So, you may have read the introductory post and (hopefully) found something to your liking in it; but it also may have left you not quite sure what sort of content precisely to expect on the blog. Will it contain book and movie reviews, or philosophical debates on the meaning of fantasy? Short answer: both, and more! For the long answer, read on!
First things first, yes, there will be reviews of and comments on various media that can be placed into the broad categories of fantasy, heroic, hopeful and/or inspiring. Essentially, what the whole first post was about. :) Sometimes there may be reviews or comments regarding media that is not like that - in order to underline what I believe to be wrong with it, or at least what one should be wary of in it. That won't be the main focus - these are Tales of HOPE, after all - but it will show up from time to time.
When I say various media, I do really mean that! We'll talk about written media - books (fiction and non-fiction), stories and poems. About visual media - mostly meaning films and TV shows (both cartoons and live action), as they by their nature contain more storytelling, but the occasional work of static visual art may sneak in, too. (Who says a painting or sculpture can't have a story!) Of course, about comic books / graphic novels and picture books, which combine the two. About music, particularly that with a strong narrative aspect, be it a classical opera or ballet or a song of a modern rock band. About games of various sorts - video games, board games, tabletop wargames and roleplaying games - for what could be more exciting than taking part in a story? About toys, action figures, models and the like, too. Never underestimate the intricate story that most children and some adults can experience in their heads just from placing a plastic princess or warrior on the table just so - not to mention more detailed and imaginative play.
These posts will range from regular reviews (“here’s this book/movie/game/thing and what I think about it”), over commentary on a particular aspect of something (a character, an individual scene, an idea in the story, etc), to comparisons of varying degrees of scope. It could be comparing just two or three similar things (“My Little Pony: Pinkie Pie in G3 vs G4”), it could be a list of stuff following a similar theme (“some good books with dragons in them”) or a highlight pick (“my favourite Cinderella movie” – note, my favourite, not the best, as these things can’t be objectively measured).
And, branching away from that, there will also be posts devoted to more general themes – be it something as broad as brave heroes, scary villains, romance, magic, or something as narrow as “depictions of water elementals in fantasy media”. Subjects related to fantasy worldbuilding, narration, the philosophy behind something, an archetype or a trope commonly present in a genre, and so on. Generally, as I have a social sciences background, expect more of these to concern the social than the physical aspects of a world, or at least those to have more fleshed-out detail.
An aspect that I know may concern some of you is the maturity level, or family-friendliness – if you want to get technical, the PG-rating – of a concrete media or subject we’ll be discussing, which is why I’ll do my best to label the posts accordingly. I won’t be using any classical rating with fixed ages, since I think that really, really varies from person to person. Someone might be ready for a certain content at 8, while another 12-year-old would feel uncomfortable about it. Some adults genuinely don’t enjoy horror content at all, while there are children who find it fun and not overly scary.
Thus, there will be three descriptive categories. On the one end, “child-friendly”, the equivalent of ESRB’s “everyone” label: something I believe contains nothing that might be problematic even for small children – and likely something that was made for (small) children. On the other end of the spectrum, “very mature”: media dealing with something that is conventionally considered adult material, be it the classical violent and/or erotic content, emotionally and socially deep and disturbing subjects, or simply content that goes into politics, philosophy and similar subjects that younger audiences might simply find boring or hard to understand. (For a simple example, a lot of little children loved the Mary Poppins movie, but didn’t really get the part in the bank and found it fairly boring. If the whole movie was about that, it wouldn’t be harmful for youngsters, but they definitely wouldn’t watch it to the end!) For everything in between, we might label it as “some maturity needed”, and then I’ll list the potentially problematic subjects, and let you decide what might fit you or your child. After all, someone might steer clear of scary monsters and bloody combat, while someone else might find precisely that exciting and interesting!
Tales of HOPE also has social media accounts! You can follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Telegram. Beyond posting links to new blog posts when they’re up (you can also set up an RSS feed for that), the social media will also have shorter posts that wouldn’t really qualify for the blog – some photos of interesting things (our own), links to other content online, including reposts from other pages on those respective social networks. After all, it would be rather silly to make a “blog post” the sole content of which would be “look, the trailer for this new movie came out, here’s the link!” – but I think that’s quite OK for social media and might be of value to some of you. There may be a blog post later, if I feel inspired to write a more detailed commentary of the trailer – but not necessarily. Still, if I find it interesting at first sight, can’t hurt to share!
If you feel that Tales of HOPE’s presence on another social media platform would be a good thing, let me know! I won’t jump and open a new account for one interested person, but if multiple followers are in favour of a platform, I’ll definitely consider it. However, at least for the time being, there are no plans for original video content – so don’t expect YouTube or TikTok!
Finally, how often can you expect blog posts? Let’s say once a week, Sunday mornings. There might be an occasional bonus post beyond that, but since I’m definitely not a full-time blogger (there’s family life and work going on first and foremost!), once a week sounds decent so far, and then we’ll see how it goes! Naturally, there will be social media posts more often, so follow us – I hope it will be worthwhile!
No comments:
Post a Comment