Fascinating Features

The first few weeks of Eriko Angelo De Castro’s summer of 2025 were nothing but time for him to breathe. With his undergraduate studies wrapping up–waiting to get his political science diploma and gearing up for law school–his days consisted of playing video games, watching movies, and getting some drinks with his friends.

From Eriko’s perspective, all this free time only meant one thing. He was going through what John Mayer crooned about: a “quarter-life crisis”.

Read the article here: www.fascinatingfeatures.com/series-5/eriko-de-castro-1

One of Kat’s old dreams was to be a writer. She would be the essayist type, to be exact, convincing us all to be jolted in the brain by the ideas also jolting hers. With ease, she could write about how Britpop group The Spice Girls made their marks on feminism, girlhood, and sexuality.

And if anyone’s wondering, this is Kat’s Spice Girl ranking from most to least favourite: Scary Spice, Ginger Spice, Sporty Spice, Baby Spice, and then Posh Spice. “[Victoria Beckham] is beautiful and she’s very funny, but she didn’t really add much to the group,” Kat chuckled as she explained why Posh Spice is at the bottom of her totem pole.

Read the article here: www.fascinatingfeatures.com/series-5/kat-ruflo

The coronavirus lockdown shut Marianne Cruz down, being inundated with thoughts that she was all alone in her college and at home. Her class instructors began to wonder where Maui went. “I had fairly good grades. And then, one day, in the middle of the pandemic, I just stopped.

“It came to a point that I didn’t get out of bed. I had no good hygiene. Every single day, I'd watch episodes of Love Island and Too Hot To Handle – reality shows – because they were very low-maintenance. It’s either that or anime. Very low-maintenance. It doesn’t take a genius to figure [those shows] out.”

Maui would sleep, then wake up, then watch those low-maintenance shows, then repeat. Before she knew it, she stopped attending her classes. She lost her hold on the “concept of time.”

Read the article here: www.fascinatingfeatures.com/series-4/maui-cruz-2