I've been writing since fourth grade and blogging since 2014. I've been a nerd my whole life.
Correspondent I
Arrow: Oliver Queen's Trauma RecoveryIn the CW’s Arrow, before Oliver Queen got stuck on Trauma Island, he was a stereotypical Billionaire Playboy. When he got back, he spent a lot of time pretending he was still the same person, in order to cover up who he had really become: a vigilante on a quest for justice. Oliver pretended his five years of trauma hadn’t dramatically changed him. |
Are Detectives the Main Characters in their Own Stories?An interesting trend in mystery fiction is the "outsider" nature of the classic detective. These characters – Hercule Poirot, Sherlock Holmes, Adrian Monk, Shawn Spencer, Scooby Doo, etc – seem to exist for the purpose of helping other people’s stories reach resolution. Although they are often the perspective characters in their stories, it can be argued that the main characters are the victims and the perpetrators of the crimes being investigated. Those are the characters who are causing events to happen and having events happen to them.
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Fantastic Racism: The Universal Prejudice MetaphorFantastic Racism is the term for writers creating a non-human race – aliens from outer space, vampires, werewolves, mutants, elves, orcs, etc. – and then using that race as a metaphor for real-world demographics that are the target of prejudice. The strength of this metaphor is that it can potentially be used in place of any minority group. In the world of X-Men, mutants have served as a metaphor for various real-world minorities over the decades, from Jewish people to Black people to LGBT’s. In many fantasy worlds, orcs are seen as barbaric, monstrous outsiders. A plot requiring humans and orcs to put aside their differences – such as the film Warcraft – can be used as a metaphor for international conflicts as well as domestic diversity. Meanwhile, in Max Landis’ urban fantasy world of Bright, orcs become a metaphor for any group with an antagonistic relationship with the police, due to poverty, ethnicity, or culture. Other examples include Skyrim, Supergirl, True Blood, and even Harry Potter. Analyze these and other examples of Fantastic Racism. Do some work better as metaphors than others? Can we learn different lessons from these stories that we may not see in stories about real-world human minority groups?
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Urban Fantasy vs Cosmic HorrorIn the Urban Fantasy genre – Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, etc. – magic and magical creatures exist alongside humans, but humans don’t know about them.
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The Dark Knight: How Do You Measure The "Best" Sequel?The Dark Knight is widely regarded as one of the best movies of its kind. It is officially a sequel to Batman Begins, but unlike most sequels, audiences don’t really need to watch the first movie to understand or enjoy the plot of the second. The only major plotline that continues between the two (apart from Bruce Wayne Being Batman, of course) is Bruce and Rachel’s relationship ("If there is ever a time when Gotham doesn’t need Batman, we can be together.")
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Why Are There So Many Neurodivergent Super-Detectives?The list of fictional characters with relatable representation of neurodivergence (ADHD, autism, OCD, et cetera) has a lot of detective characters on it. Examples include Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, Benoit Blanc, Adrian Monk, Shawn Spencer, and Sonja Cross from The Bridge. |
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency: Hard to Adapt?Douglas Adams’ foray into detective fiction, with his iconic twist of science fiction and extremely British absurdist comedy, was a novel called Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency and its sequel, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul. These books have been adapted into two TV shows, one on BBC4 and one on BBC America. The books and TV shows are all quite different from each other; even the character of Dirk Gently changes a bit between adaptations. |
The Red Ten vs The BoysFrom 2011 to 2017, Tyler James and Cesar Feliciano created a ten-issue comic book series in which a parody of the Justice League were mysteriously murdered in a plot eerily similar to Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None. As in Christie’s novel, it was slowly revealed that the superheroes were being killed because they were guilty of dark secrets. |
Villains of the Shrek Universe: From Nursery Rhymes to the Grim Reaper | |
Outer Wilds and the Concept of ‘Going in Blind’ | |
Villains of the Shrek Universe: From Nursery Rhymes to the Grim Reaper | |
Villains of the Shrek Universe: From Nursery Rhymes to the Grim Reaper | |
Villains of the Shrek Universe: From Nursery Rhymes to the Grim Reaper | |
Not much did change. That’s the point. Wakanda promised to share their world-changing resources with the world, but then a lot of things happened… Wakanda doesn’t trust the world, and the world keeps proving them right. The MCU keeps giving Wakanda excuses to maintain the status quo. | Why Don't Superheroes Change the World? |
"Darkest Dungeon": The weight of legacy | |
Villains of the Shrek Universe: From Nursery Rhymes to the Grim Reaper |
Yup. Arranging things in categories like that is a side effect of overthinking way. too. much. about them.