I'm beginning to worry.

Most of the stories I've pulled off the list / servers / what have
you lately have had one thing in common : a big 'ol heaping helping
of trauma and depression.  To wit, that delightful 90's trend known
as ANGST(tm Nirvana).

It's ridiculously egotistical to say this, but I feel almost like I'm
to blame for this trend, since most of my stories took a nosedive into
the Deep Subject Matter end of the pool and came up after a lot of
emotional strife and mayhem.  Since then I've noticed a lot of deep
subject mattered stories, dripping with teenage angst.  (This is
probably a coincidence.)  But I'm noticing something in these new
stories which I tried to avoid, and that's ending on a completely
down note.

My philosophy is this : You can get as down as you want if you go up
in the long run.  You can't appreciate the highest mountain until
you visit the lowest valley.  When the story's over, the problems
should be solved, the traumas dealt with mentally and everybody on
some stable footing to continue their lives in peace, and sometimes
happiness.  Nobody can stay down FOREVER, and the point of trauma is
to strengthen you and help you deal with life with more confidence.
But a lot of the stories I've been reading now warp the Ranmaverse
into the Tragic Kingdom, land of pain and despair, which isn't BAD
per se, but they never bounce back, or even try to.  Sometimes life
just gets worse and worse until it's all over.  Yerg.

I've been starting to get off the 'Angst' thing lately.  I see it all
around me, on MTV, on the news, in life and the reflections on life;
a feeling of hopeless despair and depression.  I see people commiting
suicide or other stupid things in the name of what's dramatically
acceptable for them to do (read : feel hopelessly lost).  Enough is
enough.  At first I thought angst was cool because it was silly
sometimes, and meaningful at others, but those whole 90's Angst thing
is beginning to reach sadism, not life experience.  Life experience
I approve of as a valuable tool of angst, but sadism I've never
liked.  Nobody WANTS to feel like (expletive deleted).

Is this being reflected in these fanfics?  What's going on?  Do we
really want to see how screwed up we can make the cast, and do we
really like to read about how screwed up they are?  Is it being done
'right' (another good concept to argue), or at least in an enjoyable
fashion, or just beating a dead horse?  That's the sort of thread
I'd like to spawn in this rather roundabout posting.

I apologize if this post was weird and/or insulting to anybody who's
written an angst story, but I felt a need to preach from my soapbox
to get it out, and maybe get people talking about these matters.

(And a side note : What'll the next big trendy emotion be?  My vote is
in for Casualness.  Ferris Bueller, Parker Lewis, even Randall from
Clerks.  Mixes in the silly with a rational, whimsical view of things.
Might be a nice change of pace for 'Generation X'.)

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