Big Name Sinners

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Big Name Sinners was a list posted regularly on LiveJournal by sockpuppet Fermatojam. It was a list of the then-popular Harry Potter fanwriters who wrote "sinful" fanfiction, particularly slash and smut.

Years later, it was revealed that the Big Name Sinners list was a hijinks of deceitful having been written by one of its lesser known sinners, msscribe. It is believed this list was created to raise msscribe's profile within fandom, and make her a Big Name Fan alongside the other sinners.

The Beginning

Later that same day, Fermatojam released what was to become one of the biggest hits of the fandom -- his Big Name Sinners list -- naming writers of disgusting smut. This list had the same people Msscribe (and Clarabella and the anonymous Pakistani woman) had mentioned as their favorites, plus Msscribe and her friend Infinitus:

"Are promoters of Homosexuality (including with minors), pedophilia, and smut. We need good decent readers of the Harry Potter books to stand up for themselves. We will take this fandom back. I urge you NOT to join my friends list unless you are willing to be attacked by "fans" of these filfthy people. But if you do, I will stand by your side.

I am going to Nimbus 2003, and they will have to look me in the eye."

Fermatojam seemed to quickly sense that his audience was more incensed by attacks on "HOMOSEXUALITY for goodness sake" than anything else, and he quickly focused on that angle, cutting and pasting bits of rhetoric from anti-homosexuality websites on the internet (as could easily be determined by Googling excerpts from them). He also added some -- but not nearly all -- of the people who boasted of their sinfulness and begged to be added to the Big Name Sinner's list.

The result of all this, of course, was that everybody wanted to be on the Big Name Sinner's list, everybody had a FANTASTIC time baiting the troll (like this), everybody who was lucky enough to be on the Big Name Sinners list friended everybody else on the list (a movement started by Infinitus), and they all proudly sported icons like this one:

[see link for icon, snagged from purebloodgryff, created by queerasjohn/folk]

Msscribe went from about 20 friends-of to about 40 in a single day. Here and here are some posts by queerasjohn, captured by the Wayback Machine, showing how many people were lucky enough to get added to the Big Name Sinners list, and how entertaining the whole thing was. At first, all the smart people on LJ and in the Fandom_Wank discussion were saying "this has GOT to be a sockpuppet" but soon everyone was having so much fun that all thoughts of sockpuppets were forgotten.

But of course -- in my opinion -- Fermatojam was a sockpuppet. Msscribe's sockpuppet. Fermatojam was set up to be a butt for humor. He constantly said stupid things, walking right into the punchline of jokes. He railed at Cassandra Claire in the most flattering way possible ("captivating writing style"). He catered to fandom members' desire to be "Big Name Fans" by calling them "Big Name Sinners." He forged Msscribe and her chosen most-admired fic writers into a tightly-knit group defending themselves and their online activities against a loathsome (but hilarious) attacker. The plan was that Cassandra Claire and the others on the list would become aware of Msscribe, would friend her, and would read the fulsome praise she had written about them and their fics only a few days earlier. I believe that the Big Name Sinners list was no more and no less than a list of people Msscribe admired and hoped to become friends with. If so, it worked perfectly.

List

• the gray book, Cassandra Clare's LiveJournal, then called epicyclical, described as "f**got-loving"
• sarahtales, Sarah Rees Brennan's LiveJournal, then called mistful, described as "p*rnographic"
• nmalfoy, described as "latter-day Jezebel"
• lisannej, then called liss1224, described as "depraved" and "(well, she does write het!)"
• angiej, Ebony Elizabeth Thomas's LiveJournal, described as "smut-obsessed"
• cadey
• msscribe / constantine, no longer available
• parkergray, described as "despicable"
• infinitus, deleted and purged, described as "loathsome"
• iscarus, deleted and purged, described as "foul"
• vanityfair / soulbinder, described as "filthy"
• alexmalfoy / titanic_days, Al's LiveJournal, described as "inquitous"
• saucy_wench, described as "inc*stuous"
• tobymalfoy, described as "execrable"
• mon_starling, M. Starling's LiveJournal, deleted and purged, described as "nauseating"
• aome, Plumeria's LiveJournal, described as "repugnant"
• purebloodgryff / quidditchgrrl, described as "iniquitous"
• ali-wildgoose, described as "ripe-for-salvation"

More On The Members

Many of the fanwriters included in the Big Name Sinners list are notable for varying reasons. Here are a few:

Cassandra Clare, aka epicyclical, aka thegraybook, is best known as the author of the young adult fantasy series The Mortal Instruments. In fandom, her most successful work was the Harry Potter series The Draco Trilogy, followed by Lord of the Rings fic The Very Secret Diaries. A full list of her fanworks are available here. She co-created the Harry Potter archive site Schnoogle and later joined The Inner Circle in modding later site FictionAlley.

Sarah Rees Brennan, aka mistful, aka sarahtales, is best known for her trilogy The Demon's Lexicon. She also co-wrote part of The Bane Chronicles, a companion series to The Mortal Instruments.

Ebony Elizabeth Thomas, aka AngieJ, is best known for the Harry Potter fanfic Trouble in Paradise.

Al is best known for the Drarry fanfic Snitch!. He was one of the founders of FictionAlley and one of the owners of the Yahoo! group HP_Paradise. A full list of his notable works is available here.

M. Starling is best known as a fanartist, illustrating many well-known fics including Clare's The Draco Trilogy, Thomas's Trouble in Paradise, and Al's Snitch!. She was a founder of FictionAlley and also a part of the Teenage Witches.

Plumeria was a moderator of the Roswell board at Fanforum and the SCUSA forum at FictionAlley. She co-wrote two fics with Lissanne, Separation and Reunion.

Ali Wildgoose founded the Harry Potter fan archive Diagon Alley, part of the Potterfic Alliance. She was also involved in Nocturne Alley. She made a parody of Clare's The Draco Trilogy entitled It's Evil Time (DV9).

Sequels

The Big Name Sinners List was followed by the Fandom Scruples' Black List, written by another of Msscribe's sockpuppets.