If you’re like me, you have that one book that makes you feel like you’re in a different realm, or that one song that really makes you feel the emotions the composer wanted to bring to life. Well, I’m here to talk about all of the things that really make me feel those types of ways.

Before I truly get started here, let me at least introduce myself. Hi, I’m Mari K, and I’m just trying to figure out life. I’m an avid reader, a music lover, a cat and dog mom, and I love to share media that really hit me in the metaphorical feels.

1. The novel that really did me in and made me feel like the world in the novel was coming to life has to be the ‘Red Queen’ saga. It essentially follows the female main character, Mare Barrows, who lives in a world that’s divided by the color of blood. The Reds are the commonfolk, with no abilities or powers, while the Silvers are part of the nobility, the governing class. The Silver blooded have abilities, some with the ability to manipulate fire, metal, even the mind. But Mare discovers that she, a Red blooded commoner, has the ability to manipulate lightning. This book was a bit cliché in the beginning, especially due to the fact that it’s a female main character who mysteriously has magic powers that no one else in her immediate circle has, but the attention to detail and the bombshells that are dropped on the reader later in the book and even the series really made me love the book.
2. Now, as a music consumer, I could go on and on about music that really hit me in the feels, but one of the songs that made me feel like a princess running through a meadow has to be “Virtual Angel” by Kpop group Artms. It’s a beautiful combination of synth and euro dance, with soft vocals and sweet melodies. While the music video is extremely difficult for most people to watch (if you experience epileptic seizures, please DO NOT watch the normal version of the music video, BUT you can watch the ‘human eye version’ of the music video that’s available on ARTMS’s Youtube Channel), the song made me feel as though I was actually ascending. While I won’t go into specifics here on who ARTMS is, I will do so in a follow-up post.
3. I love cinematic music, and I find that it really helps add to a movie’s impact, so one song I still find myself thinking about nearly 13 years after its original release is ‘Courtyard Apocalypse’ from the initial part of the nighttime courtyard fight in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2. The song was written and performed by Alexandre Desplat. I recently rediscovered the song after watching ‘Jurassic World’ (the one with Chris Pratt, for those who don’t know the movie itself), and found myself hearing it in my mind when Claire brings the T-Rex to the Indominous Rex/Velociraptor fight near the end of the movie. As a pre-teen living with a Harry Potter obsessed mother, I grew to love the series (books included) as well, and the soundtrack was one of the things that really drew me to the movies post viewing.
4. Those who know me in my personal life are aware of the fact that I absolutely adore story-driven video games, and the ‘Life is Strange’ franchise is really what kickstarted that for me. The plot of the original game is broken up into five “episodes”, and while that doesn’t seem like a lot of game time, it took me about thirty hours to fully play through the game one time in my initial play through. The game is set in Arcadia Bay, Oregon (the location doesn’t actually exist, but Arcadia Bay was inspiried by several of Oregon’s beautiful coastal towns) in October of 2013. The player follows Maxine Caulfield as she acquires the ability to rewind time. She has to discover what happened to the town’s missing girl, Rachel Amber, with the help of Chloe Price, Max’s childhood best friend. While the overall choices of the game don’t necessarily matter, I found it to be quite interesting to see how dialogues between certain characters would change in relation to each choice you make. The game feels nostalgic and cozy, even with a potential murderer at large.

Thank you so much for reading ‘Mari K’s Favorite Things’ and I hope you have a wonderful day!