My compliments on your writing, first and foremost. You have the very admirable talent of capturing complex emotions in simple words.

I don't think I can chime in perfectly in the chorus of people who recognise their own lives in this entry, but I might write a part somewhere below the main melody.

I turn 25 in a month, though really the number sounds foreign in my ears. I don't think I can be counted as 25 years old. I was extremely anxious as a child, and never much in touch with the real world: imagination was a fortress that I hid in, and I hid so deep that I didn't even notice comments about me being immature when I grew into a teenager. In all honesty, I never was a teenager. My body grew but my mind was on developmental pause in a child's world of ghosts, fae, and dragons. It shaped me into an apt storyteller, but also deprived me of a decade's schooling in social code and human interaction. It has been a struggle for me to learn those skills so much later on (I feel like a twelve-year-old in a twenty-five-year-old's body), and to function in a society that chafes like a new pair of shoes, but after reading other reviews to your entry I can also feel that I was privileged to (not) grow up like I did. I never longed to grow up, or felt the pressure to do so, and I never lost touch with the wonder of seeing the world through a child's eyes. Although I have much I regret in life, I have no regrets from childhood.

I may have stepped back out into the real world, but I still keep the key to my fortress of magic. I hope that others are able to do that, too. You're right about reality: the world is concrete grey, scientifically sterile and lobotomized by functionality. It's a place to exist in, not to live in. To live a truly rich life, I believe we need to have that key that allows us to open our eyes and see the world as more than what science and society will have us believe it is. There's nothing to be ashamed of in doing that; humanity has done that for as long as any rock or river can remember. It's only in the last few centuries that believing in the fantastic has been demoted to something only children do, and that is a very sad view. I believe many people miss the wonder - the response this entry has gotten points in that direction. I also believe that not all might be able to put their finger on what it is they miss. RotG puts the finger right on that aching spot, and that's why it moves me so deeply. LotR (the books) and Hellboy II (for all its faults) do the same: they depict a world where something is being lost, something wondrous that is bit by bit driven to extinction because of humans, directly or indirectly. One can easily read that as the belief in the fantastic being gradually uprooted by enlightenment/science, or a child growing up and having wonders replaced by reality.

That turned into quite the exposé. n_n' It's a thought provoking entry, this, and I'm happy that you wrote it.

Dream on (not in the sassy, sarcastic sense)

/ Dimwit (who is being schooled in odontology and snickers every time Tooth enthusiastically shows the children the teeth with bloody roots: she and I would get along like peas in a pod)

Wow. O.O I have no idea what to say. I feel the same way. I always tell anyone who would listen that I prefer my fantasy world over the real world.I'm always talking about stuff and rambling but now that I think about it I think thats just a cover so people just won't question me about how I feel about the world. Because honestly, I think the real world is depressing and dark except for childhood, because when you are child you have a spark. A spark of light, that even if people say it's not real, it's there. And when I watched rise of the Guardians I felt it again, it's a small spark but it's there. I just wish that I could feel it all the time. I just wish I could feel Wonder like North does, hope like bunny does, have dreams like Sandy does, remember my memories like tooth does, and most importantly have fun like Jack does. Because they are a light, a spark, and they are what makes this world a lighter place. So forget those people that say they don't exist, of course they exist as long as people believe in them! You just have to believe. Wow that was deep for me. I think this was my most meaningful review I have ever wrote. But, thanks. I appreciate this story and I really needed this today. So thanks.
-as always, Sky

**my parents say to DO my best not TRY my best.
(If you're confused, look down and read that)
H
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Once I had a dream that I remembered almost every detail. It started as the usual random chaos that some dreams are. But at one point, when I was stealing a stolen power from a secret government facility, I was conscious that I was dreaming and took control.
The power that I stole back was flight, and I was able to shakily fly away, barely. I then returned to an institute that I was apparently living for the school year.
The institute was some kind of finishing school for girls and boys (but there were mostly girls) and the person who got the highest marks gets to meet the prince and have a chance to become his friend.
The school was beautiful with many large lush gardens, these window/door things with detailed weavings of gold over the glass surface, giving a warm glow when the sun came through. There were special rooms like the one that was basically a giant bouncy house, and another that was a anti-gravity room.
I did my best to keep my flying a secret. It was easy on some days since sometimes we have to wear formal dresses and all that. But I always wore jeans and a plain shirt underneath just in case.
I had high marks, I was in the top five! But I didn't really care about meeting the prince, but I promised my mom I would DO my best**explanation later** so I risked meeting him. There was a girl who got the spot below me on midterm and she was one of those selfish types who wanted to meet the prince at any cost. One day in the lunch line, I caught her trying to prick me with a needle that I knew was spider venom( dream logic ). I ran away from her and she chased me. We made it to the anti-gravity room and I flipped the switch. We floated up into the air and she was near my feet. I felt pain on my heal and instantly knew that she swiped the needle across it and left a new scratch.
She did a weird float/swim thing and left the room. She was trying to get me sick so I couldn't take the final that would determine who met the prince.
Once she was gone, I flew over to the nearest window and pulled on the golden knob in the middle and crawled out to my favorite garden. Hardly any one knew about it since the only way to get there was a small window tucked in the corner of the room I was just in. The only other person who knew about it was my friend petrey (pea•tree).
He was there thinking about something. We went to a huge trampoline that was thirty feet off the ground,with a bigger tree right next to it I flew( made it look like a jump ) to a hanging rope just five feet from the edge of the tramp and swung around my friend. That is around where I woke up.
But the thing is, I was in control of my dream so much that I was even planning ahead In the back of my mind. The girl was supposed to get spider venom that was almost deadly and prick me in my sleep. While I was in a coma she would get the highest score and meet the prince. What she didn't know was that PETREY was the prince who wanted to see who would be is friend if he didn't have his title. Then after I recovered the government would have finally found me. I didn't get to plan past that.
I had this dream when I was 'round fifth teen.
The point of all this was to say that I think growing up should be you learning to control your imagination instead of lose it altogether. It's okay to grow old and still have quit the imagination, but when you mature you learn when to let a bit leak through and when to let it all out.

-SomeRandomPerson

Oh and just to show the child in me:
(\)_(/)
.(-'.'-)
(")_(")
BUMNY

This is interesting.
I feel I should write one of these too. It won't be as awesome, but I can try to say my feelings there instead of here.
Also, you have an awesome writing style, even in this, it's awesome.
ttyl ;- ]

you know? the first time i saw the summary of this little conffesion i laughted almost, not for your summary or much less, that was beacuse "how many people in the world are changing their minds for this movie? what kind of spell have this movie?" because i saw this movie about...what? 4 times in the cinema? and i dont regret one of them.
before this movie i fell a little lost. i had this thoughts about "i need to enjoy the life" but i didnt found a motivation, i had begun the second year of the career, the exams, collage works, everithing was overwhelming me. i still had this thoughts childist about the stuffed toys, the animeted movies or played little games but after seeing this movie my enter world changed drastically. i fall in love of all the characters (including Pitch because once upon a time i had a lot of nightmares for almost two weeks every night) and de memories of good times, hope, wonder and the fun in my childhood came back to me strong. now when i go to the university every morning i look directly at the moon and thought "give me a path MiM, because no mather what happen ill follow it".
in this moment im in the 3 year of the nursery carrer and i promised myself i never ceased to belive in jack frost (even if ive never seen snow) or MiM or thinks like magic are around me and everything its posible with magic. you know why? grow up fisicaly its a fact, grow up in the heart its a choice. ill spend the rest of my life been the weird woman that think the easter bunny is real or santa, the tooth fairy will come for my children teeth in his moment and sandman will give them beautiful dreams, im sure about that. i dont care if the people thinks im foolish or crazy my life will be complete and thats all i want.
again i love the way you write, really! and forgive me my grammar and my english, i suck about it jejeje, see you later!

This really touched me. And it made me realize how I felt. I mean I knew how felt but you just put it all in words. I feel the exact same way. I wish I could just turn back the clock so I could appreciate my childhood. I miss going to sleep on Christmas eve hoping to see Santa, and bring so excited when I opened the gifts from Santa. I miss putting my tooth on my bedside table cuz I didn't want to lose it before the tooth fairy came to get it. I miss Easter, the way it used to be, how me and my sister would go searching for eggs completely believing the Easter bunny had come and hid eggs. I miss playing in the snow, having snowball fights, building a snowman. I regret wishing I could grow up, to be a teenager. I loved this one shot thing. It opened my eyes. I have to tell you the truth, I almost started crying. Sometimes I even look out my window at night and look at the moon, wondering of someone is actually there, of someone is listening to me, I wonder if the moon looks down on me sometimes and sees how much I wish I still had as much of that childhood magic as I did when I was kid. I want to thank you for this. But at the same time I wish you didn't write it, because made my heart ache about all this even more. But thank you, you opened my eyes, told me the things I wasn't willing to admit, and I've never read something as true as this. (P.S. sorry if this review is really long)

I love this. I find this completely relateable in every way. I absolutely love this movie. This happens to me every time I see a movie or read a book; I can't shake the feeling that I am not alone in an empty room. Like the characters have somehow teleported themselves, invisible, into my house just to see what I'm up to. I think I might be clinging to my childhood imagination games a little too much, but it is so much fun to keep that slim hope that there is something bigger, better, and more beautiful than the bleak reality we live in, hidden, just out of our reach. I'm so happy you posted this! If you decide to do this again, well, you have my support!

Wow you sincerly caught on to what I was feeling after seeing this movie. As a kid I was always forced to grow up and take care of myself. I always had to put on a mask infront of everyone because even when I was 5 people thought I should grow up more and stop living on my fantasies. So infront of everyone elses I always put on a mask and hide behind scarsam and fake smiles always prentending to be something I'm not, but the truth is I slip into my own world of daydreams and myths EVERY singal chance I can and no one really ever understood the depth of them. How bad I belive in what people consider 'fairytails' are my reality how when most people wish for things that they dont really need I only wish to be a part of the mythogiacal and magical world for even a second and I would die happy. After so long being forced to wear masks and grow up I find that I retreat more and more into my subconsious and my world of magic. It trully stinks being forced to grow up before your ready because you find out that your acting a lot like what your forced to be intead of who you truly are. I find myself a lot of the time being the same way you are just longing for that magic in my life that innocence of childhood before it was gone. I will always have the magic in me and believe even though I am forced to wear the masks I will always be a beliver and slip into the magic world of my mind where others assume I'm just spacing out. Sometimes I forget to be me and that scares me but reading this remides me of who I am behind the pretences so thank you. I will always search for the 'myths, magic, and fairytales' that noone belive in and talk to myself alot like someone there that cant be seen and needs company and someday I hope I will find it and maybe have a snowball fight with Jack or just a chance to be a part of it. So thank you with all my heart for reminding me of who I am- T.E.S.

You know...every adult says to every child, "you can't wait to grow up. Things are wonderful. Things are better. Life starts." And that little girl or boy thinks, "gosh, I wish I could be more like them!" But they- we, really- didn't know that growing up meant losing what we loved and believed in. I was an inquisitive little girl, I admit. I found out about the Easter Bunny first. I even helped put the candy in the eggs for my little brother Easter Eve. And then came the Tooth Fairy, and Santa. Every year now, when I wake up to a cold bedroom and a blanket of snow, I think, "god, I remember this. I remember seeing this and thinking, "He came! He came!" " And then I chide myself on being foolish for missing something like that. I'm mature, it was what I had wanted. But now that I'm a teenager and I have maturity, I'd give anything to get childhood back.

And I didn't want to see that movie, really. I was sitting on the couch searching Demand one day with my little brother and came across. I read the discription, thinking, "aw, he'll enjoy this."

It had me from the opening scene.

As soon as I saw Jack Frost, I couldn't help the warm feeling that blossomed inside me. And I found myself needing to excuse myself for my grinning- my father giving me strange looks, my brother not caring enough to glance my way, and my mother raising her eyebrow in amusement. A childish thing, to them. But suddenly I was staying up at night, reading fanfictions until I was slumped over my mobile or my computer from falling asleep reading. I found myself glancing out windows towards the moon and smiling at it- and then shaking my head, saying, "god, I'm such a child." I felt the wind like it was whispering to me, and I'd whisper something back, like, "Hi" or "thank you!" for the comfort it was bringing me. The wind was a constant- something that was always there, when I was joyful or not.

And I kept thinking to myself, "dear god, I need to grow up. None of this IS REAL." But then I couldn't help but think, "so Santa isn't real. Easter Bunny isn't real. Neither is the Tooth Fairy, or Sandman." And then a little voice in the back of my head answered, "But what if something is?"

I believe in ghosts. So what, I can't believe in Jack Frost too? I still believe in magic- sure, it isn't the same magic from childhood- tainted with life and burly truth. It was a silly child's movie to them. To me, it was belief and magic and love.

So thank you, as my conclusion. For having the courage to reach out like this, to us- to let us know that even though we feel it, we aren't really ever alone. There's always someone out there who feels the same. I'm glad it was you.

And maybe...just maybe. There is someone out there who no one can see. And maybe he's standing in front of you when you whisper hi, or something like that. I believe in ghosts. It's almost the same. So I'm going to choose to throw away my maturity on this. "You were born twenty" everyone says about me. But I think I can have this one exception. I choose to re-believe, if I can.

Wow...this is just wow. I haven't actually cried in a long time, but...now I find myself in tears. What you just described Is exactly how I felt, how I am still feeling. I'm just so glad that I am not the only one that was so drastically affected by this movie. I guess I should do the whole heart pouring thing now. *sniff
Let me just start out by saying that I am 21 years right, and only three short weeks ago I would have never thought I'd be in the state of mind I'm in.
It all began that 3 short week ago with something as innocent as a Facebook post. "Watching Rise of the Guardians". That's it nothing more, nothing less. Looking at my computer screen, I thought hmmm that movie looked interesting. So I opened another tab and found a site where I could watch it for free. I didn't move the entire time I watched the film. The next day I found myself at target buying it. In the first week alone, I watched Rise of the Guardians 15 times (yes I actually counted). Three weeks later and I am still obsessed to the point of insanity. Every thought gradually returns to that same magical world.
I've begun to actually have dreams with some sort of meaning to me again. Dreams where I fly, a kind I've missed so much from my childhood have returned to me again. And in every one of them and I mean EVERYONE of them a certain winter spirit makes an appearance.
Reflecting awhile ago, on why this movie has affected me so I cam to many of the same conclusions you yourself did. I do feel a sense of regret for my childhood long past. I can't even remember when I stopped believing in things like Santa or the Easter Bunny, I think it just one day happened. Watching Rise of the Guardians was like turning back on a light in my heart, a light that I thought would never shine again. I may be a college student now with job on the side, but I cannot deny in my heart this new magic that has entered my life again. This magic of belief.
Like Jack said in the movie, just because you can't see it with your eyes doesn't mean its not there. I can honestly say to myself, I believe. For better or for worse, the Guardians are now a permanent part of my life.

OHMYGODYOUBEAUTIFULPERSON! Omgomgomgomg you made me cry im crying can you see me crying imagine me crying cuz I am what have you done to me I love you more than my heart can love you just took all my feels and put them in a blender and set it on the highest power then put the destroyed remains on a highway where they were run over so many times by so many vehicles and then for good measure you gathered what you could find and drowned them in your bathtub you beautiful person im not even lying I really am crying please stay so beautiful god I love you so much and did I say im crying well I am and it's cuz your so amazing and I don't even know whether I should end this with an exclamation point or a period but definetly not a question mark cuz I know everything im saying is not a question it's NOT A QUESTION and im crying so I'll just put both.! There it's done! BUT NO LIE IM CRYING AND HAVE BEEN FROM THE BEGINNING OF YOUR BEAUTIFUL WORDS and I was reading and I started crying and my cousin who was next to me panicked and thought I was dying which internally I was and she looked at me like wtf but I ignored her and more crying so many tearsss!
Everything you said was amazing.
And true.
And I thought IE was by myself with that.
And so I'd like to say thank you.
Thank you for sharing how a lot of others feel, or a least how I feel.
And thank you for talking to seemingly air like I do sometimes when I think someone might be listening but I just can't see them.
And thank you for wanting to believe and wanting your childhood back, like I've wished for so many times since I saw the movie.
Thank you so much.

Wow. I can so totally understand. You see, when I was three my grandmother was very sick mentally and became so obsessed with teaching my brother and I about Santa Claus that, for our safety, my mother was forced to tell us that Santa Claus was not real. My father tried to get us to believe when we were older but because our mother knew everything, we never believed him. In a last ditch effort, my father took me to see this movie to try and get me to understand the magic I had gone without. Now, every night I can, I say good night to the Guardians, merely because it gives me a sense of being five again. Sort of like yourself, the child I once was is reawakened because of this magic. Now a dream is a gift from Sandy, a cool breeze on a hot day is Jack, catching myself in a memory I thought lost is Tooth, looking at my college career is North and hearing a child's laughter is Bunny. I sometimes feel sorry for my brother, who even after the movie could not see the magic, because he will never experience himself this wonderful thing you and I have discovered. I feel sorry for putting this on you, one person can only hold so much, but I am glad I have found someone to match what I'm feeling. And is a damn good writer too. I thank thee for thy bravery and I commend you for everything you have done to inspire others.

Wow...I love this. It is amazingly written and it just wow. I am obsessed with this film. On Easter I woke up wondering if Bunny had been yet. My older brother showed me the trailer, and I was so excited for it! I turned 14 last month, and I remember a lesson a I had when I was 10, where we spent the hour talking about growing up and stuff. When I was little, my favorite was Jack Frost. My mum always told me that every time there was frost he had come, and I would wake up on winter mornings, when my Dad was at work and run into my Mum and Dad's room and open the curtains saying Jack Frost had been here. My best friend hates the film, never even seen it, and she refuses to talk about it. It kinda made me sad, but yeah. Sorry kinda gone off, but you really summed up the emotions in the film. Thank you! :D

Not just you! Never, EVER, think it's just you! I watched both. And to be honest, this won hands down. It's aesthetically pleasing, and the whole thing was well done. I honestly want to say: Yes. I have meet the same problm, however, I bring a solution. Believe in yourself. carry the spark of the child, that you loved being, watch old kid movies that made you laugh, write down your childhood so others may see the joy. And when someone says to stop acting like a child, you tell them: "I'm acting like a child? Good. " Write the inventions, your dreams, your hopes, and everything you thought you had to leave behind. And, in the end, You look at it and say: This is me, and I won't ever forget, because... I'll always be a child. Anyway, sides, I already am weird, this is no big stretch. Now let us recite the pledge of Dreams: I swear to guard the memories of my childhood, to believe in who I am, that I bring wonder, joy, hope, and above all else, inspire Dreams in everyone I meet. There is no one else I'd rather be... then me.