a fair number of them had grown up in strict (usually Southern) religious communities, and became invested in the idea that you don't have to follow the understood paradigm of Good vs. Evil (righteous vs. sinful) to become a good person. The story they thought they were seeing was the story of themselves, and when turned out to not be that story at all, they got mental whiplash.

Wow, that's really interesting. I have issues with the concept that you Must Be Religious to be a good person, and this sounds like it ties right into that.

The story they thought they were seeing was the story of themselves

Isn't this a lot of the craxxy? That terrible ripping noise when it's not only not you, it's not a happy ending for you. It stops being your story, part of you, and is held up in the light as fiction, and your ties to it mock you.

2 promos during AOTC tonight. The second was pretty long and charactercentric set to "Break on Through" by the Doors.

That's the new one that's been showing up since last week.

I don't have any regrets about Firefly, now. I learned a lot from that campaign, really.

I mean, we had hundreds of strangers trust us enough to send us thousands of dollars and do what we needed them to do. I felt like General Fandom for a little while.

I also learned that just about anyone can do that same thing, and how dangerous that is. I don't think I was foolish anymore. I think the Save Angel campaign was pretty foolish. And cruel. And I can't figure out for the life of me why it went on so long.

There is a darker side of fandom, and I'm writing about the Penlind thing, the woman who claimed to have dying children. I was going to write about fanfuckers, and then thought I'd probably get sued.

I think it's worse to trade on a tenuous connection to Uncle Jossy in order to get a starry-eyed fan to suck you off. I'm not saying Ms. Starry Eyes is completely innocent, it's a groupie-factor, and I'm grossed out by anyone sucking off a PA to get tidbits of info about an actor or producer. I mean, ew. At least demand 50 bucks along with the info.

I've found that it's putting me in a yucky, angry place. But it's honest.

Gus, thank you for your devotion and if you have been spoiled for Serenity please go hurt the people at serenitymovie.com.

If you haven't been spoiled, avoid said site at all costs.

Allyson, the yucky and the angry makes good reading. I'm just saying.

I have not been spoiled.

I have been too busy going over Allysons's last post with my parser.

Isn't this a lot of the craxxy? That terrible ripping noise when it's not only not you, it's not a happy ending for you. It stops being your story, part of you, and is held up in the light as fiction, and your ties to it mock you.

Yeah.

Damn good thing they don't tell stories about lazy, mildly depressive goth geeks with little-to-no ambition beyond making enough to support a wicked comics habit... I'd be in trouble.

But, seriously, that pretty much sums up the craxxy, from mild to extreme. I've seen some nasty flameouts in fandom as a result.

As my most serious case of over-identification was with Jeff from Coupling, I haven't had the misfortune to hit that particular spot of pain. Maybe part of that is that when I identify with a character, I tend to identify with the least sympathetic of the character's flaws, so I expect bad things to come of it.

Do you know where this was said?

You'll have to download the third Firefly thread, and go there to post #2398. It goes on a bit from there, including Tim calling my response to him "Gorgeously put", not that I'm showing off or anything. Nope, not at all.

I think I get mad at them because I'm more like them than I'd care to admit.

I don't have any regrets about Firefly, now. I learned a lot from that campaign, really.

Isn't that part of the difference? Not staying in one and the same "place", taking a step back, realizing what made you do what you did (just like Kristen mentioned upthread), not getting swallowed in that thing, in the emotions rising from it, in feeding them until a person says things they never would have said under "regular" circumstances (like the "not stand next to windows" things, with all the online-group-dynamics enhancement of response mentioned)?

I have no idea. I just find this discussion very interesting to read. Thanks, y'all.