Shy

Yeah I really regret dressing our RPGs up with so much html. Almagest in particular is something I've tried to go back to, but in general it's too difficult to read. My PMs go back to December 6, 2002(!) My first message is from @James, sending a reassuring message after I came out on this site. I'll always be grateful for that (and the flirtation it spawned!) Also: My PMs are FILLED with planning and strategy for our rpgs. I forget how involved stuff like Final Quest For Glory 2 was, and all of the controversy surrounding it. - Shy

20 years later and here we are.

I'm doing okay, all things considered. Been lurking on here for a while! Would love to chat with y'all in some fashion, - Shy

Welcome to OtakuBoards. Enjoy your stay. -Shy

This news makes me very sad. I've known Des for most of my life at this point, and he was someone I respected and trusted a great deal. We kept in touch over the years in passing. but only recently did I know anything about his illness. I remember wishing him well on Twitter just a few months ago, and now I wish I would have spent more time to catch up. It breaks my heart even more to see how much time has gone by since his passing and Michael piecing together the story. As Charles said it never occurred to me how serious his condition could get. I know we're all getting older... this is just so unfortunate. My heart goes out to his family, especially his brothers who I know he cared for a great deal. There was no denying how capable and talented he was when it came to his passions. If I recall, he was quite quickly quickly made the moderator of the Zelda (Nintendo?) forum just after entering the OB scene. I can still remember the old patterned GIF of an avatar he used when he was known as JCGoudy. Back then he was mostly a gaming guy, but at some point he started to pursue anime a great deal. In no time at all he was an expert in that, too. We would do these old AIM chatrooms full of OB members and Des would be so quick to pull up a relevant screen cap from an anime I had never even heard from -- and he had taken the screen cap himself. This was a very impressive thing to do back then, I swear! Des always held a steady optimism that was sorely needed on this site, and he kept his head above the fray on a lot of the random OB spats members would have. He was a great admin because nobody could dislike him. For different reasons a lot of us needed the kind of encouraging social outlet that OtakuBoards was in those days. We had precious few conversations in our many years and experiences together. I feel like he and I have always shared a quiet understanding. I'll miss him. Desbreakfast.

Right now I am reading CURVEBALL, a graphic novel by artist Jeremy Sorese (NoBrow Press). It's about a futuristic society in decline, where most of the machines are decaying and nobody knows what will become of humanity after the age of automation is no longer functional. In addition, it's about reawakening yourself after losing a great love. The whole thing has a sleepy, dreamlike quality to it but honestly I find it a bit overwritten and too wordy in parts. This all speaks to the author's sensibilities, I guess, but my style is generally "less is more," especially when the artist is so very capable. One thing CURVEBALL is is LOOONG, and I've struggled a bit to get through it. I think the slog is a bit intentional though, and I suspect towards the end it might build towards... something? Like OB RPGs of yore, the emphasis might be a little too heavy on world-building and not enough on plotting. It's a perfect read for a long journey and self-reflection. http://nobrow.net/shop/curveball/

Some of us have been with this site longer than we haven't(!) and a lot of the skills I use in my work life (writing, organizing groups of people, art direction) are things I originally put into practice on this very site! I was wondering if there are any skills, interests, etc. you use regularly that you can directly attribute to your time on the site. For some that might be art, for others it might be technical stuff like coding. These days I write comic books professionally, and I don't think I would have been as comfortable with the organizational stuff behind it if I didn't have a decade of OB experience behind me. What says you?

Can't wait! Hope you don't mind that I posted this up early, Charles! http://www.otakuboards.com/topic/45670-final-quest-for-glory-3-sign-ups/ - Josh

FINAL QUEST FOR GLORY 3 CHARLES and I have been discussing ways to inject new life into the forums, and we both think it is important to restore the bold heritage of OtakuBoards RPG. As any true Otaku historian knows, Final Quest For Glory is by far the most popular RPG is this forum's long life, but was sadly deleted like oh so many Digimon threads. Ages ago, Chuck and I tried to duplicate that success with Final Quest For Glory 2, but it got too political and some lives were ruined in the process. We have since learned the error of our ways and have come up with some great ideas to promote a friendly atmosphere and foster the creativity of our members. Our original plan was to launch this next week, but everyone is so busy that I thought the extra sign-up time would help. Charles will help explain the entire story and structure of this unconventional RPG next week when we launch the project formally, but we can't launch anything without players! If you'd like to sign-up, please include the following in your reply: PLAYER NAME:FAVORITE OB RPG CHARACTER NAME:CHARACTER'S AGE:CHARACTER'S ELEMENT OF POWER:PLAYER'S OB FORUM OF POWER:PLAYER MONTH AND DAY OF BIRTH:CHARACTER'S IDOL:WHAT IS THE WORST DECISION YOUR CHARACTER EVER MADE?It's great to be back in the Theater forum where so much magic once happened. If you have never played an OB RPG before (or don't remember your characters so well) feel free to play as an all-new creation. Or, if you really want to, play as a fictionalized version of your OB identity... Anyways, we've got some surprises in store for you as this begins to ramp up. Special thanks to CHARLES who really wowed me with his ambition and creativity on this and countless other projects over the years. - Shy

I support every idea Charles has ever had. This is no different. Count me in. - Shy

theOtaku.com/forums was probably the true golden age.   Also it's really terrible to have a new Digimon series coming out with OB as it is. There must be a future for this site, for where else will I be able to discuss Mimi's new hairstyle?   - Shy

Ugh, I just lost The Game!   I'm curious if I can dig up the old Nifty 50 banners. That was 100 hard drives ago, but they still might be hosted on imageshack or whatever I was using at the time.   Edit: Here is the thread from '08 (Covering '07. I know it's confusing.) '07's Thread, which Des posted. '06 Thread '05 Thread And the original '04, which might as well be a century ago and did not have awards banners because the internet was slow.   - Shy

  This is the big one. The best stuff on OB wasn't specific to anime usually, and the rest of the world started having these kind of interactions on Facebook/Twitter/etc.. TheOtaku's soft decline and the decline of anime's mainstream representation in English speaking countries certainly hasn't helped. In addition, increasingly uptight members (myself included, I guess) turned people off sooner than they might have been turned off otherwise.    I remade the Padded Room Party to give OB a home for non sequitur , context-less posts that have since overrun the internet. I understand why people feel like it "broke" the boards, but that's simply not accurate. If anything the PRP was life support for this place for *years*. Quality of life for the site is another matter entirely...   No matter what happened or how many events we made eventually the core membership was going to start growing up, making babies, and/or maintaining our nuclear stockpile. Many great memories, and many great friendships, are the direct result of my time here. It's nice to pop in and revisit the old threads. I hope I'm able to do that for as long as possible.   - Shy

Solar technology is getting cheaper and cheaper. Although it seems like high-minded futurism now, there will come a point where generating solar power is cheaper per watt to produce than through conventional means. I'm very much looking forward to having my home powered through cleaner means, although I'm not looking to buy in even the remote future.   Even if the US an China are being slow to adopt new technology for various reasons, other nations are definitely looking to solar as the answer. India is building some HUGE solar plants. Since their power grid is a complete disaster this could only be a good thing.   - Shy

On Otakupedia I believe we had a list of all of the various member titles over the years. I'm not sure that page exists.   Allamorph was against PRP ever since I banned cat pictures from that thread (not that the banning stuck, mind you.)   - Shy

Please let the PRP get over 9,000 posts before it gets closed again. The GIF opportunities are too good to pass up.   - Shy

  After reading through some of it again I remember where we were going with certain details. However, I'm still really confused about placing certain characters within the story, Perhaps a post could summarize things a bit and launch into the next Almagest, but then we have to begin the conversation about what that RPG would look like. Part of the appeal of the original was the large, unwieldy cast of characters... I'm not sure I have the time to manage all of that again.   - Shy

I'd be up for a spin.   Almagest is very dear to me, although I don't remember where we were going with it. If I recall we were in the process of 'wrapping up' to set the stage for a third Almagest, which is probably bonkers.   There were a lot of other unfinished RPGs I participated (and started.) I'm probably more guilty of leaving these unfinished than anyone.   - Josh!

Welcome to OtakuBoards, cepubdude. I hope you enjoy the stay.  :happy:   I'm gonna send this to the Creative Works forum and mark it as a 'Request' so that it gets the attention it deserves.   - Shy

  Good to see you are still kicking around, Your kid must be pretty old now! We're all pretty old now!   - Shy

Yikes. It sounds like you've been through the wringer a bit, but hopefully you're better off for it.   And thank you for your service, chibi-master. (I certainly never expected to say that!)   - Shy

It has been too long, OtakuBoards.   While I keep in touch with a few of you elsewhere (You can bug me on Twitter @LostHisKeysMan) there are some that have dropped off my radar over the years. In my quiet moments I wonder what happened to everyone. It seems so strange to follow the daily happenings of a large internet community for years and then... stop, you know? OB will always be my online home. I mean, I joined 12 years ago before there was even a term for 'social networking.' Have you ever tried visiting this site on a 56k modem? I sure have.   Anyways, people grow up, graduate, get jobs, marry, and maybe even have some children of their own. I guess I'm curious to see where the pieces have fallen. Did any of our talented artists and writers end up pursuing that as a career? Have they found any success? Have our members moved onto Reddit and other online communities, or did they simply get too busy to maintain an active online social life? Is Allamorph still insufferable? Okay, some of these questions I know the answer to...   I currently live in Los Angeles/Hollywood where I have a boring day job working in online copyright enforcement. It pays the bills well enough, and afford me free time to play in a dodgeball league and run Dungeons & Dragons games every week. Beyond that, I'm working on writing for comic books. It's been a slow process, but a couple of my short stories are being published this summer and I got to speak about one at a panel in Comic-Con. Right now I'm working on an anthology of comic stories that I'll promote the hell out of once it's released. I'd like to do this full-time, but that seems unrealistic from a financial point of view.   Writing/editing comics and working on OB RPGs aren't that much different. It's still a matter of trying to get a bunch of different plates spinning at once, and flattery is much more effective than guilt. These are lessons I learned a long time ago trying to rope players in posting more often in Almagest and whatnot, and I find myself using them constantly. Sometimes I think about starting yet another new RPG, but then I think that creative energy might be spent on something that can reach a wider audience. Still, if the right idea came along I suppose I wouldn't say no.   I'm still very much a gay dude as well. I came out to OB before I had come out to most of my friends in real-life, and this community's support/ambivalence about my sexuality helped give me a lot of confidence at a time when I really needed it. Now it seems like such a non-issue, but I suppose that's the way it is with these things. It's amazing how much has changed, yet this silly internet message board soldiers on. So long as the site remains it will always have a faithful (albeit overzealous) moderator in Shy.   What about you? How have you been?   - Shy

Boo wins this thread, and my heart. Yes, I'm biased.   I've spent a couple of days looking for a manga (or manga-style) artist to hire for a comic story I want to publish. It's been exhausting and has taken me to depths of anime fandom that I hadn't experienced since my days as a Digimon forum moderator here. Really gross stuff.   - Shy