Maybe I'm just temporarily burnt out on fandom or something

[drakyndra]

Erm, for no adequately explained reason - and this is my brain I am unable to explain the rationality of right here, which may be a problem for me - I have not as yet seen the most recent Doctor Who episode.

I mean, I have in it my possession. Pretty much everything I have heard about it seems rather good. It sounds like the sort of thing I'd like. I had plenty of time to watch it this afternoon.

And yet, I can't bring myself to watch it.

WTF, brain?

_{...I probably won't get to watch it for a while, either, given this is a busy week in terms of Uni work.}

Comments

[partly-bouncy.livejournal.com]

From what I've seen and heard from others, a lot of people are going through burn out and are having a much lower shit tolerance. There seems to be a general blah regarding fandom overall. :/

[drakyndra.livejournal.com]

It's weird that it's all happening at once, though.

[partly-bouncy.livejournal.com]

Meh. I don't know. There are probably some external things contributing to the feeling for the masses: The economy is not doing really well, people are tired of the current political system (at least in the US), there isn't much news happening, feelings of blah held over from the Writers Strike (at least in the US), continuing bad news out of Iraq, the politics involving China that are beginning to drag. There just isn't much happy, happy news. Or much news of interest to fandom period.

(Mashable, a blog site I follow which tracks social networking news, commented that things have been really slow. Most of the news is same old, same old. There isn't innovation. I get the feeling a lot of bloggers in that area are having similar issues to fandom.)

[drakyndra.livejournal.com]

Well, that's a rather more... sociological answer than I was expecting.

It's just more weird since I was all over fandom just a few days ago, but I've just trailed off very quickly and I don't know why.

[partly-bouncy.livejournal.com]

Ah. Whoops. I've spent a couple of hours talking about the subject with a friend on AIM, exploring all the possibilities of why things have felt so quiet and subdued in fandom for the past few months.

Unhappy wanking? silver_sporks make you happier?

[drakyndra.livejournal.com]

I seem to have accidentally caught the tail end of someone's meta, then.

I think I'll just toddle off to one of my less involved fandoms. And, you know, do Uni work.

[malaleen.livejournal.com]

I felt the same last week with the premiere. I'm tired of all the fandom drama that constantly goes on and how the series and fandom can never move on from it's past. The only reason I watched last night's episode was because my sister was in town and wanted to see it. But to be honest, I was only half watching as I surfed the net, reading fan fic from another fandom.

[drakyndra.livejournal.com]

I've been busy digging through the archives at scans_daily. Whee, comics!

[malaleen.livejournal.com]

You know, I'm finding I'm enjoying the series a lot more, yet on a less deep level, because I'm pretty much blocking out anything to do with the fandom right now.

And I'm a lot happier these days too.

[drakyndra.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that sounds about right, too. Avoiding fandom is a good way to keep oneself positive, but then you miss out on all sorts of newsy stuff.

[gryffinclaw.livejournal.com]

I AM THE SAME WAY!

Do not get me wrong. I love Donna, I really do but I can not bring myself to watch episode 2. I am just...blah about it really.

[drakyndra.livejournal.com]

Great minds and all that?

[kniblet.livejournal.com]

Watch it. It's really good.

[drakyndra.livejournal.com]

See, everything I've heard says that, and I know I'll enjoy it... but I just can't.

I don't know why.

[kniblet.livejournal.com]

Force yourself. It's like jumping in a cold pool on a hot day. I promise you won't regret it.

Although, it seems to help if you've studied beginner Latin with the Cambridge Latin Course. Which I hadn't.

[drakyndra.livejournal.com]

As the actual week has now kicked in, I may have to wait a bit. Assignments and classes and stuff, you know?

[in-the-end.livejournal.com]

I hope you get to watch it soon as it's very good. The best thing I could have done before S4 started was to stay away from the DWF. Fandom is so much nicer when you play in your own little sandbox.

[iko.livejournal.com]

True. I stay out of many places because I don't like it when folks harsh my squee.

[donnaimmaculata.livejournal.com]

Ah, this happens to me all the time, which is why I've never got deeply involved with any fandom after my interest in Harry Potter dwindled out. I, too, have the latest Doctor Who episode, but haven't watched it yet, either. My tip: If you can't be bothered watching the episodes straightaway, save them up for a long rainy day and watch them all in a row. It's great. Actually, this is what I did with "Torchwood" last weekend. It's like an injection of pure fun.

[drakyndra.livejournal.com]

Thing is, I am, theoretically hugely interested in the fandom still - see my two ginormous posts last week on it. I just... can't drag up motivation.

The marathoning thing is an idea, though I am not sure I can fall that far behind. And I want to see Martha's next ep as soon as it happens.

[tlr3.livejournal.com]

. . . what i find really weird is that several lj folk (not singling you out), as far as i can tell, would have been absolutely thrilled to watch this, and would have watched it and loved it. . .

*if* it had been done a year ago.

but everything else in the meantime seems to have made the same folks less keen on the show in general(?). maybe? because otherwise i don't understand why the lack of watching. again, not singling you out. general trend.

. . . anyway, i liked it.

[drakyndra.livejournal.com]

It's sort of vaguely reassuring to know I'm not alone here.

[koshiroryuu.livejournal.com]

I'm only just now even trying to get a copy. I'm down to the last dregs of my Who squee after most of it got gone sometime last month or so (I blame those two Torchwood episodes that I loathed, especially "Adrift" although I won't bore you with my angry meta on why) and as I had a particularly bad weekend in many many ways, I've found that I care even less at the moment than I did before. What partly_bouncy was saying up above makes a hell of a lot of sense to me, actually, because when the world sucks, I want to watch something uplifting, something that makes me feel good, and while Old Who and SJA can do that for me, New Who and Torchwood and all their dodgy subtext and horrible issues and incredibly frustrating crap just can't, and therefore I'm finding it extremely difficult to get enthusiastic, I think.

Although I'm told that Donna's breasts are quite magnificent this episode, so that may sway me into watching it. My daughter still hasn't bothered with the first one; when we sat down to watch it together, she had a choice between "Partners in Crime" and "Pirate Planet" and she chose "Pirate Planet". She does not appear to have regretted this in the least. I can't say that I blame her, since "Pirate Planet" is fantastic cheesy love with extra cheese on top, and also Romana I.

(Sorry for the edits. I'm trying to make that one part a little less upsetting to people who might be upset about that sort of thing being said in public. Sigh.)

[drakyndra.livejournal.com]

I think that's it: When one has fandom burn-out, it doesn't work so well. Because fandom's supposed to be the place you want to escape to not escape from.

The fact that this episode, though supposedly good, is also supposedly... not that cheery doesn't help, either. There are times when I feel like good, thoughtful sad stuff. Fannish burnout does not inspire this, though.

So instead I am thinking about Uni work, and watching Animated Batman and reading Dresden Files.

[koshiroryuu.livejournal.com]

I'm not quite done being distracted by Hot Fuzz yet. It has gunfire! And explosions! And more gunfire! And massive amounts of completely on-purpose gay subtext! But there needs to be more fanfic for it. I'm currently trying to work out a Doctor Who crossover involving Four, because he's always fun.

[drakyndra.livejournal.com]

Hot Fuzz is insanely incredibly awesome. I don't have any desire to get into the fandom, but I cannot deny the awesomeness of it.

[koshiroryuu.livejournal.com]

No one can deny the awesomeness of it! No one! But I only sort of poke around on the outskirts of the fandom and attempt to write the odd fic here and there, I don't even post my stuff to the main comm, and I only really read fic by people I know or that's been recced by people I know. And in that fandom, "people I know" basically means "phosfate".

If you ever want to read any really good fic for it, though, her stuff is brilliant. And her artwork, too. It's love.