In reading my classmates blogs I noticed a common fandom that was in so many of them I just couldn’t escape it. Nothing wrong with it, I just noticed that it was a very big thing, and it’s not always a medium that is associated with some of the connections that were made. For instance, I first noticed in Sarah Murphy’s 4th week blog post that she picked her favorite Anti-Trump songs. And this went along with protest music, something I actually know a little bit about.

One of her chosen songs was this one here:

Certainly a different one than the only one I knew.

My first experience with protest songs was a song not intended for protest at all actually. If anyone here has heard of Buffalo Springfield or POCO, you probably know this song. Hell, even if you’ve never heard of Buffalo Springfield or POCO you now this song. I am willing to bet money most people reading this have heard of it. It’s called “For What It’s Worth”. Still don’t think you’ve heard of it?

Still saying that? Alright. I trust you now. But listen to it, it’s a good song. And I’m not just saying that because I know someone who may or may not be in that music video. Anyway. Not the point here.

The point here is this is something I don’t often consider but is an important note. Music does count as a fandom, something I sort of forgot about actually, and it is a great way to help make the world a better place.The important thing to remember with music is that it’s much easier to spread it around. To quote my classmate Sarah Murphy here “What is different today about protest music is that the digital era has allowed for songs to spread faster than ever before. Music spreads like wildfire in the online public sphere, and musicians are taking advantage of this fact.”

Unlike most of my usual fandoms, this is an easier spread. One click, and three to four minutes later you have fully taken in this fandom. You don’t have to sit down and read a whole book or get invested in a TV show. You don’t even have to sit through an hour and half movie. Less than five minutes later and you’ve absorbed this medium that does a great way of getting the message across. Sometimes it’s subtle, sometimes it’s obvious.

And since we are discussing music I want to leave you with my favorite feels music video that may have actually saved lives.

Harry Potter - Part 2 - RP

This is part two my friends, and here we will be discussing Harry Potter once more and how it has affected my life, the lives of the people around me, and why it is so important to let yourself do this (and by this I mean get involved in popular culture and fandom).

Lets start with truth time, I was not a very involved kid. I looked theatre, and I was decently an all around nerd. I wasn’t exactly fighting to figure out my weekend plans with multiple people. But, in High School, I was introduced to something that has literally changed my life. And that would be online forum based role play.

What is Forum based role play you may ask?

Well I am certainly glad you asked.

Forum based Role Play, or just RP for short, is when you take a website like forumotion or proboards, and you use it to RP. For this post we will be specifically discussion a board I have been a part of for two years now. You create an application, usually using a provided template, and when it’s been accepted you RP. I’m not going to go into too much detail explaining, I’m just going to provide you with links to show you what I’m talking about.

Here is one of my more recent applications: http://phmerp.proboards.com/thread/743/ramos-elena

And here is a not yet completed thread that I’m a part of (I play Marlene): http://phmerp.proboards.com/thread/633/bulletproof-lydia

If you want to click around feel free, I’m proud of so many of my posts, we all are, we love when people read our things.

RP was a way for me to connect to other people using a medium I loved dearly. Harry Potter is, without a doubt, my favorite fandom. I’ve gone so in depth with my characters and my learning, I’m sort of an expert in that borderline creepy way. Seriously, I’ve corrected Harry Potter Trivial Pursuit. Ask me anything, I dare you.

When I was younger, RP connected me with people who I really got along with. I still see what they’re up to on Facebook and it reminds me of what those sites once were. Now that I’m older, I’ve begin to make real life friendships with these online people. My best friend lives in Washington, I have another close friend who ended up moving to Denver and had Christmas dinner at my house. Another close friend lives in Canada, and I even know someone back on the east coast (where I grew up) and who I got to meet in person over the last winter break.

Because of these connections I’ve been to Mount Rainier and the Space Needle. My best friend is like 99% of the reason I got my first tattoo (Harry Potter themed of course). The other 1% is me wanting to but not wanting to go alone.

Another thing I love about RP is that it allows me to keep my writing going. I’m a creative person, and the way I kept my creativity is through my forms of art, and writing is my biggest one. I can write anywhere. I have the ability to crate complex characters with different personalities and life experiences and write from their perspectives. I’m not tied down to certain experiences because I can put myself in their shoes. It has allowed me more empathy, well that and theatre.

When you connect to people through a singular medium like fandom, you realize you can meet people from all different walks of life. People who are older and people who are younger. People who are gay or straight, you don’t know who you’ll get to meet. I managed to meet so many people this way, and it really allows me to see life from other people’s eyes. I can really explore.

RP has also given me potentially valuable skills. If you can believe it I can, for the most part, code this post in HTML. I still require some help for images, but for the most part I can do it. I’ve also learned BBCode, which isn’t the same but close enough. I’ve become more able to run through the internet and learn how to do things. I taught myself photoshop before taking a photo class in High School. For the most part, everything I’ve made I learned by doing.

This is just one example.

You can learn so much from places you would never expect, and opening yourself up is the first step. The reason I am confident in my writing skills is because of RP. The reason I can be confident in my theatre life is because of RP. I’ve learned skills, even so far as knowing how to communicate something potentially controversial because people from all walks of life can do this. And if nothing else, everyone should know how to write an email or a letter or even a blog post. And this has helped me retain the skills I know I’ll be using for a very long time, and these skills are helpful to everyone.

That fandom life man.

It’s not just for nerds anymore.

Let us pick another one for today. Now this one will be a two parter, in which I will give you one time period today and another one next week. Because this is without a doubt my all time favorite fandom and I can’t give it just one post. Today we will be discussing:

Harry. Freaking. Potter.

Now, there are so many ways I could go with this. I mean, there’s FanFiction, cosplay, free youtube musicals, an actual official stage production (that I hate with a fiery passion from the depths of hell itself), the list is a long one. But today I am going to discuss the original books themselves.

Harry Potter is possibly one of the most well known fandoms in the world. In fact, if you go to fanfiction.net and click on books, Harry Potter is currently holding the most amount of stories with a number reaching 770,000. And that’s when you don’t consider it actually says 770k on the site so that number is inaccurate. The fact is, you can’t spit without hitting someone who has at least heard of Harry Potter.

I won’t be focusing on the characters themselves because I’ve been doing that a lot lately. Instead, I will discuss how Harry Potter has already impacted the world, and how it will likely continue to do so.

So… This is about to get slightly political. I’ll avoid getting too intense, however. I love this phrase, because at the bare bones of this… Harry lived in a cupboard under some stairs and that’s just plain wrong. But, obviously, it has a second meaning too. It’s saying that no one should feel forced to hide who they really are, making use of the ‘in the closet’ term for people who have not come out saying they are gay. Or anywhere on the LGBT+ community. Dumbledore also is a good example from Harry Potter because, while I’m not his number one fan, he is the first character JK has told us is gay.

Another point to make, and the biggest one I think, comes from an article I found one day.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/harry-potter-benefits_us_5936b4b7e4b0099e7faf3223

Basically, the point of the article is that reading Harry Potter, exposing yourself to what his trials are, could make you a better person as a whole. the TL;DR version of this article is that you are less likely to make racist remarks, and could help you understand your personality a little bit better. And this is all ignoring the benefit of reading as a whole, as it can reduce stress. At least, when it’s not assigned by a Professor, right? XP

Harry Potter can open you up to so many things, and has allowed me personally to expand my creativity immensely. And my understanding of the world. A friend of mine is a Flight Attendant from Canada, so I’m getting snapchats from across the globe. For example, today was Poland. My best friend lives in Washington. My horizons have expanded exponentially and it’s all because of harry Potter.

And by the way, I’m a proud Raven.

Time to pick another fandom! Lets spin the fandom wheel and see what’s on the menu today!

Yepp. Sorry not sorry guys, it’s Naruto.

Anime is so insanely large you simply can’t do more than one at a time. As it is that is going to be insane so lets get started. Naruto, for those who may not know, is a Japanese Anime series adapted from a Manga. To get into all the details of it we’d be here for days, all you need to know is that the main character is a ninja. Pretty much all of the main characters are ninjas. And they go against all types of bad guys.

Now, one of the things I love about Naruto is the sheer complexity of it all. Masashi Kishimoto, the creator of Naruto, built a world, and all sorts of characters, with such detail that I hardly know where to begin. Not to mention the sheer amounts of development each character goes through. But I have to find something to start with, so lets get going.

Lets stick with Team Seven, and we’ll start with our titular character. Naruto Uzumaki. Naruto is a Jinchuriki, meaning he hosts a ‘tailed beast’ inside him. In the Naruto world, a tailed beast is a representation of insane amounts of chakra, the main power source for ninja. His beast, the nine-tailed fox, is the most powerful beast there is. There are nine of them, going from one to nine tails.

Now, Naruto has no parents. He grew up hated by everyone around him, and yet he is quite possibly the most optimistic character in the show. Constantly keeping attitudes and spirits high whenever he can. Throughout the show, he goes from being the dead last in his class to the most powerful ninja in the village. All through hard work and perseverance.

On to Sasuke Uchiha. Sasuke is another member of Team Seven. His character is a favorite of mine, especially when writing. He lost his entire family (we’re talking like one hundred people at least) at the age of about seven. He becomes cold and distant after the loss of his family (The village isn’t known for its mental health care) and eventually leaves the village and becomes a missing nin, and essentially a villain in an attempt to destroy his older brother as revenge for killing their family.

His development is one of my favorites because he’s not a good person all the time. In the end he is greatly affected by the death of his family and is succumbing to the darkness because of it. He pulls himself out of the darkness with the help of his friends. He eventually goes on to have a family in the village and live his life to protect it, despite having also tried to destroy it.

Finally, we will be discussing Sakura Haruno. The only girl on Team Seven, and actually a widely hated character. I will provide a video that better explains that than I ever could, but basically the gist is she is relatively useless in the first part of the series. In the second half, she becomes much more useful. Sometimes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30yuCXH7q0M

Her development is almost more of a jump than Sasuke and Naruto. While the two of them have huge jumps in power, they started off still ridiculously good. While Sakura starts off essentially useless, by the end of the series she has become insanely strong with and without help from chakra and also has quite good chakra control. Despite her lack of screen time usefulness, it’s still a significant enough power jump.

These characters show a lot of complexity, though Sasuke and Naruto show more than Sakura really does due to their detailed pasts. But it’s important to look at these characters for what they represent. Similarly to the Disney post, we see more of the ‘it’s okay to be different’ when it comes to Naruto and the nine tailed fox. But at the same time we really get a good look at what hard work and dedication can accomplish, not to mention the fact that we can see even more of just how our minds can be affected by our pasts. And just because this is how you think now, doesn’t mean you’ll think or feel that way later.

It is important to look at these individual accomplishments to see how these fandoms can help the world as a whole. Because you cannot help the world as a whole without first helping each individual person.

Let’s face it. I’m what some people might refer to as a ‘nerd’. I like all sorts of things from Anime to Books to Television and Movies. You name it, if I haven’t actively taken the time to read/watch it, I’ve probably heard of it. Today we will be discussion one of my favorite subjects (but not my ultimate favorite, though we will get there), Disney. More specifically, Disney animated movies.

Now, I don’t know about you, but I’m a sucker for a good Disney Movie. I lost my mind when I found out that Disney was remaking Beauty and the Beast, I’m still excited I’ll be seeing Frozen move to the stage on August 23rd at DCPA. I was a kid in a candy store on the Disney Cruise Ships. I’m a lover of Disney, and their movies are often the cutest things I’ve ever seen.

But why don’t we look at our favorite Disney flicks a little more closely?

I obviously can’t go on and on about every animated Disney movie ever made. We’d be here until the last Star Wars movie premiere. Instead, I’ll grab a few of my favorites. Specifically, Mulan, Frozen, and Big Hero 6. Now, that’s a hard list to make, I feel like I’m discounting so many AMAZING films, but I only have so much time to type before I develop Carpal Tunnel. Besides, they all have a little something in common that I’m going to explain. So lets dive right in with Mulan, shall we?

Mulan is a Disney Princess, and one of the first (If not THE first, I don’t have that much time on my hands) to be classified as such while also not actually being a princess. Her film was also one of the first (Again if not THE first) movie from Disney’s studios that didn’t revolve around a love story. For those of you who may not know, Mulan is about a young woman who takes her father’s place in the Chinese Army (Despite the HIGH LEVEL OF ILLEGALNESS). That’s basically it if you only need a basic gist. Throughout the movie we get some wonderfully hilarious songs and a truly good story for young girls everywhere, and a message that can be different for every girl.

Mulan breaks all the rules to protect her father from going back to war to keep him safe and healthy, the poor man does walk with a limp after all. She then goes to the camp, learns to fight like a badass warrior, and then actually uses those skills against the Huns. Following her gender reveal, her life is spared due to her heroic actions, and when she realizes that the Huns are still alive she returns to China to warn the General (Shang) that they are still in danger. The Huns reveal themselves and Mulan manages to save the day by getting three guys to dress like women and in the end the Emperor bows to her. All in all it’s not your average Disney Movie.

I won’t beat Frozen to death here, it mostly just needs to be mentioned. The story is easy enough to understand. A princess (Eventual queen) has hidden ice powers, and when they are revealed she is all but exiled from her own kingdom and in the process she learns to accept her powers and figures out how to control them. True love is a heavy feature but in the end, the best act of true love was one between sisters. Once again, not your typical Disney film.
For those of you tired of hearing people talk up Frozen here’s some cinemasins that literally just critiques the hell out of it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvwMtWkfkJ8

An finally, Big Hero 6. I could go on and on about Big Hero 6. It actually falls somewhere in the Marvel Universe but is a fully standalone film. Its different from things like The Avengers and Spiderman. The superheroes are all a little unconventional, and pretty much everything is based in science. Except the part where San Francisco is San Fransokyo. That part took some getting used to. Big Hero 6 has wonderful displays of action and is great at showing people recovery from loss. Grief sort of becomes one of those things that is always there but it’s not the focal point so you don’t see it unless you’re looking for it. It does have some things that we saw in Frozen if you really look but the story is completely different.

I love these films because they aren’t your average Disney animated feature. They have stories that don’t follow the typical girl meets boy, boy rescues girl plot. All of these involve doing what the main characters think is right, for whatever reasons they have. Often they are saving something precious to them.The messages are great not just for children, but for adults. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been reminded by Disney movies that I’m not alone. Hiro being depressed after the loss of his brother, Anna sacrificing herself to save her sister, Mulan breaking all the laws to protect her father. Disney goes to the extreme to get a point across, but in the end, it reminds us that sometimes it’s the little things.

It’s okay to be different.

It’s okay to be depressed.

It’s okay to follow your own path.