#sorry if it's incoherent or maybe relies too heavily on stereotypes in some ways? I've tried to find better words

[paperlovesadness]

I'm sitting outside in the sun in wet jeans - following advice on how to stretch denim to better fit you - making breathing room for myself and my thighs who are hated by jean sizing everywhere - and I'm getting sappy about Tumblr and fangirling and this community of lovely, unapologetically excited people I've met here.

This is something not many will probably read (long posts can be tough, I get it) - it just kind of all spilled I guess? Incoherently but with passion. So why not set it free when it's already here.

You see - I can't help but credit Tumblr as this huge part of my inner child healing journey. And particularly the girlhood part of it all.

Subconsciously & even consciously I've felt so so ashamed of these "girly" sides of me all my life. Especially in their "prime time" of my tween and teen years. I'd love things secretly - or at most - talk about them only after loudly labelling them as "guilty pleasures" (quite a terrible concept) or acting like it's all done with a tinge of self-aware irony.

But being a hopeless romantic; loving your favorite characters with your whole being; squealing over your favorite music and the musicians who make it; talking about your favorite songs and lyrics and photos; drawing, editing, making fanart of things that make your heart sore; sharing your fantasies and dreams; crying about quotes and big ideas; writing stories - those are all such beautiful things.

I've immersed myself back in the worlds of blogging and fanfiction and musical fangirling and... In many ways I haven't felt this good since I was a kid - still untouched by society and it's shaming of the endless supply of passion I had in me towards the things I loved.

And fangirls are a force. Fangirls are what made the music industry what it is. They're who discovered the Beatles and Leonard Cohen and Frank Sinatra and David Bowie - amongst so many others - and when they did the hard work - only then was it all taken over and appropriated by men who claimed only they can "truly and objectively" appreciate it.

It's girls - bright, unapologetically excited, passionate girls who care for pretty things and things with a soul and things with a story, with romantic connotations - girls who love to curate aesthetically pleasing landscapes and spaces around themselves - it's those girls who contributed hugely to an actual analogue photography and vinyl pressing revival & re-popularization.

I'm in my late twenties. I've only recently let myself pierce my ears and start wearing makeup sometimes. And care openly about my appearance and fashion choices. It's very much still all queer coded and slightly gender-mixed. Because that's me. But caring about these things has always been categorized as a "girl thing" = therefore = shameful, shallow, not something to be proud of.

I'm continuously curing my incredibly hurtful and internally misogynistic complex of "not being like other girls". There are still biases and automatic-judgements I'm fighting on the daily. But it's become so much clearer and easier to do so.

Im more ways than one I want to be exactly like other girls. I want to grab the hands of all the fangirls around this site and dance with them in a circle and tell them they look great whatever they choose to look like and I want to sit down in a meadow and make flower crowns together and squeal over our favorite things.

And to be clear I'm not saying be girly. I'm saying embrace you inner girlhood.

And that could be so many things. Just... Never be ashamed of the parts of it that society deems shallow and embarrassing or worthless.

And just... Thank you for being girlies with me 💗

(girlies & girls as usual used as more of a state of my mind and being; not a strictly gendered term. This applies in all, most or many ways to queer people & of course non-binary and trans experiences).

#thoughts thrown into the tumblr void #kind of like an actual blog post #sorry if it's incoherent or maybe relies too heavily on stereotypes in some ways? I've tried to find better words #when we do inevitably function in such a categorized society - and I hope the divide weakens and ceases to exist entirely one day #in the meantime we still exist here - with these linguistic and actual imposed divides and sometimes we need to heal within them too #I'm making less and less sense aren't I #anyway - maybe this resonates with someone - maybe it doesn't. Maybe you read it - maybe you don't. I think I just needed to say it #this is maybe the best way I could. Eh - words can be such a trap fkr thoughts and inner workings - #but we still love them with their limited waya of helpings is express; don't we. It's the best we've got #/ #my posts #thoughts #blog stuff #fangirls #& #girlhood