long and useless

I suddenly am attacked by nostalgia.

Some old Gundam Wing fics have shown up lately and I've been re-reading with a passion, and while I've never really let go of my love for Relena, it's been put to the side by other interests and obsessions... but I was re-reading Sainan no Kekka (absolutely breathtaking multi-arc fic that takes everything to a new level), and it forcefully reminds me of a lot of how much I adored her character. She was a force of her own and in remembering the series, I remember the moments where she stands alone, where she tries to stand on her own and failing but standing back up again. I know there was a lot of hatred for her when the series was at its height and that her so-called obsession with one, Heero Yuy, provoked a number of unpleasant feelings for a lot of fans. I know she wasn't the easiest character to like, that she wasn't the easiest character to understand.

She made me cry on a number of occasions; that's silly, isn't it?

I really loved reading Relena-centric fanfiction, where it wasn't necessarily about her relationships, but rather about her, about what it was like to survive in a shark's world, where she's only sixteen years old.

One of the things that still deeply unsettles me is the idea that Relena lost something lesser than the pilots. That her grief and sorrow were somehow not quite as important. It's hard to compare tragedy. I'd say that it's impossible because one person's grief is irrelevant to another. I'm not saying that any tragic event is less tragic, but rather that all are tragic in their own way and if we're forced to compare tragedies... well, that's rather a tragedy in of itself.

Dude. I'm rambling again. Bedtime.