When I was a little guy, I was both mischievous and an ardent rule-follower. That sounds like an oxymoron, but there’s truth in it. I enjoyed bending or breaking rules when I found a way to circumvent them. I’d stay up late on a school night reading or playing video games, then steal back some lost sleep with micro naps in class. When Star Wars: Episode III — The Revenge of the Sith premiered in 2005, I cut class with a few friends, and we spent the afternoon at the movie theater. This was far from the only time I flaked on important opportunities in lieu of fun, and as I grew, I found creative ways to skirt the “way things are supposed to be” for mischief. 

At the same time, I was strict about which principles or rules I followed. Because storytelling was so important to me at a young age, I was a devout believer that there was an order to art and creativity, that there were laws that weren’t supposed to be broken. Vampires were warded off by garlic and avoided sunlight for fear of death. Silver bullets were the main method of dealing with werewolves. That sort of thing. 

It sounds silly to think of myself as a child who was comfortable with skirting social expectations and norms but consumed books, movies, and comics with such rigidity. But this is also something that’s so very human. It’s a dichotomy we all carry with us in one way or another. 

Eventually, I dropped the rigidity when it came to art and creativity. It came about in the most unexpected way. I watched a vampire flick called Innocent Blood, wherein an empathetic “good” vampire had to slay nefarious mobster vampires who were turning New York City into their playground. She did so with a gun, and the “bad” vampires were killed by destroying their brains. As much as it was fun, my brain couldn’t process rules normally reserved for ghouls or the living dead being applied to vampires here—two distinctly different monster types.