My Lion King Forum

I'm surprised MLK is still around. Last I remember, this place was rather dead, and that was years ago. I think I just stopped logging in at some point, as it became painful to see the nest of spam and troll-posts this forum had become, with otherwise no real activity. Meanwhile, things happened and life moved on. This is probably my first time visiting in maybe 3 or 4 years. I thought Moka was going to shut the site down back then, but maybe part of me is actually kinda happy to see it's still up.

I joined this forum when I was 17. I was very active on here for several years after that, up until some point in my mid-20s. This was such a critical time in my life, trying to figure out who I was and where I would fit into the world. It was that entire struggle that drew me into The Lion King and its fandom in the first place. In a way, I guess I'm fortunate that this community was alive during that time, and a home when I needed it. This forum was where my friends were. This was where I would go to ask for advice, vent my frustrations, or brag about my accomplishments. As I struggled to get through college, live away from my parents, and navigate my way through early adulthood, everyone here made me into the person I am today.

I still remember all the arguments over politics, religion, philosophy, and other topics. This place was a haven for that like no other. The long, thoughtful posts here were the best. Even when we disagreed on things, there was still a certain degree of respect we had for each other--a certain respect that I don't see on the internet anymore nowadays. I miss that a lot. Sometimes, I wonder what's happening to the internet now that forums like this are nearly extinct. When online interactions are between strangers rather than people you share interests with, it seems the internet only sends people down into chaos.

Of course, I still remember the drama we had here, too. It always amazed me how there were so many cool chill people around this site, and yet somehow it could still flame up in a blaze of insanity from time to time. Sometimes it was rather stressful to deal with it as a mod, but looking back, I don't regret anything.

I also remember photoshopping signatures, the fanfic writing contests, the member of the month/year shenanigans, the MLK radio, the Minecraft server, the chat rooms... we had some good times.

I hope everyone here is doing fine now that we're all older and we've grown apart from the site. As for myself, I'm 30 now. I've held a stable, good-paying job for about the past 4 years, since I finished my master's degree. I've been able to contribute technically to the projects I've worked now and that's been a huge boost to my self-esteem. My work-life balance is pretty good too. I got married last year, and my wife and I managed to buy our first house together even in spite of the sorry state of the economy and housing market.

With conflicts in the middle east and Europe, high inflation, record corporate profits, government dysfunction, climate crisis, and AI generated content flooding the internet, I can't say I'm too happy with the state of the world right now, but there's little anyone can do about these things. I've been trying to relax more, get outside more and get in better shape. Spending so much time on the internet used to be fun, but I find I'm happier when I'm absorbed in other things now.

I'm curious if any of the other old timers are still checking in here from time to time. Anyone remember me? Are you all still alive?

I miss when this place was active.

I agree, I miss the old forums too and particulary this place. It's much harder to get in touch with people on the internet nowadays. Discord is decent, but it's still not the same as forums like this.

I remember You Congratulations on Your Marriage and other accomplishments.

I have nothing noteworthy to mention but I'm doing alright. I just don't stop by Here as much as I should. I am 48 now.

Hi Regulus. I still come on here from time to time but only for nostalgic purposes. Wish the forum would be fixed, but unfortunately everyone that used to post here came and went and there probably won't be any future for it because of it.

Congrats on your marriage! Tora and I Have been married for almost four years.

I was also 17 when I joined in. For the same reasons as many of you did [color=orange][/color] to discover who I was as a person on the brink of adulthood. Now that I am fully grown up (in body at least). I can say that this forum and this fandom has helped me alot, it was because of this Fandom that I became an artist and learned all about arts and culture, I fell in love with hand-drawn animation in late highschool, and from there I went on to pursue a liberal arts program in college (not my smartest move considering the job market, but hey I was 18 and I was going to be an artist ). After that didn't work out, I had to become a productive member of society (and be able to feed myself), so I I got into engineering and am currently trying to finish my degree so I can create beautiful machines that will change the world for the better. Ultimately this movie is about learning to take responsability and to grow as a person. Without this movie and the fandom, I would probably be jaded and depressed because my career as an artist didn't work out. But I didn't like Timon said: "When the going gets though, the tough gets going." Life is just to short and precious to be wasted wondering, life is ultimately meaningless and its your responsability to assign a meaning to it, and to fight for it.

Sorry for the rant. So thank you all for the good old times. Who knows maybe this forum will see some movement in the future after the 2024 movie.
PS: Yes I remember you Regulus.
Cheers.

2009 to 2011 was such a great time here. I'll never forget it

Congratulations to You as well SimbasMate.

It’s been a few months, but glad to hear life has kept moving for you Regs! This place randomly crossed my mind today - nice to hear of you doing so well.

Regulus wrote:I'm curious if any of the other old timers are still checking in here from time to time. Anyone remember me? Are you all still alive?

I do in fact remember you. You were the first person who popped into my brain when someone told me recently their cat was named Regulus.

Every once in a grand while I too find myself popping in, usually because I'm reminiscing with someone about it and feel the need to have a look back over the place (the good, the bad and the cringe). As my post on this thread nearly a year later must illustrate, these trips aren't altogether too frequent, but given that I still have close friendships with people I met here I would say that it's a bit inevitable.

My life both on- and off-Internet has indeed changed a lot. I think out of the "old guard" here I was amongst the last to join, and certainly amongst the youngest, as I was only 14 when I made my account in 2012. It perhaps wasn't altogether too obvious since I had a bit of a fanfiction following even at that point and already expressed myself through writing quite well, not to mention I graduated high school and left home and all that quite early... but I really was very, very young throughout my time here. I think I was still technically a teenager when this site imploded a bit; since I was also on the cusp of completing my bachelor's, I had good reasons of my own to drift inevitably apart.

The intervening years were quite hectic and tough for me in a lot of ways. I will spare any useless melodrama but there were some pretty difficult challenges in store for me through my early- and mid-20s as a rural horse ranch worker trying to figure out my life, and that was complicated by undiagnosed ADHD and personal traumas I'd never fully dealt with, to boot. I had some very difficult employers and difficult relationships that knocked my confidence back quite a bit. At 25, in the wake of some pretty gnarly personal fallout from that, I found myself doing an about-face and finally taking my life into a new, and better, direction. Like quite a few others here, I started dating another member from this site - IMNW/Cameron is my fiancé now, and we are planning to get married next year. (I've still kept in touch with others here and there, where I can.) Importantly, however, I also made tangible steps at long last to pursue the veterinary education that, deep-down, I think I always knew I wanted. As of now I am in the UK, about halfway through that program, and should be finishing just as I hit 30.

Being in a new country has been a complicated journey, and being a student again is whiplash. In a lot of ways it's felt like I'm starting life entirely over, but I think it's been a fresh slate for me, too. Particularly a well-timed one given the way things in the US are going, but that's a bit besides the point of this post I suppose... as you yourself have said, there's only so much any of us can do about the troubling things in the world, and I find that I just don't spend that much time on the Internet either these days, for similar reasons as you. That's not to say I'm totally shut off from the broader milieu in which we find ourselves, nor even from some online fun now and then with people and communities I care about, but compared to my teenaged years it's pretty clear that the season of my life where I spent many hours engaging with this kind of place are well behind me by now.

Outside of needing to do well in school (again), I've been dedicated to writing the manuscript for my first novel... to what end, lord only knows, but finishing a story is a bucket-list item so I figured I'd go for it. I still ride horses. I am much better at Spanish and am decent with French these days too.

I don't have much money or much else to my name - just as it was back then - but it's a decent life that I live and I can't complain, really. Maybe in another ten years we will all reconvene and find ourselves once again in a new chapter of our lives that we feel compelled to share, but in the meantime I think it's been a pretty good (re)start that I've had so far, and I hope the intervening time has also been kind to others here.