[so much for the complexity of the black sheep]

This may seem obvious in retrospect, but I'm only just realizing why I've been reading so much manga about all these new characters & barely feeling any sense of disorientation which would come with the need for constant adjustment. I mean, having read so much fanfic almost exclusively, you'd think I'd be struck by how difficult or at least -noticeable- constant novelty would be.

And yet, there is no constant novelty. I mean, I find that comforting & quite fitting, since I'm looking for the same old thrill with the same old buttons, basically, but then I realized that it's not just manga which revolves around the same five or six (maybe ten at most) personality types. It's popular books, movies, everything-- the more I think about the personalities I remember from any kind of story, especially a popular one, the more I see repetition. I mean, fanfic makes it -blatant-, but really it's everywhere, and the rampant familiarity I feel goes way beyond any sense of deja-vu.

It's mostly startling to me because one of the things I learned with writing fanfic was to pay attention to characterization, which I never had before, really. I used to just write out whatever action came to mind for a character, without actually being aware of who that character is supposed to be and why they'd be acting this way. I'd never thought of people as having 'types' that could be successfully used without looking totally lame and obvious enough to be a parody. It's kind of jarring to think that what seems to be the majority of writers operate by apparently starting from cookie-cutter personality stereotypes they'd thoroughly labeled and then (hopefully) adding layers. I mean, I don't -know- this, since I haven't asked these manga writers in particular, but it just seems so obvious, and not just in manga.

( Well, it seems like it -should- have been obvious, at least. )