The story of my obsession =D
Posted: April 15th, 2012, 12:45 amHello all! Ninaroja here!
And first off, may I just say how happy I am to have finally found an Active forum dedicated to my all time favourite movie! I've joined countless forums only to discover the most recent posts were from like 6 years ago. Darn
(I'm loving the smilies already!!)
As a few basic facts, my name is Lucy. I'm almost 16 years old. I love animals, am a vegetarian, and aspire to become a vet when I'm older.
On to the main part of this post, I've always wanted to explain the evolution of my undying love for TLK, but have never found an appropriate place or someone who was interested enough to listen, plus I love creative writing, so here we go!
(This could get quite long, I hope there isn't a character limit!
)
I don't remember the first time I saw The Lion King, but I'm guessing I was around two or three at the time. Despite no recollection of it, I know that without a doubt I was hooked from the very beginning. Although I was born/live in Northern Ireland, I spent three years of my life (from ages 2 to 5) living in Chicago, Illinois. I was at a church fair with my mum, when on one of the displays I spotted a Simba doll. I knew I had to have it, and upon further investigation I discovered a lion king read-and-listen cassette tape (though without a book) was also included in a bundle. All together they were being sold for $5. Years down the line, I would discover an online collector who was willing to pay more than $300 for the same exact one. It didn't stop there though. In a supermarket about a year later, when I was 3 or 4, I saw a huge display of CD-ROMs. My family had recently purchased our first ever computer, and I used to spend hours on it, playing games, and I was always open to new ones. However, these were not just CD-ROMs. These were "Disney's The Lion King Interactive Story Book" CD-ROMs. I berated my mother once more. I had to have it. I NEEDED to have it.
My list of TLK memorabilia continues: a Nala doll for my 8th birthday, the official Lion King hardback illustrated storybook, a comic book I saw in a petrol station and bought for £4.50...
Then, when I was 7, the Lion King: Special Edition, was released on DVD. Once again, my young fangirl mind flew into a whirl. The commercial I had seen had said "for a limited time only". I began to panic that I wouldn't be able to get my hands on a copy in time! As ever, my poor mum had to deal with my pleas and desperate cries. She caved and bought the DVD, much to my delight. I must have watched it three times the day she brought it to me, lapped up every bonus feature on both discs, played through all of Timon and Pumbaas virtual safari outcomes...
I made my first few steps into the world of fanfiction when I was 10. I had two close friends in Primary school. We were considered the "weird" ones, but we really didn't care. I had no idea that they shared my love for TLK ( though on a far less obsessive level than mine), so imagine my surprise when one of them said "Let's play the lion king!"
"Oh!" said the other, "I love that film!"
Although we just started out playing through the story, assuming the different roles as needed (we all fought over who would play Simba. Sadly I didn't get the part
) it soon evolved into so much more. We made up our own characters, invented side stories and plot lines, even had several sequels once we made it to the end of the original film. It was my idea that we write it all down, and we did. It was the time of my life...
Sadly, it wasn't to last. Soon it was time for us to part ways when we moved to secondary school. It was then that I made many mistakes. I decided that "Disney was for babies". I shoved all my CD-ROMs, toys and books into the attic, I threw out my comic ( something I really regret now) and shoved my beloved DVD to the very back of the cabinet, where it stayed for years, forgotten.
I hadn't forgotten my love for TLK, but I still denied it. Before, when I would make up my own private TLK stories in my head (separate from the ones my friends and I did) I stopped. If someone asked me what my favourite movie was I would tell them "Slumdog millionaire". I didn't watch the film, I didn't feverishly look up AMVs on YouTube, I didn't read the Wikipedia article over and over like I had used to.
I knew for a long time that a major part of my life was missing, but still chose to ignore it and push it away.
Three and a half years later, I finally came to my senses.
I was alone in my house. My parents had gone away for the weekend, my sister was out, and I was bored. I wanted to watch a film, one that I hadn't seen for a long time. I opened the cabinet and searched through it, discarding each DVD for one reason or another, then I finally pulled it out: my extremely dusty, battered TLK DVD.
"Why not?" I thought, "blast from the past and all that."
I watched it the whole way through without pausing once. That part of my life, the gaping hole in my heart... I had just found the missing puzzle piece. I sang every song, could practically recite the dialogue by heart, and, what I found strangest, I sobbed my heart out when Mufasa died, something that had never happened before...
That afternoon of DVD watching, about a year ago now, rekindled some sort of fire within me. I sought out all my lion king stuff. My Simba doll is sitting beside me on my bed right now, I played my computer game last week, I spend hours every day looking up the lion king on YouTube. I could go on for hours with this list.
I'll tie it up here: I now write TLK fanfiction ( I'll make a post on the fanfiction board once this post gets approved) and dragged my friends to TLK3D last October. On a school language trip to france I found the same exact lion king comic that Id thrown away all those years ago in a supermarket ( in French, but since I've spent almost 5 years learning French now I can pretty much understand it).
So, that's my story. I am obsessed with The Lion King, more than anything else in the world. Thank you so much for reading, and I can't wait to get started here!
And first off, may I just say how happy I am to have finally found an Active forum dedicated to my all time favourite movie! I've joined countless forums only to discover the most recent posts were from like 6 years ago. Darn
(I'm loving the smilies already!!)As a few basic facts, my name is Lucy. I'm almost 16 years old. I love animals, am a vegetarian, and aspire to become a vet when I'm older.
On to the main part of this post, I've always wanted to explain the evolution of my undying love for TLK, but have never found an appropriate place or someone who was interested enough to listen, plus I love creative writing, so here we go!
(This could get quite long, I hope there isn't a character limit!
)I don't remember the first time I saw The Lion King, but I'm guessing I was around two or three at the time. Despite no recollection of it, I know that without a doubt I was hooked from the very beginning. Although I was born/live in Northern Ireland, I spent three years of my life (from ages 2 to 5) living in Chicago, Illinois. I was at a church fair with my mum, when on one of the displays I spotted a Simba doll. I knew I had to have it, and upon further investigation I discovered a lion king read-and-listen cassette tape (though without a book) was also included in a bundle. All together they were being sold for $5. Years down the line, I would discover an online collector who was willing to pay more than $300 for the same exact one. It didn't stop there though. In a supermarket about a year later, when I was 3 or 4, I saw a huge display of CD-ROMs. My family had recently purchased our first ever computer, and I used to spend hours on it, playing games, and I was always open to new ones. However, these were not just CD-ROMs. These were "Disney's The Lion King Interactive Story Book" CD-ROMs. I berated my mother once more. I had to have it. I NEEDED to have it.
My list of TLK memorabilia continues: a Nala doll for my 8th birthday, the official Lion King hardback illustrated storybook, a comic book I saw in a petrol station and bought for £4.50...
Then, when I was 7, the Lion King: Special Edition, was released on DVD. Once again, my young fangirl mind flew into a whirl. The commercial I had seen had said "for a limited time only". I began to panic that I wouldn't be able to get my hands on a copy in time! As ever, my poor mum had to deal with my pleas and desperate cries. She caved and bought the DVD, much to my delight. I must have watched it three times the day she brought it to me, lapped up every bonus feature on both discs, played through all of Timon and Pumbaas virtual safari outcomes...
I made my first few steps into the world of fanfiction when I was 10. I had two close friends in Primary school. We were considered the "weird" ones, but we really didn't care. I had no idea that they shared my love for TLK ( though on a far less obsessive level than mine), so imagine my surprise when one of them said "Let's play the lion king!"
"Oh!" said the other, "I love that film!"
Although we just started out playing through the story, assuming the different roles as needed (we all fought over who would play Simba. Sadly I didn't get the part
) it soon evolved into so much more. We made up our own characters, invented side stories and plot lines, even had several sequels once we made it to the end of the original film. It was my idea that we write it all down, and we did. It was the time of my life...Sadly, it wasn't to last. Soon it was time for us to part ways when we moved to secondary school. It was then that I made many mistakes. I decided that "Disney was for babies". I shoved all my CD-ROMs, toys and books into the attic, I threw out my comic ( something I really regret now) and shoved my beloved DVD to the very back of the cabinet, where it stayed for years, forgotten.
I hadn't forgotten my love for TLK, but I still denied it. Before, when I would make up my own private TLK stories in my head (separate from the ones my friends and I did) I stopped. If someone asked me what my favourite movie was I would tell them "Slumdog millionaire". I didn't watch the film, I didn't feverishly look up AMVs on YouTube, I didn't read the Wikipedia article over and over like I had used to.
I knew for a long time that a major part of my life was missing, but still chose to ignore it and push it away.
Three and a half years later, I finally came to my senses.
I was alone in my house. My parents had gone away for the weekend, my sister was out, and I was bored. I wanted to watch a film, one that I hadn't seen for a long time. I opened the cabinet and searched through it, discarding each DVD for one reason or another, then I finally pulled it out: my extremely dusty, battered TLK DVD.
"Why not?" I thought, "blast from the past and all that."
I watched it the whole way through without pausing once. That part of my life, the gaping hole in my heart... I had just found the missing puzzle piece. I sang every song, could practically recite the dialogue by heart, and, what I found strangest, I sobbed my heart out when Mufasa died, something that had never happened before...
That afternoon of DVD watching, about a year ago now, rekindled some sort of fire within me. I sought out all my lion king stuff. My Simba doll is sitting beside me on my bed right now, I played my computer game last week, I spend hours every day looking up the lion king on YouTube. I could go on for hours with this list.
I'll tie it up here: I now write TLK fanfiction ( I'll make a post on the fanfiction board once this post gets approved) and dragged my friends to TLK3D last October. On a school language trip to france I found the same exact lion king comic that Id thrown away all those years ago in a supermarket ( in French, but since I've spent almost 5 years learning French now I can pretty much understand it).
So, that's my story. I am obsessed with The Lion King, more than anything else in the world. Thank you so much for reading, and I can't wait to get started here!
