Re: Re: Theme Park Fandom

Okay, but to return to the "creepy."

Practically the only things I've done this week are to be depressed and read about Disneyland. The act of reading about theme park fandom has made me even more depressed because, even though it's interesting to me, I feel like I've wasted my time on something that has no real applicable value to my work.

But what if I wrote a fake episode of The Magnus Archives?

Jon takes a statement about Disneyland that's creepy but not supernatural, and then he talks it over with Martin afterward, and then Elias - old and powerful, everpresent and omniscient - comes in and is like, "Are we talking about Disneyland????"

I think one of the reasons I like Jon so much is that it's clear he didn't have an even remotely normal childhood, which is reflected in his inability to emotionally process relationships and common life experiences. I want to say that Jon, who wasn't exposed to Disney as a kid, would probably have the same reaction to it that I do, namely, sincere confusion regarding why it seems to be such a major milestone in everyone's life.

Mai Mai Miracle

Mai Mai Miracle is a pastel-colored anime movie about two sweet little girls who live in the countryside in the 1950s and have sweet little adventures while fantasizing about another sweet little girl who might have lived in the same town during the Heian period. They go on walks, run through the fields, build a dam with some other kids, and raise a wild goldfish, and it's all very lovely and gentle until...

...about fifteen minutes before the movie ends, the father of one of the kids hangs himself after his wife finds out that he was having an affair with a bar hostess in a neighboring port town, and the sweet little group of children breaks up, presumably to never see each other again.

I was not expecting that.

On the other hand, I appreciate the movie's lack of formal structure. I'm starting to get to the point where I find formal structure artificial and annoying, and this has made watching most American movies difficult.

People can read and watch what they want, of course, but I personally think "plot" is overrated.

I suspect this is one of the reasons I enjoy fanfic so much. I am here for the ideas and the characters and the worldbuilding and the quality of the writing. Who cares about the plot?