Literature / Abandoned by Disney

"Some of you may have heard that the Disney corporation is responsible for at least one real, 'live' Ghost Town."

—The opening line of the first story

"Abandoned by Disney" (along with its prequel and sequels) is one of the more famous and popular Creepypastas out there, written by Slimebeast. The first story begins with the Narrator describing the abandoned "Treasure Island" resort that Disney built in the Bahamas, and how reading an explorer's blog about the place inspired him to go visit another abandoned Disney resort near his community, "Mowgli's Palace". Once he actually gets to the place... well, things start going downhill from there.

Of the other three stories, "A Few Suggestions" is a semi-comedic collection of suggestion cards from employees at Mowgli's Palace before it was abandoned, and hints vaguely at what may have happened to the place. "Room Zero", meanwhile, deals with the fallout in the narrator's life from the original events and describes the other unsavory stories he has uncovered about the Disney corporation in his investigations since. The final installment "Corruptus" follows the truth behind the mysteries and the true reasoning behind the existence of the hauntings.

Inspired a Five Nights at Freddy's Fan Game, Five Nights at Treasure Island, which itself has a sequel, Oblitus Casa.

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Tropes present in the series:

• Abandoned Area: The Mowgli's Palace resort was suddenly abandoned soon after its opening, and it's been left in a state of disrepair ever since. Several of Disney's other abandoned projects (like Treasure Island) are briefly discussed as well.
• Alien Blood: The inverted Mickey is described as having yellow blood. Of course, it could just as likely be bodily fluids.
  • The fluid is strongly implied in "A Few Suggestions" to be vomit.
• Ambiguously Evil: The Gascots. While they're definitely creepy as fuck, they are never shown doing anything more than standing around staring at people, so it's not clear if they're evil or just restless spirits.
• Amusement Park of Doom:
  • The abandoned Mowgli's Palace in the first story, being inhabited by dangerous wild animals, haunted, and containing both the corpses of the employees and the demonic force that killed them.
  • Disney World in Room Zero. People in Disney-branded gas masks hanging around, kids coming out of the water slides in the wrong order (or not for 5 minutes and finally coming out, blue with asphyxia and complaining about being squeezed), and a big spot that nobody's allowed to go into. There was a terrible accident during the Cold War where an entire park's worth of people was Buried Alive. An air raid siren was accidentally tripped, leading the patrons to be herded into a bomb shelter. Then a power outage caused them all to suffocate. They had all been given gas masks modeled on Disney characters. Disney "solved" the problem by pouring a couple of tons of concrete over it.
• Apocalyptic Log:
  • "A Few Suggestions", which is told via the comment cards that were taken from the site.
  • "ABANDONED BY DISNEY / ABANDONED BY GOD" were messages left behind by the employees after the park's closure, though it's downplayed since the fate of the employees who wrote these messages is unknown (though if the other stories are to go by, it probably wasn't good).
• Being Watched: The Narrator after the events of the first story has a feeling that Disney is onto him once he finds Mickey silhouettes and other oddities everywhere, and his suspicions are confirmed when he discovers suited men following him around. This also, apparently, happens to anyone who discovers or spreads knowledge of one of the Disney company's Dark Secrets.
• Big Bad: The malevolent force seen in all of the stories, which appears to have been responsible for killing all the other mascots in the park and being the one to cause the pandemonium and death in Room Zero.
• Book Ends: At the start of "Corruptus", the narrator muses on the idea that Disney's message of Clap Your Hands If You Believe is just a coping mechanism designed to keep people from killing the rich. It takes on a whole new meaning by the end, when he realizes belief literally has the power to bring things into the world and Disney has been trying to keep it quiet.
• Can't Stop the Signal: While the Narrator has lost their email account by the start of "Corruptus", he took the opportunity to print off an email he received and made several thousand copies he stapled various places, handed out to people and apparently keeping some a surprise. He's confident that Disney can't do anything to stop the information getting out now. By the end, he realizes that, by doing so, he's likely made the problem even worse.
• Clap Your Hands If You Believe/Your Mind Makes It Real: The Reveal in "Corruptus." Namely that all of the Disney-related mess stems from attempts to make people's dreams and nightmares real. Attempts Gone Horribly Wrong.
• Comedic Sociopathy: The waterslide attendant at one point believed the fat kid to have simply gotten stuck within the slide; his solution is to send in some other kids to either test this theory (since they would logically get stuck too) or to use their kinetic energy to physically boot the kid out (possibly getting several children injured in the process). If it wasn't for the eldritch nature of the slide itself this would have been darkly hilarious and probably have gotten him sacked on the spot.
• Creepy Basement:
  • The lower levels of Mowgli's Palace remain relatively untouched as a result of its door being locked until the Narrator manages to unlcok it, and as result it feels very eerie due to being the preserved remnants of a once-active place. The lights also dim the further he goes in, and discovers dark secrets in the mascots area.
  • The contractor discovering the paved-over remnants of Room Zero: nothing but a massive expanse of concrete floor which is later revealed to be the top of the actual room, where the bodies of those who were trapped presumably lay.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Many.
  • In "A Few Suggestions", several children are murdered and thrown at the bottom of staircases, where the possessed mascot complains afterward of having to constantly navigate through.
  • Frank is stuffed into a toilet and becomes severely bloated and deformed, and when he's retrieved by the park staff, the possessed mascot laughs at him.
  • Several other mascots are murdered and hung up on hooks in the mascot dressing room.
• Darkness Equals Death: Ida's investigation into Room Zero after the screams of the people left behind subside results in her seeing nothing but pitch-black darkness in the room, coupled with a disembodied voice that tells her to close the door.
• Dark Secret: The Disney corporation has many, and doesn't like it when people talk about them.
• Demonic Possession: Vaguely implied to be what happened to one or more of the employees at Mowgli's Palace, and equally-vaguely implied to be the instigation of the catastrophe in Room Zero.
• Downer Beginning: By the start of "Corruptus", the Narrator has had his ISP drop them, his phone bricked, his library card revoked, and he's been subjected to stalking, harassment, vandalism, and paranoia-inducing incidents for the last two years. He's understandably quite bitter and wonders how long its been since there was a culling of the wealthy elite.
• Downer Ending: "A Few Suggestions". The Mickey mascot is possessed and kills several of the other staff members (and children) before the resort is shuttered for good.
  • "Corruptus" ends with the Narrator lamenting how it will likely be the last time he'll ever get to speak with his followers. With his revelations about Disney and Corruptus, he's certain that some final action is coming, such as him being sent to an asylum or someone committing a crime using his identity. All this while knowing he may have made the Corruptus situation even worse by getting the word out. He ends off wishing everyone good luck and thanking them for sticking around for so long.
• Eldritch Location: Waterslides which are capable of spitting out children in the wrong order.
• Evil, Inc.: Even putting the supernatural elements aside, Disney is portrayed as a corrupt company holding dark secrets. For example, to get some high-priced land for Mowgli's Palace, they paid the local government to claim eminent domain over an entire neighborhood under the guise of a highway project. After the narrator escapes the place and writes about the strange things going on in their parks, they spend years taking down his posts and trying to silence him and anyone else they can, even potentially having Ida killed to avoid her telling more people about Room Zero. Ends up subverted, as Disney has been trying to correct their mistakes with the corruptus beings and keep the knowledge of them and the power that can create them from getting out by any means necessary.
• Exact Words: "Corruptus" shows how Disney's emphasis on making wishes and dreams come true takes on a literal and twisted turn.
• Expy: Mowgli's Palace is one for Discovery Island, an actual abandoned Disney attraction.
• Frame-Up: The narrator is sure Disney is planning this for him by the events of "Corruptus". His library card is revoked due to unpaid late fees for books he's never read, from borderline fetish material to a tome on WMDs, and he's sure someone is going to commit a crime using his identity for the sole purpose of discrediting him completely.
• Ghostly Chill: What the "voice" tells Ida when she opens the door to Room Zero.
  Shut the door, dear. You're letting out the cold.
• The Heartless: Those bizarre events corresponding to Disney? The Gascots? The inverted Mickey? All of those were born from the raw, seething hatred of Disney dredged up by the natives of the island when the company cleared most of it up to make way for Mowgli's Palace, and it's established that there are more, and worse yet, they could be formed anytime, anywhere, right now.
• He Knows Too Much: This is why the Narrator uses nicknames for most people who shared their experiences: because Disney will find out and have people follow them. This is downplayed because the fates of those who had the experiences are uncertain except for Ida, whose death was heavily implied to be connected to this due to the Mickey silhouettes on her bedroom wall.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: "Corruptus" manages to work in, without naming names, the fiasco concerning Mr. Creepypasta and Slimebeast's works. Except, in-universe at least, the Narrator implies that Disney was the reason those readings were taken down.
  I know a really popular YouTuber who pulled readings of my posts from his channel. The rumor was that someone threatened to sue him, some supposed "author" of the "story". Bullshit. I know first-hand that he took it down in a bout of pants-shitting fear when he realized Disney's connection to his partner company.
• Magical Realism: The story is mostly based on investigations of real-world Disney locations, mixed with some supernatural elements, such as the Inverted Mickey, the Gascots, and the Room Zero incident. By "Corruptus," the Narrator learns that the reason for all this is because dreams and nightmares can become real if enough people believe in them.
• Make It Look Like an Accident: Ida's death at the end of "Room Zero", after she tells the author about what happened during the original incident in the bomb shelter. Her death was stated to be an accidental fall, but her entire bedroom was filled with the Mickey Mouse symbol, implying that Disney must have had a part in it.
• Malevolent Masked Men: The Gascots are somewhat of a downplayed example, since they are eerie figures with Disney gas masks but mostly hang around and don't do anything outright malicious, although they're actually ghosts.
• Mood Whiplash: In "A Few Suggestions", after several accounts of generally light-hearted fun between the mascots:
  Suggestion: I swear, all these blank kids are getting into everything. Every time I kill one of them the others just misbehave more. I keep finding them in piles at the bottom of stairways and they think it's funny. It's not funny. I can't get through.
• My God, What Have I Done?: "Corruptus" sees the Narrator experience this, realizing that his probing and reporting on the hauntings is actually fueling the problem, and is doing the thing Disney wants to avoid.
• Nothing Is Scarier:
  • The majority of the original story, where the author is deeply concerned about the rotting conditions of the park and his subsequent investigation of the mascot dressing room.
  • Likewise, the description of the paved-over room in "Room Zero". Along with whatever was inside.
• Of Corpse He's Alive: The apparent procedure for dealing with the sudden, in-costume death of a mascot is to have another mascot sit with them on a bench for photos until the corpse can be disposed of.
• Off with His Head!: Inverted Mickey takes his head off revealing yellow blood.
• Orwellian Retcon: Disney's great influence over the media and internet is speculated by the narrator to be the reason so few people have written about Mowgli's Palace. This is confirmed in the sequel when Disney begins taking down the narrator's own post wherever they can find it.
• Our Ghosts Are Different: Gascots (a portmanteau of "Gas mask" and "mascot") from "Room Zero" are people wearing a Disney-branded gas mask made to look like a character from one of the classic shorts. They're one of the people who were accidentally Buried Alive in the Disneyland bomb shelter.
• Paranoia Fuel: In-universe, and discussed extensively by the author, who realizes that he's being tailed by people who ask what he's doing. Likewise, he goes to extreme precautions to protect the identity of the former Disney workers who provide him with information.
  • In Corruptus, there's more of the things that tie into the terrible events linked with Disney, and worse yet, more are being formed every time we read an article or distribute through any means possible, and they could be anywhere.
• Peace & Love Incorporated: The Disney corporation is gradually revealed to be this in its attempts at stalking and silencing people who know too much about the parks.
  • Subverted in "Corruptus". For all the shady things in their past, the cover-ups and Orwellian Retcons are meant to prevent people from fueling an Eldritch Abomination, making them less a corrupt corporation trying to preserve their public image, and more a corporation desperately trying to keep the mistakes they made from getting worse
• Peek-a-Boo Corpse: A variant. When the protagonist picks up a Donald Duck head, something falls out of it and shatters on the floor scaring them. When they get a good look at what fell out, they soon discover it is actually a skull.
• Puppeteer Parasite: The possessed mascot in "A Few Suggestions" makes reference to having sores that won't heal, trying absentmindedly to rip his own head off and being controlled by the suit he wears, to the point that it won't let him breathe if he doesn't follow the suit's movements.
• Rapid-Fire "No!": The Protagonist mutters several nos when he sees the Photonegative Mickey costume begin to stand up.
• Room 101: The titular "Room Zero", which was a bomb shelter built under the park during World War II that resulted in an incident that killed (or possibly worse) a majority of the people who remained inside.
• Sanity Slippage: The mascot in "A Few Suggestions", who goes from complaining about kids with "blank faces" to murdering Frank and, presumably, several other people before the resort is closed.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: The unknown entity which presumably killed the patrons in Room Zero. While most other corrupted Disney locations are deemed "abandoned" in the Corruptus report, what's inside of Room Zero is explicitly stated to be "contained".
• Shout-Out: Early in the original "Abandoned by Disney" story there's the line "I read this article from someone who had explored the Treasure Island resort and posted a whole blog about all the crazy shit he found there." It's a real article called Disney's Big Bahama Blunder, and was likely the inspiration for the entire series.
• Sigil Spam: After his visit to Mowgli's Palace, the narrator starts seeing Mickey Mouse silhouettes appearing everywhere as Disney tries to silence him.
• Streisand Effect: Occurs In-Universe in the sequel, "Room Zero". Every time the Narrator's original post gets taken down, it resurfaces in many more places.
• Subverted Innocence: A major source of the stories' horror, with the outwardly family-friendly Disney parks holding lots of dark secrets.
• Title Drop: The author finds multiple references to "ABANDONED BY DISNEY" written around the park.
• Town with a Dark Secret: Disney World, with the main secret being that there is a bomb shelter's worth of long-dead patrons under the park, sealed in along with some possibly-demonic being, and their ghosts still haunt the park.
• Truth in Television: Slimebeast showed his work on this one, which makes it all the more unnerving:
  • Basically everything about "Treasure Island" (see Shout-Out above), the "utilidors" and some of the shady practices with mascot employees. There really is a secret city inside most Disney parks (it's just practical, since employees have to spend so much time there) and there are plenty of nooks and crannies for employees to bone under their bosses' noses. Mascot actors and performers are trained to improvise if one of their fellows has either a psychological or medical emergency, helping their co-workers to one of the hidden hospitals without letting it affect their script too much.
  • The apartments and exclusive clubs are real as well, and are in the places listed in the story (the Dream Suite above Pirates of the Caribbean in Disneyland, and the Cinderella Castle Suite in the Cinderella Castle at Walt Disney World). They aren't "hidden" locations though, but rather fully functional hotel suites that lucky park visitors can win a night in. There's also Club 33 (not 22), located at New Orleans Square in Disneyland. The most risque thing you get to do there though is drink alcohol, and you can easily find images of the interior online.
  • All of the abandoned locations and scrapped or repurposed attractions mentioned in the CORRUPTUS report (except Room Zero and Mowgli's Palace, of course) are also real. The report also mentions Nara Dreamland, a now-abandoned Disney knockoff theme park in Japan.
• Un-person: The Narrator sort of counts, given how by "Corruptus" his IP dropped him, his phone bricked, and he had his library card revoked due to someone messing with his library account. On top of that, his email and Twitter got deleted.
• The Unreveal: Most of the entities referenced in the report in "Corruptus" are described as nothing but vague names, such as "Clear Man", "Fiber Optic Worm" and "Wandering entity"; some of the recorded incidents are similarly vague, such as "Microorganism infestation" and "Pin screen fatality". Only "Inverted Character" gets any real detail, by virtue of being the same entity the Narrator encountered in the first story. The Corruptus from Room Zero doesn't even get that much, being described exclusively as "Unknown".
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: The Disney corporation turns out to be this in "Corruptus", since it turns out the Narrator's reporting of the paranormal events surrounding Disney facilities may actively be making the problem worse.
  • On top of that, it's implied that the entire point of the Disney corporation was to create something good for everyone to believe in so the world would become a better place. Trouble is, Disney became so beloved that every sufficiently bad mishap turned the local area in the other direction...
• Wham Line:
  • Since the first story is from the Narrator's POV, we don't hear much from others until the creepy Mickey costume in the basement of Mowgli's Palace comes to life:
  Mickey Mouse: Hey... wanna see my head come off?
  • Played with in "Corruptus". Up until this line, you wouldn't really think it was another tale in the saga:
    It's been over two years since I left Mowgli's Palace and never looked back.
  • In "A Few Suggestions", the tone of all the notes is slightly annoyed at worst but calm and professional, up until...
    Suggestion: Stop the fucking music.

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