"We may not get to choose how we die, but we can chose how we live.

The universe may forget us, but it doesn't matter. Because we are the ants, and we'll keep marching on."

– Shaun David Hutchinson, We Are the Ants

if smeyer wasn't a coward vamp!Bella would have immediately eaten her daughter Rensesmem whole-hog like Saturn Devouring His Son

L'apelle du vide

There's a sort of goodbye that comes with 17.

All questions of 'who do you want to be when you grow up' turn to 'who are you becoming now?' 17 is young, 17 is old. It's everything you wanted. It's everything you despised. It's messy and ruthless and full of grief at times. And 17 is scary as hell because now you know that you finally have to say goodbye to childhood.

-Ritika Jyala, excerpt from The Flesh I Burned (source)

— the unabridged journals of sylvia plath

not to overstate things but truly my vilain origin story is the number of people who seem to think that 'what are useful ways to interact with visual art' is not a complex conversation that's lasted for centuries

The Half of It (2020, Alice Wu)

10/11/2023

The Half of It is a 2020 American film directed by Alice Wu. The film is loosely based on Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand.

The film was released on Netflix on May 1, 2020.

girlhood is beautiful, they say

but haven't they heard about

how pain is beauty?

for me, girlhood is pain

girlhood is getting laughed at

for not being conventionally girlish,

feeling numb, or being depressed —

what happened to being a girls' girl?

all i got was alienation and invalidation

i never fit in.

believe me, i tried to —

i hopped onto the latest trends,

took aesthetic pictures like they did,

and hid my melancholy from the world

yet they saw me as a wannabe,

a failure of femininity,

a disgrace of a girl —

youth is precious, but girlhood is pain.

— girlhood is pain. | @briarslight

from "beyond the thorns and brambles"

If You’re a Kid Like Gavin: The True Story of a Young Trans Activist - Nonfiction

If You’re a Kid Like Gavin: The True Story of a Young Trans Activist by Gavin Grimm, Kyle Lukoff, J Yang (Illustrator) - (Nonfiction) Published 2022 by Katherine Tegen Books

This is one of those books that once I had finished reading and set it to the side, I felt like crying. This is one of those books that I wish I had when I was younger to help me feel seen for who I was and am, and to have it be valid and normal and wonderful.

Gavin Grimm is a trans activist who started his journey in activism in high school in 2015, the same year I graduated high school. He released this children’s non-fiction book about seven years later, sharing his experiences and normalizing trans identities for young- and hopefully all age- readers. While Gavin doesn’t share everything with us about his journey in his trans identity, he doesn’t have to, instead he reaches out to the reader in ways that make this aspect of life feel more natural and normal. For many, this can be a heartwarming moment. A place where we are recognized and acknowledged through someone like us generously sharing a fraction of their story. He walks us through coming into his identity, the issues that arose as he more so entered the world, and the actions he took to rally for rights and change. His story is far from over. In the snippet of it he is sharing, he says in his author’s note, “I hope people come away recognizing that we all have important choices to make in our lives- being kind, leading with love, standing up for yourself and others- whereas living our lives as the people we are is not a choice; it's a right. I hope that this story shows kids their own power and what they can do” (Grimm, 2022).

As someone who identifies with transness- identifying as Non-Binary Trans-Masc Queer- it is important that all versions of transness are expressed as they can be and remind others regardless of where they are in their journey that they are real, valid, true. Like I said, I could have used this when I was younger. I applaud Gavin for finding himself so strongly and standing up for what he knows is right. I am his age and still don’t really know who I am but if I had an ounce of his clarity when I was younger I could have saved some heartache, toxicity, and a few tears. I won't go into it but everyone, regardless of queerness or transness, is important and valuable and amazing and stunning. As someone who is queer and wants to push for social justice, diversity, recognition, safety, human rights… I want to be the librarian that shuts down bigotry and ignorance while creating a safe and free environment for the patrons- especially the YA individuals I want to work with, feel seen and heard and safe. I understand that I am repeating myself but I am passionate about this and that’s what happens with me. I think there are a lot of creative ways we can express ourselves in a smaller environment scale; making name tags with preferred/ correct names and pronouns, making zines of our identities, and experiences, hosting a queer club safe space for media discussion and community work. On a slightly larger scale, I can see myself reaching out and collecting resources for people to use and provide opportunities for parades, peaceful protests, celebrations, safe spaces and community gatherings beyond the library, and more.

-Ray 02/11/2024

Grimm, G., Lukoff, K., & Yang, J. (2022). If you’re A Kid Like Gavin. Katherine Tegen Books, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers.

There are dark black buttons tattooed on my heart. I’ll carry them for the rest of my days.

– Carol Rifka Brunt, Tell the Wolves I'm Home

For what had happened? Nothing, but the touch of flesh on flesh, a kind of groping in the dark, an initiation which, if it was an initiation, might lead nowhere. But it might.

L.P. Hartley, from The Harness Room

Listen/purchase: Water Fountains by Highway 80 Stories

During Mike Broussard’s early childhood, his family lived in Shreveport, Louisiana, but later he moved to Vivian where he owned a business and lived out the remainder of his life. The experience described in this song, when Mike was twelve years old, affected his attitude towards race relations from then on. One of the oldest movie theaters in Shreveport was The Strand. It had different entrances for blacks and whites and water fountains marked for the different races, as well. During the ’60s, most southern cities had two simultaneous phenomena: demographically a significant percentage of the population was African-American (Shreveport was about 60% black) and as a consequence whites and blacks unofficially interacted a lot. The other aspect was a policy of official segregation. This manifested itself in a myriad of ways beyond the obvious, e.g. separate drinking fountains and different entrances to movie theaters. However, relationships between whites and blacks could be warm and friendly despite official segregation. Into the demographic mix were other ingredients. Louisiana had a relatively large number of Italian Americans, mostly Sicilians. These immigrants also experienced some discrimination, and in general did not share the otherwise pervasive white attitudes about African-Americans. When Mike Broussard served in Vietnam he met an African-American from Detroit, D.W. Washington, and they became life-long friends. Mike and D.W. talked about their plans when their tours were over, and D.W. went back to Vivian with Mike and they operated a filling station and auto repair shop for more than forty years. D.W. was Mike’s closest friend. © 2019 Frank David Leone, Jr./Highway 80 Music (ASCAP). The songs and stories on the Highway 80 Stories website are works of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. 

"It darted through her with the speed of an arrow that Mr. Knightley must marry no one but herself!" -Jane Austen's Emma

...and the could've beens and the should've beens haunt my home at night, like ghosts of memories that vanish as soon as I try to remember them, like the dreams I know I'll forget once I wake up.

-Ritika Jyala, excerpt from The world is a sphere of ice and our hands are made of fire

(read here)

— Harper Lee, from To kill a mockingbird