#james mcguire

[aylinaliens]

the dots are being connected do you see the dots connecting?

[achillesapple]

being a derry girl, well, it's a fucking state of mind

[changetheprophecy81]

Derry Girls will always be my comfort show. It's really the only show i know that actually shows teenage girls like teenage girls and not super sexy 30+ year olds who absolutely don't speak and behave like teenagers

[grammatically-incoherent]

the great potato famine as told by michelle mallon [derry girls episode 1.03]

[1tsteatime]

People missed the point about Erin Quinn

I know that this isn’t a massive online fandom, but I’m always a bit peeved when I see character takes about the main 5, as someone for whom the show hits VERY close to home.

My main gripe is with how Erin is portrayed online. She is NOT a journalism prodigy. She isn’t reading the news in her downtime, or diligently doing her English and writing homework ahead of schedule.

She is a teenager who has been told throughout her life that the world she has grown up with has been cruel to her, and that she has grown up in this conflict ridden town. That, let me be clear, is very true, but she has not seen the worst of it. She hasn’t lost anyone she knows to the Troubles, or had anyone imprisoned, like Michelle (who is SUCH an interesting character, but I’ll get to her in a different post). She has internalised this, and with it, her assumed inherent bravery by existing as a teenager at all. She day dreams about her diary becoming published, about telling her story, of growing up in the Troubles, on TV- she glamorises the struggle of it!

But she considers HERSELF a troubled scholar, where it is blatantly true that is not the case, seen in the last episode where she quickly gives up on reading Shakespeare, reading it because of course a scholar like her would read Shakespeare.

She considers her situation unique, which is frequently and hilariously torn down, most clearly in the episode with the new English teacher. She writes a vague poem about being a ‘child in crossfire’, and the teacher most aptly puts it, “This is someone trying to be bold.”

THAT is the crux of Erin’s character throughout the show. She dramatises and romanticises growing up in the Troubles, as a coping mechanism. And sure, she may go on to study English or literature, as I’m sure she was set up to pursue, but we don’t see that, and we don’t have to.

These are teenagers. Teenagers don’t have to be brilliantly talented, or dedicated activists, or drop dead gorgeous, or groundbreakingly creative by the time they’re 17. And in this show, they’re not!!

Every one of the main five is a bit shit in some way, usually several at a time. They will all have their foot in their mouth, say the wrong thing, forget something crucial, be lazy or procrastinate, not have a plan or when they do it’s a bad plan. BECAUSE GENERALLY SPEAKING, TEENAGERS ARE A BIT SHIT.

Derry Girls is a show about the Troubles, and it is a show about living and growing despite the fact, made by and for people who experienced it first hand. Many of the main characters in the show were inspired by people the creator (Lisa McGee) knew in secondary school. And they weren’t young prodigies!

They were dealing with shit. A LOT of shit. And they got by.

THAT is the point.

Excuse the rant, just had to get it out of my head. Let me know if I should analyse any more of the main five because believe me, I have seen HORRENDOUS takes on all of them!

[st4rlllight]

I wish the derry girls fandom wasnt so dead ☹️

A girl just wasnt to read fanfiction to self insert and portray her love for James.

[a-dauntless-daffodil]

some derry girl snippets strung together bc it was FUN

[marikasart]

"Derry is class."

📸🗣️✨