That was Jessica, I think, who was guest-recapping. My favourite recapper on the site, hands down, past or present.

Even without going back, I still recall the description of Jessia turning into stone *and* crying blood tears at the Neopolitan monstrosity Buffy was wearing in that episode. What was great about Jessica was that she was snarktastic, but she did it with love. Because I was still enjoying S6 and S7, I had tough time taking Ace and Sep's bitterness and usually skipped their recaps.

Yep yep yep. And more yep as to what's been said about Deborah and JoA.

Yes, right before Lucky pulled the gun on the kids at the NHS luncheon courtyard thingie, Jackie asked Veronica why she didn't just go to Hearst, where she could be closer to her dad, and be with Wallace and Mac.

Aha, thank you. I kind of thought that Mac was going to Hearst, but I didn't know if I actually knew that or if I was just extrapolating from the normal way of things on this kind of show.

I don't read TWOP recaps anymore. I still miss Boobtoob.net. I think Carly would have done a kick ass job on VM recaps. If only I could get her to leave off working writing about the porn industry and come back to please me write television recaps.

I read TWOP religiously, even when I don't agree with the recapper. It's a brilliant site.

If you're ever bored and want entertainment, I strongly suggest reading the "Young Americans" recaps--it was a "summer series" on the WB, I think, and I only ever saw the ads, not the actual show, but the recaps are HYsterical. The steel drums of non-gay love!

What do you think makes a fandom turn rancid?

There was an attempt to force some drama in the LJ corner of VM fandom, over the weekend. Someone created an account, friended a bunch of VM fans and posted an entry designed to attract anonymous slams.

I have to hand it to most of the fans. I've been reading the (nearly 5 pages of) comments, and a huge number of them are simply requests to be defriended by the journal. Another sizable portion are people just making their own fun, using the comments as a place to mock. It really isn't a big drama, at all.

It got me wondering though--what happens? I always felt like I had a decent handle on what happened in the BtVS fandom, but I don't have a handle on this sort of thing, in general.

The ability to attract assholes is independent of subculture.

I agree with this. Now mind, I don't think the VM fandom is rancid. I'd say it handled itself well (although it would have been better, imo, if people didn't post in that entry at all). But there will come a day that an anonymous slam invitation like that will stir up the stuff it intended to stir up, and so I guess I'm wondering how/when that happens to a fandom.

Yeah. There's a lot of feeding the energy monster going on there.

VM's only been around for two seasons. that's plenty of time for people to have found others in the fandom that they don't like, but i don't really think it's enough time for there to be huge dissension. we haven't even really seen a 'shipper war yet. we have people that violently dislike the "LoVe" 'shippers, but i think that has more to do with the people than it does the 'ship.

I guess i just don't think there's been enough time yet. the Buffy fandom really didn't start to implode until the fourth season, right? i mean, yes, there were the color wars at the bronze. however, there wasn't a huge outpouring of hate until the Willow/Tara thing, right? not to mention the Riley bashing.

once the 'shipper wars are in full swing in the VM fandom i think it's possible fandom will go to hell in a handbasket. on the other hand, the VM fandom is full of people from previous fandoms such as Buffy and we all may just be beyond all that now. *shrug*

(this has been my morning waffle.)