The Perils Of Being A Fangirl

Here. This post is the raison d’être of my blog. This post is the one in which many of you will share a sense of camaraderie with me. This post will show you that YOU. ARE. NOT. ALONE.

And that it’s okay to be obsessed. You know, as long as it’s not drugs, or sex, or underground cults. 

(Note: Does anyone know the gender neutral term for FANGIRL? And please don’t tell me it’s FAN – as far as I am concerned, that word is an umbrella term, not a synonym. And I beg your pardon while I treat this post from the view point of fangirls specifically – it’s a shame I don’t know more fanboys personally.)

1. Risk of Degradation of 20/20 Vision

Due to –

(a) All that late-night reading under your blanket with a torch, because you don’t want your parents to catch you up past your bedtime and risk unleashing their wrath in the corporeal form of THAT’S IT NO MORE BOOKS

(b) TV show marathons as a reward for academic excellence (which is code for surviving through exams avoiding all your guilty pleasures)

(c) Excessive social networking – especially when the other fangirl you’re with over the miracle called the Internet, is in another time-zone, depriving you of sleep

2. Catching Up On Deprived Sleep During The Daytime Especially During Class HoursAnd Zombie-Walking Through The Rest

Due to the above mentioned.

3. Lack of Non-Fictional Romantic Life

Reading too many books starring heroes of the fantastically perfect variety, or watching too many TV shows with the same category of protagonists can affect the average reader to such a degree of romantic sterilization of the mundane sort by raising par of male excellence. (Or if you swing the other way, then female excellence.)

4. Managing All Your Social Network Accounts

I swear. This is a talent that is gifted to a fangirl, upon her baptism into this community. How else do you explain the superhuman memory and multitasking capabilities involved in remembering all your ten thousand usernames and passwords, who you last chatted or tweeted with, and maintaining an unbroken comment thread to avoid any non-civil interactions?

5. Empty Wallets

For those of you out there, whose financial aspects are still governed by a superior authority of the parental sort, then you have limitations (like me) on how much merchandise you can own. You resort to pinning wishlists and loaded virtual carts on your Pinterest boards and bookmarks bar, and just staring at what could have been on your laptop screen. When that happens, you turn to –

6. Your DIY Skills and Photoshop Expertise

However deplorable they may be, we have that shoddy wad of bookmarks made by hands smelling of Fevicol, t-shirts we spent that last batch of fabric paint on, and folders (both digitally and otherwise) filled with our own edits and sketches.

7. The Need to Celebrate Holidays Unknown to Mere Mortals/Mundanes/Muggles

We have reminders on our mobile phones and of course, in case they fail, we also have the ever-reliable power of the online fangirl-hood to remind us when to eat only blue food or randomly scream DEATH TO DEATHEATERS or whatever.

8. Research and Intellectual Debates

We are never happy knowing what we already know. We thirst to read up on all the different versions of backstories of the various characters, the author’s perspective on how (s)he chose all the proper nouns in the book, and then unwittingly become party to raging wars on whether or not a particular character is a hero or a villain or other civil debates. If you’re talking about a TV show, then it goes without saying that unless and until we’ve dug up bloopers and the actors’ Wikipedia pages, we’re never going to attain closure.

9. Shipping Through Choppy Seas

This is mostly self-explanatory. The FEELS fuelling our primal fangirl instincts to keep calm and continue shipping canon and headcanon ships in the face of tempests exacts a heavy toll on our head in the form of acute headaches that only tear-stained pillows can cure. Speaking of which – 

10. Tears Both Shed And Unshed

I have always maintained that a significant percentage of the average global tear-level has been contributed by the tear ducts of fangirls. To cry, clutching the damned book in your arms or after watching that tragic final episode of a Korean drama series, is an occupational hazard.

11. HANGOVERS, MAN. Hangovers.

It’s not enough that we’ve been cursed to harbouring eternal feels for a series (book or TV), but we’ve also been damned with being left to our own devices to deal with that inexplicable limbo stage of our life that follows after the final episode or chapter. We then face the big question – WHAT DO WE DO NOW?

We feel as if we’re trapped in a tunnel, the vision of closure mocking at us in the far-off distance. Comfort Food, Comfort Reading selected passages, and Comfort Replaying selected scenes becomes the norm for some days.

And I will thank Ron Weasley to define what being a fangirl truly means (courtesy of Tumblr) – 

The Elephant In The Room

I’m not tall. I’m not “abysmally short”, or a “midget” or suffering due to an alarmingly active protest led by my pituitary glands, according to people who ask me to hunt for the idiomatic silver lining.

After they call me short. Offering the above as a peace offering when they decide I have provided for their requisite dose of “let’s-pick-on-the-short-girl”.

My growth chart over the years

I’ve got nothing to complain about. I’m a 5”2’ –ish feet of living awesomeness. But I’ve got a bone to pick with the fates who decided it would be funny if my younger sister was painfully tall. Till about a decade back, everyone was convinced that I had inherited dad’s tall jeans and that my sister was stuck in mom’s short ones.  Then our destinies were swapped with the result that my sister shot up overnight like some damned travesty of Jack’s beanstalk and I was left gaping at my sister’s beautiful neck (‘cause that’s what ‘s at my eyelevel). Needless to say, that particular growth spurt inspired a great many good-humoured digs at poor me. At social functions that begged my attendance, relatives who had been MIA in my life addressed my sister as the older sibling presumably in college. Cousins in middle school and below started measuring their height in Aneta-units. Older cousins convened a meeting to discuss why neither Horlicks nor Complan could work their miracle on me. It’s even more embarrassing when the shoe store stacks size 37 in the kids’ section.

This post came after yesterday when I just about had enough. I was showing off to my ten-year-old cousin how I could still fit into a skirt I’d bought in fourth grade, and she guffawed in my face citing my lack of physical growth as probable cause. Apparently slapping kids is considered psychopathic behaviour.

You know what’s great about being “short”? You don’t have to hold the umbrella when it houses two or more people. Relative strangers tend to underestimate your capabilities – thereby allowing you to enjoy the looks of aghast appreciation when you swear colourfully/yell/punch someone. Short dresses/skirts cover more than just your butt. You can pull off the “I’m-innocent-how-could-I-do-that” face at will. You are also entitled to pull the “I’m-physically-weak-help-me” face when you’re too tired to give a shit about anything that demands sweat. Also Prince Charming will have to literally sweep you off your feet for the big kiss.

Assuming he’s tall, of course. Else all’s well.

Confessions of a K-Dramaholic

Hold your judgements, people. Before you snort in disgust at my apparent two-facedness (since I seemingly can’t stand romantic literature but you’re still seeing this post), allow me to explain.

You might have noticed the disturbing gap between my last post and this one when I promised you in November that my winter break was going to up this space’s tempo. That didn’t happen, because, er, sometimes even after you’ve finished off a TV series marathon, you can’t get closure, so you fast forward through it again – probably by using hostages to explain to your parental authorities that you’re merely stuck in front of your laptop because your hostage made you watch it with her. Definitely not the other way round. Naturally, my TBR pile got bigger (because, I can’t resist buying books with BUY 2 GET 1 FREE stickers) and my e-ARCs are pushing themselves to their expiry date. My roommates were disgusted by what they saw; my parents let their jaws drop when they caught me making soppy eyes at the screen when the actors touched lips for a long time with music playing in the background (HOW IS THAT CALLED KISSING I WANT TO KNOW) and I decided I needed to explain WHY. (To myself, first and foremost.) And I also, uh, needed a post ASAP.

CONS:

• Okay. So the dialogues are cheesy. Extremely. But I am fully prepared to accept that it might be because of the translation problems. In order to fully understand this issue, I thought of translating popular Hindi and Malayalam songs (which are pure poetry) into English in my head and that exercise killed me. Because poetry in Malayalam = Cheesiness in English. Same problems, maybe? But there all lots of little phrases of wisdom peppered throughout and some one-liners that made me roll around laughing, clutching my belly.
• And the drama is extravagantly so. Yes, that’s there. I felt like pulling out my hair every time a new iceberg kept cropping up to drive my ship apart. The money-driven mother, the obsessed fiancé, the random admirer, the jealousy and self-sacrifice involved in all of the above, was just too much on my nerves. I know it’s going to be a happy ending, so can you get there already?

PROS:

• ALL THE GUYS

(Insert a heartbreakingly huge sigh here) I mean. Just look at them. Even the supporting actors. And the villains. They do look … not as manly as I would have liked, but they’re still so. I mean. Uh. Um.

WHERE DO YOU GUYS COME FROM?

HOW DARE YOU SHOW YOUR PRETTY FACE HERE?

• The Badass Heroines

I don’t care if they use stunt-doubles. I really don’t. It’s the character they portray that matters. All of Geum Jan Di’s roundhouse kicks made my eyes bulge out in envy. Her sarcasm and yelling. Who knew walking, talking death threats could be so cute too?

Cha Eun Sang’s altruistic talents. Her penchant for issuing empty threats.

Park Gae In: Weirdness. Obtuseness. Fierce Friend Protector. And her enviable ability to eat anything, anywhere, anytime.

Kim Na Na’s jealousy. Her taking responsibility for her own feelings. Her survival skills, both emotionally and otherwise. And man, can she shoot an outlaw.

• THE MUSIC

The hero and the heroine have a theme song to themselves. The anti-hero or the third corner of the love triangle has one for every time he looks at the girl. One for the girl lost in thought. One for every time the male corners of the triangle fight. One when something ominous is going to happen. And they are all so good, man.

• The Direction and The Camera

Just like how the writing style of a book determines whether or not I like the plot, the director’s abilities clinches it for me. The very strategically inserted flashbacks (yes, sometimes, they do go overboard with it). The nightmares whenever the hero is stuck at a crossroads. How they include the weather elements like the sun, snow and wind for the emotional scenes. The STUNTS, man. And I simply can’t resist making wallpapers out of my screenshots every time.

• The Bloopers

Okay. Yes, I’m cheating with this absolutely unnecessary plus point. It doesn’t hurt at all to watch them, though.

I just needed to use this GIF somewhere

Why I'm Not "Johning" So Much

I noticed #Johning trending on twitter a whiles back. I decided quickly that I am not a fan. For one, it looks much too painful to be comfortable enough to read or write. Maybe pain is stimulating for Green, that’s probably why it works for him.

Anyways, that is completely beside the point.

I was reading The Notebook Sisters' review of More Than This by Patrick Ness when the urgency to write this post overwhelmed me. The reason I picked up that book was only because it was written by Ness. Ok, so honestly, it was also because it had a thought provoking premise.

And I read it. And I loved it.

The book also had a one line review from a well known writer on its cover. John Green asked us to "Just read it." That blog post got comments saying that the reason they picked up the book was because JG told them to.

I was mad. I was so fucking pissed.

Let me back up.

My tryst with the phenomenon that is JOHN GREEN began two years back when my bestie Caroline started talking like this:

Me: Baby (we call each other "baby" compulsorily) how's college?

She: Oh you know, the usual. Hey did you read TFIOS?

Me: Expand that please.

[Ten minutes later]

Me: ... and that's how the whole college thinks I'm scary.

She: Mmm. Listen you have to read TFIOS.

Me: Were you even listening?

[12 hours later]

She: There's this guy.... oh wait, did you buy TFIOS?

Me: ....

[The next morning. Phone doesn't stop ringing.]

Me: (rubs eyes) Hello?

She: Did you get it? Did you get it? Oh. Good morning baby.

For the sake of my sanity, I had to buy that book which I had judged it to be a predictably sad cheesy cancer story. But miracle of miracles, the stingy bitch decided to give the book five stars.

Then I obviously had to know what his other books were like. I read Looking for Alaska (which I thought was okay-ishly good) and Will Grayson,Will Grayson (David Levithan is a hero). After that I wasn't particularly motivated to read the rest. So would I pick up a book just because he told me to? No. (I did it with Eleanor and Park and - meh.)

His twitter account tries to feed us that he is somehow an all-knowing bookish authority. That seriously irked me - only ONE of his books really impressed me and the guy thinks he's cool. I haven't watched any of his vlogs, so I'll have to reserve my judgement on that.

But you know what takes the cake? From the moment I heard TFIOS was going to be a movie, I was thrilled and scared at the same time. Thrilled because duh, scared because movie adaptations sometimes make me want to gouge my eyes out. Then I heard Green was going to be involved in every aspect of it, his tweets provided me hope.

And then I saw the movie.

Why I liked the book was because it treated a potentially cheesy story in a completely non-cheesy way. The movie, while retaining the plot, succumbed to cheesiness. And although the theatre was filled with stifled sobs and sniffing, I didn't contribute to the acoustics.

(I'm not completely heartless - my tear ducts leaked some during the last twenty minutes or so.)

Moral of the story: I'm okay with John Green. I don't worship the ground he walks on. I have allowed his brand of romance readable. (Psst, look who's the bookish authority now.) And I don't like that one contributing factor to why Ness's book sold was the commandment of Green.

Nothing to worry, bloggerverse. It's just yours truly venting out.

Disclaimer: The exact conversation with Caroline eludes my memory. I might have exaggerated to express the sentiment.

Cheers.

Man Vs. Wild - Part 2

It’s been summer for a few months now. Water is drying up, and we are officially banned from taking long showers. I was doing laundry one day, and filling a bucket when I saw a red thread. I was going to ignore it when it wriggled.

 A worm.

I didn’t panic, FYI. I just emptied the bucket and refilled it. Two more worms. That was when I abandoned my laundry basket and ran screaming like a madwoman. Later I came to know, that the first worm had been sighted A WEEK BACK by a girl who didn’t bother telling anyone, BECAUSE NO ONE CARED. Honestly, this is what they said.

The Unfeeling Unsanitary Bitches: Worms?  That’s ok, just throw it away and bathe.

Me: (screaming internally) Have you heard of cholera? Diarrhoea, maybe?

One sympathetic soul confided that their previous hostel was worse, at least our hostel entertained worms only seasonally. She said she’d even slept with a rat, only to find its body by the door next morning. She figured she must have flung the rat in her sleep. “Man vs. Wild, man. We could give Bear Grylls a run for his money”. She was laughing when she told me all this. I on the other hand had nightmares filled with exotic pests.

I have now adopted a filtering system. Even if my bladder is fit to burst, I tie a hanky around the tap, and after I’m finished with my business, I pray to God to give me the strength to face the horror, untie it, and quickly wash it. I must have interviewed quite a number of people on the best way to tie a hanky.

For those of you shaking your heads, thinking, well, why the hell haven’t you told your warden? - Do you honestly think I haven’t done that? I rounded up a small army and went into the office. She remained sitting there, cool as you please, and said, “It happens everywhere this time of the year”. She lied, I know now. She dumped bleach into the tank, so now we *only* have to deal with wormy dead bodies in the water and hair falling in clumps.

And the other day, I saw another friend fiddling with something on the window sill at, like, 9 am. Since she is not known for her hyperactivity in the am, and because I’m nosy, I went to see what she was up to. This is what I saw.

Me: Um, what is that?

She: He’s cute, yeah?

Me: WHAT IS THAT

She: A baby bat. I woke up to find him in my hair. Aw, look at his wings.

Me: How did he end up in YOUR HAIR?

She: Ah, I don’t know. He can’t even fly. So maybe the delivery happened in my hair when the mummy’s water broke mid-flight.

Me: (pauses) He is cute.

(We both prod it so it stretches one wing lazily)

Me: Hang on, let me go get my phone.

I have improved a lot, mind you. I used to be the girl who threw out chapattis on finding them violated by ants (which by the way everyone tells me are good for your eyes, didn’t you know? Ants, not chapattis). Now when a bug comes from my own personal hell and makes itself at home on my laptop screen, I merely continue typing.

Like I’m doing now.

ETA- THERE ARE ACID FLIES NOW FROM GOD KNOWS WHERE MUMMY TAKE ME HOME

The Perils Of Traveling Economy

For sixteen years I called Dubai home. I still do, with more feeling behind it now. I study in India and these bouts of homesickness hits me from nowhere. For example,  I will be sitting in class, paying attention and then APROSEXIA (Google it) hits and I'll be daydreaming the usual (meaning some guy from some book i'm having a crush on and me in some romantic setting, occasionally fighting the bad guys, always ending with me being called the hero) when suddenly the scene changes and I'm walking in  some park in Dubai at around 5:30 in the evening (I don't know why my aprosexia - addled brain bothers with the timestamp, but there you go), with no particular destination in my mind. I have to fly to Dubai every six months else I'll be entangled in some visa nonsense - for which I THANK GOD EVERYDAY else my miser of a dad (who apparently loves me in such a way that won't somehow tear a hole in his pocket) would leave me to the mercy of my hostel warden in India. So this frequent traveling business warrants an economical setup so hey  - welcome to the joy of traveling economy.

What I Get

What I Want

1) The queues: THE QUEUES. The families, with their luggage that violate the max weight norms who murder my patience as they reorganize their luggage, the ones who keep trying to intimidate me out of the line, the ones who run first to the queues while I stand around to figure where to go, and the annoyance that follows when the other line moves faster than yours are all part of the experience.
2) The screaming babies: You learn that blasting Miley Cyrus through your headphones fails to drown that background wailing.
3) The middle seat: The armrests end up being monoplized. Because you're too polite you don't say anything when the man on the one side starts snoring and the one on the other side can't seem to shut up. Or when it's a kid trying to peek into my tablet screen when I resort to tweeting all my frustration. Speaking of tweeting...
4) NO INTERNET: You open your text editor and type pretending your tweeting realtime.
5) No TV: Enough said.
6) The foldable trays: They are about as wide as my palm which people don't ever pass up the chance to categorize them as the smallest they've ever seen on an eighteen year old. After a period of regularly traveling economy, you learn how to balance the various components of your food tray on top of one another. The complication occurs when your partners-in-flight don't know the same and you spend an agonizing half hour trying to avoid the trays on either side that threaten to spill onto you. Which, trusting your screwed up luck, might just happen.
7) The much flexible seat (please note the sarcasm): My skill to adapt has now made me an expert at falling asleep upright. This new-found skill has come very much in handy especially during those Sunday masses when the priest gets a bit carried away with the sermon and stubbornly ignores the clock.
8) The in-flight meals: Science, I'm TOTALLY allowing your theory that taste buds neglect their duties at high pressure. But, from experience, traveling first class gives enough incentive for my taste buds to work harder. And I keep wishing that maybe this time, Masterchef decided to pick my flight for one of their episodes.
9) I'm sorry, but do we get all the flight attendants that piss me off? No seriously. "Ma'am I'm going to have to kidnap your bag to lock it up in the overhead cabins". I blink, my bag's gone and so is he.

The Perks of Traveling Economy:

1) Lower ticket fare: This single-handedly outweighs the Perils so yay I'm going to spend another couple of years flying economy.


To all my brothers and sisters in this exercise in Patience,