Cheers, Legate! You are an excellent representative of the spirit of the Downs that has kept me coming here for longer than I ever would have expected from an internet forum.

Here's to another 10. :)

Seconded! Congratulations on the double digits!
It's weird to think that I've been dead longer than you were when I first joined. It seemed like everyone has been around so much longer.

And I wonder what it says about me that I also found the Downs through an unrelated Google search, and had to stick my not too well thought out opinion into the first thread I saw. :D Your story is way better, and as you say, you can always blame the Holy Spirit. ;)

Thirded! Happy deathday, Legate, rest in peace and may the Fff-, er, Flame of Anor always be with you! Thank you for the story of your first visit to the Downs - the subject of your query strikes me as characteristic of both yourself and the forum, which has always been a good place to explore the spiritual and philosophical ramifications of Tolkien's legendarium. I also took the time to dig up your old trhead about Saruman's interest in the Shire and couldn't help smiling at the discussion of Saruman's smoking habit, which reminded me of my own first post here, answering a riddle of yours about this very subject.

Belated condolences also to G55, sally, Nerwen and Agan (how could I have missed this:mad:?)!

Thank you all for the warm, ee, cold wishes :) It has been truly a gift to be in such a company.

Now you made me look it up, and I got sort of stuck reading the surrounding couple of pages. What fun! What a thread! And what an entry from you :)

Well, I'm very glad you decided to join. :):Merisu::smokin:

Three cheers for Legate!


\o/ \o/ \o/ Huzzah! \o/ \o/ \o/


\o/ \o/ \o/ Huzzah! \o/ \o/ \o/


\o/ \o/ \o/ Huzzah! \o/ \o/ \o/

For some reason this reminded me of the scene in Macbeth where the three witches make their prophecies.

Hail Legate, the guest of Galadriel in Lothlorien.

Hail Legate, who passes beneath the Argonath.

Hail Legate, who shall be... I don't know what's the next reputation level, and couldn't find it anywhere. Well, that wasn't a very good prophecy, was it?

We'll just have to give him more rep until we find out...

Thank ye, dear fellow wights. Much appreciated.

As for reps, I believe there is something about being lost at Emyn Muil, but maybe that comes only later or I am just making it up. :)

I guess no one has gotten lost yet. :)

Dear me, I have become so treeish here that I completely missed my 15th death day last month! I may neglect this site, life being what it is, but I will never forget it and the role it has played in my life. Why, right now I am writing a chapter for an upcoming book on Middle-earth and music!

Without the Downs, I would never have made so many friends in real life, both Downers and other fans with whom I came into contact because it all started here. I would not be a published author (non-fiction) and I would certainly not have learned so much about the internet and how to use at least some of it! My book shelves would be emptier and so would have been many delightful hours I spent discovering new aspects of Tolkien and his works. And I would not have travelled to some of the wonderful places I have seen, either visiting friends or seeing Middle-earthian sights.

So here's to the Downs, which will be 17 years old soon - almost of age in modern human terms. May it live - oops! - moulder in peace for many years to come!

Happy D-Day, Esty! You really should come around more often (said the pot to the kettle). ;)

Ten years here.

How appropriate they refer to it as a "death day", because obviously I don't have a life. :D

And it's true my death day was actually 6-4-17, but it has been said by many that I would be late for my own funeral.

Of course not. It is the Barrow-downs, after all. ;)

Happy D-Day, sir.

Happy anniversary, Morth!

So, I did miss my death day by a month...but I realized today that though my activity on the Barrow Downs has been spotty, I still nevertheless have officially been a member of the forum for over 15 years now. Which means I have been "undead" for longer than I had been alive when I initially joined. Whoa. :eek:

Yeah. Whoa.

And happy deathday!

I awaited August 2 with excitement, because that day marked my 10th (10th!) deathday. One decade on the Downs, the anniversary to which I had looked so forward to celebrating. The day just passed by without me noticing, and next thing I knew, the 2nd had come and gone. Anyway, here's to the Downs, here's to another decade!

Happy D-day, TGEW!

Happy anniversary, TeaGEW!

A Composition on Decomposition
 

Ten years ago today, and likely at about this time, a skinny fowl temptress convinced me to join some silly Tolkien website she'd been lurking on for a while.

"It's fun," she said.

"You'll like it," she said.

"Have you heard my one hour summary of the Silm?" she said.

That's probably when I tuned her out, but two and a half hours later, she was still talking, and I had joined my first Werewolf game. I don't regret a moment of it. (Well, maybe the phantom. :Merisu:)

Cheers to all of you fine people! I don't know half of you half as well as I should like, but I've killed some of you exactly as much as you deserve. :smokin:

Here's to ten years of being dead, and hopefully to many more!

Happy Downsniversary Sally!

it just struck me today that the oldest members of the forum (and in fact the forum itself) are turning 18 this year, a sort of Downer Coming of Age. Now we have a LOTR coming of age thread for becoming "mature" readers of Tolkien, but not really a way to recognize the coming of age of Downers. And of course it's more difficult to judge that. The Downs has many members who drop off never to return again, many of them barely making a couple posts before disappearing; it's easy to have made an account 18 years ago, it takes a bit more effort to actually be present for 18 years. And like in Fangorn Forest, some once active Downers become more and more treeish, but also some former lurkers become active posters. People come in and out as the currents take them. And sometimes you think that a Downer has become sleepier than Bilbo in ROTK and you're just about ready to give up on having a conversation with them, when out of the blue they wake up and make a Red Book-worthy post or score a record on the Fun and Games subforums.

So here's to all the Downers who are coming of age in their undead lives this year!


https://discourse-cdn-sjc2.com/stand...a5531d2504.gif

Cheers, indeed!

I don't know which is more amazing: that an internet Tolkien forum has lasted so long, or that I still check it every day after all that time. ;)

I really miss a lot of the old members, and the ones who predate my joining have nearly all been absent a long time. It's strange to think how much has changed in my own life since. I actually remember exactly the circumstances of how I stumbled upon the Downs, and my tentative first posts.

If someone had said back then I'd still be posting well into my forties, I'd have thought it as unlikely as a tree-man walking in the Northfarthing. :D

It really is rather remarkable.

I only remember to check the forum once or twice a month, but it still matters so much to my identity and how I perceive my self.

These days I mainly listen to lotr as audio-books, put on the Tolkien ensemble and occasionally play a bit lotro... but I miss being truly nerdy about this wonderful fantasy world.

Fifteen years ago I joined the Downs. I may not have been so active but this place remains precious to me and so are many of the people.

Congrats! I've been a bit less active myself, due to work and various issues, but I still come here every day. ;)

Happy birthday MummyMith! What would the Downs be without you? :) I wish you'd post more on the Downs, I get happy when I see the occasional post from you. :)

I will try to be less treeish and post more. I have been reading a lot of John Buchan and want to post about the parallels between him and Tolkien. I just suffered from being separated from my books so long.

Bit of a fail on that front. Maybe when I am no longer an unlikely keyworker. Only managing work’ basic personal maintenance and sleep just now.

Oh man! I hope things get better! But personal maintenance and sleep are important. We can wait. :)

Today is my 18th Deathday.

My Barrow Downs persona has now reached adulthood. :smokin:

Awwwwww, happy deathday! :)

Seconded!

Somewhere between the WW refreshings this post got lost in my cookies and was marked as read without me seeing it. Happy belated deathday Brin! :D

Happy deathday, Brinn! You're a properly hung & dried corpse now!

Raving ego-mania drives me to note that I have now slipped past (without even noting it on the actual day) twenty years as a member of this forum.

I, in a way, draw some satisfaction that my posts per day stat sits squarely at .50.

A nice tidy number.

Happy Deathday, Kuru!

Happy deathday, Kuru! May your shadow grow ever longer!

Ah yes, the average post per day stats. I wonder if they are accurate - I feel that they are skewed to the early days of prolific posting. Or, the posting was just that prolific. :D

Helped, perhaps, by Facebook memories in these latter years, the occasion of the great feast of the Epiphany never passes without me remembering my own, smaller, "epiphany," eighteen years ago today.

Not only has my Downs account come of age, since I was seventeen on the cusp of eighteen when I joined, this means I have now spent MORE of my life as a member of this forum--nay, this community--than I spent before joining it. I have rehearsed before that I probably would not live where I do, have married as I have, have the children I do, if it were not for the decision to sign up and participate here.

Though it probably isn't the sort of thing one articulates in most settings, it'd probably be ACCURATE to say that "Barrow-downer" is one of my most fundamental identities, even my truest citizenship, and perhaps it is permissible for me to say as much in this venue on this date.