#fantasy feels

A lot of geek culture is devoted to the construction of fantasy lives of one sort or another, fantasies that often bear little resemblance to our 'real lives'. However, to simply dismiss this, the way so many seem to do, as useless or pathetic does geek culture an injustice. Fantasy is more than simple escapism. Geekdom often attracts people who, for one reason or another, find the culture we live in alienating or unsatisfying. Fantasy, at its best, can be a way of envisioning how the world could be different, and I think that some of these exercises of the imagination can contain the seeds of real change.

One likes to think that there is some fantastic limbo for the children of imagination, some strange, impossible place where the beaux of Fielding may still make love to the belles of Richardson, where Scott’s heroes still may strut, Dickens‘s delightful Cockneys still raise a laugh, and Thackeray’s worldlings continue to carry on their reprehensible careers. Perhaps in some humble corner of such a Valhalla, Sherlock and his Watson may for a time find a place, while some more astute sleuth with some even less astute comrade may fill the stage which they have vacated. ... And so, reader, farewell to Sherlock Holmes! I thank you for your past constancy, and can but hope that some return has been made in the shape of that distraction from the worries of life and stimulating change of thought which can only be found in the fairy kingdom of romance.