I found something that you won't find very interesting. Move along.

It might interest @Kaynil and @Sardonic Pickle though.

I was just thinking that if I ever open another forum, I might pay homage to the pink-and-purple designs that Ashleigh so loved.

Wow! That's a phenomenal screenshot. It's actually got the whole page in there, with a bunch of member interaction. So many memories.

I see a lot of avatars that I recognize, but I don't remember so much about the members attached to them. Still...

Dark the 7th, I always hated his guts. He seemed like such a jerk back then. 15 years later and I've taken on a lot of the qualities that made me hate him so much myself.

Rinny was always a good kid. She and Godzilla (and maybe another member? I don't remember.) always seemed to have a special friendship. They all lived in Scandinavia, and probably met up at least a few times I think. She always refused to post a selfie, except one time when she posted a closeup photo of her eyes. Zilla and I spent the next decade fawning over how pretty her eyes were anytime she was around. (Much to her annoyance.)

Nonix Dark, Kjolen, Tidus, Ska Rue, Lord_Andor...I really don't remember them but I remember their avatars. I feel like I should know them.

Sephiroth...that fuckin' kid. Hawaiian, bros with Kilovh, probably the youngest member of the original TSR gang. He's dropped off the face of the earth in recent years.

@kilovh during his Aragorn phase.

Rikku, I had such a crush on her for ages.

Kaynil with her infamous "Drinking spam" avatar, which she used on every forum everywhere for years. Also, I see that you correctly selected "Ex-SOLDIER" for your class. That's the same class I picked.

(Also, fuckin' Ashleigh's weird forum RPG where everybody picked a class and earned experience points...That was weird, but neat.)

Zickorate, christ on a cracker I'd forgotten about that guy. I think he was also Scandanavian. He and I had a lot in common and we really bonded, but he didn't stick around long. I haven't seen him since like, 2003 or something.

Yuna. Lulz. I didn't have internet for something like 2-3 months at one point. In that time, the forum design completely flipped, "The Sacred Realm" became "Spira Online," and Aerith_Freak became Yuna. I was really bummed, I thought AF had sold the forum to someone else. Being completely honest, I don't think Ashleigh ever really stopped thinking I was an annoying kid ruining her forum with my constant spamming. There were years where we could call ourselves 'friends' to be sure. But I always kinda felt like she only tolerated me because I was so desperate to win her approval. I looked up to her so much, and truth be told I don't think I'd be who I am today without her influence.

Ah, the RackNine advert. Ashleigh always ranted about how shitty their service was.

Damn. Those were good times. I mean, my real life kinda sucked, but TSR really was a refuge for me. The whole community really gave me the tools I needed to succeed in life.

Guys, I just found some fucking GOLD:

A website Aerith_Freak and Sheena made together back in 2000/2001...WHICH IS STILL FUCKING ONLINE:

http://pzrpg2.tripod.com/main.shtml

Quote from The Inhaling One

By reading all of your posts here I can tell that that forum was amazing. I'm kind of jealous now. Too bad I was born in 2000 :T_T:

It was definitely a different era. We were hardly the first kids to use the Internet (I never accessed the old mailing list systems, and I certainly never dialed into a BBS), but we were probably the last generation of kids to really embrace the Internet when embracing the Internet was a weird thing to do. Most of the people I knew in real life, kids my own age, thought that meeting/knowing people over the Internet was weird. They rarely or never used instant messengers or email. That was 'nerd stuff,' kinda.

I think the biggest difference between then and now is the way social media has become a monolith. Nowadays, the places where we meet and discuss things online are managed by giant corporations. Facebook, Twitter, Google+, etc. Everyone you will ever meet has heard of the place that you hang out, and while you might carve out a niche for yourself by starting a facebook group or a g+ community, you're ultimately an insignificant part of the greater website.

When TSR was in its heyday, there really wasn't anything like that. Myspace and Friendster didn't really exist yet. There were things like Yahoo groups, but for the most part, "Social Media" (a term which didn't exist yet) was focused around small communities. If you engaged with the community, you could become prominent and well known among everyone on the whole site. And even the newest member could send a message to the administrator and expect a response.

I don't want to say that the old ways were better or worse. But they were different, and I do miss them.

BUT: Don't fall into the trap of wishing you were born earlier. I understand the desire. When I was your age* I wished desperately that I had been born 5-10 years earlier, so that I could have really experienced the rise of the internet, and the BBS era. I actually developed a really dishonest habit of finding something I thought was cool, doing a ton of research on its history, and then acting as though I "remembered" it. I sometimes still catch myself doing that without realizing it. Of course, if I actually had been 5-10 years older, then I would have found the hilarious / entertaining antics that were going on at TSR to be childish and annoying, and I never would have hung out there in the first place. =P

It's a fact: experience is sexy. A person who has already done cool things in their life is a cool person. But there are always cool things going on, and cool experiences to have. The trick is to engage with what's happening around you right now. Because in 15 years, the stuff that's happening right now will seem like some kind of badass wild west.

*I am deeply sorry for starting a sentence that way. It applies in this situation, but I know it makes me sound like a jackass.

I never really got to know Sheena very well. As I recall, she was kind of a drama lama. But she was Ashleigh's oldest online friend or something like that.

The two of them worked together on some online role-plays in the pre-TSR days. "Princess Zelda's Role Playing Game," or "PZRPG" was a big deal for them. Later, after TSR6 went down for about a year/year and a half, I found out that a bunch of the gang were hanging out on Sheena's forum, which was focused on PZRPG II. Then when TSR 7 came out we all abandoned it.

You were following Ashleigh around for months or years before I turned up, Kilovh. You've gotta have some old screenshots or something stashed away.

You're right, I'd forgotten that you and I had joined at pretty much the same time.

Gannondorf Moose is the guy who said "And this I quote." I don't know why I remember that, but I do. Looking back, there's a good chance he was trolling us. He just refused to use the proper quote function, not matter how many times it was explained. I seem to recall he was pretty over-the-top superior as well. He would refer to people who disagreed with him with such utter contempt and dismissal. Nobody liked that guy.

There was also a member called Linker I think, who kept getting banned, but kept making new accounts. At some point he prompted me to make this:

And help me out here. Dark the 7th had two buddies on the forum. Both women. One was Sammi, and the other was...? I can't recall for the life of me. The only thing I remember is that she was bisexual, talked about being distracted by her own body, and said that she wore diapers when she was on her period. It's bugging the hell outta me that I can't remember her name.

Oh, and remember that Aerith cosplayer? I think she just went by Aeris on the boards or something. She ended up getting really famous I think. Has been on TV a few times, well known as a cosplayer, stuff like that.

There was Quistis, the woman from Essex, one of the few people who really migrated to TSR from FFR. I'm afraid I don't remember much about her, except that I made an ass of myself by moralizing about sex to her once.

Also, Darkmoon! (BUTTMON) She was from Phoenix AZ, and she and I actually talked a lot. I've always been kinda sad that she dropped off the grid entirely.

You know, as fond as my memories of the TSR gang are, I was a terrible person back then.

Quote from Kaynil

Hahah. The Linker always coming back. If I recall correctly he was harmless but quite dumb in his ban evade. Making it clear with his new usernames who he was. Quite amusing. I don't even remember why he was supended originally but I think it was not taht big of a deal and he just made things worse by creating new accounts to ban evade. hahahah.

Yeah, I think he was originally given a short ban for spamming or something stupid. Just a slap on the wrist to make him realize he had to shape up or ship out. But then came Linker2, Linker3, The Linker, etc. etc. etc.

Quote

I don't think taht. What makes you say that?

I guess that comment probably did count as fishing for compliments, didn't it? I swear that's not what I meant. I really do think I was a terrible person back then, but I've made my peace with it. I'm pretty happy with who I am now. And, for me, becoming a person that I can respect required that I realize the things that I didn't like about myself.

Of course, part of it was just that I was a teenager. I had more pride than sense, and I was arrogant without the experience, skills, or knowledge that would have earned me a bit of arrogance. I got in stupid arguments, made a big deal about stupid things that didn't matter, and engaged with every petty drama that passed through the login screen of TSR. But that's just being a teenager, and I grew out of it.

The really bad part is that I was a product of a nutjob catholic fundamentalist environment. I got in arguments about whether or not god could be logically proven to exist. I was strongly pro-War, and pro-Bush. I was vocally anti-choice, and probably made more than my fair share of comments that in retrospect would disturbingly sexist or racist. I did a lot of sexual moralizing about how everyone should wait for marriage and blah blah blah. I barely knew Quistis, and I took the time to send her stupidly judgmental messages. And I was a huge fucking homophobe. One particularly shameful memory is when I listed my occupation as "homicide," because I was a was such a brooding, edgy teenager.

But I was also poorly educated, so I misspelled the word as "Homocide." Sammi pointed out the misspelling, and noted that the way it was spelled looked like it was my occupation to kill gay people. My response was to say "Yeah, sounds right to me!" And I left it unchanged for months.

I am ashamed of who I was back then, and I don't feel bad about that shame. If not for TSR, I never would have grown. I lived my whole life in the bubble my parents created for me. TSR was the first time in my life that anybody told me I was wrong about the hateful things I believed. The community began the process of my own self betterment, and within 3 years of joining I had completely left all of that behind me and was working to make amends for my failings.

One thing I can be somewhat proud of is that I don't think I was ever anything but supportive of Ashleigh when she expressed how she didn't feel like she belonged in her gender. I don't think I'd ever even really heard of transgendered people before I met Ashleigh. I hadn't been raised to hate them the way I'd been raised to hate other groups, so my first instinct was to try and be understanding towards her. So I wasn't a complete monster. =P

I mean, I imagine if I'd been too aggressive about my bullshit I would've just been banned outright. So I suppose at least I was kinda subtle about it? =P

I'm tamping down on my shame reflex pretty hard right now.

I actually didn't think Legacy got that far before dying. I wonder if I still have the plot outline sitting around somewhere.

Also: Aurora was a cool character. Her power was simple, unique, and badass. Essentially, she could imbue objects she held with energy, making them effective weapons. So she could pick up a stick and swordfight with it, for example.

Honestly, with a little tweaking and polish, Aurora's powers could be fit for a pretty neat fantasy story.