Nostalgia

[Sarnah]

Remember all of those old adoptions that you used to love? The kind that had you spending all day at the Orchard in the hopes that an adoption form would go up?

Share your favorites with me. ;)

The ones I miss the most are Darkhorse's mahnon pah'llocks, Silvanon's drigetti, Myrror's Leaper Peak critters (you just had to be the first person to find all of them, and the second time through, I was!), and DragonFlight's rakishi. Also up there are DF's zyani and Az's anim'ruits. (I miss you, Az. ;.; You were so cool.) Oh, and Cloud's driacorns.

Along this vein: favorite people who've disappeared!

Silvarana (she had a few pah'llocks--Kaemon, notably... we'd write limericks back and forth to each other all day. I lost contact with her when my ICQ went kapootz. x_x Miss you too, Silvy! <3), Cloud, Aylce, Mystik, Alicorn, JDD, Ellen, and Mistress Unseen.

And last but not least: favorite characters and plotlines!

Jessica Dragontamer had (has?) the Warrioress and a purple rakish mare that were much awesome. I'm still in love with DH's pah'llock stallion, Shagwar. Quanta and Moreilli will always be the best couple ever. And the continuing drama with Ann's, BM's and my rakishi foals was so much entertainment. Sen'E'Aza, ND and Rei-J are probably some of my favorite creatures ever, along with Illi and Hesai'ter-de--his relationship with Kwaje was fun, haha. I loved Ellen's stallion, Niata. He and my stallion, Kyr!st'aliz, would laze around eating apples with caramel centers and discussing manly things, such as how difficult females are and how studly they both were. Oh, and all of the angst with Sha'tu, Sha'na'ra, Za'nubi, Farceur, and Alicorn's gender confused pah whose name I can't remember.

DH's system of deciding who got to have their pahs breed was first-come-first-serve, which ensured that only people who had enough time on their hands to sit at the computer all day and refresh the forms to see if they were open would get breedings, thereby giving foals to people who would also be obsessive enough to RP them for hours every day and making them very exclusive critters. I remember the scandal where Peregrine Falcon drew her own pah'llocks and dared to RP them; DH later found out that PF had falsely applied for pah breedings under two different names and readopted her pah'llocks. Such scandal.

To quote All in the Family, "Those were the daaaays!"

Edited to get rid of teh ickeh smileys.

[Thele]

I remember going crazy doing all of those searches Silv thought up of. The White form unicorns, the Maze, and the Boobie Prize one. The later took me months to find. @__@ And trying to get a mahnon pah'llock? I remember once there was actually an earthquake while we were waiting. Though it didn't stop us northwesterns from staying on. *lol*

I miss Coyol's Tilldrakes, Jaysen's crenels (and related), Az's miwenday, and Arby's adoptions. *chuckles* I must have had pages and pages of melcey RPs.

And the old mailing lists? Those were so fun to get.

[kislah]

I think about the time I found the Orchard was about the time all of those were dying down. Sounds like good stuff, though :3

I think it would be awesome if some more adoptions were set up. Yes, this is coming from the person who has attempted at...three? Three different adoptions and none have worked. Pretty sad. >.>

I remember the Tufta, though those aren't too old. I loved them though, all of them were so different and fun to RP. I miss Adlana's adoptions too. While I never did get any critters from her, I loved seeing them ^^'

*shuffles off to hide in her non-oldbie-ness*

[Aylura]

Ah man, now you've pulled me out of lurker mode because I'm thinking back on the old days.

Of the adoptions, I miss TalonHawk's canines and canine/equine crosses and nearly anything made by Coyol. I still wish I could have gotten one of Coyol's gryphon's. Grimmy's Bryar Wolves were also one of my favorites.

I remember having a sleep over once when my friends and I were refreshing the Pah'llock message board all night, taking shifts so that the computer was never left alone. We didn't need to, as the draw was posted near to the middle of the day, but it was memorable none the less.

I'm still amused by the old draws for Painted Unicorns, where one window would be open with a completed form, and another window would be open refreshing to get the status. Once that little message said "Paints Available" I'd race my mouse over to that form window and click Send. Fingers were then crossed and the Orchard refreshed for results.

[Lumi]

Not really olbie enough for most of the truely great and missed adoptions, since I wasn't there. There are acouple from when I joined that I miss muchly.

DS's Rhschu Unicorns, DS's Randoms, Pixie's Aesir, Tufta, and S'raar.

[Thele]

I just remembered, the beanie craze. I still have a folder of beanies from Arby, Myr, Morgan, TH, Aurora, and who knows.

And the old board hijinks. Roll-calls, and the infamous same-time-double-posting-threads.

[Sarnah]

Aylura said:

Ah man, now you've pulled me out of lurker mode because I'm thinking back on the old days.

That was my goal. ;) </evil>

Thele said:

I just remembered, the beanie craze. I still have a folder of beanies from Arby, Myr, Morgan, TH, Aurora, and who knows.

And the old board hijinks. Roll-calls, and the infamous same-time-double-posting-threads.

Oh, man, I forgot all about those! I've got a ton. Especially TH's pah beanies, those were the cutest little things. I downloaded a copy of all my favorite pahs, even though I know some people were possessive of my beanies. ^^ So I have Saffon'vanim, and Sha'tu (who isn't around at all anymore, so good judgement on my part :P), Fa and Kyr and Kaemon... all sorts of happy beaniness.

Hijinks--not at the Orchard, but that pie fight that went on forever at the Tir board. ;D Annoyed a few of the older RPers, but we pre-teens were quite cheerfully dragging it out UNTIL THE END OF TIME!!!!111.

I liked the old daily board where there actually was a botspot, and the one before that where if you made a post, it would be gone within a few hours, completely off the board. There was that much RPing going on, and the big contest fad--everybody and their brother was having a contest. I had a contest. It was random Scooby Doo trivia that no one had heard of. BM won. Whee. ;)

Back to Aylura: TH's stuff was so popular. Lidraocks, right? Those were the birds. The horse/dog ones were... ugh... right on the tip of my tongue, too, but I can't think of them. I do, however, remember that one of the female's pages had the Walk Like an Egyptian midi playing on it. ;)

Remember when she got in a car accident? Everyone was freaking out and making shrines and stuff.

[Thele]

Sarnah said:

Hijinks--not at the Orchard, but that pie fight that went on forever at the Tir board. ;D

O__O. Forever and a day. I think every pie ever made was used in it.

Sarnah said:

I liked the old daily board where there actually was a botspot, and the one before that where if you made a post, it would be gone within a few hours, completely off the board.

And you'd scroll and scroll as a thread rippled it's way across the board. XD

[Sarnah]

Okay. And before I forget, I'm going to have to agree with whoever said Silvanon's plain, normal, pretty white unicorn hunt adoptions.

Those things were the synonym for poop, and I mean that in the best way possible. I tore her website inside and out looking for forms, and they'd be one of the periods in one of her stories, or a tree in a picture that she'd made an image map of and of course no one had any clue about, and, pardon the acronym, omg. It was SO thrilling to finally find the form and the pages where all of the stages were but they were separated by a ridiculous amount of space so technically you could cheat and scroll all the way down and save them all.

I always did. I was a bad person. I felt like I was terribly clever and wicked for scrolling down and seeing what my babies would look like ahead of time.

And. The mystery eggs! How could I ever forget those? I loved those.

And Minidragon Isle, before it got all weird. As in, when it was really just a dragon adoption agency where you wrote cute stories to get clutches.

What makes me saddest is that some of the adoptions that we all loved so much would never make it now. The pah'llocks would, sure, but not their earliest incarnations; they weren't very well drawn. TH's wildly popular critters were just mousedrawn things with butts that stuck up higher than their heads. I've seen better stuff offered now that no one will even look sideways at, much less make a page for. I feel sorry for the newer people trying to create an adoption. I miss the glory days, man. It was more about character than art.

Oh, and what the older pah'llocks looked like--
www.angelfire.com/oh/megsnetpets/images/Kyrst2.gif
www.angelfire.com/oh/megsnetpets/images/Kyrst.gif

I believe Kyr was #16. :) Complete with bright, non-transparent backgrounds and color changing eyes--from blue to green. ;)

[Sarnah]

Thele said:

O__O. Forever and a day. I think every pie ever made was used in it.

There was some controversial debate that they even used pies that had not been made yet and that to this day, we are still trying to get rid of the Tir-inflicted pie deficit.

It didn't matter what you did. You would soon be a pie victim.

Subj: I'm so depressed, guys.
My house burned down and parents died today. So did my dog. I'm homeless and everything I own was lost, except for this computer and internet connection.
From: Sarnah

Three minutes later...

Subj: Re: I'm so depressed, guys.
Aww, that's so sad. *throws a pie in your face* Hahahahahaha!
From: Ran'dom!sylla b'les

[Myrror]

Ehe, ages ago...

Now people have a hard time getting stat pages up. Including me.

And I still have my Bryars on my hard drive. Including the daughter of the Dark One ^^

[Sarnah]

It said:

Ehe, ages ago...

Now people have a hard time getting stat pages up. Including me.

It's because that was 6-7-8 years ago. Most of us were too young to go to the bathroom by ourselves (except for you! you are like God. You were always there, watching over us, dispensing critters as you saw fit in your divine way. ...yeah. and I mean you were always there. I remember the first day the Orchard was up, and I clicked on it, there were maybe four threads, and one of them was yours.) and while we'd make pages, they were terrible. There'd only be about 8 sentences, but we'd put a <p> between each one. Everything was centered on the page. It was all dialog, and crappy dialog. Usually the person "visiting" was pounced by whatever creature's page it was, and the visit ended by the creature running away to go visit a friend, or, if the creature were an adult, their mate, and they would inform the visitor with dreamy eyes and wistful sighs.

We could still do that, of course, but we'd have to shoot ourselves first. ;)

[Myrror]

Ehe, true. Some of my first pages were....ew...

Well, before I lost them, my first Raveen kat page was Char threatening to eat the person, but they couldn'tt, because of the path's prtotection.

Not that Char COULD, being a vampire, he goes after other kats.

[Thele]

*blinks* No one's mentioned the old Pern adoptions yet? The dragons, fire lizards, and watch whers? They were everywhere!

I've still got those old pages up, since I don't have the heart to get rid of them.

[Myrror]

Eh, I deleted my 'pern' pages looooong ago, and I really never got that much into them after discovering the more unique critters