Happy Birthday, Stellar in Neverland!

Hi, I'm Stellar, and I'm posting on a Thursday instead of a Wednesday! That's so weird! Well, I had to, because today, August 23 marks the one-year anniversary of me creating this blog. I used to write a blog with my friends in middle school, but after around a year and a half of missing it, I decided to create Stellar in Neverland on a whim. Since then, it's been a constant source of happiness in my life. I know I don't get that many readers, but I still love putting my voice out there on the Internet. One thing that's very important to me is self-expression. If I'm feeling something, I can't just keep it bottled up, I need to share it. While I don't share my deepest, darkest secrets on here, it is a great way to get my thoughts about music and pop culture out. This blog is me talking to myself, essentially, and not caring who reads it. I don't care how many readers I get, I will always be proud of this blog. One thing I was considering doing for the one-year anniversary was a compilation of every single mistake or stupid thing I have ever said on here. But then I realized that it's my one-year anniversary, and I should be focusing on the good things. So instead, I'm going to highlight a few posts I've made that I'm particularly proud of. I try to take pride in what I do and I'd never post something on here that I wasn't proud of, but these are just a few that I've always been really fond of.
-My Top Ten Favorite Movies
Although if I were making this today, I wouldn't have put The Outsiders on the list, added Enchanted somewhere, and maybe put Mulan in the proper top 10, I'm still really proud of this one. It was the first real post I ever made, and this blog pretty much exists solely to remake the one I made on my old blog. And despite those errors and the sentence "plus he's the hottest animated character ever, in my opinion" making me cringe, I still think I did a really good job.
-The Holy Trinity of First Impressions
The "Holy Trinity" refers to First Impressions #1- Songs I Don't Know The Names Of (Apparently?), First Impressions #3- More Songs I Don't Know The Name Of, and First Impressions #5- Songs That Deserve More Recognition...Or Do They?. I think of these posts as a trilogy, because they're all pretty much the same concept. These posts are special to me because they're really fun for me to do. I get to talk about and discover a bunch of songs I usually haven't heard of, and sometimes I discover some gems. There are more than a few songs I love that I would have never found without doing these posts.
-Holiday Special: Jake Paul's Litmas EP (Album Review #3.5, if you must)
I just think this one is really funny. Jake Paul is such an easy target, but he deserves it because his music, videos, and personality are as bad as people say they are. The actual music I reviewed was, of course, garbage, but I made some jokes I'm pretty proud of. Negative posts are fun to write, especially when your hatred of what you're writing about is truly primal. I just try to limit them because too much negativity gets boring.
-Favorite Book Covers *ft. my friend Nike*
The first (and so far only) collab I've done on here. I like this one because it's a change of pace from what I normally do. I normally talk about music, but this shows that I'm more than that. It was also really fun to collaborate with Nike, who is one of my best friends. Everything just came together so well in the end, and she did a really nice job talking about her picks. She's so much better at writing than I am, guys.
-Songs That Are 10 Years Old Now!
Writing this one was a trip down memory lane. I talked about 32 songs that were popular in 2008, and it was cool to see how different music was back then. A lot of these songs are still popular, such as "Single Ladies" and "Love Story", but I liked talking about some of the more forgotten ones like "Shake It" (that song particularly brought me back) and "American Boy" as well. I'd love to do more posts on older music like this.
-Every Fall Out Boy Single Ranked From Worst to Best
I feel like this one is probably really fun to read because I just sound so jovial about what I'm talking about. You can tell I know what I'm talking about and I'm passionate about it. I sound a little geeky detailing the specific histories of some of these songs, but that adds to its charm, honestly. Plus I got to show two sides of the spectrum: lambasting songs I hate and raving about songs I adore. Next week, I'm talking about more Fall Out Boy, and it should be pretty similar. Minus the lambasting, of course.
-Stellar's Summer Jams 2018!
I do a ton of "my current favorite songs" playlists, but this one was fun because it just had a bunch of songs I genuinely love. Writing about happy songs makes me happy. My favorite posts to write (and also read) are the ones where I'm talking about things I'm passionately in love with, and this one fits the bill. There's really not much to distinguish this from the other "current faves playlist" posts, I just feel like this one has a lot of really solid songs that are different but fit together well to make a summer playlist I want to listen to all the time.

Okay, so now that we're done with that, let's talk about the elephant in my room: namely the extreme makeover I gave my blog! I've had my old theme since I first made the blog, and while it's done me some good for a year, I decided it was time for a change. I feel like this aesthetic represents myself and my blog better, and I plan on keeping it for the next year of Stellar in Neverland's existence, if not longer.

Finally, let's talk about what my plans are for this blog's second year. Well, next week I'm doing my Top 20 Fall Out Boy Songs, but what's coming after that? Well, I have a music series that will take a lot of work, but I'm really excited for. I'm not sure exactly when it will come out, but I can't wait to start it. I'm also hoping to do more reviews of albums and/or movies. Maybe I'll bring back The Stellar Adventures of Catalina in Neverland or start another fiction series, but both of those are pretty unlikely. And of course, I'm going to keep doing music-related lists because that's what I love to write. So to end this, I'm gonna say happy birthday to my baby, Stellar in Neverland. Thanks to everybody who's ever visited my blog, and here's to another great year!

For this special occasion, I figured I'd bring Catalina, my Bitmoji/old mascot of the blog, back. I dyed her hair a few months ago, but I haven't done that in real life :(

Stellar