My place

WHY is the fucking AIR out here TOUCHING ME

2016: 

“If you promise to stay alive just a little bit longer I promise that we are going to make this world a place worth living in by any means necessary. I ain’t giving up. I swear.” 

And then all the other Sesame Street character accounts joined in:

And now I’m thinking maybe we’re gonna be okay… 💗

"So, boss... I may have messed up."

"What did you do, Ray?"

"Well, I made a post for Elmo saying 'Hi, how's everybody doing?'"

"I mean, that's kind of what we pay you for."

"Yeah, but.... <sigh> it turns out pretty much everyone is hanging on by a thread, badly enough that they needed to tell Elmo."

"Oh."

"God help me, boss, I think Elmo needs to be there for them."

hi hi hey ho hi hi hey hi hey ho

“You know how stuff runs in families? Blue eyes, buck teeth, that sort of thing? Well, Death runs in my family. I remember things that haven’t happened yet and I can TALK THAT TALK and stalk that stalk and…if he gets sidetracked, then I’ll have to do it. And he does get sidetracked.” 

Do you like slow burn romance, opposites attract, and older lesbians? This book might be for you!

Unaccounted For is a slow-burn sapphic romance about public image, private damage, and two women who have spent decades learning how not to need anyone.

Disaster response veteran Allegra Sinclair saves people. She doesn’t court attention.

But when a chance rescue saves the life of a billionaire heir, Allegra’s face is suddenly everywhere. News crews want interviews. Strangers want selfies. And Sal Lategan, a ruthless PR strategist with a talent for getting under Allegra’s skin, knows exactly what Allegra’s unwanted fame is worth.

The deal is simple: Allegra lets Sal prove her sudden fame can become more than headlines—that it can become shelter, funding, and support for people who need it.

Then the deal changes.

Sal’s world is built on image, leverage, and secrets, and Allegra is very good at finding people others thought were lost. The closer she gets to Sal, the more obvious it becomes that the woman managing everyone else’s narrative has been trapped inside one of her own.

Allegra never wanted to be famous. She never wanted to be anyone’s asset. But leaving Sal behind may be harder than turning back towards the flames.

-

Purchase now on Amazon Kindle

Wider distribution across all major bookshops, bookshop apps, and library apps will be available over coming weeks (check your faves!).

Paperback available soon!

"This is Ankh-Morpork, you know. We've got extra pronouns here."

"Female? He told you he was female?" "She," Angua corrected. "This is Ankh-Morpork, you know. We've got extra pronouns here." She could smell his bewilderment... "Well, I would have though she'd have the decency to keep it to herself," Carrot said finally. "I don't think it's very clever, you know, to go around drawing attention to the fact." "Carrot, I think you might have something wrong with your head," said Angua. "What?" "I think you might have it stuck up your bum."

Sir Terry Pratchett - "Feet of Clay"

This is CARROT being the asshole. Carrot who has, throughout all the prior books, been depicted as basically the best of all possible people. He is noble, brave, considerate, kind. He is the good guy in the entire City...

... and yet, he grew up dwarf, and has picked up their more conservative views on gender identity.

Discworld dwarves start out in the books as basically a people without visible gender differences (thanks to the woman growing beards just like the men) and using "he/him" pronouns as their default. Anything else is seen as breaking the most basic of social conventions. (Dwarf dating is described early on as being two dwarves who like each other spending an inordinately long time trying to find out, as tactfully as possible, what gender the other dwarf is)

Carrot does immediately adopt the "she" pronoun for Cheery, which is but wishes she didn't make such a fuss about it. He's prepared to tolerate her choices, but he doesn't APPROVE of them, and thinks that that is enough.

Carrot, because he IS Carrot, does learn to open his mind on this subject, perhaps his final frontier of bias, but I do love that it's addressed as something he has to work on, and succeed.

I rewatch this episode from time to time, and it strikes me over and again just how committed it is to non-legal means of justice, which is particularly rare given that Elementary technically operates within the copaganda genre (with some room for outliers here and there).

When Kitty is about to murder Gruner, the man who sexually assaulted and tortured her, Sherlock shows up. Typically within the police procedural, Sherlock would be the Character Who Reminds [X] That Killing Is Wrong and Legal Justice is Right. But Sherlock doesn't do any of that. He tells Kitty that she deserves to know that he has found a way to prosecute Gruner. He tells her that this is an option if she doesn't want to wrestle with what it means to take a life. While following the law is not what Sherlock thinks Kitty should do, it is an option nonetheless. What would be unfair, Sherlock understands, is for Kitty to have no way out but to resort to murder.

Kitty responds, "What does that have to do with me? With what he did to me?"

And she's right, prosecuting Gruner has nothing to do with what he did to her. What the police wants is not what she wants. Kitty's assault was a singular event, and only she can determine what justice should be. It's an oddly refreshing take, given that most procedurals would remind to Kitty to uphold the law (e.g. SVU).

Sherlock replies, "Nothing. Everything. Wish I could tell you. If you decide that killing Gruner will make you feel whole again, I won't stop you. But whatever you decide, you will always be my friend."

I've thought a lot about this scene, and how it places Kitty's decision and Sherlock's love at the center of what justice should be. It also brings to the forefront Sherlock's struggle with addiction — he doesn't have many friends which means that his gesture of love is completely genuine. It's a gesture of unconditional love from a stoic man who finds it difficult to love, to a woman whose experience of love has been destroyed by sexual abuse. It doesn't matter to Sherlock if Kitty kills Gruner because the fact that she is his friend will always come first. In the end, Kitty realises that she is offered something she has wanted for so long but thought she couldn't have. That is, someone loves her so much to the point where she feels, for the first time, that she is able to say it back and mean it. So it is beautiful that the episode ultimately conludes with Kitty saying: "Do you know what I haven't said to anyone in a really long time? I love you. Isn't that the saddest thing?"