#which is weird because at that age I also watched Penguins of Madagascar

[mlpoutofcontext]

So there's this musical, Come From Away, about a town in Newfoundland taking in airplane passengers after the events of 9/11.

And for some reason, whenever I hear of it, in my head I picture the scene in Rarity Takes Manehatten where they're watching Hinny of the Hills

I don't know why - maybe it was because I first heard of Come From Away in early 2014 and had seen that episode recently - but that's been my mental image of the 9/11 musical for the past decade, even when I hadn't watched MLP in years.

[moviemunchies]

[Yes, person who asked, I did get around to re-watching Madagascar, though a bit late for its anniversary.]

Oh thank goodness, a Dreamworks movie I like. Glad to be back on these. Okay, I do have some nostalgic attachment to this one–I first saw it in theaters (and I haven’t seen it since, though I do listen to the soundtrack sometimes).

Marty (a zebra), his best friend Alex (lion), Mellman (giraffe), and Gloria (hippo) are animals in the Central Park Zoo. Marty dreams of one day living in the Wild, though his friends discourage this–especially Alex, as he’s a superstar, the zoo's main attraction. The night of Marty’s birthday, he escapes, and when his friends go to rescue him, they’re branded as unfit for captivity and shipped off to a wildlife preserve in Kenya. But the zoo’s penguins (also caught in the escape attempt) hijack the ship and the four friends slip off to wreck on the island of Madagascar.  Shenanigans ensue, and no small drama, as Alex has been fed on steaks his whole life and doesn’t have a clue where to find more.

It has been a long time since I saw this movie, and I was worried that if I saw it again I wouldn’t like it as much. I don’t know if I’d ever say I was a maniac for the film–I didn’t see the sequels in theaters, after all. But I liked it. I enjoyed it. I thought it was hilarious. I was scared how I’d re-watch it. I didn’t need to worry though, because I still like this movie. And it’s still hilarious!

Okay, mostly. I think there are some pop culture jokes and references that are unnecessary and drag things down. Plenty of the humor and drama stands on its own without those pop culture references. It seems like, after the making of Shrek, a lot of family films decided that they needed these allusions to “appeal to the parents” or something? No. No you don’t. Not this many of them, anyway. I don’t pile too hard on these because again, the movie has a lot of jokes that work fine on their own, so it’s not too big of a problem.

This is a movie that asks a fairly interesting question: how would anthropomorphic zoo animals survive in the wild? There are a lot of movies that sort of act as if zoo animals, or pets, would just adapt immediately towards the wild, and that’s not what happens here. The one who has a clue how to survive is Marty, who has been dreaming of this for ages; and even then, he doesn’t have fresh water. And noticeably, his ways of survival involve building things, a very human way of surviving in the wild.

And of course: what is Alex going to do? He can’t eat plants but if he’s been given steaks his entire life, he doesn’t have a clue how to get food for himself! This is a major part of the Plot! I appreciate that very much.

[It’s weird how the sequel ignores the question of ‘What does Alex eat if not his friends?’ when it’s such an important element in this movie.]

I will admit that the character design took some getting used to. I recall not actually liking it when I saw the first trailers. And I was still not sure when I started the film the first time. It works, though! It makes the movie have a visual identity that’s different. It’s good to see an animated film with an artistic identity–there was a while we had (before Into the Spider-Verse showed its influence) that everyone was seemingly copying a Disney/Pixar style, and this movie is nothing like that.

All the characters in the movie are fun! I think sadly, Gloria and Melman aren’t too developed other than the general traits, though that’s kind of okay–Marty and Alex are the leads here, and those two still get enough to be entertaining. There are movies in which side characters are basically non-entities. And they get more stuff to do in the sequel, which is good. The penguins are also great fun to watch on screen, and I’m not at all surprised that they got their own television series and movie (though I am sad that the movie didn’t do that well).

It’s far from the best of what Dreamworks can do, but it’s definitely moving in the right direction. It’s pretty good, pretty funny, and pretty memorable. It’s not a must-see, unless you’re a huge fan of Dreamworks or CGI animated films, though at the same time it’s a fairly good time if you need something to watch.

Last side note: Do you guys remember this had a tie-in video game? I mean, all movies did back then, but this game had an insanely addictive shuffleboard mini-game. I don’t know how, given that shuffleboard sounds ridiculously boring in real-life, but for whatever reason I couldn’t stop playing this mini-game.

[gwens-projects]

Day 19 - Theme Memories

So I’ve been around this fandom for a long time, not as long as some people, but since TPOM was still kicking out episodes. Today I’m going to talk about some of the memories I’ve made through this fandom.

Under a read more because this is going to be long.

I remember first when I was really small getting to watch Madagascar when it first came out. It was very blurry and pixilated because it was on one of those cam copy discs that my dad had brought home. It was fun, I liked it, but didn’t think anything about it really. The same happened with Madagascar 2 a few years later, and then after that I got my first exposure to TPOM when dad had a disc with the When I was a Penguin Zombie ep collection on it. I’m pretty sure I watched that disc on repeat for weeks in the car, I loved it but had no idea there were like actually other eps I could watch anywhere else.

Years after that, somehow I managed to catch the Return of the Revenge of Dr. Blowhole on TV actually in the midst of all the singing, we almost turned the channel but I was amazed that there were more eps than what I had seen before and we watched what was left of the episode.

I’ve never been someone who easily makes friends. I’m very quiet, nervous, and rather weird. 8th grade I made my first decent friends, and then at the end of the school year both transferred away to different schools. I was about...15 maybe? and I was crushed. I had never really noticed how lonely I really was until then, and so I started watching some shows on youtube I remembered I liked but never got to watch every ep of...Kim Possible, Lilo and Stitch, the Smurfs....I was looking for something Smurf related online when I accidentally discovered fanfiction, specifically Smurfs fanfiction that I thought was actually like a canon Smurfs book. This led me to exploring fanfiction a little more and then I accidentally come across some TPOM oneshot (written in Spanish that my computer translated) about Private? It reminded me that oh yeah the penguins was a show I liked as a kid, so I looked it up and started binging those eps. 

Watching those eps, I honestly felt the least alone I had felt all summer. Private was my first comfort character and at the time I found him super relatable. I also started reading a few TPOM fanfics. Season 3 still had episodes coming out and so that was pretty exciting. That August I started writing my first fanfic, A Trixy Situation, and drew my first fanarts. I also consequently made my first OC.

I look back at that first fanfic and the reviews I got and all I can think is “People thought this was good?” But at the same time, if it wasn’t for those kind comments back then, I wouldn’t be the writer I am now. A Trixy Situation wasn’t just my first fanfic, it was the first piece of written fiction I ever wrote and FINISHED. People’s kind comments spurred me to write and for the first time I really felt like I was writing for a purpose AND having fun with it. I was over the moon.

Granted, I did get my first critiquing review a few fics later, and as much as I cried over it...I will admit, it made me a much better writer. I still wish they had phrased it differently though.

Through fanfiction as well I made my first fandom friends. One of which I still keep in contact with even now 7 years later. She became my first best friend that I could truly say was my best friend and I wouldn’t have made her except through this fandom.

When I transferred schools from private to public in 10th grade, TPOM eps and writing TPOM fanfiction got me through it. It was...a rough 3 years of my life. I had 0 offline friends, but I had that one very good online friend who I would sneak chats to through a google doc during lunch and class breaks.

I remember when AHKJ came out and I’d have to stay off of tumblr because tumblr mobile wouldn’t let me tag and block spoilers and GEE WERE THERE SO MANY SPOILERS POSTED. 

January 2016 I gave roleplaying a try and made a slew of Private_Private_Penguin rp accounts across multiple platforms. I made a few connections and associates then, but none really stuck. However, I had a lot of fun rping as Private until the rp community more or less went silent.

Junior and senior year of high school and the first couple years of college, I was too busy and stressed to think of TPOM much. Then I noticed a new up-springing in TPOM rpers again. I watched a few eps and this time around realized that I really, really related to Kowalski now....Far more than I ever related to Private in the past. Granted, in the past I was kind of driven away from Kowalski because the fandom was so...well, let’s just say there were a lot of rapid Kowalski fangirls where it made me nervous to even approach the character. Private didn’t have as many fans so he was calmer to have as a favorite. But modernly, the Kowalski hype had died down and I finally felt at ease finding him as a comfort....I also think the age old “disliking a character until you realize there’s a lot of yourself in that character and that’s why you dislike them” theory applied to that as well...because he and I do have a lot in common, personality wise.

Anyway, through the new round of rping as Kowalski, I made some new fandom friends and through them was exposed to new fandoms and experienced a new love for the series as a whole. I also was introduced to new ship ideas and got new headcanons....And then I got back into writing fanfiction. My friend who rps as Blowhole, they got me into the Franski ship...Our rping was a slow burn enemies to friends to Kowalski muse having a crush on Blowhole. It’s a fun thing to look back at the old rps like “oh Kowalski started liking this ship before I did.”

After I got back into fanfic writing, I made yet another friend who IMed me about my writing and since then I’ve been co-writing with her on her fic. I also discovered a discord group where I ran into several fanguins who I recognized were around the fandom back when eps were coming out as well and I just sort of felt...at home? It’s the best way I can describe it. It was new but familiar all at the same time. Did we all share the same ships and headcanons? Heck no, but with such a vague canon that’s understandable and completely fine. It’s interesting seeing the different ideas and such and the joint enthusiasm we all have for this franchise.

I’ve recently started watching A Little Wild...Admittedly, I’m struggling with it but for its target audience, it would be a great intro into the franchise, honestly.  

I have so many memories from this franchise and its fandom, some bad, but mostly good. And now I just will take this moment to thank both the franchise and the fandom for the memories and comfort its given me through the years. 

[neighbourskid]

Goodbye 2015! You sucked.

(original date: 29 December 2015)

Ah, it is that time of the year again. Christmas is over, the year slowly but surely coming to an end....

And yes, we are doing it again. Looking back on the year, seeing all that wasn't good, everything that sucked. We see it everywhere.

January: 2015 will be my year, I can feel it!

December: Oh, nevermind....

It's all over the social media. Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr... we see it everywhere, from everybody.

But this year you will not hear it from me. I do, of course, agree. This year sucked. Most of it really. There were so many shitty things this year. All the killings of black people, the wars all over the world, the incidents in Paris... you name it, it probably happened.

But, as I said, you will not hear any complaining from me. No. I will look back at all the good things that happened this year. And now I should probably stop rambling about what I could do and get started. So, without further ado: My year in, well, I guess, numbers.

2015 in Movies

As you, my dear readers, have without doubt noticed, I have watched a few movies this year. Well, a few is quite understated. All in all I have been to the cinema 30 times since last December. Which, for most people, is a lot. At least most of my friends told me that I was, and I quote here, bonkers, out of my mind, crazy.. you get the feeling. A few also said they could not afford such extravagances. My answer was mostly, "me neither". But I did go, still.

So, here are the numbers. Since last December, I have-

been to the movies 30 times

seen 26 different movies

seen one movie 4 and another 2 times

seen 3 movies in one afternoon & 4 in one week

been to the movies with 14 different people

been to the movies 12 times on my own

been to 16 different cinemas

And those, my dear readers, are the movies I've seen:

Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies | Penguins of Madagascar | Paddington | Imitation Game (2x) | Big Hero 6 | Mortdecai | The Theory of Everything | Into the Woods | Selma | Whiplash | Kingsman | Birdman | Avengers: Age of Ultron (4x) | Pitch Perfect 2 | Spy | Minions | Mr. Holmes | Ant-Man | Paper Towns | The Martian | Spectre 007 | Black Mass | The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 | Irrational Man | Star Wars: The Force Awakens | Bridge of Spies

It was a good year of cinema, I tell you. Very excited for next year. Can't wait to try beating my record. And I tell you, I will try. I will also try and watch the Award ceremonies. And watch the nominated movies beforehand. At least that is the plan.

But enough of movies and cinema now. Let's move on to the next category. Because besides sitting in cinemas all year, I have also read a couple of books. You who read my blog have, of course, noticed that.

2015 in Books

At the beginning of this year I planned to read 50 books for the '2015 Reading Challenge', but I guess I failed.

But I did read, mind you. A lot. For school mostly, but right after I graduated I started reading the books I actually wanted to read, the books I had at home for a long time but never read. I read novels, memoirs, short stories, biographies.. I read a lot. But I think I bought even more.

So I guess, these are my numbers for books. In 2015 I've read-

21 books

around 4.5k pages

13 books for school

7 German ones

11 English ones

3 French ones

This here are the books I've read:

Frankenstein (Mary Shelley) | More Fool Me (Stephen Fry) | The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy (Douglas Adams) | Die Physiker (Friedrich Dürrenmatt) | Die Weber (Gerhart Hauptmann) | Macht der Drei (Hans Dominik) | Egmont (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe) | Der Sandmann (E.T.A. Hoffmann) | Leben des Galilei (Bertolt Brecht) | The Hound of the Baskervilles (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle) | Paris au XX siècle (Jules Verne) | Der Schimmelreiter (Theodor Storm) | La Planète des Singes (Pierre Boulle) | L'An 2440 (Louis-Sébastien Mercier) | Paper Towns (John Green) | You're Never Weird On The Internet (Felicia Day) | Moriarty (Anthony Horowitz) | Before I Go To Sleep (S.J. Watson) | The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared (Jonas Jonasson) | Sherlock - The Casebook (Guy Adams) | The Importance of Being Earnest (Oscar Wilde)

I mostly enjoyed reading the books I read on my own terms. But 'Frankenstein', 'The Hitchhiker's Guide' and 'The Hound of Baskervilles', which I all read for school, were brilliant as well. I loved reading them. They were the most interesting ones I read for school.

'Die Macht der Drei' was honestly one of the worst books I've ever read. While discussing it with my teacher for the presentation I had to have about it, we mostly laughed about how bad it was. The story would have potential, mind you, but it was so badly written. It was horrible to read.

The French ones were acceptable, but I barely understood a thing.

Right now I'm still reading 'The Sherlockian' by Graham Moore (the great chap who wrote the academy award-winning screenplay for "The Imitation Game"), which is a brilliant book as well.

I'm hoping to read more in 2016, trying the challenge again, probably.

Mooooving on now. What else happened in 2015? Humm..... My shitty memory is quite challenging when it comes to such things. Well, how about a top ten of good things that happened? Yeah, sound like a good enough idea.

Top 10 Things of 2015

10.  Getting my teeth. It should probably be further up the list, but idk. It was painful getting them, but it was worth it. I have them now, which is all that counts.

09. Watching the Oscars all alone in my bed, all night long and then going to school without having slept a second. It was a great night. I enjoyed that and I will be doing that again next year. The ceremony really touched me somehow. I loved it.

08. The summer camp "Connected" I helped organizing this year. It was amazing, we had a great time. And if you wanna know more about it, read the blog post I made about it.

07. Having made sure that my friend and I can go to San Diego next summer, around time for Comic-Con. I feel like this should be way up the list, but it's just the planning. I know that if I make a list at the end of 2016 it will grace the top of the list. It will probably be the list. But the planning alone is already motivating me like nothing else.

06. Probably graduating from my school? Like, that I made it, that I did not fail. It wasn't a particularly nice event, but hey, it happened. So the three years of, well, suffering, were worth it. I had fun at some of the exams, but that was an exception.

05. I went to the Europa Park in Germany with my friend and we had the best time ever. It was so much fun, I tell you. It was great being away from everything for two days and just enjoying the moment, being there without having to please any people, being able to just be ourselves. Sigh, I miss it.

04. The week me and my classmates spent in Calella, Spain the week after graduation. We had an amazing time there. It was a beautiful goodbye to these people. I really enjoyed myself there. It was great.

03. Going to the Cinema so much...I think. Yeah. It was great. I really liked that. I love the feeling of sitting among strangers, experiencing the same thing for 2.5 hours and then leaving. Not alone. But somehow as a group. It inspires me. Really does.

02. I will put 'Warner Bros. Studio Tour: The Making of Harry Potter' on this place, because as much as it hurt my heart being there, as much as the nostalgic feeling was killing me inside...it was a truly amazing experience and I loved every second of it. It showed me what a tremendous impact Harry Potter had on my life, my childhood. J.K. Rowling formed so much of my life with her books. And I am very grateful for that. I nearly broke down into tears in the café of the studio, but it was....sigh, amazing. Truly was.

01. I knoooooooow it sound incredibly cheesy to put this on my place 1 of the top ten things that happened this year....but it was kinda the highlight. It really was. So, as you know, I've been to London this fall to watch Benedict Cumberbatch in Hamlet. And as brilliant as the play was (AND IT WAS ASTONISHING), my highlight happened three days later, when I went back to the Barbican, stood in the cold for what felt like forever to meet Benedict. And having this incredible man stand an arm's length away from me, smiling and looking at me was most definitely the best thing that happened this year.

Now that I have rambled on for, like, forever I will end this looking back post, with looking forward. Because that is something we all should do: Look forward. Not back. Don't dwell on past things. Don't drag yourself down for something that didn't work out the way you planned it. Look to the future. Keep moving forward!

The things I look forward to in 2016 are quite a few, I tell you. And I'd rather think about them, than about all the bad things that happened in 2015.

In 2016 I look forward to going to Letters Live! in March with a few of my friends. I look forward to maybe visiting my grandma's hometown in Italy. I look forward to our team weekend in February, our teenager party in April. I look forward to the two weeks my friend and I will be spending in San Diego next July. I look forward to meeting Zachary Levi. I look forward to starting my studies next Fall. I look forward  to... 2016. And hopefully it will be a good year. Hopefully our world will come to good terms with itself. Hopefully some wars will end. Hopefully the refugee crisis will get a good solution. Hopefully, we can all be the best versions of ourselves. Hopefully we get to fulfil our dreams. Hopefully this will be our year!

And with that, my dear friends and readers, I wish you all a happy new year. I hope it will indeed be a happy new year for you.

With love,

Alex