gigi-apologist

[gigi-apologist]

i’m so glad i can say i wholeheartedly trust my interpretation skills when it comes to fiction, too.

i am aware most people in fandom also think so, even if mistakenly, and think they are the utmost authority in their blorbo of choice. a great deal of fans see their own opinions as superior/as the only correct ones, as it’s expected from humans in general, and unsurprisingly go bananitas over perceived mischaracterization.

but i’m simply built different.

i am built different because i make an effort to be. i don’t want the interpretation that will cater to my tastes. i don’t want the self-indulgent interpretation. i loathe being biased when it comes to fiction interpretation. when it comes to shipping, i want nothing more than to throw away my rose colored shipping glasses the farthest i can.

i do my best to not project. my analyses of characters aren’t based solely on kinning, especially considering the fact i don’t kin a single fictional character so far, and i don’t want any character to be a mere reflection of myself. i do my best to separate myself from the character i love; i might hate their romantic interest or sidekick, for example, but if they don’t, i can’t possibly pretend they do—not for the sake of my own comfort.

i more often than not find myself agreeing with word of god and/or accepting it readily. not because i think the authority of the author/creator is law, but because i genuinely agree with them. i’m rarely disappointed or enraged by their words; i’m frequently validated by them, instead, or at the very least fascinated, if caught by surprise.

(word of god isn’t necessarily canon, and you can of course choose to ignore it or not. i’m also proud to say i’m far from that annoying person cherry-picking only their favorite/the most convenient parts of word of god to weaponize it and shove down others’ throats, especially considering how contradictory some creators have proven themselves to be—coughs in george—and how much freedom other creators clearly want us to have with our interpretations and headcanons. to me personally, it’s useful because it provides very much needed insight into the authorial intent, which is the purer form of the text—or screenplay, or episode script, or storyboard—that is, the text stripped of any fandom bias for the sake of an objective canon analysis only, not something I’d necessarily take into consideration when writing my fanfics.)

i do have my fave blorbitos, and i do tend to side with them, but only in the limits of what is 100% canon and reasonable. i never make shit up. i acknowledge when my judgement is contaminated by bias, about characters i either love or hate. i, at the very least, always make an attempt to not be unfair.

canon is never dead to me. i am a canon girlie. i am faithful to the source.

[gigi-apologist]

i trust my sense of right and wrong. i trust myself to be empathetic and balanced and intelligent and believe in the most reasonable, most logical, most compassionate path in moral issues. even if i choose wrongly, even if i am mistaken or misguided, i trust that it came from the best intentions and i trust myself to change my mind if presented with the correct information and arguments. i trust my critical sense and my ability to think differently from the majority if necessary.

i am proud of my strong moral core. of the fact i’d never maliciously take advantage of another person, i’d never betray or cheat on someone, and i wouldn’t let myself be corrupted. it’s the core of steel inside the bunny. even when i’m selfish, i rarely intend to be.

i seek to trust my own judgement in all situations, even when my judgement is that i couldn’t possibly have a clear, unbiased opinion on the matter and should thus seek external validation (or lack thereof) from people with similar views and stances.

once again, it’s important for me to realize: i make an effort to be a good person. i am a good person. and i have the discernment to continue being one.

[gigi-apologist]

i love being latina, and above all, i love being brazilian. even if i’m a big introvert who doesn’t fit at all the “typical brazilian” party ready energetic stereotype or the ethnic stereotype stupid usamericans have of latinos even though it’s a culture and not a race. even if brazil has a lot of problems. even if i still yearn to visit many other countries.

perhaps it’s weird to post about it on this blog, but i wouldn’t be doing it if, once upon a time, i hadn’t heavily disliked being brazilian, too. mongrel syndrome encouraged by my dad to the point of pettiness and vicious spite, to the point my geography teacher whose intelligence i had always respected (making any sense of intellectual superiority along the lines of “not like the other [ignorant] girls” impossible for my logical reasoning) naming it as what it truly was (the first time i ever heard the term) was shocking to me.

but yeah, nowadays i do love being brazilian. i love the colors and the birds and the sheer diversity of both fauna & flora that you can’t find anywhere else. (except in countries like australia that are, again, very much not europe.) i love its ridiculous size and its many cultures and its complicated language and accents and its jarring yellow & green & blue flag, so, so different from red & white & blue and so very original, for the same reasons i once disliked it. here we may not have ancient ghotic churches, but we do have churches made of gold and amethyst. we have free healthcare and, wonder of wonders, we have fully free public universities without need for student loans, something i didn’t know was even rare till i talked with friends from different countries. we have capybaras, and this is such a good example, isn’t it? of something seen as so common here but endearing or fascinating to foreigners. i might not enjoy football, or carnival, or god forbid, fucking bbb, but growing up is realizing that it doesn’t matter. every culture has things i don’t like, every people has its bad stereotypes, and every country has issues. i want none of that colonialist eurocentric mindset that is so deeply & subtly rooted in even the littlest things here. brazil is my beloved home, after all, and it’s true what they say—no place is like home. i went to argentina, i loved it, and i still missed brazil.

(shoutout to my town, too, and how i also thought bigger, more populated towns were so much better. they aren’t, really, if you realize that taking fifteen minutes from home to work is considered a privilege, and not a lot of time at all, and that pollution and crime rates tend to walk hand in hand with a rising population.

and it’s also very true, i think, that we grow used to everything good & pretty in our lives till eventually it becomes boring & mundane. i should learn how to appreciate the world around me, including my hometown, with the wonder of the little girl i once was. perhaps martminas was “europe,” after all.)

eu te amo, meu brasil, eu te amo.

[gigi-apologist]

having the #wife tell me she got excited about getting cellulite for the first time because it was a grown woman thing made me realize... things such as cellulite and stretch marks are so, so fucking common in women, to the point it’s difficult for you to find one who doesn’t have at least one of the two—and when they don’t, it’s almost always due to cosmetic procedures. cellulite and stretch marks are things that connect me to other women, including the ones who also don’t care for (or even appreciate! wow! my wife, you guys!) such defects and fight against society’s unrealistic & patriarchal beauty standards for women. yeah......... women <3

[gigi-apologist]

first things first.

let’s think of our (my future self’s, reading this, and mine) former art teacher that was so so cool in his funky skirt and told us about greek standards of beauty and how much they honestly sucked in their underlying perception that beautiful = perfect (or as close to perfect as possible) and how their notions of flawless symmetry/golden ratio in nature/idealization of the human body persist nowadays... the “facial harmonization” being based off greek standards, erasing your main characteristics, your history and your ancestors’ history, the traits that make you different and special, such as your ethnic nose—they erase you to remake you into what a people with a superiority complex @ other peoples thought would be cool and sexy. and yeah, the greeks might have been responsible to a lot of great contributions to our culture, but bad ones, too. don’t ever forget they were misogynistic as fuck. (interesting, too, how their ideals of feminine beauty—plump women with thick unibrows—were discarded with time, but not. not this.)

is beauty really in perfect symmetry? are conventionally beautiful people really 100% symmetrical if they don’t “harmonize” their faces?

(these memes are an exaggeration, of course, but a good reminder.)

it’s okay to have asymmetrical arms, and eyes, and eyebrows, and boobs, and—and everything, really. it’s but human. even the fact most people write with either their left or their right hand proves that—points to what is truly natural instead of cultural.

so it’s okay, too, that one of your arms is more tanned than the other. and that said tan is uneven instead of perfectly, flawlessly uniform, since certain areas of your skin get more exposed to the sun than others. i am, of course, affirming the obvious. the scientific. what you already knew. but it’s also worth mentioning, as cliché as it sounds, that your skin does tell a story. the parts of it kissed by the sun were also the parts that your past self exposed to the sun, just living her life, building her story. you have seen pictures of your baby self with a tan you disliked, but weren’t you joyful and content back then, turned golden, playing outside and touching grass and having fun? weren’t you adorable, holding those puppies? would you deprive yourself of that childhood to be “prettier”?

and if you still think you’re a rotisserie chicken with some areas more roasted than others, then yeah, you’re a fucking chimken. a falin, even. bawk bawk, motherfucker. that’s silly and endearing and frankly a little ridiculous. you did make your belauved wife laugh.

a toast to life. a toast to the sun who keeps us warm. viva la vida and all its imperfections!

[gigi-apologist]

about flaws that can be qualities, part two:

my perceived selfishness and pride. both of these are important to not let other people step on me. it is good, and even important, to think of myself first. if i don’t look out for my needs, who will? they are there for me when i need to value myself, to defend myself and my interests and my comfort. only in excess, they start to be harmful. only in excess, they might make me deaf to actual, important necessities of other people.

my “pushover” tendencies, or nine tendencies, as i think of them—they make me polite, and friendly, and easy going. they make me good with words. diplomatic, even. and a pleasant company. i don’t start fights, i am not difficult to deal with.

these two sides of me clash with one another, but they also complement themselves. just like icarus, i musn’t fly too close to the sun, lest it melt the wax, and i musn’t fly too low, lest the seawater ruins the lift in my wings.

they’re always there, side by side. my righteousness—the certainty i’m doing something good, either to myself or to others—must be there to give me a footing, a solid standing every time i actually confront someone or don’t let someone impose something on me. that’s why, i realize, i feel much more comfortable standing up to someone after they were rude to me or attacked me first. despite the rush of adrenaline, the fear of going too far, i know i am right. which is what matters.

what i truly need is the wise discernment to judge which fights are worth picking and which are a waste of my time. with my increasing age and experience, i’m definitely getting better at this.

[gigi-apologist]

it recently occurred to me that, despite my many flaws, i am a good person. i can be selfish, and proud, but i am good. i always try to be good, even if i fail.

i am flawed like every good person—no matter how good—inevitably is flawed. i am only human. i am compassionate, kind, and empathetic, as a person, even if not all the time. even if i make mistakes. even if i continue to make them.

to think of myself as an actually good person—instead of the usual, on the fence “neither good nor bad” as i’ve convinced myself post people are—is just as important, if not more important, than to think of myself as actually pretty instead of merely average or plain. i shouldn’t be afraid of thinking of myself in positive terms instead of neutral, more “realistic” ones. physical beauty can have flaws. internal beauty, too.

[gigi-apologist]

su was right in correlating the ability to change to self-love so strongly. yeah.

[gigi-apologist]

i can’t believe i beat myself up so much for what i would later discover are called intrusive thoughts. a natural thing that happens to humans. crazy, huh.

[gigi-apologist]

sometimes i think what i would do, how i would act, if i got the chance to restart my entire life with the mindset i have today. i think i would be less of a pushover, i would impress everyone, serve cunt, slay enormously, etc.

but here’s the thing. of course i would be flawless as an adult in the body of a literal child. i would have the maturity of an adult (no matter what i say and joke about being a teenager in my twenties) dealing with actual children. but if those people who i resent from my past, even now, could come back too, of course they wouldn’t act like they did before. because they, too, would have changed. they, too, would be different, and they, too, probably still cringe about the things they did in the past.

if they were mean to you--it isn’t like you were never mean, now, is it? you made hurtful comments too, and you still remember what you were thinking. you know that if someone sat down with you and explained to you why such behavior was unkind, you would have learned and stopped. you always know what people say, of course, but you don’t know what they were thinking or feeling when they said it. you remember what you were thinking and feeling, and how you were both kind and unkind and most times oblivious about it, as the complex/flawed person you were and still are. (as all people are.)

moreover, i only have the maturity i have today because i went through all those things. i changed not in spite of, but because of everything i lived. that post i recently shared about how going back and erasing my own mistakes would be to erase myself couldn’t be more true.

it’s true, because it’s me writing this. the same gigi who cared about school popularity and cowered to “mean” girls and didn’t defend herself when she should or did a bazillion more cringe things my friendly brain loves to remind me of. i am the same person. yes, i changed, a lot. but i am still me, giovanna, who lived through all of that and did all of that and said all of that. it’s me, the same person. the same soul and lungs and blood in my veins. i don’t have to wonder, “what I would say to my past self if i ever met her” because i am her. i am child gigi, i am teenage gigi, i am young girl gigi who grew up. i am now advising myself. telling these things to myself. because the little girl i judged so harshly has changed for the better. she doesn’t exist anymore, because she listened to the invisible advices life told her and she changed to become me. why am i so hard on a ghost that doesn’t exist anymore? does that help me?

i still think of that comic i saw from that wonderful psychologist. i had a basket with me, even back then, with my own personality traits and experiences and life learning. how could i expect myself to be more discreet, or quiet, or confident, if all of those things weren’t inside my little basket yet? if they would only be acquired and learned in the future, with my experiences? would i expect my baby self before tumblr, before even facebook (before encountering that purple feminism account) to have a lot of revolutionary woke ideas? it would be irrational.

but i think it’s telling that no, i don’t truly want to go back. if i did, how could i build again the bonds that took me time to build? the bonds with my online friends, my irl friend, or even my uni classmates? i wouldn’t just undo the negative things i think i’ve done. i would undo the positive things, too. funny how it is ingrained in human nature, to see all the negative things first.

would i risk acting differently just a bit 🤏 and changing my entire future for the worst with the ✨ butterfly effect ✨ of it all? 🦋 can i trust myself to change just what would be strictly necessary instead of suppressing my own character growth?

if i was bad, i learned. if i was cringe, i was free.

i am still learning, today. i am still changing. my older self will be more mature than me and that’s okay. not to be rose on main again, but isn’t it wonderful, how human beings change? that they change so much and so genuinely that they can actually be ashamed of their very own actions? that they can confidently imagine they would do so much better than their past selves? oh, the growth that comes with experience. it’s such a beautiful superpower.

you’re just like a blorbita who underwent a character development arc!

at first, you may think like this:

which is something that everyone goes through. an extremely relatable thing, as you can see from tweets and memes everywhere. the human brain loves to remind us of our mistakes and things that make us cringe. it’s natural to the point of being expected, even, and some people have way, way worse memories than you. either way more embarrassing or actually traumatizing.

but hey, remember when mabel wanted to use the memory gun to erase the summer loves out of her mind and wendy wanted to forget a catchy song? but the lesson of the episode is that, no matter how much it seems tempting to erase certain things, your memories are an important part of who you are today?

it’s not about thinking you should think fondly of all your mistakes. sometimes, they are just cringe and embarrassing or whatever. it’s not about repressing memories nor about repressing your bitterness towards them in a fruitless attempt to be purely uwu self-loving.

it’s about not giving them the power to haunt you, and above all, not giving them the power to turn against yourself and make yourself feel bad. they won’t be such a torture if you don’t allow them to. the past is the past, and you cannot change it, but you can always evolve.

when it comes to mistakes in your childhood—if you could talk to that little girl, would you shout at her? would you accuse her of something? make her feel bad? because that’s essentially what you’re doing. you’re being more immature than her by punishing your internal child.

all useless shame that bears no fruits. this is how you sound like:

do you want to be the unforgiving, intolerant judge of yourself and be just one more of the people who point fingers at you thoughtlessly? without care about nuance and complexity?

it’s about this, gigi:

(the second half is important too, of course, but we’re focusing on the first.)

it’s about understanding, forgiving, and accepting yourself for being human.

[gigi-apologist]

when i look at really old pics, i think my baby/child self was absolutely fucking adorable, to the point i’m shocked i didn’t see it myself. i don’t want the same thing to happen again—for my older self to look back at my young adult pics and think i was already so beautiful but couldn’t see it. i used to tell my mom she was wrong in saying i was pretty instead of just average, just plain. because i wanted to be realistic. but no, i think i was afraid of calling myself anything other than the bare minimum. because i am pretty. i am very cute.

[gigi-apologist]

it’s amazing how my relationship with my first name changes depending on my mood. back when i was a kid, i used to both hate and love it. now i think it’s time i just love it. giovanna. italian form of joana. johanna. joan. juana. jane. jeanne. a gift from god.

in english specifically, it sounds long. refined. complex. i saw someone saying it sounded pretentious, which tbh made me like it more.

i like to imagine renaissance italy, again, the beautiful portraits i’ve seen of a lady called giovanna who tragically died in childbirth leaving her husband heartbroken. classic gowns, hairstyles. we giovannas were not only muses, though. oh no. i know there’s a female painter, too, from 1600s italy, and i admire her for choosing such a career in a world still so rough with women.

it goes well with my second name, maria. it sounds pink and yellow and orange to me. it slays enormous cunt.

[gigi-apologist]

[gigi-apologist]

of course my cuntiful slayass wife made me feel better about my only remaining insecurity... because that’s what she does... for a living... anyway before i start hating this soft fat under my jaw i should remember those gorgeous old paintings of women she sent me.

especially this one, my fave, as an example:

wow. gorgeous. just looking at it makes me feel things.

softness under your jawline is a wealthy renaissance lady thing actually... unfallacious... or other history periods, too!

including this one with the ancient greek/roman vibes because the aesthetic just delivers.

and finally, the one who reminds me most of myself because of the short hair:

reminding myself of how women edited their pics back then to give themselves softer jaws and rounder faces. yeah.

edit: also her. my love.

[gigi-apologist]

you know what else i like about myself? my taste in friendships. i fucking love my friends actually.

[gigi-apologist]

let’s talk about my nose and my moles. let’s talk about change. “what do these things have to do with—” surprisingly a lot. i’ve always disliked my nose. called it an expression in portuguese, “nariz de batata,” which means potato nose. it’s not even a particularly unconventional ethnical nose or anything! oh no, i just thought that it was ugly because 1) yay, finding flaws in myself!, and 2) it wasn’t a perfect fine nosejob nose, that my mom calls “european nose” (wrongly) and that great part of celebrities (especially the female ones, would you look at that) and extremely historically inaccurate portrayals of important catholic figures seem to possess. nowadays, i think it’s so obvious—so logical, so much more mature, so much more reasonable—to not dislike my nose, which is part of me like any other and works well and allows me to smell delicious aromas and perfumes and breathe—which fits my face, fits my proportions, was never actually big—that i was nothing short of shocked to read the way i talked about it last year. same about my moles. wow! i still disliked my nose and moles in 2023?! i still thought self-deprecating comments disguised as funny complaints were funny?! damn, i’ve changed, alright.

then it dawned on me. holy shit, rose was right. human beings fucking change and that’s an absolute superpower! i’ve evolved! i’ve matured! i joke about being a teen girl in her twenties, but that’s because i’m not seeing the million of little changes that my personality went through. i am less anxious. i am more confident. i am braver. i have greater self-esteem. my writing became better. to have unquestionable evidence of that shoved in my face was incredibly inspiring!

people are right when they say that you’re still finding your footing in your early twenties. i just have to be more patient with myself. in my limping 🐌 rhythm, i am slowly but surely becoming another, better person. little by little. grain by grain, the chicken feeds. i am painfully young. i have all the time in the world. i like my nose.

[gigi-apologist]

i am thinking recently about how even my flaws are, moderately, good qualities. my laziness, for example, for which i always berate myself. the primary cause of yours truly spending days without gigiposting. well. i should be glad i know how to relax! i know the value of simply doing nothing! i’ll never turn into a crazy workaholic that values money more than their free time! i can go easy on myself. i shall allow myself do be a lazygirl without punishment. this is me -> 🦥 an adorable sloth. would you ever yell at this ball of cuteness for not doing jackshit all day? if you would, you’re a bad person :((

this is me when i’m slothful, btw, if you even care: