The Perils Of Being A Fangirl

Here. This post is the raison d’être of my blog. This post is the one in which many of you will share a sense of camaraderie with me. This post will show you that YOU. ARE. NOT. ALONE.

And that it’s okay to be obsessed. You know, as long as it’s not drugs, or sex, or underground cults. 

(Note: Does anyone know the gender neutral term for FANGIRL? And please don’t tell me it’s FAN – as far as I am concerned, that word is an umbrella term, not a synonym. And I beg your pardon while I treat this post from the view point of fangirls specifically – it’s a shame I don’t know more fanboys personally.)

1. Risk of Degradation of 20/20 Vision

Due to –

(a) All that late-night reading under your blanket with a torch, because you don’t want your parents to catch you up past your bedtime and risk unleashing their wrath in the corporeal form of THAT’S IT NO MORE BOOKS

(b) TV show marathons as a reward for academic excellence (which is code for surviving through exams avoiding all your guilty pleasures)

(c) Excessive social networking – especially when the other fangirl you’re with over the miracle called the Internet, is in another time-zone, depriving you of sleep

2. Catching Up On Deprived Sleep During The Daytime Especially During Class HoursAnd Zombie-Walking Through The Rest

Due to the above mentioned.

3. Lack of Non-Fictional Romantic Life

Reading too many books starring heroes of the fantastically perfect variety, or watching too many TV shows with the same category of protagonists can affect the average reader to such a degree of romantic sterilization of the mundane sort by raising par of male excellence. (Or if you swing the other way, then female excellence.)

4. Managing All Your Social Network Accounts

I swear. This is a talent that is gifted to a fangirl, upon her baptism into this community. How else do you explain the superhuman memory and multitasking capabilities involved in remembering all your ten thousand usernames and passwords, who you last chatted or tweeted with, and maintaining an unbroken comment thread to avoid any non-civil interactions?

5. Empty Wallets

For those of you out there, whose financial aspects are still governed by a superior authority of the parental sort, then you have limitations (like me) on how much merchandise you can own. You resort to pinning wishlists and loaded virtual carts on your Pinterest boards and bookmarks bar, and just staring at what could have been on your laptop screen. When that happens, you turn to –

6. Your DIY Skills and Photoshop Expertise

However deplorable they may be, we have that shoddy wad of bookmarks made by hands smelling of Fevicol, t-shirts we spent that last batch of fabric paint on, and folders (both digitally and otherwise) filled with our own edits and sketches.

7. The Need to Celebrate Holidays Unknown to Mere Mortals/Mundanes/Muggles

We have reminders on our mobile phones and of course, in case they fail, we also have the ever-reliable power of the online fangirl-hood to remind us when to eat only blue food or randomly scream DEATH TO DEATHEATERS or whatever.

8. Research and Intellectual Debates

We are never happy knowing what we already know. We thirst to read up on all the different versions of backstories of the various characters, the author’s perspective on how (s)he chose all the proper nouns in the book, and then unwittingly become party to raging wars on whether or not a particular character is a hero or a villain or other civil debates. If you’re talking about a TV show, then it goes without saying that unless and until we’ve dug up bloopers and the actors’ Wikipedia pages, we’re never going to attain closure.

9. Shipping Through Choppy Seas

This is mostly self-explanatory. The FEELS fuelling our primal fangirl instincts to keep calm and continue shipping canon and headcanon ships in the face of tempests exacts a heavy toll on our head in the form of acute headaches that only tear-stained pillows can cure. Speaking of which – 

10. Tears Both Shed And Unshed

I have always maintained that a significant percentage of the average global tear-level has been contributed by the tear ducts of fangirls. To cry, clutching the damned book in your arms or after watching that tragic final episode of a Korean drama series, is an occupational hazard.

11. HANGOVERS, MAN. Hangovers.

It’s not enough that we’ve been cursed to harbouring eternal feels for a series (book or TV), but we’ve also been damned with being left to our own devices to deal with that inexplicable limbo stage of our life that follows after the final episode or chapter. We then face the big question – WHAT DO WE DO NOW?

We feel as if we’re trapped in a tunnel, the vision of closure mocking at us in the far-off distance. Comfort Food, Comfort Reading selected passages, and Comfort Replaying selected scenes becomes the norm for some days.

And I will thank Ron Weasley to define what being a fangirl truly means (courtesy of Tumblr) – 

Fantasy Social Circle

If you’ve come across my second Liebster post, you might have noticed my answer to Briana’s question, “If you had to pick two fictional characters to be your parents and raise you from baby to adult who would you pick and why?”

That got me thinking. Why stop there? Why not wish for an entire social circle?

There are many idealist father figures featured in books – Hans Hubermann, Dumbledore, Sirius Black – but Atticus trumps them all. All those scenes between Scout and him makes me feel incredibly fond of them.

She kicks ass - human asses, godly asses, demigod asses, when it comes to Percy.

August is the wise one, June is the angry one, May is the sweet one. And all of them have an infinite capacity for love. They also make honey. WHAT AN AMAZING BOOK THIS IS.

I need a geeky younger brother who has no clue about girls, keeps researching whether dogs have psychic abilities, and is cool with his sister having a relationship with their domestic ghost.

This one happens to be a childhood fantasy that has stood the test of time.

She dyes her hair whatever godforsaken colour she wants, she is the protector of the downtrodden and the weak, pretends like she isn't vulnerable, loves Cher and anything Cher, gets pregnant and decides to keep the baby.

Won-Won is King. He irritates you to death, keeps picking fights, is sarcastic, hates Snape, loves Hermione but doesn't know it, is ready to hunt horcruxes and play deadly chess so that you know you are not alone. And he has a humongous family that adopts you just by association.

I can't choose. I CAN'T CHOOSE ALRIGHT? *throws pillows at the computer* I'd be HAPPY EVER AFTER with any of them.

To know the kind of things he does for his crush/boyfriend's friends, you need to read the series. (After book 3, I continued for the sole sake of Magnus.) He is ... indescribably awesome for a friend, an indescribable honour for a boyfriend. He says he is a "freewheeling bisexual" and all that, so fingers crossed.

You need to read this book, if you haven't already. Remember I wrote a post on how before the boy and the girl become an item they have this intense hate relationship and how overused all that drama is? That technically happens here too - to an extent where the fights become physical and WAR - but when you continue you realize things are not how they seem. I do not have a crush on Jonah, he belongs to Taylor - it feels wrong even coveting him, however fictional he is.

And that's it people. My brain has refused to cooperate to help expand this list. Share your lists please.