(This post is part of the Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge. You can find links to other writers' answers over at Long and Short Reviews. I have not been following along as reliably this year as I did in previous years, but I'm still participating! Sort of.)
Prompt: A book trope I wish happened IRL more often
Well, let me just put this out there: the one I want isn't a "book trope" so much as it a "comic book trope". Specifically, it's the trope of "something weird happens and suddenly somebody has superhero powers/somebody comes of age and discovers their mutant powers". Yeah, that would have incredibly messy effects on the current political and social order, but I hold to the hope that shaking up the entrenched interests with a bunch of super-powered plebes would be worth it.
I got bitten on the face -- just to the left of my nose, in fact -- by a brown recluse spider a few months back. If this trope happened in real life, I could have gotten superpowers from that. I could 100% lean into The Brown Recluse as my superhero name: the fifty-something guy who mostly goes about his business until, I don't know, somebody robs the bank while I'm trying to use the ATM. Next thing you know, there are webs everywhere and some very confused bad guys who are missing their guns and their wallets.
Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? I mean, at this point in my life I've got a pretty good idea. Most of it is tired and not even all that surprising. ("Original sin? What's so original about it?") I'd be fine using psychic powers to fight corruption at the highest levels of industry, state, and church.
So, yeah, that's my answer: the world needs more superhero origin stories.
Totally agree with you there.
ReplyDeleteSorry you were bitten!
It was not fun, but meat tenderizer is a wonderful thing.
DeleteYes! Superpowers would be cool. There's still time, Michael, maybe it's a delayed reaction?
ReplyDeleteI hold to the hope.
DeleteSo my kid is sick. Which is related to this, because we had an entire conversation in which they asked me why we have to have symptoms like coughing when we are sick instead of temporary superpowers. We then spent a while discussing what kinds of superpowers different viruses would cause and which would be the funnest. (We both agreed that it would not be a good idea for me to have the ability to fly because I'd spend a day hitting my head on the ceiling. Apparently I would be accident prone even with superpowers!) I forget where I was going with this. Oh yeah, superpowers are fun! I hope you get some!
ReplyDeleteI love having those kinds of conversations with kids. Temporary superpowers when you get sick would be hilarious. Like, "Did you hear about Tim? Sat down to write an email and his hand went right through the keyboard. Had to go home for the day." "That's still better than Barbara! She came in to work last week when she was still floating a couple of inches off the ground, and now half of Accounting's stuck on the ceiling!"
DeleteHAHAHAHA! This made me laugh so hard my tummy hurts now, thanks so much for that. Actually, though. That would be so hilarious. "Oh man, what a gong show, John didn't even know he was sick and when he went to open his car door he threw the car straight through the front of the building!" Or, "poor Polly, Mitch got that thing that's been going around and saw her through the wall picking her nose in the bathroom and now it's an HR nightmare! Imagine if she'd been peeing!" I'm going to have such fun thinking of all the other uncomfortable situations that might occur! What fun!
DeleteThat's hilarious.
DeleteHa! This really made me laugh. Sorry about the brown recluse. Those give me the willies. I was teaching in a small town in Texas and someone had caught one and put it in a glass jar (no air holes) and was waiting for it to die naturally so the science department students could study it. That was September. In May when I headed back to grad school, you could shake the jar, it would wake from hibernations and scurry around.
DeleteAnyone who's been bitten by a brown recluse spider deserves the ability to sling webs anywhere, at the very least. Life is so not fair!
ReplyDelete* --PK
DeleteI completely agree!
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