User blog comment:Jdeschene/Common Themes/@comment-10502460-20180502063926

It's not immediately apparent in all of my pastas, but a lot of my stories on this wiki are driven by my interest since childhood in the intersection of government and society at the somewhat invisible and hidden or bureaucratic level, as opposed to high-profile partisan politics. My favorite of my pastas as well as the first one I posted on this wiki, Letter to the Editor, June 2004, was inspired by my strong interest in local government as well as the fact that I write letters to the editor myself from time to time IRL. Similarly, A Mountain in Chicago is kind of a dark satire of expensive public works projects.

Even a lot of my stories that aren't so directly related to government have some element of intrigue based on "procedural" or "official" elements, such as Code 40, which I came up with while brainstorming dark takes on warning labels and signage. Basically the original idea was to have the protagonist stumble on a confusing black and yellow or black and red warning diagram with one of those black silhouette men that ended up sending a terrifying and paranormal message once he finally figured out what it meant, and while the final product strays from that premise, I think it's still the product of me having a sort of naturally bureaucratic mind.

I also have no less than five television-centered stories on this wiki. While none of them are obviously related to government or bureaucracy, my interest in television pastas is also fueled by my interest in procedural civics, in this case as it relates to my interest in the security of our national infrastructure, which includes television. The FCC is mentioned in two of my television pastas, and My Daughter Loved Lions in particular was conceived while I was brainstorming different ways the public airways could be used for criminal purposes.

This interest in the ins-and-outs of matters of public entities, including government, business, and the non-profit sector, is also much of what attracts me to SCP, although I haven't been very active on that wiki.

Even my stories that would seem to have nothing to do with this interest are often inspired by it. This draft, probably the weirdest story I've written for this site so far, is actually still related to my interest in local government because it features a school. The fact that the school is in outer space is the result of me being fond of adding special creative flairs to an interest that at times can seem like a dry academic taste.

[Or take this draft that I posed today.] The story itself has nothing to do with government in any way, but the inspiration for it was once again my strong interest in the obscurities of civics, in this case my fascination with the illegal exotic pet trade.

The there's Jamie Hated Airshows, which I literally came up with while brainstorming story ideas to emulate the kind of chill one feels from reading something like an airshow incident report. When I was a teenager I went to a national leadership school for an military cadet program, and we sat through a lecture on the Czar 52 crash, which is inside baseball that the Air Force and Navy use at a lot of their officer schools to teach about how leadership failures can turn deadly. I mean the story I wrote doesn't have anything to do with that theme, but during that lecture I learned that such a seemingly bland topic as a recap of an airshow practice incident can be as captivating as a fictional horror story.