In the past, didn't doing so tend to summon them?

I think it's partly the grief-for-a-friend angle, only, it more aware than that, which is what increases the crazy. Because if something randomly horrible happens to a friend, you know that sometimes life sucks that way; there's no one to blame. Something terrible happens to a fictional character and you know exactly who to blame. The same people who made you care about the character originally did this terrible thing to him/her -- they intentionally did something that hurt you. They wanted it to hurt you.

And what Cindy said: the net-fandom dynamic amplifies everything. People start talking to each other because they share the emotional reaction, and then they start feeding each other reasons why it's not just something that made them sad, it's Wrong and It Shouldn't Have Happened and The Writers Are Evil. The half-life on the anger is extended because they're getting rewarded for it socially. If you let go, you've got nothing to talk about. So you get people who have formed a whole online identity based on being angry about a fictional miscarriage of justice.

I do think it's somewhat tied to the growing cultural attitude that if something hurts/offends/upsets me, then it's got to be someone's fault, and they should be punished for it, because I'm entitled to an angst-free existence.

In the past, didn't doing so tend to summon them?

So you get people who have formed a whole online identity based on being angry about a fictional miscarriage of justice.

Like, say, Doyle-murdering.

The same people who made you care about the character originally did this terrible thing to him/her -- they intentionally did something that hurt you. They wanted it to hurt you.

But... that's what I'm in it for! It's why I said, when confessing to falling hard for Spooks/MI-5 on episode the second:

Suddenly, the show is Tim Minear brutal, and I realize that no-one is safe.

Bring on the pain, and screw the safe word.

I only get mad at the creators (and then in the same "bitch, PLEASE!" way I got mad at Flaubert for the inane drivel that was Madame Bovary) when they write something that sucks/insults even my idiot cat's intellegence.

So you get people who have formed a whole online identity based on being angry about a fictional miscarriage of justice.

These persons scare me. Identities based on anger scare me.

Maybe I am just scared.

Eh, Cindy, that must have been a doppelganger you bumped into at the Kitten board. As far as I remember, when I first ventured into online fandom, all the boards I registered at were Spike-centric. It is possible, though, that I registered at the Kitten board because they had information about Chance when it came out. Possibly, but I don't think so. I never would have posted there, though. As it is, most of the boards I'm registered at I just used either for spoiler info or for fic recs.

The Doyle fans, while definitely pissed off, never reached the same place that some of the W/T fans did. At times, they were annoying (especially the WE DESERVE THE TRUTH people). But mostly they were just eye-rolling funny.

The post-Tara death saga was, I think, the first time I saw other fans as "scary." All the "don't stand near any windows" rhetoric was a whole new level of anger and I still can't comprehend it.

t wonders if he is a scary fan

Bag that.

Every Buffista scared of me is a wimp.

::looks at Gus::

::laughs::