The Gloury of Escapism

    Tolkien put it best when he said that escaping to fantasy was for the average person as escaping jail was to convicts, and I couldn't agree more. Reality is a fact of life and everyone must live in it, but to what extent? The typical parents will condition children to live in a cold and boring reality, eschewing creativity in favour of something more concrete. To them it's preparation. To me it's murder.

    I was fortunate to have parents that respected my realm and mindset, even if they didn't understand it or didn't agree with it. I moved from story to story and game to game in search of the "perfect one." In the end it was never made so clear as to create my own. A universe complete with planets, locales, factions, and characters, all with their own history and part. 

    For the last decade I've been working on it, using video games as an engine just for the action aspect, where all the narrative, character, and motivation was mine to command. I'd play the game, but often completely ignore the story it had in favour of mine. I hope that doesn't sound too selfish, but I never really liked to idea of playing games for the sake of enjoyment. For example, I'd play Halo, then later play Rainbow Six. Obviously neither of these games have anything in common narratively. Well, through my own story, I can tie them together, since I made up my own technological setting, whereas Halo's and Rainbow Six's are vastly different. I hope that helps thin the ice a little.

    I've done this sort of thing for so long that it has become second nature to me, and I can now do it effortlessly, sometimes I don't even realize it when it happens. I hope Tolkien would be proud.

J-Horror and Malice

    Ghost stories have a great appeal, being so deeply rooted in the unknown. Constantly people wonder about the supernatural and how to prove or disprove its existence, yet to no avail. I somewhat hope that it remains this way, so that stories like these will not lose their intrigue. 

    It wasn't until Warhammer 40K where my fictional spectrum began to accept magic and supernatural elements where technology and science were dominant. I'm very happy that it has broadened this way, because it has opened so many new doors for narrative expansion and to fill my world with mystery and appeal in ways not previously possible.

    Kwaidan was certainly interesting to me in a sense that it was well-told, conveyed, and no doubt true to the folklore. Pulse was quite startling with the lingering entities that seemed so ponderous and malicious just by their movement alone. These stories conveyed vengeful spirits wonderfully, both in character with their stoic expression and cold delivery, and atmospherically with snowy tundras and dystopian urban landscapes. They are often made scarier by pitting them against everyday citizens with no defense against something so ethereal.

Vampires, oh man, vampires

    I grew up in my life with minimal exposure to vampires, and apart from small bits here and there, I had little to go from. I was a little weary of the concept whenever it crept up, especially at Halloween, since the blood-suckers were one of the foremost examples in Halloween culture, at least when I was a kid. It would seem that Halloween has taken a turn from scary to sexy as of late, and that brings me to my point: vampires are no longer scary.

    In 2003 the Underworld film came out and I'd say it largely redefined the cultural image of the vampire. I rather enjoyed it despite its flaws, it removed the concept of the villainous vampire yet preserved it. There was a love interest akin to Romeo and Juliet with a little lemon twist here or there. Soon thereafter came many other movies, books, and shows centered around the legendary vampire.

    Apart from Underworld, a bit of a guilty pleasure, I've never been much for vampires. This is because of the melodramatic overtones that often follow them wherever they go, and the disconnection from most semblances of the tangible. The brooding loner of the night, not really for me. I've seen it far too many times that I can predict the narrative in my sleep. In leu of this I still have a sort of admiration for the earliest attempts to reinvent the genre, because I'll never argue with a fresh start, especially with the stagnation that has infected the media these days.