Don’t you just love feel-good stories? Stories where there is 100% chance of a happy ending? Stories where the protagonist or main person grows and learns from their mistakes and becomes just… you know, better in the end? I know I do. Over the years, I’ve watched almost every show of the Arrowverse (aside from Black Lightning), as well as every movie and TV show of the MCU. I’ve seen Once Upon A Time in the past almost religiously week to week; as well as binging on Nancy Drew, One Tree Hill and Hart Of Dixie in recent times (shows grounded in reality somewhat but set in fictitious towns). And in each and every show where there is a distinct good v evil concept, or at least a concept of one person versus another; I’ve always rooted for the hero, which is most of the time presented to us to be the underdog. You see, we all have our favourite books or movies or TV shows or comics or fables or other works of fictions; and we all have the people that we root for. The people that could do no wrong in our eyes, the people that we always know are going to make it, the people whom we aspire to be like, or even to be. Sometimes though, we as people can be lost in the idea of a feel-good story, and the idea of good overcoming evil with a click of a finger; that we sometimes forget that real life can be a real hard slog. We dream about the what-ifs and think about the worlds that we have immersed ourselves in. We think about Storybrooke or National City or Central City or The Enchanted Forest, or The TVA or Madripoor or Wakanda or Blue Valley or Horseshoe Bay or Tree Hill or Bluebell; and we wish. “What if I was there? What if I was living ___, being a superhero or a hero or a detective and doing something worthwhile with my life? It would certainly be more interesting than real life, than what I’m doing right now!”. And then we spiral. Now, before each one of you object and try to explain to me that there’s no way that you’d ever, ever have these thoughts about escaping reality and hoping to be existing somewhere else in the world, or in a fictitious world that is very much alive through a certain movie or TV show; well, let’s not kid ourselves, shall we? Because I reckon all of us, at one point or another in our lives, have hoped to be part of something bigger than the world we live in right now, and have latched onto the hope and the dream and the fantasy that these fictitious worlds bring. Am I right? Am I wrong? Too close to the truth?

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