Balladeer

Jewels decides to disembark with the rest excited to see where this trip would start. She walks among the posts reminiscing to herself.

Jewels: Hmm... where was I in 1993? Middle School? Goodness, I bet I didn't even have access to the internet yet. Played Dig Dug, NES, and Galaga. Wonder where my parents ever got that huge arcade size game...

She browses a few of the topics on the front page but none seem very interesting. Then she notices the posts made by Jeff Vogel glowing brightly from the tour highlights Slarty had put on them. Her initial smile becomes a smirk then a furrow then a frown. Having seen her fill she heads back towards the bus muttering as she gets on.

Jewels: I'll never look at gardening or Star Wars the same way again...

Jewels holds her spinning head for a minute. In only a few hours she seems to have eaten her fill of lamb chops and a whole pizza from Sylae, been sprayed in watermelon goo and washed clean of it with an indoor rain, and now she's dancing in the aisle with Iffy and Sylae to Justin Bieber who she apparently has always liked though she cannot recall the name of even one of his songs...

Jewels: I knew this trip was going to get weird but... Oohhh, my head hurts.

Sylae: Just try not to think about it too hard, Jewels. All you really gotta do is make sure you don't step into a plot hole...

Iffy: Plot hole? I don't see a plot hole...

Meanwhile, Dikiyoba really gets into the dancing doing flips and spins along the whole aisle. During one impressive fouette Dikiyoba's tail swings around knocking BJ's bottle of ink halfway across the bus. It lands in a giant splatter where Trenton and Nightwatcher used to be. Their characters turn fuzzy and incoherent.

Iffy: Oh... there's one.

Jewels shakes her head and pulls out the pair.

Jewels: Hey, Iffy. Think you can write a script to get their stories back on line?

Iffy: I'm on it... Now, let's see.

beginfix 7;if (plot_status(TRENTON) = "hole") {rewind_plot(TRENTON, 1 post);run beginfix 7; }break;

Iffy: That should work for both of them. Just replace Trenton's name with Nightwatcher's for the second run.

Jewels smiles and nods as the fuzzy characters become more substantial.

Trenton: Hey, any ladies wanna dance?

Jewels: Ooh, I'd love to! Who needs a disco ball when you've got shine?

Sylae unzips Trenton's bag and pulls Nightwatcher out of it.

Sylae: You too, Vampire Hunter, time to put your differences behind you and par-tay.

Iffy takes a moment to disarm Nightwatcher of any unpleasant items and joins the rhythmic expression. The group finds that dancing their cares away is so much more fun than fighting at each other's throats. Petty squabbles are left behind as the lights on the bus start to get brighter.

Jewels eyes the pie from BMA and hands it to Sylae.

Jewels: Here, I'm not hungry. Have another.

Sylae: Thanks! I'm famished. Haven't had a descent meal all week.

Jewels: You're mom's been cooking then?

Sylae nods and both giggle like school girls.

Jewels: Not sure about the trip yet. You know how many things are already on my todo list. But I expect it to be fun.

Jewels leans in to whisper to Sylae.

Jewels: Tell you the truth, I don't fully trust Slarty to get us home in one piece. I mean how long has it been and Tyranicus is already dead again? Don't suppose we should bring up any of our adventures at the Refuge, eh?

Sylae: Yeah. Keep it on the low down or Slarty'll be demanding demonstrations.

Jewels had to cover her guffaw to keep it from ringing throughout the whole bus.

Jewels watches nervously as an odd looking bus full of oddly familiar people pulls up to the gas station across the street for a pit stop. It reminds her of an old Magic School Bus episode and she shakes her head. A huge banner across the side of the bus reads 'SPIDERWEBBERS RIDE FREE!'.

Jewels: Nothing good can come of this...

Sure of that as she is it only makes it all the more tempting to get on. She argues with herself for a minute before grabbing her backpack and stepping up through the open door. Slarty gives her a little nod.

Jewels: This trip better not come up to bite me in the butt... twice. I'll be in back if you need me; doing my homework.

A wave of deja vu washes over her as she finds a seat. She has the explicit feeling like she's done this before but can't quite place it.

So, right, names...

Started looking over the account profiles and found some names I recognize as 'seeming' important and some I don't recognize but who had a significant (~700+) post count.

Dragyn Bob

Fallen

Seletine

Milla

Arctic

Miriam

The Inquisitor

Rantallion

Frahhamn - made a number of BoE scenarios with his own graphics

Chaldrath

Reaper

antisocialdragon

mung - remember him as funny and respected

Princess_Ruth

Erik Westra - BoE author or graphic artist I think

Radiant

Undine

Boots

X - Not to be confused with Nalyd's old moniker -X-. He made over 2000 posts the last recorded in 2003 and seems to have concentrated in Nethergate and the Exile Trillogy forums.

Kakashi

Motrax - has a nice website and a handful of graphics for BoE.

Rupert

---

Slow going and I think I'll only go through era 2 but I'm in mid 2002 with that.

Then you may want to add Triest and Tim Farland to the artist list. Triest did a lot of everything and Tim did some great monsters for BoE

So what? He's arguing the 'long' bit? Nine year anniversary this month so... yeah, long.

Edit:

Don't worry FF; if you feel old, just be comforted in the fact that the rest of us are getting old right along with you. My nine year anniversary is in less than four months too and my !teenager! things BoE is a kids game.

Edit 2:

!MM! Mysterious Man was a rather active poster at one point. Acct #6. Member at large at least for era 1, 2 and 3 and possibly part of the Lyceum.

Wait... isn't there a list of SW account names somewhere? Aran is that up and running?

Annoying != harmful. Annoying may lead to harmful when those being annoyed are annoyed beyond a point of their ability or desire to contain their ire at the annoyance. But then it is not the annoying one who becomes harmful, but rather the annoyed.

Me thinks by then someone just needs a HUGGLE

But really, a splash of color, if not something pleasing to the eyes, is something to roll one's eyes at, not forbid.

/submitted respectfully as my own humble opinion on the matter.

Frozen Feet and Wiz could go on the Quiet Long Presences.

Ishad Nha did a lot of work on OBOE... I'm sure there are other notable ones but Ishad stands out to me.

And Dantius is oh-so anti-establishment.

I was thinking (a dangerous pastime, I know) that before the forum was so damaged by the server change, the Lyceum was home to many of the older BoE crowd. It was a very popular satellite that people would shell out money to help Al keep it ad free. I would say people like Alcitras, Brett Bixler, The Creator/Ash Lael, Drizzt, Rosycat, Shyguy, Skyle, Milu, Luz, VCH, TGM, and Zaloopa (among others, help me out here... you're relying on my memory?) are a good fit for that forum subculture.

I've been a regular on all of the main forums at one point or another and honestly, the Lyceum was my favorite of the bunch. That was where many of the BoE contests were hosted some with actual prizes for the winners. It was a BoE creativity engine. In retrospect, it may have been the only satellite that I didn't go to for the RPs.

Other subculture suggestions:

Fansite Webmasers - There are a number of people that I know only from the fact that they made a fansite that I added to my Comprehensive List of Spiderweb Links. Caligula, HYZ, Milla, Shinobi, Paul, Olly, Anthony, Hope, Leon. Many of these were either gone from the community when I arrived leaving only their websites or stayed for only a short enough time to put their small contribution to the community on the web.

Couple-hit Wonders - Come, make a good scenario or two, then fade into the ethers. Janet Cone, Yoshiyuki Haneda, Desert Pl@h, Akhronath.

Spam Specialist - Many people that were once mainly spammers could now be categorized by something else now but there are some that will always be branded with the stigma.

Jokers - Those who didn't take scenario making all that seriously. Smoo, Measle, BSR, Alec... or were just plain bad at it. lost_king, Vince Fizz.

Rosycat, and Luz need to go somewhere... Not sure where they were the most prevalent. BoE/BoA creators most likely. Nikki should be in SV I think. How about a Lyceum group? Al needs a place though he could be a creator too.

How about a Legend category? Schrodinger, Imban, and Ischi (forgive me if I've spelled anything wrong...) Solberg from the Lyceum for public enemies.

Other notable people; mostly BoE/BoA creators though some Geneforge fans too... Bain-Ihrno, Drizzt, Frahhamn, Skyle, WKS, Olly, HYZ, Fiend, Caligula, E-Master, Brett Bixler, Shyguy, Milu, SM Adventurer, The Creator, Tarl Kudrick, Zaloopa... there's lots more but I don't know how many you want.

Don't forget the SW satelite Archive as a reference and many a BoE designer is listed in the pages of my website

Edit: Lazarus, Lord Grimm, TGM(The Great Mister), Smoo, Enraged Slith, Dintiridan, Dahak, Motrax, Brave Sir Robin.

The BoE/BoA people could be separated into those who mostly made scenarios and those who mostly made graphics. Luz, TGM, and Dahak are examples of mostly graphical artists though they may fit in better elsewhere. Idk, just throwing them out there.

Edit2: Ohh... there was a subculture over at... that one game... you know... stick figures... massive meat innuendos... Though I kinda feel like that was the SV crowd too.

I would reneg my point except it was Chicago's local law enforcement who reinforced it in the first place. And really... when did Outback start building in the slums?

It's been the warmest March I can remember here in Wisconsin. We had a couple of 80 degree (F.) days and it's been staying steadily in the 70's for the past two weeks except for the last few days where it's been cloudy and rainy.

Considering Mother Nature likes to snow in the middle of April here I can't say I've disliked it. Unfortunately, weatherman says that the mild winter and early spring are going to mean the ticks will be extra bad this year. Ours are known to spread Lymes so its a love-hate relationship.

Yeah, CalRef has a hidden board for mods and administrators to discuss things the masses don't need to know, not that anything very exciting happens there; mostly just maintenance reports and discussing bans/unbans. We had a board for making massive collaborative RP posts for a while and I used to have a private board where I'd tutor BloodMoon on his English to try to improve his RP posts. But private boards are a given on any forum. It's part of what gives an elitist feel to all of them. The in-crowd as it were and maybe that's why I prefer CalRef... because they readily accepted me into the in-crowd. I'm sure there's some psychological manifestations that someone could expound on with that.

If I had to characterize them, I'd say Polaris was a gentleman's club, Desperance was a strip club, Shadow Vale was that bar where everybody knows your name and Calamity Refuge is that one table at the bar where Barney, Robin, Ted, Lily and Marshall all gather to exchange funny anecdotes, life lessons, and explicit exploit tales... or just complain about life in general, you know, whichever.

My view of what was said about Misc includes "insults, spam, and crudeness that would not be tolerated today" and "Some moderators even used their positions to harass other members" and "abrasive moderators". Not that I disagree with the assessment of how CRF is run (indeed, I think it's a good thing to have a separate place where the talk isn't censored by the company's need for "family friendliness" and I cannot say that our mods have never been abrasive... Sorry Artemis) but I noticed a marked absence of speculation on the crudeness of Desp and SV. If you're going to comment on the climate of CRF, you should comment on the climate of all the satellite boards.

I also noted the 'CRF sucked members away' part which could have been said much more neutrally.

Edit: Completely unrelated; why is it that whenever I figure it's time to check in over here you're finishing up one of your little projects? It's like that silent mental victory you have reaches out and pulls me in.

Bad for being incredibly old. It's funny, perhaps, the first time.

Speaking of first times, I told my Sunday School kids I would do my evil laugh for them but I could only do it if I was already laughing. They started barraging me with knock-knock jokes most of which I'd already heard, but then there was a new one:

Kid: Knock knock.

Me: Who's there?

Kid: Interrupting Cow.

Me: Interrupt...

Kid: MOO!

I hadn't heard it before and it was cute. Made me laugh which I worked into my evil laugh for them. Their response:

Kid: Now I'm totally creeped out!

Kid: ...

Kid: Do it again!

The moral of the story is, 'Jokes are funny the first time, but evil laughs are good for an encore or two.'

I find this worrysome... more for the fact that I wouldn't know how to do all of the cleanup that you have if something like this were to happen to TrueSite... One year away from my BSIT:SE degree and I still feel wholly inadequate. Boo.

Only two months? Pft. Two months is just a drop in the bucket. Six months... now that's starting to be a notable absence.

But have a *huggles* anyway cuz it feels more like six months to me.