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04/04/2003 Entry: "Posting Explosion!"

A couple of other things I wanted to natter on about yesterday and forgot:

This was a very interesting take on Kamui in X. I have to say that I was one of the fangirls who got annoyed with post-change Kamui, and I think I've said someplace that I found him much more interesting when he wasn't quite so limp and passive--when there was an edge to him, when he was angry and breaking stuff up and pushing everybody away from himself all the time. This person made me think about that in a new way--the idea that Kamui has lost a shallow, solely outer-directed image of strength in favor of a more true inner strength is something I'll have to chew on for a while. Because hey, I'm all about the sublimity of the power of self-sacrifice. I think that working from a different paradigm of what power is and is all about could be explored very fruitfully. But I still have to say that I'm frustrated with Meek!Kamui, not because he's no longer a badass who blows things up, but because his realization and the power of his Wish have not yet been translated into action. Love and conviction are wonderful things to be sure, but to really mean anything I feel that they have to take on a concrete form in this world. Jesus wasn't just about loving people and letting himself be killed for them--he kicked the moneychangers out of the temple, remember. He said hard truths to people, pulling back the curtains of their complacency, their illusions about what it means to truly live a godly life. My issue with Kamui as he has been recently is that he (along with most of the other Seals, really) has been ineffectual for so long. He murmurs about his wish, but other than that it seems that he's just waiting for something to happen to him from outside, because he can't make the leap himself and generate some creative attempt at making his Wish a reality. Obviously that's easier said than done, and a certain amount of stalling is inevitable, but it feels like it's just gone on for way too long. (Perhaps my issue is more with CLAMP's pacing than with the character.) In any case, I'm not so sure that Kamui has gotten to a stronger place yet. I think he's still in an unborn state, on the threshold between what he used to be and what he may eventually become, and somebody has to kick him out through the eggshell before he'll really achieve his true potential. At least things *seem* to be tending in that direction with the most recent issue. We'll have to see.

But then I tend to get off on the moment of crisis and transcendence. Thinking about it, I might have liked Kamui best when he was right at the cusp of the last change--being with Kotori just before Seishirou attacked them, or with Fuuma at the shrine after that, or when he was coming to grips with himself when Subaru went into his heart. When he was both engaged with the people around him and struggling with the implications of that engagement, unfolding in wistfulness while not yet having lost the boundaries of himself.

(I want very much to read this person's earlier entry about the end of Gluhen, but I haven't decided if I want to be that badly spoilered. I think I'm going to have to wait. *gnaws fingers*)

RE: not posting snips of unfinished drafts: yeah, I'm kind of like that too. Often I try not even to talk about them too much in public; hence the occasional uninformatively vague mutterings that appear in this weblog when I feel like I should give people some idea of what I've been working on, but I don't really know what to say without giving the game away. Recently I've been going through phases of wondering whether the completely sealed off alchemic crucible of silence is really so much better than striking sparks off other interested parties, getting back reactions and generating more excitment by the exchange, or whether that would just end up dispersing the energy too much. So I'm experimenting with feeding one of my Weiss fics to a reader (hi, K-chan) in pieces as I write it. Although frankly the pieces are still nearly chapter-length, so it's probably not really much different than sending out a completed chapter. It's just a bit less polished, since I haven't really done any editing.

Oh, and by way of writing, I never did end up writing anything at Lunacon, because on the first day AppleWorks (staid, hardworking AppleWorks!) died in a most spectacular fashion, and I decided that this was a message that I should get out and actually socialize with people. Which I did. Last weekend saw the completion of that Schuldig PoV section and the end of the chapter--*finally!* Geez, the frickin' thing was huge. (12,500+ words. Maybe I *should* go out for NaNoWriMo this year.) The Weiss thing I'm currently trying to get to a certain point on is a completely different Weiss thing from that one; this weekend's projects, in addition to hopefully making a stab at "Sakura," include yet *another* Weiss piece.

Gah. Maybe I need to get into specifics after all....

(Can y'all tell that today is really dead at work?)