Tag Archives: review

What'cha Watching Wednesday #14

I know I said, I didn’t want to blog for a while, but these thoughts won’t leave me, so I’ve decided to do another of these in the new version I mentioned last time.

WWWWhat is this about?

Every other Wednesday I will publish a post in which I talk about (the latest or any episode of) a series or a (series of) movie(s).
In most cases this will be a collection of thoughts that cross through the different media.
You’re warned: There might be Spoilers.

Let’s start

with a question this time:

What do the creation of an online shop for vintage clothing and a senior internship program for an online clothing shop have in common?

They’re both about clothes, duh.
No, that’s not what I was going for.
Both stories, the first one presented in the Netflix series Girlboss, the second in the movie The Intern, are surprisingly feminist. They don’t do everything right, but it’s a start. 😉

Why is that?

  • Both shows portray the life and work of a woman striving for her own dream – which in both cases is about selling clothes, but well.
  • In both shows there are several other named female characters (even more so in GB), that talk tons of other things that are not boys. So they both pass the Bechdel Test.
  • They show different sides of the female lead: Strength, cunning & stubbornness, but also vulnerability & love.
  • They didn’t change themselves for anyone (especially not Anne Hathaway’s character whose character in The Devil wears Prada disappointed me on this).
  • They are not perfect and aren’t portrayed that way. They are human.

And probably some other things someone better equipped to spot these could tell you. Since I’ve learned about the Bechdel Test I kind of started paying more attention to it – while watching, reading and writing. We are so used to all these female troupes that it’s refreshing to see things handled differently. Netflix does a better job at this than the studios that put together The Intern – maybe mostly because it’s based on a book by a real person and they’re doing a pretty good job at diversity anyway, even if they then cancel the promising shows like this one – and Sense8.
Anyway, there are some quite promising things in these two and it’s nice to see that there is at least some change once in a while.

What surprised me most

Girlboss is a horrible title. I didn’t want to watch it because it sounded girly and just like another „chick-flick“ with no story other than girl meets boy and is eternally happy. Oh dear, was I wrong. After I came across it again and again on Netflix I decided to watch the Trailer and I did not expect what I saw. It actually made me curious about the show and I binged it during the course of a weekend. Yes, it’s that good.
The cast was diverse, the majority of the few (~six) male characters where gay, otherwise oriented or (in the boyfriends‘ case) eye candy. The females were all over the place, as two headstrong-eccentric-„Love-You-In-Case-I-Die“-bff-„sisters“, as mothers, as barmaids, as musicians, as IT-girls, as annoying customers and so on… The usual „balance“ was tipped off and it was brilliant. Sure the main character is still a very annoying and exhausting person, but hey, at least she’s a person and not a cardboard cut out like so many before her. 😉
Even while told from the male perspective it sounded interesting enough to see Robert De Niro be Anne Hathaway’s intern. When the story began it felt like Hathaway’s character was in a relationship with one of her co-workers, turns out she was a married mother of a little girl and even my fears for her ending up cheating on her husband with said co-worker were diminished as the husband was revealed as the cheating party. Sure it’s annoying that there has to be a conflict through someone cheating on the other, but the solution – also in Girlboss – was interestingly handled.
There was also some nice scene where De Niro’s character reminded Hathaway’s that she’s the  feminist of the two of them and how incredible the stuff is she accomplished. Which she actually acknowledged and made her decision for herself and not to please others.

What could have been better?

You probably noticed the criticism already: Tropes.
The Intern has more of them then Girlboss, but they are there and often quite annoying. I didn’t need the elderly female intern with no clue even how to drive. I didn’t need the barely characterized seductive masseuse. I didn’t need the clueless nerd-boy being forced to leave home. I didn’t need the eccentric, potentially gay, artist living at home with his overly supportive mother.
And most of all: I didn’t need the cheating husband/boyfriend.
Why does every (fictional) success story of a woman involve the man feeling left behind and in need of a different companion? Is it really that bad for a them that the other one becomes absorbed with fulfilling their dream? Do they really crave attention that much? (I know this is also a problem with male success stories, but those wives are usually portrayed as not that faithful to begin with…)
I’m pretty sure the stories would have worked well without (most) those (artificial dramas)…

What were you watching?

What episodes (or movies) did you enjoy/dislike throughout the week(s)/month(s)?
Anything you’d recommend checking out?
Let me know in the comments below!

Final Words

I’m by far not a feminist blog, but I felt the need to introduce you to these two shows, simply because they surprised me that much. If you want another example where it’s even more obvious try the Spanish „No Filter“ (also on Netflix) or if you like it a bit more modern: Roller Girl with Ellen Page.
I’m going back to preparing for my vacation.
See you around.
PoiSonPaiNter

Janna Ruth: Im Bann der zertanzten Schuhe

Read in English

Im Rahmen des Märchensommers bekommt ihr meine Rezension zu Im Bann der zertanzten Schuhe von Janna Ruth.

Worum geht’s?

5 of 5 stars

Auch nach zwei Jahren hat der Krieg immer noch Einfluss auf Jonas und Albträume und Visionen sind seine ständigen Begleiter. Als er eines Tages durch eine neue Stadt wandert, erreicht er die DeModie und die fröhliche Sophie, die daraus herausstolpert, verzaubert ihn unerwartet mit ihrer Lebendigkeit. Kurz danach erfährt er, dass der Job, für den er sich bewirbt, von ihrem Vater ist, der ihn einstellen will, um zu wissen, was seine Tochter jeden Abend macht. Wie Jonas bald herausfindet, tanzt die ehemalige Ballerina mit ihrem Prinzen Luca im DeModie, einem verzauberten Reich mitten im Nachtleben.

Die zertanzten Tanzschuhe mit weniger Prinzessinnen, aber noch magischer durch die Märchenspinnerei.

Das Leseerlebnis

Auch hier habe ich einige Gedanken in der Lesegruppe auf Facebook (Märchenspinnerei Turmcafé) aufgeschrieben und auch auf Goodreads festgehalten, so dass die meisten Dinge vielleicht vertraut klingen.

Die Geschichte wird abwechselnd aus der Sicht von Jonas und Sophie erzählt, aber nicht in der ersten Person. Die Kapitel sind viel länger als die der anderen Märchenspinnerei-Bücher und es ist eine schöne Abwechslung. Jeder Kapiteltitel verwendet eine Phrase und Silhouette aus dem Ballett, da es ein integraler Bestandteil von Sophies Leben ist. Wo Sophies Kapitel meist magisch und phantastisch sind, bringt Jonas‘ einen realistischeren Blick auf die Seiten und es ist ein toller Kontrast, die Dinge mit ihren ganz anderen Augen zu sehen. An einem Punkt bekommen wir sogar eine Szene aus beiden Perspektiven zu sehen, was mir in verschiedenen Medien immer Spaß macht. Die Geschichte selbst schafft es, zwischen sehr weichen, ruhigen Passagen und energetischen Höhepunkten zu wechseln, wie in einer guten Ballade.

Apropos Musik: Als ich anfing, das Buch zu lesen, musste ich meine Musik hervorholen, damit ich mich auf das Lesen konzentrieren konnte, aber mein Shuffle wählte bereits sehr passende Musik, die den Übergang in die Geschichte noch magischer machte. Ich bin sicher, wenn ich mehr Musik gehört hätte, wäre auch das noch passendere „To Hell and Back“ von Sabaton aufgetaucht. (Wie bei YouTube, als ich diese Rezension vorbereitet habe) 😉

Im Kern ist das Buch eine Liebesgeschichte und hat daher die notwendigen Elemente: Ein Mädchen mit einer rosaroten Brille, einem Liebesschwur und sofortiger Zuneigung. Einiges davon wird durch die Charaktereigenschaften und -situationen erklärt, aber für jemanden wie mich, der nicht so sehr auf Romantik steht, ist es schwer, es ernst zu nehmen. Dennoch bekommt es nicht allzu viel Aufmerksamkeit und ist schön und natürlich integriert – vor allem die Reaktionen in manchen Situationen. Im Allgemeinen sind die Wechselwirkungen zwischen den Charakteren und ihren jeweiligen Reaktionen auf bestimmte Ereignisse sehr natürlich. So fühlt es sich nicht wie das Lesen eines Buches an, sondern eher wie das Verfolgen der Reise an ihrer Seite.
Da es sich um eine Adaption handelt, wurden einige Dinge vom ursprünglichen Märchen wie die Alte Dame und natürlich der Fluch selbst geändert – und dass es nur eine „Prinzessin“ ist, aber die anderen Elemente sind schön integriert: Der Unsichtbarkeitsmantel, der goldene und silberne Wald, der Fluss und die Boote. Die herrliche Beschreibung ließ einen alles direkt vor Augen sehen und der gelegentliche Blick hinter die Kulissen des DeModie ist ebenso unglaublich gut gelungen.

Dazu kamen noch ein paar sehr starke Kapitel, vor allem zwei kurz nach der unglaublichen Sylvester-Szene, die für die Charakterentwicklung notwendig waren. Sie waren faszinierend und spannend, aber auch herzzerreißend und emotional. Und ich war sicher nicht auf diese Friedhofs-Szene vorbereitet….

Abgesehen davon ist die Stärke des Zaubers meist durch den Kontrast zwischen allem, was außerhalb des DeModie geschieht und allem, was innerhalb des DeModie geschieht, dargestellt, es ist einfach aufregend, so wie die Veränderungen, die wir durch Sophies Augen sehen, je mehr die Geschichte fortschreitet. Durch Jonas‘ Augen sehen wir, was PTSD dem Leben einer Person antun kann und es ist etwas das sich viel zu wenige Leute trauen zuzugeben, dass es passiert und noch weniger Autoren, die darüber schreiben.
Die Autorin selbst sprach von einem Punkt ohne Wiederkehr beim Lesen, und ich kann das durchaus nachvollziehen, da ich das Buch nicht wirklich weglegen wollte…. Ich habe sogar von mindestens zwei Aspekten des Abschnitts geträumt, den ich vorher gelesen hatte….
Das Buch rief mir wirklich laut zu, als ich es beiseite legte, und es ist etwas gruselig, wenn der gleichnamige Zauber die Seiten verlässt…. >_<

Und ich möchte das Finale immer noch als Tanzwettbewerb bezeichnen, auch wenn es das gar nicht beschreibt =D Obwohl ich zugeben muss, dass ich ein wenig verwirrt war über die verschiedenen Orte, an denen der Kampf stattfand, und mich nur auf die Charaktere und nicht auf ihre Bewegungen konzentrierte.

Die Charaktere

Während der Release-Party für dieses Buch hat Janna selbstgezeichnete Bilder der Charaktere gepostet, so dass ich bereits ein Bild von ihnen im Kopf hatte, bevor ich anfing zu lesen (und Luca sieht für mich immer noch wie Benedict Cumberbatch aus….), was nicht bedeutet, dass ich daran festhielt, sondern nur erwähnen wollte, dass es sie gibt. 😉

Wie ich bereits erwähnt habe, sind die Interaktionen zwischen den Charakteren sehr natürlich, was das Verfolgen ihrer Geschichte so viel einfacher macht. Man kann diese Interaktion besonders bei Jonas und Sophie sehen: Sie motivieren und helfen sich gegenseitig, ohne etwas dafür zu wollen. Das Beste an den Charakteren ist, dass sie alle fehlerhaft sind. Sophie ist stur (genau wie ihre Cousine ;)) und weiß nicht, wann sie aufhören soll, jemandem zu helfen (Helper-Syndrom) und stattdessen auf sich selbst aufpassen soll. Jonas hat seine PTSD Rückblenden und Luca kann ein arroganter Arsch sein. Willst du wissen, was noch besser ist? Dass diese Dinge tatsächlich behandelt werden! Das PTSD wird nicht als eine nicht-konsequente Überreaktion beiseite gelegt, es macht Jonas sogar zu einem sichtbar gefährlicheren Charakter als andere. Die Wendung(en) dazu gehören zu den besten Teilen des Buches. Sophie wird immer wieder mit anderen Menschen konfrontiert, die sich um sie sorgen, während sie sich um jemand anderen sorgt, aber das bedeutet nicht, dass nicht alles auf sie einstürzt. Was mir auch gefallen hat, ist, dass Jonas, obwohl man wusste, dass er ziemlich schnell in Sophie verknallt war, sie nicht gedrängt hat oder besonders eifersüchtig auf Luca war. Er trat einfach zur Seite und respektierte ihre Wahl.
Kurzum: Ihre Reise ist einfach unglaublich und ihre Charakterentwicklung ist sehr natürlich und keineswegs erzwungen.

Je weiter die Geschichte ging, desto mehr machten mir das DeModie und die hübschen Prinzchen Angst, vor allem ihre sprudelnden Energizer und ihre Apathie gegenüber allem, was Sophie betrifft, aber hier mehr zu sagen würde den Spaß verderben.

Sogar die anderen Charaktere wie Sophies Vater, Luca’s Brüder und Jonas‘ Familie, die nicht so lange auftauchen, haben ihre eigene, einzigartige Atmosphäre. Im Fall von Jonas‘ Familien gibt es auch einen weiteren großen Kontrast, wenn es darum geht, mit seiner PTBS umzugehen, und es ist einfach großartig.

Generelle Meinung

Ich weiß, ich habe mich immer wieder wiederholt, wie toll ich bestimmte Aspekte gefunden habe, aber ich kann einfach nicht anders. Ich schreibe Rezensionen, wie ich Dinge sehe, und dieses Buch war wirklich etwas Besonderes, das mich sicherlich in seinen Bann gezogen hat (Wortspiel beabsichtigt ;)).

Je mehr ich darüber nachdenke, desto mehr glaube ich, dass ich kein Buch, sondern eine geschriebene Komposition gelesen habe. Die Sprache des Tanzes ging in das Erzählen der Geschichte über und verwandelte den Fluss des Lesens in ein Leseerlebnis, das zwischen schnellen, spannenden Hauptthemen, emotionalen Höhepunkten und langsamen Einlagen variierte. Die angesprochenen Themen (PTSD, Helfersyndrom, Abhängigkeit, Verlust) wurden realistisch dargestellt und die Charaktere reagierten und interagierten natürlich und individuell.

Alles in allem eine schöne Komposition über das Leben in seinen vielen Facetten. 🙂

Dinge, die ich hinzufügen möchte

Weißt du noch, was ich dir gesagt habe, als ich über Märchen-Crossover sprach? Sophie ist die Cousine von Leonie vom Axololtkönig. (Der übrigens eine Bonusszene über Leonies ersten Schultag bekommen hat! Sieh dir das an: Bonusszene!)

Zur Erinnerung: Als Teil der Herausforderung kannst du Punkte sammeln, indem du selbst Märchen rezensierst. 😉 Man kann auch weiterhin an der von Janna organisierten Märchenrallye teilnehmen.

Am Donnerstag gibt es ein Interview mit Janna über das Buch und andere Märchensachen und am Samstag spricht sie ein wenig über die Adaption von Märchen. Also bleibt gespannt!

PoiSonPaiNter

© Für das Cover gehören den rechtmäßigen Besitzern.

_________________________________
Lies auf Deutsch

As part of the Fairy Tale Summer you get my review for Im Bann der zertanzten Schuhe (Under the Spell of the worn-out Dancing Shoes) by Janna Ruth.

What is it about?

5 of 5 stars

Even after two years  the war still has its hold on Jonas and nightmares and visions are his constant companions. As he one day wanders through a new town he reaches the DeModie and stumbling out of it is the cheerful Sophie who unexpectedly enchants him with her liveliness. Shortly after he learns that the job he’s applying for is from her father who wants to hire him to know what his daughter is doing every night. As Jonas soon finds out is the former ballerina off to dance with her prince, Luca, in the DeModie, an enchanted realm right within the nightlife.

The worn-out dancing Shoes with less princesses, but even more magical by the Märchenspinnerei.

The reading experience

For this one I as well wrote down some thoughts in the Reading Group on Facebook (Magical Book Reading) and also kept track of them on Goodreads, so most things might sound familiar.

The story is told in turns from Jonas‘ and Sophie’s perspectives, but not in first person. The chapters are much longer than the ones from the other Märchenspinnerei books and it’s a nice change. Every chapter title uses a phrase and silhouette from ballet, as it is an integral part of Sophie’s life. Where Sophie’s chapters are mostly magical and phantastic, Jonas‘ brings a more realistic view to the page and it’s a great contrast to see things through their very different eyes. At one point we even get to see a scene from both their perspectives, something I always enjoy in different media. The story itself manages to switch between very soft, quiet passages and energetic climaxes, just like in a good ballad. 😀

Speaking of music: When I started reading the book I had to take out my music, so I could concentrate on reading, yet my shuffle already picked some very fitting music that just made the transition into the story even more magical. I’m sure if had listened to more music the even more fitting „To Hell and Back“ by Sabaton would have come up too. (Like the YouTube one did when I prepared this review) 😉

At the core of it, the book is a love story and therefore has the necessary elements: A girl with rose-coloured glasses, a lover’s oath and instant affection. Some of it is explained through the characters situations and characteristics, but for someone like me, who’s not that much into romance it’s hard to take serious. Still, it doesn’t get too much attention and is integrated nice and naturally – especially the reactions in some situations. In general are the interactions between the characters and their respective reactions to certain turns of events very natural. Thus it doesn’t feel like your just reading a book, it feels more like you’re following their journey by their side.
As it is an adaptation some things were changed from the original Fairy Tale like the Old Lady and of course the curse itself – and that it was only one „princess“, but the other elements where nicely integrated: The invisibility cloak, the golden and silver forest, the river and the boats. The beautiful description made you see everything right before your eyes and the occasional peek behind the curtains of the DeModie is just as incredibly well done.

In addition to that were there a few very strong chapters, especially two shortly after the incredible Sylvester scene, that were necessary for the characters development. They were fascinating and thrilling, but also heart-wrenching and emotional. And I was certainly not prepared for that cemetery scene…

Other than that is the strength of the spell mostly portrayed by the contrast between everything happening/said outside and everything happening/said inside the DeModie it’s just thrilling, just as the changes we witness through Sophie’s eyes the more the story progresses. Through Jonas‘ eyes we see what PTSD can do to a persons life and it’s something far too few people dare to admit is happening and even less authors to write about.
The authoress herself talked about a point of no return while reading and I can certainly relate to that as I did not really want to put down the book…I even dreamed about at least two aspects of the part I had previously read…
The book was really loudly calling out to me when I put it aside and it’s a bit creepy when the eponymous spell leaves the pages… >_<

And I still want to call the finale a dance-off, even if that does not describe it, at all. =D Though I do have to admit that I was a little confused about the different places the fight took place in and started to only concentrate on the characters and not their movements.

The characters

During the release party for this book Janna posted self-drawn images of the characters so I already had a picture of them in my head before I started reading (and Luca still looks like Benedict Cumberbatch to me…), which doesn’t mean that I stuck to it, but well just wanted to mention that they exist.  😉

As I’ve mentioned before are the interactions between the characters very natural, which makes following their story so much easier. You can see this interaction especially with Jonas and Sophie: They motivate and help each other without wanting anything in return. What’s best about the characters is that all of them are flawed. Sophie is stubborn (just like her cousin 😉 ) and doesn’t know when she should stop helping someone (Helper Syndrome) and take care of herself instead. Jonas has his PTSD flashbacks and Luca can be quite the arrogant prick. You want to know what’s even better? That these things are actually dealt with! The PTSD isn’t put aside as some non-consequential overreaction, it even makes Jonas a more visibly dangerous character than others. The twist(s) regarding it are amongst the best parts of the book. Sophie is again and again confronted with others worrying about her, while she worries about someone else, but it doesn’t mean it all doesn’t come crashing down on her. What I also enjoyed is that even though you knew Jonas had a crush on Sophie pretty fast, he didn’t push her or was especially jealous towards Luca. He just stepped aside and respected her choice.
In Short: Their journey is just incredible to follow and their character development is very natural and not at all forced.

The further the story went the more did the DeModie and the pretty princelings creep me out especially their bubbly energizers and their apathy towards anything concerning Sophie, but saying more here would spoil the fun. 😉

Even the other characters like Sophie’s father, Luca’s brothers and Jonas‘ family, who don’t get that much screen time, have their own unique air about them. In Jonas‘ families case there is also another great contrast when it comes to them dealing with his PTSD and it’s just awesome.

General Opinion

I know I’ve repeated myself over and over how great I found certain aspects, but I just can’t help it. I write reviews the way I see stuff and this book really was something special that certainly put me under its spell (pun intended 😉 ).

The more I thought about it, the more I believed that I didn’t read a book but a written composition. The language of the dance crossed over into the telling of the story and turned the flow of reading into a reading experience that varied between fast, exciting main themes, emotional climaxes and slow interludes. The addressed topics (PTSD, Helper Syndrome, Dependency, Loss) were portrayed realistically and the characters reacted and interacted naturally and individually.

All in all a beautiful composition about life in its many complexities. 🙂

Stuff I’d like to add

Remember what I told you when I talked about Fairy Tale Crossovers? Sophie is the cousin of Leonie from the Axololtking. (Which by the way got a bonus scene about Leonie’s first day in school! Check it out: Bonusszene!)

As a reminder: As part of the challenge you can collect points by reviewing Fairy Tales yourself. 😉 You can also still participate in the Märchenrallye that Janna organized.

On Thursday you’ll get an interview with Janna about the book and some other Fairy Tale related stuff and on Saturday she’ll talk a bit about adapting Fairy Tales. So stay tuned!

PoiSonPaiNter

© For the cover belongs to its rightful owner.

Susanne Eisele: Kein Schnee im Hexenhaus

As part of the Fairy Tale Summer/Märchensommer you get my review for Kein Schnee im Hexenhaus (No Snow in the Witch House) by Susanne Eisele.

What is it about?

3 of 5 stars


Hansjörg and Margarete are lost in the woods. Eventually they get picked up by the police, but everything goes downhill from there. Due to their repeated drug abuse their parents send them to a reformatory in the middle of nowhere. There they meet a real witch, monsters and poisonous plants.
But at least they are together and this way it’ll be easier for them to escape; or so they think…
Hänsel & Gretel are facing their drug problems in this adaptation by the Märchenspinnerei.

The reading experience

For this one I as well wrote down some thoughts in the Reading Group on Facebook (Magical Book Reading) and also kept track of them on Goodreads, so most things might sound familiar.
The story is told in different chapters that start with low page beginnings and in a mixture of outside-look and Hansi’s/Gretel’s-perspective. Towards the end there is a great perspective change to a different character, that I truly enjoyed as it felt much more mature and coherent than anything the youths‘ brains could come up with…
Even if it starts off and ends with the typical Fairy Tale quotes the narration itself feels like a report of what happened. At first the chapter beginnings irritated me a bit, but I’ve gotten used to it. The perspective change was strange too, but what bugged me most, was the combination of teeny-slang-speech with high, sometimes even seemingly contrived language.
Knowing the original Fairy Tale Hansi’s paranoia took me in and I just wanted to continue reading to see, if my brain send me the correct images for the hog roast and what that implied, but at some point it turned into frustration on my part, because of the youths‘ behaviour and I was curious whether Hansi’s and Gretel’s behaviour would change in the end. At the same time I was also kind of waiting for a big twist. Was it all really happening or just a figment of their drug-abused brains? Never saw THAT ending coming though…
I was impressed by the way the drug-therapy was incorporated into the story and turned into something I would indeed expect from a witch and I’m sure it would be something a lot of therapists could benefit from, if it were real. There was also a very funny comparison of a crystal ball and a webcam. This and the end-twist to the original were some of my favourite things.

The characters

It’s not strange for me to have troubles liking main characters, but when they are stupid teenagers like Hansi and Gretel, they make it so much easier for me not to. It’s not a reason for me to put the book aside if the story is worth it, and that it absolutely was. On the one hand can you see how damaged Hansi and Gretel are, on the other hand do they seem as superficial as the side characters. In a few scenes a bit more about them is explored and you also see how horribly co-dependent the two of them are, but that’s about it. They are far away from being „perfect“ main characters, unfortunately did that not change their annoying-ness.
The characters I liked most, though, were Frau Hag (Mrs. Hag) – the witch and director of the reformatory and her assistant Bodo, even if the latter didn’t get that much screen time. 🙁 Unfortunately I can’t tell you why again without spoilers, but that’s just more reason for you to read it and form your own opinion. 😉
What I liked though were the names as someone really had fun with naming troublesome children: Hansjörg, Kevin, Serena…they already paint a fitting picture. 😀
But the other names were chosen just as well:
Frau Hag, the witch; Waldmann (Forestman) for the Woodchopper-family; Krude (crude) the slimy social worker and the fairies Tinky (Tinkerbell) and Ali (Galadriel), even the Bodo, that I associate with a wiener dog. 😀

General Opinion

An alternate version I enjoyed to venture into. An interesting take on the original stuff, with many great ideas (Bodo, the detox, the roles of witch and children), that portrays many important topics (e.g. drug abuse, co-dependence of siblings). Unfortunately did I not like the linguistic realization in some passages and the characters stayed pretty superficial…
It still was fun to follow the events and be carried by the paranoia. 🙂
And there were too few moments with Bodo. 😉

Stuff I’d like to add

As a reminder: As part of the challenge you can collect points by reviewing Fairy Tales yourself. 😉
Next Tuesday you’ll get an interview with Susanne about the book and some other Fairy Tale related stuff. So stay tuned!
PoiSonPaiNter
© For the cover belongs to its rightful owner.

Tina Skupin: Hollerbrunn

Lies auf Deutsch

As part of the Fairy Tale Summer you get my review for Hollerbrunn by Tina Skupin.

What is it about?

4 of 5 stars

Everything changes for Marie after her mothers death, especially when her father brings home her stepmother Desiree and her stepsister Pegg. When she has to take part in an internship everything goes topsy-turvy, as she isn’t allowed to take care of her mother’s restaurant as she had hoped, and Desiree doesn’t yet have a clue how to handle things. Instead she has to help out Frau Hollerbrunn (Ms. Hollerbrunn) at the Hollerhof (Hollergrange) and soon learns that not everything there is at it seems…

Frau Holle meets Alpine legends (with a hint of The Snow/Ice Queen) by the Märchenspinnerei.

The reading experience

For this one I as well wrote down some thoughts in the Reading Group on Facebook (Magical Book Reading) and also kept track of them on Goodreads, so most things might sound familiar.

As I told you before was this the adaptation I feared the most, because the premise is too familiar. When Tina and other readers assured me that the “mean” parts were well executed or rather in the first chapter that calmed me down a little. As I soon discovered myself it really isn’t as bad as I had feared; the description in the Axolotlking was worse…Here the focus is on the description of the loss not on what really happened and that made it easier for me.

Reading the blurb of the book I was confused at the description that it used „a hint of Ice Queen“, but it soon turned out that this Ice Queen is more like the Snow Queen than the Disney-version that I kept thinking about.
The story itself is parted into different chapters that are fittingly titled after characters, places and a few other things that play a major role in the chapter. It prepares you a little of what’s to come, but at the same time doesn’t give away too much. Some titles are also references to the original Fairy Tale, which is a nice nod in that direction. Towards the middle there is a really incredible perspective change that makes the story just a little more interesting.

Other than that did I directly dive into the Hollertal (Hollervalley). I can easily see the place before my inner eye. From bureaucratic nonsense to the general interactions, all of it felt natural and realistic. I was taken in by the descriptions pretty fast and later didn’t want to put the book down as it was nearing its end. It had some quite surprising and exciting twists and portrayed certain dangers quite well. I was quite excited while reading some parts of it, even if some stuff was – and still is – quite confusing regarding the backstory of certain characters. Unfortunately including that would have been too much for the story. 🙁

The characters

I never thought I’d find a version of Frau Holle where I prefer the Pechmarie (Pitchy Marie) over the Goldmarie (Golden Marie). I’m not even sure why… It feels like I should feel more connected to the golden one, as we’ve suffered a similar loss, but I guess I’m too annoyed by her, but that could just be me not liking main-characters again. Marie seems a little too well loved by everyone, even if she’s certainly not a perfect character, as she definitely has her flaws. Two of her more prominent ones include rose-coloured glasses and a tendency to just accept other peoples opinion/orders without questioning them. And I guess I’m also a little frustrated that she’s still stuck in her grief after six months and doesn’t want to get out of her safety bubble. Sure such a loss is horrible, but not continuing is something I don’t think anyone passing away would really want for their bereaved… Still, in the end it fit for the character, even if I wouldn’t like her as a person.

Besides: The other one is snarkier and I like snark… Pegg is… Pegg is awesome, even if I felt bad for her at times. Sure she’s rough and says what she thinks, which is not always nice, but in the end was she way more useful than lovey-dovey Marie and actually gets things done. She’s a great contrast to her half-sister (and yes there is a great explanation for that Frau Holle-reference!). The way she’s treated is horrible, but unfortunately also very realistic, both in a working and a living environment. To have her as strong as she is regardless of that turns her into an incredible character. She’s like the tragic anti-hero that doesn’t want you to root for them, but in the end you’ll do it anyway…

Though even if I liked one sister more than the other, as she got on my nerves quite a bit in parts, that balanced itself out quite well.

Desiree is the typical stepmother with too high standards that wants too much in too little time and Marie’s and Pegg’s father is not really helping the whole family matter…he’s pretty frustrating too…

The other inhabitants of the valley are barely mentioned/seen so there is not much I can say about them, other than that they sure are great with prejudices. The Librarian being one of the more fascinating background characters.

Florian and the other employees of the Hollerhof (Waldemar, Ronan, Gustl and Gerda) are bit windy (pun intended 😉 ) and therefore have quite some mood swings, but the concept behind them is pretty cool and they make for some very funny scenes and play an incredible role in the finale.

Frau Hollerbrunn is a whole different story by herself and like Grischa from A Cloak as Red would describing her give too much away. Let’s just say: There is a lot more to her than „just“ being Frau Holle. 😉

General Opinion

I like the combination of Frau Holle with the idea of the Snow/Ice Queen and some Alpine legends, it just worked very well together. Also great were the twists on the original tales elements like the he whole baking and picking apples part (two of my favourite scenes), and the stepmother. There were also a lot of magical rituals at play throughout the story and it’s a pity that the different magical backgrounds (of characters and rituals) were only scratched on the surface. Though, more attention to them – and the backstory of certain characters – would have been beyond the scope of the story. I know, I’d really enjoy reading another book just about that. 😀

The story also sets good examples of what jealous and prejudiced people are capable of doing and how other people have to pay for it. I enjoyed the character development and I especially enjoyed the finale – and the epilogue that had a pretty cool scene that made me like a certain character just a little more. 😉

All in all: A beautiful story about two sisters that overcome their differences in an incredible adventure after a blow of fate.

Stuff I’d like to add

Today the new book of the Märchenspinnerei is released: Brighblack Ravenmoon

As a reminder: As part of the challenge you can collect points by reviewing Fairy Tales yourself. 😉

On Saturday you’ll get an interview with Tina about the book and some other Fairy Tale related stuff. So stay tuned!

PoiSonPaiNter

© For the cover belongs to its rightful owner.
____________________________
Read in English

Im Rahmen des Märchensommer erhaltet ihr meine Rezension für Hollerbrunn von Tina Skupin

Worum geht’s?

4 of 5 stars

Nach dem Tod ihrer Mutter ändert sich alles für Marie, besonders nachdem ihr Vater ihre Stiefmutter Desiree und ihre Stiefschwester Pegg nach Hause bringt. Als sie dann auch noch Praktikum machen muss, geht alles schief. Denn anders als gehofft, darf sie sich nicht um das Restaurant ihrer Mutter kümmern von dem Desiree noch keine Ahnung hat, wie die Dinge dort laufen. Stattdessen muss sie Frau Hollerbrunn auf dem Hollerhof  aushelfen und erfährt bald, dass nicht alles dort so ist, wie es scheint …

Frau Holle trifft auf Alpenlegenden (mit einem Hauch von Die Schnee-/Eiskönigin) der Märchenspinnerei.

Das Leseerlebnis

Auch hier habe ich einige Gedanken in der Lesegruppe auf Facebook (Märchenhafte Leserunden) aufgeschrieben und auch auf Goodreads festgehalten, so dass die meisten Dinge vielleicht bekannt klingen.

Wie ich bereits schrieb, war dies die Adaption, die ich am meisten fürchtete, weil die Prämisse zu vertraut ist. Nachdem Tina und andere Leser mir versicherten, dass die „gemeinen“ Stellen gut verarbeitete waren bzw. im ersten Kapitel, beruhigte mich das ein wenig. Als ich bald selbst feststelte, war es nicht so schlimm, wie befürchtet; die Beschreibung im Axolotlkönig war schlimmer…. Hier liegt der Fokus auf der Beschreibung des Verlustes, nicht darauf, was wirklich passiert ist, und das machte es mir leichter.

Beim Lesen des Klappentextes war ich verwirrt über die Beschreibung, dass es „einen Hauch von Eiskönigin“ verwendet wurde, aber es stellte sich bald heraus, dass diese Eiskönigin eher der Schneekönigin gleicht als der Disney-Version, an die ich immer wieder dachte.
Die Geschichte selbst ist in verschiedene Kapitel unterteilt, die passend nach Charakteren, Orten und einigen anderen Dingen benannt sind, die im Kapitel eine große Rolle spielen. Es bereitet einen ein bisschen auf das vor, worum es darin geht, gibt aber nicht zu viel preis. Einige Titel sind auch Verweise auf das ursprüngliche Märchen, was eine schöne Referenz in diese Richtung ist. Zur Mitte hin gibt es einen wirklich unglaublichen Perspektivwechsel, der die Geschichte ein wenig interessanter macht.

Ansonsten bin ich direkt ins Hollertal getaucht. Ich kann den Ort leicht vor meinem inneren Auge sehen. Vom bürokratischen Unsinn bis zu den allgemeinen Interaktionen fühlte sich alles natürlich und realistisch an. Ich war von den Beschreibungen ziemlich schnell angetan und wollte das Buch später nicht mehr weglegen als es sich seinem Ende näherte. Es hatte einige ziemlich überraschende und aufregende Wendungen und stellte einige Gefahren ziemlich gut dar. Ich war ziemlich gespannt, als ich einige Abschnitte gelesen habe, auch wenn einige Dinge in Bezug auf die Hintergrundgeschichte bestimmter Charaktere ziemlich verwirrend waren – und immer noch sind. Das ebenfalls aufzuführen, wäre leider zu viel für die Geschichte gewesen. 🙁

Die Charaktere

Ich hätte nie gedacht, dass ich mal eine Version von Frau Holle finden würde, wo ich die Pechmarie der Goldmarie vorziehe. Ich bin mir nicht mal sicher, warum…. Es fühlt sich an, als sollte ich mich mehr mit der Goldenen verbunden fühlen, da wir einen ähnlichen Verlust erlitten haben, aber ich denke, ich bin zu verärgert über sie, aber das könnte nur wieder meine Abneigung gegen Hauptcharaktere sein. Marie scheint ein wenig zu sehr von allen geliebt zu werden, auch wenn sie sicherlich kein perfekter Charakter ist, da sie definitiv ihre Fehler hat. Zwei ihrer bekannteren sind rosafarbene Brillengläser und die Tendenz, die Meinung anderer Leute zu akzeptieren, ohne sie zu hinterfragen. Und ich schätze, ich bin auch ein wenig frustriert, dass sie nach sechs Monaten immer noch in ihrer Trauer steckt und nicht aus ihrer Sicherheitsblase herauskommen will. Sicher ist solch ein Verlust schrecklich, aber nicht fortzufahren ist etwas, von dem ich denke, dass sich Verstorbene es für die Hinterbliebenen nicht wünschen würden … Aber am Ende passte es zum Charakter, auch wenn ich sie als Person nicht mögen würde.

Außerdem: Die andere ist scharfzüngig und ich mag fiese Kommentare … Pegg ist … Pegg ist fantastisch, auch wenn ich mich manchmal schlecht für sie gefühlt habe. Sicher ist sie grob und sagt, was sie denkt, was nicht immer nett ist, aber am Ende war sie viel nützlicher als die turtelnde Marie und setzt Dinge auch tatsächlich um. Sie ist ein toller Kontrast zu ihrer Halbschwester (und ja, es gibt eine tolle Erklärung für diese Frau Holle-Referenz!). Die Art, wie sie behandelt wird, ist schrecklich, aber leider auch sehr realistisch, sowohl in einem Arbeits- als auch in einem Lebensumfeld. Sie so stark zu haben, wie sie ist, macht sie zu einem unglaublichen Charakter. Sie ist wie der tragische Antiheld, der nicht will, dass du sie anfeuerst, aber am Ende wirst du es trotzdem tun….

Auch wenn ich die eine Schwester mehr mochte als die andere, da sie mir teilweise ziemlich auf die Nerven ging, so hat sich das doch recht gut ausgeglichen.

Desiree ist die typische Stiefmutter mit zu hohen Ansprüchen, die in zu kurzer Zeit zu viel will und der Vater von Marie und Pegg hilft nicht wirklich in dem ganzen Famliendrama  … er ist auch ziemlich frustrierend …

Die anderen Bewohner des Tales werden kaum erwähnt/gesehen, so dass ich nicht viel über sie sagen kann, außer, dass sie unglaublich toll mit Vorurteilen umgehen können. Die Bibliothekarin ist eine der faszinierenderen Hintergrundfiguren.

Florian und die anderen Mitarbeiter des Hollerhofs (Waldemar, Ronan, Gustl und Gerda) sind etwas windig (Wortspiel beabsichtigt 😉 ) und haben daher einige Stimmungsschwankungen, aber das Konzept dahinter ist ziemlich cool und sie sorgen für einige sehr lustige Szenen und spielen eine unglaubliche Rolle im Finale.

Frau Hollerbrunn ist eine ganz andere Geschichte für sich und wie Grischa aus Ein Mantel so Rot würde sie zu beschreiben zu viel verraten. Sagen wir einfach: Sie ist viel mehr als „nur“ Frau Holle. 😉

Generelle Meinung

Ich mag die Kombination von Frau Holle mit der Idee der Schnee-/Eiskönigin und einigen Alpenlegenden, es hat einfach sehr gut funktioniert. Großartig waren auch die Änderungen an den originalen Geschichtenelementen wie der ganze Back- und Pflückteil (zwei meiner Lieblingsszenen) und die Stiefmutter. Es waren auch viele magische Rituale im Spiel und es ist schade, dass die verschiedenen magischen Hintergründe (von Charakteren und Ritualen) nur an der Oberfläche angekratzt wurden. Doch mehr Aufmerksamkeit für sie – und die Hintergrundgeschichte bestimmter Charaktere – hätte den Rahmen der Geschichte sprengen können. Ich weiß, ich würde wirklich gerne ein weiteres Buch darüber lesen. 😀

Die Geschichte ist auch ein gutes Beispiel dafür, was eifersüchtige und voreingenommene Menschen bereit sind zu tun und wie andere Menschen dafür bezahlen müssen. Mir hat die Charakterentwicklung gefallen und besonders das Finale – und der Epilog, der eine ziemlich coole Szene hatte, die mir einen bestimmten Charakter etwas sympathischer machte. 😉

Alles in allem: Eine schöne Geschichte über zwei Schwestern, die nach einem Schicksalsschlag ihre Differenzen in einem unglaublichen Abenteuer überwinden.

Dinge, die ich hinzufügen möchte

Heute erscheint das neue Buch der Märchenspinnerei: Leuchtendschwarzer Rabenmond

Zur Erinnerung: Als Teil der Challenge könnt ihr Punkte sammeln, indem ihr selbst Märchen lest. 😉

Am Samstag bekommst ihr ein Interview mit Tina über das Buch und andere märchenhafte Dinge. Also bleibt dran!

PoiSonPaiNter

© Für das Cover gehören den rechtmäßigen Besitzern.

Barbara Schinko: Ein Mantel so rot

As part of the Fairy Tale Summer/Märchensommer you get my review for Ein Mantel so Rot (A Cloak as Red) by Barbara Schinko.

What is it about?

5 of 5 stars


It’s not enough that the war has taken its toll on the land, but when Zoyas husband Venko returns to her as a wolf she can’t fathom what misfortune will befall her and her village. Right away they call him a “Raging Wolf” and Zoya has to fear and fight for her love.

Will she succeed in breaking the curse?

Little Red Riding Hood meets a human wolf in a tsarist-era in this mature adaptation by the Märchenspinnerei.
 

The reading experience

For this one I as well wrote down some thoughts in the Reading Group on Facebook (Magical Book Reading) and also kept track of them on Goodreads, so most things might sound familiar.

When I first saw the book in comparison to the others I couldn’t keep in the chuckle at how adorably short it is. At the same time did I fear that the 118 pages might be too short to tell a round story. Dude, was I wrong.
The story is divided into two parts and an epilogue telling the story of Zoya in chapter-like episodes without actual chapter titles. Within these chapters the sentences themselves are rather short as well. It was weird at first if you’re used to elaborate writing styles, but I soon realized that no more description was needed to create the fitting atmosphere and the characters. E.g. are those scenes were Zoya interacted with the other villagers or was with a man only shorty or vaguely described, but that didn’t mean you didn’t get a bad feeling about some of them.

The only thing that irritated me a bit was that I couldn’t properly sort the story into a time frame (tsar-time) and fully understand the references to old (Russian?) burial traditions and beliefs. Though they are well enough incorporated and it isn’t necessary for the Fairy Tale to fully understand those things, but it still feels like I’m missing out on something to fully understand Zoyas world.

One of the things I loved most about this story was that instead of the bite to become a wolf the old superstitions were used where you turn into a wolf by wearing a wolf pelt coat. The change through the pelt and the accompanying distrust was well portrayed, even if I can never understand why it’s always the wolfs‘ fault if something goes wrong …

The tone is completely different to the first Märchenspinnerei-book and much more mature. It’s a nice change.

The characters

Through the short descriptions no real connection to the characters is created, yet you can still feel the atmosphere they leave behind and you get a certain feeling about them. And I still wanted things for Zoya to get better. She’s an interesting character that goes through a lot during the story and makes a few decisions that are bad for her and I can only attribute some of them to her gradual decent into madness. Her way is interesting to follow and I was relieved once she figured some things out for herself. I’m still amazed at Zoya. To make such decisions, to make such sacrifices that can’t have been easy and yet she continued to go her own way and I think that’s what impressed me the most.

We don’t learn much about Venko, her husband, but what we do is enough to know that he deeply cares about her, which can even be seen when he’s a wolf.

The other man at Zoya’s side is the huntsman Grischa, who usually is the hero of the story, but here he gets a different turn and it’s partly terrifying. I can’t really describe him that much without giving away one of the two twists of this story. What I can tell you is, that I didn’t like him and that I was relieved when Zoya finally realized the same thing about him. Let it be said: When I finished the book I wasn’t sure who really was the „Raging Wolf“… (I talked more about this in the Reading Group, but there I wanted to spoiler, so. 😉 )

Another interesting twist on the original Fairy Tale was the grandmother. In the beginning there was the memory of Zoyas grandmother aiding her, towards the end there was an old woman taking up the place.

General Opinion

In the beginning I was skeptical about the length and the writing style of the book, but that soon changed. The short sentences and scarce description created a thick atmosphere where at some point it did no longer matter how detailed things were described. My personal highlight was the usage of the wolf pelt, as I have mentioned above, as that is really something modern werwolf stories usually ignore.
In addition to that did the story manage to surprise me twice, both times at the end of each part. I didn’t expect them and the real ending was good and I believe somewhat important. Not every Fairy Tale can have a Happy End.
The story alternates between relatively realistic and truly fantastical and is definitely something for more experienced readers.

Stuff I’d like to add

The blurb lies. 😉

As a reminder: As part of the challenge you can collect points by reviewing Fairy Tales yourself. 😉

On Thursday you’ll get an interview with Barbara about the book and some other Fairy Tale related stuff. And you’ll also get an update on the Neubrandenwolf, tomorrow. So stay tuned!

Plus: This is a scheduled post as I’m off to the Rockharz again. Accepting any comments will probably take me until Sunday/Monday. Sorry, for that, but I hadn’t expected that the Fairy Tale Summer would become this big … I already suffered for this decision as I had to prepare last weeks, this weeks and next Mondays post ahead of time …

So yeah, see you next week! 😉

PoiSonPaiNter

© For the cover belongs to its rightful owner.

Sylvia Rieß: Der Axolotlkönig

Read in English

Im Rahmen des Märchensommer erhaltet ihr meine Rezension zu Der Axolotlkönig von Sylvia Rieß.

Worum geht’s?

Cover Axolotlkönig
4 of 5 stars

Fynn, ein beliebter Musiker, findet sich 20 Zentimeter groß und mit seltsamen Auswüchsen, wo sein Hals sein sollte, in einem Aquarium; ohne eine Ahnung, wie er hierher kam.

Aber es scheint, dass es genau zur rechten Zeit war, denn seine neue Zimmergenossin Leonie hat nicht nur die letzte Verbindung zu ihrer Großmutter verloren, sondern sieht auch nur einen Ausweg….

Kann der axolotifizierte Fynn sie davon überzeugen, dass es eine schreckliche Idee ist?

Der Froschkönig trifft die Schneekönigin in dieser Märchenadaption der Märchenspinnerei.

Das Leseerlebnis

Aus irgendeinem Grund habe ich eine ganze Weile gewartet, um es zu lesen, nachdem ich es im Februar gewonnen hatte. Was wahrscheinlich nicht so schlimm war, da ich deswegen den Märchensommer geschaffen habe….

Wie auch immer, da Sylvia bereits auf Facebook (Märchenspinnerei Turmcafé) Einträge in der Lesegruppe veröffentlicht hat, konnte ich gleich ein paar Gedanken mit ihr besprechen. Das war eine tolle Erfahrung und ich bin wirklich froh, dass sie die Gelegenheit dazu gegeben haben. Darüber hinaus habe ich auch meine Gedanken über Goodreads festgehalten, so dass einige Dinge vielleicht vertraut klingen.

Ansonsten war ich nicht auf die Rückblende zu dem, was mit Leonies Großmutter geschah, vorbereitet. Es traf mich ziemlich hart, zumal es viel zu vertraut klang. Dieses und andere Dinge wie das Mobbing, die Depression und die Flucht in eine Online-Welt waren sehr gut dargestellt und sicherlich realistischer als das, was man manchmal von einem YA-Roman erwarten würde. Ich fand auch einige Ähnlichkeiten zu meinen eigenen Erfahrungen in dem Buch und sprach mit Sylvia darüber; anscheinend ist sie eine „Realitätsbändigerin“ und kreiert manchmal Charaktere, die sie später im wirklichen Leben trifft, was gleichermaßen erstaunlich und erschreckend ist.

Die Geschichte wird mit einem Ich-Erzähler geschrieben, der zwischen Leonies und Fynns Perspektive wechselt, was mir normalerweise nicht gefällt, aber ich habe mich mit der Zeit daran gewöhnt. Besonders gegen Ende war es die bessere Wahl, da die Gedankengespräche zwischen Leonie und Lurchi-Fynn noch komplizierter gewesen wären, als sie es bereits waren. Was übrigens eine interessante Wendung war, wie der Frosch mit der Prinzessin kommunizierte. Das einzige Mal, wenn sie von diesem Muster bricht, sind der Prolog und eine Passage in der Mitte aus einer dritten Perspektive. Die Geschichte hat auch einige Einfügungen wie Flashback (Oma, wie ich oben erwähnt habe), private Nachrichten von Leonies Online-Freunden, Facebook-Kommentare von ihren Klassenkameraden und ihre Tagebucheinträge. Seitdem ich Dracula gelesen habe, genieße ich gut gemachte Tagebuchnotizen und das war ein Beispiel dafür. Man wusste, dass es von einem Kind/jungen Erwachsenen stammt, aber zumindest nicht von einem nervigen.

Die Charaktere

Leonie ist im Grunde dein typisches gemobbtes Schulkind, außer dass sie eher dünn statt fett ist. Nur wenn man sie besser kennen lernt, was man beim Lesen des Buches tut ;), wird sie so viel mehr. Für mich war es schwer zu lesen, was sie durchmachen musste und wo sie anfing, nur um zu sehen, wo sie landete. Aber ich glaube nicht, dass ich sie bemitleidet habe. Sicher, ich wollte sie umarmen und mich mit ihr anfreunden, denn was ich über ihre Hobbys gelernt habe, klang großartig, aber ich war wütender auf ihre Klassenkameraden, weil sie ignorante A-Löcher waren…. Ich habe die Reise, die sie durchmacht, sehr genossen und war gegen Ende stolz auf sie. Sicher ist sie manchmal ziemlich melodramatisch und hat ein paar dumme Entscheidungen getroffen, aber ich denke, das ist für Kinder in ihrem Alter „normal“.

Am Anfang war ich sicher, dass Fynn definitiv verdiente, was er bekam und ich schätze, dass ich es immer noch bin, aber auch er hat eine realistische Reise hinter sich. Ich denke, dass seine Zeit weg von seinen Mitschülern, die er mit Selbstreflexion verbrachte, in diesem Prozess sehr geholfen hat. Seine Art, Leonie zu helfen, war nicht immer die klügste, aber zumindest versuchte er es. 😀 Mir gefiel auch, wie er mit den anderen Charakteren – und anderen Aquarienbewohnern – interagierte. Letzteres war sogar ein Osterei, das ich nicht näher erläutern will und nur sage, dass ich es als Erste gefunden habe 😉 Und es sorgte für eine unglaublich originelle Idee, wie man eine SMS verschickt, eines meiner Highlights.

Eine kleinere, aber nicht weniger bedeutende Rolle übernahmen Leonies Online-Freundin Mamba/Cecille, die Leonie so gut wie möglich unterstützt, und Fynns älterer Bruder Rob, der eine Offenbarung macht, die seinen Bruder sprachlos lässt. Die beiden rundeten das Ensemble ab und waren großartig und notwendig für die Reise der beiden Charaktere. Sie hatten auch eine großartige Dynamik und ich fand mich wieder mehr an Seiten- als an Hauptfiguren interessiert, auch wenn ich Leonie noch umarmen wollte….

Und natürlich gibt es Poison….einen Charakter, dessen Namen ich für einen lustigen „Zufall“ hielt (Poison ist nicht wirklich ein in der Gothic-Szene unbekannter Spitzname), auch wenn meine Alarmglocken läuteten, als ich eine seiner ersten Nachrichten las. Leonies Interaktion mit ihm führt zu einem faszinierenden und frustrierenden Wendepunkt der Ereignisse und ich bin stolz darauf, wie sie damit umgegangen ist: 🙂
Lustige Seite Anmerkung: Als ich eine Mail über die E-Book Verlosung verschickte und es mit “ Poison “ signierte, war die Empfängerin der Nachricht ein wenig irritiert, da sie dieses Buch bereits gelesen hatte. 😀

Die Charaktere haben in den Kapiteln immer mehr Gestalt angenommen und sind gut dargestellt. Jeder der vier Hauptdarsteller hat Ecken und Kanten, die ich an Charakteren sehr mag. Leonies Eltern und Klassenkameraden waren im Vergleich etwas blass, aber mehr Konzentration auf sie hätte es nicht besser gemacht.

Generelle Meinung

Das Ende gefällt mir sehr gut, besonders wenn man das Original-Märchen betrachtet. Außerdem sind die Spiegelstücke eine tolle Metapher für Depressionen, es ist nur traurig, dass es im wirklichen Leben nicht so funktioniert, also ist das Nachwort genauso wichtig.

Mit Leonies Erfahrungen wird ein sehr wichtiges Licht auf die Entwicklung der Mobbing-Kultur und deren Folgen und natürlich auf Depressionen im Allgemeinen geworfen. Es gab ein paar schwere Passagen im ganzen Buch, einige vor allem, weil ich ähnliche Dinge durchgemacht habe. Es gab auch etwas sehr Ernstes über on-line-dating für Minderjährige, die Nachrichten nicht sorgfältig genug lesen. Kurz gesagt: Während ich dies als eine YA-Geschichte betrachten würde, enthält sie auch reife Inhalte, die häufiger diskutiert werden müssen, vor allem mit jungen Erwachsenen.

Ich hätte mir auch einen näheren Einblick in die Magie der Verwandlung gewünscht, aber ich schätze, das wäre über den Rahmen der Geschichte hinausgegangen. Es gibt auch zwei Szenen, die ich gerne gesehen hätte: Cecille und Rob auf der Polizeiwache und Leonies Schultag gegen Ende. Aber ich verstehe, warum Sylvia sich entschieden hat, sie nicht hinzuzufügen.

Alles in allem ist es eine runde und tolle Geschichte über ein junges Mädchen, das lernt, um Hilfe zu bitten und es schafft, aus einem sehr tiefen Loch herauszukommen. Es hat Spaß gemacht, die Geschichte zu verfolgen und in der Gruppe zu diskutieren.

Dinge, die ich hinzufügen möchte

Zur Erinnerung: Als Teil der Herausforderung kannst du Punkte sammeln, indem du selbst Märchen rezensierst 😉

[Edit]

Sylvia hat der Geschichte eine Bonus-Szene hinzugefügt und sie mir und ihren Lesern geschenkt, oder zumindest ist es meine Schuld, dass sie sie geschrieben hat…. Wie auch immer, ich bin begeistert! Es ist fantastisch! Jetzt geh und lies sie: „Ich will sie sehen.“ Bonus-Szene!

Und natürlich: Danke, Sylvia, dass du uns die Geschichte von Leonie noch ein Stück weiter abgeschlossen hast! 🙂

[/Edit]

In ein paar Tagen bekommst du ein Interview mit Sylvia über das Buch und andere märchenhafte Dinge. Also bleibt dran!

Poison

© Für das Cover gehören den rechtmäßigen Besitzern.

P.S. PoiSonPaiNter 😉
____________________________
Lies auf Deutsch

As part of the Fairy Tale Summer you get my review for Der Axolotlkönig (The Axolotlking) by Sylvia Rieß.

What is it about?

Cover Axolotlkönig
4 of 5 stars

Fynn, a well liked musician, finds himself 20 centimetres tall and with strange outgrowth where his neck should be, in an aquarium; with no idea how he got here.

But it seems it was quite on time, as his new room mate Leonie has not just lost the last connection she had had to her grandmother, but because of being bullied in school she also only sees one way out of this…

Can axolotified Fynn convince her that it’s a horrible idea?

The Frog King meets The Snow Queen in this Fairy Tale adaptation by the Märchenspinnerei.

The reading experience

For some reason did I wait quite a while to read it after I won it back in February. Which probably wasn’t that bad, seeing as I created the Fairy Tale Summer because of it…

Anyway, as Sylvia already posted entries into the Reading Group on Facebook (Magical Book Reading) I could right away discuss a few thoughts with her. This was a great experience and I’m really glad she/they provided the opportunity. In addition to that did I also keep track of my thoughts on Goodreads, so some things might sound familiar.

Other than that was I not prepared for the flashback to what happened with Leonie’s grandmother. It hit me pretty hard, especially as it sounded far too familiar. This thing and others like the Bullying, the depression and the flight into an online world were very well portrayed and certainly more realistic than what you’d sometimes expect from a YA novel. I also found several similarities to my own experiences in the book and talked to Sylvia about it; apparently she’s a „Realitybender“ and sometimes creates characters that she later meets in Real Life, which is equally amazing and terrifying.

The story is written with a first person narrator switching between Leonie’s and Fynn’s perspective, which I usually don’t like, but I got used to it over time. Especially towards the end was it the better choice as the thought-conversations between Leonie and Lurchi-Fynn would have been even more complicated than they already were. Which by the way was an interesting twist on how the Frog communicated with the Princess. The only time she breaks from this pattern are the prologue and a passage in the middle from a third perspective. The story also has some insertions as flashback (granny, as I mentioned above), private messages from Leonie’s online friends, Facebook comments from her classmates and her diary entries. Ever since reading Dracula I enjoy well made diary-narration and this was one example for it. You knew it was made by a child/young adult, but at least not an annoying one.

The characters

Leonie is basically your typical bullied school kid, except that she’s rather skinny instead of fat. Only if you get to know her better, which you do while reading the book ;), does she become so much more. For me it was hard to read about the things she had to go through and where she started only to see where she ended up. But I don’t think I pitied her. Sure, I wanted to hug her and befriend her, because what I learned about her hobbies sounded amazing, but I was more angry with her classmates for being ignorant a-holes… I really enjoyed the journey she goes through and was proud of her towards the end. Sure she’s quite melodramatic at times and made a few stupid decisions along the way, but I guess that’s „normal“ for kids her age.

At the beginning I was certain Fynn definitely deserved what he got and I guess I still am, but he too went through a realistic journey. I think his time away from his peers that he spent with self-reflection helped quite a bit in this process. His way of helping Leonie wasn’t always the smartest, but at least he tried. 😀 I also liked the way he interacted with the other characters – and other aquarium dwellers. The latter was even an Easter Egg, which I will not further explain and only say that I was the first one to find it. 😉 And it caused an incredibly original idea of how to send a SMS, one of my highlights. 😀

Smaller but not less significant roles were taken up by Leonie’s online friend Mamba/Cecille, who supports Leonie however she can and Fynn’s older brother Rob who makes a revelation that leaves his brother speechless. Those two rounded the ensemble and were great and necessary for both characters‘ journey. They also had a great dynamic and I again found myself more interested in side- than main characters, even if I still wanted to hug Leonie…

And of course there is Poison…a character whose name I considered a funny „coincidence“ (Poison isn’t really a nickname unfamiliar to the Goth-scene) even if my alarm bells went ringing when I read one of his first messages. Leonie’s interaction with him leads to a fascinating and frustrating turning point of the events and I’m proud of the way she handled it. 🙂
Funny side Note: When I send out a mail regarding the e-book give-away and signed it with, as I usually do, „Poison“ the receiver of said message was a little irritated as she had already read this book. 😀

The characters gained more and more shape throughout the chapters and are well portrayed. Every one of the four main ones has rough edges, which I really like in characters. Leonie’s parents and classmates where a bit pale in comparison, but more focus on them wouldn’t have made it better.

General Opinion

I really like the ending, especially considering the original Fairy Tale. In addition to that are the mirror pieces a great metaphor for depression, it’s just sad that it doesn’t work like that in Real Life, so the afterword is just as important.

With Leonie’s experiences some very important light is shone on the development of the Bullying culture and on its consequences and of course depressions in general. There were a few heavy passages throughout the book, some mostly because I went through similar things. There was also some very serious stuff about online dating for minors who do not read messages carefully enough. In short: While I would consider this a YA story does it also contain mature content which needs to be discussed more often, especially with young adults.

I would also have liked a closer into the magic of the transformation, but I guess that would have went beyond the scope of the story. There are also two scenes that I would have liked to see: Cecille and Rob at the police station and Leonie’s day at school towards the end. But I understand why Sylvia chose not to add them.

All in all is it a round and great story about a young girl that learns to ask for help and manages to get out of a very deep hole. It was fun to follow the story and discuss it in the group.

Stuff I’d like to add

As a reminder: As part of the challenge you can collect points by reviewing Fairy Tales yourself. 😉

[Edit]

Sylvia added a Bonus-scene to the story and pretty much gave it as a gift to me and her readers, or at least it’s my fault that she wrote it … Anyway, I’m excited! It’s awesome! Now go read it: Bonus-scene!

And of course: Thank you, Sylvia, for giving us a little more closure to Leonie’s story! 🙂

[/Edit]

In a couple of days you’ll get an interview with Sylvia about the book and some other Fairy Tale related stuff. So stay tuned!

Poison

© For the cover belongs to its rightful owner.

P.S. PoiSonPaiNter 😉

What’cha Watching Wednesday #13

As I’ve been putting up finishing this for quite a while now, I think, it’s about time to face the truth:
I’m bored by this segment.

I don’t really want to get rid of it entirely, but I do think I prefer doing it similar to what I did with the The Gamer’s saga and Attacking the Darkness.
In this one I’ll give you a brief overview of the backlog and starting with the next one the „Specials“ will be the normal version – hence the change of numbering, even if this one would have been #11. You will still get the occasional movie review, but I think I’ll use this segment more for talking about several things at once and not focusing on one thing alone as I do in those.

WWWWhat is this about?

Every other Wednesday I will publish a post in which I talk about (the latest or any episode of) a series or a (series of) movie(s).

In most cases this will be a collection of thoughts that cross through the different media.
You’re warned: There will be Spoilers.

Let’s start

JourneyQuest

A while after the successful Kickstarter for Season 3 I just had to re-watch the first two Seasons of JourneyQuest and with that link included I’ll leave you to read what I already wrote about this incredible show with many female leads, incredible characters and a hilarious and interesting story line.
By the way: In this campaign you had the chance to coin a new Orcish Word, which I didn’t do, I went for the „Bardic Immunity“ Badge instead. 😉

As I’ve already helped with the subtitles on Attacking the Darkness, it was a no-brainer that I’d also apply for Season 3. Let me tell you: It’s an epic (pun intended) Season and I’m proud to be a part of it, even if it’s only through contributing to the subtitles (Episode 5 and 8 are completely translated by me, Episode 9 until ~3/4 minutes and there are edits by me all over the place 😉 ). 🙂

Glitch

Another gaming related web series that was partly created by ZOE, featuring at least four of their returning cast members (Jesse Lee Keeter, Conner Marx, Brian S. Lewis and Trin Miller). The series is about a young Game Tester (Glitch) who’s bored with his life and wishes that it would become more like a video game – which of course becomes true, but different then he expected, as now he occasionally gets stuck in Glitches. The idea is fun and it has some funny moments, but also some really strange and weird ones. It is especially strange to see Keeter, the Glitch actor, out of his Rilk costume (though I have to admit, it took me a while to recognize him in The Gamers: Hands of Fate too…).

And now for the other stuff I watched in bulk, but was too lazy to discuss:

When you start a series, you have to catch up with new stuff, so of course I watched Orange is the New Black Season 4, started with Lucifer Season 2, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D Season 4 (even if I forgot to talk about Season 3 – Episode 10-17 somehow) and Elementary Season 4 and continued with Marvel’s Netflix adventures and Luke Cage Season 1.

I think, I don’t need to discuss the horrible twist we saw in OITNB, it’s been discussed enough and I still think that losing Poussey (especially that way) was a bold, yet somehow necessary, move to stir up some things that are rarely talked about. She’ll be missed in the coming Seasons… (Did anyone read the book and knows if this really happened?)

Just as bold was the whole story telling of Luke Cage. I loved it. A cast true to the demographics of Harlem (even if that meant I had to watch it with subtitles, as I did not always understand people, but that’s a small price to pay), strong female leads that aren’t just there for the eye candy, important topics, no focus on unnecessary sex- (the one that we saw was an interesting contrast to the ones on Jessica Jones) or fight-scenes, everything that was said/done got straight to the point, interesting, multifaceted characters and all in all just an incredible narration (If your German is good enough, check out Joseph’s great review here: Luke Cage). The only thing I missed were comments regarding the Hulk who „broke Harlem“ during his last visit, though that was probably already water under the bridge.
As I summarized on Twitter, I’d quite like a show with this premise:

Daredevil’s theme song, Jessica Jones‚ diversity & Luke Cage’s storytelling. Anyone knows something like that? 😀

S.H.I.E.L.D. and Lucifer had some nice turns this Season (Ward finally gone, Ghostrider, Uriel & Mom, telling Linda the truth), but haven’t gotten much different to what they showed last Season(s). Elementary is basically the same old story, but a nice diversion.

In addition to that did I also complete Dead Like Me (including the Movie), Lost Girl and got up to date with The Librarians. Where the first two had interesting premises the result was soon boring and weird (never entirely got over „Der Waffelhaus“, that grammar mistake just makes my skin crawl…). Both shows could have been something great the Grim Reapers and the Succubus? Yeah, that made for interesting story material, but it focused too much on trivialities and too little on actual character development. After Rube was gone Dead Like Me went downhill, probably even before that. Just like Lost Girl made a dive down with the whole Hades-thing and love-triangles/rectangle-thing and Bo’s horrible case of Main-Character-Syndrome, it got annoying after the second iteration of her saving the day because of … reasons … Other than that was it a great show, with a relatively diverse cast and an interesting premise. Even if again all the characters I liked either ended up dead or leaving the show…

The Librarians on the other hand still needs to find its footing. It’s fun and I really liked the movies preceding it, but there isn’t much in terms of character development. What little they had was either retconed or undermined by other actions. And the Point of Salvation was one of the better time-loop episodes I’ve seen so far and a prime example of what I just said. Both Season finales (And the Loom of Fate and And the Final Curtain) had me on edge and it’s generally great story telling, if I would get some deeper connection to the characters (and Agent Baird – I always want to hear/read Bard somehow – wouldn’t turn into a lovesick puppy whenever Flint is around…)…well, we’ll see what Season 3 brings.

I also tried Alphas for two episodes (two-parter unfortunately), but it didn’t quite catch me. My venture into Hemlock Grove lasted for Season 1 and the first Episode of Season 2, but I haven’t continued yet. Maybe it’s partly due to the fact that I want to know how it’s written after Season 1, as I’d like to see if the twist is as well written, as it is portrayed and partly because that ending was kind of good and I’m not sure I like the turns made in that first Episode of the second Season. Maybe I’ll try continuing one day, who knows.

When I’m not catching up with up-to-date shows I started watching Castle. Before I’ve only seen a few Episodes here and there when I was at my Dads at the right time, but now I’ve seen Season 1-4 and a couple of Episodes of Season 5, but I’m currently taking a break as a part of me is afraid to see what will become of Castle and Beckett and how it’s handled, while the other one wants to finally finish the Advent Calendar I have planned for this year. >_<

Hence my Tweet:

Is it weird that I started watching a show about a writer doing research, while I should be writing myself?

Different movies

Most of the movies in this list came through Netflix. I just scrolled through different categories and decided to watch them on a whim. This way I watched No Filter – I believe – my first Spanish movie (with subtitles) and I was highly surprised and amazed by the concept of a timid woman just blurring out everything that was on her mind. Some people need to do that more often. 😉 It was refreshing and well made, a recommendation for everyone who wants to try something different. 🙂

I also discovered Ellen Page’s Roller Girl and Tallulah through this. Roller Girl was great and it just shows that sometimes being yourself means becoming someone entirely different and that’s absolutely okay. More people should watch it. 😀 The pretty much only thing I got from Tallulah was an earworm of Sonata Arctica’s song by the same name. It was strange, jumpy, yet still well played, but not really my kind of movie.

Neither was The Fundamentals of Caring which felt like it wanted to capture the success of Intouchables, but failed pretty horribly. I did not want to see a five minute scenery shot of a boy peeing into a beautiful lake … Most of it felt forced and meh, not even close to the French stories‘ atmosphere.

Aside from new discoveries did I also re-watch some „old“ favourites. Namely Alfie and Avengers. Honestly I have to say that I did not remember Alfie as dark as it was and with a look into the Behind the Scenes stuff regarding the original version, I now know that it could have been worse. It’s a fascinating character study and known far too little. Unlike the other that is part of a high grossing franchise. I just felt like re-watching it.

It was a tiny bit a preparation for Doctor Strange that I saw in cinema earlier this month, but not really. The movie is visually amazing. The story is nothing new, Doctor Strange reminded me a lot of Cumberbatch’s other roles (mostly Sherlock though), but was still filled with some funny jokes and stunning visual effects (though – unlike Ghostbusters – they didn’t use the coming-out-of-the-screen 3D effect, at least not that I noticed… 🙁 ). My favourite was certainly the Cloak of Levitation. 😀
Only downside for me was, that you couldn’t really grasp the time line. Some say the initial accident takes place during Iron Man 2, potentially making the „man with the twisted spine from experimental battle armour“ the one from Hammer Industries – which is denied by Marvel – otherwise this could be Rhodey after Civil War, yet he is seemingly too old and it’s also denied or unconfirmed. We also see the Avenger’s tower which wasn’t really like that during the time – it wasn’t even Stark Tower back then if I remember correctly. If it all takes place after Civil War then the training sequence is far too short. Sure Strange might be skilled and desperate to learn, but mastering something in a couple of months, when he isn’t really mastering his own hands after weeks/months of surgeries and mistrials? Sound unreasonable to me – and I know we’re talking about magic, but come on…have at least SOME realism here….
(Again, if your German is well enough, check out Joseph’s review: Doctor Strange).

On an unrelated note do I now own an official movie poster after participating in a selfie-competition by Marvel and the KaDeWe (Kaufhaus des Westens, Mall of the West) Berlin. >_<

What were you watching?

What episodes (or movies) did you enjoy/dislike throughout the week/month(s)?
Anything you’d recommend checking out?
Let me know in the comments below!

Final Words

I hope you enjoyed this little look into the different stuff I watched throughout the last months.
Which version of the WWW do you prefer? The one were I split everything or were I focus on something?

No idea when I’ll even make one of these again, but make sure to keep an eye out for more information on my Advent Calendar. 😉

And I’m off now to attend the advanced showing of Fantastic Beasts and where to find them with Unmei and one of her friends as a birthday present for her. 😉

PoiSonPaiNter

What'cha Watching Wednesday – Special: Evil RPGs

Well, I spontaneously decided that you’ll get another Special instead of the usual update, as I am a) too lazy to finish that one and b) have too much to say about one of the films which will also c) lead to a Lost in Translation post (potentially next week).

A Paint drawing of a television with the titlle "What'cha watching wednesday" on the screen

What is the WWW generally about?

Every other Wednesday evening I will publish a post in which I collected the thoughts I had throughout the week(s) while watching the latest or any episode of a series or maybe even a movie.

Depending on how my time allows it, the comment will also be for those that I watched that day.

You’re warned: There will be Spoilers.

Introduction

Last time I told you about The Gamers, this time I want to talk about some other projects Zombie Orpheus Entertainment (ZOE) is involved in – or created.
The movies are connected through the cast and crew, but still have a different approach to the same topic. But read for yourself.

Dark Dungeons

This short movie tells the story of Debbie and Marcie who come from a Christian background but are drawn into the depths and evilness of the world of RPG. Though through their ordeals and the loss of Marcie, Debbie finds her way back to Jesus.
Anyway.
The movie is based on the tract Dark Dungeons by Jack T. Chick LLC (from 1984) that tells the same story in an abbreviated version and therefore has some really strange views on the whole matter of what RPGs are really about.

It has a lot of „WTF“ moment, where you’re not entirely sure what you should think, especially when Roleplayers are put on a pedestal that is usually occupied by the sports-teams, people are chanting „RPG“ and are so deeply engrossed in the game that they forget reality. At the same time – especially the latter – it is something that could be true. People could lose themselves in a fantastical world and it’s a bit frightening to see it escalate like that on the screen – even if you still can’t take it too seriously. Not uncommon, however, is the portrayed fear that playing RPGs and letting your imagination grow through it is a gateway to hell and even though I’ve never experienced that first hand, do I know the weird looks one gets when you try to explain what it is your doing (and of course all the media hysteria towards it whenever something goes wrong…). It’s usually frowned upon to participate in such things, because their childish and ridiculous, so seeing it be the „in“-thing on a campus is kind of incredible, yet still really weird, as it’s portrayed so over the top that it’s not believable any more. Though I do believe the latter stems from the tone of the original tract that portrayed it similarly.

It’s interesting to see the two main characters switch personalities throughout the movie and the gaming Mistress is positively frightening, just as some of the other characters were slightly psychotic, very strange and stuff (I guess, I still don’t really understand the part with the Chuthulu-cult… guess that was a bit too much for my taste)…
Regardless of the characters involved do I believe that the most horrible scene of the whole thing was the book burning (which is especially weird, if you think about the fact that someone dies in this movie o.O). Everything hurt when I saw those beautiful (and expensive) things thrown into the fire…I guess I myself am too deeply involved to be unfazed by this. 😀

To sum this up: It’s a very weird and very strange movie and you should watch it yourself to make your own opinion – and to have a little more fun with:

Attacking the Darkness

Attacking the Darkness (AtD) is the first Mockumentary ZOE created that was filmed on the set of another feature film (guess which one ;)). It documents the trials and errors of a very Christian couple that is filming their own independent feature film to show the horrors and evils of gaming, especially RPGs. But they soon realise that film making is not really an easy business …

The movie was released for a week during the Kickstarter campaign (and is currently only available on private setting – so thanks to Producer Chris Ode for giving me the okay to include the link here) to help fund the DVD production and I took the chance to watch it.
Later on a few poor souls that volunteered to help with the translation received a link again. Well, who am I to pass off the chance to add German subtitles to something that I’m sure some of my friends (with less English knowledge than myself) would certainly enjoy? 😉

Anyway, (and I’m basically rephrasing a comment I made on one of the Kickstarter-Updates) when I watched the film during the trial run, it was okay, but not more.
Now that I’ve went through it minute by minute, I’ve seen way more stuff that makes it incredibly special. Things you don’t catch through casually watching it.

It was a lot of work, it was a bit annoying (especially the puns were hard to translate and this’ll be the topic of the Lost in Translation post I mentioned), but was totally worth it and I started to appreciate this film even more for all it’s hidden complexities.

As it is a Mockumentary the movie is told by either showing interviews with the different characters or their interactions as filmed through different cameras while „filming“ the movie.
This also means that the following very confusing description applies: The actors from AtD play the actors hired to play the characters – who incidentally are the same people/characters in the other movie – in the movie „Attacking the Darkness“ whose filming is documented in AtD. I really hope I got that right. >_<
Additionally, were most – if not all – of the interviews improvised, meaning that at least the actors who portrayed the main characters Harmony Hope and Brady made up everything they said in their interviews on the spot and the camera just kept rolling. The movie feels kind of similar to what you know from „Behind the Scenes“ stuff, but as the topic – and some of the characters – can be quite over the top, you never really forget that this is all make belief.
The characters themselves range from totally adorable (Lucy and Pastor Doug) to absolutely frustrating (Harmony Hope) or questionable (Pastor Canon, Godrick), but all so very realistic and refreshingly human, with a lot of puns, jokes and very human reactions.

My highlight certainly was when „real Gamers“ were introduced to the set and one of them turned out to be Gary from The Gamers (From what I read during the campaign, was there also a scene with Lodge, but it was cut because it made things too complicated). 😀 Though it is weird to hear Christian Doyle’s voice in almost every interview – except the one with his character – but not really know if it is Gary asking those questions after realising how much fun he could have with the creators of this movie or just a random interviewer that just happens to sound like him – which Gary’s questions in the interview would suggest as he talks to Brian Lewis (Brady) and wouldn’t say those things to the Producer.

[Edit: I just found this Tweet again that I do not want keep from you:

Yeah, I’m really good at (mis)reading stuff…]

All in all does the movie have several moments that are just really funny or absolutely adorable – the whole sub-plot with Doug and Lucy was adorable and provided quite a few funny moments and I do believe „Cheesus“ is still one of SaJaehwa and my favourites, even if it was tricky to translate – , but also some very questionable things (one word: credits).

One of the gaming unrelated things I appreciated most was that one of the pastors – Doug – was not portrayed as religious dimwit – which is most likely thanks to the fact that the actor is a real life pastor (Doug’s whole journey and story line was great and reminded me somewhat of Coelestin’s in Warlords – just with way less physical pain). 😉

Apart from the fact that the English „pastor“ is a very confusing term for me (it is the translation of both „Pfarrer“ – catholic pastor/priest, that’s not allowed to have a family AND „Pastor“ – evangelic pastor, that’s allowed to have a family), is the portrayal of clerics in modern media usually quite frustrating.
When I was preparing for my confirmation (Yup, I’m actually Evangelic – or Protestant or Lutheran or however you translate „evangelisch“) we had two incredible pastors in our and the neighbouring parish: Funny, open minded, musical and not too stern and focused on teaching us the religious aspects of our belief. They didn’t tell us that we needed to do this-and-that to be good Christians, they simply gave us a good example of how to be a good person. I still occasionally remember the hiking trip to Norway with them and if it weren’t for the few prayers and some biblical stories and songs you wouldn’t have thought this to be a religious group trip (Incidentally was this also the trip that turned the son of one of the pastors into a Metalhead – thanks to me and Avantasia – as I learned years later from Lil‘ kat, when we discovered that I „knew“ her best friend :D).
Anyway, what I want to say with this is: I get that it’s fun to ridicule religion/religious belief and that there actually are a lot of people in the profession that deal with things like Pastor Canon does, but in the end it’s people like Pastor Doug who actually help people through their difficulties, that show them that religion can be a good thing. And I think it’s incredible that they included him in the cast – even if in the beginning he seemed to follow Canon a bit too closely for my taste, but I do blame that on Harmony who wanted to hear such ridiculous prayer s…

Either way, he came into his own and to answer ZOE’s question from another of their Kickstarter-Updates again:

„(Also, for those of you who have seen the film, who would want to see a Gamers special episode with Pastor Doug and Lucy leading an RPG session for the youth group?)“
Do I want to see more of the characters that easily became my favourites?
Hell – I mean – Oh, yeah! 😀

What were you watching?

What episodes (or movies) did you enjoy/dislike throughout the week/month?
Anything you’d recommend checking out?
Let me know in the comments below!

Final Words

I hope you enjoyed this little look into this special project and are at least a little curious about what I’m going to tell you about creating the German subtitles for Attacking the Darkness. 😉
I’ll probably share this post again, when I receive my copy of the movie (with „my“ translation on it 😀 ). 😉

PoiSonPaiNter

What’cha Watching Wednesday: The Gamers-Special

Instead of my usual What’cha Watching Wednesday I’d like to focus on a certain project of Zombie Orpheus Entertainment (ZOE) and Dead Gentlemen Productions (DGP) that I re-watched since the last instalment (The other stuff will be included in the next official one).

A Paint drawing of a television with the titlle "What'cha watching wednesday" on the screen

What is the WWW generally about?

Every fourth Wednesday evening I will publish a post in which I collected the thoughts I had throughout the week(s) while watching the latest or any episode of a series or maybe even a movie.

Depending on how my time allows it, the comment will also be for those that I watched that day.

You’re warned: There will be Spoilers.

Introduction

All the stuff listed below are „Fan supported“ and „Creator distributed“, which means they were financed through Kickstarter campaigns or continued support over their creators Patreon pages (ZOE, DGP). There is no TV channel/network or huge sponsors behind it and the fans‘ praises and complains are heard directly by the people involved – not that there is much to complain about…
People can also be directly involved, depending on their pledge-levels in the campaigns. They can become extras, producer for a day, chat with the cast/crew and other stuff. During the productions people are also allowed to announce a „Red Card“ – that they acquired during the campaigns – that sends an actor or other part of the production into a 5-min time out when they said or did something offensive. 😉

Anyway, let’s take a look at

The Gamers Saga

When I first watched JourneyQuest I soon discovered The Gamers: Dorkness Rising and was easily taken into it, before I realized it’s part of a larger story, but let me start at the beginning…

In 2002 a group of independent film makers got together to create something very special, a story about gamers, with gamers, for gamers that turned into a whole saga consisting of so far three feature films (The Gamers, The Gamers: Dorkness Rising and The Gamers: Hands of Fate) and an in progress series.
The respective stories follow a group of table top gamers (one in the first one, one for part two and three) and their campaigns, but instead of just talking the audience through what the characters are doing, the actors also take up the roles of their characters and show what is happening during the game, sometimes narrating or commenting it with gaming terms (Attack names, „Critical Hit“, etc.).

If you ever participated in a table top round, be it D&D, Pathfinder, DSA (Das Schwarze Auge)/TDE (The Dark Eye), Shadowrun or one of the many other RPGs, you’ll soon be engrossed in this universe. The characters act natural, the jokes are funny and the more you get involved, the more fascinating it gets. You can also see the increase in production value and lessons learned from previous endeavours. It’s great to follow the paths they took (this pun was not intended, but worth keeping, as the game they play is – based on? – Pathfinder) to create this saga and certainly worth many, many re-watches.

But let me tell you a bit about the stories of the different parts…

The Gamers

In the first part the group of gamers plays its way through a campaign with unusual methods, like thief Nimble sneak-attacking/backstabbing someone with a ballista, the Mage of the group being replaced by another one that is accepted on the spot and all the while annoying their poor dorm mate that just wants to study. In the course of their quest to defeat The Shadow! The Shadow? The Shadow… the gamers ultimately lead their characters through a portal into their own/our world, where the characters end up slaying them (their players).

It’s basic, it’s simply, it has quite a few stereotypes, but it’s still not over the top and quite enjoyable and of course the begin of something special. 😉

The Gamers: Dorkness Rising

Part two follows a new group of gamers lead by Lodge, who just wants his friends to finish a run for once, so he can turn it into a new module for the game. After some failed attempts they decide to add more players to the group, which are Joanna a newbie gamer and a NPC-character Lodge himself plays. With some difficulty (Gary wasting Level 4 spells on frying innocent NPCs and constantly forgetting that he’s actually playing a female; Leo’s bard that keeps dying, when he isn’t seducing random NPCs) they manage to beat the campaign that Lodge has designed. Though as the reward Joanna chooses for their quest enrages one of the gamers (Cass, Joanna’s Ex and the I-beat-every-game-there-is min/max wannabe-leader of the group) he storms off and leaves the group, while the rest remain dumbfounded.
Alas the others do not share his view and quite like the decision and want to know how the story continues, supporting Joanna and her way of gaming.
When Lodge finally releases his campaign Cass returns and reluctantly congratulates him and asks if he can return to the group, which the former accepts, but still leaves him standing, so Cass can apologize to Joanna.

This one went deeper than the first one, we learned more about the characters involved and got to like them. I really do enjoy Garys way of solving problems in-game, they are just absolutely hilarious at times and always totally chaotic. Even if I like all the gamers, he is kind of my favourite…
I really enjoyed the resolution of the „gamer girl“ sub-plot. The way they supported Joanna was just incredible and I like the characters even more for it. This part basically made me fall in love with the saga – though JourneyQuest is still a tiny bit above it. 😉

The Gamers: Hands of Fate

Part three takes a different turn. As life gets in the way of their actual gaming the members of the party started other adventures (Joanna and Lodge became a couple, Gary and Leo are busy with work), but here especially Cass learns the hard way that some games aren’t as stupid as they look from afar. Leo hosts a Card Gaming competition in his shop and Cass mocks it, but wants to immediately hook up with the only female gamer, who flat out rejects him and tells him the only chance he has to get a date with her is, if he gets her queen on the throne. Naturally Cass accepts the challenge and lets Leo guide him into the game „Romance of the 9 Kingdoms„; a story line based, user influenced card game; and ends up hijacking Lodge and Joannas trip to GenCon to include their whole group so he can participate in the tournament that would decide the fate of the story line within the game. Throughout Casses games we learn that the characters within the nine kingdoms have a mind of their own and slowly but surely become aware of what is happening to them. With some funny side stories (Joanna over-reacting over a ring she found in Lodges pocket, Gary exacting revenge on a mascot of a TV show that caused the cancellation of one of his favourite shows and Leo just trying to keep his people in check – and stumbling across a murder that is told in a novel where I’m not entirely sure if it’s tie-in, but sounds amazing…) the story culminates into an interesting, but foreseeable ending – at least on the card game story line – that I don’t want to spoil here. 😉
Finally a year after the Con the group manages to game again and continue their quest in the dungeon of The Shadow! The Shadow? The Shadow… yes, the same one.
In a cruel turn of events the gamers are transported into the realm of the game, while their characters appear in their world.

With the additional gaming world and the focus on the card game this part feels different than the previous one. It’s kind of strange for me to watch as well, as Cass is the most annoying character of the group, but I like how his ego gets a damper after the whole ordeal. I just really enjoyed the character development this Season – even if Joanna was the difficult one this time around. It’s also great to see that most of it was actually filmed at a con – even if I’m not entirely sure if it was the real GenCon and or the „fake“ ZOE Con, I lost track of what stuff was used from where [Edit thanks to Andi Dopieralski, see comments]- and it makes me want to attend an American con even more (we do have some Comic Con mock ups by now in Germany, but I don’t think they are anywhere close to the originals, I’ll find out in October).

Well, and this is where everything changes…

The Gamers: The Series – Season 0

It begins with a short that shows the old characters introducing themselves to the new ones which sets up the events of future Cross Over story lines (The Gamers was produced by DGP, the other two by ZOE).
The series 0 (zero not O) itself shows what happened to the original characters that got stuck in our world (at least they will as soon as the last part is released).

It’s a nice change of pace as the characters are narrating their fates that are visually shown. I already liked Nimble in the original movie (hello, ballista?), but his short made me like him even more, elven archer New Moon just has the most ridiculous short and I’m not entirely sure if I completely understood the one for the mage Magellan… The one for warrior Rogar is yet to be released, so I can’t say anything about it.

I’m really looking forward to the continuation of the series, where both stories connect…

So if you liked what you read – and maybe watched – so far, make sure to check out the Kickstarter DGP is running right now to fund the first episode of The Gamers: The Series! It will be a 45 min long episode that starts setting up the path that leads to The Gamers 4 (another path joke, I’m sorry…kinda…): The Gamers: Episode 1.

Natural One/Humans & Households

These two are also part of the Gamers universe, but more like add-ons than necessary to understand the whole plot.

Natural One takes Gary and Leo to Canada so Garys (possible) future brother-in-law can face his „Trial of Initiation“ in order to be allowed to marry Gary’s sister Monica. This time the game they play is set in a Cyberrun universe, but the concept is the same.

It is possible that this story is a prequel to ZOEs show Rude Mechanical, but I haven’t gotten around to actually watch it to make sure.

Humans & Households goes the other way round and shows a group of fantasy-gamers play a mundane game set in our world, where they have to survive crossing a street full of cars and house guardians (a very cute dog) and the simple fact that everything sounds too good to be true („The key is in the letter box“ – „It’s a trap!“).

While they’re fun, they’re not as great as the other parts as they’re too focused on being stand alone, but that shouldn’t stop you from checking them out as well. 😉
H&H is especially funny considering that they basically show how weird gamers act in a given situation (see trap-dialogue) and their kill-first-ask-questions-later mentality.

What were you watching?

What episodes (or movies) did you enjoy/dislike throughout the week/month?
Anything you’d recommend checking out?
Let me know in the comments below!

Final Words

I hope you enjoyed this little look into the universe of The Gamers and maybe you find it in yourself to help them continue to make this incredible show. I certainly did. 😉

Now I’m off to translate a few more minutes of Attacking the Darkness between sneezing, coughing and trumpeting (aka loudly blowing my nose).
Yay, for the Festival-flu…

PoiSonPaiNter

What’cha Watching Wednesday #10.2

As I told you did I split the last WWW, as it was just too much to write about, so here you have the second part of the tenth instalment as special edition, just for the movies.

WWWWhat is this about?

Every fourth Wednesday evening I will publish a post in which I collected the thoughts I had throughout the week(s) while watching the latest or any episode of a series or maybe even a movie.

Depending on how my time allows it, the comment will also be for those that I watched that day.

You’re warned: There will be Spoilers.

Let’s start

Different movies

These are the different movies I’ve seen before part one that I’m now covering in this part.

When I grew up Jim Carrey was in every other movie I saw and one of my favourite actors at the time, so it’s not surprising that I watched pretty much every re-run of The Mask that I could get my hands on. Until recently it’s been years since I last saw it and after a certain episode of Supernatural (namely Tall Tales) reminded me of Milo, the dog of main character Stanley Ipkiss I just felt the need to watch it again. I have to say I was slightly afraid it’d lag the spark I saw back when I grew up, but it’s just such a ridiculous movie that that fear was uncalled for. Sure it has some very questionable scenes, but they fit into the narration about this totally chaotic character of the mask. I didn’t bother with the sequel though, as I remember it being horrible.
Speaking of old movies, I’m not entirely sure what made me re-watch Space Jam after all these years, but I do believe it might have been the fact that I saw it on Netflix and felt like it. 😉 While it is – and was – blunt in a few places the overall charme was not lost and it was just as quirky and fun as I remembered. So I kind of feel like that we had a different cut in Germany as I missed a few scenes (I think The Mask had the same problem). Are they really going to make a sequel? o.O

This time around there were a couple of movies I actually went to see in the cinema. The first of them was Deadpool. A lot of people already made great reviews about it, so I’m not going into too much detail here. Even if I enjoyed Marvel’s heroes – especially the X-Men and Spider-Man – in their cartoon versions back in the day, I never really knew about Deadpool. But with a Tumblr comes knowledge and I soon grew curious about the actual Merc with a Mouth that I had only seen in his failed iteration in the Wolverine movie we’re not talking about. So I read up on him, got hooked and subsequently excited for the movie and I was not disappointed. Deadpool comes with a refreshing twist to everything you know from watching superhero movies.
The movie doesn’t take itself serious (Credits, 4th-Wall-breaking, …) and is pretty realistic – except for the part where Deadpool goes on a killing spree because he wants to look pretty again for his girl. Yeah, that and the kiss-and-fade-out ending was what bugged me most about it, but I can overlook that for the sake of the overall humour and fact that it’s filled with tons of references. The latter probably made it hard for people not familiar with the Marvel franchise to watch it – and therefore less enjoyable, which is a pity as this one is just a lot of fun.

Let’s stay with Marvel and skip a few movies times wise: X-Men: Apocalypse. As I’ve seen the cartoon version of the Apocalypse story line I was kind of expecting something different. It was strange already that the cast fighting him would be so young – and I think by now I’m pretty much lost as to when something in the new time line takes place anyway – even if they brought back one of my favourite X-Men: Nightcrawler. Well, his introduction was strange, fighting with Angel in a cage fight? I’ve never heard of that version before… and why was Mystique there? Did she want to stop the mutant-cage-fights? Did she just want to protect her son? Is Kurt even her son in this universe? o.O
The most confusing part, however, was Magneto in Poland(?) with a six year old (?) daughter and wife and then there is Peter/Quicksilver not looking a day older than the last time they met, suddenly knowing he is his father, but unable to tell him, while every one else knows from Mystique? I’m getting confused again just writing this down … as I said, I’m totally lost at the time line, so if anyone can point me to a proper graph about it, be my guest! Additionally to that the titular antagonist was kind of a wimp. How did Black Kat put it? „All he could do was enhance peoples abilities and move sand around“
What was that about? They introduced him as character that accumulated the mutants powers whose bodies he took over (power #3?), but they never showed any of the others – not even the regeneration ability of the last one he became. That was seriously a let down.
It was interesting to see a different iteration of the known cast, but the overall story dragged on and was quite full of strange moments.

One more Mavel movie to go: Captain America: Civil War – or actually Nearly all of the Avengers and three new guys. Fight and story wise was it impressive, I still couldn’t say if I’d be #TeamCap or #TeamIronMan both have valid points in the whole political issue their facing, so I decided to be #TeamAvengers, where everyone just sits down, seriously discusses their points and starts working together again. But yeah, that’s probably just me wanting to find a compromise between both sides. The movie itself was a good mixture of action and character development, even if some stuff felt a bit rushed. Especially weird was the whole thing with Captain America and Shannon Carter shortly after Peggy Carters funeral ( 🙁 ) that never even really been hinted at before (except maybe a few-seconds-long scene in Winter Soldier). An unnecessary addition to an otherwise great movie.

One of the new additions, even if we’ve seen him before was Paul Rudd’s Ant Man. Usually movies he’s in are feel-good romcoms and somehow I just felt like watching some of them. So I followed Netflix’s recommendations and watched  Our Idiot Brother and I love you, Man. Both very different movies, that still work well thanks to Rudd’s charm. In the first one he plays a hippy that stumbles from one faux pas into the next. The character seems simple minded, but it buries a certain anger and determination behind it. There is an incredible outburst from the otherwise happy character that just gets to you. In the beginning I always say I’m using spoilers, but here I don’t want to say what brings up this reaction, for people who still want to experience it. 🙂
I love you, Man has not just a weird title (I prefer the German one „Trauzeuge gesucht!“/Best Man Wanted!) but also a very strange story line. For most part of the movie I kind of waited for the moment where Rudd’s friendless character without a best man for his wedding, calls off the wedding to get together with his new best friend. This wasn’t improved as the ending pretty much showed them declaring their love for each other (as the title would suggest) directly in front of the actual couple taking their vows. It’s just weird … letting those two guys end up as an actual couple might have improved the whole thing.

Speaking of strange movies. While I was in London with Janzy we used the possibility to watch a few movies „for free“ (I’ll explain, whenever I get to writing that travel logue) and ended up watching Hail Caesar! and Youth. Both movies offered a plethora (sorry, couldn’t resist this word is just as much fun as flabbergasted) of great and well known actors (George Clooney, Ralph Fiennes, Scarlett Johansson, Tilda Swinton and Jeff Lewis from The Guild! 😀 for Ceasar and Michael Caine, Harvey Keitel, Jane Fonda and Rachel Weisz for Youth), but were story-wise totally confusing. Youth jumped through hallucinations, while Caesar added a very weird communistic „plot“. I mean one of the characters was picked up by a Russian submarine from the beach. o.O
Just very strange movies that we’re glad, we didn’t had to pay for directly…

When we got back from the trip we decided to watch Notting Hill while relaxing from the flight as we had spent more than an hour trying to find the book store used in the filming of this flick…it was Janzy’s idea/wish… Anyway, I had actually never seen the movie before, so I was surprised to find well rounded comedy in a movie that’s praised for being oh-so-romantic. Sure it had the obligatory silly, predictable and partly unrealistic love story, but the antics and humour of the characters made up for it.

As I mentioned in part one did I enjoy Matt Ryan as an actor, so I took a look at two movies he had stared in: Miss Pettigrew lives for a Day and Flypaper. I was certainly confused that he was listed for the former when he made an appearance of maybe 3 seconds. Again these movies couldn’t be more different and I can certainly recommend the first one. It’s funny, it’s witty, it’s all over the place and still lovely. And it’s certainly impressive how much you can do in the time of a day and a bit if you’ve gotten yourself mixed in with the right/wrong people … it’s hectic, but in a good way, just go and watch it! 😀
Flypaper on the other hand was … strange … I’m not entirely sure I understood it. It was complex and confusing and suddenly everyone was dead, well almost everyone. The concept and the character-interactions were interesting though.

After I finished reading The Restaurant at the end of the Universe I decided to watch The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy again, just to see how different the whole thing was from the original. Not knowing the books it was enjoyable, but now that I know what actually was supposed to happen I was a bit disappointed at all the good stuff they left out and all the strange stuff they instead focused on. It was still fun to watch, but it could have been better – though the fly swatter field was something I would have enjoyed in the books as well…

I don’t think I have anything more to say for Mara und der Feuerbringer than what I did with the review. I just felt like watching it again, it’s such a great movie…

A not so great movie on the other hand was Warcraft. I admit I never played the games (too easily bored to commit to something so expensive) or cared much about it’s lore. But when I saw the trailer on the big screen, before X-Men, I believe, I got curious. It looked incredible. When our local cinema included the movie in their discount week (only 8€ instead of ~12€ for the ticket) I asked around if someone wanted to see it as well and in the end we were a group of five; the other four getting the discount and I got the ticket for free. For the record: From the five of us only one had ever played it.
Let me quote my comment from Geekritique’s review again:

Even without knowledge it at least is a movie that’s nice to watch without having to think too much – at least you shouldn’t think, because if you do, you get awfully frustrated. The graphics are amazing, but the plot was horrible and even if we kind of expected that from the get go [from reviews that Black Kat had read ahead of the screening] there still was a slight hope that it would not be this awful.

That pretty much says it all. It could have been something really amazing, but no, they made something filled with tropes, blunt and weird at times. I admit the portrayal of the main Orc characters was interesting, but I didn’t get why they put the focus on them whereas the whole game is on the humans story (at least that’s what I know, please correct me if I’m wrong here). They kind of poured pretty much all of what little characterization they had into the Orcs. This made me want to see more of Durotan story line and as usual then he just died…

But that wasn’t the strangest thing: What’s up with Orcs breaking off their dead parents tusks? o.O
Why would anyone gift anyone the dusk of their dead relative as a token of affection? o.O
What the hell? o.O
Needless to say this was the subject of a few jokes afterwards, the ones about false teeth were the best…

I was also quite confused about Anduin Lothar. For the first part of the movie everyone calls him Lothar  – which is an interesting choice of name by the way, as that is an Old High German name and a variation of the Germanic Clothar  and basically means „loud Warrior“ – and then suddenly the King refers to him as Anduin. At first I thought this was just a word for friend – you know, like LotRs „Mellon“ – or brother-in-law, but as it turns out that is his first name … the only character to have a first name or a last name at least.

Long story short:

There are way more interesting Fantasy/Gaming flicks than this. Zombie Orpheus’/Dead Gentlemen’s The Gamers, Journey Quest or their other projects or The Guild or Mara and the Firebringer as a Fantasy movie.
Even Knights of Badassdom has more substance than this at times…

You can find another great review – if your German is good enough – here at What’s best in Life?: Warcraft: The Beginning.

What were you watching?

What episodes (or movies) did you enjoy/dislike throughout the week/month?
Anything you’d recommend checking out?
Let me know in the comments below!

Final Words

I hope you enjoyed this little look into the different stuff I watched throughout the last months.
The next instalment will probably feature both series and movies again and will be published at the 6th July.

PoiSonPaiNter