Best Thread of 2005

[Lalwendë]

There have been a few memorable flame wars this year, those threads which have you logging on at every opportunity and yet strangely hating to do so in case you have to come up with a new argument, thus leaving important tasks uncompleted and the pots festering in the sink. Notably: What breaks the enchantment? which caused headaches Canon:what ARE we babbling about? in which davem hijacks the thread and attempts to make mincemeat out of The Hobbit's place in the Legendarium, and the often infuriatingly complex Is Eru God?

In amongst all the usual threads of discussion, which this year have included some great topics (including political analyses which I always enjoy) there have also been some wonderful left-field and deeply nerdy discussions including The Trickster in LotR, Smith of Wooton Major in Middle earth?, and You say Fairies and I say Faeries

Some of my top laughs of the year have been the ever-faithful Crazy captions, Snow Angels and What do you assign to Mordor?. But there have been plenty of funny threads this year, and funny posts dotted amongst the serious threads too, long may it continue.

A special honour for nerdy pleasure goes to Favourite edition?. Intrigues of the year? The 'Forbidden' episode, which was horrific. The 'death' of Crystal Heart. The trolls - who was tempted to feed them with bad rep just to see how far they could plummet?

Overall winner of the year for me? CbC! It has been excellent, ensuring something good to read every single week!

[Hookbill the Goomba]

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

There have been a few memorable flame wars this year

There have also been the Flame Warriors. That was one of my favourite things this year on the 'How do you imagine the other B-Downers' thread.
Of course, I have to mention Crazy captions and the rise of Gandalf the grey's cloak escapades. I think it’s a running joke that will last a lunchtime.
My first Werewolf game was a huge embarrassment for myself, I wont' go into details, but lets say I'm not going to be doing that again for a long while.
And last but by no means good, who could forget Fortunately / unfortunately and the appearance of Mount Zoom?

[the guy who be short]

Putting aside the Werewolf craze for a moment, I can say with confidence that the thread that has interested me the most this year has been the Assigned To Mordor RPG.

I'm not sure if anything like it has been done before, as I've never RPGed before, but I think it's a bit of a deviation from the norm. And, of course, hilarious reading at every turn.

Alright. Now I'll mention Werewolf.

[Firefoot]

I think we would all be remiss to exclude the Werewolf games! As much as it seems they've been around forever, they only started in May. For the greatest events of 2005, I should say this certainly deserves some recognition. Locations, signatures, and avatars have been centered around it, people have arranged schedules 'just to be around to vote,' and by the time you add up all the posts in the main thread and in the separate game threads, you have a post count that fits up there with the best of them.

Then I started thinking of RPG's. Shadow of the West certainly sprang to mind, though all the other RPG's I have participated in and am now have/are excellent as well. Island of Sorrow has been very enjoyable, and I look forward to seeing it to its conclusion. Lots of good writing there. And I have to mention my first ever owned game, Sailing Away - and that brought to mind one more infamous event of the year, the Crystal Heart Fiasco, or 'CHF' as it has been officially shortened. Now that will really mess with an RPG. I also had much enjoyment in Red Flows the Sirannon, where I played my first ever Orcs - they had quite a following. I think I received more rep on that thread than on any other single thread, and I even received a pm at the end begging me not to kill them off.

And even though the CbC was already mentioned, I shall do so again. Though my own participation was rather sporadic, I enjoyed the parts I was able to post in/read along with.

And, of course, Palantir of Fortune, a longtime favorite. It should be mentioned that with a much smaller core of posters and the turn-around time that comes with all quiz or quotes game, it managed to take in roughly 3/5 the number of posts of Crazy Captions (3117 in PoF and 5420 in CC) - no small accomplishment.

Happy New Year to everyone!

Edit: Cross-posting with some people...

[Azaelia of Willowbottom]

It really does feel like Werewolf has been here forever...And I'm very surprised to hear that it has only been here since May (though in retrospect, I guess I knew that, too). I definitely vote that the WW threads go on the list of best threads. A new tradition has been made

[Estelyn Telcontar]

Though the CbC discussions have been the center of my forum focus during this past year, they started the year before, so are not strictly 2005 threads. However, I would like to nominate alatar's Sequence-by-Sequence movie discussion posts. I enjoy reading his insightful, humorous and sometimes caustic comments!

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Estelyn Telcontar

Though the CbC discussions have been the center of my forum focus during this past year, they started the year before, so are not strictly 2005 threads.

Now, now, there's no excuse for being modest, Esty! Those threads took up a lot of your time and thought this year so I insist you accept this honour.

I have to add that Alatar's comments on SbS are some of the funniest you're likely to read on the Downs (which reminds me I must get back up-to-date with posting on there, much to my embarrassment). And I have also to add in another couple of threads that entertained me a lot: Arrows 'nd Bows and I'm no Da Vinci but....

[Meneltarmacil]

One of the best new threads started in 2005 would have to be Fortunately/Unfortunately. The situations generated there are already legendary. I think most of you have noticed Hookbill's Mount Zoom insanity by now, and Gil-Galad enjoyed playing around with Johnny the Stinky Balrog for quite a while there. There was also a great deal of uncloaking on Gandalf's part.

On a sadder note, I mourn the (hopefully not permanent) loss of Boromir the Disco King, a subject first brought up by Oddwen way back in (I think) 2003.