One
thing I appreciate about a good Urban Fantasy series is world building - I do
love a nice, complicated, involved, rich world with all these wonderful
supernatural gribblies all co-exist with humanity, their politics and how it
all comes together in wonderful complexity
But
what I really really want to see and very rarely do is how would normal daily
life change with the existence of the supernatural? Perfectly, normal mundane
people living perfectly normal mundane lives - but in a completely abnormal,
absolutely supernatural world.
Take
Haunting for example. Now in our perfectly mundane world where,
if ghosts do exist they don’t do a whole lot, we have spooky cemeteries and
spooky haunted houses and all kinds of scary places. But in, say, Supernatural’s
world where ghosts regularly up and murder people for all kinds of random
reason what happens then? Do cemeteries need armed guards? Are abandoned
buildings quickly demolished? Are abandoned asylums nuked from space? Are
people more likely or less likely to silly things like camp in cemeteries or
examine abandoned hospitals?
Are
cemeteries armed camps? Do people even HAVE cemeteries? I mean in a world where
angry ghosts, zombies, vampires, ghouls and who knows what crawls out of the
grave on a regular basis, cremation looks like a much better option. Debates of
religious freedom and the rights of the dead are likely to fade quickly after
the fourth near zombie apocalypse.
And
what about museums? I mean when a good third of your exhibits are
cursed, haunted or coveted by some terrifying immortal being of some kind, how
do you even function? Suddenly Indiana Jones actually looks like a reasonable
way to go about Archaeology - though, I’d want a damn site more than a whip
when any of those tomb being robbed could still be occupied by scourges, curses
and monsters. Seriously I want to see Archaeologists dressed like this:
But
then, the whole profession of historians must be fascinating when it becomes
more a case of skilled interviews with beings that may try to eat you. I want
to see the plucky historian detective interviewing vampires about what really
started the Great Fire of London and figuring out which one had an agenda. Or
working with mediums to learn what various ghosts knew only to find them trying
to manipulate history - or being totally uninterested. Or wanting to tell their
relatives how pissed they are. And yes, I’d love to to see a professional
medium whose job is to track down long lost relatives and read them the riot
act. Or stand up during a eulogy and yell “your granddad says you need to fuck
yourself!!”
And
what about Urban Legends? All those little Superstitions? What
does a world look like where saying the wrong thing in front of a mirror will
get your eyes torn out? How many random superstitions are there every day? How
many monsters can be invoked by stepping on cracks, how many monsters lurk in
closets and under beds?. Never mind fearing vampires and werewolves, does fear
of the Slenderman keep people in their homes at night? Do superstitions become
laws? Do we make paths without cracks? Do we just flat out ban mirrors because
of all the many many many many many terrifying myths and legends attached to
them?
How
do we incorporate magic and woo-woo into the real world in a wonderful mundane
fashion? Is the 9-5 work day warped by the presence of so many nocturnal
creatures? Do hospitals have witches on site for some woo-woo help - or to
identify curses? How do police even deal with a populace that can regularly
turn into a tiger or is pretty much immune to mundane weaponry? Do you need a
species check in hospitals before beginning treatment? What do planning laws
look like when you ley lines, feng shui, and various enraged supernaturals
could cause all kind of nonsense if not handled carefully. I want to see a room
full of super boring elderly people sit around a table and question the
ramifications of disturbing a local standing stone and whether they have
anti-leprechaun measures in place.
And
how do you even run a religious service when the people you’re actually
preaching about, or their representatives, may check in. And maybe give you
marks or critiques. I can picture a reverend stuttering as Gabriel sits in the
back pew with a clipboard, a red pen and a judging expression? Or Abaddon shows
up to heckle.
There’s
so much potential for the wonderful mundane ins-and-outs-of our world being
affected by magic, monsters and general woo-woo. I’m sure there’s a vast well
to explore here
