Personal Violations

[azurelunatic]

Some of you may know this already, but several years ago, my roommate's then-boyfriend violated my computer. For some time, I've been very reluctant to have anything to do with the insides of my computer. I haven't wanted to do routine maintainence tasks... I can't remember the last time I ran ScanDisk or defragmented. I was still using my computer every day, but not as responsibly as I should have been. I was taking all kinds of risks.

You can get in some very weird mental places when you start thinking of your computer like some people think of their homes, as an extension of themselves.

Comments

[nilo.livejournal.com]

After my own privacy issues, I think I can sort of relate...

[azurelunatic]

And, you know, much of the "You don't touch a magician's tools without their permission" is the same sort of thing. Once you identify with an object as a part of yourself, no one else should mess with it without permission...

I wonder if that's what's going on with those authors who are very fanfic-unfriendly, that they've identified with their characters so strongly that anyone else messing with them feels like personal violation instead of merely copyright violation.

[acheron-hades.livejournal.com]

I would guess they are worried people will dilute or distort the message of what they originally wrote?

I can relate to the PC thing, I think. If the house was on fire, I'd grab the PC first, of all my possessions. It contains more of my past than anything else I own, and alas it isn't all backed up :(

[azurelunatic]

It's more than that. Once you get to identify with a character, they're a person, if only one in your headspace, and it's unbearable to think of some stranger touching them. Sort of like how you'd react to someone groping your children in a public restroom, even if it was your 17 year old daughter going at it quite consensually.