I am in a strange state just now. Trin just told me to go look at Chris Psaros's site, and thus I did.

It gone. Not as in not there- that I would attribute to a glitch or something that wasn't deliberate. No, Chris has taken down the entire DBZ Uncensored site. And I can't help but feel somehow... lost.

In a very real way, Chris was the impetus that got me into the world of anime, rather than thinking that all animation was Merrie Melodies and Bugs Bunny (tm, yes, yes, I know, don't sue me please). Back in the days when Toonami was just a bad pun that happened to run some Thundercats- damn, I loved that show when I was little- and Sailor Moon, which I thought was interesting if insipid. And then DBZ came on, and I saw Piccolo. And I did a search. Clicked the first site that Yahoo spat up at me, and there he was. Chris's site was the veryveryvery first site on DBZ that I ever found online, quite literally. I've been following it ever since, and way back in my social internet days I even wrote a rant at about this hour in the morning for his essays page. Chris was the very first webmaster I ever e-mailed, the person who got me into finding out what the rest of anime held (if only to understand all the references I was finding in other places to that mysterious "Ranma" thing people kept namedropping). I don't honestly think I'd have gotten into anime and manga without that site, I don't think I'd have met Ce-chan or Miko-chan or the BPZ girls or Torin-chan, and that it's gone now... makes me feel a little emtpy.

That site was to me a way to connect again with the fandom that wasn't writing and art, which I've in general distanced myself from when it comes to DBZ. I'd go back there and troll through the essays and read all the heartfelt rants, the articles, the episode comparisons and I'd get a renewed sense of connection with why I started doing this in the first place, what I used to be like. I love seeing people find his site and the information he presents for the first time, seeing how eyes get opened by what he does.

Did.

And now he's stopped.

Man, I'm weirdly depressed by this.

I don't know, I suppose that this is just one of the many straws that have been piling up, following a stressful day/month/YTD. Nora took down a whole bunch of her fics that I so enjoyed and would re-read all the time- and I'm beating myself for not saving them when I had the chance- and Katchan's not even posting Saiyajin to her page anymore. Jeanne-chan's completely on Aestheticism now, and Project Rose Signet, Shuushinchuu, and End Of The Innocence have all gone... some of my favorite writers had already stopped writing the series that drew me to them before I even finisihed all their work. Is it just that I'm behind the ball on this, or is there some sort of awful truth in this fear that all the places I love online are slowly dying?

Chris is a role model for me- I look at his site and want that sort of dedication, creativity and passion for my own. If I don't feel it, I don't write it- and he always seemed to feel it so truly that I have held him as inspiration.

Am I maybe this upset about this because I really, genuinely like Chris? He's an awfully sweet guy, though we've fallen out of touch. It's hard to see that he's ending something that clearly meant so much to him- if you didn't see it before, look at his farewell essay and you'll have no doubt. I'm certainly going to keep checking his site to see what else he's going to be working on, just for the sheer delight of reading what he has to say. It's not like this has damaged him, really- he's handling this really healthily, as far as I can see. No bitterness, no exhaustion, no nasty comments about so-and-so. So why am I so sad?

Is it a selfish reaction on my part- not just that I'm going to miss a steady and respected source of inspiration and entertainment, but that this means that someday I'll move on as so many other people I respect and admire already have? I can see it in myself somewhat now- I look at all the series I love and want now, and DBZ takes a place of... not lesser importance, because I still love it just as much. It's just that now I love other things as well. My fire, as 'twere- what little of it there is- is now shared equally between Utena and X and DBZ and Kenshin and Shounen Ou and Tokyo Babylon and... and it's that I feel that perhaps, now that I have other things to focus on, somehow I'll lose what made me love DBZ. I don't want to do that- I don't want to lose that, because it means that some part of me that adored it with all the passion that I did and still do will have been lost. I don't WANT to move on. Yes, change is good, but...

This is turning into a full-fledged navel-gazing sesson, isn't it? Me and my lacking little psyche in the wee hours of the morn. I wonder if I still do equate change with loss, after all? I'm such a pack rat, so maybe that's a reflection of that particular facet of me. I don't want to lose things, because many times things will make me remember who I am, material-things-bad-and- illusory my ass. If I lose what I love, I lose part of who I am. And to get rid of that particular little neurosis... well...

That's the same thing I'm afraid of, isn't it? It's a part of me. I want to keep me as I am. Maybe later I can get rid of my excess self, but right now I want to keep it so I can understand it better. That's the whole reason I'm not in college right now, after all. I have to take some time to figure myself out. There's too much out there for me to keep bogging myself down.

Which brings me back to Chris, since that's what he was saying almost exactly (I swear, I'm just typing this up as I go along. I didn't mean to copy him. There is NO organization here, my kiddies). Will this someday happen to me? I understand that NOTHING lasts forever, but... The thought that this will someday be something I'd do is so infinitely saddening to me... And it's worse, becaus it's someone else. Someone who was so very amazing.

Dammit, Chris. Hurry up and get your site up so I'll stop being so miserable about you not being around anymore. I already miss the hell out of you.

-Isa, 2:31 AM.

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