For the First Time Ever, I'm Immensely Sorry I'm a Lurker

[litotease]

Except for the abject moral rage and deep community sorrow I was feeling, the Great LiveJournal Strikeout 2007 itself didn't affect me at all; I've never followed HP fandom at all, so I'd never heard of pornish_pixies (and see how pretty that name looks today, without all of those ugly dashes through it!), and I've never read any of the other journals involved. 

However, for the past year, I've mostly been reading in & about Supernatural -- you know, that show that's sparked the terms wincest, and wee!cest. Incest.  Underage.  Two of the keywords that were getting people banned, banned, banned from their community.  As far as I know, no one in the Supernatural fandom had their account suspended (which, given how random the suspensions seemed, must be sheer, blind luck).  Still, many, many of the fans in this fandom responded with reasonable, rational, absolutely justifiable paranoia.

So it wasn't the Strikeout itself that got me where I live.  It was the Great LiveJournal Lockdown that followed it.   Because there is a group of women out there who, on a daily basis, make me think, smile, laugh out loud.  Some days, they make my heart ache; others, they make my panties damp.  (Occasionally -- damn you all, you good writers, you -- they do both at the same time.)  On the really bad days, sometimes checking in with them gives me pretty much all I have to look forward to.  And for a brief period of time, I was flocked out.

Because not a one of them knows who I am.

For I am a lurker.  I have one of those creepy lurker journals.  I don't produce (fiction, commentary, artwork, recs, personal nattering); I have nothing to post.  I don't use LiveJournal's "friends list" function.  Most of the time, I don't even log into LJ, because I've got everything and everybody I'm interested in bookmarked.

Yesterday, my fannish silence?  Bit. Me. On. The. Ass.

Hard.

Because my silence means that I have no fan cred.  None, nada, zero, zip.  Zilch. 

In the middle of a witch hunt, when no one is certain where the enemy is getting their information, how far they've infiltrated, and how far they're willing to go -- this is not the right time to approach a stranger:  "Oh, Hi!  You have absolutely no idea who I am, and I have absolutely nothing to show you, but I like your work about this subject that's getting people kicked off of LiveJournal left and right, so would you blindly put me on the list of people you trust not to report you to the wrong authorities, please?"  Yeah.  I wouldn't, either.

This time, so far, the problem seems to have mostly gone away (most people are unlocking their fiction and meta, others are planning to unlock once they've reorganized and split-off anything personally identifiable).  This time, only one of my fandoms (the one nearest and dearest to my heart, granted) was threatened.

I'm still leery.  With this attack coming so close on the heels of the FanLib debacle, public attention has been drawn to fanfic.  I think it's possible (not probable, but possible) that fans will have to find a new safe place.  If that's so, well.  Wither thou goest. 

I just don't want to be left behind. 

So, hi, y'all!  *waves shyly, uncertain of reception*   You rock my world.

Any other lurkers out there feeling the pinch?

Comments

[gracecourage.livejournal.com]

*waves back*

Sammy, Dean or BiBro?

Schizophrenic! I'm wildly in love with Dean, but Jared Padalecki makes my heart hurt, he's so adorable. Since Jared doesn't seem like the type to want to mess up someone old enough to be his mother (drat it!), I keep trying to convince my daughter that she needs to marry him just so I can have him at my breakfast table on occasion. (What? She's six foot, ebony-haired, hazel-eyed -- they'd have gorgeous kids, and their own basket ball team, besides.) But the silly girl is all "Jensen, Jensen, Jensen." Ah, well.

And which way do you swing?

Thanks for the welcome, fellow lurker.

[gwionfawyr.livejournal.com]

I'm BiBro. I adore Sammy, oops I mean Sam, but I worship also at the alter of all things Dean. I think it's because I've seen movies with Jared in them (House of Wax, Cheaper By The Dozen) and shows with Jensen. *hides both seasons of Dark Angel*

*whispers* Of course it could also be the gratuitous almost naked shots of them. Towels anyone?!

[gracecourage.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen House of Wax! (This one I'll rent over hiatus.)

I haven't seen Dark Angel! (My video store doesn't have it!)

And, oh, my. Towels.

[gwionfawyr.livejournal.com]

HoW is kind of campy. Entirely too much Chad Michael Murray and not enough JP. *thinks* Cry Wolf might be a better one, he's in the whole movie. But it's horror.

I bought Dark Angel so that I could watch all of the Ben/Alec moments. I loved Jensen as Ben/Alec. Now if I can just find that soap opera that he was on.