i have had the same url for nearly 5 years (!!)...

I’ve had mine for 5 years too! I thinkkkkkkkkkkkk around April 14th?

I definitely think adults know more than most teenagers, it just doesn't always translate into good behavior or smart decisions. Sometimes I look around my office and just shake my head in amazement. 

Because, let's face it, our country's system is not for our benefit. It's to foster generations that will allow the economy to stay like it is. It's to churn out workers. They make us, the students, fit into the one-size-fits-all mold of the Great American Worker, no matter what is lost or neglected along the way.

Let's be honest: the combination of last year's V-Day episode, some kickass spoiler's about tonight's V-Day episode, and a preview with a certain character's voice inducing a fandom-wide frustration fest gave quite a few of us high expectations for Heart. Okay, fine, the gorilla was also an anticipate

Oh God yes:

Kurt Hummel.

RACHEL'S DADS OH MY GOD. FINALLY.

The entire secret admirer storyline, however it ends up. If it's Blaine, it's The Cutest thing ever. If it's not, Kurt is being recognized for his ridiculous amounts of perfect.

The Tina/Mike number.

Tina being able to sing a love song without bursting into tears.

The gay/straight PDA double standard being addressed holy hell.

Kurt Hummel: crusading in the name of logic responsibility since uh when was he born.

Kurt Hummel performing with the boys again omg yes finally yes yup.

Santana's sheer badassery. It's really refreshing not to have to loathe her.

Kurt being happy and what not yayayay.

Quinn Fabray actually standing by her friends and her own opinion.

Amber doing IWALY justice. I'm just going to pretend it wasn't her horrible, hypocritical, hurtful character singing it. Yup, sounds like a plan.

The Finchel plan oh my god the actual best parents.

Glee... actually... being a comedy. What?

Kurt's handling of the Karofsky situation.

Kurt's unwavering devotion to Blainers, even when nobody is around to witness it. OTP to end all OTPs.

Samuel's character making the right decision, even when-- OH MY GOD BLAINE IS ON MY SCREEN BLAINEEEE

BLAINE ANDERSON

BLAINE'S EYEPATCH

THE WAY KURT LOOKS AT BLAINE

THE WAY BLAINE LOOKS AT KURT

BLAINE'S PERFORMANCE

TIN ROOF RUSTED

THE ENTIRE LOVE SHACK NUMBER

OH MY GOD KLAINE IN THE LOVE SHACK HOW BLAINE PULLS KURT AND THEIR DANCING AND OH MY GOD I LOVE MY OTP SO MUCH

Oh God no:

The PDA thing. A thousand different shades of fucked up.

The fact that the gay thing is even an ISSUE to the ND members in the God Squad come the fuck on look at your CLOSEST GODDAMN FRIENDS YOU FUCKS.

ESPECIALLY Mercedes. She was the FIRST ONE Kurt came out to. She took him to his church. He was her support through a lot. Is that all null and void just because he's gay? I am actually infuriated.

AND SAM. SAM EVANS. KURT'S FAMILY HAVE OPENED UP THEIR HOME TO YOU. KURT HELPED YOU THROUGH A LOT. COME ON.

HOW ARE THEY DOING ANYTHING BUT UNWAVERINGLY SUPPORTING THEIR FRIENDS?

ALL THEIR FRIENDS ARE LGBT OR HAVE STRUGGLED TO BECOME ALLIES.

Karofsky.

Fuck. As much as I dislike Karofsky and, frankly, want him off my television as soon as possible, I cannot handle the storyline that is likely going to happen as a result of this.

I... fucking loved this episode. So much nostalgia for last year, so much happiness, so many good storylines, so much Klaine, so much everything. There were moments where I was infuriated, but it happened much less often than it usually does and the utter perfection of other parts made up for it in full.

blaingst yes

PIRATE!BLAINE

even my mom knows faberry is on

TRENT

the warblers just getting the fuck up away from sebastian

SEBASTIAN I HATE YOU SO MUCH I LOVE YOU 

YOU AWFUL AMAZING VILLIAN

oh he's so evil ugnh

rock salt

TRENT

 BLAINE

GOT

SLUSHIED

WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

smooth criminal

cello porn

cello porn

cello porn

QUINN'S SPEECH

ARTIE'S SPEECH

KURT'S SPEECH

BURT HUMMEL

NYADA CAT

WEEEEEE

wait why did rachel say yes seriously wtf

it's okay though, i'm sure they'll break up

weeeeeee samcedes

Maybe it's because I went into the film knowing that certain parts had been cut out. Maybe it's because Glee makes me unbelievably happy no matter what medium it comes in. Maybe it's because I'd finally gotten over my missing-out-on-Glee-Live depression.

Probably because it was amazing, just like the show that made it possible and the people who make the show possible are with every single episode and every single day.

The thing about being a Gleek beyond the point of obsession is that it's such a big part of our lives every single day that it becomes a constant, despite its infamous inconsistency and the short eternities between episodes and seasons. Whether we're actually watching an episode, or reading/writing fanfiction, or even banishing it to the very back of our minds, it's always there from the moment we realize we are irrevocably, irreversibly Gleeks.

The thing that never clicked for me was the sheer enormity of Glee, how many people it really touches. It's easy to forget when it's more than a household name and when you know people who it has impacted the way we do. So, given the circumstances, I've always accepted and celebrated Glee and the fandom as a constant in my life without really taking in the bigger picture.

And then Glee Live 3D happened.

I suppose it happened far earlier for many people, the lucky thousands who were able to attend the concerts and live the moment.

But for me, it was in front of that screen.

I was in an enormous but relatively empty theater hours before the screening began, and the realization soon hit that there aren't very many diehard Gleeks in suburban Miami. Most of the audience consisted of seven year olds intermittently shouting "GLEE ROOLZ" and their mothers. But I had never expected to watch the film surrounded by representations of the fandom I've come to know and love, so there was no surprise.

The lack of a fandomesque camaraderie in the audience, however, did a good job of taking me out of my usual Gleeky place and setting up a different perspective on the Glee phenomenon.

I was teary-eyed from the start, let me tell you. There's something about seeing the people you see in photographs every single day on an enormous screen that induces wonderful emotions. And then things like seeing Darren perform Teenage Dream (which you all know I have attachment to) in front of thousands upon thousands of people and, well, I lost it.

But between blue jackets and navy blazers, they worked in the fans. Stories of people whose lives were intertwined with Glee in such a way that it allowed them to embrace themselves. Laid out like that on the big screen with fantastic sound mixes and the best of graphics, such stories seemed new and larger than life. And, yes, those stories are huge and important and touching beyond belief.

They also parallel ours.

We talk about it all the time, don't we? How Glee and its cast have helped us escape our shells, embrace ourselves and proudly proclaim ourselves Losers, with a capital finger L, slushies welcome. But that seemed so... normal. As though it happened to everybody.

But it doesn't. It happens to many people, and it's special every time. And it's happened to us.

The way in which the film took such stories, recognized them as amazing, and glorified them made me so happy and so inspired, because I saw myself in those stories. More importantly, I saw us.

As a fandom, we're at a point where the show's flaws are many and blatant. And it's fun to joke about it-- how Glee's the Titanic and Klaine is the one successful escape boat, how RIB are... well, RIB. But it's also getting to the point where people have stopped liking the show altogether. And now that we're months past the most recent episode, between seasons, and lacking the daily updates the tour brought us, it's often hard for me not to slip into that mentality of deeming the show a suckfest.

Because, really, you can't deny the flaws. You can't deny that there are plotholes the size of the Grand Canyon, that characters are radically different from one episode to the next, that entire parts of the fandom are neglected, that the writers are... unique in the way they handle most everything. And it's totally understandable that we are upset by that and that it kind of eats away at our will to fangirl incessantly and unbridledly.

But watching that film made me realize that I never want to stop being a Gleek. Not even when Chris and Lea and Darren leave. Not even when everything is different and the only inklings of familiarity we have left to cling to are the campus, the premise, and the pride that comes with holding out loser Ls high.

When you look at it in the way it was presented to us, you realize that Glee is beyond enormous. It's come so far from the Pilot, from being the "newbie" on the television block. Now it's a worldwide phenomenon, with the franchise branching out further than what we mere fans can keep track of; there's even overwhelming evidence to support the idea that the guys in charge can no longer keep track of it. It's truly been a journey-- pun partially intended-- and I've always felt so lucky to be able to see and enjoy it all.

That journey, however, was also ours. In the years between the Pilot and today, the show has taken our lives by storm. Precipitation? Sugary carbonated frozen drink. Intention? Opening hearts up to joy.

I can't remember exactly how Darren worded it, but he said something about Glee exposing the core of us and allowing us to embrace and glorify that core. That it peeled back our layers and made us something special.

Before Glee, some of us were in the closet; some of us were hiding behind labels and expectations others had put on us; some of us were just going along, day by day, individuality be damned. And so, so many of us felt alone.

But then along came this show, this phenomenon, where we saw losers and underdogs on our television screens. There was no hiding their low social status, it's true. But there was also no hiding their sheer potential and wonderfulness. And once they became a family, they let their freak flags fly. So did we.

Glee does not follow the rules. It does not keep plots consistent or together. It disregards characters. It makes us want to pull out our hair. That quality is the cause of so much frustration and anger on our parts.

But maybe we shouldn't expect it to follow rules.

Because when you're watching the core message of the past couple of years play across enormous screens with booming sound and music you can feel in your bones, you begin to realize that it's so much bigger than rules.

As humans and as outcasts, we are flawed. Glee teaches us that we are loved and appreciated because of and in spite of that. Is Glee not created and run and dependent on humans? Because if that's the case, I don't know how we can expect it to be perfect.

Glee is more than a television show. It is a film. It is an international tour. It is its cast. It is its fans. It is joy. It is accepting ourselves.

From the beginning, Glee has been about opening ourselves up to joy. So, yes, I will continue to notice and talk about its flaws, and maybe I will complain about decisions made and chances missed.

But at the end of the day, Glee has given me more joy and more self-acceptance than I could ever imagine. And I know most of you can say the same. With that in mind, I think it's safe to say that Glee does its job damn well.

Sometimes you have to take a step back from the ship wars, the character wars, the anti-RIB riots and the idiosyncratic bits of everyday hardcore fandom and look at it-- and at us-- as a whole. And it's pretty easy to do that when you see it reflected on a giant screen.

When I saw the fan stories in the film, both the drawn-out ones and the ones that were fleeting, I saw our fandom. Because that's what that was. It was us.

Look at all those people. Look at the people around you. Look at the friends and memories you've made entirely because of Glee.

I've taken all of that for granted too much, but it's so huge that I don't think I can afford to do that anymore.

It's been years of friends, of memories, of seeing Chris Colfer rule the world and seeing Darren go from playing for a couple people at cafes to hundreds of thousands around the world. It's been years of fanfiction, of secrets, of confessions and episodes. It's been so, so much.

Between all that, it's become my life. And just like one of the girls in the movie said, the songs from the show are its soundtrack.

It's happiness, and I wouldn't have that without Glee or without you guys.

But now we see Blaine, too. Blaine tried so hard to give good advice to Kurt, to put up a facade of perfection and wisdom. Tonight, though, he became real. No longer just dapper, no longer just a gay yoda. In his minutes of screentime, we saw vulnerability, we saw youth and we saw all the essentials that we saw in Kurt. We saw somebody as needing of love and friendship and as naive and thoroughly loveable as the boy we fell in love with over thirty episodes ago.

Kurt and Blaine are two very different people, but on the whole they are both likeable, admirable. They are both people to root for. They are both real and well-rounded and they are both wholly important.

I'm so glad that Klaine is becoming something that goes just as strongly for both characters. Not just Kurt/Happiness. Not just Blaine/Happiness. Kurt and Blaine, both deserving and both equally vital.