![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
silveradeptRecommend a fannish or creative resource.
I tend not to think in terms of individual stories and characters when I talk about fandom. This can make for the most interesting of hops across time and space, and may account for at least some of my eclectic tastes in media and the like. I find that the more I watch, the more I tend to define core character archetypes and then differentiate between the various characters through details, filigree, and the ways that those characters exemplify or defy their core characteristic.
It can also make watching media with me annoying, as I have been known to predict certain things before they happen (The Sixth Sense, and also the relationship between Namine, Sora, and Kairi) or to get rather hot under the collar about how a thing gets done or not done because a character has just flagrantly discarded all the things the writers have set up for them in a naked case of executive meddling. Or to know that certain things will only be in fanworks, because there isn't yet a studio that's willing to go there.
Dr. Campbell's Hero's Journey is a fascinating framework, as are many of the other contentions that there are only a limited number of stories in the world, but ultimately they're only useful if a story involves that idea upon themselves, whether to fulfill it or fling it back in the face of the suggestion. (Life was far less like a bedtime story / Than a tragedy with no big reveal / of the heroes' glory)
However, if you end up scratching your head or exclaiming, possibly profanely or blasphemously, that you have seen that character, plot, or idea before in another work, or that you are noticing a trend in your fandom to play up the attractiveness of the villain as a way of making them more redeemable or likable (often for shipping purposes), then there's a good chance you will enjoy TVTropes, a wiki dedicated to finding and documenting storytelling tropes, shticks, gags, and the like, which expands out to tropes that apply to creators and their works as well. It is a most beautiful thing to take a Wiki Walk on, and might help you make some connections as to the why that things keep popping up again. They're are no value judgments on tropes, although some may be more appropriate for other eras than now - it's their use that makes them good or bad.
It's a highly recommended resource for people who have similar thought processes as I do, or for those who are looking for the connective tissue that links stories together and allows for their variations.
I tend not to think in terms of individual stories and characters when I talk about fandom. This can make for the most interesting of hops across time and space, and may account for at least some of my eclectic tastes in media and the like. I find that the more I watch, the more I tend to define core character archetypes and then differentiate between the various characters through details, filigree, and the ways that those characters exemplify or defy their core characteristic.
It can also make watching media with me annoying, as I have been known to predict certain things before they happen (The Sixth Sense, and also the relationship between Namine, Sora, and Kairi) or to get rather hot under the collar about how a thing gets done or not done because a character has just flagrantly discarded all the things the writers have set up for them in a naked case of executive meddling. Or to know that certain things will only be in fanworks, because there isn't yet a studio that's willing to go there.
Dr. Campbell's Hero's Journey is a fascinating framework, as are many of the other contentions that there are only a limited number of stories in the world, but ultimately they're only useful if a story involves that idea upon themselves, whether to fulfill it or fling it back in the face of the suggestion. (Life was far less like a bedtime story / Than a tragedy with no big reveal / of the heroes' glory)
However, if you end up scratching your head or exclaiming, possibly profanely or blasphemously, that you have seen that character, plot, or idea before in another work, or that you are noticing a trend in your fandom to play up the attractiveness of the villain as a way of making them more redeemable or likable (often for shipping purposes), then there's a good chance you will enjoy TVTropes, a wiki dedicated to finding and documenting storytelling tropes, shticks, gags, and the like, which expands out to tropes that apply to creators and their works as well. It is a most beautiful thing to take a Wiki Walk on, and might help you make some connections as to the why that things keep popping up again. They're are no value judgments on tropes, although some may be more appropriate for other eras than now - it's their use that makes them good or bad.
It's a highly recommended resource for people who have similar thought processes as I do, or for those who are looking for the connective tissue that links stories together and allows for their variations.
