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The Cassette Diaries

The Cassette Diaries

But I was just really thinking of like, girlhood and that feeling of creativity and experiencing so many things for the first time and like, starting to build your identity… I wanted to talk about that because sometimes when talking about coming-of-age experiences in media they are really personal. But we don’t talk about that thing of wanting to create things and I feel like all these girls have that.

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How author Talia Hibbert is creating inclusive realities for Black women in romance
Dream a Little Dream of Me, Ebony Purks Kailah Figueroa Dream a Little Dream of Me, Ebony Purks Kailah Figueroa

How author Talia Hibbert is creating inclusive realities for Black women in romance

Now, Talia Hibbert’s Brown Sister book series allowed me to reimagine a reality in which Black women can be loved completely and unconditionally. In her novels, Hibbert emphasizes that Black women don't need to struggle in romantic relationships nor do Black women have to settle for a partner.

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On Learning to Let Go
Dream a Little Dream of Me, Ebony Purks Kailah Figueroa Dream a Little Dream of Me, Ebony Purks Kailah Figueroa

On Learning to Let Go

As humans, we grieve transition. Letting go also requires proper grieving without shame or guilt. With all I’ve given up, let go, or lost, I’ve given myself the space to grieve what mattered to me. So, how do you learn to let go? Just commit to letting go, stand behind it, and trust that you’ll be okay because you know what’s best for you.

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Reviving the Bucket List
Ariel Snead Kailah Figueroa Ariel Snead Kailah Figueroa

Reviving the Bucket List

But in the actual end it doesn’t really matter, does it? It’s not about the list. It’s what the list stands for: honesty and bravery. The importance lies within your ability to even make the list and the fun comes in your willingness to complete it.

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On the Precipice of Dreams and Reality
Cara Weaver Kailah Figueroa Cara Weaver Kailah Figueroa

On the Precipice of Dreams and Reality

The inability to distinguish dreams from reality is another oddball of narcolepsy that no one really mentions. They aren’t all bizarre, sometimes it’s just having a conversation with someone in a dream and then going about my day as if it actually happened.

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You Remind Me of my Dad
Liyah Garcia Kailah Figueroa Liyah Garcia Kailah Figueroa

You Remind Me of my Dad

Now, in my relationships, I don’t even know if I love the person or if I’m saying I do because I’m hoping that if I go inside their mind, take over their thoughts, maybe then, they can try to love me like I wish I could love myself. 

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Unpacking My Obsession With Difficult Women
Ariel Snead Kailah Figueroa Ariel Snead Kailah Figueroa

Unpacking My Obsession With Difficult Women

Through the gaps between my nana’s fingers, I watched the character of Amy Dunne spin her calculated personality every way she could to get what she wanted. It took me years to understand that she wasn’t simply the antagonist who was trying to get back at her husband, but she was a woman who had been wronged by so many people in her life that she needed to regain control.

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Ode To The Sleepover
Lou Willmott Kailah Figueroa Lou Willmott Kailah Figueroa

Ode To The Sleepover

I miss sleepovers if I’m being honest. I went to an all-girls school, and while my nostalgia limply hangs itself on the memory of an exclusively female space – something which I find myself constantly trying to carve out of the adult world.

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Book Review: Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi
Ebony Purks Kailah Figueroa Ebony Purks Kailah Figueroa

Book Review: Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi

Moreover, the genre of speculative fiction is one that seeks to re-imagine current history, reality, and observed phenomena, in a super-natural or futuristic context, in a way that challenges our limited imagination of true freedom as well as oppression. Children of Blood and Bone explores many real concepts of liberation for Black people.

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out
Eva Gelman Kailah Figueroa Eva Gelman Kailah Figueroa

out

But I’m out—out of there, and out of the closet, though it took me years to come to terms with it, even here, even now. To be completely honest, sometimes, I still feel the urge to hide that part of myself, turn it around as if it were a framed photograph on the wall of my old apartment.

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What does abolishing the police actually look like?
COMMUNITY, Ebony Purks Kailah Figueroa COMMUNITY, Ebony Purks Kailah Figueroa

What does abolishing the police actually look like?

For many skeptics, police abolition seems like an unsafe solution to begin the work towards dismantling white supremacy. So, let’s examine the problem with police as we know it in a broader sense: first, the entire justice system in the United States criminalizes homelessness, sex work, and drug addiction; therefore, rendering people without stable housing, sex workers, and those suffering from addiction unprotected by the law and from those who enforce the law.

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An Ode to My (Second) Youth: The Three K-pop Albums Defining My Twenties
COMMUNITY, Lea Bolante Kailah Figueroa COMMUNITY, Lea Bolante Kailah Figueroa

An Ode to My (Second) Youth: The Three K-pop Albums Defining My Twenties

Even though I’ve long since embraced the truth that there’s life beyond fangirling and K-pop, I honestly think that K-pop has brought a lot of good things in my life. More than the music and the concepts that are built around them, it’s the community that can make K-pop a soothing and potentially life-changing force in an individual’s life.

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