Sadiya Efat

19/07/2026

~I don't get it. How can anyone think Zendaya isn't beautiful?

It's a very racist trend I've been seeing online a lot. People compare Zendaya to someone they think is "actually beautiful," as if that's supposed to prove a point. They find some random beautiful people and compare them to Zendaya. I've been noticing this for a long time, and I honestly don't get it.

I first saw Zendaya on Disney show, then in her other shows. She always looked beautiful to me. I genuinely don't know what scale of beauty people are using, but to me, she is beautiful. And on top of that, she's accomplished. She's knowledgeable, she's a singer, she's an actress, and she's someone who can do so many things. I also like how she carries herself. She's so nonchalant, she sticks to her principles, and it's honestly mesmerizing to watch.

So when people say she's not beautiful, I'm genuinely confused. What standards are you using to decide if someone is beautiful? And aren't all the things I mentioned also part of what makes a person attractive?

Then there's the recent Christopher Nolan movie controversy. People keep saying, "Why is Zendaya playing Athena? Athena was supposed to be beautiful." But wasn't Athena mainly the goddess of wisdom, strategy, tactical warfare, knowledge, and power? Beauty wasn't her defining characteristic. I'm not saying Zendaya isn't beautiful—she absolutely is. She has beauty, presence, and an aura that's hard to ignore. Yet people keep posting random pictures taken out of context to push a narrative.

Frankly, I find Zendaya very attractive. When she appeared as Cinderella at Cannes, it completely changed my idea of what Cinderella could look like. We're so used to imagining Cinderella as a fair-skinned girl with rosy cheeks and soft features, but Zendaya gave us a different interpretation. And I found that really beautiful.

06/07/2026

01/07/2026

You don't read him for the ending.

29/06/2026

~ There is a Japanese and Chinese folktale that talks about the Red String. This theory is kind of fascinating to me. It describes that whoever we are meant to meet is connected with a red string. When the time comes, the person we are meant to meet... it's all connected.

It says that the string can tangle, twist, or get messed up, but it never breaks. It will stay until you meet, and after that, if the journey continues... it's like the person you are meant to meet at a certain time, you will meet them. Whatever happens, whatever force tries to stop it from happening... it will happen.

It's such a romanticized theory of connection or familiarity... how we choose our own people who stay with us for the rest of our lives. The connection we feel with people... it's like what we believe in our culture. We say whatever is written in fate will happen. As I said, it is written long before we are born, so whatever we do in this life... it will happen whether we want it or not. We can't change anything written in our fate.

Fate or destiny is something different cultures believe in and hold onto. The Red String theory is something we often see in dramas. It's romanticized, like the person at the other end of the string is your twin flame or soulmate. But the fascinating thing is... it's not just about a romantic partner. It's about the people we meet and choose to keep in our lives. It's about the connection we feel, as if it was already written in our destiny... our fate... whatever we choose to call it.

As a Muslim, I can't believe in the Red String theory, but I like learning about different cultures and the stories behind them... how centuries upon centuries of folklore, history, and beliefs were passed down, written on paper, and shaped into the versions people believe today.

Isn't it amazing to think that we are destined to meet the people we keep in our lives? Think about it... How do you find your best friend among so many students in a classroom? How do we end up connecting with people who aren't our family, people we just happened to meet one day... and then they become lifelong friends or partners?

Believing that they were all connected by this Red String... or, as our culture says, that it was already written in our fate... is such a fascinating thing to think about...

28/06/2026

~ POV: In a room filled with broken dreams, books scatter across the place like they have a place... They're not arranged, not in a fixed place, but a place...

The table contains an artist's mind. You can see brushes, pencils, pens lying around like they've been used thousands of times. Open notebooks and random doodles, sticky notes, and pencils that sketch everywhere... What did the poor artist have in mind? What kind of art are they pursuing?

In this modern world, art styles... everything is so modernized, and clickbait has become the game changer. AI images... or what keeps the standard? But what a human can do with their thoughts... can it be replicated?

The human mind is a black hole of thoughts, like plants of futures and images of millions of characters... Is it ever possible for AI to replace an artist?

I will always find beauty in the mundane. People do things that are forcefully feeding them ideas... But can a broken artist's dream be replaced by a modern world obsessed with how you see things? Maybe that's how people find the starting point...