Learning about this website

[Pitchwife]

Welcome to the Downs, Soriman! You've already proven yourself a mighty conjurer to have raised so many undead spirits from their graves (with a little help from Formendacil on Facebook).

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

Let me tell you that I joined some 10-odd years ago, and still feel a very young Entling and the newbie of the place.

Are you kidding me? You've become one of the stalwarts of this place, keeping it alive when so many of us (including myself) can hardly be bothered anymore. And you do realise, don't you, that you've been a member for longer than many of us were when you joined?

Originally Posted by Boromir88

But (at least for myself) I'm just protective over a place that has been like a home for over half my life now.

THIS. Even when I often don't check the forum for months (let alone log in, let alone actually post) it still means much to me that it's still around, and every once in a while I'll revisit some old thread for Auld Lang Syne, and I'm profoundly grateful to TBW Himself for keeping the site online to make this possible.

Originally Posted by Ring Bearer

The social media links to use for Personal Messaging are ANCIENT.

When you gaze into the Time Abyss, the Time Abyss gazes back at you.

Originally Posted by Rune Son of Bjarne

When did Sauce-Pan Man go into "retirement"? It feels like something that happened fairly early on in my membership.

Not quite, as I vividly remember getting him Fenrissed in one of my early WW games, 2010-ish (my first and only time as the Seer, and I dreamed him on N1); but it was a rare appearance even back then.

I guess what meant most to me about the Downs during my more active membership (apart from the sheer pleasure of finally talking to people who got what Tolkien was all about, and learning stuff about his work that I hadn't dreamed of) was the community spirit (and this, I feel, was stronger, or more tightly knit, among the Werewolfing crowd than the Downs at large, although I guess that the long time role players had something similar going, and there were of course overlappings); and this was also the part of Downs activity that was most easily transferred to social media, hence the shift Formy talked about above.

Also I'm afraid I've got burned out discussing Middle-earth over the years, or at least I'm not interested in discussing the world-building rather than the actual literary works, which is a direction many recent threads seem to be taking (i.e. I couldn't care less which kind of units were in Sauron's or Gondor's army in the War of the Ring, stuff like that); but I'll always be up for close reading and dissecting Tolkien's prose, so... time to revisit Chapter by Chapter, I guess?