It meant growing up with the things made popular again in this, 2026, the year of our analogue lorde lord.

Generation X was before us, and after us came Gen Z. No matter the generation, one thing is synonymous with the youth of every era—sex was all in pop culture, and teens were the target.

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The 80s gave us Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Porky’s, and Screwballs; the 90s gave us Kids, American Pie, Cruel Intentions, The Wood, and Trojan War; then the 2000s came and gave us Superbad, The Girl Next Door, and about a million American Pie spin-offs.

All had a few things in common: they were all (mostly) hella white and suburban, they told boys that it was okay to be sexual and painted girls as sluts or frigid, and they all featured teens trying to lose their virginity, get someone else’s virginity, or at the very least make out with someone before college starts.

And I was watching it all.

I was also reading it all and listening to it all, and there was no one around to tell me not to. I joke that if it weren’t for my parents’ complete lack of supervision, I probably wouldn’t be the pop culture-forward writer that I am today. Well, that and the myriad of INSANE experiences I had—but mostly the whole lack of supervision.

I could watch and read and listen to pretty much whatever I wanted. I was alone a lot as a child. I had a TV with cable in my room, a VHS player, and a radio. Then, right next door, something in the home of many Black millennial kids—the Computer Room.

The internet raised me, and that’s really, actually not good lol. Because it meant I was figuring out everything on my own, or from other latchkey kids who had that AOL CD-ROM they got from school (or Farmer Jacks) that gave them access to the World Wide Web.

We were just telling each other a loop of incorrect information. Posting away messages with song lyrics full of innuendo, making LiveJournals and Xangas full of pixelated photos of movies we shouldn’t have been seeing. It was just the start of misinformation and hormones spreading like wildfire.

I started thinking about this because I’ve been reading Girl on Girl: How Pop Culture Turned a Generation of Women Against Themselves by Sophie Gilbert. Not only is it incredible because, throughout the book, she chats about/quotes Black pop culture and many of its writers and critics (hello dream hampton, WHO I MET AND LIKED ME!), but because it’s a whole journey through girlhood and pop culture on a level that I kinda never thought of.

Black girls are often sexualized from a very young age. We’re told we’re “fast” by the women around us, but the grown men around us are so rarely clocked as the, well, disgusting pedophiles that they (likely) are.

I agree that being a teen and being pretty horny go hand in hand, and that pop culture will always find a way to show you to yourself, and that’s all well and good. BUT You eventually grow up, look back, and realize, “oh…that’s incorrect as fuck,” and move forward.

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I feel like that’s something that teen girls do…but teen boys of the era, I fear, often turn into the men who purchase microphones or hide behind poorly named Twitter accounts.

Teen pop culture has since evolved. I think the shift started to happen in about 2010. Teen dramas that teetered on the line of wild while rarely crossing over into hypersexed or “uh-oh” territory. Pretty Little Liars, DOPE, The Vampire Diaries, Easy A, grown-ish, and even Project X show that shift.

It’s still very playful and sex forward but with some depth and awareness to it that did not exist in the pop culture I had as a teen. I love that, I think it’s great that things like Blockers, Booksmart, Bel-Air, Sex Education, and other shows/films I don’t know exist because I am outside of the age bracket, exist now.

So, in honor of this book and my teen years (I was in high school 2000–2004), I’ve decided to compile a list of all the sex-forward pop culture I can remember that had a hold on me in some way. Heads up—a big scoop of it features teen girls, and absolutely should not have!

Cosmopolitan Magazine should be on this list for sure, I cut out all the sex tips and kept them in an Adidas box in my room. For what—I don’t know…anyway, let the trip down memory lane begin!

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My Letterboxd is your new favorite place, but here are some CURRENT shows about sex that I love.

• Mrs. Fletcher

  • I have talked about this on Threads but it’s NOT streaming anywhere! Well…anywhere like legal. It is only one Dailymotion because some beautiful soul uploaded very odd versions of it. Grateful nonetheless.

• Dying For Sex

  • We DO NOT talk about this limited series enough. We is me. I do not talk about this limited series enough.

• Insecure

  • hey, remember when Twitter was divided about the whole blowjob and cumming scene? CRAZZZZYYYY!!

And here are some teen films from my era that I LOOOOVVVE

• Roll Bounce

• Swimfan

• Jawbreaker

• O

• Loser

• The Wood

• Sugar & Spice

Movies

Fear (1996)

This movie needs to be thrown away and locked up, then covered in cement. Mark Whalberg becomes obsessed with a 16-year-old girl (Played by a 19-year-old Reese Witherspoon), and it’s so bad. But I watched it and couldn’t get it out of my mind. There is so much wrong with this film, and so many parts of it were so fucked up, but the whole first half of the trailer markets it as if he’s just a misunderstood bad boy that she happens to fall in love with. SOMEONE SHOULD HAVE SNATCHED THE REMOTE OUT OF MY HANDS.

Cruel Intentions (1999)

Step-siblings who wanted to fuck and played weird little fuck games with their “friends” because they were rich and bored. AND I ATE IT THE FUCK UP. It was weirrrrrrrdddd, but something felt more…okay about it because at least everyone involved was a teenager? IDK, it gave us an iconic kissing scene and Bittersweet Symphony, so maybe I’m 10% glad no one took my remote.

Poison Ivy (1992)

No…..No…..No….I hate to say it, but I was obsessed with this movie for far longer than I should have been. Drew Barrymore was 17 years old when she was playing Ivy, a girl who was seducing (she was a kid so…she def wasn’t seducing anyone) her best friend’s dad, played by Tom Skerritt, who was 58. It’s an erotic thriller, a genre that no teen should ever be involved in. What’s worse is that in 1993, The Crush came out, where Alicia Silverstone plays a 14-year-old who is obsessed with a photographer who is millions of years older than her. HELLLLPPPPPP.

The Players Club (1998)

When I think of blonde hair on Black women, I think of Ronnie, and when I think of Ronnie, I think about watching her yell at a bunch of white cops at a party to tip her more money. I don’t remember how I saw it, but I vaguely remember cousins being around, but no adults. Anyway, Ronnie (Chrystale Wilson) is still around and still a babe.

American Pie (1999)

I mainly cared about Natasha Lyonne’s character in this movie, but yeah, the fact that it took place in Michigan was always really cool to me. Also wild that he put his dick in a hot pie, that he recorded a girl without permission, and that one of his friends was fucking his other friend’s mom. WHY WAS I WATCHING THISSSSSSS?

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Music

Ludacris—What’s Your Fantasy (1999)

Babes…..I have a vivid memory of singing this song in the back of my best friend’s van on the way to pick up her aunt for Saturday errands. Top of our lungs, fully unaware of what these fantasies were all about, but knowing that I wanted in. It’s….wild.

t.a.t.u—All The Things She Said (2002)

THE LORE OF THIS SONG. HELP HELP HELLLLPPPP. Some people were an All The Things She Said queer and some were The Kiss poster kinda queer, and everyone was a “Queen Latifah makes me feel a way” kinda queer.

While we all now know that this was A SCHEME SET UP BY TODD (I love to say this even though I JUST learned what it means), it was still a part of my history of learning about sex.

The Donnas—Spend the Night (Full album, 2002)

The Spend the Night album is one of my favorites and was also one of the first times, I feel, that I felt it was okay to have hormones as a teenage girl. The album is great, but a lot of it talks about ALL the same stuff that the boys were singing about, except this time IT WAS GIRLS.

It didn’t feel corny that they were flipping things; it felt actually cool. Also, Google the drummer Torry Castellano for a surpriseeeeeee!

Aerosmith—Crazy (Music video, 1994)

HORRIFYING. Was this video part of a bit of a queer awakening for me in some way when I saw it on pop-up video years later…YES. Was this also layered for me ‘cos a bit of my queerness was also wrapped up in the movie Empire Records that starred Liv Tyler…also YES.

But the bigger question is…

WHY WAS STEVEN TYLER MAKING A VIDEO THAT STARRED HIS 16-YEAR-OLD DAUGHTER AND A 16-YEAR-OLD ALCIA SILVERSTONE, WHERE THEY ARE SCHOOLGIRLS WHO GO ON THE RUN, WIN A STRIPPING CONTEST AT A STRIP CLUB, AND ALSO HAVE A HEAVILY IMPLIED ROMANTIC CONNECTION?

QTNA!

Q.B.’s Finest—Oochie Wally (Music video, 2000)

Egregious. Every lyric, every word….BUT THERE I WAS SINGING ALONG, WAITING TO ACT IT OUT IN THE FUTTTTUURREEEE.

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Books

The Sex Chronicles and Addicted by Zane (1998-1999)

WHY AND HOW DID I GET AHOLD OF THESE BOOKS IN LITERALLY MIDDLE SCHOOL? I remember reading these and not fully understanding everything, but knowing that I probably shouldn’t be. It was an interesting time because, like, everyone else was reading these books too. Lock up whoever the ADULT librarian was who let me check this out.

The Coldest Winter Ever by Sistah Souljah (1999)

This I read in high school, and I THINK it was on a syllabus. Every girl in school had that thick, soft-covered book in her backpack or in her locker. Winter Santiaga was the girl everyone wanted to be, but looking back WOOOOWWWW WOW WOW WOW. She was 17 years old in relationships with men older than her, and why was I so invested in that? HELP. LOCK UP THE TEACHER WHO (MAY HAVE) PUT THIS ON THE SYLLABUS.

Belle de Jour by Joseph Kessel (1928)

I got this book from the same teacher who let me read her copy of Bridget Jones Diary, in high school….and I ate it the fuck up. It’s about a housewife who becomes a sex worker (without her husband knowing) to fulfill herself sexually.

It should be noted that this particular book spawned a whole thing for me. I later read the memoir The Intimate Adventures Of A London Call Girl (2005) by an author who went by the name Belle de Jour (who would later be revealed), AND watched Secret Diary of a Call Girl, starring Billie Piper, which came out in 2007.

This one was a whole new level for me because, although the original book was fiction, the other was real. It was something about this being someone’s real-life stories that fascinated me. So when it became a series later, it was so cool to see it all come to life.

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TV

Degrassi—”U Got the Look” a.k.a Manny’s thong episode (2003)

When I was in middle and high school, I was wearing regular cotton drawls, probably from Old Navy or those packs of Fruit of the Loom you could get from like CVS or Rite Aid. Then came the thong. I didn’t have

This episode was iconic ‘cos like…MANNY PUT YOUR THONG AWAY!

Undressed (1999)

Now this show? THIS SHOW? Added it to the list of why I wanted to go AWAY to college and have a dorm. Having sex in a twin bed where you’d chat about it afterwards with your roommate? GIMMIE IT NOW. Turns out, having sex in an XL twin bed is not at all as glamorous as they make it on the TV, but the roommate chat is quite the bees knees.

Also, everyone was on this show back in the day, I’m serious, go look it up.

Taxicab Confessions (1995)

The second story in this episode is wild, the girl talking about her love of women.

“I love women….i want to be having sex with you, i want to be making love to you day and night, night and day. I don’t want to like, shop with you, that’s like, fucked up.”

It’s WILD. I was watching this show, the feelings of being queer had already set in by this point, and I was watching other people talk about being queer, usually in New York City. There were people OPENLY talking about being gay and kinda giving no fucks about it.

Shows like this are the reason why I was so dead set on moving to New York.

I wanted to be in a place where I could not just talk about it but be about it, and I did. When I look back to how much this show in particular probably influenced me, not sexually but in more terms of my sexuality, it’s like a wild, glaring alarm bell that I was searching for people and a place where I could be myself.

Unknowingly looking for queer community inside my TV, while my volume was set to 3, and my hand was sweaty from how tight I was holding the remote just in case my mom came knocking.

Real Sex (1990)

You know those videos on IG like The Hopeless Romantic Society where they interview folks on the street about their sex lives and relationships?

That’s exactly what Real Sex was, except that in between the interviews, there would be full stories of people and their kinks. I learned WAY TOO MUCH. It was kinda crazy, I think it also taught me early not to yuck people’s yum? There wasn’t much on it when I was watching that I understood fully, but it was kind of like a way longer version of those videos they used to teach girls about sex and periods in school.

Except with nudity. So maybe not like them at all, but whatever you get it.

It was, I think, the first place I ever saw a dildo, strap-ons, threesomes; it was insane. You can’t watch it anywhere except YouTube, where people have uploaded grainy videos of it. I do think it could be a fun night, though, to watch and either cringe or pick your mouth up off the floor about all the stuff that is happening.

okay bye —

This piece chats about/around suicide, depression, and the mid-aughts <3

In just one month, I’ll be 40 years old.

I’m not sure how long I thought I’d live, but I don’t really remember thinking I’d make it this far.

I’m not unfamiliar with thinking about my own death.

I’ve both contemplated and attempted to take my own life early on. I couldn’t, for the life of me (lol), figure out why my life was going the way it was. I’d become my own therapist and used every resource I could to try and find the answer to the question many of us have asked, Why Me?

I never figured it out. I never found the answers.

I waited things out quite patiently, I think at that point, and no change. So I figured that the problem must be me, and that the solve would be to remove myself from the equation.

I don’t remember thinking it was a big deal. I thought that maybe, for a short time, some people might be sad but I’d felt so alone at that point in my life—and been left alone so much—that I then felt like, who would really care?

I’d be fine because I’d be gone and finally, FINALLY, everything would stop.

I perfectly understood that it was a permanent solution, but to me, it didn’t feel like I was having a temporary problem.

I found Sylvan Esso years ago, right before their first album, Sylvan Esso, came out. I do not remember where I was when I heard the song Coffee, but I loved it. It was one of those songs of the 2010s that felt so of the time.

It felt like a night at Beauty Bar, it sounded like a morning of getting ready, it reminded me of an overnight shift with my friends trying to stay awake surrounded by jeans and separated mannequin parts.

I’m not truly a full album girlie.

I’m guilty of finding two songs and repeating them, or shuffling an album, just listening for the song that makes me want to press the star next to it. But Sylvan Esso became one of my favorite albums start to finish, and later one of my favorite bands.

The first time I saw them in concert was in Chicago at Empty Bottle, i basically sprinted home from my nanny job, called a friend (who lived in the suburbs) and said “I’m going to walk over there now and save our spot in line”.

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How very youthful it was of me to stand in a line for hours without even a whiff of a guarantee of entry. But, we got in…and we were the last few who did.

I stood in that tight space and watched my favorite band play to a room of folks who felt the same way I did about their music, and it was one of the best experiences of my life.

Time passed, I stayed a fan, and in 2017 they released Die Young off their album What Now, and the song stuck with me.

My interpretation of the song is quite literal: someone had a plan to live life until they were done and end it on their terms before the beauty of life and aging set in. But they fell in love—with someone or something—and now…the plans have fucking changed.

When I heard the song I didn’t connect with the love part at all being anything romantic, I did however immediately connect with the feeling of choosing to die young.

At the time, when death was something I was choosing, I didn’t feel like I had much to live for. I was young, so some may say life hadn’t met me fully yet, but that wasn’t the point. The one that had found me wasn’t the one I wanted. It wasn’t for lack of trying….

Again, time passed, and life, somehow, got better. I lived more, I tried harder, I blocked and pushed away a lot, and I moved forward in life, happy to be living in the moment, happy I didn’t opt out but never fully put the option down.

It creeps up at times, usually when I’m at my lowest, but pushing it away became…”easier”

Usually, when I write these, it’s because something has happened in my life to make me reconnect to the song.

This time it was wanting to give up.

I’ve been fighting with my brain more than ever before. I lose lots of battles, but I win a whole bunch too. I fear that the part of my brain that I succumbed to so easily in the past is fighting me harder than ever before—but it’s probably because I’m fighting harder than I think I ever have. I’m also fighting on a new field I guess, it feels like every worry I could possibly have in the world, every fear I could have ever had, every problem I was scared to face, just every absolutely frightening thing that goes bump in the night is happening to me right now.

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So much is tough up there in my brain, like, chat—we’re in a warzone every fucking day.

I’m quite exhausted, actually!

Anyway, I had a very, very, very low point a few months ago. Losing one of those battles in my brain in a big way, I panicked. I called my mom, who I am actually not talking to much these days, in a fucking frantic state and told her I just couldn’t anymore.

Like, I was done. Trying at everything was finally too hard again, and I’d rather opt out.

She called back, I ignored it, and she left me a voicemail that probably saved me, which is interesting ‘cos in the past it’s all I wanted was to be saved because I was so sick of saving myself.

But, hearing your mother say she refuses to bury you will do something to you.

I am only recently becoming a fan of birthdays; aging was never the issue, I know what it is to be blessed with another year of life as a Black queer person. Knowing that makes me feel even worse because I always think about those who would have given anything to be living my life, no matter the difficulty, but knowing that doesn’t make any feelings of wanting to leave it behind just magically go away.

The issue was that the birthdays were a reminder of my pain, a reminder that I was still enduring so many things that the wishes on cakes just never stopped. The anger, sadness, shame, secrets, and pain were piling up year after year.

Months have passed since that moment in January, and things are still tough up there, but having some things, some people, some future, some love, some growth, is what soothes me in certain times.

I wrote this to get it out of me, in hopes that getting it out would make me feel less disappointed in myself for letting my brain get the best of me. And sad as it may be, it’s working.

Also, NOT listening to this song helps too. I’m the type to listen to things or watch things that match how I feel….guess my astro sign. Sometimes that helps because it’s a reminder to not push away any emotions, but other times it hurts because the line blurs and I ended up leaning too far into them.

Sylvan Esso has many songs that have better memories for me, and I’ll instead listen to those. Also, just last week they posted they’ve got new songs on the way, so who knows what they have in store for me.

So, I’ll have to put this song down. Try to tuck it away deep into the Apple Music universe and move forward.

I’m glad i’m still here & i’m glad that you are too.

Slip stars my imaginary mentor Zoe Lister-Jones (who also wrote and directed the show), and was a Roku original series where we meet Mae, a museum curator, who we learn sees her life as dull and repetitive. Where some folks would see a career on the rise, a quiet marriage, and an overall vibey life, Mae just wants a change.

Instead of addressing all the things, she…slips into cheating on her husband after an event one night with a musician who has a high bun and can probably touch every ceiling he comes across.

The night kicks off a series of hella unfortunate events for Mae.

She wakes up the next morning and she’s married to the high bun! She’s rich, he’s famous, and they have the most gorgeous Brooklyn apartment I think I’ve seen, but she’s still unhappy. This is the first one of at least five parallel universes she ends up in.

In every universe, she is the only one who remembers her previous life; everything is different—her homes, her partners, her style, and her jobs or lack thereof. The only constant is Gina (Tymika Tafari, who let’s fucking face it is a GOTDAMN STAR OKAY?!), who has been her best friend since she was a child and remains so in every one of these new lives she leads.

Then here’s the kicker—she discovers the only way to launch into a new universe is to orgasm. She has to keep coming to find her way back.

I love Zoe as an actress. Fawn Moscato in New Girl is one of the greatest characters of all time.

I also really, REALLY enjoy Zoe as a writer (minus The Craft), she has a thing with time and memories, and so do I.

Bits of my memories are foggy, and I have lost time both trying to erase and chase them, and in Slip I feel like Mae is doing a lot of the same. Listers’ 2021 film How It Ends, is so underrated and maybe in my top ten films of all time.

It also hits on time and memories. Losing them, finding them, figuring out how to move through them, and all of that is also present in Slip.

Mae is trying her best to comb through the memories of the life and love she thought she didn’t want to figure out how to not just get it back, but to hold onto it.

Time is such a thing; you never know how much of it we have left. And memories have the power to control your feelings—throwing you forward in smiles or backward in tears. Mae uses the power of time and memory and grabs bits from each life in every universe to finally figure out what she needed and wanted in her original one.

Also, it gets gay, and not just like for a smidge of a second but for a whole episode! Emily Hampshire (Schitt’s Creek) plays her wife, Sandy, in one universe, and it’s pretty dope. Without spoiling it, I really like how they capture that queer relationships are full of love, passion, friendship, and flirtation—but that they also have their not-so-perfect moments too.

I just dig how their connection isn’t fraught with trauma, and we see such an expanded world for them that we don’t often see when it comes to lesbian couples on TV.

In each of Mae’s relationships in these worlds, each one isn’t just teaching her a lesson, but it’s trying to force her to reckon with all the feelings that launched her into this whole thing in the first place.

It’s sort of letting her live in the world of “The grass is greener on the other side”, making her look at the issue of comparing her life to others and realizing it may be good for them, but it ain’t for her.

All in all, I feel like Slip is the age-old story of not knowing what you have until it’s gone but told in a really unique and layered way.

It’s about making sure you know you and that you dig you, and wow, I never thought I’d quote RuPaul ever again, but…if you can’t love yourself, how in the hell you gon’ love somebody else?

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Where To Watch

so….I don’t think you can without a VPN of some sort (we use this one) BUT when you do get that all situated, you can watch AppleTV (with an itvX add-on) OR on itvX.

It was originally on The Roku Channel but it’s not there anymore! Maybe send Zoe a DM with a link to this post and ask for a copy, it’s actually not uncommon for folks with series no longer available to send links— of Flatbush Misdemeanors used to do it all the time.

If you liked this piece you should pop over to this one:

Thank you so much for reading The Cinehunni Diaries! If you like what you read share, comment, subscribe, and consider becoming a paid subscriber <3

*This piece was originally published on Autostraddle and has been edited.

This post has some spoilers for Peaky Blinders series 1-6, not in some huge way but bits and pieces!

I love Peaky Blinders. I have always loved, and this is going to sound INSANE, a deep peek into a very violent, yet loving and deeply problematic family, a category The Bridgertons also falls under but we don’t wanna talk about that.

My dad loves mafia films and his all-time favorite film(s) are The Godfather Trilogy.

So I grew up watching him watch these movies, and even though I have YET to watch that particular trilogy myself, I became fascinated with that dynamic. A family in the underworld that came from nothing and now controls everything.

Scarface, BMF, The Goodfellas, Hoodlum, American Gangster, Casino, Belly….they all give a look into fame, fortune, and the families—chosen or blood—that built it all.

Then I became high-key obsessed with learning about the actual families a lot of this stuff was based on, and STILL AM.

Enter, The Shelby Family. THEY TOOK MY BIRMINGHAM BREATH AWAYYYYYYYYY!!!

Loved them since I first saw Tommy Shelby light that cigarette and roll it on his lips. The series uses the story of the real-life Sheldon Family as inspiration. Steven Knight, who created the series, is of blood relation to the gang family who were mainly causing chaos during the tail end of the 19th century into the top of the 20th.

Of course, the show focuses on the family and all the ABSOLUTELY WILD SHIT THAT HAPPENS WITH THEM ALL, and some of that, say….extended family, includes some Black folks who were also based on some real people.

I’ll immediately say this, the way Blackness is woven into the series feels genuine and also realistic. Most of the Black folks in their orbit come from one specific moment in Tommy’s life (World War 1) and grew from there.

It’s not like they were childhood friends (like their children and younger siblings would eventually be), but instead they, well, trauma-bonded and stayed homies when they got back home.

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Peaky Blinders takes place in 1919-1934, this is pre The Windrush Generation, which was one of the big moments where West Indian folks started coming to the UK for work. World War Deux had duh, knocked out a lot of the workforce, so there was a massive opportunity to fill the void.

Yes, obviously, there were Black folks in the UK during the time Peaky Blinders takes place, but finding A WHOLE LOT OF INFORMATION ON THAT IS HARD.

EYE HAVE TRIED! BUT, the Black characters’ presence still makes sense.

Jermiah Jesus played by Benjamin Zephaniah (who passed away in 2023), was based on a real person.

In the series, Jermiah and Tommy are friends from serving together in WWI (he also served with John), and they just…stayed friends. Jermiah went the Jesus route and Tommy—did not. Jermiah was very much Team Shelby and puts his bible down to tussle here and there, but he’s mostly (unfortunately) magical negro adjacent.

He has a son, Isiah Jesus, who grew up around The Shelby Family and eventually became a certified Peaky Blinder. He’s besties with Finn Shelby (they are a few years apart), and you literally see him grow up in the show, which I LOVE. When he was younger he was played by Jordan Bolger:

then when he’s older he’s played by Daryl McCormack, who I ADORE from Bad Sisters.

Also, Also, Finn later marries a Black woman named Mary, played by Abbie Hern.

It’s dope right, because they keep Blackness in this world in a way that makes sense. It becomes generational; you start to see just how it becomes a part of The Shelby Family’s world.

When I watch certain shows that are mostly white, I understand and don’t fully expect to see Blackness. Usually, when it happens, and some sort of Black story or character comes into play, it’s so weird. It’s hyperclear that it’s a checkbox and like—EYE DONUT NEED OR WANT THAT!

I’d rather you do it in an intentional way that leaves space for some sort of true longevity and an actual story, or like, leave us out entirely.

*****START OF SPOILER ALERT SECTION FOR A MAJOR S5 PLOT POINT******

There is also Mr. Ben Younger, played by THEE Kingsley Ben-Adir. First, honesty hour….I often mix Kingsley and Regé-Jean Page from Bridgerton up—I AM TRYING TO DO BETTER.

Anyway, he comes in towards the end of the series as a love interest and (Spoiler Alert) becomes the father of Elizabeth Younger, his daughter with Ada Shelby.

and then SHIT GETS A LITTLE DICCCEEEYYYYY. Because THE CALL (RACISM) IS COMING FROM INSIDE THE HOUSEEEEEEE!

Her older brother Karl, Ada’s son from an earlier marriage, calls her “that thing” and says her literal presence is going to get them killed. He also says that she is going to eventually get sent back to Africa.

WHERE IS THE NEAREST REFORMATORY BECAUSE LOCK HIS ASS UP NOW!

*****END OF SPOILER ALERT SECTION FOR A MAJOR S5 PLOT POINT******

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Ada isn’t having it but…she doesn’t do enough for me. If you think Black children born into white families where there is no other Black presence need to be protected now—imagine it then.

And that brings us to today, Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man takes place in 1940.

Everyone is older, including all their children. We’re focused on Duke Shelby (also called Erasmus), the illegitimate firstborn of Tommy Shelby. I find it interesting because the Shelby Family is so messy that I didn’t think they would be in the business of labeling legitimacy but hey—that is their Caucasian business!

Anyway, he’s running The Peaky Blinders and it looks like his right-hand man is also Black:

I don’t know his role, I haven’t seen the film yet, but his name is Jay Lycurgo IRL, and whatever his rank is in The Peaky Blinders under Duke’s command feels like it is VV up there.

Ada Shelby (Sophie Rundle) has a gigantic presence in the film. Maybe we’ll see her daughter, maybe we’ll touch on her identity in a world of Naz*s, maybe we’ll see her fathers side of the family, maybe we’ll see Finn’s wife and if they had children, Duke and Isiah were close so maybe we’ll see what he’s up to, maybe this new charcter has a family as well? WHO KNOWS.

This film is so long-awaited by an audience that loves it DEEPLY, so I’d be shocked if we touch on any of those stories in a big way, but I’d also be not so shocked if they actually did. One can only hold onto my razor blade and hope.

Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man has a limited theatre release and came out earlier this weekend, but it will be streaming on Netflix for all to watch on March 20th.

If you don’t wanna binge everything, you can watch the essential episodes, but honestly…just do it for the whole Shelby shebang. You can also watch the official recap below!

I live in Chicago, and it is playing in a theatre near me, which means I’ll likely see it before it hits the flix, BUT if you’re waiting and wanting to do a little rewatch (or first watch), I GOT YOU!

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A Cinehunni binge guide to the Peaky Blinders series to prep you for Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man!

Seasons 1 & 2

When to watch? March 9-12 (Monday-Thursday)

3 episodes a night, 4 days in a row. This is easy peasy Tommy Shelby squeezy. They both move pretty fast and give you the story that you need and background on every character.

Plus, Sunday was daylight savings time-we either lost or gained an hour, I don’t know, and i’m not going to look it up (I STILL DON’T FULLY UNDERSTAND THIS BUT IT’S LIGHT OUT LONGER AND EVERYONE IS HAPPY ABOUT IT) BUT each season is only 6 episodes at just under an hour each!

Things to pay attention to:

• how many Shelby’s there are

• literally anything Polly says

• every person that any Shelby sibling is interested in

• the Shelby house

• ADA FOOKIN’ SHELBY. PAY ATTENTION TO ADA SHELBY

Season 3

When to watch? March 14 (Saturday)

One season in one day

It’s about to be a lot, and maybe you don’t need that much violence and drama in your life during the work week. So, your Saturday has been planned.

I suggest watching a little something light as a palate cleanser, so you aren’t going to bed having watched one of the Shelbys murder someone because they looked at them weird (this is not a spoiler…it is just a fact). May I suggest an episode of Kimmy Schmidt, Fisk, The Residence, or Queen Charlotte perhaps?

Things to pay attention to:

• THE SHELBY HOUSE

• Tommy’s style

• Arthur Shelllllllbbyyyyy

• relationships between the siblings

• ANYTHING POLLY SAYS

Season 4

When to watch? March 15 (Sunday)

We’re picking up steam, binge it all today. Order yourself some breakfast in the morning and knock out 3 episodes. Then 3 episodes in the evening (paired with a McDouble, 10-piece nugget, large fry extra salt, and a Dr. Pepper extra ice) to wrap it up.

Things to pay attention to:

• Tommy

• scottish accents

• Ada and her outfits

• POLLY

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Season 5

When to watch? March 16-17 (Monday-Tuesday)

We’re splitting it into two days babes. Tell your roommate/partner/part-time makeout friend that the TV choice is yours in the evening. They can join, or you can give them headphones, a book, and a cookie to hang out with you on the couch while you watch.

Things to pay attention to:

• YOUR EMOTIONAL WELL-BEING

March 18

TAKE A BREAK BABES, YOU’RE ALMOST THERE!

Season 6

When to watch? March 19-20 (Thursday-Friday)

WE’RE BACK TO THE SPLIT!

3 episodes a day, however you see fit. Watch in the morning with breakfast, watch on company time if you work from home, watch on company time if you don’t work at home (if this results in your firing, I do not take responsibility, I have literally been looking for a job for like a year hunnybaby SO TREADETH THEE LIGHTLY)

THAT’S IT, YOU MADE IT!

Take a break and don’t go right into watching the movie—get some sleep and watch it on the 21st!

The trailer is below and you’ll likely find me on threads chatting about it soon and until then—NO FUCKING FIGHTING!

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Etc.

• Esme is my second favorite character in the Peaky Blinders universe

• raise your hand is the name Sondra Celli rings a bell

• i have only been attracted to Tom Hardy when he is playing a very large man with issues that cannot be solved with therapy or like…anything else really

• still telling you what to watch on IG so follow me there!

If you liked this post, you might like this one too!

‘KAYTHXBIIII!!

I don’t know if I have ever made this clear but….

I LOVE REVENNNNNNGGGGGGGGEEEE (FILMS)!!!!!!

Especially when it’s served from Black girls and this morning I got such a lovely surprise because the trailer for the film IS GOD IS from the mind of Aleshea Harris was released and I am more excited then I ever was to see it.

Adapted from a play of the same name, IS GOD IS, is about two sisters (played by Mallori Johnson and Kara Young) who are sent on a mission from their estranged mother (Vivica FUCKING A. Fox) on her deathbed to kill their father.

Years ago, he set their mother on fire…IN FRONT OF THEM. Leaving all three of them physically and mentally scarred and then going on his merry ass way to move on with his life—and likely fuck up the lives of others.

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I care about this film so much and it is my film of the year already I am calling it.

Not only do i think movies are so back, BLACK FILMS ARE HERE. I refuse to say back because they never left, but many Black films are being made to talk directly to Black audiences and others just so happen to be listening (or ear hustling as my fiance would say) to the conversation.

Just as Sinners was Black to the core, IS GOD IS is as well.

The trailer—every second, every frame—is undeniably speaking directly to Black girls.

If for some reason you watch the entire trailer and think that’s false…1 minute and 3 seconds in….Ya Ya by Beyoncé starts to play.

WHAT DO YOU MEAAANNNNNNNNNNNN?

I love revenge films, especially when it’s women who get to enact it. Carrie, Kill Bill, Hard Candy, Sissy, and Death Proof are my favorite ones. There are a few things I run up against as a lover of revenge films though.

• They are mostly white women

• They are mostly seeking revenge because of sexual assault

• If it’s a Black person, they are mostly seeking revenge due to some historical trauma

So it’s hard to love those type of films but I do anyway.There is a right way to get revenge and IS GOD IS is going to prove that.

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I connect with these films because there are some parts of me that wants to get revenge of my own. Revenge that feels justified inside but scary when it comes to the top of my mind.

I have a history of hurt that lives in my bones. Hurt that no matter how hard I work to forgive it, forgive the people, make sense of it, and if not let it go at least move through it—will never go away.

So this film, where at LEAST three Black women are getting the revenge that they deserve, speaks to me. I hear it, I feel it, and I cannot wait to see it.

SO watch the trailer but also, get into my breakdown of it and Tessa Thompson if you’re reading this, get with me so I can do something for the folks in Chicago and Detroit for this film!

Out May 15th!!!

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Trailer Breakdown Thots and MY OPINNNIIOONNNSS!

*****************************************************************

Peep the photo hanging from the dash

So the girlies have been ride or die since birth, and of course we tend to extra bond with folks who were there during some parts of our trauma. But the sisters have completely different personalities, one is quiet and one is dangerous.

They love each other bad but when setting out to seek revenge—everybody MUST be on the same page or personalities are bound to clash. The photo has a sort of split down the middle so maybe it could mean the sisters—at some point—go their seperate ways.

Forever mama’s little girls

They are estranged from their mother but when it’s time to meet up with her, their style changes. It gets more innocent with the florals and the pigtails. No matter what they’ve been through, they still want to put on their best selves for her. Which could mean accepting her proposal of seeking revenge will be met with an enthusiastic “Yes mama!”

Queen Viv being MUTHA is gold. That’s All. And leave it to a Black woman to always stay fly.

Sister, Sister

Kara and Mallori kill these roles purely based on these stills. Their characters vibes pour out of them and you can tell the story of their sisterhood is a super close one. You can tell who took care of whom, you can understand why one may be more fragile, you can understand who may want to forgive and who will never let anyone forget.

Home Sweet Home

Religion is often woven into Black films, but usually in a way that is just doing the absolute most. I love that this film is going to hit on it in some way and THIS SHOT! THIS SHOT! It reminds me of my grandmas house in Southwest Detroit on Electric.

ROADDDDD TRIIPPP

This also qualifies as a road trip movie which I ALSO LOVE. It seems they have to do a little bit of traveling here and there to get to their father. Of course, revenge doesn’t come easy but I feel like they will not be letting a few miles keep them from getting what they want.

Papa can you hear me?

Here is my thing, I know we love to show Black men in film being great fathers, and really kind, and like whatever “a stand up guy” means….but also sometimes it’s great to show them like not being shit.

It’s so stressful as a Black person to always strive for some form of excellence—in real life and on-screen—we are always held to a different standard. So i know it sounds weird, but it feels nice to know that even for a fictional second, we can show that sometimes NIGGAS ARE NOT SHIT! also Sterling K. Brown PHHHHHEWWWW AN ACTOORRR!

and speaking of….

…who is these niggas?

I got a huge feeling their papa was a rolling stone. Niggas like “The Monster” tend to leave whole families behind to go start new ones where they actually show up in some way. I think these two are their fathers other children who he actually has been SOME SORT of a father to.

The girls ride around in an Oldsmobile…

It’s beat up, it will likely break down at some point in the film, but it’s theirs. The boys above have a brand new car, old school vibes, but immaculate and maybe given to them by the father they all share.

Perhaps the old car is their fathers too, the only thing they have left of his. Or perhaps it’s not at all and I’m reading too much into it and those boys are no kin to them and just some niggas they come across during the trip. BUT IT IS FUN TO READ INTO A TRAILER BECAUSE THIS IS WHAT I DEWWWW!!!

Stacked Cast & Incredible Writer/Director Alert

Let us PLEASE look at this cast and cry tears of gratitude

followed by screams of joy that the original creator of the play ALSO IS THE DIRECTOR OF THE FILMMMMM!!!!!

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Well class, that’s it. This film has just become my everything and I can’t wait until we all get to see it and discuss it as a class!

Happy watching, reading, and go to the site to keep up with all things IS GOD IS.

Etc.

• We have to talk about just how important the use of Ya Ya is! Beyoncé don’t just approve anybody to use her music so phew! SEAL OF APPROVAL!

• The day before this trailer drop (last night lol) I had just made a list of the films I was most excited for this year and IS GOD IS was on it. Just feels like kismet that the very next day all the key art and more came in.

• I’ve been doing lotsa posts on my IG about film so go follow me there!

• My mama looks like Maxine Shaw Ericka Alexander and has been told that her whole life.

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  ‘kaythxbiiii!

Last year, I went to the Cayman Islands.

I’d only heard about it in movies usually as the place where after some big heist, all the bad guys hid their money. I knew it was real but only through film. They never actually showed it.

Then, I went.

I was invited to experience the islands, their beauty, the people, and the art during Cayman Art Week.

The first movie that comes to mind when I think of a Black babe on an island vacay is How Stella Got Her Groove Back. It takes place in Jamaica and I just picture Angela Basset with her flowing braids and white dress ready to reset her life.

I’m not usually an island kind of girl, no matter how tempting Angela made it look, but you do not say no to an opportunity to visit a beautiful place you’ve never been. So I packed, tried to prep, and headed to The Cayman Islands!

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I arrived in a bit of a fragile state thought. I was excited and I was trying to stick to the whole plan I had but it was starting to fall part. There was a lot going on emotionally but this was work after all so I couldn’t cancel and tried to show up as best as I could.

I got off the plane and for damn near a week I was put in the lap of luxury. Staying at Hotel Indigo, surrounded by natural beauty, eating some incredible food, drinking the yummiest tasting drinks I’d ever had, talking to artists non-stop, but inside I was a wreck.

One day, I was selected out of our group of journalists to go to the neighboring smaller island, Cayman Brac. This has since become one of thee most stunning places I’d ever seen in my whole life and I was only there for about 4 hours.

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I climbed to the top of Le Soleil d’Or, toured the farm (after having a hella tasty and fresh brekkie downstairs at the restaurant), and tasted fruit straight off the trees. Around me, there was silence. Not total silence, but the kind where the waves crashing was the only thing I heard and the ocean was the only thing I saw.

I started crying.

It was just a few days into the trip, and I knew we’d be leaving soon. I’d had an incredible time—meeting amazing people, hearing their stories—but I was also full of the emotions I had carried onto the island and I guess it was coming to a head.

I tried to keep it in, be respectful to the two others I was with, but it just started happening. I was just going to tuck it in and take it back with me but it felt like the island, that particular place, was trying to tell me to leave it there.

One of the folks I was with was a Caymanian, and when she noticed I’d stepped away, she came up to me and told me it was okay. That feelings often come out here, that it wasn’t odd or off putting but human.

After a few moments we climbed back down and went to The Beach Club, it’s a few miles away from the farm and omigosh would I love to go back.

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My dream Cayman Brac redeux includes sauntering around The Beach Club Studio, making our way to the beach and just sleeping to the sounds of the sea in the middle of the day.

It’s kinda like The Cayman Islands knew I wanted a redeux because TODAY they launched somehting looking for the islands first Chief Relaxation Officer!

It’s for the folks who just deserve a vacation do-over!

For TWO WHOLE ASS WEEKS, the island is selecting someone to to actually REST. Like that’s the whole point of your job as the FIRST EVER Chief Relaxation Officer is TO JUST CHILL.

Here are the vibes:

The Assignment (Yes, This Is the Actual Job Description):

• Sleep at least eight hours a night (naps encouraged).

• Spend daily time by the water - floating, reading, or doing nothing at all.

• Enjoy fresh local dishes like coconut ceviche.

• Sip island cocktails at iconic beachfront spots.

• Dine with Caymanian locals to learn their relaxation rituals.

• Explore nature and see rare island species like the blue iguana or Cayman parrot.

• End days with a tech-free sunset on Seven Mile Beach.

And these are the benefits

• Round-trip flights to Grand Cayman

• Round-trip island-hopping flights to Cayman Brac

• 14 nights of luxe island accommodations

  • Winner will stay at Le Soleil d’Or in Cayman Brac! A luxury farm-style inn!

  • Additional hotel stay locations will be confirmed before launch!

• Daily meal + activity stipend

• On-island transportation

• A custom “no-itinerary itinerary” designed by locals

• And bragging rights as Cayman’s first Chief Relaxation Officer

That’s it.

No schedules, no alarms, no working….just actual rest and relaxaatttiiioonnn.

All you have to do is submit your “worst vacation ever” story by February 17, 2026 and A real Board of Relaxation (Caymanian chefs, artists, community leaders) will pick the person who needs a vaCay the most.

I really hope y’all apply. Just the fact that you’ll get to stay at Le Soleil d’Or if you apply is all the more reason to just go for it.

So apply, there’s nothing to lose and everything to gain. You can pack your swimsuits, your books, and your emotions. I promise you the island will welcome every single one <3

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Extras:

I have a lot of photos I never got to share so now you get to see them so you can get prepped for when you’re selected at CRO!

I was too in my feelings to take selfies while there but I looked cute when I was sweating at an art gallery one night and I was FEELING THE STELLA FANTASY!!!

This was one of the sexiest drinks I ever had and it was at Rasa

Also look at all these bites of heaven that I had at Rasa while in some of the greatest conversations I’ve kinda ever had?

ANNNNDDD I went to Library By The Sea where they, get this, POUR YOU A STORY! They have drinks that they curate based off books and OH MY GOD all I wanna do is lounge here and read and get all knowledgable and tipsy at the same tiiiimmmeeee!!!

Also art galore and these by Conroy Ebanks…I wanted to take every single one back with me and not to mention he is literally the flyest and chillest person.

If you liked this post, you might dig this one too:

kthanksbiiiii!!!!

Charli XCX shared all of her realities of being a pop star. 13,000 likes.

Lena Dunham wrote about her body and her diagnosis. 1,447 likes.

Doeechi wrote about her showerhead being racist. 183 comments.

Tegan and Sara are writing about a whole lot…but most of it is behind a paywall. Pretty much every post has at least 100 likes.

Troye Sivan wrote about dealing with aging and feeling uggo. 2,500 likes.

For a while, Substack used to feel like this:

And in some kind of way, that’s what folks liked about it. Dropping “omigosh I follow this Substack that…” into conversations at parties or sharing posts to Instagram stories, with that not hella recognizable logo in the corner that made you curious enough to click.

It was this little, lowkey corner of the internet. Folks who were looking for writing of all kinds they weren’t getting enough of in major media, and the writers who weren’t getting opportunities to write it, or maybe they were, but not consistently.

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By the time I got to it a few years ago, it was out of the whole bootstrap startup phase. I mean, at one point Mr. Musky was trying to buy it, but it wasn’t up for grabs, but it still felt cozy.

And now everyone knows about it. There are so many pieces about Substack, what it is, and what’s more interesting to folks—who’s on it.

Celebrities of every alphabet list are popping up. I think a lot of them already had accounts, reading and subscribing, but didn’t want anyone to know. It’s like celebrities with secret Letterboxd profiles. I just KNOW Cillian Murphy has one, but WE’LL NEVER KNOWWWWWW.

NEWAY…people are having some thots and opinions about it.

Some are playful..

but a lot of folks are not having it.

I too have some feelings about it.

On one hand, these people are artists. Each in their own right. Writing their own lyrics, or in a phase of their career where they want to be taken seriously, and like okay, they deserve that.

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They’re also literally just humans. Imagine having your life just in the media and on social, with actual millions of strangers giving opinions, memifying it, and all you can do is sit there and take it. I get why Substack can feel like a little rebellious spot where they can speak for themselves and just BE themselves without approval from a PR team (who I still imagine looks like Angelica’s mom from Rugrats)

I know how freeing writing can be. It’s part of why I am a writer. I know what it feels like to release something onto the paper.

Writing it out. Seeing my feelings. Connecting them to something. Putting it on the page. Feels really good.

But like also—I’m not famous.

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Like some folks on here, I feel a bit of the “unfair” of it all. Media suckssssssss right now. If you’re not already connected to a publication in some way, getting a recurring byline is the fuck HARD if you want to go the standard media route.

Making a living as a writer was already hard—but there was another way. You could create a Substack, write here your way, and get paid for it. Folks who wanted to directly support a writer they “really knew,” someone outside a larger publication or media house with politics or agendas they didn’t align with, came here.

When I first started my Substack, I didn’t tell anyone about it. I used it as a place to write the things I couldn’t land elsewhere. I wrote the pieces here that made me continue to love writing everywhere else. At the time, I was working as the culture editor at Autostraddle and had bylines at other publications but Substack was my favorite little secret corner of the internet.

Then, about a year after I started my Substack, my role at Autostraddle ended. Some of the other places I wrote for started laying folks off or just shuttered. I needed to not only keep writing, but also make monies. And all the people who loved my work on Autostraddle became the start of my audience here, which was so dope.

These are regular people who give me $5 of their hard-earned money every month to support me. I make them laugh. I tell them what movies to watch so they can relax in their daily lives. I share my life through films they’ve already seen—or I just say insane things at 2 a.m. in Notes. And they support me.

I didn’t start seeing celebs on my Substack feed until a few months ago and EYE WAS SURPRISED. That leads me to this note.

I kind of agree. The word normies is wild to me lol and I’m not necessarily looking for an escape when I’m on Substack, but I agree with the general vibe.

The other side of how I feel is… perhaps they’ve “lost” the privilege of some parts of normalcy?

Because of your fame, you can’t just go to Trader Joe’s on a Tuesday with your headphones on, sipping the cold brew you just bought as you slowly go aisle by aisle… and maybe you like also can’t be on Substack without some scrutiny.

Celebrities on Substack is one thing. Celebrities with content behind a paywall is a wholeeeeee other conversation. Large publications on Substack? Another WHOLE ASS conversation. Like, I don’t understand why something like New York Magazine needs a Substack.

AND THEN there’s the argument that celebrities being on Substack isn’t the reason your posts don’t get engagement or subscriptions—and for the most part, that’s true. But you have to admit it does become way more difficult to get eyes on your work when celebrities, with less than three posts, show up on the bestseller or rising lists.

I also think people hesitate to say how they feel about it because they don’t want to seem bitter or like a hater. That sucks, because feeling bitter—or being a hater—is often fair.

Also, also I feel like many folks are afraid to share their feelings because it invites critique of their work that’s usually harsh for no reason, or completely unfounded… and usually from an account that only follows celebrities.

Anyway. That’s how I feel about it.

Extras:

• Speaking of publications, remember when Carrie made $4.50 a word at Vogue and then Candace Bushnell (SATC Creator) did that interview with The New Yorker basically confirming that in the 90s that’s what the going rate was? Carrie could write like 5 words and keep 5 Substacks going for like…ever.

If you liked this piece you might like this one too!

The Cinehunni Diaries is $5 a month so think about becoming a paid subscriber ‘kay?

I don’t have an issue with death, I’m actually kind of fascinated by it in a way.

Actually, my fascination doesn’t lie in death but the afterlife. Wondering if there is one, wondering if it’s the same for us all, wondering if what they taught me in church for all those years is what’s going to happen or if it was all a buncha crap.

When someone I love passes, or when life feels like it is doing SO MUCH, that’s when I think about the afterlife the most. I wonder if we get to continue in the same way we did on earth, but without the stress. Without the worries, without the fears, and for many folks… without the heartache. I want a carefree afterlife for everyone, especially those who never got the chance to fully experience that while alive.

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So when I found out about Eternity, I was already in, purely for Elizabeth Olson. She’s on a Shelli award–winning run. With the exception of Love and Death…like, I’m sorry, but we should all be honest and admit that Candy was far better—BUT EYE DIGEST DIGRESS.

Shows like Russian Doll, Pushing Daisies, The Good Place, and the episodes of Black Mirror like San Junipero and Eulogy are some of my fav pieces of pop culture that explore death and what comes after it.

The Good Place (or what it was pretending to be) comes closest to what I imagine the afterlife might really be like—your fav things, your fav people, and your dream house complete with a fridge that always has your fav food at the perfect temp.

Eternity leans into that idea beautifully but also makes the afterlife messy, complicated, and hella human.

Larry (Miles Teller), Joan (Elizabeth Olson), and Luke (Callum Turner) all die and end up in an afterlife where you have one week to decide where you’ll spend eternity—and in Joan’s case, with who.

It’s like Challengers but everyone is white and dead.

I’ve actually never seen Challengers, so I don’t know how that love triangle plays out BUT in this story, decisions aren’t simple and choices must be made (and are).

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What makes life after death stand out in Eternity is that it’s even for everyone. EVERYONE. Folks who “followed the rules” on earth hopeful that it would pay off, and those who absolutely the fuck didn’t and couldn't care less, all get thrown on an even playing field.

I can’t tell if I think that’s fair or not, but because I want the afterlife to be a paradise of all things good, I’m heavily leaning on not wanting anything or anyone bad involved.

But maybe that’s the human in me. Would I think it’s fair that someone featured on a true crime podcast and ME—A COMPLETLY PERFECT HUMAN BEING WITH ZERO FAULTS WHATSOEVER—both get the chance to experience a happily ever after? No, not really. But in Eternity, life after death has a pinch of the messiness that exists during life so maybe it’s not so even after all.

If you asked Joan when she was alive, if she thought she’d have to choose who was her forever love when she was dead, I’m sure she’d say no.

Joan and Luke. They were married first, but he died early in the war. After some time, Joan got remarried to Larry. They spent 65 years together, doing the thing so many folks dream of. They got a house, they had kids, and grew old together. While they were doing all that and minding their business just being alive, Luke somehow found a loophole in the afterlife—completely skipping over the one-week-to-decide rule—and spent decades working as the afterlife's most aloof bartender instead of choosing an eternity.

His plan is that when she arrives, they will finally spend eternity together—simple as that. She will fall into his arms, they will make out, they will be like “omigosh I MISSED YOU” and then live (die?) happily ever after.

It’s INSANE (because he is making the world’s biggest assumption that she’s been waiting for him)
It’s WILD (because he has no clue what she is doing with her life while he waits)

AND IT’S VERY ROMANTICCCCCCCCCCC!!!!

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People are hoping someone they went on a date with three weeks ago will swipe up on their story. Meanwhile, Luke is willing to spend eternity waiting for the love of his life to show up. He’s 65-some odd years in…what’s one more week?!

The managers of the afterlife—including Anna (Da’Vine Joy Randolph), Larry’s “Afterlife Coordinator”—bend the rules to help Joan, but ultimately, the decision is hers.

Side note: I DEMAND A BLONDE DA’VINE JOY RANDOLPH GUIDE ME THROUGH THE AFTERLIFE.

Throughout the film, the messiness of choice keeps coming up. No matter who she chooses, there are consequences. One would be happy she picked him, but then maybe later ask why she needed time to think in the first place. Maybe the one she didn’t choose is left heartbroken for literal ever, wondering why not him. She could choose neither and spend eternity alone constantly wondering what could have been.

Eternity is a story about love, the choices we make, and the life we live, not knowing what comes after. Watching it made me think about whether believing in an afterlife or not changes how we love people while we’re here. Do you say everything you need to say and love hard and loud ‘cos you know you’re on borrowed time? or do you love a little quieter and focus on other things ‘cos you think you’ll have another life to live?

Anyway, the choices Joan makes are in fact…

But Eternity is streaming now! So go watch and tell me who you’re spending forever with!

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Extra:

• When I was writing this in bed, my fiancé said, “business business type type type” and I thought that was very cute and funny and supportive and sweet :)

• These are just a few of the eternities lol

If you liked this review, you might like this one too

OKTHXBIIIIII!!!

Too short to be a post and probably too long for a note.

Do you remember in Legally Blonde when Elle got into Harvard?

Or in Insecure when Issa finally left We Got Y’all without a solid backup plan?

Or when Troy realized he could love the stage and the court in High School Musical?

What about when Tina risked it all and left Ike with only 36 cents in her pocket in What’s Love Got to Do With It?

At some point in those films or telly shows, that person decided to believe in themselves. Maybe it wasn’t some entirely new concept for them, they may have already had it in them, but it was quiet.

I have been so busy being everyone else’s biggest fan that I kinda forgot to be my own for a while.

I’ll share everyone else’s work but my own.

I’ll answer e-mails from folks looking for help or a connection but never reach out when I need help.

I’ll make a deck for someone else’s idea and delay the one I was making for a pitch of my own.

I forget that I can root for everybody and myself.

It was pounded into me in my formative years that being humble is one of the most important things that a person can be. That if you bragged about yourself, your success, or something great you’d done in any way, the God that gave you the ability to do it would take it away.

I spent so long thinking that couldn’t be true but I had no proof. So I stayed just proud enough, said it all just quiet enough, shared wins just softly enough. Enough to believe in myself but not too much ‘cos I feared that it’d all get taken away.

Then it did.

When my role at a publication ended a few years ago, I felt like that I must have gotten too loud. That what I was taught must have been real because I had gotten really loud, and really proud of myself. Believed that the incredible work and opportunities I was getting I deserved, so why not occasionally be so proud of all my hard work paying off and share?

My IG story was always full of my work and fave excerpts from it, I was on Twitter sharing stories I’d edited and helped get out into the world, when someone complimented my work I was finally able to say thanks without cringing SO hard, and when folks introduced me to someone and dropped a bit of my resume a “Wait, I def did do that” smirk would slightly appear on my face.

Then it all went away. The media landscape started to change, sites started shuttering, the opportunities started to fade, AI decided to takeover, I got sick, and SOMEHOW it was all able to be traced back to me because I had the nerve to be proud of myself.

It sucked.

I felt like I should have taken those stories about the boogeyman that snatches dreams away from girls who dare to share their accomplishments far more seriously.

I think just under a month ago, I reached over 1200 subscribers on this newsletter, gaining about 400 of those after publishing a piece about my mother that resonated with a lot of yall.

Since then, I have been reading and re-reading my posts here recently and feel proud.

Then I got to thinking about my career as a writer. I’ve been published at publications I never dreamed would take me seriously.

I’m outreach director of a critics association (I’ve shared this news ONCE) that I am bringing into the modern moment and taking to the next level.

I have interviewed people who inspired so many, I have been to film festivals I heard about in movies, I get cool things in the mail that little Shelli would quietly scream about in her bedroom. I have colleagues who turned into long-distance friends that inspire AND support me—and that’s all something to be proud of.

I think that’s cool.

I think my writing is fun, witty, knowledgable, inviting, curious and that it reaches people and makes them feel seen, or makes them laugh, or makes them want to escape into some film or moment the same way I did and leave the rest of the world behind…and I’m really proud of that too.

Maybe I’ve reached a point in the whole up & down of the right now where I’m at a high. Maybe it’ll be gone by morning. but right now it’s the part of the movie where the character is up.

Elle was fueled by pure rage to believe in herself (wait… am I on glue or did we not get into the same law school, Warner?), Issa understood that failing was actually okay because it meant she was trying (look at us on top of our shit!), Troy needed someone new to tell him what he just couldn’t see in himself (you’re a cool guy, Troy — but not for the reasons your friends think), and Tina just needed fucking time (Now, it took me a long time to get Ike out of my system. And now that I've done that, I'm ready. I'm ready and I know what I want.)

I’ve been going through quite a lot recently, lots of changes and the reflection can be heavy but, I’m really proud of myself for just trying to keep on keeping on.

When any of my work pops into your inbox, it’s the equivalent of me screaming “Look at me!” and that’s terrifying for a girl who was basically taught to do the opposite. But here you are, reading this ramble, and here I am still writing it.

No one is telling me to keep my excitement down. No one is following their “congratulations” with a reminder that others are working hard to get a similar feeling. No one telling me to be humble when they really want to tell me to stay small. No big bad thing has kicked down my door and snatched everything away from me for feeling even a bit proud of myself and saying it.

I do not at all know how to end this but I know how to hit publish so that’s just what I’ll do <3

It’s time for some Regency Era messssss ‘cos The Bridgertons are back, back, back again!

I have written several times about Bridgerton. I fucking love this show. I had zero clue about the existence of the series before it premiered on Christmas Day 5 years ago.

I didn’t read the books (I’ve since only read the 1st one but own most of them), was not part of the fandom, and had no idea of any of the changes that Mama Shonda made when it went from book to series.

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I had my issues with it (the whole color blind casting threw me once I read up on it) but like many people who talk shit about something—EYE STILL LOVED IT!

I am dedicated to this family and the only other caucasian family I care more about are The Featheringtons which…WHERE ARE THEY THIS SEASON?!

Anyway, the latest season trailer dropped this week, and in case you’re new to all things Bridgey, each season focuses on a different child from the elite family. This season we are zooming in on bisexual baddie and artisté, Benedict Bridgerton, the 2nd of the 8 Bridgerton children.

He’s a sweet little man who loves to be creative and apparently likes to dip his paint stick in lots of peoples pots around town. Which is like, fine! But his mom is like “get married” and he’s like “omg maybe but like leave me alone about it or whatever”

There’s a party and it looks like there….he meets the masked love of his life who we find out is Sophie (Yerin Ha). She is a new face (lol) in the world of Bridgerton and other then knowing that she works as a maid for Lady Gun (Katie Leung) and her daughters Rosamund (Michelle Mao) and Posy (Isabella Wei), we don’t know anything else.

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It looks like this season is following a Cinderella plot of sorts, so maybe Sophie is the daughter of one of Lady Gun’s two dead ex-husbands? I don’t know and to be super honest…I’m not fully invested in their story.

Maybe it’s because it’s the 4th season so the show has built up so many storylines that I have other fun ones to focus on? I don’t know, but the only Cinderella stories I’ve cared about star Brandy Norwood or Drew Barrymore so…we’ll see shall we?

So, just as I have done in the past, let’s go ahead and get into my thoughts on Season 4 based on the trailer!

Chat soon gentle readers!!

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BITCH—WHERE ARE MY THE FEATHERINGTONS?!

Where are my well dresssed and horrible queens?! I didn’t see a lick of true color in that trailer? I know we sort of wrapped it up with their BIGGER storylines last season but they all had kids and we need to know what is going on with every single one of them, not just Penelope. I just have a feeling that Mama Featherington will return to the The Ton still happily single and wearing bright purple while being debt-free.

Also, today I learned that none of them are redheads IRL! I knew Nicola wasn’t but I was SHOCKED at the rest of them!

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The Mondrichs are trying not to lose recipes

Baby Mondrich got a surprise title last season, and now he and his family, including his parents Will & Alice are now part of The Ton. Last season they were navigating how to keep elements of their old life (independence, romance in their relationship, kind and sweet children) while adjusting to the new shit their new status brings (financial stability, better opportunities for their children, the ability to REST) they don’t want the title and money to change their kids or their family.

I love this because I think its something many in this generation (millennials and beyond) of Black families are navigating too. Like, we are allowing and advocating for our (future) children to choose paths in life that THEY want, bringing up children with empathy, wanting them to be who they are, and it’s new to how many of us were raised. The Mondrichs want to bring in elements of their old lives to their sudden new one and are truly trying to figure out how and phew!

P.S I thought it was hilarious last season when theybasically got told because they are now rich and titled that they can’t sleep in the same bed or bedroom and they were like…LOL WHAT?

Whose gotdamn white baby is that?

the answer is NO ONE’S! Every Bridgerton so far has married someone that isn’t white, except for Colin…

…but HE MARRIED A PERFECT REDHEAD WHO IS SMART AND HOT AND WITTY SO THAT’S FINE. They are pulling an early aughts Kardashian (Colin is Kourtney, duh) and it’s kinda wild and I also kinda love it, but also like do I? and also whatever? and also let’s just see what happens?

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Will we see Benedict bisexualing?

Season 3 was the first time it was made explicitly queer clear that Benedict was not straight. He dove into Lady Tilly’s fanny and touched butts with Paul and they also did a lil mini Eyes Wide Shut action, or Challengers if you’re under 30 and don’t get that reference…but also I’ve never seen Challengers...threesome. They had a threesome.

I personally called it in Season One, anytime someone says a character digs a “bohemian” lifestyle (and also hangs around closeted queens who throw fabulous parties) I know it’s code for queer…I’VE SEEN RENT, I KNOW THE LINGO. I talked about the lazy queer coded takes on Eloise at one point but I didn’t fully buy into it—EYE DID BUY INTO HER BROTHER THOOOOOOO AND EYE WASSSS RRRIITTEEE!

I’m wondering if in this season there will be any queerness in his story line. Eloise and Penelope basically call him a fuckboy

So maybe before he starts chasing after Cinderhottie Sophie he’s like hooking up with one of the ton boys? or maybe he has to choose between Sophie and somevguy he fell in love with too? I don’t know!

FRANCESA IS IN A LAVENDER MARRIAGE?!

She has always been the sibling who is not fully interested in bring a Bridgerton and is most likely to do whatever she needs to live life on her own terms as much as any regency era girl could. So if that meant getting married to a guy who is also hella private, rarely home, is fun and nice to be around, let’s her do her own thing (like…read), and isn’t truly pressed about going to parties during the season? OKAY COOL.

She wasn’t fucking with anyone on the market last year and married John Stirling in a quiet ceremony and then was getting ready to move to SCOTLAND (lol she said GET ME OUUTTA HERE NOW!). She meets Michaela Stirling (Masali Baduza) at her brother Colins wedding reception.

Michaela is the cousin of her husband John AND FRANCESA GOT BUTTERFLIES WHEN SHE SAW HER.

Now, let me tell you right now. If Netflix throws this storyline out, makes it fully unqueer, or anything of the sort IM SUING AND WINNING. You don’t get to play stringy romantic music, have her fumble over her words, have them both stare into each others souls, AND THEN NOT BUILD ON IT THE NEXT SEASON.

PLUS I know they veer from the books ::cough cough:: the sheer amount of niggas in the show, with or without storylines ::cough cough:: but they also keep some things the same. In the books Francesa falls in love with Johns cousin MICHAEL. So I’m just saying…

P.S Lavender marriages can be full of love and I think she adores him BUT i think she also wants to kiss his cousin lol

ALSO, I called Francesa being queer before season 3 premiered and I just KNOW season 4 will confirm it for me!

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MAMA BRIDGERTON IS BACK ON THE MARRRRKEETTT

I’ll never forget that scene in Queen Charlotte where she is talking to Lady Danbury about how wildly horny she is because she hasn’t had sex since her husband passed. They apparently had a great sex life (EIGHT KIDS SOOOOO) and her garden was WELL tended to and now, out of nowhere, her drive is back.

Masturbation was a thing of course, but many high class women/girls barely knew about sex let alone masturbation—this was found in a CONVENT during the era also, go watch Behind Convent Walls.

Remember when Daphne had her lesson on both in Season 1, and when The Queen had to have it spelled out for her by a young Lady Danbury in Queen Charlotte?

@netflixin which we were all lady danbury #queencharlotte

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1When they were aware of sex, single/widowed women who wanted to have NSA relationships couldn’t without risking their reputation or the reputation of their family and Dowager Viscountess Bridgerton falls under that. She still has daughters to marry off and has to keep up their family status in order to make sure they attract high quality men great suitors.

Her only true route is to re-marry. She met Lord Marcus Anderson (LADY DANBURY’S BROTHER LOL) last season and they lowkey it off and I’m here for it. She’s only 49 in the show so why shouldn’t she get another shot at love and a little bit of lust. Plus her falling in love with Lady Danbury’s brother is only fair because Lady D had an affair with her dad so—EVEN STEVENS!

The besties are back

The girlies are friends agaaaaiiiinnn. Eloise has presumably fully forgiven and healed from Penelope lying to her about being Lady Whistledown and they are sisters! I love how cuddled up they are (I think Penelope is pregnant again?) and I do wanna know who gave Eloise this haircut (they must pay) and who she is looking at like this.

You would do it too for a check

How is it going to work now that everyone knows who Lady Whistledown is? Like, don’t we all know it’s her..she literally told everyone. So is she just going to like, start signing all her papers, xoxo Penelope Bridgerton? In the trailer, you still hear Mary Poppins Julie Andrews voice, and you can see people still reading Whistledown, and like, we love a small publishing house but is she just gonna keep it going? is The Ton going to pretend they don’t know it’s her so they can still get their gossip? whatever I love it, gotta keep those Bridgerton coffers full!

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That’s all I got! Season 1, Part 1 premieres January 29th and I wanna know everything you’re thinking!!!

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Extras

• Y’all be the fuck SLEUTHING ‘cos this catch was crazzzzyyyy

• Do we think Tia feels seen watching Bridgerton?

  

If you liked this piece you should pop over to this one:

Thank you so much for reading The Cinehunni Diaries! If you like what you read share, comment, subscribe, and consider becoming a paid subscriber <3

I was in my late twenties when I got my first full-size bed.

When I lived at home (growing up and after I graduated college), when I was away at college (there were a few quarters where my roommate basically lived with her boyfriend so I put the twins together), and when I got my first apartment in Chicago—I always had a twin.

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It wasn’t until I got my second apartment in Chicago, in Humboldt Park with my best friend, that I got my first full-size bed. I got it from an Aarons up north because it’s all I could afford. They delivered it, I got cute sheets from the Target on Western—and likely went to the Panera that used to be over there after—and came back and popped them on my first big bed.

It wasn’t huge, but it did take up half the room that was already on the smaller side, and I loved it. I’ve always been able to master getting the most out of a small space. I furnished most of my room at that apartment with stuff from work (I worked the overnight shift merchandising at The Gap), stuff from Craigslist, and stuff I found in alleys.

But no matter the bed and no matter the size, the sheets were always important. This was a place that on summer mornings I’d be sweating in and on Winter nights I’d be bundled up in. The place where I’d take flat lay photos of the early 2010s and post on IG, and replace them with photos of coffee-filled cups later in the decade. I felt like the girls I’d see in movies when I was younger, who were waking up as the opening credits played right before the “getting ready to leave for the job they love” set-up scene.

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I don’t remember exactly when I saw Pretty Woman (1990) for the first time—where Julia Roberts plays a charismatic sex worker and Richard Gere is a busy executive with seemingly unlimited funds—but I know what scene I love the most.

Right before the infamous shopping scene, Edward wakes up Vivian (after they banged on a piano in the hotel lounge the night before mind you) and tells her it’s time to shop.

Her eyes are closed, her red hair all over her face, and she’s naked (presumably) wrapped in the blush-ish hotel sheets.

I left that apartment in Humboldt Park a few years after I got that bed, and it traveled with me to my next apartment, and then again to the one after that—the one that I loved the most right on 18th street in Pilsen. When I first moved into that apartment, all I had was a grey couch, a teal TV stand, a TV, and my bed.

I got stark white sheets for it, this time from a different Target, and a fluffy white comforter. I took my all-time favorite photo of myself in that bed, naked, with tousled hair and wrapped in those sheets.

In Pretty Woman, Viv and Edward wake up in the sheets of The Beverly Wilshire Hotel several times throughout the film. Sometimes together, sometimes separate, but draped in them nonetheless.

A few weeks ago, I was surprised with a staycation of any girls dreams. I didn’t know it was coming, but as I walked through the halls of this five-star hotel my mouth dropped with every step. I’ve stayed in a few hotels, but nothing as glamorous—or romantic—as this one. When I unlocked the door and took off my shoes, I made my way through what felt like a beautiful never-ending stroll to the window and saw a gigantic bed made with perfectly Pantone white sheets.

Eventually, we crawled in and melted into the bed, into the sheets, into each other….

it was perfect.

For nearly three days the outside world was none of my business. My world was this love, that bed, and those sheets. I was in a bubble and every single time I woke up— from either actual sleep or a champagne-induced nap—I felt like I was a dream. When I tossed about, slowly realizing that the sheets I was covered in weren’t the soft sage or rust red ones I’m used to seeing on my skin but instead, these white ones that were slowly getting familiar with our scents.

For almost a week, Viv lived in a similar space, waking up in unfamiliar sheets but leaning all the way into the dream. Outside of the hotel, her real world would try to creep in. That little mini bitch Philip kept trying her, and her friendship with Kit was a constant reminder, but every time she woke up in those sheets, I feel like she settled a little more into deserving that temporary taste of luxury.

In the end (incoming 25-year-old spoiler alert), the guy gets her (not the other way around ‘cos like…c’mon) and she presumably gets to stay in the dream wrapped up in all kinds of sheets with him forever.

When our visit to our own little self made sancutary of luxury came to an end, I was ready to go home, but I took every memory with me. The smell of the yummy room service, the connection and words spoken, the taste of the champagne, and of course all the hotel-branded letterhead and bits I could find for my junk journal. I carried it all with me, back to my life, and back to my world. But now, when I slip into the coziness of my bed, I’ll remember the time I spent a weekend wrapped in crisp unfamiliar white sheets, making memories I’ll never forget.

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My Letterboxd is your new favorite place, but here are some other movies about that have hotel moments that I like:

• The Last Holiday

• Hotel Chevalier

• Zola

• The Royal Tenenbaums

• Pleasure

Extras:

• Warm Take: Out of the two films where Gere and Roberts played a couple, I prefer Pretty Woman because Runaway Bride just…wasn’t good TEW ME

• Pretty Woman is filled with messy moments galore, like…I don’t even want to get into the character Philip.

What I Watched:

• Sliding Doors

  • I only watched this movie because of that episode of Kimmy Scmidt where they basically remake it? I’d seen the episode a million times but never saw the movie and…WHEN WERE YALL GOING TO TELL ME IT STARRED GWEN AND AN ENGLISH ACCENT?!

• Bugonia

  • NOT FOR MEEEEEEEEEE

• Trouble In Mind

• Oh, Hi!

  

• The Talented Mr. Ripley

  • GAYGAYGAYGAYGAYYYYGAYGAYGAYYYYYGAYGAYYYYGAY

• Scandal

  • Ok so, I am watching this show for the first time…

    

    …and as someone who is midway through season 4 I am ready to share that I am obsessed with Mellie, cannot fucking stand Quinn, think the president is a whiney baby, want to smack Cyrus, shake Olivia, and give Huck a hug.

• The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives

  • THE GIRLIES ARE ALWAYS FIGHTING (not complaining)

What I Re-Watched

• Bridget Jones Diary

• Cruella

What I Listened To

• Well, I LOVE SUMMER WALKERS NEW ALBUM AND EYE KNEW I WOULD!

• I like this song a lot from Aunt Comet

• IDK why but also have been listening to this classic by Katie Got Bandz

What I Read

• Joe would be proud and consider me an actual reader for reading Tender Is The Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald. So far it’s good but I’m only 3 chapters in. It would make it the second book I’ve read by Zelda F. Scott Fitzgerald

  • Side Note: if you’ve never watched Z: The Beginning of Everything, you should. It’s the story of Zelda Fitzgerald, Christina Ricci plays her, and it’s incredible. It came out in 2015 and I ate it UP!

    • Extra Side Note: In Great Gatsby (2013) which I saw in the theatre multiple times and cried the first time I saw it, my favorite scene is when they party in the secret apartment Tom has for Myrtle. There is a picture of the real-life Zelda in the apartment!

      

• Sunrise On The Reaping by Suzanne Collins was not very good at all to me. Maybe it’s because The Hunger Games is my favorite book series? Maybe it’s because i didn’t LOVE the Songbirds movie? Maybe it’s because for years I’ve been rewatching the fan made film about the second quarter quell (with 14 million other people) so I’ve just been excited for Suzanne to write about it but….it was a miss for me. Here’s hoping the movie is better—the cast is STACKED so…

• This post by on Her Misspelled Words about friendship was VERRY VERRRRRYYYYY GREAT! I love to write and read about folks and their connection to friendship and this one about the evolution of it was increds!

  

Where I Ate

• I ATE AT HOME ‘COS I BE FUCKING COOKING! I have been trying to cook more at home these days and Winter is the perfect season to make hearty meals. So I been making soups! I really like over at Here’s Your Bite and so far I have made her Creamy Chicken Soup with Potatoes (TWICE!):

and her Lasagna Soup:

• I also had McDonald’s and I was supposed to have the Grinch Fries but they didn’t give me the salt, so for the first time in my life I was let down by french fries from Mickey D’s

• Oxtail with Rice and Peas made by my fiancé

• Chocolate Silk Pie ALSO MADE BY MY FIANCÉ! It had an Oreo crust and was the sexiest, yummiest, pie EVER!

  

Etc.

• How do you take your coffee? I just wanna know if y’all use whole milk. I am not Lactose Intolerant (#blessed) so I wanna know.

okay bye —

I’ve been watching Desperate Housewives recently, and whenever Vanessa Williams shows up on screen anywhere, I automatically start thinking of the holiday season.

She’s in one of my favorite holiday films, A Diva’s Christmas Carol, playing a legendary pop star with no heart, a perfect blowout, and a lot of fucking money. Of course, there’s a family in the film down on their financial luck, and eventually her icy little diva heart melts and she starts handing out cash and presents like candy.

there are a lot of people who know that feeling, except instead of Vanessa Williams showing up to save the holiday (EYE WISH), it was our parents. I grew up in a house that was hella familiar with the term “we got it on layaway”.

both my parents had jobs, but never any real savings, and they lived very much paycheck to paycheck. Even in their retirement, they still live on a hyper fixed income. When I was a kid, they’d sit at the dining room table doing the bills on the back of one of the envelopes those bills came in. Picking what could be paid and what could be put off.

i remember seeing my dad’s handwriting on those envelopes, throwing them to the side while I went sifting through the mail for my beloved Delia’s or Alloy catalogs. My parents were both coming out of addictions when I was still in single digits (over three decades clean now eowwww) but recovery came with deep debt, not so much financial literacy, and two kids who needed/wanted a lot.

my sibling and I never really went without, but my parents, especially my mother, definitely did. I don’t think I’ve ever directly asked her about her feelings around our financial standing, but she has—in passing—kind of expressed how she felt about it.

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when she did, I sometimes could sense a small tinge of shame, which was interesting because it’s a feeling I have very rarely seen her express; she is the epitome of the saying “ain’t no shame in my game”. But I don’t really remember her having like, super nice things. Sure, she’d have a bottle of Exclamation or White Diamonds perfume here and there, but you couldn’t really look around the house and assign many of the things of value to her.

there were things we had that set us back, and that further confused me because again—I don’t associate a lot of those things with her. I later realized they were meant to keep up appearances for the outside world, or were purchased on a whim by my father, because both his selfishness and misplaced pride ran deep through our home and family.

my father was the complete opposite of Julius from Everybody Hates Chris. He hated coupons, could not STAND that my mom went to several stores to stretch our grocery budget, was embarrassed when she haggled, and couldn’t STAND when she asked for extensions on bills or discounts on anything. I know it because he voiced it.

the one time a year I do remember him not giving her shit on it was during its most wonderful time—Christmas.

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my mother started shopping for Christmas at the end of summer, sometimes sooner. She’d get as much as she could—clothes we needed, toys we’d talked about, cologne and socks for my dad, gifts for church members and family members—and she’d toss it all on layaway.

there was a Kmart in Southfield that she used the most, in the shopping center at 9 Mile and Greenfield. There was a kosher market, a DOTS where I’d get my seventh-grade businesswoman attire, and a bunch of other now likely defunct businesses.

It was close to her job, close to her bank (the Comerica is apparently still standing) and sometimes I’d go with her when she needed to make a payment. I’d either wait in the car or go inside if I was desperate for a Baby Pan Pan and Crazy Bread combo from Little Caesars.

if you’re old enough to have wandered through a Kmart, you know two things hit you as soon as the automatic doors part—the world’s brightest, whitest, most homophobic overhead lighting…and the smell of aggressively over-buttered crust and slightly burnt pepperoni wafting towards you from Little Caesars…Midwestern heaven.

she’d make payments every few weeks, and the décor in the store would change from back-to-school, to Thanksgiving, to eventually…Christmas. Then the day would come where she’d pull up to our house in her red Jeep Cherokee, honk the horn, and ask for help bringing in giant plastic bags with a red K on the front. They were filled with stuff to wrap for others, hide from Dad or my brother, and also things to wrap for herself. The other bags that I didn’t help with she “hid” in the closet upstairs that my dad and her shared.

After months of payments, it was all finally hers.

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she lived on layaway, and for years I didn’t question it until kids at school started weaponizing the word. Not at me directly, but I got the message. I learned quickly it wasn’t something to advertise, so I kept quiet about the fact that my clothes and toys in the new year were likely paid for in installments. I mean, it was already bad enough that they were from Kmart.

They didn’t come down the belt at the cashier and into our car on a random shopping trip. Instead, they were pulled from back cubbies and handed over to my mom after months of careful, meticulously planned out months of paying.

this whole lookback at layaway started because of a thread I saw on Threads one night while scrolling away. BY THEE WAY I HAPPEN TEW ENJOY THAT APP NOW.

people were joking that, this Christmas is canceled or funded by Klarna this year because no one has any money.

like so many things from the ‘90s, layaway has just been rebranded for our generation. Klarna, AfterPay, and their friends are all the children of layaway, but with a twist for the impatient millennial crowd. You don’t have to wait until it’s fully paid off to get your toys, but everything else is pretty much the same. The shame around it seems to be (mostly) gone and maybe it’s because of those Kmart kids of the ‘90s.

i also learned that to some people, it’s all an entirely new concept.

and honestly? shout out to you if you grew up in a world where that’s all deeply unfamiliar to you, I hope and pray that my children are flabbergasted by the concept too. I hope that the kiddos of those who are familiar with it aren’t embarrassed down the line but know that their parents are likely doing the best they can with what they got.

so decades later on December 1st, after watching Vanessa Williams wiggle down Wisteria Lane and planning out my own Christmas shopping, I think of my mom. The mom who was making sure her kids had epic holidays. The mom who was going to do all she could to not let her kids feel left out. The mom who was in the aisles of Kmart making sure she got everything she needed for the morning of December 25—even if it took her all season to pay for it.

Extras:

• Rent-A-Center was also big in our household lol, that’s why the Tyler the Creator song makes me smile every time I hear it.

• I watched mad movies last weekend and literally none of them were good and ugh that pisses me off.

Thanx for reading byyyeeeeee!!!

when I was a kid, no one really wanted to listen to me. No one really wanted to talk to me either.

i was always craving connection and craving conversation, and I didn’t always know how to ask for it. So, I turned to two things—film and writing. I watched films to feel my feelings and then I turned to a page to write my way through them. I had no clue that decades later I’d be making a career out of it but, here we are class.

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it eventually led to connection in a small way in early middle school. I found a friend who liked the same things I did, it was one of the earliest times I can remember feeling understood. Having this friend was proof that being myself didn’t mean being alone AND that spending hours in front of the TV wasn’t all that fucking bad.

then I grew up, and the more I found connection in the real world, the more I wanted to write about the things that led me to it, and one of those things was film. I truly believe the biggest part of my success as a culture writer (and also critic) is that my emotions are in every piece.

i won’t just tell you to see a film ‘cause it’s good or bad (SALTBURN IS THE EXCEPTION BITCHES IT’S JUST GOOD AND WEIRD GO WATCH) but I’ll feel my way through the film and then write it so you can do the same. I want you to feel it with me, to notice all the little moments that stuck to my soul or made my heart twinkle, and all the ones that stayed with me when I’m in my Uber on the way home.

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before I got a tumblr, before I set up a Blogger, before I signed up for LiveJournal, and before I used my AIM away messages as a stream of consciousness (with a Papa Roach lyric and Blingee goth girl or eight), it was just me, my notebooks, and my diaries.

i had so many kinds of fucking diaries. The black and white dotted ones you could get at the dollar store, the ones with the flimsy lock that you could VERY MUCH just twist off, a Dear Diary that I consistently forgot the password to, I had them all.

i had notebooks where I would write myself into episodes of Boy Meets World and Clarissa Explains It All, and notebooks where I tried to solve the cases on Ghostwriter and Alex Mack along with them. Then there were the notebooks I filled with the feelings I wasn’t allowed to have out loud.

where my 9, 10, 11-year-old emotions lived and moments from some movie or TV show where a character felt the same. I’d write out what they did to move through it in the 28-minute or 90-minute runtime and then I’d try to do the exact same.

if they told their parents how they were feeling in the next scene using a quiet voice and big words, I’d try it too. If they stood up to their bully with a big attitude and big energy so did I.

what I didn’t understand then was that it was all make-believe, that just because they had a happy ending on screen didn’t mean I would too. But looking back, I think about what was most important that even with all that I was experiencing, I knew that an end would come. The happiness bit was sometimes blurry, but the ending part always entirely clear.

i didn’t know when, where, or how but I knew it existed, and until it got there I always had the movies and my notebooks.

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i’d write myself to sleep with the glow of the TV screen lighting up the room. Sometimes it’d be something perfectly fine for a closeted kid to watch like Xena: The Warrior Princess or Are You Being Served? Other times it was shit I should not have been watching AT ALL, like Taxicab Confessions.

and i miss writing like that. no structure, no point, no audience, just a whole bunch of kid and teen feelings and bits and whatever was heavy in my head or my heart.

with Substack and all the essays, opinions, and bits of poetry and critiques, I kind of wish we could go back to that a little more. Just letting people ramble, like we used to in diaries we never expected anyone to read or notebook margins no one was supposed to see.

i write how I speak, and when you’re reading my words, except for a little light editing, I say things exactly how they show up in my head—half-thoughts, half-feelings.

so while I love reading a hot take or seven, i also want to read rambles too. your barely formed thoughts, the stuff you let sit in the drafts ‘cos they aren’t perfect. Apparently, it’s the 2000s again (MY CULTURE IS NOT YOUR COSTUME!) so post a listicle of your notes, break down the lyrics to your favorite song, or get really tumblr with it and just share a bunch of horny .gifs, WHATEVER YOU WANT! and i’ll be here scrolling and liking away.

Extras:

• if any of you come across the Clueless Dear Diary, I WANT IT

• I have not watched enough movies this year and I need to spend December catching up and I want to watch at least 100 and I’m not fucking joking.

okay thanks for reading ok byyeeeeeee!!!

I’ve been having a very bisexual few weeks.

Not me personally, but I am being haunted surrounded by them in a lot of my free time.

I started reading The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo for the first time (EYE HAVE SOME THOUGHTS ON WHOMST SHOULD PLAY MONIQUE), Mae Whitman (Miss Bi-Furious herself) popped up in a episode of Desperate Housewives my fiance was watching, and most importantly, I watched Tessa Thompson cause complete and utter bisexual mommi-issue madness at a 1950s party gone WILDLY FUCKING wrong in Hedda.

Before we get into it, let’s address the queer poly couple who actually hate their lives elephant in the room—queer period pieces and I DEW NOT GET ALONG:

• I famously hate 2015’s Carol (IT’S FUCKING OVERRATED)

• 2023’s Eileen was very much not dykey even though it was marketed as such

• 2021’s The United States vs Billie Holiday kept the queer kiss in the trailer but removed it from the movie

• 2019’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire was fucking long and BORING

• 2020’s Ammonite was also fucking tedious

The very few exceptions are The Favourite (Yorgos and I were friends during this time) and the fucking amazing, incredible, absolute, no fucking notes perfection that is The Handmaiden.

Unlike many a dyke—I do not care for yearning in queer films. Respectfully—get that shit the absolute fuck outta here. The queer cinema canon is far too full of it. I don’t need two hours of longing glances and moody ass music. There is a very specific sweet spot in dyke cinema between hand-holding and full-on fisting, and it’s rarely hit.

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I’m begging us to find it more often, because when we do—like I feel Hedda does—you’re left with a film that leaves you a little bit ruined in the best way. For me, being ruined by a film can just mean I’m carrying it with me for a while after watching. Coming back to it again and again, trying to figure out my connection to it a little more each time. It’s a kind of masochistic relationship I have with certain films, where I’m uncomfortable but also obsessed and confused about why I want to experience it all over again. Hedda is now added to that list.

Written and directed by Nia DaCosta, it’s about a woman who is bored, broke, and determined to have the absolute best things in life. She’s the type of woman they called mad because she’s free, or at least she was free before she was tamed by the medicine that is a Mad Men era marriage. She married for access, not love—but she has been craving both since birth.

In this massive reimagining of the 1891 Norwegian play Hedda Gabler, our Hedda, dearest reader (ugh I miss Bridgerton) is Black and queer.

She was born out of wedlock to a white general and when he died, she was left with nothing but a promise of proximity to his world of castles, riches, and all things luxury. Similar to Farleigh in Saltburn (played by the incredible Archie Madekwe) she’s just close enough to matter but not ever fully invited in.

We only see one night in Hedda’s world (MOVIES THAT TAKE PLACE IN ONE DAY IS MY GENRE AND I KNOW WE ALL KNOW THAT) and babes it’s a mad, mad, world.

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Hedda is a master manipulator (also known as a Libra) she will get what she wants by any means necessary. She’s also incredibly messy. The party she is throwing is meant to be one to impress her husband’s work friends and boss to get him a new job.

So, she invites some of her “free-spirited” friends to round out the guest list and ensure she isn’t entirely bored. And guess who else she invites—HER FUCKING EX-GIRLFRIEND EILEEN (Nina Hoss) THAT SHE ABSOLUTELY IS NOT OVER, WHO IS ALSO COMPETING FOR THE SAME JOB AS HER HUSBAND.

During the 107-minute runtime, we learn that Hedda is cruel and selfish, and I don’t know if I can blame her for any of that. She is, when you get down to it, a woman in (some sort of) love. And as the saying goes, love can make you do crazy things…like attempt to ruin several lives at a perfectly good cocktail party.

She isn’t just manipulative, calculated, and again, cruel…she’s a brat. She manages to be both broke and yet entitled (layered legend) and not just when it comes to money or anything tangible.

Her entitlement extends to people and their devotion to her. Eileen has (seemingly?) moved on from Hedda and their love story. She’s changed or maybe evolved with the help of a new love, Thea (Imogen Poots), who just so happens to be an old schoolmate of Hedda’s. To Hedda, that’s a insult and she is about to VERY MUCH show everybody how it is.

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“How dare Eileen move on from me? How dare she grow? How dare she be happy without me????” The whole film is one long tantrum that goes too far, and it’s GREAT. Hedda is both pathetic and powerful, and the moment I realized that is when I became hella intrigued by her.

How many times have you wanted to be your purest, pettiest self when someone’s done you wrong? but something in you, something GOOD in you, stops you from actually going through with it. Not Hedda. She does it. That’s not the scariest part though. What’s terrifying is how quickly and effortlessly she does it all. Watching her is wild because some part of you knows just how close you could have come to this kind of chaotic behavior if you’d just let yourself. It’s probably cathartic…until it’s not.

DaCosta’s version doesn’t feel like just some modern, diversity-riddled update, and that’s hard to pull off, especially with major changes to Hedda’s identities. Our 2025 Hedda is Black and Queer, but DaCosta trusts her audience (which I wish directors would do more) and knows many of us are coming in more curious about how those changes to the character play out versus constantly needing them acknowledged in the film.

Tessa’s performance? Beautiful. Vain. A little dangerous. Fantastic.

I dug the queer twist in this one because it’s fueled by anger and passion—NOT YEARNING. The chemistry between Hedda and Eileen is there, and the subtlety it has to have because of the time is a big part of what makes it sexy.

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Hedda hits two things that are ever-present in dyke films, age gap and interracial love. While I dug this film, I am still going to scream that I just want more Black queer love stories where both partners are Black or AT LEAST with another POC…I'M BEGGING YOU PLEASE LET ME HAVE IT!!!

All in all, adding Hedda to the queer canon is a yes from me. Thompson even managed to make me a little less annoyed by bisexuals, but let us not get carried away…I said a LITTLE less.

Heading is streaming now on Prime Video!

If you liked this review, you might dig this one too:

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Yes, I am a Taurus.

Anyway, speaking of fucking FEELINGS, music has been helping me a lot more lately. I feel my way through films but I think music works more like a come-down from emotions. Not necessarily guiding me through them, but like rounding them out in a way. I’ve noticed I settle back into myself wayyyy faster with music than I do with film. Maybe it’s cos whatever I’m supposed to take from it hits faster. and maybe thats ‘cos songs are shorter? You hear a lyric in the middle of a song, it hits you hard, and before you can fully feel it, the song’s over and the next one is already playing.

With film, it’s different. I’ve got at least 109 minutes to not just feel but to figure out my feelings, and then I still sit through the credits trying to make it all make sense together. Music drops you into a moment and moves on unless you press that pause button. Film makes you stay there until you understand why you felt it in the first place.

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Stevie Nicks has been on HEAVY rotation in my house and in my headphones. I recently went to NOLA (for the first time) and found an original copy of Fleetwood Mac’s self-titled on vinyl, and I heard Rhiannon in its purest form for the first time and HOLLLLYYYYY FUUCCCCCKKKKK.

And guess what class? I've also made the switch to Apple Music from Spotify. EYE HEAR ABSOLEWTLEE NO DIFFERENCE IN THE SOUND QUALITY BUT I DEW LYKE HOW PRETTY IT IS!

I think the switch is also making me revisit albums that I loved and that brings me to the 2020 album that was on such wildly massive rotation in my lil perfect apartment, Ungodly Hour by Chloe x Halle.

It’s pretty perfect, their vocals are amazing, the lyrics are incredible, the way it flows is immaculate, and like, not to sound like someone who cares about music…. but HOLY SHIT THE TRANSITIONS ARE BBBEEEEAUUTTTIIFFUUUULLL.

I don’t really know how I wanna talk about this album so I figured I’d do a lil track-by-track pull of my favorite lyrics or timecode from each song.

If you have never heard it, go listen; if you loved it before, go revisit.

I think it pairs nicely with 2 cups of hot coffee, an afternoon meant for journaling/crafting, followed by an evening that has a bunch of options to go out but zero concrete plans—happy listening.

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1. Intro

   This is literally a 28-second intro, but close your eyes and listen to their voices, and when it transitions into track 2, come back here and thank me for telling you to close your eyes—I accept thanks in the form of Utz Hot Honey potato chips or 2 round-trip tickets to Amsterdam.

2. Forgive Me

   I’ve been sittin’ here, watchin’ you go insane, I’ve been sittin’ here, watchin’ us fade away

3. Baby Girl

   0:27 when the snapping starts, it makes me SO HAPPY

4. Do It

   LET’S ALL GO DANCING RIGHT NOW ‘COS WHAT DO YOU MEAN—“I’m just with the crew, We ain’t out here lookin’ for boo, ‘Cause some nights be better with you, It’s a homies-only kind of mood”

5. Tipsy

   0:22-0:36 like, this song is about revenge and I LOVE REVENGE WHEN IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH ME. I think that may be something to explore because I don’t think I’ve ever like enacted revenge in my own life. Wait—SHOULD I?

6. Ungodly Hour

   The chorus is perfect because the call is coming from inside the house

7. Busy Boy

   lol just listen to the story

8. Catch Up

   the intro to this song is very fun (it’s not my fav song on the album, in fact, it’s my least favorite)

9. Overwhelmed

   0:22-0:33 HELLLLLPPPPP THE HARMONIESSSSSSSSS another close your eyes song. Also, my favorite moment on the album.

10. Lonely

    I know you wish you had somebody to hold (Oh, oh) It don’t have to be lonely being alone

11. Don’t Make It Harder On Me

    does anyone get vintage Michael Jackson vibes from this one? Also, maybe don’t get into a relationship if you’re still in love with someone from your past—and if you fall in love with someone else during your relationship maybe just leave it…But I am no expert, so WHOMST AMETH EYE.

12. Wonder What She Thinks of Me

    I wonder what she thinks of me, When you stay awake, After you make love to her, but I’m still on your brain—WHAT? WHATTTTT? WHAT IS HAPPENING??

13. ROYL

    You ain’t gotta let the world get to you, Why you lookin’ in the mirror like that?

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The 2004 film has now reached cult status and belongs in The Criterion Collection, which, side note, I learned earlier this week that there is no actual criteria for a film to get into—it’s more like someone likes it a lot and is like yes, it belongs here…..HOW DO I GET THIS JOB?!?

Anyway, the film is all about popularity, trying to fit in, jealousy, and everything else that comes with being a teenager in the land called high school.

I have always been obsessed with movies about the high school and early college experience, and how no one's experience is the same. I think a big part of that love comes from John Hughes and Amy Heckerling movies.

Heckerling was so making films like Clueless (Perfection), Loser (Incredible), Fast Times at Ridgemont High (Uncomfortable but great), and Hughes being somewhat of the godfather of the teen genre (a title I believe should be shared with Cooley High’s Michael Schultz) with The Breakfast Club, Pretty In Pink, Ferris Buellers Day Off and literally any other teen movie in the 80s.

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But Mean Girls? It became THEE millennial teen film. This one was ours. 90s teens had Heckerlings Cher Horowitz, 80s teens had Claire Standish. and we had Regina Fucking George.

A Chicago (well suburb of) girl who just was idk…mean and misunderstood.

One of my favorite memories is tied to this film. About 7 or so years ago, I went to a Mean Girls trivia day at the actual bar inside Dylans Candy Bar in Chicago with some friends, and on the tie-breaking question with our group and another, I won the trivia for us! We got to go downstairs to the candy bar and fill these tubs and bags with all the candy that we wanted, and it was awesome. I was drunk on Mean Girls-themed drinks and my love of film, and my obsession with this one in general came in handy.

So while you watch this film today (on a FRIDAY NO LESS) I wanted to drop something else related that I think is dope.

Chicago-based rapper Joseph Chilliams is an artist I adore. He’s part of Pivot Gang (we all know how I feel about Saba) and I’m not a music head girly by any means, but I know what I like and I LIKE HIM.

A few years ago, he came out with a four track EP called The Plastics, inspired by Mean Girls.

It’s….incredible. It’s full of callbacks to the film, and it’s not just some playful, stupid EP—it’s really fucking good. You can very much vibe to the tracks, and it’s a beautifully done ode to a film that obviously touched a generation.

Ugh, I love it when art inspires art, and I love it even more when niggas are inspired by art that wasn’t necessarily marketed toward them to begin with.

That? That’s fetch as hell

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I am so over the POC girl + two white (or white-passing/racially ambiguous and suitable for a white palette) boys triangle.

Why do the YA shows that center young Black love—or love stories with other POC—not get the same hype, longevity, or cult-fan status? Forever on Netflix comes to mind:

I only hear it talked about in certain circles on social media and in real life—but The Summer I Turned Pretty? It’s q-white literally everywhere.

Is it a lack of marketing? Is it budget? A lack of imagination? Lack of care to push these stories hella forward? Probably all of the above.

I (non-seriously but also kinda for real) blame a lot of this on Episode 1, Season 4 of Broad City where Ilana says:

But before we get there, let’s talk about why I’m even here: this is the summer I am officially exhausted with this bizarre obsession over the POC girl chasing after white boy(s)—THEY ARE MULTIPLYING NOW AND SOMEONE MUST PULL THE PLUG.

Like… please. I’m done.

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Falling in love with someone who happens to be white? Cool. Great. Wish you the best. But turning that dynamic into a template for pop culture over and over again? That’s a whole other thing. This isn’t new, and it’s not just YA, but right now these shows (and the women writing them) are my focus.

It feels like a pop culture DEI initiative that has since gone way too far. We ask/demand to be represented in far reaching pop culture and they say “Yeah girl for sure!—but like, only if whiteness remains the prize”…and that’s not progress.

Sometimes though—the call be coming from inside the house and it be your own people.

Let’s start with Mindy Kaling. I used to be a fan back in the day, like a HUGE one, but somewhere along the way it just got… weird. She is also guilty of the brown girl, white boy love triangle (looking at you, The Mindy Project) and I guess at first I overlooked it.

I get that in season one of a show you might have to appease white execs to ensure you get another season. Fine. I kinda get playing the game to get into the room. But once you’ve got a hit, you have more than a seat at the table… you can do what you want.

AND YET, EVEN AFTER SO MUCH FUCKING SUCCESS WHERE SHE NO LONGER NEEDS TO PROVE ANYTHING, THE LOVE INTERESTS OF HER BROWN CHARACTERS REMAIN WHITE (or white passing).

In almost everything she has created—The Mindy Project, Never Have I Ever, Sex Lives of College Girls—and even in stuff she’s produced (Late Night, Velma, A Nice Indian Boy), the main love interests are still white.

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It feels like aligning herself so closely with whiteness has been her go-to forever. If we go back to her unaired pilot from 2006 (written with Brenda Withers), Mindy and Brenda, the love interest of Mindy was white. and even FURTHER back in 2001, while at Dartmouth, she wrote (with Brenda Withers) a play based on Matt Damon and Ben Affleck—two of the caucasianist men—called Matt and Ben….wottice going on here babes?

And it’s not just that the love interests are white—it’s the chase. These brown characters are always running after the white boy, only to get ignored, rejected, or—after enough humiliation—“rewarded” with an “omigosh wait, I do like her!” moment.

Like… help.

There’s something so wildly insidious about constantly positioning Black girls and other girls of color as the pursuers, while the white boys get to sit back and be convinced. It’s not romance—it’s begging for crumbs (or the bare minimum) and saying it’s a love story. ANNNNDDDD when this dynamic gets repeated over and over across YA, it doesn’t just stay on TV it starts shaping what we feel about who gets to be desired WITHOUT FUCKING QUESTION and who has to prove they’re WORTHY of desire at all.

I’ve said it OVER AND OVER AGAIN that pop culture bleeds into our real lives, whether you realize it or not. Why do you think so many people are looking for a Prince Charming?

Earlier, I talked about understanding the need to appease white folks just to get in the door. It’s not an ideal I subscribe to, but I won’t lie and say I don’t get it OR that I haven’t done it in the past. Which brings me to Jenny Han—the woman behind the show no one will stop talking about, The Summer I Turned Pretty.

In it, an Asian girl (Belly Conklin) is stuck in a love triangle with two white brothers, both of whom are the definition of mid men with mommy and daddy issues.

The show is based on books written by Han. But in the books, Belly is also white. Han made Belly Asian in the show once she had the power to do it—because back when she first started writing, every time she tried to give a story an Asian lead she got rejected. But making Belly Asian wasn’t some big flip of the script. She basically just dropped an Asian girl into the same overused blueprint—non-white girl chasing the same boring white boy(s).

If she really wanted to do something big, maybe Belly (who is half-white mind you), her brother, or even her mother for fucks sake could’ve had a meaningful Asian love interest. Instead, she gave a heavy lean into Taylor Swift and the very white fanbase that comes with her.

Jenny Han also made the To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before, another show where an Asian girl is in love with/has a crush on a bunch of white boys (and also one that is mixed race but giving palatable), AND the internet told me that she wrote another series, the Burn For Burn trilogy, where one of the leads is Asian and has—you guessed it—multiple white love interests.

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Also on the Jenny Han train is XO, Kitty, the spin-off of To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before. In that series, the Asian lead actually has multiple Asian love interests—but it also happens to be the show in the universe that folks dislike the most.

Black creators aren’t free from this trope either—Enter Shonda Rhimes. In Scandal, Kerry Washington’s Olivia Pope is stuck in a white boy love triangle. In Private Practice, Naomi (Audra Mc-fuckin’-Donald) has four love interests—three of them white. And of course, Yang on Grey’s Anatomy, while famously in love with Burke, also had relationships with two white boys.

In How To Get Away With Murder (PRODUCED by Shonda, NOT created by) we’re first introduced to Annalise and her white husband, Sam. Then there’s my beloved Bridgerton—which I DO NOT have time to get into (but had the time to get into it here for Vogue)—and Queen Charlotte, which leans all the way into the real-life Black girl/white boy love interest of it all.

So is all this as deep as internalized racism? Is it as heavy as straight-up fetishizing? Or is it really just not that serious and these creators just don’t see anything wrong with constantly placing their Black, Brown, and other POC lead girls into romantic storylines with white boys/men? Or am I projecting because I hated not seeing myself reflected in love stories unless the girl was chasing someone white? Or am I not projecting and it’s a very real thing that media has been showing us for decades how unworthy Black women are of love or how hard it is to love them or how easily replaceable they are?

MAYBE IT’S ALL OF THE ABOVE! MAYBE IT’S NONE OF THE ABOVE!

Sometimes, I get afraid to write and share opinions like this because when I’ve often seen it done and the backlash is usually something along the lines of “Black women complain about everything…it’s not that deep”

It’s kinda like…why does it have to be all of that? or why can’t my complaining ALSO be valid?

This is one of my most popular reviews on Letterboxd about the movie Plan B—so seems like I’m not the only one who feels this way about this topic.

EYE DONUT KNOW… but like I always say—WHO AMETH EYE TO ASK SUCH QUESTIONS!?

Anyway, enjoy your shows and not thinking about this stuff as deeply as I dooooooo!!!

Extras:

• YOU KNOW WHAT ELSE I’M TIRED OF SEEING THAT I ALWAYS SEE IN FILM AND TV? BLACK or BROWN GIRL/WHITE PARTNER IN QUEER MOVIES! Like, I am BEGGING you to please stop this pairing and shake the tabbbbbblllleee!!!

• Also on that note—I know everyone knows I cannot STAND the dykey beloved films Carol and Portrait of A Lady on Fire—but I also did not like The Watermelon Woman (SURPRISE!)

• ALSO, WHILE WE’RE HERE, LET’S WRAP UP YEARNING ACROSS THE BOARD. STOP IT STOP IT STOPPPPPP ITTTTTTT!!!!

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If you know me, you know I was born and raised in Detroit, and I’ll scream that from the rooftops forever. I consider TV my first passport. Through a screen, I got to hop cities, wander neighborhoods, and soak up cultures without ever leaving my bedroom—all because of pop culture

One of the first stamps on that passport? The UK. I still remember the first time I heard a British accent—on Are You Being Served?, a 1970s sitcom about the employees of a fancy department store. I can’t tell you how I even stumbled on it, same goes for a lot of the stuff that molded my taste (shout out to my mom and dad for never monitoring me while watching TV), but it aired on PBS, and I watched it religiously.

I thought the comedy was hilarious—half slapstick, half innuendo I didn’t really get—but laugh tracks don’t lie, so I chuckled right along. And those accents? They only made it funnier. Maybe it was just me being a kid but something about their “funny voices” made everything even more hilarious.

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As time went on, I found another ‘70s gem: Fawlty Towers. By then I could actually follow the humor—and the accents—on my own. No laugh track needed to tell me when to giggle anymore.

I loved it. It was the smart kind of stupid and never took itself too seriously; it was awesome.

By that point, I was in love with all things UK. I was listening to BritPop, enamored with The Spice Girls like the rest of the world, and of course, watching more British television. Shows like S Club 7 made it to this side of the pond and became Brit TV for an American palette, and I was even more obsessed.

By then I discovered shows like Coupling, Skins, Spaced, Gavin and Stacey, The IT Crowd, and of course, Absolutely Fabulous, and my affinity went even deeper. Get this: EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THOSE SHOWS GOT AN AMERICAN REMAKE…AND EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM (except the American Skins) FUCKING FAILED.

The American version of Coupling was horrid, and AbFab was so bad (despite having an epic cast of Kathryn fucking Hahn and Kristen Johnston) that it never even made it to air. And when the American homage is good—it’s slept on way too hard and then canceled (I AM LOOKING AT YOU, WELCOME TO FLATCH).

Another thing these shows had in common was how utterly and completely caucasian they were. I mean—rarely a nigga in sight. The IT Crowd is the standout because Richard Ayoade is in the main cast, and Skins comes in at a close second with Daniel Kaluuya, but the rest had just a few Black background players popping in with maybe a deep breath in place of actual lines.

It’s better now, shows like Chewing Gum, Boarders, Timewasters, Supacell, and probably plenty more I don’t even know about (because, hello, I don’t live there). But…..British TV is still overwhelmingly white.

I’ve been thinking about my history with British telly because of my fianće. I was watching season two of Daisy May Cooper’s Am I Being Unreasonable? when they—also a British TV lover— said, “You watch so much British television, I rarely hear you talk about American shows at all”

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And they’re right. The day before, they walked in on me watching the latest season of Such Brave Girls (for the third time), and the day before that, we were hanging out together while I watched Mr. Loverman.

I don’t know, the Brits just do television well.

And lately? I’ve been giving the Aussies my little streaming heart too. HEAR ME OUT: I think I love it so much because they both don’t beat a dead fucking horse.

Outside of the long-running shows (Coronation Street, Doctor Who—hey Ncuti!—and EastEnders) most shows are a wrap after three seasons max. Maybe four if they’re feeling generous…then it’s on to the next story.

And the stories? Sooooo well donnnneee.

A lot of them circle around some kind of emotional trauma—which TEW ME is where the best storytelling usually lives. But the way Brits do it hits different. They’re not afraid to tell those stories, even though they’ve got the whole “we don’t do like do emotions” reputation. Maybe it’s ‘cos they separate their stories from their feelings, or maybe they’re just far enough removed from the trauma to tell the story properly

I don’t know. Shout out to them and their therapists. Or maybe these shows are the therapy…Who knowwwwsss!!

So in honor of my love for Brit and Aussie telly, here’s a list of recent (and kinda/sorta recent) faves. Some are wrapped and binge-ready, others are still dropping new eppies. Either way, watch them all and thank me later!!

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Cheeky Brits

Am I Being Unreasonable? – 2 seasons (no season 3 renewal yet)

This is one of 2 Daisy May Cooper shows on this list, three if you include the Welcome To Flatch mention (four if you include This Country, which Welcome To Flatch is based on) It’s a REALLY FUCKING WEIRD show where a reality TV-obsessed mum starts a friendship with another mum who is kinda/sorta psycho and both of them have a secret.

A British show where two white women have secrets is A GREAT GENRE! Also, they are horrible mothers, but that is fine with me because this is both fictional and for my entertainment.

Boarders – 2 seasons, (season 3 coming on TUBI—do not sleep on TUBI I’m telling you)

My high school did this thing where they gave about 20 kids the “opportunity” to switch places for the day with another high school that was very rich and hella white and very superduper privileged. It was weird, I wanted to do it, and this show made me think of it.

In Boarders, a few Black kids who all get scholarships to go to a fancy ass college (college is British for “High School” and university is British for “College” and when I first learned this I was annoyed), and it’s supposed to be the whole fish out of water experience while they deal with micro and macro aggressions from the (mostly white) students.

Such Brave Girls – 2 seasons (no season 3 renewal yet)

A mum (gold digger who is trying to replace the wife of a recently widowed grown man obsessed with his iPad) and her two daughters (Billie, who is actually delusional, and Josie, who is queer, mentally rocky, and just served a stint in the psych ward) are just trying to live.

This show is fucking hilarious because it’s basically a series about how a family of women, their trauma, and the repercussions of not dealing with any of it. They are all delusional but self-aware at the same time. It was written by Kat Sadler (who plays Josie), and another cute fact—Billie (Lizzie Davidson) is her sister in real life!

Rain Dogs – 1 season (another Daisy May Cooper gem)

DAISY MAY COOPER IS A GENIUS. This one is about a hustler/writer/mum and is based on bits of a true story from Cash Carraway. It is one of thee most uncomfortable shows I have ever watched, but in like a really good fucking way. It’s dark and honest and just—really pure good television. It tells really full stories of several characters, and none of their arcs get lost throughout the series. I would not recommend watching in one sitting unless you have like a strong ass mind because, like I said, DARK, but if that’s fine with you, go ahead babes!

This Way Up – 2 seasons

I LOVE AISLING BEA. I love it when she’s on Cats Does Countdown, she makes me laugh, and she is Irish as fuck. The show, like a lot of others on this list, is about mental health and the before, during, and after of it all, after she gets checked into a facility after having a nervous breakdown. We see her rebuilding and reassessing her relationship with her job, her lovers (or lack thereof), and her sister—played by the perfection that is Sharon Horgan.

Famalam — 3 seasons

Before there was A Black Lady Sketch Show, there was Famalam. Think In Living Color but British and Black/African/Caribbean and full of nuanced jokes that took me a short minute to understand, but once I did EYE CACKLED.

I think it’s so cool to see Black folks use comedy to poke fun at ourselves, our upbringings, and our culture. It’s a clever way to show each other peeks into our very layered lives. We do comedy in a way that no one else does, and this is a very Black and British ass way of showing that.

The cast is chock full of talent that has since been in a variety of INCREDIBLE SHOWS THAT SHOW THE RANGE THEY HAVVVVVEEEE!

Big Mood – 1 season (Season 2 coming soon on Tubi, don’t sleep on TUBI)

Another show with some familiar faces (Lydia West was in It’s A Sin, and Nicola Coughlan was in Derry Girls x Bridgerton) and also another show about mental health and friendship—WHICH WE ALL KNOW IS MY FAVORITE TOPICCCCCC.

Maggie (Coughlan) and Eddie (West) have been friends for years, and Maggie has Bipolar Disorder, and it’s rearing its head at this moment in their lives, but this time, Eddie may not be able to be the only one to pick up the pieces.

I loved this show because friendships go through so many ebbs and flows, especially as you get older, and when mental health moments are involved, it can put the friendship to the test. Some become fractured, some get left behind, and some become fuller—this series hits on all three of those, and I’m amped it got another season!

Mood – 1 season

I LOVED THIS FUCKING SHOOOWWWWWWW. I also just really love Nicôle Lecky, who created it. It’s based on a one-woman play she wrote called Superhoe, and it’s about a girl named Sasha, who, after a bit of turbulence with her family, her life starts to spiral.

Sex work, catfishing, racism, fake friends, and social media are all part of this story, and I won’t spoil it, but it won a few fucking BAFTAS sooooo…WATCH IT. Also, Nicôle kills it in another really good British show Sweetpea that was a RIDE.

Speaking of Sweetpea…

Sweetpea — 1 season (renewed for a second)

VERY GOOD, VERY CHAOTIC, BINGED IT ALL IN ONE DAY. I watched this because I am a pretty big fan of Ella Purnell and Nicôle Lecky—but both of them together is killer (literally). This show is basically about the girls who were invisible in their adolescence vs. the ones everybody always looked at.

It all goes too far, too fast, and I LOVED EVERY MOMENT OF IT. Ella has this way of playing the sweet girl with the dark side, and Nicole is perfect at playing the popular girl turned grown-up with a life that may not be as good as it seems. Anyway, watch it all right now!

Extraordinary – 2 seasons (Canceled)

EYE HATE THAT THIS GOT CANCELED. Do you know that one question, “If you could have a superpower, what would it be”? This is a show about that.

This is a world where, when you turn 18, you get a superpower. You don’t know what it will be, it’s not a secret that it happens, you just get it, and the next thing you know, you’re like, idk, flying to work or making yourself invisible and shoplifting from Tesco.

Jen (Máiréad Tyers) is one of the very unlucky few who do not get a superpower; she’s an ordinary girl in an extraordinary world, and it SUCCCCCKKKKSSSS. It’s a fun show, a quick binge, but again—IT GETS A LITTLE DARK!

Queenie – 1 season (Canceled)

Okay—I have issues with this show. EYE WATCHED IT…BUT I HAVE ISSUES. It gave me the same feeling I had with Chewing Gum at first—but at least with Chewing Gum, Tracey’s journey had humor and a self-awareness that made me root for her. Queenie? We’ve got a Black woman chasing the love and validation of white men, degrading herself, and only finding worth when/if they want her back, all while pushing away a Black love interest. Also, the writer is like…kind of a jerk.

Shows where women of color are written to grovel for white male affection make me fucking sick (hiya Mindy Kaling universe, hello Jenny Han universe. It’s fiction, and you wrote it—you could very well pair your lead with another POC (and not someone white-passing), but instead, you go the other way, like over and over again. So I didn’t love this show, but I do love Dionne Brown, so put her in more things, and like go watch it ‘cos the actors are great but the story is meh.

Aussies? Naur! Yes!

Kath and Kim — 4 seasons

THIS IS MY COMFORT SHOW. There is nothing (okay, maybe several things) wrong with the show, and I’ve watched it on repeat for years. Like, please, I promise you it’s so good. It really did turn Australian television around and gave us some of the best wigs in television history. It also gave us Sharon (Magda Szubanski), and for that alone, it is PERFECTION.

Upper Middle Bogan — 3 seasons

I think Netflix suggested this show to me because I was watching Kath and Kim on repeat the moment it got on the platform. It’s about a woman who is low-key neurotic who finds out she’s actually adopted.

Her adopted mom gives Lucille Bluth meets Moira Rose, her birth family gives Shameless, and it’s full of mess and is actually just really cute and playful.

Fisk — 3 seasons (no Season 4 confirmed yet)

This might be the first show about anything legal that is like, a comedy and not a drama where they all wear suits. Helen Tudor-Fisk (Kitty Flanagan) is a lawyer who specializes in estates and wills. This is a very mixed comedy series, and that’s dope. It’s kinda screwball, kinda witty, very literal, and sometimes stupid.

My favorite character is the front desk receptionist/webmaster George played by Aaron Chen, who is fucking funny in a deadpan 2000s kinda way, and I wanna see him live.

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VERY HONOURABLE MENTIONS:

• Rivals is SEW good and very horny in a 1980s British kinda way and Nafessa Williams is everything and David Tennant deserves some kind of award for this role.

• Ja'mie: Private School Girl is funny but Chris Lilley is very problematic.

• I also liked Wellmania. but have mixed feelings on it.

• Obviously Derry Girls, obviously Peaky Blinders, obviously Dope Girls, obviously The Crown.

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Extras:

• Mirrorball is from Jennifer Saunders of AbFab fame. It never went to series, but it’s fantastic and on one of the AbFab DVDs as a bonus, and i remember this because I wore that DVD the fuck out.

• These are some British shows that my fiancé introduced me to that I need you to watch now:

  • Marcella—starring Anna Friel of the ICONIC series Pushing Daisies, btw if you need another reason to watch

  • Bad Sisters—Irish, but it counts AND Sharon Horgan made it so duh

  • Gangs of London—This show is bloody, has an amazing storyline about family ties, IT’S BLACK AS HELL, and also Catelyn Stark and John Shelby are in it so again, lé duh

• Read this conversation between Michaela Coel and Nicôle Lecky RIGHT NOW.

From the HiShelli Archives:

Thx4readingokaybi!

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Late Tuesday night, I went to pick up my computer to write something—anything—and it wouldn’t turn on. It was fully charged when I closed it after work, so I just stood there, wildly fucking confused.

And then I went over to the couch, kinda spiraled, and broke down in tears for like 20 minutes.

Not just because the computer wouldn’t start, but because it added to the defeat I’d already been feeling when it came to writing.

Lately, I’ve felt so far away from the writer I used to be.

My day gig gets pretty much all of my creative energy. And while yes, I’m hella good at it, it brings me very little joy. Even the big wins don’t hit as hard anymore. The worst part is when it’s finally time to write for me, there’s very little left. It could be my fault. I allowed myself to get so focused on performing well there to maintain my steady paycheck that I lost focus on the thing that used to bring me steady money and steady joy.

But I feel like blaming myself is just a habit that has become harder and harder to break, but this time—it can’t all be my fault…right?

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I’ve been terrified that I’ve lost everything when it comes to writing—my voice, my spark, my way with words—and it’s so sad because all I want is to curl up in my chair, legs tucked underneath me, and just type away at my rose gold laptop in the cozy corners and rooms of my home.

I used to be so thrilled to escape into film and television—to watch it, to feel my way through it, or just to simply enjoy it. It’s how I’ve consumed pop culture since I could hold a remote.

And as time went on, when I realized I could share my thoughts on it with the world—and the bonus being that people actually cared to hear them AND I get paid for it—I fucking flourished.

But the thing that pays the bills now forces me to consume it in the exact opposite way. I’m asked daily to pump out as many ideas as I can in 9 hours, and I’m left creatively and mentally drained, and most importantly, unable to enjoy the thing I’ve loved that made me light up for a huge chunk of my life.

It truly started to feel that that particular joy in my life was going on a very, very extended Jet2 ass holiday.

I’d even talked myself into pivoting, hard, into something I don’t actually want, just because I’m good at that and scared I’ve lost too much of the thing I do want. Even though there’s a voice in my head trying to scream that it’s not true.

There’s been a change that went into effect this week, where I’ve taken some time back. Even through late-night Mercury Retrograde tech fuckery tears—I’m proud of myself.

I’m hopeful, no, I know (because words have molding power) that getting this time back—blended with the fresh energy of a new home, my favorite season on the horizon (kinda), and soon getting the computer of my dreams—will wake up the part of me I kinda though I’d lost forever.

There’s a new moon on Thursday and it’s in Leo (the sign I hate the most right after Libras btw)

A Leo moon is just as dramatic as the sign itself, and this one is a reminder to “pursue whatever makes you feel bold and alive”

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It may sound woo woo, but I believe in the divine timing of it all.

I didn’t plan for my new schedule to be approved, let alone go into effect this week.
I didn’t know we’d be settled in our new home by now
I didn’t expect it to land in the middle of a retrograde
I didn’t expect it to be the same week my TIFF acceptance letter is due.
And I damn sure didn’t plan for it to land on the only day I could get a nail appointment, something else that makes me feel whole, after waiting over a month to get in.

But HERETH WE ARETH BABES!

And I’m choosing to believe in the alignment of it all.

I miss the movies.
I miss the tippytap of my nails on the keyboard at night, writing about some scene I can’t shake
I miss being excited over a new episode or film, when the whole day felt like nothing could go wrong because that was at the end of it.

I miss a big piece of me—not necessarily the films themselves, but the feeling they gave me, and the feeling that writing about them on top of that. I felt a tinge of it last week when I wrote about the immaculate film that is Sorry, Baby and you wouldn’t believe how unbelievably good it felt to press publish.

Anyway. Nicole Kidman—the creator of the “white woman with a secret” film genre—wasn’t lying when she said “We come to this place for magic”

I come to films and writing for magic and joy.
So here’s to this new moon, this new chapter, and this alignment welcoming me back with open arms.

From the HiShelli Archives:

Thank you so much for reading Hi Shelli!

Heads up—this piece and film mention sexual assault—skip it if you need!

I’d had a fucking sucky few weeks before I went to see Sorry, Baby on a Monday night a few weeks ago. I had no clue about this movie (besides wanting to see it during Sundance this year, but I couldn’t because of surgery). I immediately said yes to the screening when I got invited and told my bestie to meet me there.

In Sorry, Baby, we meet Agnes, played by Eva Victor, who wrote and directed the film. Agnes is odd—but not in the annoying manic pixie dream girl type of way. She’s just… kinda weird lol. She’s deadpan, quick, and high-key hilarious. She uses paper torn from books as a makeshift curtain, eats peas (does anyone eat peas outside of shepherd’s pie?) and she is also kind of a genius. Her bestie, Lydie (THEE Naomi Ackie), is the frick to her frack.

They were in school together, roommates and besties, and understand each other on a level that no one else could. Their bond is specific and intimate in that way where they have seen each other in multiple molding stages of their lives. It’s deep, it's layered, it's connected, and most importantly..it works.

Their friendship—well, parts of it—reminds me of the one I have with the person I went to see the film with, my bestie and former (and only) roommate. There’s a scene at the top of the film where the two of them are on a couch, covered in blankets with snacks within reach, just talking, laughing, catching up. It immediately reminded me of all the times we curled up on our own couch, drinking ciders, eating candy, and watching Pitch Perfect or The Dark Knight for the 50th time. Those kinds of moments that may not really feel important when they’re happening, but end up meaning a lot later.

I don’t have a ton of friends, but the few I do have, I love. Specifically, two come to mind—one who lives in another state with his husband, and the other is the one who went to the film with me. I’ve been friends with both of them for over a decade. We all met while working the overnight shift at The Gap, folding jeans and pretending not to be dead tired at 5 am. Those late nights and shared retail trauma were part of what bonded us in a way that stuck. And even though life has put us in different places and situations, it’s still solid.

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Watching Sorry, Baby made me think about those kinds of friendships—the ones that stay, even when everything around you changes, or gets messy. Like in the case of Agnes when, as the logline says “something bad happened to Agnes.”

The film unfolds in chapters, and in the first one—The Year With The Bad Thing—we learn that Agnes is an incredibly talented writer, and that her professor, Preston Decker (Louis Cancelmi), is the reason for the bad thing. The rest of the film is the fallout and the recovery.

We don’t find out exactly what happened until Agnes spells it out later. But the scene itself is perfectly shot and directed in a way that trusts the viewer. You’re meant to watch, and bring your own mind and your own experiences to it, to fill in the blanks.

We see her walk into the house in daylight. Time passes. The lighting drops fast and eerily, taking us from a dark comedy vibe to a horror movie one for just a few minutes. Then she leaves in a weird, slow hurry—boots in her hand, chaotically half-putting them on as she sits on his steps, then rushing down them and speed-walking out of the frame.

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That scene in Sorry, Baby reminded me of something I’ve said many times: films that use rape just to drive the plot fucking bore me. Films that make it the entire plot—even the revenge ones (Promising Young Woman, I’m looking directly at you, bitch)—also bore me. And this might sound weird, but films about rape are rarely done right. I don’t even know exactly what I am looking for when it comes to stories like that, but I definitely know what the fuck I’m not looking for.

There have been exactly two films about this topic that I’d recommend to people: American Mary and Sorry, Baby. That’s it. Not many get it right, but these two—in wildly different ways—absolutely fucking do. They dig without cheapening the experience or turning it into something it’s not.

What Sorry, Baby gets extra right is that it shows the impact of rape on a person’s life without making it their entire identity. It shows how it bleeds into everything else while you’re just trying to keep life going. Agnes isn’t hella flattened or reduced to the “bad thing.” She’s still witty, still weird, still her—just also figuring out how this bad thing has and may shape different areas of her life. Basically, the thing happened, but it doesn’t swallow her whole.

What makes it hit even harder is how it never loses the friendship angle. The only person Agnes has told about the bad thing is Lydie. And Lydie handles it perfectly—because she knows Agnes. It’s a moment that solidifies that this film isn’t just about the bad thing; it’s a love letter to friendship. The truly knowing kind. The kind that reminded me of my own.

Eva is that blend of hella dope writer, director, and actress. I love a triple threat that actually deserves the moniker. We all know my favorite triple threat—Desiree Akhavan—and I thought a lot about Desiree while watching Sorry, Baby—I WANT TO GO TO DINNER WITH BOTH OF THEM AT THE SAME TIME AND JUST FUCKING KICK IT WHILE EATING PIZZA.

Sorry, Baby is their feature directorial debut and it’s just so fucking good. It’s that perfect mix of confident directing and strong writing that makes the film stick with you long after you’ve logged it on Letterboxd.

This movie is for people who often think about the moments that built the friendships they have today.

It’s for the girl who was always up for chilling with me on the couch until 4am and constant presses of the pause button, and for the boy who laughed with me on the corners and trains of a city new to both of us, with nothing but negative dollars in our pockets.

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The movie goes beyond being well-written and expertly acted, beyond being beautifully shot with aesthetics that belong on one of those IG film pages with a carousel of stills, and beyond being so perfectly directed that—even with a subject I unfortunately know all too well—I find myself wanting to watch it over and over again.

It’s a lesson in how to take a disturbing, often truly fucked-up subject and keep it human, honest, and connected. It’s so uncomfortably relatable that it’s insane.

Anyway, 10/10 go see it. IDK how films get into the Criterion Collection but SLAP THE GOTDAMN STICKER ON THIS ONE BITCH.

It’s out in selected theatres!

Extras:

• If your professor is texting you, it’s already crossed a line. Like BITCH talk to me during office hours only.

• I have NEVER SEEN SOMETHING SO ACCURATE as the scene at the doctor’s.

• This film features ANOTHER Interracial queer couple. I am begging you to please put two Black queers in a relationship on screen. Like, yes, we all love Fight, and they have a history of fictional relationships with Black women but still. BEGGING PLEADING DEMANDING PLETHE.

• Hey, remember that time that Desiree Akhavan responded to my tweet back when Twitter was Twitter and still fun? I DEW BITCH AND I THINK ABOUT IT OFTEN.

  

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