#wasn't their fan in 2021 but im really happy for this kids :(

[stimtfil]

luberto nation won this time 🫶

[bcofl0ve]

So, genuinely and respectfully, I have a question. Your previous anons about Vanessa and why people don't like Kaia got me thinking. It seems like the more hard-core fandom is split into people who like Kaia and vocally support the relationship, and people who don't like her and are vocal about thinking it's PR or that they'll break up. I have seen people who don't like her say it's PR, they're not soulmates, she's a nepo baby, etc. I've also seen people who do like her say they'll get married and have kids, and handwave away anything about her that comes across as problematic. Both sides are also very vocal about thinking the other side is delusional, from what I can tell. My question is: if they were to break up and he dated someone else, do you think Kaia's supporters would dislike the new girlfriend in the same way her detractors dislike her? I'm not suggesting that you (or anyone else) necessarily would, but your anon about Vanessa in particular made me wonder. If he dated someone else, it would be easy for people to nitpick the new person simply because she was *not* Kaia, or insist that the new relationship wouldn't last. Or call her *insert negative personal attack here* in comparison. I'm not saying that's what would happen, or accusing you or anyone else of anything. I'm just curious to know your thoughts on whether, if Austin and Kaia did break up, Kaia's supporters/fans specifically would dislike the new girlfriend by default. This is more of a psychological 'let's put on our how women treat women in the social media sphere goggles' type of question than anything else, but I just wondered if you had thoughts.

i actually love doing fandom psychology LOL so don't apologize!

me personally, while i'd be bummed if they split bc i really like them together- anyone austin was with that wasn't like, genuinely problematic i'd "accept" him with. i want him to be happy more than i want him to be/not be with any one specific person. whatever that looks like- so long as it doesn't appear to be genuinely harmful or something, i'll trust his judgement calls on his own life.

whether i would make those calls myself or not. like for example, i joke a little sometimes about how the ppl who hate kaia would be throwing even bigger fits if he ended up with alana champion (a model he followed that 2021 summer he was single. no proof they were ever ~involved~, hence my being jokey about this). not bc she's a bad person- i don't dislike her personally! but bc just objectively ppl who wanted to nitpick would imo find more to nitpick. she's good friends with dasha of red scare pod fame and i just...can you imagine if austin was in that circle and we were doing red scare pod discourse on here as opposed to "kaia can't act" discourse lmfao. we got lucky! but i say that to say even so, if it was alana he found his happiness with i would've been ~fine~.

if they broke up i wouldn't endorse others being nitpicky about this hypothetical new girl if wasn't actually problematic or a "bad person". though i mean, i'm human and not without my own biases. so i think it'd take me a hot minute to "adjust" since at this point i am genuinely a fan of kaia on her own! but idk if i'd blast any of those hypothetical feelings all over in public posts as opposed to just dming my friends about it. (a self control skill i think more people could use lol!)

i feel like im word salading here so hopefully i made sense!

[binnniebee]

Here are my interests if any of you are interested :)

I like kpop(skz, txt, ateez, enha, crvty, bts, exo, tbz, svt, idle, b999, itzy, twice and many many others)

I play tons of intsruments(electric bass, guitar, drums, flute, piano, and hopefully violin soon)

I am under the age of 18

I don't care what you refer to me as(all pronouns, king, queen, royalty, man, woman, bro literally anything is fine)

I like writing fan fiction but i'm not that great yet(better when I started)

I have a really close friend that I am often shipped with and I lowkey wouldn't mind dating him... his code name on the internet is Teddy

I like the rain, cities, woods, ocean(the coast), the sun, and when its 68 degrees Fahrenheit partly cloudy with a wind speed of 2mph.

I live in the midwest of the US and have a slight Wisconsin accent(ik fun.)

I hate snow, cold, chewing loud, loud noises, people touching me without warning and when people have an opinion they no reason for.

I'm super enclusive. Idc what you identify as, what you listen to, what you look like. Idc.

My favorite artists(jpop, kpop, western) are Nicki Minaj, Stray Kids, and Fujii Kaze

I like organizing and clothes design and crocheting

I've been a Stay(skz) for a little more than a year and have been into kpop since December 21, 2021.

I used to hate kpop and anime(I love both sm)

I dye my hair a whole(I started again in November by dying my hair orange. Its purple now and soon blue)

I stay up late into the night(EST)

I get attached easily and fall in love even easier

I collect charms and put it on my bracelet that my grandpa gave to me 3 years ago(a little while later, he died :( )

I'm introverted whos self concious(i dont text unless the other texts me first)

I tease a lot (i call myself and others losers bc I love them and slightly myself)

If Fujii Kaze wasn't my favorite jpop artist then I would probably choose Yoasobi

My wall is full of posters

I have horrible circulation with low blood pressure(This is genetic I hate it sm. stupid stars.)

If you have the time(i'm not at all forcing you), please check out my blog thingy. I spent like an hour on it and Im super proud of it.

I want to go to University of Washington(Seattle) but my grades suck. I'm trying my hardest to study.

I severly miss my old best friend that moved away sm that I text him every day. He never responds.

I'm pretty optimistic for a pessimist

I usually keep my twitter nice and happy but here is where the real shit goes down. if anyone wants me to stop, I will

I'm very much awkwad

My biases are Han Jisung(skz/main), Hongjoong(ateez), Woobin(cravity), Gyu(txt), Enhypen(Niki), Soyeon and Minnie(idle), Hobi(bts), Kai(exo), Vernon(svt), Ryujin(Itzy), Jihyo and Mina(Twice), Ollie and Jay(bp999)

I am a proud supporter of Ollie from Bp999 (VOTE FOR HIM PLSSSSS)

I read in my past times

I play some genshin

I'm a drummer in my school jazz band(I auditioned :D)

This is as much as I can think of rn... I hope you welcome me here! Today(04/03/23) is my first day on here and will never be close to last.

(why am i wording this so weirdly...)

[carpisuns]

rambling about taylor swift 🤪lol

i know people would probably call me fake or a bandwagoner or whatever lol but i actually think my relationship w taylor's music over the years is cool and it makes me a little emo to think about tbh haha. i was a big fan during the fearless/speak now era when i was in my early/mid teens. then my music taste kind of developed in a bit of a different direction and by the time red dropped (when i was a senior in hs i think) i wasn't as interested and actually never got into that album and wasn't even familiar with the songs other than the most famous ones.

1989 dropped when i was in my sophomore year of college and i had a brief resurgence of interest because it was a great album but i was really just listening like casually and didn't get to know it that well other than the most popular songs. reputation came out after i graduated and i wasn't a fan of the vibes at all so i was like :/ guess i'm officially done with ts? her music and image seemed to be going in a very different direction than i was. as is true for most people haha my music taste had changed a lot between my early teen years and my 20s and altho i enjoy various things, my main vibe is like folk pop/acoustic indie i guess? so when lover dropped i listened to the entire album that night and enjoyed it, but i wasn't super attached.

fast forward a bit. im listening to some acoustic vibes playlist on spotify and there's this song i really like. i look at it and do a double-take bc it's taylor swift?? i had been like vaguely aware that she'd dropped an album during the pandemic (maybe 2? this may even have been after evermore idr haha) but i hadn't listened to it. so i checked it out and i was like. holy cow. this is my EXACT vibe. i love every song. this aligns with my music taste perfectly. same with evermore. i got excited because i did not expect to be a taylor swift fan in 2021. her earlier stuff would always be nostalgic to me, her middle stuff would be decent (of what i'd heard of it at that point), but now i was excited about her music again. because somehow, after all this time, our tastes had aligned again.

i listened to folkmore and evermore on repeat. all day at work. in the shower. while i did the dishes. while i drew. when fearless (taylor's version) dropped, i was kind of iffy because i didn't really see the point of it or understand the hype since we had the originals already and it seemed kind of money-grabby to me. but i had some close friends (anna and abby!) who were very enthusiastic about it and they explained the purpose of her taking ownership of her earlier music. so i listened to the album—and i was surprised by how emotional i got!!!! because these were all the songs i had loved so much when i was younger, but now they were a little more mature sounding, and i felt like i was revisiting and honoring my past the same way taylor was. i fell in love with it all over again and that made me want to familiarize myself with the albums i'd kind of missed. and i fell in love with those too. reputation still isn't my vibe as much as the others but it has some gems i really like. and now i adore lover and red and listen to them all. i was thinking about it recently and decided that after folklore and evermore, red is my favorite album. so im so happy that we have taylor's version of it now!! all these beautiful songs remade!! 10 MINUTE ALL TOO WELL ARE YOU KIDDING!! and all these other new songs aaaaaaa im in love i love this album. and all of her albums. after a whole decade, taylor swift is again one of my favorite and most listened to artists.

idk when i think about the whole thing it makes me a little emotional because i was like an OG taylor fan but then my music taste changed and so did hers, in a different direction from mine, but eventually they converged again, just in time for me to return to my Roots with fearless and then rediscover what i'd missed and fall in love with all of it both for the first and second time simultaneously. idk, im turning 27 soon and it just makes me think about growing up and getting older and at the same time remembering the good things about your younger years and recapturing the nostalgia while still looking forward. it makes me feel hopeful. like there are good things behind me mixed in with the not-so-good things, and the same is true of what's to come. maybe im just someone who's always late to the party lol but it's been special for me find all of these things that spark joy for me this year. and since im ML trash lol all of this intricately tied to that. i got into ML right after lover dropped, and when i got into taylor again i of course applied the love square to every song lol and now i've been hugely inspired creatively by taylor's music in my fanwork as well as just in general. idk it's just special to me to enjoy things and feel things and feel connected to other people through them! i am grateful for taylor and ml and annascribbles and abby (sha-nwa) for getting me back into taylor and also just being wonderful people! heart is v full tonight and im literally just rambling about personal stuff that no one will read but idc bc what else is a blog for!!! lol

anyway stream red (taylor's version)....it's delicious and im emo

[evanthefunky]

Something I wish people had mentioned or warned me about growing up/older is that you will begin to see your past selves in other people around you.

I'm going to go see Thor 4 with a couple people I dont know super well but they're probably more excited than I am. Listening to one of the people last night, I was very... well, not surprised, but... anyway, I basically heard a 2016-2018 me saying things. I would have used basically the same words and been just as excited as they were. I dont know if they have begun to think about the downfalls and icks of Marvel/Disney, etc, but I know 2016-2018 me hadnt. Hell, I didnt even really think about it until 2021.

At first I was sad. I knew what I was going through at the time, irl and on socmed. I knew that, when alone, I would ask myself why I was so insistent on telling everyone that I was a Marvel fan. That I had ideas and wanted to see them come to life in the MCU. I also knew how much frustration I had because people (comic bros or whatever) were just plain mean to people enjoying the movies and characters.

There was another kid i used to know who really liked the HP stories and also Marvel. And in 2018 I saw that person and pitied them, hoping they wouldn't go through the frustration and pain I did.

I can't protect people from themselves per se, or unforseen shitty people on social media. I dont know if I should ask if they know the ickiness of Disney, Marvel, etc. I'll admit, im a little cynical or something these days.

But then last night as I was getting ready for bed, I realized my own anger and frustration toward *companies* was affecting how I viewed these people. I wasn't seeing their joy and excitement. Its ok for them to not think about it a little longer. They'll learn, probably. Maybe it'll be a conversation with me. But it doesn't have to be. Its ok for them to take the time to learn. But right now, who the fuck am I to only see my own frustration and pain from a younger me? I remember how excited I was. I remember what happiness was brought on from those things. I'm older, they're not. Thats ok. Who the fuck am I to taint that? My joy was tainted, my mallow was marshed. I'd better not be the cause of someone else's.

Anyway. You'll see yourself in people around you. Its weird. But its cool. Love them, from a distance or as their friend. I sure as hell would have appreciated love like that.

[revchainsaw]

Raya and the Last Dragon (2021)

Wow! I can't believe I'm about to review a mainstream Disney release of all things on this blog. Eh! I make the rules and this thing is close enough to a high fantasy/martial arts film and who knows I may give a crack at Disney's Cruella later if the film strikes me the right way.

The Message

Set in the fictional land of Kumandra, Raya exists in a world where dragon lore is at the center of everything. Kumandra is a prosperous land that exists around a dragon shaped sea, and the different Kumandran tribes that live there are named after the part of the dragon they inhabit. Fang, Tail, etc, etc. It's no wonder that the Dragons are so revered in these cultures, as the prosperity that the world is now experiencing is due to the great sacrifice where the dragons gave their lives to create a magic jewel that keeps a horrible race of sprits called the Druun at bay.

The jewel is protected by the Heart tribe, particularly the lineage of the Heart chieftain. Raya is the heir to this immense responsibility. Her father the current guardian of the jewel is an idealistic sort and believes that the Kumandran people can be united, however the other tribes have their own interests and biases, even about the Heart people who they believe are using the power of the jewel to unfairly benefit themselves. Raya is an apt disciple of her fathers ideals but unfortunately this leads to her falling for a ploy by the people of Fang to steal the Jewel, when she 'befreinds' the Fang Princess Namaari.

A battle ensues over the jewel that ends up shattering the macguffin of power, and releasing the Druun back into Kumandra. The Druun now unleashed upon the world begin to create a ruin. Transfroming anyone they come into contact with into stone. Raya's father saves her before being petrified himself.

As we fast forward Raya has become a cynical adult bent on finding the last dragon of legend in hopes that she can defeat the Druun, and return the world to the way it was, abandoning her hopes that the Kumandran tribes can ever be united. It should come as no suprise then that Raya does in fact discover the Last Dragon, Sisu. Sisu is a fun loving, comedic, and hyper energetic creatuer with a love for humanity and trusting nature that is at odds with Raya's trauma and cynicism, it also doesn't help that her special power is "swimming".

As they journey across the Dragon shaped land of Kumandra, they gain friends and face foes. Raya holding onto her hurt and refusing to trust the other peoples they meet enough to think that maybe Sisu is a Sacred being who is important to their cultures as well. It is this lack of trust that eventually leads to tragedy for Raya.

At this point I'm going to uncharacteristically avoid spoilers. Raya is left with the fall out of her distrust and must either turn to her survivor nature and endure this world the way it is, or put her trust in those that have wronged her and bravely and boldly take a leap of faithful expectation that a better world is possible. It's a Disney movie, so I'm sure you know where this goes, but I'm not going to give you the specifics. It's pretty sweet and powerful.

The Benediction

Best Creature Design: Tuk Tuk: Available at Target

I can't lie. I work on the road and I have to use the bathroom all over town if I need to. My secret for finding the cleanest place to go is to generally avoid gas stations and rest areas when I can help it and to hit up grocery stores and book stores etc. as often as possible. My favorite is a local target, the bathrooms are generally less in demand than a gas station, much cleaner, AND at target they usually have a starbucks so I can also grab some joe. All that said, I have seen these absolutely massive Tuk Tuk toys in the toy section and I'm going to buy them for all the kids that I know. I just think he's a fun creature. Im not a big enough fan of Raya to justify having this basketball sized toy in my collection, but I think that kids will love having a giant armadillo bear monster to pal around with.

Best Character: Dragon's Heart

Sisu is an endearing figure and her offbeat but kind nature reminds me exactly of my favorite kind of people to meet in the wild. It's hard to be a lover and not a fighter. It's hard to be so understanding. It is an archetype that we see all over any media with a semi-spiritual message and I don't think we've seen it with quite the comedic edge as Sisu. Aang from Avatar comes close, but his light hearted attitude is certainly on par with Sisu, his comedic sensibilities are decidedly less "on". It also kind of says something that I forget that I'm talking about a dragon here.

Worst Aspect: Rayatar the Last Water Dragon

Alright, this might be a hot take but. Avatar: The Last Air Bender did it better. I can't call it parallel thinking as Raya came out almost a decade after Avatar. The two are playing off of very basic heroes journey style narratives that have existed in human story telling for longer than either show so it's completely unfair to claim that Raya was "ripping off" Avatar, BUT it's also a bit naïve to think that Disney wasn't banking on familiarity to move some product. Disney usually goes after public domain properties and fairy tales we are all vaguely familiar with and that's no accident. There's a clear pattern that people gravitate toward the familiar, it's why franchises won't just die. It's why they can repackage all their animated films into mediocre live action form and sell you the exact same movie over and over again. Even if the plot of Raya didn't have similarities to Avatar, which it does, the marketing certainly was attempting to banking on the beloved animated series.

When Raya was first coming out i saw a lot of people claiming that the fashions and character designs were copying Avatar and guys, that's kind of racist. Both shows are creating fantasy worlds with heavy influences from East and South Asian cultures. There's going to be some things that to a white American eye look pretty homogenous, although I'm sure with a little education are in fact very distinct. So as far as the "look", my only gripe is with the Logo.

Now, all that said. If you do want a show where an American animation company created a lore heavy fantasy world that draws heavy inspiration from Asian history and folklore, where a group of special spiritual individuals were wiped out but one remains and is the only hope of uniting a world populated by nations of people with very basic easy to remember names like "fire, and fang, and heart, and earth", where the chosen one is a goofy pacifist who uses the power of love and spiritual values to pull an impossible victory out of their butt at the last minute, but it still makes you cry and want to be a better person, then I have good news for you. You're spoiled for choice, I'm not gonna say Raya "copied" Avatar, BUT ... Avatar did do that particular story better. It may be a bit unfair, as Avatar had three seasons to do so and Raya had like an hour and a half.

Best Weapon: Shifty Sword

I just like Ranma's sword. I'm gonna use this category when I see an extra cool weapon. Oh man! When I review Flying Guillotine am I really going to have to talk about how bad ass the flying gullotine is?

Rayas weapons is actually not a sword at all but is called the Jade Dragon Keris. A Keris is an asymetrical indonesian dagger, and no it doesn't turn into a whip like in the movie, but it is cool that hers does that. The animators really do some creative things with that.

Summary

Raya is unfortunately shaping up to be one of Disney's forgettable features. I think that's a shame as it's stronger in my opinion than many of the recent films that have come out. But as is the case when Disney does a lot of it's more 'action/adventure' films, audiences seem to largely ignore them. Here's to you Treasure Planet. The good news is those movies do have the most passionate and interesting fans. The appeal is more focused than it is broad, and that's okay. As pointed out above, don't expect Raya to give you anything new, but if this is your kind of story then I'm sure you'll be happy to add it to your collection. There's room enough for lots of these.

Overall Grade: C