Subject: (Like a seed dropped by a bird)
Author:
Posted on: 2019-10-17 09:21:00 UTC
Andtauriel Longwood-Baggins, one half of Andy-and-Saphie (the original PPC OTP), and one of the authors of the sadly-unfinished Suedom.
Subject: (Like a seed dropped by a bird)
Author:
Posted on: 2019-10-17 09:21:00 UTC
Andtauriel Longwood-Baggins, one half of Andy-and-Saphie (the original PPC OTP), and one of the authors of the sadly-unfinished Suedom.
In two weeks, the PPC Board will be shutting down. Delta, Tomash and Thoth have built us a new home, and the community will continue there, but this old place - the one I've been coming back to day in, day out for over sixteen years - will be gone.
I have so many memories of the Board; there are so many people I met here, made friends with here, and ultimately said goodbye to here. And their names, and the memories that go with them, deserve to be spoken one last time.
I've been especially bad at lurking over the last few years but I saw hS's post on livejournal... The Board is where I really got into online fandom for the first time *counts* 15 or so years ago. For all its clunkiness and ypur invasions, I'll miss it, and the friends I've made over the years (too many of them sadly no longer around, at least digitally).
Elcalion, nostalgic
Welcome back; I am utterly shocked that anyone still reads LJ. ^_^ I still find it hard to remember that you've actually gone; you were here for so long that it just feels like you've gone a bit quiet.
hS
I actually got an email from Creepy Stalker LJ the day after I posted telling me that Anchusa had just posted. Anchusa! I don't think we've seen her here since 2004! Now that you've confirmed they emailed some people about my post, I wonder whether I accidentally triggered her returning over there...
hS
I love the fact that everyone has their own stories here, and different ways of sharing them (even when those ways take the same approach). Objectively, I know the Board isn't all that special - that it's the community that made it what it was - but at the same time... it is, actually.
hS
I've been in a state of mild shock since the day I pulled up the login page and found a message saying YourWebApps was shutting down. I'm glad at least one person was able to come back and see the Board one last time before it goes.
hS
And most of us made a pretty grisly spectacle of ourselves along the way. I've had some internet-serious fights with quite a few of the people whose names I posted, but in the end, I've come out better for it. I'm glad you have too. :)
hS
I'll be sorry to see the old Board go, but it has changed every one of us in many, many ways - me included. Reading this tribute made me smile, and I definitely needed it this morn. I look forward to where this community takes us - all of us - in the future.
It just makes me sad that we won't be able to do it here.
hS
This was... a very touching surprise, to wake up to this morning.
It certainly had nothing to do with me, but thank you, for writing this. ;;
(Also, this is a very clever songfic. ;) )
Our very own Morale Officer, and one of the most vibrant personalities of the early Board, bjam (it took me a year and a half to establish that that's 'bee-jam') was a great friend. You can tell - I went to visit her.
BiD wrote the very first thing you're required to read when joining the PPC - the poem at the top of the Constitution. Another great friend, even if she was a filthy Maglor-loving Feanorian Kinslayer.
WfR was the fifth member of the Five (with myself and Kaitlyn as the surviving pair). She was never as active in the PPC as the rest of us, but on LJ and MSN Messenger, she was brilliant.
Founder of the Department of Out-of-Character Hobbits, one half of Mari and Mip, Luthien is still the person I think of as an archetypical newbie - even if she's been gone for well over a decade.
Vemi was my second coauthor, and the driving force behind the Reorganisation until she left. Without her, 'Huinesoron the Historian' would likely never have come to be. She also started the thread which led to my invitation to the Board.
Creator of the PPC's favourite tabloid, and the person who pushed hard for Crashing Down to be completed, Starwind was a wonderful friend at a very trying time in my life.
Cofounder of DOGA and creator of Selene and the DOGAPlex, Raven was my girlfriend who joined the PPC with me and hung around until we went our separate ways.
My oldest friend, though I don't see much of her nowadays; I knew her both before and throughout university. Her Diary of an Undercover Sue was a spinoff of my own stories, which was and remains a huge honour.
Rath, AKA Saphy if you knew her through the Barrow-Downs, was the Nightmare Before Christmas-loving founder of the SilmFilm project. She was also very kind in ferrying me around Utah.
PDT was one of those people I got to know very well on Livejournal, but she was also a lively part of the inaugral PPC Gathering in Oxford.
Ek'y! Writer of musicals and adorable kids, Ekwy was one of those mad people who travelled to the UK for the sole purpose of having a Gathering with me. She was great.
You can't mention Ekwy without Milano; they went together like Swedish fish and… I don't know, something else Swedish. Another random Gathering attendee.
"It's all Newmoon's fault!" ~ me and Kaitlyn, about anything and everything, from 2004 down to today. Why is it all Newmoon's fault? I haven't the foggiest, but it totally is.
Fondy! It wasn't that long ago that Fondy reappeared briefly, and it was great to see her. Back in the day she was a constant presence on LJ.
Undeadgoat wrote a parody Suefic of me and her. That's all you need to know about what sort of person she was.
Hawkelf is an elf who lives in the ceiling. What more need be said?
Fawkes is one of those old PPCers who's been on my mind a lot - because I keep writing about her characters! Agent Chelsea, original partner to Agent Kaitlyn, is hers, and OFUDisc's Phoebe is based on her student submission.
Not so long gone… Cassie was an enthusiastic PPC member and the driving force behind at least one Gathering. She was good people.
It's hard to believe Lily has left, with how deeply she invested herself in the PPC while she was here. I have so many memories of Lily, but the biggest one has to be that she drew fanart of my wedding (it's about halfway down).
I don't remember talking to Sara; what I remember is working with her to make the PPC Radio Plays, which are just about still available.
Ekyl could be melodramatic, but he was also probably the PPCer most invested in the Histories (after, y'know… me). He was the push that finally got me to write some version of Origins.
AnnaBee was only here for a brief while; she was a young, religious Tolkien fan who was sort of a protege of mine for a bit. Ultimately she ran afoul of some of the High Drama taking place on the Board; it's a shame, as I think she could have done great things here.
Kitsune's spelling was kind of terrible, and he was one of those very excitable newbies you see from time to time, but he was a valiant ally in the legendary Snowfight.
Pippa was very tricky to understand, and had a habit of taking attempted analogies extremely literally. She was also a deep-digging Tolkien fan whose Rohirric agents I am waiting for an opportunity to pilfer.
She came, she meme'd, she departed, but it would be very hard to forget Twistey.
I think Aakmal had trouble with English, with it being a second language, but he still became a core part of the Protectorate of Plort.
In many ways KittyEden was Just Another Excited Newbie, but her PPC Camping Trips were an absolute delight.
Creator of the Wiki, founder of at least one iteration of the Chat, the reason Dafydd has a giant robot in his back garden: sometimes I fought with her, sometimes she was a close friend, but I'm never going to forget her.
Des really put the feud into feudal interpretation of the PPC community, which was an excellent way of checking my megalomaniacal tendencies. The Librarian canonises the existence of the Crowded TARDIS, and he was a central player in the burst of PPC crossovers a while back.
It took me a very long time to finish reading Blank Sprite, but it was an excellent addition to the PPC.
I didn't know Fish very well, but his agents were spectacular, and as a founding member of the Continuity Council (and its most cheerful member by far) I have a soft spot for the Fisherman.
Anybody who sets an entire PPC interlude in Knightmare absolutely deserves a spot on this list.
Sci-fi loving, leather coat wearing, weirdly odd and weirdly normal Irish. He wrote an excellent chapter for The Ispace Wars, which I… haven't yet gotten round to including. It'll happen someday.
Hail to War-Queen Alleb! Who, alongside being an active Boarder for quite some time, was one of the most open-to-change religious people I've known. As in, she read The Origin of Species to inform herself on evolutionary theory. Yikes.
Keily was the only luster the Clover ever had. She was brilliant.
Artemis' Aerilyn & Zera were the very first conscious effort to take missions back to the basics. Stack onto that the creation of the DIA, and the very phrase 'Flaming Denethor!', and Artemis is one to remember.
Oracle mostly haunted the Chat, but she was friends with Kaitlyn, and wrote her into a very early story. I've written her into Plort as something of a villain, but that's kind of a slight against her: she was a huge part of the early community.
Twiggy wrote the very first hS/Kaitlyn shipfic. What more need be said?
Gunny and Wayne were the first agents who made me want to read anime missions. Given how huge a part of the PPC that was for a time, I don't know what I would have done without them.
W_M, the Boarder with a wonderfully chemical nickname who gave us all hope by becoming a genuine published author!
"Boromir for Prime Minister!" Whether you knew her as the author of classic girl-falls-into-Middle-earth 'Don't Panic!', or through her entertaining tales of life with a Bozling, Boz was amazing.
Winner of the coveted 'most likely to be told You Can Just Choose A Screenname' award, I'm also nearly positive noname was the author of the modern Middle-earth series The Modern Age.
AW has shown up a couple of times recently, but back in the day he was The Blue Elf and the greatest MSTer in the PPC. Also a designated Lust Object for 2/3 of the female Boarders (but then, they didn't have many options).
I was privileged to cowrite a mission with kippur, who was not only an active part of all aspects of the early PPC, but is now a genuine published author.
The PPC's original Elvish language geek, Hellga is someone I've looked up to since my first forays into Quenya. She showed up not too long ago; I squee'd.
Ella is a promising candidate for youngest PPCer ever, and her farewell absolutely broke my heart.
The AV division remains my touchstone for 'how do you kill a Suvian without weapons'. I love these missions.
Andtauriel Longwood-Baggins, one half of Andy-and-Saphie (the original PPC OTP), and one of the authors of the sadly-unfinished Suedom.
You can't have Andy without Saphie. Saphie was the author of the original PPC constitution. These two are utter legends.
Leto may have been the very first to write about life in HQ outside of missions. He fought against us all in the Snowfight, and was a fixture here for many years.
Long-serving Permission Giver, author of the Department of Technical Errors, brilliant fun at Gatherings, Araeph was one of the most dedicated PPCers for a decade or more.
I never knew Thals well, but she was a huge part of the early PPC and OFUM before it - she was one of the three Permission Givers created by Jay herself. She was also a great friend to Kaitlyn, which means she must have been a nice person.
Hail the Great Goddess in her Most Holy Hat. One of the original Permission Givers, I still remember Bast grouching about Newbies These Days and how they don't understand the true spirit of the PPC. That was back in 2004. ^_^ The more things change...
Permission Giver, founder of OFUM, Mistress of Minis… I don't think the PPC would ever have taken off without Miss Cam.
I never spoke to Acacia; she was gone before I joined. But TOS wouldn't have been the same without Agent Acy's snark, and none of us would be here without her author.
I did speak to Jay; I saw her once on the Board (as Otik), and received an IM out of the blue to talk about Jaycacia (she approved, and told me Acacia did too). I can't put into words how awe-inspiring it was to actually sit down and talk to the creator of the PPC herself.