Hello whoever might be out there,  I haven't forgotten you. I know you're there. Always in the back of my mind. But there hasn't been a spark or a moment. Nothing that caused me to come sprinting here like a lost child being found. I've done stuff, sure, lots of stuff. I took part in a debate competition, there was Christmas and New Year's Day, my birthday, mocks, and probably a bunch of other things I could write about. How I am doing an album a day this year or how I had a job for a while. But nothing felt particularly striking. I mean sure, I could tease out a million stories if it was life or death, but I have control over my art (a little bit at least) and bog standard recounts wouldn't do anything to anyone. Even the nature of this very post is ironic, I feel like I spend most of my time here ranting about how I have nothing to say. How I am nothing more than a poser who has a blog for the aesthetic (which I feel like I should clarify is not true).  Which ...

Hello whoever might be out there,  I want to preface this by saying that I may use Neighbor and Neighbour interchangeably throughout this. I know officially it uses the American spelling but I am a firm advocate for British English remaining strong, which is a whole rant for another time (idea now added to my ever growing list.) I finally watched My Neighbor Totoro. I am slowly working my way through the Studio Ghibli films, with each one seeming like a reward. I have now seen Kiki's Delivery Service, Ponyo, and My Neighbor Totoro; so the most well known ones. I always knew I would like Ghibli. Everything I had seen advertised about them interested me. Animation, storytelling, music - three things I simply adore, and adore even more when put all together. I was having a bit of a treat day today, so I thought there would be no better way to end it than to watch My Neighbour Totoro, one I was told was cosy and heart-warming. I have been trying to watch more films so no better place t...

Hello whoever might be out there, The day has arrived that you have all been waiting for, or perhaps only I have been waiting for it, but I am extremely excited regardless. I have officially finished the animated TV show set in Alaska; "The Great North". This review has been just under three months in the making, just because that is how long it took me to finish the show. This is your very final warning that if you ever intend on watching The Great North (TGN) and do not want any spoilers of any variety, click off now, although it makes barely any difference because there aren't many plot points that span across more than one episode so there is actually very little to spoil. I am going to start this out by saying that I am not going to compare this show directly to Bob's Burgers. It makes no logistical sense. They are different shows with different characters who happen to share an art style. Yes they have some similarities which I may explore, but fundamentally the...

Hello whoever might be out there,  We need to make our pavements great again. If you know anything about me, you will know I am very protective over my pavements. I am a life-long pedestrian, my Mum doesn't drive and my Dad... Basically I have walked everywhere my entire life so I have been through the whirlwind known as the pedestrian experience. Cyclists, dog walkers, cars. The trinity of kryptonite for the average pavement-user. An unparalleled rivalry spanning generations. Cyclists belong on the road. That isn't even an opinion, it is written into law, and for a very good reason. The average cyclist can reach speeds of up to 20mph, the speed limit for residential areas. If a car were to come at you at that speed, you would rightfully be scared of being hit, so why is that any different for cyclists? We can't pretend that being hit by a bike doesn't hurt; wheels pulling at your skin, handlebars and pedals digging into your side, all with a human body on top. And it i...

Hello whoever might be out there,  I have been watching The Great North recently (full review coming shortly once I have actually finished the show now it has been officially cancelled, rest in peace) and the episode I have just finished particularly peaked my interest, just how the debate themed episode of Bob's Burgers also piqued my interest. This is your official spoiler alert if you are particularly invested in The Great North but haven't yet watched season 5 episode 6. I love debating, that comes as a surprise to nobody. Yes it does annoy me when TV shows have a cop out instead of having an actual final debate, but I recognise that I am a part of the minority audience that would find a debate on the privatisation of Alaskan national parks more interesting than what actually ended up happening. The episode, in short, is the newest Tobin family member (Aunt Dirt) becoming the Lone Moose debate team captain in order to date a lunch lady. That is as brief as I am going to kee...

Hello whoever might be out there,  You are all owed a post, and to that I apologise. Starting college has been a whirlwind of an adventure and my brain is so void of ideas, I have no idea what to write about. As I am writing this, I am kind of hoping that I will be dragged towards a topic. All I can think of these last weeks is a mish-mash of linguistic terminology, sociological theories, and the pure drama of "A Streetcar Named Desire" with a few ethical debates mixed in there. Talking of debate, I have a debate on Thursday, proposing that "Artistic expression should never be censored". I think my point is going to revolve around the associations of censorship directly coinciding with a loss of freedom. When you think of censorship, where do you think of? North Korea, Russia, Afghanistan. And I am sure when you think of places with restricted freedoms and rights, similar places come to mind.  I'm pretty certain the opposition will focus on right wing censorship...

Hello whoever might be out there,  I have been asked this question so many times yet I still don’t really know how to respond! How on Earth do I describe my first day at College? Not ideal, I can’t lie. Climbing up eight flights of stairs is not for the weak, and unfortunately for me - I am the weak. I don’t think I will ever get used to walking so much, but I guess I don’t have another choice. Forty-five minutes each way is absolutely brutal. My step count has tripled and my legs are dead. Also, why is talking to people so hard? I’m floating around awkwardly like that one DVD loading screen. What I wouldn’t give to be just a tad bit more extroverted rather than feeling my heart trying to break through my chest every time I am near someone I don’t know? I really hope it does get better, but at the end of the day I am just here to learn and get the grades, everything else is just a manic attempt to keep me sane through it all. Yours faithfully, MD P.S I know I have disappeared for ...

Hello whoever might be out there,  I think I may have just had the best day ever. Genuinely. I don't think there is going to be a day that will ever top this one. I have seen Hamilton live. And if you have also seen Hamilton, or even know anything about it, you will know how big of a deal this is. My family aren't theatre people. We don't really have a strong local theatre that houses touring shows. And we especially don't have the money to be dropping £200 on tickets every time. But my Mum finally caved in for my birthday this year and bought us tickets to see Hamilton in Plymouth. My birthday was in January by the way, you have to book these shows months and months in advance, and even then we still got some of the last tickets left. They were the best seats I ever could've asked for though! Dead centre of the stalls. I had a perfect view and it was the most magical experience I have ever had. Everyone was absolutely incredible, but I have to give a special mentio...

Hello whoever might be out there,  I'm back with yet another new obsession, because at this point that's the only reason why I come on to this blog. This time it's Superstore. It's a good show. I'm on Season 4 at the moment, and I've only been watching it ten days so... I got this app that lets me review each individual episode. It's called Serializd, it's so good, would recommend (go follow me, MaeDreams). I like reviewing things. Rating things. Reading what other people have said about things I've rated. But the Superstore reviews are, and I mean this in the nicest way I can, TERRIBLE. We need to start teaching people what a review is again, because despite there being an option to tag your review as a spoiler, people are clearly farming likes instead of actually leaving a review. Writing a quote from the episode is not a review. Explaining the plot is not a review. Spoiling the ending is not a review. I want to know what you think about it, I alre...

Hello whoever might be out there, I watched the new Superman film yesterday. I don't really consider myself to be into superheroes. I think they're cool, but the typical "good guy fights bad guy" doesn't outweigh how I can't stop thinking about all the other lives ruined. It's stupid of me to think about it that deeply, I know. Superhero films are made to entertain, not to be realistic, but I can't look past it. I'm sorry I don't find watching innocent civilians killed, even in a fictional context. It's an uncanny sense of realism that I can't shake off. But the new Superman film seemed ever so slightly different. Yes there were fight scenes and killing and a typical mandatory city evacuation, but there was also character depth, a lot of it. I like character depth. I like characters. I like seeing what people come up with when they imagine a human (or other species, I don't judge.) Their motivations and their flaws. That's what ...

Hello whoever might be out there,  I finally watched The Bob's Burgers Movie. I'm doing a chronological watch through, so it was tough resisting temptation and holding out until the end of season 12 to finally watch it. You know Year 11 summer is going well when your plans for the whole day consist entirely of eating mac and cheese and watching a film. I had this day all hyped up in my head for days (had to wait until everybody was out of the house for big TV privileges). After about five trips to the kitchen, fetching various snacks and drinks, I was ready. I hit play. It was peak. For the first half an hour or so. I do not like the Fischoeders. I understand why they are there as characters, and I can appreciate how they are written, but I can not stand them. I know that is partially on purpose - they're the rich, corrupt, landlords, why would you like them? It's not called The Fischoeders Movie. And I know it is twisted so that helping the Fischoeders helps the Belche...

Hello whoever might be out there, Splatoon is the greatest video game franchise to ever exist and my stubborn self refuses to believe otherwise. The games have heart and soul. A story with meaning. Passion and care woven throughout every frame. I don't have enough words to express how much I love this game. My Splatoon obsession spawned like many people's did, during lockdown. I hate to cast everyone's minds back to that time, but for me it was a time of pure bliss. Animal crossing, Splatoon, Mario Kart: The almighty trio which still occupy most of my brain five years on. I didn't actually get my hands on a copy of Splatoon 2 until early 2021, using my birthday money. I had missed the first games era entirely due to well... being a child, so I was trying to make up for lost time. Yes I had missed all of the best bits of Splatoon 2, but I could not care less, because I was finally where I belong. Inkopolis Square. I played turf war non-stop for those first few days, alth...

Hello whoever might be out there,  Yes I am still alive, albeit swamped by the pressures that come naturally with exam season. People claim that one benefit to doing BTEC courses in school is that coursework is so much better than exams, but the more I think, the less sure I am about that. There are no exams in the official sense of the word. You aren't in the big exam hall with the exam board regulations are playing. You know exactly what the questions are going to be and what you have to do, there are no harsh surprises because all the surprises come before you have to do any writing. But there are still exams. I do BTEC music and drama; within the last two months I have sat (or will have sat) for those two subjects a combined total of 5 written exams adding up to six hours. Six hours of exam conditions and a computer. Six hours with a singular page of notes and a prayer. And that's not even all of the ones I have sat across the three years. Just because it isn't a regula...

Hello whoever might be out there, I watched the Minecraft movie. And no I am not surprised that it felt like scrolling through two hours worth of Youtube shorts, all that was missing was the AI voiceover explaining everything with the piano music in the background. I have some thoughts on it. And I know people will love to whine "but it's not that deep," but it is. It always is that deep. Because when a film gets so insanely popular to the point where cinemas have to show disclaimers at the start of the film telling people not to throw popcorn, it will be that deep. I was having a conversation with some boys from my school before Easter and before the film was released. We were talking about Alex, who some might refer to as the female equivalent of Steve. How very naïve of me to presume that the second of two main Minecraft characters would feature in the film. I said to these boys, not that they were really listening anyways, that Alex was just as crucial to the Minecraf...

Hello whoever might be out there, I love debating, and I love Bob's Burgers. I think these two things more than qualify me to talk about why Tina Belcher is Miss Debatin'. Debate has been a part of my life... officially since year 8 but realistically forever. With an argumentative spirit with a strong sense of justice, debate is everything I could've ever dreamed of. Getting my time to shine and ramble on about something uninterrupted for five minutes* was glorious, and I haven't stopped since that magical day in year 8 where I watched two English teachers pose a scripted debate about whether boys should be wearing skirts in schools. One can only imagine my joy when I opened up Disney+ this very evening to see the next episode of Bob's Burgers on my watch through was Season 7 Episode 15: Ain't Miss Debatin'. To summarise, a boy named Henry (who also featured on Season 5 Episode 12 as a candidate for class president) invites Tina on to the debate team as they...

Hello whoever might be out there,  I have been miraculously inspired to rewatch The Simpsons, not that that would come as a surprise to anyone. The best place to start? Season one - arguably. And with over 700 episodes, a rewatch doesn't necessarily have to be every single one. So I skip straight to episode six: Moaning Lisa. For being one of the first episodes in the show, it is quite bluntly beautiful. Lisa Simpson is a character I feel deeply connected to, hence why she is my blog profile picture. She is an eight-year-old girl with the weight of the world on her shoulders. She is Lisa Simpson. She meets Bleeding Gums Murphy. She plays some music. She learns she can be sad but happy at the same time. Simple but effective. This episode inspired the song from the "Simpsons sing the blues" album, and also the title of this post. Incredibly obvious as the song she sings with Bleeding Gums Murphy is the first verse of this song.  https://youtu.be/MieasttRrkw?si=K6F3tBzgVbplA...

Hello whoever might be out there,  GCSEs. Mock exams. Every day feels like banging my head against a brick wall but not even making a dent. Running circles only to reach the same conclusion. When I am sitting in that exam hall, air-conditioning ticking and hands freezing, picking up a pen feels like bearing a hundred tonne load. Typing a sentence is sending my fingers on a marathon - yet nobody can run ten marathons in a row. So why is the bare minimum for me to slave away in this way? My English Language story is about a girl trying so hard yet failing all of her GCSEs, yet she is a refugee. She doesn't speak the language. She never stood a chance. Yet I do have a chance, as if I am performing my one person rendition of Hamilton, "I am not throwing away my shot." But that shot has pretty much already left my hands and is hurtling down into depths where I can not obtain it. I have to keep saying that it doesn't matter and that I don't care; that is the only feasib...

Hello whoever might be out there, I love charity shops, because you can find some absolute gold in there; such as today where I found a Lego Friends DVD that I had honestly forgotten about when writing my previous posts regarding the franchise. That is the Girlz 4 Life movie. This film was released in 2016 and captures everything that I believe to be wrong with the 2012 version of Lego Friends. Don't get me wrong, it was a good film and is the standard for what every film for a younger audience should be; short, entertaining, and annoyingly unrealistic. I mean, how do you just conveniently manage to get into a press conference for supposedly the biggest in universe celebrity? I made a few notes while watching. Nerdy? Yes. But I knew I would want to talk about this on here so I kept receipts, and I am so glad I did. And in case you haven't already caught on, there will be spoilers. There was one specific moment that made me literally pause the film to pull out my phone. There is...

Hello whoever might be out there,  I had to finally cave in and announce the existence of my blog to my friends like a town crier. Spending three hours on a ramble about Lego Friends is apparently what it takes for me to cave in, and that's fair enough really as I didn't want to let my hard work and effort go to waste, not that they are the type of people to care about Lego Friends at our ripe old age anyway. It got me thinking about what actually changes now I know for definite that there are people other than me reading this. I have always felt as if I behave completely differently depending on who I am around, and I am now tasked with the skills of performing to all the audiences at once. It's an odd feeling. But I like it. I can try and claim that I am nonchalant about who is reading this, but in reality I would love it if hundreds of people were reading and commenting on here. Attention seeking? Maybe. I work hard rambling to my heart's content, some reciprocation ...

Hello whoever might be out there, Today I watched Season 2 Episode 11 of Lego Friends - The Next Chapter. The reunion episode. Long awaited. I briefly outlined, and yes that was brief for me, my opinions on Lego Friends and their redesigns in my last post. TLDR; I love them. One thing I love in particular is the attention to detail across what is technically totally different shows. I love Girls on a Mission. Definitely one of my comfort shows. Something about the 2018 girls taking on challenges bigger than themselves and winning is charming to me. Almost like I am mourning this fictional life I should be living. I admire the girls and everything they do, and I think this reunion episode does the 2018 girls justice, but I am not sure if I can say the same for the 2023 gang. The episode starts with Nova and Autumn sat in the diner discussing how it feels to be ditched by their friends - the biggest downside for having such a big friend group. Cue lazy excuse for not having all eight inv...

Hello whoever might be out there, I love Lego Friends. It is a interest that has stuck with me ever since I was six years old, so much so that it influenced my choice in name change (no, Mae is not my real name). I was there for the OG five with their OG designs. Mia, Emma, Olivia, Stephanie, and Andrea. I have seen the drama over the 2018 redesign. I have seen even more drama over the 2023 overhaul. Nova, Autumn, Liann, Leo, Olly, Zac, Paisley, and Aliya. I love it. To (not so) briefly outline, the original designs of the five girls were extremely non-diverse and stereotypical. Four out of the five girls were white, and even then Andrea was simply the token "slightly darker skinned" girl. From left to right: Mia was ginger and liked animals but notably, unlike the other girls, wears trousers!; Emma was black-haired and liked art and karate. Andrea was, as I previously stated, the token non-white girl with brown curly hair, and she liked singing; Stephanie was blonde and like...