Psychotic Fans

A little psychotic fan, a little sad. A woman was hit and killed in front of the San Diego Convention Center yesterday. The reported reason she got hit by the car? She was running across the street against the light to secure her place in line for the Twilight panel that is at SDCC. The panel is on thursday morning.

I mean, it's sad.... but really?

Escape wrote:A little psychotic fan, a little sad. A woman was hit and killed in front of the San Diego Convention Center yesterday. The reported reason she got hit by the car? She was running across the street against the light to secure her place in line for the Twilight panel that is at SDCC. On thursday morning.

I mean, it's sad.... but really?

That is a series of extremely poor life choices is what that is. Also: this was not a girl. This was a 53-year-old woman who really should have known that running into traffic is generally a bad idea.

This whole thing is just so sad. I'm a little pissed at people who turned it into a joke against Twilight fans and I'm also pissed at the people saying it's Comic Con's fault. No one told these people to start camping out days before the Con. Comic Con shouldn't have to pay for extra security to come out three days before hand because a bunch of people started camping out on Sunday for something that doesn't happen until Thursday.

I always joke that there's nothing worth losing my life over just to get across the street five seconds faster but jeez, keeping a spot in line when it's likely that the people in line with you would have kept your spot is definitely on the list of "not worth it."

But still that poor woman and her family.

I've not seen the joking about twilight fans, but the people blaming CCI for it is kind of pissing me off. Apparently, the "official" unofficial story is that CCI made all the people move so they could put up their tents, so I guess they were trying to rush back to regain the place in line? First off, CCI has been posting for days saying that they weren't allowing lining up until they'd put the tents up. And second, yes, they had to get out of the way so the CCI folks could do their jobs!

It's a terrible and tragic way to die, but FFS, when someone that age runs into traffic for a line up for something two days later? That just smacks of stupid.

To make it slightly better I think in light of the woman and the situation, the last report I read said she wasn't hit by a car. She had been about to cross the street, noticed that the car was coming, stopped in her tracks but tripped and hit her head on the road. Honestly something like that could happen anywhere to anyone so blaming ComicCon is silly.

I used to want to go to Comic-Con, but it seems like it's getting huge and unwieldy. Like concerts where things spiral out of control and then riots break out or something catches fire. The senselessness of a tragedy like this always gets me: it's just a couple of hours in the same general vicinity with some moderately famous actors. It's not worth lining up days in advance for, much less dying for. I feel the same about fans lining up weeks before a movie. This woman's family has lost her forever simply because of a chance to keep a good place in line. She could have been hit by a car just crossing the street at her home, too, as could we all, but if these sort of events get fans so worked up that they risk their safety, everyone needs to take a step back. (I feel the same about Black Friday events: no cheap game console or hot toy is worth trampling someone for). The whole situation is sad.

Comic-Con tends to have some really awesome and interesting panels (I once attended one about portrayal of the Bronze age in comics and historical accuracy, and it looks like there are going to be some awesome ones this year: "Zombies, Vampires, and Werewolves on Trial: The Forensic Psychiatry of the Dead, the Undead, and the Unlucky"? Yes please). It does (or did) also try and support workshops and networking for budding comic artists and writers.

But yes, unwieldy. It's steadily becoming the go-to marketing blitz for most genre films, and wow, it starts on Wednesday now? That's just bloated.

I'm not going back to Comic Con at all. Too huge, too crowded, too insane, too expensive, too everything that I dislike.

Dragon Con serves up the nerdy realness. I'm really excited to go this year.

mandalaya wrote:Bleurgh. Now that's a truly psychotic fan, and extremely disturbing. But I'm also concerned about the law enforcement agent pictured, as he seems to have lost time. At least, his facial hair is still in the 90's.

I think that's Kevin from the Kids in the Hall

Eris Rising wrote:I'm not going back to Comic Con at all. Too huge, too crowded, too insane, too expensive, too everything that I dislike.

Yeah, tell me all about it. And I've only been to the one in New York, which is pretty blah compared to SDCC. I think I'd really hang out on the marketplace floor at this point, which yields interesting gifts for people anyway.

In more cheerful news (?), Tom Hiddleston is living in someone's head?

HA HA HA HA HA.

I am so glad to have been introduced to Hiddles fandom through the sane members of it.

PrincessCleo wrote:In more cheerful news (?), Tom Hiddleston is living in someone's head?

On the Astral Plane?

(My husband and I were talking today about how Hiddleston would make a great Good Omens Crowley, but the ensuing stan insanity would be so out of control the universe probably couldn't handle it.)

Can someone explain to me what the hell that was?

There is a person (or people) who think they are more than one person? And one of those people within this person is Tom Hiddleston?

People are weird, man.

Wait, didn't we already go through all this with whatszirface and The Lord of the Rings cast and Harry Potter fic or somesuch?

Best I can tell, some people believe that a single human body (though they identify as "non-human" so idk) can contain multiple discrete personalities who all live within that body's head-space, and these personalities can also be fictional, animal, otherkin, or actual other real life people. But not in the sense that Tom H is walking around in Hollywood and living inside that person's head at the same time, more like it's another him, like a parallel universe version of him? But the real Tom and the head-space Tom are telepathically linked, so real Tom is vaguely aware of it, and the 'host' can know everything real Tom does and thinks, except that something called the Glass Barrier blocks it to protect the host from being overwhelmed by all the other head-space inhabitants' thoughts and feelings. And one of this person's other inhabitants is one of the Columbine perpetrators.

This reminds me of the John Barrowman twin soul person.

OK, I am not even being snarky: That sounds like schizophrenia.

Or just massive attention whoring. You know, one or the other.

Miss Moneypenny wrote:(My husband and I were talking today about how Hiddleston would make a great Good Omens Crowley, but the ensuing stan insanity would be so out of control the universe probably couldn't handle it.)

Ooooh, I like that fantasy casting!

I've been re-reading Mark Helprin's Winter's Tale and keep picturing Tom for Peter Lake (even though Lake is middle-aged in the book, the character name always put me in mind of a younger guy, and I think Tom totally has the right look).

Yeah, all that sounds like a real live mental illness, like dissociative identity disorder or schizophrenia.

Miss Moneypenny wrote:OK, I am not even being snarky: That sounds like schizophrenia.

Or just massive attention whoring. You know, one or the other.

Fandoms being what they are, it's a pretty thin line between the two.

Genuine DID is pretty rare -- and from a lot of what these people say, this ain't that. There seems to be very little lost time, for one thing.

I believe some are genuinely ill, but a lot of it seems like wish-fulfillment (and a lot of misuse of social-justice type language, to a degree that's kind of offensive).

Apparently not liking The Dark Knight Rises is a killing offense.

Yeah, I read about that this morning. What the hell is with some people? It's just opinions, that's all. And rarely do the occasional bad reviews stop oodles of people going to see a big tentpole movie.