As is often pointed out, in Bram Stoker’s orginal novel Dracula, the title character had no vulnerability to sunlight, but since then the concept of vampires being unable to tolerate sunlight has become iconic. Tolkien’s Orcs have also become an archtype common to fantasy and roleplaying. The Tropes page http://tvtropes.org/ lists hundreds of things that have been featured so often in works of fiction that they have become canonical across multiple different sources.
So for those who write (or just daydream a lot about) fantasy, science fiction, or other genres, is there one thing that you’ve thought of that you wish would become a meme? Some idea that you think fits perfectly, and would be proud to say you were the originator of?
(This is a slightly different question from asking “what do you wish you could declare was canon within a fictional universe”, but I’ll entertain suggestions about those too)
I’m proud to say that if they ever need a word for some who wants to undergo a species change operation, the OED will quote me as the originator of “transphylite.”*
*Yes, I know it should be “paraphylite,” but the parallel to “transvestite” was too good to pass up.
I wish that sci-fi shows would actual science or speculative science when explaining things… or that they give no explanation whatsoever. No technobabble or made-upy explanation that uses scientific-sounding words, but which actually means nothing.
If someone in the new Star Trek movie reverses the polarity of the deflector dish even one damn time, I may have to go all Vulcan death grip on 'em.