Where have Brown and House elf gone?

I haven't seen them around here in months.

I miss their intelligent and thought provoking posts.

Come back!!

I second that! Brown & house elf are responsible for keeping me afloat!

Last I recall House elf was feeling a bit low and frustrated about Harry Potter.

I'm not sure where they are but I too have wondered where they have gone.

come back Brown....come back House_Elf.....we miss you

Okay, I was interested in where they were too, so I checked out their profiles. According to the stats, House Elf was last active on January 16th of this year. Brown was last active today, which is February 2nd (It's almost midnight where I am, so it's still the second). They're around, they're just not posting.

Cheers,

Madm_05

brown has became a bit discouraged with this site (for her own reasons) and is now very active over at Harmony Forever where she is a Mod. I chat with her on MSN occasionally and she's doing well. House_Elf has been super quiet. I'll ask brown why next time I chat with her cause H_E is on our MSN too.

Hi PK-mates, I've recently emailed House_Elf. You'll see why below. Italics added by me today.

From: Pen / gal-texter
Date: Mon, May 19, 2008 at 1:30 AM
Subject: hi from Portkey
To: House_Elf_44

Hi House_Elf,

We haven't met yet. I'm gal-texter in Portkey; I got your email address from the forum's admin control panel.

I'm sorry if this comes too little, too late; but I have been reading many posts about the "Heron invasion" of PK ever since Malinda (Accio Harry!) had mentioned it to me in mid-March of this year. I was naturally shocked to hear it as I was a PK mod from 2003-05 and came back as an admin a month ago. I had requested my then teammate Anazecria to draft the "no trolling" rules that you had often quoted.

I came upon many of your posts about this issue, including the one you made in the Complaints forum about the "odious trend" of discussions turning into "convince R/H shippers". Plus plenty more like this one here.

Again, I'm really sorry if this reply** comes too late for you and other PK-ers. But I'd like to thank you nonetheless for your efforts back then to defend what PK stands for - a safe haven for our shippers. I'm in a unique position to understand why it declined the way it did, so I've been using my admin seat to work on those now.

Btw, I saw this thread while moving some topics from the former Off Topic forum.

I also saw several of your essays and have moved them to a temp H/H forum. I can't comment on those though as I'm not the essay-loving type.

- Pen / gal-texter

From: House Elf 44
Date: Mon, May 19, 2008 at 6:19 AM

Hi gal-texter,

<snipping much of the email. No worries, there was no bashing in it. ~Pen

I didn't leave Portkey over anything having to do with Portkey. I dropped out of the discussion forums first because my real life situation changed and redirected my free time.

I know the admins of Portkey went MIA for a while there and things got rough, but I understand that those people just saw early on what I didn't see until the last book came out. I can still hardly believe it, but there it is.

From: Pen / gal-texter
Date: Mon, May 19, 2008 at 12:16 PM

Hi and thanks for the quick reply! You wouldn't mind if I post part of this email in that "where have you gone" thread, would you? Because I know a lot of PK-ers still wonder where you have gone.

As for the admins and mods going MIA for a while -- well, it's partly because of RL [details here], partly because PK is only a fansite so we [can't spare the time to manage it] as well as we do our RL jobs, and partly because many mods had to abruptly leave PK in 2005-06 [one after another]. That prevented a smooth transition between our team and the next ones (which included mods like James/JBaker) [and many more, as gallant as their efforts were].

Thanks vm for your contributions to PK and feel free to visit every now and then.
- Pen

From: House Elf 44
Date: Mon, May 19, 2008 at 6:40 PM

Hi. No, I don't mind if you post that part, I said similar in threads somewhere. Glad to hear some original mods are back, you were very much missed. I may not have known you, but I saw the effect of the exodus, and it wasn't good.

I think I turned off all my subscriptions to getting new posts from Portkey, but I still get PMs. I don't know that I'd be dropping in to see what's going on because I just don't have the time anymore, I can't keep up with RL, but I'd respond to PMs.

Thanks, and take care

**I'm aware that the admins and mods then made several attempts to solve this issue; with varying success. There were too many roadblocks on their way.

*waves*

I find the JK version of HP gives me a chronic case of indigestion, so I haven't been back. I did begin to peek in again after Diane sent me a link to Melissa's latest interview.

The series had such potential for children; now I find it rather a menace to impressionable children (particularly girls).

I give you all kudos for hanging in. Our version of HP is so much nicer than the actual version.

*hugs* to all!!!

brown

Hey brown, nice to "meet" you. Most of us don't talk much about JKR or the HP books anymore. Majority of PK visitors come to read fanfics and many also play games or talk about other books, movies, TV shows, etc.

I myself returned to the fandom last year sometime after my fav fic's final chapter was posted -- after FOUR years of waiting in between chapters!

I've moved these posts here as brown & others might see them here more quickly compared to their original location. - Pen / gal-texter



Hey Brown! Glad to be hearing from you!

Yeah, Rowling SHOULD have read your awesome essay! Then we wouldn't have had the mess she made of her final two books.

back to you.

It's so good to see you againBrown! We thought we had lost you forever after the last two tragic books came out. Have you read Padfoot Lives essay on H/Hr in DH? It's a beautiful essay and it reinforces what you said in your landmark essay on H/Hr in HBP. If only JKR could have seen how many people supported H/Hr,maybe she wouldn't have been so bent on sticking to the epilouge she wrote. What she wrote in books 1-5 was far-field from how she wanted it to reflect her epilouge and she should have re-read her own work to see it wasn't matching up. Glad to see you back old friend.

I know. I'm so glad you posted Brown! We've been missing you around the forums, although, most people are talking in the other forums now. Like.. Twilight... lmao. Jk jk. However, it's great to see you back! See?! Posting isn't so bad now, all the trolls are gone. Well, most of them anyway. Only few are still around, though as far as I know aren't causing much trouble now a days.

Anyway, I have some writing I need to get back to! So I'll see you all later! Welcome Back, Again! Talk soon guys!

I haven't yet, but I will check it out.

JK (IMO) was so consumed with her original concept - her vision, that she failed to appreciate the story and relationships she actually wrote. How tragically rigid of her. Hopefully, she won't make the same error on her next endeavor.

Maybe she will learn from her former errors, but I sure won't be reading them. I'm afraid she lost me as a reader when she failed to live up to the wonderful characters she wrote.
Anyway, how wonderful to hear from you again Brown!
I've missed you.

Giving this link for reference:** "Harry & Hermione in Deathly Hallows" essay by Padfoot_Lives.

**esp for the 10 H/H shippers (including me) on the planet who haven't read it yet.
Not Padfoot's nor her essay's fault though, some of us just aren't into essays.

EDIT: Oops, I've accidentally messed up some quotes in her essay! *runs off to fix them* Might as well replace them with [indent] and use a different font for those quoted text. *uses Notepad to find and replace all quote codes*

Hey Welcome back brown!
Nice to "meet" you as Pen said, I've heard your name been thrown around this forum so many times, it's lovely to see you post umm ... when I'm around? We're all really glad to have you back, a fantastic addition to PK, most definetely! I hope to see you around here sometime

No trolls or anything *talk to Pen, she's like a freakin' assasin with taking care of them * & if they are well we're here to kick them out I hope to see you though! Welcome Back!