So. I don’t know how to start this. I don’t wanna make it this huge, sappy post, but holy shit. I’m so happy. I never thought it would be possible. So let me give you all a little back story:

Julianne ( @mintyjin ) and I met through tumblr waaaay back in end of 2016. I was talking to my sweet, now inactive anon and somehow the show X-Files came up. I don’t watch shows other than the occasional episode of Law & Order SVU, and so as I was trying to steer the conversation another way this chick, known as juxianne at the time, popped into my inbox with “Are we talking about the X-Files?????!!!!!???”

I immediately thought she was 12 years old. I begrudgingly replied that yes, we are, and that we should talk about something else. But “juxianne” kept coming back. And finally, I’m not sure who it was, but we began messaging back and forth and the rest is history.

So now, a year and 6 months later, I’m here. Sitting next to Julianne, on the steps of the Georgia Aquarium. Laughing at Julianne on her bed beckoning her pretty, fat cat Misty towards her for pets. Laying in the bed in the guest room, wondering how this all happened and how incredible the internet and Tumblr really is for connecting two people who would have NEVER crossed paths otherwise. And I mean, never. I’m from Illinois, about 30 minutes outside Chicago whilst Julianne, lives in a little town an hour from Atlanta. We would have never known each other without Tumblr and that prettt much blows my mind.

About 93 days ago, it began as an idea. And then it spiraled into plane tickets and accommodations and before I knew it, my little countdown timer looked like this:

And boom. I was in Georgia. I was on a 6:40am flight to maximize our time together and it was all worth it.

As I hopped off the flight, wandered around the biggest airport in the world in search of something familiar, asked a lot of random people for directions, jumped on the Marta (the sub way type thing there. Yeah, I thought it was weird, too) and found myself in College Park awaiting Julianne, I realized it was finally happening.

This girl, who knew all my secrets. Who knew everything about my life without actually being there to witness it. Was finally going to be there right in front of me.

So as she pulled up and got out of her car, it wasn’t this big hello. There were no High School Musical-type jumping or any ugly crying. But I could tell in the smiles between us both that it was like - this is real. This is really, really real. And you know what my first thought was? “She looks like Taylor Swift.”

So Julianne,

Thank you. Thanks for everything. You know how much this meant to me. Stay cool, stay weird. Don’t stop singing Werewolf Bar Mitzah at the top of your lungs on the way home from Atlanta. Keep playing baseball with pool noodles and please continue watching weird YouTube cooking shows.

Never stop writing!!!! Like. It’s okay if you write 2 sentences a week. 2 sentences a MONTH is an accomplishment, right? Did you guys know that Julianne has a Chick-Fil-A calendar? Yeah. It’s true. But anyway, I’m so lucky that I have the opportunity to have a friendship with 1000 miles between us, and have it prosper anyway. I find it so unique- how many of us can say that we have a friend we met on the Internet? That normally may be taken as a negative statement, and having this friendship has gone against everything I’ve been taught as a child. You know, the “don’t talk to strangers on the internet” type thing. But I’m so glad I did it.

So @staff , thanks. Without Tumblr, this friendshop wouldn’t exist. Without kpop; BTS, GOT7, BigBang, Day6, our friendship wouldn’t exist. So I’m thankful that fate decided to give us a go.

Moral of the story? These faceless usernames you talk to on the internet are real people, and you can so easily make a positive impact. Take advantage of that ability and make a new friend. With caution. Like I did (not). Ha.

Even if you don't know anything about her, just know this. The media, the entertainment industry and the society killed another woman.

She felt undeserving when she was appointed as UN Women goodwill ambassador and sought out Gloria Steinem to learn about feminist activism.

She thinks the criticism she received for being a white feminist was useful because it made her educate herself.

She says there’s a desperate need to reform the education system in the UK to change the way they are taught the history of how Britain has been involved in foreign affairs and how they profited from slavery.

She felt anxious about approaching 30 because there’s a lot of pressure to have a husband and a baby by then and she’s still figuring her life out.

She was so young when she was casted in Harry Potter that she doesn’t remember much of her life before it and she went to therapy to deal with her issues with fame. She used to feel very guilty for being unhappy because she thought she should enjoy fame more.

The interviewer is a transgender woman and they discuss transgender issues for a while. Emma is in regular contact with a trans child which makes the topic of trans rights emotional for her because she’s very anxious for this kid’s safety.

She talks about her role as Meg March in the new Little Women movie and defends that unlike what many people say choosing to be a wife and a mother doesn’t make Meg a less feminist character and quotes a line from the movie, “Just because my dreams are different than yours it doesn’t mean they are unimportant.”  

She wishes more people would realize she’s not Hermione Granger but also understands why they want to see that in her because Hermione is a symbol for her too.

She used to think she could never be happy without a partner and now that she has learnt to navigate that better and is genuinely happy single she’s started to think of herself as self - partnered in contrast to the time when she thought of herself as single = lonely.