analogies and figures of speech I have used recently

Explaining why it's not a good idea to try to shop in Mysore for shirts that will be gifts for Leonard: "I can find things to fit me. Leonard is built .... like Bheema."

Explaining that Leonard, though an atheist, is fine with me being a Hindu: "For him, it's like I have a hobby. Like basketball."

Surveying multiple bookshelves of books that are not arrayed in any particular order: "This isn't a library. It's a pile, on shelves."

the narrative equivalent of mockmeat

So over in wiscon we're talking about possible panels and sessions to propose for this year's WisCon, and I'm exploring proposing something I originally called "disaggregating & reconstituting the pleasure of military/spy/police stories" -- people seem into it, and I'm probably going to write up the idea and propose it within the next couple of days.

I was talking with my spouse about it and we got to talking about the ways we usually envision the criminal justice apparatus interacting with the supernatural (e.g., characters don't generally try to indict the Wolfman, although "Indict the Wolfman" is a good band name) and how it would go if, like, a DSA-endorsed attorney became the head prosecutor in Gotham City and started taking a very different approach regarding Arkham, the root causes of villainy, etc. Which fanon Bruce Wayne, as in unpretty's fics, would be super into.

Anyway -- it strikes me that, in trying to figure out how one constructs a story that hits a bunch of the same buttons that spy/military/police fiction hits, yet avoids the ideological squick that the genre inherently pokes, I am a bit like someone trying to hack together a gluten-free or vegan equivalent of a favorite wheaty/dairy/meaty food; perhaps it will turn out that Leverage or Steven Universe is the Impossible Burger in this analogy....