Okay, let me elaborate- what made you decide to stay on the lake? Did you expect to be here as long as you have? If you've left before, what made you come back? Was it the community, the catcher, the different sections? I'd love to hear your stories. When I first came here from FanFiction, I didn't expect to stay. I remember thinking to myself, "this won't last very long". I started out very quiet, not all that active, mostly because I was intimidated. People would come to me though and start up a conversation, and that's when I started branching out more. I've been here for seven months now, and I would've never thought I'd be so involved in the community. Not giving up was probably one of the best decisions I've made. So what about you?
I'm gonna be honest, it took me a week to even join the site. I think I was more intimidated than anything, and even when I joined I was super nervous to even talk. I think I more-so stayed because of the community? Everyone was, and still is, very welcoming and nice (lets be real i still feel very intimidated). Now that I know a lot of you and actually contribute to LV, I'm glad I stayed.
I wanted friends when I made my resurface 2 years after signing up for trades. I wan shy and scared but active, I knew everyone it felt like and I felt so accepted. A month later I was on Social Team, a month after that I was a Mod. I had a purpose for the first time ever, I couldn't leave after that, even as my friends disappeared and I found it harder to make more. That carried me through two years, two amazing years of working with people and slowly finding myself closing off. Now that I am no longer with staff, I am trying once again to make friends and I am scared, shy, but active, just like when I came back before.
Here's my story here. I think I made it too long, but ah well. Spoiler: Backstory! So, my 11th grade of school had just started, and it was a huge step from the year before. Tonnes more work, harder classes; so I decided to make a fanfiction.net account to relieve some stress (and let loose an idea I had for a story). About three chapters had been published, and I got a PM from, well, you know who. That mysterious invitation master, zformtapu. They sent me a link to this place, and I decided to have a peek around. So, after I got invited here by zformtapu, I made an account here using my FF.net name and took a small look around. Me being completely new to this forum thing, I had no clue what to do, so I decided I'd have another look around the site the next day. That moment never came, since all thoughts about LV had been pushed out of my mind as a sudden surge of homework and assignment work came in the following day. I still worked on my FF.net story, but LV had disappeared for me. Until, on August 23rd, 2017, I got an e-mail from the LV Announcer telling me about how new things had appeared on the site. I clicked on the link, and was only reminded about the invite from zformtapu after looking at the site. I made an intro thread, pitched my tent in the Game Corner for a while, and made my presence here on LV official. And even though I've got the "Gettin' Old" badge, I'll be celebrating my 1 year Valor-versary on August 23rd, when I truly became a member of the lake.
I came from fanfiction(in Nov 2015), and when I first joined, I was confused and inactive. After a month, I got used to things and started posting in lounge. After a while (few months) I shifted to game corner for no particular reason. I was super active member with broken English for one year and then I left. Though, I knew this was temporary but I also knew the reason for which I left the site(personal reason) may result in me never coming back. However, I did come back last year and this time I was going to stay.(A came back a few more times before that but wasn't able to stay). Last year, also, when posts got changed, increase and decrease due to something and my posts decreased from 1200 something to 700. This made me sad and I started to feel a little off. I'll be honest here, it was also Motm thingy that made me a little sad about the site. At this, I was again tempted to leave but I thought carefully and stayed. And am really happy that I decided to stay. I plan on staying here for many more years. I found many good friends here and I feel happy when I'm here so yeah. This all made me stay and come back.
Here is my story. Read it if you want, it's your choice after all. Spoiler: My story Well, I got here via fanfiction on June 12. The moment I saw this website, the first thing that came up in my mind was, 'Eww, a forum page', and then I left. Two months later, I decided to revisit this site. I don't know why I decided that, but I did. I didn't do much, just looked around, and thought nothing much of this place. That was when I saw the art market. At first, my only intentions were to get an experienced artist to make me a cover for a fanfiction I was planning on writing. And so, I made my first ever post, requesting an art. I had to get pokepoints to pay off the artist, so I was basically forced to post more, just to get some pokepoints. After a while, I was starting to enjoy the game corner. Nothing much really, just a few post every now and then. Eventually, I started to post more on other threads, I met some friends, and actually began to enjoy myself. But in all honesty, I was still waiting for the drawing. I started logging in everyday, hoping for my request to finish. After a few months, I realized that it was never gonna finish. I was gonna leave the site, but before I could do so, I've realized that I was already having fun posting here, and that there was no reason to leave this place. And here I am today. posting on another thread, explaning how I got here, and why I'm staying. Hoping that someone will read this, and can relate to some way. Oh well. To be honest, I'm hoping to stay on this site for a long time. Once I get a credit card, I'll br sure to donate to this site, and give others VIP, just like someone did to me. If anyone actually took their time to read this whole thing, I thank you for doing so. See ya around. ~ Barandofl
I've been here for less than a month, but eh I'll comment anyway. I first came to LV after my main forum was shut down for a while due to maintenance. I didn't really expect to stay here for long, and to be honest I was planning on using these forums simply as a 'backup'. I was super shy to start of with (and to be honest I still am), but I felt welcomed straight away, which was probably the first time that's ever happened to me on a new forum. I started posting around in a few sections, expecting only to post a few times, but I guess that all changed didn't it I don't plan on leaving any time soon due to the friendly atmosphere and community here. LV is no longer just a 'backup' forum for me. In fact it has become one of my main forums!
Gonna be honest - thought the PM was a troll/bait, so I'd put off checking out the site until I Google'd it. The people encouraged me to stay, though - most are quite warm and welcoming, and it helped that I was able to participate in that Coordinator RP. That was a lot of fun, at least until tragedy struck...
The memes, of course. Well, the real answer would be the people. I joined four and a half year ago, back when the lake was more akin to small puddle. But, the people were friendly, and I managed to solidify my position into the community. I took on various positions over the years, such as mentor, writer, and now social media crew, which kept me involved. Right now, I really am nothing more than a casual shitposter, but as long as I'm not straight up banned for my existence, I'll stay
The dankness and the memes ofc Real answer; Ain't quite sure? Of course there's been ups and downs here with who came and went but compared to other forums I'm members of I love how everyone genuinely seems so chill here? And talkative to one another?
i got the pm from zformtapu, like a lot of others !! i’d never been on a forum before, so i decided to try it out. i was,,, terrified (still am, especially of the discord server ;; ) but i decided to go for it anyway !! everyone is so nice, i decided to stay bc y’all are such a great bunch <3
My story, in it for the art. My full story, I was invited here from ff.net and it seems a lot of people were too. I simply came here to post my fanfiction and that's it. I don't really do forums so I wasn't interested in doing anything more, but get more exposure for my fanfiction. Then, I looked at the artists and was amazed at what I saw. So, I decided to make at least one post a day until I had enough to get a cover and a good profile picture and I'm still working on that last. Even if I'm making my posts to get enough points for art, I'm probably never going to stop. I like posting here and I'll probably keep making commissions so I'll have excuses to keep posting.
Gonna put this in a spoiler tag because whoops it got long Spoiler So I used to use ff.net when I actually felt like I had the time to write a long thing outside of NaNoWriMo ;; I got a pm from zformaptu, because I had two Pokémon fanfics going (one of which was crap, the other of which was less crap but also didn't have a plot so). At the time, I was about . . . a year into my overall forum experience? Maybe two years. So I wasn't at all opposed to forums, actually I was (and am) pretty comfortable with them, so I didn't hesitate to write up a 'hello! I joined this thing' thread and jumped right in. Initially, I stayed for the writing - or, more, the promise of feedback. I never actually got any feedback on the story I'd been posting (which is actually pretty good and I want to rewrite at some point) but I diligently published it here and on another forum where it was initially written. But, as I stopped writing that story, I stopped coming on LV too. I'll admit, it struck me as a very video-game-version-of-Pokémon oriented, and I don't play the games, nor do I have a console to play them. So I felt a little out of place. To be honest, I still feel like I'm a minority on the Lake, just in terms of what I'm interested in. But, y'know, I take the not-ideal with the ideal. Then the Catcher showed up. The Catcher? The Catcher is fun. It gave me an incentive to post - I discovered the Q&A Section - and get more involved on LV. Not to mention that I love naming all my 'mons >> But the Catcher was what kept me here for quite a while; I could tell because when it was disabled, guess what, I drifted away. But now. Right now. I stay for the people, and for the art. I'm not an artist, I suck, those of you who have seen my attempts on Discord know that. But this is the most artistically-oriented site that I'm on and it really inspires me to do better. And the people? You all are super friendly and welcoming and funny and I really enjoy coming online to see your, um, pixels. There's also the Social Media Team thing. Didn't mention that in my monster post. I like having jobs, I like having a sort of responsibility towards the forums I'm on, whether I form that through time or titles. And now that I have a responsibility for LV, I feel like I come on here more. Congrats, you read this whole thing. Have a cookie.
I co-founded the site and I know Ryan in real life (somewhat) so if I completely upped and left he'd probably murder me or at least shitpost on my property which would be just as bad, if not worse. Real talk though, what keeps me coming back every time is you guys. I know I have the ability and drive to make LV the best possible forum for all of you, so that's exactly what I want to keep doing.
I think part of it for me might just be that I don't get to see my irl friends very often, so when everyone was so nice and welcoming, I stuck around. I left for a short time before, I got a little socially overwhelmed and took a break then sort of forgot the site existed for a couple of months, but then I came back after finding it randomly again.
The urge to check the notifications, really. I always want to see what notifications I have, I never ignore them unless I don't see them.
To be honest, when I first joined after getting a PM from a PotatoWizard, I was scared and overwhelmed by how darn friendly everyone was to me. I took a break and yet couldn’t stay away, so I checked out the Discord a month or so later? Then I got involved in RP’ing thanks to lovely member of the staff back then. That is also how I met one of my best friends today, Hraesvelgr. I got involved as a Writer (that is so long ago) and met Eclipse, who helped me through so much. To make a long story short, it was the people of LV that made me stay. And even now that I have decided to take on the role of member once again, it is the users that make sure I am not leaving.
About half a year before I joined LV, I saw it for the first time, when my sister signed up. Of course, like her, she soon forgot about it. But after a fanfiction.net PM told me about LV, I instantly remembered that same site as the one my sister was on all those months ago. So I joined. What made me stay compared to other forums I had been on, like Serebii? The community is just so nice and I instantly felt at home. On Serebii, you only knew the regulars of your "section" (in my case, I knew everyone who talked on the Pokémon anime forums and NO ONE ELSE). In LV's case, although the community was small, I started to know everyone, not just a select few. And definitely the fact that the staff is nice and jokes around with us unlike Serebii who almost infracted me for not waiting for their translations to surface. Basically, how overwhelmingly nice the community is compared to Serebii won me over. Love you guys <3
