What do I even mean by this?
Corpse Bride is kind of an example, as is Nightmare Before Christmas; and yet, they both fall so spectacularly short I feel after watching them as if I've just eaten a bowl of Subtraction Stew. <a href="
http://www.npr.org/2011/11/10/141240217/my-accidental-masterpiece-the-phantom-tollbooth">reference from this book here</a>
Edward Scissorhands also has something of the right feel; Old Kim talking to her granddaughter and telling the story of how the first snow came about in their town is an element that I love. Lacking continuity in my own life, lacking what I think of as "real" traditions, passing something down from parent to child, I find that I will connect more easily with a story which has this element.
I read a fan fic a few years ago about Pirates of the Caribbean should have ended, and it had an element that I liked, too: one half of the couple is required by esoteric law or curse or whatever it is to be gone X amount of time and can only spend one day/night per X amount time with their beloved. This harkens all the way back to my first reading of The Pomegranate Seeds when I was barely in double digits. There is something brave and lonely and strong about people who can live their lives this way which I think has nothing to do with my family and everything to do simply with who I am. I find an element of romance in it.
Magic and darkness, a la Dark Shadows, Harry Potter, and Pirates of the Caribbean. A war won but at a terrible price, a sacrifice made for the greater good (Spock! No!).
A little Beauty and the Beast, too, a little Cupid and Psyche.
Turn of the 20th century, maybe 1890's, 1900's.
Must ponder this some more.
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