A Lost Cyber-Soul's Only Refuge

Once there was a smart, discontented lady who watched a silly movie that had scruffy knights battling scruffier barbarians, all set to heroically swelling music. The lady judged it entertaining, but not very well done - the most enjoyable thing being able to decide which knight she found most appealing. The dvd was sent swiftly back to Netflix from whence it had come. The movie though, had insidiously planted itself in her daydreaming/romantically mushy/adventure and passion starved psyche. Like a zombie, she was drawn to the nearest Best Buy, in need of owning the movie to better differentiate the knights' characters on re-watching.

And re-watching she did. It took only one new viewing to cement which heroic yet human knight would win her irrational obsession. Every subsequent re-watching (of which there were many, many) was to drink him in - his physical presence, his voice, his reactions, his words, his humble heroics. Times not spent watching the move were often filled with Google searches for the actor, the historic character, the historic events so crappily portrayed. Then one such search led to a website devoted to fans of the movie. For the inappropriately devoted lady, opening the link to that website was akin to finding the Holy Grail. Here resided like-minded fools who discussed the movie in detail familiar only to those who had become as lost in it's world as she had. There was actually a forum - a place where people (mostly females, of course) talked about the knights they favored, made artwork about the characters, wrote their own stories based on the movie, and took on the characters in role-playing exercises. And most amazing of all - the quality of all the creative work inspired in those kindred souls was very fine. It was a community of rather crazed intelligent obsessive people, inspired to stimulating, at times, witty interaction by a silly film. The lady of our story jumped into this cyber-land without a moment's hesitation.

TBC