Ever since making that Tiana and Charlotte post on my message board the other day, I've noticed that there is... a pattern in which characters I wanted to be like when I was little and which characters I'm actually more like today.

Observe.

And I'm not berating these "girlier" characters, by the way (I love how you guys came to praise Charlotte the other day when I originally made that post because yessss it's what she deserves). I'm just pointing out how interesting it is how I idolized these more toyboyish/cynical/"down-to-earth" characters when I was younger before I realized that there is strength and power in femininity and "softness". I remember being little and disproving of the more "girly" female characters in the movies and TV shows I watched because I thought that they were weak, but as I've gotten older, I've learned that being "girly" doesn't make you weak, but that strength and power comes in different packages and in different ways and that these very feminine characters had a lot of lessons I could learn from them. Charlotte was incredibly unselfish and supportive of her friend, Starfire could find the good in everything instead of just seeing the bad, Dorothy was gentle and ridiculously kind to the point where almost everyone she meant would act a little bit nicer, Glinda grew into an amazingly intelligent woman who spent the rest of her life trying to be the best role model to everyone that she could be and trying to help those very same people in any ways she could, and Bubbles was so compassionate and soft that some villains learned from her how to give up their wicked ways. I think I've grown a lot as a person since learning that. Thanks for coming to my TED talk on how being feminine isn't weak.