I've been thinking about a lot of this stuff lately. I'm a soap opera fan. In that I watch soap operas and engage with them fannishly, and have for years (in fact I engaged fannishly before I knew what it was and I've written a couple of stories for them - not many due to the fast moving nature). Anyway, although the show in question, As The World Turns, didn't air in Australia, I've been a member of the LJ community for one of the gay couples on that show (I joined when someone on my flist started talking about them). Anyway, long story short, not long before the show finished, one of the gay characters was killed off, and some of the posts felt almost too personal to read. But there's some wonderful things going on - I encourage you to take a look around the community lure_atwt as it's an interesting perspective - I know I saw it differently than I did Ianto and TW and I am sure some of it's because I've never seen the show.

I also like that the fans banded together and raised money for Doctors Without Borders as a reaction to the character's death.