It's probably mostly in my head, and of course everyone seems to know everyone because I'm still relatively new here, and I probably don't notice when it happens to other people, etc etc, so I'll try and be less socially awkward about everything. *twitch*
Awww, to me you're as key an ingredient of our Forum's tasty flavor-combo as anyone else on this thread! (So what would that make you -- the cumin? Lemongrass? Garam masala? The rum in the Planter's Punch?)
For some perspective on feeling
"still relatively new here": This forum DIDN'T EXIST 49 days ago. I have, what, 3 weeks? seniority on you. Big whoop. By the end of Chapter 4, you'll have spent as much time here as I have so far. (And you'll probably be a Safe-Zone Citizen by then.)
A bunch of posters know one another from aRTD, which is great; but I'm not one of them. Some posters may have long social media presences on DeviantArt or whatever; again, I'm not one of them. I'm just good at unpacking all my stuff and *acting* like I've got seniority.
I really only got into SSSS in late June, when the plot began speeding up. I had originally followed a link from Girl Genius shortly after SSSS started, but the Prologue wasn't grabbing me. So I only checked it every few weeks without much interest.
Then suddenly in Chapter 2, something clicked. Character interaction! Humor! Pathos! Backstory! Emil's explosives getting confiscated! Adorable horsies! Lalli being spooked by the moving sidewalk! At that point I was hooked, and went back to reread it all from the start (as well as aRTD, which I had drifted away from somewhere in Chapter 4.).
THEN I discovered the Disqus comments under each page, and my fate was sealed. I used to kind of look down on obscure Internet fandoms... and haha, what irony, now here I am up to my neck in one. It almost feels like coming out of the closet must:
"Say it loud, I'm geek and proud!"So really, it only took me about 4 months to move from "near-total lack of interest in SSSS" to fanatic evangelist and forum bandwidth hogger. Give yourself a little time, and you'll be a sagely nodding veteran too, looked up to by wide-eyed newbies.
Feel a bit less twitchy now, I hope?