Memories of the Magic Knight Rayearth Forums Options

[Dr. Casey]

The Magic Knight Rayearth forum's 7th birthday is coming up this next July, and despite these being the laziest and most laidback forums ever, I'm sure quite a bit has happened during these past seven years and 50,000+ posts (We're at 49,018 as of the time this is posted, but who knows how many posts were lost from before May 2005. Stupid ezBoard, didn't think message board owners needed the ability to back up their own forums...) So what are some of your most important memories related to these forums, whether those come from chat rooms involving the members or posts on the boards? They don't have to be happy memories necessarily (Though I doubt a place as peaceful as this has anything too dramatic), just special somehow. Maybe I should have made this thread before the board was completely abandoned except for me, Hikaru, and perhaps Emiko, but...

- I remember doing an ezBoard search for message boards related to Magic Knight Rayearth shortly before my 16th birthday (August 1st 2003), and these forums weren't brought up. I wonder if the boards were still too young and small to show up in the Search Results? I dunno. Kind of disappointing though, I'd have liked to discover these forums in their infancy, when they were just a few weeks old. Hell, I could have signed up before yuzuki, Batou, Yume, and all those other old-timers. Alas.

- Although I ended up being a total newbie, not signing up until May 2004, my actual debut to this place is special to me. I first came to these boards the night of May 30th, 2004 (Apparently the Search function worked that time) in the midst of a heavy depression over things that seemed very important at the time. At that point I'd been completely miserable for somewhere around two weeks, but hanging around this small, cozy little message board I'd stumbled across took my mind off those troubles. I could forget about everything that was bothering me and just browse through the Introductions forum seeing Hikaru bury all the newbies in chocolate, read some thoughts from Batou and Yuzuki regarding the Magic Knights, or watch that animated image of Umi trying to smash Mokona. I spent the next few days stuck on the forums, and by the next time I thought about those old problems that had me so bothered just a couple of days before, I'd come to discover that I no longer cared about them at all. Almost seemed like magic, just how quick and easy the healing was. I still use the experience as a reference point to this day. Whenever something's bothering me I might think, "I just need to get away from the problem for a bit and then I'll be able to move on, just like that time I first came to the Magic Knight Rayearth boards."

- The aftermath of the old forum's destruction during May and June 2005. It's hard to forget the heavy atmosphere that loomed over the forums during that time (Hikaru's avatar definitely contributing to the somber mood). And even though I do wish that whole stupid thing had never happened, I have to admit that everyone showing how much they cared about this place with their reactions to that whole debacle was a pretty nice consolation prize.

- I'll always remember the moment I finished the Magic Knight Rayearth season two episode reviews. Damn that was a lot of work. And speaking of that avatar Hikaru used for a bit, it was cool recognizing it during one of the season two episodes.

Anyway, that's about all that comes to mind for me; I've never been much of a regular, so I don't have a whole lot worth noting. So what about the rest of you?