An explanation

I first discovered fandom sophomore year of high school. I don't even remember how it happened, but I'm pretty sure it was linked to the release of FotR, because shortly thereafter I was giggling with my best friend over the PPC (the message board is STILL UP, WHAT) during newspaper in the period before school. That led eventually to FF.net. I spent many a happy hour browsing fic in various fandoms that were of interest to my high school self, including but not limited to LotR, X-Men, and Discworld. The latter became directly relevant to my development as a tiny fan when I discovered copperbadge purely by accident, when one of his Discworld fics appeared on the recently posted list. Found his website, found his LJ, rest is history.

Kind of history. The other bit of the explanation is that I'm really shy (no really, I am; people I know in RL stop laughing), and terrified of embarrassment. I never really got involved with the fandom community because I was afraid of posting anything, to anyone. I didn't know how comments would be received, I was afraid of saying the wrong thing, whatever. Point being, I remained a lurker in various communities and on various LJs for a while. After fiveish years, I'm not sure which is weirder: staying a lurker, or starting to come out of the lurker closet, telling people that yes, I've been around the internets for a while. Major embarrassment possible; vicious cycle loops.

So I swear, I'm not that weird and creepy. I mean, maybe I am, but not in harmful stalkery ways. I maintain a reading list for vaguely fandom-y stuff on a separate journal that I'm thinking about moving over to this one. I don't think anyone I know who knows of this mostly-defunct LJ would judge me for fandom content, so there isn't really any point in maintaining separate journals. I guess knowing mercuriazs in RL sort of outs me anyway to the other side, but... yeah. This is me.