thinking since '98

i know i'm late to the party so i'm going to keep this short and sweet (edit: my bad): after the excruciating wait to finish exams, i finally read harry potter and the cursed child. during the period where i couldn't experience jk rowling's new book play script for myself, my anticipation quickly turned to worry as i saw all the other potter fans in the world gorge themselves on it and come out the other end sad and disappointed. the worst part was when my friends that had already read it and knew how excited i was, advised me to spare myself from the horror and not even read it at all.

obviously i was never not going to read something that queen rowling wrote, but i did substantially lower my expectations. and thus, as is my life's motto, when you expect nothing, you're never disappointed.



i agree that the whole thing seemed very much like fan-fiction which was disheartening, but i think it's important to remember that the intended purpose of the script is for a performance, and therefore it was always going to be prone to theatrical elements and dialogue that distanced hpatcc from its source material in terms of quality and sincerity, plainly because it's a different art form. and i'm sure if i'd actually watched the play i'd be singing a different song right now. in comparison to the films, the special effects would have been different as would the music. for me, daniel radcliffe will always be harry, emma watson will always be hermione, rupert grint will always be ron and so on and so forth. therefore, i was always picturing the people we saw in the last scene of deathly hallows part 2 as i read hpatcc and at some points i could barely imagine the words on the page coming out of their mouths. but the play obviously had different actors, and i feel like that really cements the 'spin-off' aspect of hpatcc. though i was thrilled to see hermione played by a woman of colour, hpatcc will never be exactly on par as its predecessor.

however, the concept was really interesting. cedric's death will always be a great tragedy amongst the wizarding world and though, for me, it marks the beginning of the darkness that progressively thickens in the next three novels, they don't spend a lot of time really taking in what his death signifies. in harry's defence, he did have a dark lord to defeat, but i think that it's great that hpatcc explores the different timelines of what could have been.

i also enjoyed seeing the golden trio + draco's children and the parallels they share (or don't) with their parents. but, if i'm being honest, they're not the reason i was so eager to read hpatcc despite my friends and the internet's warnings.



i was always intrigued by the where are they now details that hpatcc offered, and in that vein i wasn't disappointed. i just wanted to know if after all the war and pain that my beloved characters experienced, they were okay. it was the same reason why i watched legend of korra - just to see what my babies from the last airbender were up to. however, though lok turned out to be unbelievably, insanely, fabulously amazing and i can't honestly say the same about hpatcc, i did appreciate the depth that it provided to the harry potter universe.

having said that, i will never forgive jk rowling for the absolute mess that is voldemort day UNTIL she writes a novella on the dark lord himself implementing the aforementioned 'holiday' around the world because oh my god i'm still laughing.

i know i'm late to the party but, hey, the party don't start until the cripplingly awkward socialite walks in, amiright? anyways, better late than never because i had absolutely no idea what i was missing before i had discovered the glistening treasure trove that is webcomics.

i love comics and graphic novels just as much as the next 5 minute geek. i've gone from short newspaper reads like garfield and calvin and hobbes to more longer series like scott pilgrim and amulet. i enjoy comic spin-offs of my favourite tv shows like avatar: the last airbender, adventure time and bravest warriors. and i've made my feelings about the archie comics very clear here. overall, i appreciate being able to read books with pictures that aren't just meant for children.

but i also tend to buy a lot of comics before i actually read them which means each purchase goes through a rigorous background check to make sure they're money well spent. also, i recently [had the best day of my life when i] quit my part-time job to concentrate on school and i'm absolutely outraged to find out that the depths of my savings apparently does have an end. i know, i know, libraries have buttloads of comics and books and they're all free!! but, you see, libraries require moving myself to a different location and i am lazy. why should i walk like 15 minutes to my local library when i can just reach out from the cave of blankets that i currently reside in, to grab my laptop and order books online that will come to the place where i already am? i am very grateful to be born during the era that i have been and i feel the best way to demonstrate that gratitude is by utilising the modern technology of my time to barely do shit all. and it's from that philosophy that my discovery stemmed.

flash forward to a couple of weeks ago when i was cheerily scrolling through my instagram feed, silent tears rolling down my face as i poured over fit bodies and healthy lifestyles that i would never get my indolent body to possess, when i saw one of the bookstagram accounts i follow mention a webcomic they were reading called omg check please. i stored the name in the back of my brain for future reference and - to my surprise - i remembered it a few days ago when it was around 1:30am and i was too tired to sleep (interesting how this memory doesn't come into play when i'm trying to recall something from school hmmm).

i had never read a webcomic before and i was wholeheartedly expecting some black and white pencil sketches accompanied by cheesy captions filled with grammatical errors on a tumblr blog with a tacky theme and the title, 'welcome to my twisted mind'. what i was not expecting was what i got, and that was a really really well done comic.

at first i didn't think i was going to be very interested in omg check please because a) it was about hockey and b) i didn't know anything about hockey except that it is a c) sport and d) i don't like sports. though, as friday night lights is currently teaching me, i know i shouldn't jump to conclusions (more on that later) (probably).

and i'm glad i did give ocp a go because i'm actually enjoying it. the art is very appealing and the dialogue is really funny - like laugh out loud funny. i was also very pleased that it had an lgbtq protagonist as well as culturally diverse characters. plus, the little hockey tidbits throughout the comic came in handy for noobs like me who at first couldn't even fully appreciate the pun in the name because i didn't even know what checking was.

it wasn't hard to quickly become up-to-date on ocp but while i waited for the next update, i was hungry to satiate my webcomic-fix. so i decided to hit up my bff google and let's just say my cravings won't be reappearing anytime soon. in the past week i devoured luke pearson's short stories and annihilated what was available online in nimona. i'm currently reading octopus pie and i'm loving every second i spend with my sardonic and organic girl. admittedly i did have to scour through a bit of smut here and there to find a comic worth sticking to, but who doesn't love some lame reads that make you scoff and groan in between the actually good work? if anything, the comparison made me appreciate the webcomics i read even more.

so i guess the moral of this post is that money is not proportionate to quality and once again, the internet has me worshipping the metaphysical ground it walks upon as i am not surprised to be surprised at the riches it contains.

(born in 1998 and have a voice to share with the world? click here to find out how you can be heard!)

(photo credit to www.comingsoon.net)

i'd like to write an articulate post on the aspects of mockingjay part 2 that contributed to create an ultimately pleasurable viewing experience, but, screw that, i'm just gonna sit here and fangirl for a minute.

here is an accurate insight into my thought process while watching the movie: AHHHHHHHHHNOOOOOOHAHAHOOOOOOOOAWWWWAHHHHHHWHYYYYY*UNCONTROLLABLE SOBBING*

actually, that's what i thought i'd be feeling but in reality i was a lot more dead inside. i don't know if that was because i'm guttered that this franchise is coming to an end, but also i feel like mockingjay was anticlimactic. definitely not in the negative sense of the term, but more like there wasn't just one pivotal point that the film built up to. it was a roller coaster of ups and downs and i felt like i was just coasting along. even the end of the war didn't stir up a myriad of emotions. it happened and then something else happened and then something happened after that. the plot kept moving along, which overall was good because i never got bored (something that rarely happens)

my whole hunger games experience has been weird. i first read the books when i was like 13 and i received them for christmas. i use the term 'read' loosely; i devoured them, wrapping up the series in two days and emerging from the cocoon i built as a changed person.

around the time i finished, the trailer for the first film came out. i was very much excited. the hunger games was the first book-to-movie adaptation that i was really interested in. and, boy, i was not disappointed. i watched it at the cinema with friends and i loved it. i even studied it in grade 9. but between that and the release of catching fire, i didn't think much of the series. the trailer came out, i fell in the hype for a day and then i plateaued again. the movie came out, i obsessed for a week and then i moved on. that cycle repeated for the next two films. my life didn't revolve around the hunger games - or at least as much as other series i enjoy - but when something happened in its world, i remembered all over again why i fell in love with the series in the first place.

and i think a big part of that is because i still don't feel like i'm old enough to appreciate suzanne collins' work. the hunger games isn't like other YA dystopian franchises because it's much too real. maybe we're not chucking our children into arenas and forcing them to kill each other, but our universe isn't that far off from the one inside the pages. corrupt governments, imbalance of power, manipulation by the media. these are all things happening in our world.

and i just don't know how it's going to play out for us.

(born in 1998 and have a voice to share with the world? click here to find out how you can be heard!)

i love maggie stiefvater. if i could be a sixteenth as creative as her, i could die happy. she probably vomits art.

i first stumbled across the wolves of mercy falls a couple of years - at costco actually - but i didn't pick it up then because i was still trying to convince myself that i was a rock and didn't enjoy sappy love stories. jump ahead to this year and after being bombarded by pretty fan-made collages and fanfiction on tumblr, i decided to give it a go. well, technically, i really wanted to read the raven cycle, but someone told me to read twomf first so i could see how much stiefvater improved. more on that later.

i liked twomf. it was sweet. sam and grace were cute but i was much more of an isabel and cole person myself (i kept picturing cole as a taller, buffer, matty healy tbh). i'll probably read it again on a lonely day when i'm abruptly aware of my singleness. though, even then, i might just go straight to sinner to get my angsty-love fix.

reading twomf was definitely not a chore, but by the end i did feel like hurrying along just so i could hear about the raven boys that everyone was raving about. and, boy, was i not disappointed. did stiefvater improve? holy shit, yes she did. her writing is so poetic and ethereal that i can only dream of reaching it through big words and crappy alliteration like 'belligerently benevolent' or 'phantasmagoric phengite'.

and for the first time in my life, i fell in love. with five people at once but whatever. blue is everything i want to be. gansey is everything i want to have. i love adam's bravery, ronan's confidence and noah's devotion. these characters were so intricate and real that i never wanted to leave them alone.

even the whole premise of the series is so... majestic. it's set in a modern world touched with welsh kings; a quiet town with deep roots. it bleeds intrigue and mystery with dark secrets and unnamed characters. speaking of names, they all blossom gorgeously in your mind. glendower and cabeswater - they roll around in your head and settle in your thoughts.

for the most part, i forgot i was reading about teenagers. they had kind of reached an immortal level. as a teenager myself and being surrounded by teenagers on the daily, i've learnt a thing or two, and blue and the raven boys'* capacity for deep thought and constant maturity is not a behaviour that my species always demonstrates. but, in its own kind of way, the raven cycle is like an eccentric coming-of-age story. there's the whole thing about finding your friends, finding your purpose and being told that you'll kill your true love with a kiss. all common teenage dilemmas.

after seeing the legit stunning cover for the raven king and fully realising that the final book in the series will be called the raven king, i am beyond excited. it will definitely be my priority when it comes out rather than doing VCE.

*they should totally start a band

(born in 1998 and have a voice to share with the world? click here to find out how you can be heard!)