Wide awake 

It was always people for Joe, and he ultimately found them at the end of a long, painful, yet illuminating quest for self-discovery outside of one, confident constant - his bisexuality.

By undermining the appeal and credibility of black characters, the show compromises the very idea of diversity and representation it sets to promote.

The power to function. As people, we are richly blessed to have the wide ranging scope of what we can accomplish…physically and mentally…that aid in everything we desire to strive for and, ideally, accomplish. However, what if someone was experiencing daily life with these elements….only in a more muted manner?

A decade since it aired, Shameless (U.S.) has always stuck to its guns (and baseball bats) about character diversity.

Love, Simon (2018) based on the book “Simon vs The Homo Sapiens Agenda” (by Becky Albertalli) is a teen LGBTQ+ rom-com with themes of longing to find others with similar struggles, and ultimately is a story of acceptance of identity from those around you, and most importantly, from yourself.

Striving for validation. Let’s be frank….we ALL want to be successful. Whatever we put our efforts into, ideally it is to make it culminate in the best possible results across the board, especially when it comes to what career path we are pursuing. We WANT to excel, to shine, to advance, to be acknowledged. AND…let’s hope that we also wish to better everyone around us to boot. However, what occurs when those whom we initially put our trust in suddenly become a burden instead of a boon? Do we falter under the weight of rejection? Or STAND UP for WHO WE ARE?