Justins
first few weeks at DM.
When
I heard that you were looking for stories and history about people’s moments at
DM the first thing I thought of was how it all started for me. Back in January I tried a couple of times to
join DM to no avail, I was a computer novice and was this was my first attempt
at joining any community. I had never
before talked to someone online, or left a post on any message board, but I was
a great fan of the WoT series, and in my search for info about it I stumbled on
the community of DM. So I e-mailed the
M’hael, which sounded slightly ominous to me, and when I didn’t get a response
within two weeks I found myself e-mailing again, I really did want to find out
what all of this online community stuff was about. Well, finally, I received a response, and I officially joined DM
on February the 6, Y2K as Justen Diablos, CoL. Now none of this is really
important I suppose, but it does supply some back story.
My
first post took place back on that same date, and unknowingly I used a theory
Icon, being as I’m kind of a philosopher by nature I figured that one would be
the most representative of me, looking back on that now I gotta laugh, but at
the time I felt like the biggest idiot in the world when I found out about
Icons and stuff like that. Anyway
within minutes of posting I was contacted by Drevanus Milar, who was at that
time the Lord Captain of the Children of the Light. So think about this, I’m sitting at my computer after just having
joined my first ever online community, and literally within minutes I’m talking
to a leader of my new Org. Needless to
say I was impressed, and thought DM must be some kind of supercommunity to be
able to get to new members so fast. Now
I realize that it was just coincidence he was on and contacted me, but at the
time I had an almost super human impression of DM. This was also my first, and therefore worst ICQ conversation
ever, if I was talking to me that day I’d avoid me for the rest of my life. Again looking back now it’s funny, but at
the time I was embarrassed at not being able to sound interesting. I’m a fun guy irl, but for some reason that
didn’t translate into talking on ICQ.
Anyway with my first day under my cap, I pressed on.
So
now two days later, on the 8th of February, I got to the second
person I’d ever met on ICQ, Bolahn Gregorian, who at the time wanted me to join
the Eyes of the Light, again I was a newbie at the time, with no real idea what
was going on, and so I kind of got pushed into joining the EoL, because quite
frankly the conversation with Bolahn was the first one I’d actually held my own
in. So I said I’d join, and the very
next thing he asked is if I would help him overthrow current Spymaster Aurora
Stargazer. So remember now, I’m still a
newbie; I’ve never RPed anything on line in my life, and didn’t have the first
clue what it was. I didn’t know this
was an approved RP, or really what the heck was going on, but still, this was
the first person I’d actually made a good impression with, and being a chatting
newbie I didn’t want to ruin that. So I
said okay, sure I’ll help you out. I
couldn’t believe it was gonna go down that way, and was worried we’d both get
in trouble haha, I was a moron back that, but an innocent one. A couple of the Hand were going to accuse Aurora
of being a darkfriend, I was gonna fabricate evidence, and then Bolahn would be
Spymaster.
So
what would happen the very next day?
Well the plan was about to go ahead when Bolahn unfortunately had to
leave DM for a time, so it never took place. Now again I was left with no idea what I was doing. I posted a couple times in the next week,
though nothing major, for the most part I just read other posts and got used to
the stuff that went on at DM. Never
having been in any sort of chatting before it took me forever to learn what * g
* meant, or anything along those lines.
So I learned the lingo, and I attempted to figure out just what in the
world was going on. Now sometime around that time DM went down, might have been
the 9th or the 10th I’m not sure, anyway DM was down for
a while, which is when I got a message from Azazal (Lord Captain) saying where
the temp boards were located. Now the
temp boards I could deal with, there didn’t seem to be the seriousness that
there was at DM proper, and I felt the community stronger there, so in the
following week I made drastic movements towards actually breaking out of my
shell. My posts became relatively more
confident, and I became more confident in my online abilities. I was always good with people, but now all
of the sudden I was getting okay at dealing with online people. So when DM came back up on the 19th
I posted my bio, my first post on the CoL private board. I’d sent it to Yveva’s page and Koe, but
still most of the CoL hadn’t seen it, so I posted it there, and it was there I
mentioned that I was now in the EoL. It
was three days later that I first talked to Elriond on ICQ, who because
Drivanus was leaving, was taking over as Lord Captain Commander. He mentioned Bolahn’s attempt, and asked me
if I’d be willing to become Spymaster.
So without doing anything RP wise, which I was still uncomfortable with,
I was being offered the Spymaster position for the CoL. Perhaps as a newbie I
over estimated it’s importance, but I jumped at the chance. So the next day, Koe set up the CoL’s temp
board, and the first order of business was to make me Spymaster. It was very odd, as many of the CoL didn’t
stop by the temp boards often, and I think I spent almost a month as Spymaster
before a lot of people in my own org. knew I was. * g* and that, is the story of how I became Spymaster. Soon after I started my foray into the all
board posting crazy man that I am now, and also began to become Spymaster in
fact, as I started to do things for the Org. I thought a Spymaster would
do. I don’t know if I earned the
position when it was given me, but since then I’ve tried my best to make that
decision one that neither Koe or Elriond regret. But both of those are different stories, and maybe I’ll send them
to you sometime, if you liked this one anyway.
Looking back on it all DM has shaped me into the online persona I am
today. Never had I spoken to someone
online, now I do so regularly, I could barely turn my computer on when I
joined, now I know HTML, I love DM, and remember those first days with a lot of
fondness, admittedly it was only three months ago but hey, give me break, I’m a
sentimental guy.
Note
~ feel free to edit this essay/testimony as you will, I don’t know what makes
good story and what doesn’t. I was just recapping and remembering, so do with
this as you will, and thanks for giving me the opportunity to look back at some
old posts, and revisit some very old ICQ conversations.
Justen
Diablos,
Spymaster
for the CoL.
