Monday, June 15, 2009

Update

Wow, I haven't updated this in ages. Probably since everything started to look up since my last post and the only things I had left to whine about was my own laziness and tendency to procrastinate. That said, I have a month and a half to finish my three courses- I'm way behind schedule because I'm the laziest essay-writer ever and because the classes are so painfully easy that I could have finished them months ago if I'd really wanted to. I *so* need to stop being so lazy.

So- what have I been doing if not what I should be doing?

Yeah, I've been doing that obsessive compulsive fandom thing I do. Since January I've done the usual 'go back to old fandoms' and look for new fandoms thing I do, looking for a new shiny. I spent a great deal of time in the Naruto-fandom reading a lot of the fic that's been written since the last time I was there- I found a few good fics, one or two great fics, and a lot of average fic. The usual. After/during that I also poked into the Bleach fandom a bit, various other 'on-going' fandoms such as KH and FF, and read everything (nearly) there was to read in the KHR! fandom. There were probably a few others in there too, but my most recent 'obsession' was the Death Note fandom- which is weird, since its one of those fandoms where practically everyone ends up dead in cannon, and there are surprisingly few amount of AU fics where said characters survive. I still looked for them though.

Anyway, about a week or so ago I decided enough was enough. I'd read nearly everything that looked even a little bit interesting in the DN fandom and I was getting sick of the angst (and the badfic) so it was about time to find something new. This wasn't so much a conscious decision as something that just happened. I'd already been beginning to pull out, since the DN fandom isn't prolific enough to support me now that I've read all the good finished stuff, but I hadn't fully done so until I chanced upon the fact that the website of some of my old favorite authors had been updated.

And that's how I suddenly got all nostalgic for the TB/X/1999 fandom and decided to go on a quest to find some of my old favorite fics and see if anything new had been written in the years since I was so obsessed with it. Great way to get rid of the angst right? *L*

Interestingly enough there seem to have been something of a small revival of the fandom, and I'm not the only one who's been feeling nostalgic lately. Not only have a few old favorites been updated, but there are a few LJ communities and people who've been writing new fic lately- possibly because of the X/2009 challenge.

Said challenge was to show 'ten years later', either if the apocalypse had been diverted, it had happened and there were survivors (typical post-apocofic), or in one notable case if the apocalypse had been postponed ten years in order for Kamui to be able to make an 'informed decision' about the end of the world. It was this last fic that I just put aside, having realized that it was not going to end well at all. Essentially, by making the characters ten years older and putting them into 'now' things only got worse. Especially since several of the characters already had issues, and giving them more time to dwell on them with the knowledge that the world might still end wasn't a good one. Especially since ten years can change a person a lot, and if nothing gets resolved, if those ten years are just bidding time, or if the issues get worse, the decisions made my a cynical twenty-five year old, or someone in their thirties or forties, will be drastically different than those of a teenager or young adult.
The story itself is brilliant and chilling, and it *works* in the realistic context- but it isn't what I want to read at all- or think about. I had been hoping for something else when I found it. So even though the story is quite possibly one of the better pieces of fandom literature in any fandom, I don't think I'll be finishing it any time soon. I think that what bothers me the most about it is that it's written by a well-informed, academic type person who's realist views clash with my own hopeful views that things (and by things I mean life, the planet, society in general...) are not anywhere near as 'doomed' as people seem to think, and that we can and will fix things- even if we delay it until the last possible moment, it *is* going to be fixed. Or everything we see as needing to be fixed will fix itself and everything will balance out in the end. Or everything we think needs to be fixed doesn't and isn't as much of a long-term problem as we seem to think.

Anyway, my point is that my view of humanity isn't as cynical as hers and I hate apoco-fic in any fandom (though at least in the Stargate fandom the destruction of the Earth isn't necessarily the end of everything).

So *why* did I ever go back to the X/TB fandom?! Probably because I'd liked the characters and I love AUs where they either live happily ever after, sensibly decide to veto the apocalypse, or at least survive it. Actually, I'm kind of fond of fic where the characters get over their issues and realize that they don't *need* to follow destiny's path. Meh.

Well at least there's Tsubasa... though really, turning Kamui and Subaru into vampires... was it *absolutely* necessary? *L* Speaking of Tsubasa, I do believe that's my next fandom- even though CLAMP hands out angst by the buckets, and from what I've read of the plot there are are more twists and turns than you can shake a stick at... well at least its pretty.

And so, there I go.

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