This is destroying me. This is d e s t r o y i n g me. I can’t even put it under a Read More, I have to get it out there.
I’m part of an extremely religious half-Muslim, half-Christian family, and my (Muslim) dad makes me wear a hijab. It didn’t bother me that much until recently, because I’m fortunate enough to be born and bred in one of the most multicultural cities in Britain, where children grow up knowing everything about every religion almost by default. However, when I started university last year, I had a lot of people from the countryside (or other countries altogether) ask me – nicely, of course – what I was wearing on my head, and it truly opened my eyes to the fact that outside of my city, there isn’t that much diversity, and people just haven’t had any sort of exposure to anyone not white and atheist/Christian (through no fault of their own, of course – that’s just life). If I wasn’t a fangirl, it wouldn’t have had that much of an impact on me, but because I am –
God, I’m rambling. What I’m trying to say is, for as long as I’ve been a fangirl I’ve wanted to meet other fanpeople like me. With all of my heart, I want to go to 221B Con. With all of my heart, I want to go to Sherlocked. Experiencing either just once would be a dream come true. It – I can’t tell you what it’d mean for me. Yet – I won’t ever remove my hijab behind my dad’s back because if he ever found out, I’d probably be beheaded. I plan to talk to him about it when I’m a bit older, but for now, it’s staying on, meaning that I truly don’t feel as if I can ever show my face at stuff like this. Looking at me, how are people going to know that this is the kind of thing (links NSFW!) that I post on my blog (let alone Like)? Everyone I admire on this website, they’d be well within their right to avoid me like the plague! I can’t even blame them for doing so! They’d be doing the right thing, the respectful thing, by not talking about all of their wonderful fandom shenanigans in front of me, and – how nice of them, right? ‘Cause what if I genuinely was a 100% devout practising Muslim? So how can I never be annoyed at them for that? It demonstrates perfectly how gorgeously accommodating fandom people are. The thing is, though – I’m not! And how would anyone ever know? They wouldn’t know by following me because nobody is, and they definitely wouldn’t know by looking at me, and I can hardly just announce it upon meeting people for the first time, imagine that!
I just – I feel like if I ever am fortunate enough to have the confidence to get myself to one of these places one day, I’ll have to walk around holding a flashing sign that announces I’M NOT REALLY WHAT I LOOK LIKE I’M LITERALLY SO GAY AND I LOVE PORN MORE THAN ANYTHING IN THE WORLD AND I’VE BEEN SLASH SHIPPING EVER SINCE I POPPED OUTTA THE WOMB ALSO I AM A RAGING FEMINIST I REALLY AM JUST LIKE YOU PLEASE DON’T WALK AWAAAY ~~
Sigh.
I’ve heard that people have little cards that they clip to themselves with their URL on. Guess that mine will just have to say “my dad makes me wear it. Get me talking and you’ll know what I mean.”
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Now every time I see a hijab at a fandom con, I am going to ask, “Are you holmesify? Because if so, WE HAVE SO MUCH TO TALK ABOUT.”