#save paper girls

[sweetlemonb]

I like this alot for some reason :>

[ziggyplayedguitar96]

If Warrior Nun could come back from cancellation after over a year and get picked up by a new streaming service because of its fans we can do the same thing for Lockwood & Co. and Paper Girls



[queer-cackling]

kj brandman is the lesbian ever. she plays field hockey, she punched the girl she liked, she asked her future girlfriend how she knew she liked 'movies', when she was twelve she had a thing for the local tomboy who hates her. she is the realest person alive.

[searching-by-neon-light]

Hi has anyone drawn Mac selling Girl Scout cookies yet? I think the visual would be funny and fun and I think she would be a cadette at her age

[nottawriter]

[novelconcepts]

Happy one year anniversary to Paper Girls, the best adaptation that was given exactly NO love. I will miss my kids forever.

[thebookofm]

Paper Girls Changed My Life: A Queer Origin Story

In honor of the first anniversary of the Paper Girls television adaptation, I’d like to discuss the impact that this franchise and its fans have had on my relationships and my gender identity.

By early 2022, I had seen Paper Girls on several lists of highly recommended comics. Each time I saw it, I wondered what the title meant. Was this a comic about girls made out of paper? Spoiler: No, it wasn’t. 

When l saw a trailer for the Amazon Prime Video adaption, which would premier in less than two months, it was a call to action; I finally bought and read the comic. (I would later learn how limited Amazon’s promotion of the show was and how fortuitous it was that I saw one of the few trailers.) I loved Brian K. Vaughan’s complex time-travel storyline and Cliff Chiang’s colorful artwork. I watched all the Comic-Con videos and waited eagerly for the adaptation.

And then the streaming series finally arrived. While I enjoyed the comic’s plot-driven story, I adored how character-driven the show was and how it took time for the audience to get to know the characters. 

The cast not only almost perfectly resembled their comic counterparts, but also expertly portrayed their characters’ personalities. Between the writing and the acting, I fell in love with the characters and became even more invested in their stories. In particular, KJ and Mac’s nascent romance moved me, even though it was only hinted at in the show.

Like all the fans, I was crushed when the show was canceled six weeks after its premiere. I went looking for people with whom I could commiserate and discuss the show, and I stumbled into a corner of Twitter devoted to Paper Girls. 

I noticed right away that most of the fans on PGtwt were women, and at least a few of them were lesbians, which all made sense, given the nature of the comic and the show. It took me a few days to realize that the fans, at least on Twitter, were almost exclusively lesbians, and many of the people whom I’d ignorantly labeled women were actually nonbinary. Suddenly, as a straight, cisgender man, I felt very conspicuous. But I needn’t have worried. Everyone was very accepting; no one walked me to to the door and asked me to leave.

Over time, the Paper Girls fans introduced me to their friends, and I was recommended other great shows with WLW storylines, like Warrior Nun, Willow, The Last of Us, and The Owl House. By then, virtually all of my online friends were queer—and I use that word in the most positive sense. They included trans folks, enbies, bisexuals, and lots of lesbians, many of whom identified with more than one of those labels.

Which was both fascinating and educational. Hanging out with a bunch of queers didn’t exactly change my stance on any policy issues. I was already a progressive liberal who favored gay rights, trans rights, women’s rights, reproductive rights, and so on. But I like to think I developed a better understanding of some of my fellow humans, and I certainly felt even more strongly about advocating for all the rights mentioned above.

So there I was, a straight guy with a bunch of queer friends. Life is funny sometimes, right?

Or at least, that’s what I thought when I first considered writing about how Paper Girls had impacted my life. But then a funny thing happened.

After spending all this time with members of the LGBTQ+ community, I actually began thinking critically about my sexuality and gender identity for the first time. Upon careful self-examination, my sexuality didn’t change; I was indeed attracted to the same kind of people I had always thought I was. But my gender was a different story. I realized that, because I’d been raised in a cisnormative society, I had simply assumed I was cisgender all my life. If I considered myself nonbinary, it would explain so many emotions I’d felt, choices I’d made, and relationships I’d had, all of them since kindergarten. More importantly, identifying as nonbinary just felt right.

I talked to a few of my nonbinary friends, and they were both supportive of my self-exploration and generous with sharing their own experiences. I was even “formally” welcomed into the LGBTQ+ community. 

So why did it take me well into adulthood to recognize my gender identity? The aforementioned cisnormativity is one important reason. Another is that I don’t experience the dysphoria that some enbies do. And finally, my gender expression has always been mostly masculine and therefore in line with my sex assigned at birth; there were only a few traditionally feminine traits I was interested in expressing (though I never felt I could).

Now that I’ve begun to think of myself as nonbinary, I find I feel, well, really good about it. I don’t feel compelled to be as masculine as possible, like I have for most of my life. That means I’m less embarrassed by my lack of stature or the moderately high pitch of my voice. (I usually speak at around C3.) Identifying as an enby has also given me “permission” to make choices I hadn’t felt able to make before, and I’ve been adding one or two traditional feminine touches to my presentation.

So now, here I am, an enby with a bunch of great, queer friends online and even in the real world. 

And I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that Paper Girls changed my life.

[timmybird-13]

Happy Valentine's Day <3

[5:22am-02/14/1989]

Mac sees a familiar figure in Happy Valentine's Daythe distance, KJ, one of the paper girls, now one of her friends, she tries to catch up with her, successfully, but she must admit that the girl is very fast.

-Wow Brandman, what do they feed you? Or why are you so fast? - Mac said, stopping to breathe and getting off her bike.

"Sports I guess?" KJ said, laughing a little and she also got off her bike without letting go and approached Mac.

"Anyway, I have something for you," Mac said, leaving her bike on the floor and started looking for something in her bag.

Curiosity was killing KJ

-Well- Mac breathes with whatever she has to KJ behind her back -Happy Valentine's Day or whatever you want, I don't care- the redhead said, KJ could swear she's blushing a little but there wasn't much light, now KJ remembered that she once told Mac that the Jewish boys her mother introduced her to gave her flowers, but she actually hated flowers and preferred sour gummies, she felt like her heart was going to melt, Mac is not the one more sentimental person and this was a great detail.

-Are you going to take it or not?- KJ finally comes out of her trance and takes Mac's adorable gift to put it in her bag -In fact, I have something for you too- she said looking at Mac with a smile and then looking for something in her bag, now Mac feels confused. Did KJ really think about giving her something? She thought she was going to look stupid, but uhh wow. she did not expect this

KJ took out some kind of magazine from her bag. Mac couldn't see what it was because as soon as she took it out she hit Mac on the head with it.

-HEY WHAT THE FUCK YOU...Oh- KJ handed her the magazine and as soon as she saw it she noticed that it was a special edition of X-men, she really wasn't expecting this. These editions or issues are a little more expensive than the regular ones. When did she even tell KJ that she liked X-men?

-Oh...How you?-

-I might have heard you talking to Erin about X-men, Maybe I'm just guessing but you seemed to like him quite a bit. And the last time I went to the mall with my mom, I saw it, it reminded me of you and then I had to take it, so... Happy Valentine's Day, idiot.

Admittedly, they were both blushing, but Mac this really took her by surprise. She looked at KJ as if she were trying to solve a math exercise, then she looked at the comic and... She realized

-F#ck you!- She said as she put the comic in her bag and took the bicycle that she left on the floor a few minutes ago, KJ ​​started to laugh.

Before leaving to return to her route Mac stops to look at KJ -Thanks... I guess, see you later, Brandman-

-see you later, Coyle-

[Author: I know, this is bad but I wrote it when there was no electricity and I refuse to leave my girls in the dark.]

[goldrushgold]

"When someone great is gone"

[biggayenergypod]

We've compiled all of our Paper Girls content into one convenient place! Check out our discussions and exclusive interview with Cliff Chiang.

[sweetlemonb]

Some fun Papergirls behind the scenes from Instagram!

[meatycatastrophe]

you know it, i'm still bitter that Paper Girls' won't get renewed.

[searching-by-neon-light]

I said what I said

[sapphire-society]

We’re all so tired of this.

[novelconcepts]

Every time I see a show I’ve never heard of get saved while Paper Girls remains in eternal limbo, a piece of me dies in a fit of rage.

[thebookofm]

Now I Want to Watch

I watched the Paper Girls trailer before sending it to a work friend as part of my campaign to get her to watch the show. Now I want to rewatch Paper Girls myself.

(The friend says she's going to check it out, by the way, so my mission was a success.)