On SF/Fantasy: Inspiration from Inquiry

open bookI’m interested in telling human stories. I began writing SF/Fantasy out of curiosity I had about my favorite heroes and stories. How do members of the Fantastic Four poop? How does Superman have sex? What was college like for Batman? How does Silver Surfer deal with his total loss of mortality? Does Wolverine butter his bread with his claws because using anything else would be redundant?

These were just some of the questions that I had. They were questions that I had no way of answering, so I made a promise to become an adventurer in the quantum space of the imagination.

“Father, I will become a nerd.”

I mean, that’s what you are when you see things the way I do. Life is just primer for a really great story. Science Fiction, fantasy, horror, et al… All of these genres are real life with bells and whistles. Daily life is just science-fiction minus the metaphors. I don’t really buy the idea that people are interested in the robots, and aliens, and wizards. Without that real-life context, these archetypes are just shells–empty masks.

So what are we interested in? I’m a thoroughly limited man, so I’m not going to pretend I’m an authority figure or anything like that. I’m sure we all have our reasons to escape, but I’m not interested in that. To me, sci-fi has evolved beyond being a mere escape. I don’t want to leave our world, I want to deal with it on a microscopic level. I’m interested in the minutiae of fictional worlds. The kind of stuff we don’t really waste our time thinking about because we see them everyday.

If I were telling the story in the Star Wars universe, my interest would probably not shift to the big names of that world. I’m not interested in the simple villains or the obvious heroes. I want to tell a story about the Clone Riots, and Clone Rights Rallies. I want a story about a small sect of Sith followers being oppressed by the Jedi. I could care less about Luke Skywalker, especially since his story is constantly referenced to and recycled. I want something a bit more complicated. A bit closer to home.

Right now I feel that the binaries have once again broken down. People aren’t just about “good and evil” anymore. One can’t exist without the other. I think our culture has matured. The bad guys aren’t just out there in the world. They live inside of us. They convolute our personal narratives. We now live in the world or Jack Kirby’s Apokolips. A world filled with insane acts of desensitizing violence. We now live in the world of the Matrix, Terminator, and Robocop. A world where we risk losing our humanity to technology through the excessive use of social media. The world ended a long time ago and we are coasting on top of fragments of the old world. Though these narratives are relevant, they are painfully redundant. We get it, robots are scary and dangerous–now what else? I want to know what else. Are people just as dangerous in that world?

We get it, James bond is a womanizing, alcoholic–now what else? Maybe give him some PTSD.

In fact, give all of my heroes PTSD. Batman retired–now what? Can I get a story from someone about superhero retirement? NOT heroes coming out of it–but actually living in that environment? How does someone like Batman relax? What is a boring day to him? Does he ever mastubate in the shower? Does he ever have sexy dreams about the Joker that make him uncomfortable? Does he make really bad penis jokes to members of the JLA? Does he always lose in athletic competitions against other superheroes? Is Nightwing getting a leg up on his old man? What does Batman’s life mean when he retires? Will he ever try drugs when he realizes that his obligations as Batman prevented him from living the same kind of “full life” his rich peers have lived? What is Batman like on Mali? Is he really bad at deciphering when Wonder Woman is flirting with him? Will Batman ever find out that the only way for him to maintain an erection is to keep the mask on?


These are the questions I hope to answer.

(This is something I’m going to pitch to Wes Anderson and Bill Murray. Hopefully Jason Bateman is around to play Nightwing.)

 

About Michael Stevens

Michael is a writer for Rookerville and an aspiring writer at the beginning of his first significant meltdown: the Quarter-Life Crisis. He likes to think of himself as 'the alien of the group' or 'the android attempting to be human.' He is interested in many things so it would be easier to describe all the things he is not interested in: Sports. Read his stuff if you want to hear everything but sports. He is currently at large.

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