Nailing the Zeitgeist?

Okay, I have to make a confession. While writing Toy Soldiers, I was crying. This is not a big deal; I've written a few stories before that had me touch-typing because I couldn't see the keyboard through my tears. But since finishing it and doing a few post-posting tweaks... it actually kind of leaves me cold. Like leaving a room and turning back and discovering the door locked behind you so all you can do is look in through the windows. I can't get back into the story; I can't identify emotionally with it anymore.

Yet, going by comment count, it's arguably the most popular thing, both here and on ff.net, that I've written in rather a while. There's an amorphous cloud of LJ people whose screen names I recognize from the fandom as being those people who will and do comment on my writings... and something like a third of the comments are from people outside that pool. I've never run into these individuals before; why are they suddenly commenting on this story? @.@; (No offense to said individuals, of course. It's just a bit bewildering to be "discovered" by a whole bunch of people at once, particularly when I post fiction fairly regularly.)

I suppose I'm just going through a touch of cognitive dissonance or dissociation or something. And writing what the entire fandom is feeling this week. But from the inside, it's a weird experience.