Memory Lane

[Monty Pendleton]

Can you believe HNZ has turned 14?!? It's mind-blowing. But it certainly wouldn't have been going for this long without you, the wonderful community, coming together to create such amazing characters and stories. Few of us have been here for quite that long - but whether you've been here for 14 years, 4 years, or even 4 months, we are inviting you to come and share your favourite HNZ memories with us all here today!!

Have you read or taken part in any roleplays that have made you laugh out loud? Gasp? Cry? Committed yourself to plots that seemed like a great idea in that group call at three in the morning, but not so much when you woke up with ten new babies and a centaur? Do you have a folder on your computer full of your favourite HNZ screenshots? Had any particularly cringe-worthy n00b moments? (Come on, we've all had them, and we all want to see them ) Absolutely anything goes in here, so don't hold back!!!

If you feel like travelling all the way back down Memory Lane, you could even tell us why you decided to sign up to HNZ in the first place!

So come and share your fondest memories as we celebrate HNZ's 14th birthday together!!

 

[Cyndi Kingsley]

If you feel like travelling all the way back down Memory Lane, you could even tell us why you decided to sign up to HNZ in the first place!

"You know you've read a good book when you turn the last page and feel a little as if you have lost a friend." ~Paul Sweeney

I signed up the week the 7th book came out, or very soon after. I was feeling the above quote hard, I'd grown up with the books and had a couple of health issues within my family that were making the series ending particularly difficult to deal with. So, as I scrolled through Facebook during a break at my summer job, I saw the post about a roleplaying thing called Hogwarts New Zealand. I knew about roleplaying games from Final Fantasy, I told myself, and signed right up. Boy, was I surprised when I came back the next day and realized what I had signed up for. A role-playing site, it turned out, was pretty different from a role-play game.

 

[Sara Moon]

I'd never heard of roleplaying before, I was in secondary school, around fifteen, and was feeling the absence of Harry Potter so was looking up things about it when HNZ came up. I joined, and didn't participate for AGES. Eventually sorting came around; I used to use lunchtimes in school sometimes if I needed to catch up on lessons.

 

[Amber Chou Wilson]

Rowan talked me into joining, though I was very reluctant at first. I waited until sorting was almost closed and then relented, and here we are

 

[Ainsley Lynch]

When I first joined in 2009 I had actually been on a BUNCH of RP forums before HNZ, and I was looking for a new one when my friend Jess (sadly no longer on the site) found HNZ, probably through an ad on Bebo. I was used to much stricter sites, with required post lengths and where your bio had to be approved by an admin before you were allowed to start RPing, so I really enjoyed the freedom this place allows. (I still think that's one of the big reasons HNZ has survived while all those sites would collapse after a few months...)

I had to leave the site when I was living in a place with no internet access for a couple of years, and didn't come back til 2016, when Daph was looking for a new HP rp. HNZ was the first thing that came to my mind, but it took around 3 months to actually convince her to join

 

[Professor Adorah Zumwalt]

I don't remember exactly what got me started on this site. It must have had something to do with Harry Potter message boards I was on, but I joined when I was in high school in like 2009 or 2010 originally. I RPed on and off for a few years, never really being consistent, but I always enjoyed it because it allowed me to improve my writing skills. It also taught me not be afraid of people seeing my writing. Anyway, I had been thinking about HNZ over the past few months and decided that now is the perfect time in my life to commit to RPing because I'm currently out of school. I'm so glad I came back because I'm in love with writing again and creating characters. Plus, it fills my HP fix (for the most part).

 

[Lyla Edwards]

I was living at my dad's house when I first joined HNZ. I was around 14 at the time and had been on several forums for roleplaying HP and had gotten pretty deep in the fandom. HNZ is the one I seem to come back to the most and this time I will actually get to be around longer. I used to spend hours on here and I am happy to be returning to do that. It's been cool to watch my writing grow over the years.

 

[November Albertson]

Hmmm, all the way done memory lane back to the good old 2010. I was late to the game sorting was upon the site when I found HNZ and I sorted Georgiana Night and shortly after her twin brother Kayden Night. I had been on a site previous to HNZ with my friend Nikki and I liked rping but I found the site she loved to be a not very good community and kind of toxic to my mental health. I started looking combing through the lists of HP rp sites that were available and I found HNZ. Funnily I never really told Nikki until 2014 or so because I had thought she'd be upset I was also on another site. The old one died off soon after I made the transition here. I have had a couple of lapses when life was just over my head and I back off the site without warning But the past few years I've been trying to stay consistent and also trying to damper my want to create new characters and focus on my older ones (hard thing to do for sure )


One of my favorite memories that isn't exactly linked to a certain thread just Old School style in general. I loved when I'd get on and someone would be online at the same time and we'd have a thread and it was back and forth and we'd have 4 posts each within an hour. Just always made me fill so nice and why I just love Old School Weeks we have now where it's encouraged. I do love getting the chance to really type out what's going on with a character in their thoughts, but sometimes I just miss the old days when we'd just got at it for an hour and finish the thread.

 

[Cyndi Kingsley]

Question for people who have left and come back, just because it's come up a few times and I'm curious/nosy (take your pick ):
a) Do you think about HNZ at all when you're gone and that's what eventually leads to your come back or something else?
b) Is it difficult to return or do you find the transition back easy?

I didn't think you were allowed to have more than one character for ages. Finally, I ended up sending a PM to the admin who told me it was ok. So the gap between my first two characters is nearly a year, I think, and then I went a little overboard when I really got active on the site. And now I've slowed down again with new accounts.

 

[Ainsley Lynch]

I thought about HNZ a bit while I was away. If I'm honest a big part of the reason I didn't come back sooner is that every time I thought about it I'd remember Kyle had grown up without me and get too sad to think about coming back because I didn't want him to be an adult It was definitely in the back of my mind though and I'll admit I checked in a few times just like. opening the site to make sure it hadn't shut down while I wasn't looking

It was definitely strange returning. I had a couple of false starts (Made a character I immediately abandoned in 2012 or so, and very nearly didn't sort Ainsley at all) because it felt strange to sort of step back into the world after being out of it for so long. (Also I'm painfully shy and was really nervous nobody would want to RP with me The community felt very tight-knit and though people were nice I was very nervous that I'd sort of missed the years where everyone was becoming good friends and I'd never be able to connect with people.) It took me a long time to think about the life paths I had imagined for my older characters and whether I wanted to pick them up again after such a long gap, and where they would be now in their lives. (Realising Kyle would be a bad dad was actually kind of heartbreaking)

All that said, I'm glad I came back! It was weird settling back in at first and it took me a while to feel comfortable, and like I actually knew what I was doing, but it was worth getting through that uncomfortable period where everyone else seemed to Just Know how things worked and I was just sort of guessing my way through.

(On another subject YES STEPH 100% agree, I love that feeling when you can get a thread going back and forth quickly. I love organising to do quick back and forths with people & get a plot really moving, but I definitely miss the spontaneous ones of the old days where stuff was Just Happening really quickly and there was no plan GOSH that was so much fun)

 

[Monty Pendleton]

I signed up so that I could pester my sister Pheeb online as well as in real life

She seemed like she was having a lot of fun and I didn't want to miss out!!! I hadn't read any of the books (OK, I've still only read the first two) so my only HP knowledge came from the first few films, but I had a lot of fun learning about the universe through HNZ.

I left a few years later - just drifted slowly away I think - and rejoined properly about four years ago. I can't really remember if I thought about HNZ in that time - I was playing a few other games so it didn't really cross my mind until one day I thought about it and decided to check it out again!! I'd not roleplayed with many people when I was younger, so I was also afraid nobody would want to RP with me when I came back, but then I made some amazing friends and gained so much confidence in myself and in my writing I'm always thankful to HNZ for that!!

And I've always stood by the fact HNZ is what made me realise writing is my passion. I'm writing my 3rd book at the moment (nothing published yet) and I don't think I'd be doing that without this site... so HNZ is really one big fond memory as well as lots of little fond memories :'D

 

[Chante Harvelle-Ateara]

I join the site after I had just graduated from high school back in 2007 and I, of course, was a big fan of the HP series. I actually don't know that many peeps off the site that like HP, so I was just browsing some HP related stuff on FB. I spotted the site link posted on a FB page and decided to join having no idea what roleplaying was or what I was supposed to do. I just knew that I like writing and actually used to write short stories on my own. I remember this one time in middle school me and my friends were kinda threading in a notebook, now that I think back on it. Each would write a part of the horror story we were creating, so I guess that was like roleplaying.

I did vanish quite a few times due to life getting in the way, but because I had some HNZ peeps on FB, I was persuaded to come back. I'm amazed how long this site has lasted, I have joined other forums with other roleplaying themes. They don't tend to last long and/or I'll quit after a while. I'm glad HNZ around and I try to be consistent with my roles on the site because I know it's a lot of work managing it. Admin and staff do A++ work on here!

Transitioning is easy! I'm good with changes most of the time.

I'm trying to slow down on creating characters, my creative juices have dried up a little. You probably will only see one sorting coming from me the next IC school year coming up. I hope.

 

[Monty Pendleton]

You probably will only see one sorting coming from me the next IC school year coming up. I hope.

Challenge accepted

 

[Wendy Bell]

Challenge accepted

Hey, I did well not sorting anyone the last time. And, my creative juices are drying up.
Give me some credit.

 

[Hayley Elridge]

I first joined early in high school, because all of my high school friends were into HNZ and writing about fictional wizards has always been my kind of thing. I'd never RPed before, and I found it all pretty overwhelming at first, but having a group who were already on the site that I could plot with helped a lot. Maybe too much . . . my first character spent pretty much all her time dealing with family drama because our ridiculous planning ended up with her being related to far too many friends' characters, all of whom had too much drama.

I left near the end of high school, mostly out of frustration; certain friends kept promising interesting plots that I very much wanted to do and not following through. In my first year away from HNZ I thought about it a lot, enough that I wrote my first NaNo novel to finish the story of some of my characters that didn't get closure on the site. After that I don't remember thinking about it much at all.

And then Rowan convinced me to join again, and I fell back into HNZ much more thoroughly than I did the first time. I found the transition surprisingly easy; Hayley really went from a vague concept to quite a fleshed out character very quickly. I'm really glad I rejoined, and I'm really glad that this time round I have a group of friends on the site that I can genuinely trust. There are still a lot of you that I'd love to plot more with, but I'm shy and bad at talking to people.

 

[Professor James Cade]

Its crazy to think how long I've been on the site personally. I joined in 2010 when I was getting ready to start University, in my early days I really didn't talk to many people. I found a post when the time I joined saying a friend recommended the site to me, but now I can't remember who I was referring to, I'd love to know. What strikes me as crazy if that one of the first people I ever really spoke to and plotted with in my early days was Teigan. I've had some up and downs here for sure, but the site has helped me through a lot of tough spots, given me real friend that I'll cherish forever, I even met my girlfriend here.

There's no way I could ever have predicted the impact HNZ would have on my life when I joined.

 

[Professor Adorah Zumwalt]

Question for people who have left and come back, just because it's come up a few times and I'm curious/nosy (take your pick ):
a) Do you think about HNZ at all when you're gone and that's what eventually leads to your come back or something else?
b) Is it difficult to return or do you find the transition back easy?

I did think about HNZ every now and then. I find it difficult in navigating how to integrate myself into the community. It feels like so many people have been here forever, and while I first stopped by almost 10 years ago, I've never made any friends on here. But the site is still easy to use and figure out so that's a great part of it.

 

[Ainsley Lynch]

I really struggled with how to integrate into the community when I came back too, I had the exact same kind of worries. It took me months to actually talk to anybody at all, and I only really started because Annaleise reached out to me. (We knew each other through mutual friends when we were kids, but I hadn't spoken to her one on one before.) Since then I've found that the easiest ways to make friends on HNZ are to be active in OOC threads, and to plot with people. Even if it seems like the people who've been here longer have everything all sorted out and are all tight with each other and have all our plots locked down, I guarantee you'll be hard pressed to find someone who won't be excited if you just drop them a PM like 'hey, can our characters be friends?' It's easy to forget that everyone is just here to RP at the end of the day, we all wanna be excited about new ideas and new character dynamics and new stories to build. Planning a thread or a storyline together gives you common ground to start getting to know another RPer as a person, and it really helps a lot with settling in. (And I promise, there are plenty of us older RPers sitting around going 'ah man I wanna make friends with all these new people but I don't know how to introduce myself!')

Anyway that paragraph was a bit off topic so here's a memory just to bring the post back Cyndi mentioning that she didn't realise you could have more than one character reminded me I actually thought a similar thing when I first joined. I was used to sites with character limits (usually around 3-5, after which point you had to apply for more) and I didn't understand how some people on HNZ had so many. I remember at one stage searching the app area trying to figure out how you applied for more characters before it finally occurred to me that there wasn't actually any rule against it in the first place (Learning self control about how many characters is too many is the REAL challenge)

 

[Monty Pendleton]

I did think about HNZ every now and then. I find it difficult in navigating how to integrate myself into the community. It feels like so many people have been here forever, and while I first stopped by almost 10 years ago, I've never made any friends on here. But the site is still easy to use and figure out so that's a great part of it.

Nooo okay we have to plot now!! I sent you a PM
It's always really hard joining a new site with people who have been around forever, but HNZ has the best community of people I've ever met and Rowan is right, we all get really really excited plotting and chatting to new people

But this is a good reminder for us all to reach out to people for plots, because it's always scarier when you're the new person!!

I think the first people besides my sister I really roleplayed with and got to know were Tenile, Teigan and KR - I just saw them chatting in shouty about this thread that was going on and it looked so funny I made a character just to join them!! But I had to get over my fear that they wouldn't want me to join and well, it's still one of my favourite threads and they are all still my friends <3

 

[Cyndi Kingsley]

Or start a plot development! I wish I had the time to PM every
new member, but am more likely to join a plot development (if I have a character that fits, see above memory for details on my small character load ). I think not being afraid to put yourself out there helps too. Sometimes the other people are just as apprehensive about reaching out as you are but a neutral space like the plot development helps. After I joined with Ms. Kingsley here, all I did was lessons and the like. For nearly a year. I felt outside of the community because they were on a lot more than I was. By the time I'd come back on the site, conversations had moved swiftly and I was never able to catch up. But then I got the hang of the community a bit more and had more time, I think when Kingsley was like a fourth year, and posted a plot development and that's when I started to make HNZ friends. I still find that I develop relationships with people when I roleplay with them. HNZ or no HNZ, I'm very much an introvert and do much better one-on-one than in group anything.

I bring it up every birthday but...anyone have their old dolls? I don't, lost them when Photobucket changed. Anyone remember the dolls?! I actually am one of the few people who was a fan. When we switched to PBs, it took a while for me to settle on America Ferrera.

 

[Katherine Alicastell]

The dolls
I don't have my originals saved but I know I know I always put Aeon in this iconic heckin turtleneck whenever I made him, so I recreated him basically as accurately as I could recall

My first avatar was an anime picture of Ron Weasley that I actually found:

And I recall awkwardly using a webcam picture of myself very very early on, too

 

[Kalif Styx]

I remembered when I first joined HNZ back in 2008. Almost been 11 years now. My cousin Kelsey (Kailey Harrington) convinced me to join because I was just moving to KY after leaving all my friends behind and I was a little upset. I joined with Hadan Johnson (Hadan Winters now, RIP). All I did was lessons at the time, like Cyndi did and didn't talk to anyone. Then I abandoned her for another character which was Jaken Styx, who was one of the first three people to ever transfer as older students in HNZ! It was awesome! I think through Jaken I first started to plot with Amanda, then had Kalif be the first Death Eater professor a semester later I think. Or a year later I can't remember.

From there I started to talk more in spam, then it went all downhill when I started to make more and more characters, plotting with so many people. Late night skype chats, voicing, all of the crazy things I fondly remember on. It has definitely been a long decade. I remember using dolls for Hadan but easily transferred to face claims. I didn't like the dolls. but that might be because I did not linger on them for long. I do remember my first ever banner with Hadan. Winona Ryder with a brick wall, all using paint.

I even remember when we used invisionfree. I don't know if I was around without the custom skin that was integrated on it, though.

 

[November Albertson]

Question for people who have left and come back, just because it's come up a few times and I'm curious/nosy (take your pick ):
a) Do you think about HNZ at all when you're gone and that's what eventually leads to your come back or something else?
b) Is it difficult to return or do you find the transition back easy?

Sometimes, I didn't think about HNZ at all. I had other things going on. The last time I took a break I remember I closed the site and it just never got opened for months. I hadn't really been connecting with many people on the site at the time and so it was easy to just back away. Then for awhile I found myself unemployed and taking care of the house while my husband was in grad school nearly everyday and I got so bored. He was the one who suggested I should come back to the site and who prodded me to try getting back on. And that's when I started to really get into November plots, around her third year.

On the difficulty, yes and no. I always figured everyone who I had plots with hated me and so some I've still yet to even plot with again for fear they don't trust me anymore since I randomly vanished. But coming back and creating characters, that's easy. It really sparks my imagination and creativity in ways that other hobbies don't. I like to read but creating stories with other people is much more fun. I tried many other hobbies when not on the site and yet this is the only one that's still kicking around after 9 years.

 

[Professor James Cade]

Sometimes, I didn't think about HNZ at all. I had other things going on. The last time I took a break I remember I closed the site and it just never got opened for months. I hadn't really been connecting with many people on the site at the time and so it was easy to just back away. Then for awhile I found myself unemployed and taking care of the house while my husband was in grad school nearly everyday and I got so bored. He was the one who suggested I should come back to the site and who prodded me to try getting back on. And that's when I started to really get into November plots, around her third year.

On the difficulty, yes and no. I always figured everyone who I had plots with hated me and so some I've still yet to even plot with again for fear they don't trust me anymore since I randomly vanished. But coming back and creating characters, that's easy. It really sparks my imagination and creativity in ways that other hobbies don't. I like to read but creating stories with other people is much more fun. I tried many other hobbies when not on the site and yet this is the only one that's still kicking around after 9 years.

I sometimes feel like that, not because I've left and come back but more because on numerous occasions (with you for example ) I've plotted something or expressed an interested in plotting with certain characters, in some cases talked at length about it, planned events the works, then never actually followed through. I've sometimes wondered if anyone would ever trust me when I said I'd start a topic. I wouldn't blame them if they didn't.

 

[November Albertson]

I sometimes feel like that, not because I've left and come back but more because on numerous occasions (with you for example ) I've plotted something or expressed an interested in plotting with certain characters, in some cases talked at length about it, planned events the works, then never actually followed through. I've sometimes wondered if anyone would ever trust me when I said I'd start a topic. I wouldn't blame them if they didn't.

I get that Let's start new and better memories then. Time to forget the fear of rejection and also not reject those who come forward with a plot idea!