#i also just rmred i wouldn’t have damn url if i never came back. my reason anyone takes me seriously

[josephtrohman]

hi everyone, today i hit a new follower milestone, one that represents overcoming the stagnancy of the last couple of years ❤️ i got a bit sappy mostly about fall out boy and being a fan again, with touches of mentions about tumblr

never did i think that i would come back to tumblr, nor did i think i would ever fall in love with fall out boy again, but i’m glad i did. for both.

around early mania era, life was rapidly changing for me. i was graduating high school, moving away for university, and becoming an adult and outgrowing things from my teen years, including things that were once so special to me like fall out boy. i started dating this boy who was my best friend in the world who im lucky to still be in love with today. i was far away from my hometown for the first time in my life, my only friend being my partner who lived at the other end of town. just about everything in my life was different and weird and changing, and nothing looked the same as it had a year before.

mania was released in the winter of my freshman year of my undergraduate, and shortly following its release, my partner’s dad died very unexpectedly (only about 13 months after his mom died, to the heaviness of it all worse). i listened to it for the first time in full driving to be with him in the middle of the night after he’d called me, and it meant that for a long time after that i had a hard time listening to the album, associating it too much with long drives in the dead of winter, 30 below, dark streets empty but sparkling with fresh snow, or long drives to attend various memorials in small towns i’d never even heard of, feet freezing, dressed in black, that fluffy blanket of snow a reminder that it was certainly wintertime. i already had not been crazy about the music from mania itself; it was not the fall out boy i once knew (it still will never be my number one but i’ve come to really enjoy the album; that’s growing up for you), and my love for fob was faltering, with the dark associations much too deep. i was not the teen i once was but instead i was a young woman living on her own in a big city (relative to my hometown at least, and was adjusting to university and just being an adult and dealing with spiritual growing pains and loneliness and grief in my heart. i kind of could have used the comfort of fall out boy the most at this time.

i spent many years where *technically* fob was my favourite band, but i would quantify that by saying they were my favourite of all time, as a way to excuse how i would listen to them somewhat rarely, knowing the roots ran too deep to not acknowledge them, meanwhile saying my favourite band for the moment was this band or that; ones that never truly lasted for me.

around ioh’s 15th bday last year, i decided to slowly incorporate fob back more into my life, re-saving songs i had purged from my phone, watching interviews, reading old fanfics i used to obsess over, buying the ioh merch, and i fell back in sooo deep…as was always bound to happen; you can't love a band as hard snd as long as i did and ever truly scrub them clean from your life. a love like that will always remain, at least somewhere hidden within you, no matter how seriously you try to forget it, waiting to pull you back in. naturally, coming back to tumblr came with my reborn obsession, as i’d associated fob and tumblr so much for many years.

now my love for fall out boy is as strong as ever, and still going strong, waiting for fob8 with baited breath, and as much as i hate this godforsaken site, it feels so nice to be back. honestly the mutuals/community now feels stronger than it did in what i would consider my “peak” in 2015/2016. i’ve talked to so many wonderful people this past year who i never would have interacted with had i never come back to rb some things for ioh’s 15th bday and remembering how much i used to love this site and fob <3. so thank u to everyone who has joined me in the last year (my 10th year on this damn site! coming up to year 11 😅) and big thank u to all my special fob mutuals i’ve had since i was like 16 (u know who u are). i could go old school and tag my favs but i will refrain. just kno if i talked to you even one little reply in the last year im probably in love with u and grateful for ur mutual-ness. and even if we haven’t talked at all i still love u and am happy ur here. xoxo kelci <3