Themes I Like to Be

With the recent loss of my job and spare time aplenty, I’ve taken an opportunity to look over 5+ years of writing that is recorded on my computer.  Freewriting, story ideas, chunks of larger works that have yet to be fitted together...  and I’ve found reoccurring themes.  Here they are, as promised to a couple of you.  You'll laugh and nod at some of them, I'm sure.  Perhaps you haven't seen some of the others before.   

Where I like to be: mountains, forests, deserts.  If the place has a name, it gets to develop a personality.  Cities that are like spiders. Empires on the verge of collapse.  Colonies, borderlands and (yes) crossroads.  Sometimes snowing scenes overcrowded with strange shadows. 

What I like to be: Canines, flying creatures, shapeshifters. Hybrids of mythology like Coyote who drives a park ranger jeep in the Rocky Mountains.  Sometimes the undead.

When I like to be: The undying medieval settings, the end of the world, alternate histories.  Even here and now, but never as it is here as now.  At the beginning, but rarely at the end of a tale.  

Who I like to be: mysterious strangers, messengers, outcasts.  Those who are not what they seem, just like everyone else.  People who have a strong sense of purpose.  Those who search for purpose but always find it in the wrong place.  The lost, angry, and driven.  Those with a destiny to fight.   

How I like to be: replete with symbols and omens, questioning the reality of each world, in pursuits or being pursued.  Obsessed with meanings, especially the meaning of names.  Wedged in the gray spaces between good and evil.   

Ouroboros

For anyone else who has the time or inclination – I’d love to see what themes you’d like to be.  What are the themes in your writing, the books you read, the movies you watch, stories you tell in gaming, video games themselves, or anything of the like?