8 Comments
Jan 19, 2022Liked by Jenny Dorsey

What a thoughtful, lovely way to remind us (me!) about finding and keeping joy, absent external validation. <3

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Jan 22, 2022Liked by Jenny Dorsey

You have written an excellent piece. I felt too many emotions responsively to articulate them all in a comment. So I want to hone in on what I see as an important core of what you have written: Love. As Teyana Taylor sang in "We Got Love," "Self Love is the Best Love." In this piece, you have written about how fanfiction helped you grow into loving yourself, and it was a space where you could develop your voice. You imbue the work you do today, whether it be with Studio Atao or this piece at Way Too Complicated, with such a clarity of purpose. You weave these disparate, complex topics into a compelling, singular narrative. Your present day self is powerful proof of the importance of finding spaces of self love like fanfiction.

If Self Love is the best love, loving others is best described as loving them as they love themselves. My partner loves Justin Bieber. Several New Years ago (what is time anymore) she listened remotely to a concert of his. She had such rapturous joy at this performance, dancing with the air pods in. Anyways, I know she gets a lot of flack for her love of Biebs, including from me. But through your characterization of the bravery of fangirls, I can see that love for what it is, loving herself for the happiness his music brings her. So I can love her bravery for what it is, and love her as she loves herself. She doesn't need the validation, she deserves it. But you already knew that. Thank you for everything you do, and I can't wait to read future work by you.

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Jan 19, 2022Liked by Jenny Dorsey

I love the fanfic confession. I never wrote any, but consumed plenty of fanfic in my favorite (usually anime) universes, and your framing makes so much sense to me even as a dude.

With both fanfic and Harry Styles in this post's subject, I have to ask: are you a fan of Euphoria?

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