little longer and hopefully by the time we’re all caught up the final season, in it’s entirety, will be well and truly out.

I just have to try and avoid spoilers until then…which should actually be very easy because of something I’ll announce in my Month Ahead post.

Me after this month.

     Music

│YUNGBLUD│11 Minutes + Halsey│Loner│Falling Skies + Charlotte Lawrence│

│Dodie│Burned Out│

│Troye Sivan + Lauv│i’m so tired…│

│Noah Cyrus│Sadness│Good Cry│

│Julia Michaels│Anxiety + Selena Gomez│Happy│

│Steve Aoki│Waste It on Me + BTS│

Past Grey Watches

 Grey Watches // I Hate It So Much I Love It – A Christmas Prince

 Grey Watches // It Has To Be A Shit Show – A Christmas Prince: The Royal Wedding

 Grey Watches // I Wanna Bone Jude Law and Kate Winslet – The Holiday

Use Your Words Highlights

 Grey Reads // Bloody Moors & Candy Castles – The Wayward Children 2 & 3

 Top Ten Tuesday // Audible and Overdrive Are My Lords & Saviors – My Audiobook TBR

     Blogosphere Highlights

│Laura @ The Book Corps│#UNSOLVEDATHON: A BUZZFEED UNSOLVED READATHON — ANNOUNCEMENT AND SIGN UP!│#UNSOLVEDATHON BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS!│

│Elise @ The Bookish Actress│Why I’m Not Honestly That Excited for Game of Thrones: Season Eight│Eighteen Things I’ve Learned In My First Eighteen Years│

│Krystin @ Here’s The Fucking Twist│True Crime Tuesday: The Moors Murders│

│Jamieson @ Jamishelves│IF YOU LIKE THIS BOOK YOU’LL LIKE THIS TV SHOW !│

│Vicky @ Vicky Who Reads│Stressed About College? These Book Recs Are For You!│

│Ellyn @ Allonsythornraxxbooks│5 TIPS ON ANNOTATING YOUR BOOKS!│

│Marie @ Drizzle & Hurricane Books│10 YA BOOKS DEALING WITH ANXIETY│

│Avery @ Red Rocket Panda│DOWN THE TBR HOLE | USING THE #KONMARIE METHOD FOR MY PHYSICAL SHELVES│

│Fadwa @ Word Wonders│#DIVERSEBOOKBLOGGERSDISCUSS: THE FANTASY OF HISTORICAL ROMANCE│(SOME) BOOK BLOGGING PRESSURES & HOW TO FIGHT THEM│WORD WONDERS’ TBR EXPANSION: BOOKS WITH EAST AND SOUTH EAST ASIAN MAIN CHARACTERS│MY PRODUCTIVITY TOOLS – OR HOW TO BE A MASTER ORGANIZER!│

│Aurora @ Aurora Librialis│5 Book Quotes for International Women’s Day│

│Swetlana @ The Caffeinated Bookworm Life│6 Reasons To Watch On My Block│

│Qui @ The Black Lit Queen│Diversity vs. Representation|BLQ Quick Guide│

│Madeline @ Caffeine & Writing Dreams│How to Write Scenes that Balance Plot & Character // Scene and Sequel Sequences│

Past Month In Review

 Month in Review // Christmas is Over Thank Fuck – December

 January in Review // I Cried, Laughed, Ate Pasta, Celebrated My Birthday & Completed TWO Read-A-Thons/Challenges

 Month in Review // I FINALLY CHANGED MY NAME – February

Month’s Goals

 Get my mental health plan

 Book a therapy session I have to wait until April ahhhhhhhh

 Get a massage from mum —I just always forget okay

 Try and take a mental health day

 Try and take a mental health day later in the month

 Keep my shit together —HAHAHAHAAHAHAHA

 Start journaling —I will get to this eventually…

 Quit soft drink 

 Start floor exercises—I keep adding this and never get around to it. —I couldn’t even go for my walks for most of the month so…

 Try and read 5 books —I can’t even say I tried. 

 Don’t waste all my time on The Sims 

 Go to Writers Week

Considering how shit this month was I count 7/12 goals reached a fucking accomplishment!

My Nightmare Month

So it started well enough. I went to Writers Week on two different days and thoroughly enjoyed myself! but then i got into a car accident on the way to my third day.

Which was stressful and anxiety inducing. It’s been a nightmare to work through all the aftermath. I didn’t know if the accident would be covered by insurance or if I would even hear from the person who hit me. And then when I did get the good news of being covered I basically had to micromanage the insurance company because they did everything slow and I couldn’t afford slow. So that was loads of phone calls which is something that causes me anxiety so YAY.

It’s mostly all sorted out. I still need to take my plates in and get a refund on my rego which I tried to do a couple days ago and got frustrated so that’s a task for another day.

     I did get to go to the Fringe Festival and see Daniel Sloss’s new comedy special which was absolutely brilliant! He talked about rape culture and really put the onus on men and how they need to work and go out of their way to think critically of themselves and society and what they can do to dismantle rape culture. I laughed and sobbed. My mum nearly pissed herself laughing and it was a great night out with to die for Sri-Lankan food hot buttered squid will blow your fucking mind! and I discovered that I like to drink Pimms.

     Throughout the month I’ve still been sorting out my name change because that is a long and drawn out process of changing my name everywhere and hitting road blocks constantly has be incredibly frustrating but I’m nearly finished!

I have also been doing all of this while in incredible pain because chronic illness.

My March mood

     Basically my feet have been very painful, I knew the solution, doctor refused me, mum took me to a doctor who knows our history and I got the solution so I can actually start walking regularly again which will help my mental health loads.

My mum also took me to replace all of my shoes which was both expensive and needed so I have the best shoes for walking and working and running around doing errands and going out!

I was ready to end the month on a positive. Sure the start had rattled me a lot, and I was big depressed because of pain for most of it but I did have a few great experiences and I’d resolved almost all the long running issues.

     And then while I was waiting for mum to finish work a couple of days ago, I sat and read in the foodcourt.

A man approached me and invaded my personal space and stared at me, knowing it would make me uncomfortable, so uncomfortable that it distracted me from the fact he was trying to steal my purse.

Thankfully I noticed at the last minute and grabbed it back because I would have been a fucking mess if I had gone to all the trouble replacing everything in my purse with my new name on it, only to have to do it all over again because someone stole my it all.

The man walked off but I would be lying if I said it didn’t terrify me. The way he stared at me was so unnerving and I don’t handle people being in my personal space…like at all. Even people I know and trust have to always ask permission first. I don’t let men I know in my personal space at all because I know what men are capable of. But to have a man I don’t know get in my face with the purpose to make me uncomfortable, especially after the month I’ve had, was enough for me to completely come undone.

I’m thankful for the cleaner for checking up on me, even though I burst into tears, and I’m thankful for the girl who approached me after as well to try and be supportive.

She had fire in her eyes and in that moment I had wished that that was what I looked like instead of the girl I was, not being able to hold back tears and trying to keep calm in the middle of an anxiety attack.

More than anything, I’m thankful for my mum for being so supportive and understanding and being exactly what I needed her to be and for calling out the men who made things worse, while trying to help, when I didn’t have the strength to.

I’ve argued with myself on whether to share this and maybe I might delete it all before it gets published, but I think it’s important for women to share their experiences with how men have preyed upon them, whether sexually or not, and how men continue to use their power to get what they want from us, regardless of the negative impact it has on us.

I just—girls, women, know that if something like this happens to you, if something worse happens to you, it’s not your fault, it’s never your fault. The way you react to it is right because it’s your experience and your emotions. I’m trying to remind myself of that. 

And men, know that if you’re not actively trying to stop this shit from happening, aren’t pulling your friends up for those gross comments they make, then you’re part of the fucking problem. I don’t want to hear that you personally would never do this. That shit isn’t enough. It’s never been enough. This all lies at your feet and fuck you for helping to hold up a society that makes us think any of it is our own fault.

And if something like this happens to a girl or woman you know then ask her what she needs, ask her the best way for you to help. Because nine times out of ten the way you react naturally is going to be the complete fucking opposite of what she needs and you might make things worse. And that’s on you, not her.

Past Month Ahead

 Month Ahead // Happy Birthday To Me + Hiatus Announcement – January

 February Ahead // I’m Finally Going To Read The Raven Cycle Series & It’s Black History Month + A Great Resource for Education!!!!!

 Month Ahead // Writers Week, Comedy & Too Much To Do – March

Thank fuck March is over.

What did you do this month? What did you read? What did you watch? What posts did you write that you’re super proud of?

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