Not to spoil Will the Vampire People Please Leave the Lobby (coming soon to a bookstore near you), but basically:

Woman named Penlind shows up at the Bronze. Witty, highly intelligent, makes friends pretty quickly. Lets her young adopted daughter, "Cairo," post a few times. Cairo is a highly sensitive, intelligent young girl.

One day, "Cairo" posts, all upset because she's been the victim of racial discrimination -- she's African-American, I believe, while Penlind and her husband are Caucasian. The entire community rallies around this young girl to try to make her feel better. Fury even posts to her and I think "Cairo" even got some autographed scripts or Buffy merchandise or something when the VIPs heard about her story and were touched by it.

Cairo feels better, continues to post, as does Penlind. Eventually, though, it comes out that Penlind's young son, Django (I think that was his name), has severe medical problems, and for some reason they'll have to take him overseas to Ireland or something like that for medical attention. The community rallies around her again, but before it becomes a financial thing, people start to compare notes back channel and realize that things aren't adding up. Why would she go to Ireland? No trace can be found of her husband, the university professor. People try to trace him through offline connections, no go.

Then a call is made to Penlind's employers. When the Bronzer in question reaches someone, they learn it's Penlind's former employers. At the mention of her name, the reply is "OH. Her. Well, we're legally barred from saying anything, but she did what? Oh. Yeah. Don't believe a word of it." She had no husband, and no children. Django, Cairo, and the spouse were all lies.

The group that uncovered it prepares a statement, and has the most non-scandalous member of the group post it. Then it comes out that even more people had doubted the story, although some remain steadfast and true to Penlind to the end and beyond. Penlind, for her part, stops posting, although I believe she made one last "well, I know what's true but you can believe what you want" type of post. I forget the exact post, but I think she was careful not to confirm OR deny anything.

Other former Bronzers can confirm or straighten out the parts I'm sketchy on.

The son "died" at some point before (or during) the investigation. There was a virtual memorial service.

ETA: Okay now it's bugging me because maybe I'm remembering wrong and it was just an online prayer thing for his recovery. I can't be sure.

I am thankful this conversation is taking place. Yes, I think it might be painful but it's appropriate. With that many questions out there, I would welcome any answers.

I'm not emotionally vested in the outcome--I didn't post with Gus, nor trade emails. If he was who he said he was, then it's a tragic loss and I will feel badly for his loved ones and the people that will miss his wit. Because the poster named Gus was witty and did contribute some meaninful conversations with very little controversy on the board.

If there is something untrue about him or the situation, I'd like to know just for the sake of the people that I DO know and have met here who are obviously hurting and confused. I AM emotionally vested in that.

I AM emotionally vested in that.

This is much how I feel. And now I'm feeling badly for advising someone yesterday to keep his/her concerns to his/herself.

No Guy Straley, or any Straley in chemical engineering, in Dissertation Abstracts, or Web of Science. And I had checked before seeing this conversation. I was interested in his research. Yes, buffistas are that kind of dorks.

I don't mind if Gus was a pseud; factual elements, which were always fantastic, aside, he was a unified voice, and never asked for anything from us but our time. I just hope nobody is laughing, because that would bother me.

Where did Mieskie/Anathema/Schmoker live?

I don't know. John H. tracked him down. I don't remember the details.

John H. tracked down a photo online which was the same photo he had sent me for the Buffista photo board. As far as I know, he never found any track-downable personal info.

Oh, and for what it's worth, the email address Kimi provided when she registered as a Buffista the other day was "gus@..." That seemed odd to me at the time, but sorry if that info comes across as a pile-on.

I just want to say that I'm grateful for this conversation. I enjoyed the person I knew as Gus, but I was surprised yesterday when I found no mention of him on the Google.

Also, gus sent me a picture of himself once, bu it was tiny and hard to make out. He didn't look 70, however. (Although he could have been - it was a tiny picture.)

At one point when Gus was online, I mentioned that tvtropes was down, and he came back and said that he rebooted the server, which he said was connected via a DSL line to his home.

The IP address of www.tvtropes.org is 69.4.98.212. The reverse of that is dal-broadband-static-gstraley.dsl.airstreamcomm.net, which indicates that it's a DSL connection going to someone named "gstraley" for an ISP in Wisconsin.

Based on that and the whois information, I would say it's very likely that there is/was someone named "G. Straley" in Cameron Wisconsin.

Based on this information (last edited in March, 2006), kimi would be Gus' live-in Korean girlfriend (who he has mentioned here before), which would also explain how she would have access to his Wiki and email accounts.

I don't mind if Gus was a pseud; factual elements, which were always fantastic, aside, he was a unified voice, and never asked for anything from us but our time. I just hope nobody is laughing, because that would bother me.

Totally this.

I've gotten emails from Gus from a gmail account and a gstraley one.

On a different topic, when I was looking to see if I ever got the check that Gus emailed me about sending in 2004, I noticed a paypal donation from Schmoker with a woman's name, which I thought was curious.