(Re)Introduce Yourselves!

General Chit Chat
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<Gwen Stefani has entered the chat>
Let me re-, let me reintroduce myself
Case you forgot, no, I’m not records on your shelf
I’m still the original-riginal old me, yeah
Original-riginal old me
So let me re-, let me reintroduce myself

Okay, everyone. I know we’ve all been here before, but for most, it’s been a long, long time.

So let’s reintroduce ourselves. :slight_smile:

I’ll start:

Hi! I’m Ducky, your friendly neighborhood admin.

I started this site 16 (!!!) years ago when I decided I wanted to find a way to compile everything I knew about Chip and Dale. Way back in 2006, there really wasn’t a place where you could go to find a lot of Chip ‘n’ Dale related content. While there already was an existing message board dedicated to the Rescue Rangers fandom (over at the Acorn Cafe), there was an absence of any comprehensive Chip ‘n’ Dale fan sites.

I had been a fan of Chip and Dale and the old Disney theatrical shorts for as long as I could remember, and Chip ‘n’ Dale Rescue Rangers quickly became my favorite TV show as soon as it hit the airwaves. Elementary school was a difficult time for me, and the Rescue Rangers were my escape from bullying at school and a dysfunctional family life at home. As an adult, I wanted to pay tribute to the chipmunks that had meant so much to me when I was growing up, and building a fan site seemed to be the best way to do it. Adding the forums was somewhat of an afterthought. Who knew it would lead to forming lifelong friendships, and connecting me with someone who would later become one of my very best friends.

My interests and priorities have changed over the years, as I think most of ours have, but the connection I have to this place and all of you transcends the fandom. I love the sense of community we have here, and treasure the friendships I’ve formed through it. :smiling_face_with_tear:

Okay, enough of the sappy mushy stuff lol

What’s changed in my life: I bought a house two years ago where I now live with my spouse and our <counts fingers> four cats and a dog. When I’m not working as a 911 emergency police dispatcher, I’m likely spending time with my family; if I’m at home by myself, I’m probably playing video games. For the past five years that game has mostly been multiple playthroughs of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, but I still occasionally play Destiny 2 and a handful of other games. Did I mention that I’m a huge Zelda fan? Our entry room has framed Zelda artwork on every wall, and the couch in there is decorated with a Zelda throw blanket and Zelda throw pillows. It’s a little ridiculous, but I love it. :joy: Also, the two cats I adopted a couple of years ago are named Zelda and Ganon.

In other news, I’m now 16 years older than I was when I started this place. Yikes.

Okay, that’s enough about me.

Now it’s your turn

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Sure, why not? I joined CNDO in 2008 shortly after joining the Acorn Cafe because I had recently procured and watched the original 65 episode run for reasons I can’t entirely remember now, 10+ years later. I really enjoyed the show and it was so underwhelmingly developed in the way obsessive fans care about . . . let’s just say it had untapped potential. I had never made any friends online or any of that jazz before (unless you want to count my middle school StarCraft clan) and the friends I made in the fandom kept me coming back for years after my interest in the show waned. Was fortunate enough to meet a few people in the fandom, even. Spent some interesting days with Mayhem and Kevin that I appreciate much more now with the benefit of hindsight than I did at the time, honestly. Failing to graduate to social media, this place (and the Cafe) remained a go-to.

Looking back, this place was a bright spot in my early adult life. I don’t know if I was depressed or what, but I was a fat, lazy, and mostly worthless member of society whose only marketable skill was to occupy space. Somehow, miraculously, I got over all that, dropped the weight, got into shape, went to school & graduated, married and bought a house. I’d be living the American dream if only I had 2.5 kids.

That’s my story in a nutshell. I’m still playing a few video games when I get the chance, mostly single player games now that my skills have been painfully outclassed in every competitive game imaginable. I’m training for my first marathon and I’m having a great time working on home improvement projects.

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Why not? It’s nearing 5 am, but sleep is for the weak!

So, I’m Zanzibar. Joined the fandom in… 2002 I believe.
Back then we used Altavista as the search engine of choice, and Webrings were still a thing that existed.

20 frikkin years ago I was still in school. Glad I’ve left That behind me. But it did give me the time to read literally every single CDRR fanfic ever written, up until that point in time at least. From good to bad. I even created a website hosting CDRR fanfics, but it hasn’t been updated for 15 years or so. Still, it lives on even now. Dutifully paid for every year.

Since I am a colossal nerd, most of my free time is spent gaming in some form or another. Be it physical boardgames, digital ones on boardgamearena or some actual vidya games. On the gaming side, Tunic is the last one completed. Fun little Zelda-ish game with a Fox protagonist.

On the personal side, I’m a happy loner who gets plenty enough of social interactions while at work. I even avoid social media, aside from lurking on Reddit as a guilty pleasure. I’ve successfully managed to avoid Facebook, though they’ve no doubt managed to get my data anyway.

Oh well, that’s probably enough for the hear and now.

PS: Rhyme and Reason by Michael Demcio is, in fact, one of the best CDRR fanfics ever written. And it was written even before my time on the net. If you’re somehow a ranger fan in this day and age and Haven’t read this, then shame on you.

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I feel called out :rofl:

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Hello I’m Scifire. For those who don’t know I’m Australian, living in the state of Queensland.

I don’t remember exactly when I joined the fandom or why. I do remember I joined cndo at the suggestion of @ThatGuyLight maybe a year or two after joining that other place.

Growing up here we had two kinds of Disney shows, there was Saturday Disney which was a hosted kids show that would have audience interaction between the actual reason people watched which was one episode each of the three newest disney cartoon series. But during the week we also got Afternoon Disney which was a rotating roster of each animated series that had already completed their saturday runs so this is how I originally watched Rescue Rangers.

Although I have never had any ambition towards becoming an animator I’ve always appreciated animation in its various forms. I guess I’m just a kid that never grew up in that respect.

I am an uncle to 3 nephews and one niece who for a year and a half identified as male and now identifies again as female. Two of my nephews have autism spectrum disorder.

I would identify myself as aegoromantic so don’t have any relationships beyond the social.

Video games. I was obsessed with World of Warcraft until recently. Was (and still am I suppose) an officer of a guild whose members actually reminded me a lot of many of the people here. However most if not all including myself are disheartened by the current story narrative so I don’t know if I will continue to support the game.

@Ducky it’s nice to see a fellow guardian! Destiny 2 has one of the best over arcing narratives of any game I’ve played.

I currently own a Xbox series X and a Switch Oled but still cannot find a PlayStation 5 and I very much wish to play the new Ratchet and Clank. The last game I completed was Horizon Forbidden West which I thoroughly enjoyed I just wish it had a new game plus feature at the moment.

Apart from that my guild master in WoW introduced me to a group of people on discord so we could play DnD. We have played 5 or 6 campaigns and have only completed 1 so I’m still relatively new to it.

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I feel like I have read it but I don’t recall any of it. Not that I am throwing shade at you claim in any respect.

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I’m ksharbaugh, or just KS. I honestly don’t remember how long ago I joined CnDO. Not a whole lot has changed in my life since then… I have different pets, there’s grey in my beard. I’ve had a couple online romances and even actual dates, both male and female, but am still single.

Was a fan of classic Chip and Dale since long ago, but really took to Rescue Rangers when it came out… due in no small part to being introduced to Gadget just as I was hitting puberty. In fact, I was seeking Gadget art online in my 20s when I went round on a webring to various fansites and that led me to the message boards, thus my entry into the online fan community. That got me into writing fanfics which, in turn, strengthened my desire to write professionally. It also got me to actually go out and meet people and even attend major conventions (which, for a diagnosed socialphobe, is saying something).

Edit: Figured I’d forget something… I’ve become an uncle since joining, and my niece is just a year or two shy of being an adult now. Being the fan I am, I got her Rescue Ranger DVDs at some point :wink:

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When I first joined in 2006, I went by Lightindark76, the name reflecting my mood and overall head place in those days, as well as 76 being my favorite number (don’t ask why). Anyway, I was impressed with how detailed and put together the original site was and had a feeling it would be a worthwhile place and so brought it to the attention of fellow stalwarts Scifly and Regrin (he has yet to show up but I won’t be surprised if he does). Communication between Ducky and myself started off as cordial but at arm’s length, as you would expect when two strangers meet each other at a forum dedicated to a childhood favorite. As it turned out, I too was bullied and my youth was very difficult to get through. Chip ‘n’ Dale was an outlet for me, especially writing fanfics which gained some notoriety both here and at the Cafe for being particularly heavy on angst tropes. You see, I was a depressed young man constantly at war with himself when he wasn’t trying to defend himself from everyone around him. Writing fanfiction was a window into the soul and helped me cope.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t the only way I coped either. Not too long into Online’s existence, I decided that rather than continue to be friendly and an approachable advocate for everything that Ducky built, I thought being a troll would be more fun. It wasn’t fun for anyone else. It was a problem, put a strain on some friendships I made, and put Ducky between a rock and a hard place. I was pissed, I was angry, and there isn’t really any excuse for it; I turned into an a**hole. Eventually, I burned out and disappeared for around a year, and this place continued on for the better. Luckily for me, I had one of my very best friends, whom I got to know very well since we first introduced ourselves, and whom I loved and respected even at my worst. She coaxed me back and I did my best to try and help rehabilitate the image of the site that I pretty much sullied.

Life goes on, as they say. While Online didn’t figure as much in my life as the years went by, my friendship with Ducky endured, strengthened to the point that we were like family, and not only did we enjoy several PRIDES together, but I ultimately attended her wedding. Still, even the best of friendships can be tested, sometimes twice, and it all came to a head a few years ago when I went back on a promise I made to help her and her spouse in a time of need because my issues finally caught up to me and I could no longer stay just ahead. I let a friend down.

The past several years have been transformative for me as I’ve come to terms with being gay, chosen sobriety, am now living on my own, and I’ve started moving up in the world of my desired career. But just as important, I made up with my friend, and our bond remains as strong as ever, even if my guilt remains long after she forgave me, and I so desire to make it up by seeing them again sooner rather than later.

And coming back here, I’ve mentioned feels like a full circle. 16 years of friendship, with its ups and downs, but ultimately I came back for her, because this place means a lot to me, as does she. And as for the rest of you nuts, if I ever hurt you, chased you away, or otherwise just annoyed the heck out of you, I’m sorry. And I wish nothing but the best for all of you and hope you have all been well and have been enjoying life <3

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As far as I’m concerned it’s all water under a bridge made of very sturdy stone so goodluck burning it behind you.

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I’m Owlor, I entered the fandom a long time ago. CDRR was my first fandom and I was fairly young at the time, and as a result, it feels weird to think that I’m old enough to be considered the old guard of any fandom. It’s remarkable how much the passage of time can surprise you when it is literally the most predictable thing in existence. That, and I’m still processing the fact that I’m in my 30s now. Again, time sure moves forward, huh?

I was always more active on the Acorn Cafe than CnDo, a bad choice in retrospect as the acorn cafe was pretty repressed and at times downright homophobic. But one of my favorite things I did on Chip n Dale online was an original character superhero round robin organized together with Tamira. We played a group of wannabe superheroes that ranged from people with underpowered or terrible superpowers to just a comic book nerd with a longbow that fought an equally wannabe villain who worked part time at a fast food place. I keep meaning to turn that one into a fic, cus I feel like it got potential.

I still have contact with Tamira, some stuff have been happening on her end as well, but I’m not the one to talk about it.

I got involved in the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic fandom where I ran a tumblr ask blog for a number of years until the “porn ban” hit and tumblr started automatically censoring my completely SFW blog for inscrutable reasons and I left.

I had a stint in the interactive fiction fandom where I wrote a couple of games and met my current girlfriend. We watch a ton of cartoons and TV shows and play video games together over the internet. I’ve also recently had an unprecedented interest in sports and I’m currently training roller derby on an amateur level. It’s by far been the most effective thing helping with my mood, I hate to admit it but excercise does wonders as a preventative measure against depression, and having a team to train with who are both enthusiastic and supportive is just wonderful.

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I’m nonbinary, usually go by “they”, though either he or she is fine. (gotta love gender-fluidity) I’ve gone through a stint of temporary jobs and I’m currently in school studying towards becoming a payroll consultant, wish me luck!

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Oh hey it’s me!
You know me (or don’t), you love me (or hate me, or feel indifferent about me), I’m Winston, the one and only.
I’ve been up and down and all around, but for the past decade and a half, I’ve been here, and here I shall continue being. Once you’ve been somewhere long enough, you can never really leave, after all.
I’m a computer scientist. I’m a mead, cider, and wine brewer. I’m an author. I’m an artist. I’m a designer. I’m a CNC embroidery machine operator. I’m a plush toy maker. I’ve been a nuclear submariner, of all things. I’ve done a lot of different stuff, because life is an adventure and sometimes I wish I was on a less adventurous and less varied track. At least it’s not terminally boring this way, I’ll give it that.

But most of all, I’m still here, with all of you.
And that’s worth something.

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Hello, I’m Reese! I don’t remember when I joined CnDO (Some time in freshman year of college, I think?) or how I found it (I have vague memories, partially being reconstructed as I type this, of seeing something online about the Russian Gadget Cult, which brought the Rescue Rangers back to mind for the first time in years (all I’d seen as a kid was a few episodes on VHS, but I enjoyed them), which led to me looking up more about them, watching the whole series on YouTube, and reading some fanfiction, and somewhere in there I presumably found CnDO.), but despite my rather limited-feeling level of activity on it, it’s ended up having a surprisingly major and positive impact on my life. Mostly indirect, but it’s where I joined my RPG group, now running for over eleven years straight, that in turn among other things is where I got to know the person I’m currently renting a room from, which is why I’m even living in this state at all…

I read a lot, game a bit. Also, a bit over a month ago finally started self-identifying as trans, and had already for a while before that been thinking I was probably nonbinary – which, to be clear, is still my best guess at my gender, I’m just finally thinking of it as more of an explicit thing. Still figuring things out, though. I did notice a number of other people mentioning developments in gender self-exploration, though, I was waiting to mention my own here until I’d come out to said RPG group, and since that happened Saturday and this thread was here now, seemed like a good time and place.

Anyway, I don’t really do much with the Rescue Rangers anymore, though I’ve been enjoying Arcane’s comic and think I might give the movie a try, depending on how it looks closer to release and how available it actually is to me. The vast majority of my fandom involvement is and has been with MLP.

…Not really sure what else to say here.
Though I suppose I could mention that I have the sort of brain that, just now while I was trying to think of what to say here, proposed comparing Gadget to Cleopatra VII, so, there’s that. :smiley:

@Scifire:
“I was obsessed with World of Warcraft until recently.”
“However most if not all including myself are disheartened by the current story narrative so I don’t know if I will continue to support the game.”
It sounds like you might enjoy this, so I thought I’d recommend it: http://destron.blogspot.com/
This is also a bit less polished and more AU, and/but also still ongoing: https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/azeroth-the-silent-war-and-the-illusion-of-peace-warcraft-au-worldbuilding.93824/
(I stopped playing WoW years ago, myself (and have, ah, also not been impressed by some things I’ve heard about some ways the game has developed since), but when I was playing, and to some extent after, I was quite into the lore. I still read some fanfiction or the like now and again, and have played with the CKII mod a bit.)

@Owlor:
“I’m nonbinary, usually go by “they”, though either he or she is fine. (gotta love gender-fluidity) I’ve gone through a stint of temporary jobs and I’m currently in school studying towards becoming a payroll consultant, wish me luck!”
Good luck!

Also, I hadn’t known, that I recall, about you too at the time I typed the above, but I was already wondering and am now even more wondering exactly how many people here are some variety of non-cishet. There seems to be something of a trend.

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Since everyone else is doing it…

I’m assuming most of us already know each other. So if you don’t remember me that’s probably for the best and if you do then, well, uh… sorry. I’m a lot less of a jerk and don’t fly off the handle near as much now, I promise. Seriously, being properly medicated and finding a good therapist can do wonders for someone.

But, yeah, with a few months/years-long disappearances mixed in, I’ve been around here for like 15 years. I showed up not long after becoming persona non grata elsewhere for reasons we don’t need to get into here since that’s a whole other thing and ancient history all things considered. I certainly didn’t help fix any reputational issues here since I was in large part this place’s other problem child along with Light and Ducky seemed to have a soft spot for the both of us. Again, past me, not now me. I may still be neurotic as all hell, but I’m a lot more well-adjusted than before.

As far as real life stuff goes, in large part I’m basically a domesticated hillbilly. I ran off from the South to the mountains a long-ass time ago, which is probably one of the single best decisions I could have made. Went from directionless and maladjusted 20-something to boring adult somewhere along the way: wife, mortgage, whole cartoon animal food chain (i.e. rats, cats, and dogs), no kids though. I’m a lawyer by training, which makes sense giving how much I like to argue, but I bolted over to JD-preferred land pretty quickly. Overall I wouldn’t recommend that; as much as the subject interests me and as much as I liked law school, actually practicing made me want to aim my car for a tree and floor it. So, yeah, don’t do that.

I don’t know if I still have much if any actual interest in the site’s subject matter. Honestly, I’m mostly still around because I like other people here. I guess in that respect I’m kind of like a feral kitten that wasn’t very nice at first but hung around because there was food and became more socialized over time.

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I actually like bridges so I’d prefer to walk there and back across it and toss rocks into the river below

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Hello. I am TellyToon (originally named TellyWeb or TellyWebToons, etc)

I’m merely an artist and animator, that dabbles on a lot of Rescue Ranger fanart and other cartoon stuff as well.
I was more aware of the site than the forum at the start, but I didn’t really turn out well when I first joined CnDOnline, and sorta forgot about it mostly due to other platforms I’ve been more active at. (I mean, I once made a fan-fiction that was quite… ehhhh? someone made a fake commentary on it. :sweat_smile:)

But I’m still here, always drawings, sometimes animating.

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Well, my old name was CD. But since the character requirement for names on the board now demands more than two letters, I thought I’d bump it up. I have to keep up with advances in media storage devices to. Maybe in ten years, I’ll rename myself DVD.

I’ve mostly kept in touch with a few people on this board through RPG nights. There wasn’t a whole lot of Chip and Dale related stuff over the years, so my involvement had waned a bit. But I still make regular check ins to see if there’s something that catches my interest, or how the old regulars might be doing. It seems the upcoming Rescue Ranger movie has at least stirred up some new activity, so it’ll have done that if nothing else.

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Hi, Tamira (Tam) here.

It has been a while, hasnt it?

Since I originally joined a long time ago and now a lot has changed for me.

I live in NZ now which is on the other side of the earth (more or less) from where I am from.

I actually went to uni, but the job I have right now has nothing to do with that.

Lost weight, gained some (but not all) back, lost it again.

And, I am going to be a mum soon. - That’s a scary thought, me, responsible for another little life!

It’s fun and interesting to see other people I remember on here. Only kept really in contact with Owlor.

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Guess I’ll jump in here too~

I’m Arc—artist, musician, Twitch entertainer, father, doofus, and I’ve been around this community long enough that I’m not sure exactly when I dropped in, although Ducky is very personally to blame for my presence here, having offered me a place to host my comic for a good period of time; since then I’ve found a good deal of support from all y’all and had a chance to support some others, all of which are experiences I’m thankful for.

As far as the fandom goes, I’m probably a bit of an edge case here because I’ve actually never been a huge Rescue Rangers fan; I’m just a furry for whose interests Gadget was relevant. I’ve always felt like RR was one of the weakest of the OG Disney Afternoon lineup, with only Gummi Bears being weaker. That said, in college in… 2004? I think? I read Of Mice and Mayhem and it gave me a taste of the potential lurking underneath the show. Not long after that I started conceiving my comic, which—after a few misfires with trying to work with flaky artists—I finally started drawing myself in 2012.

Currently I work as a freelance artist doing commission work where I can get it; I also stream games with my brother on Twitch and, when I can, I stream my art as well. I’m also trying to develop a video game, but certain recent pandemics have seriously put a kink in that plan, so we’ll see where that goes.

I know quite a few people here struggle with mental health and I’m right there with you; in 2017, in my early 30s, I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, a condition that I’ve been learning is significantly more severe than I thought—I’m on antipsychotics now as well as mood stabilizers—and the last five years have been a very challenging road learning how to overcome the three decades of thinking I was at best a f***up and at worst a bad person, as in the “genuinely, deep down, inescapably rotten” variety. I’ve since come to believe that neither I nor anyone else are genuinely, deep down, inescapably rotten, and that the difference between a good person doing good things and a good person doing bad things is that a good person doing good things has help from people who care. I’ve gotten that help and I want to try to give that help to others where I can. So to that end, I’ll always lend a listening ear if one is needed. To you folks with checkered pasts here and elsewhere, your past is a part of you but it isn’t the whole of you; you are worth the help that we all need to be our best selves.

Glad to see this place has gotten some new life breathed into it and godwilling we’ll have some more good times ahead! Peace~

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Chaos.

Oh, you want a bit more than that? Total chaos.

@Ducky do I get to mention I have something Zelda related signed by Shigeru when I met him about 20 years ago?

As for me… getting old. And passing the mayhem gene onto the next generation courtesy of my daughter who is now roughly 3.5 years old. My other half and I, both being cough 40 something, probably takes it out of us a bit more especially as our erstwhile spawn is like 3 going on 13 with her attitude at times :joy:

Currently work for a company that does vehicle tracking in the QA department for the online web software area (and mobile apps). It’s good enough, wish it paid more, children are expensive :stuck_out_tongue:

Aside from CnD and RR, I’m mostly still into retro gaming, I write for a published C64 retro magazine (and get paid for it on the side), collect Star Wars autographs and comic art, and finally adding Corey Burton soon to my CnD cover project. And trying to move from my current flat to somewhere closer to my daughter (we couldn’t consolidate being under the same roof when the missus moved last year!).

I think that’s probably enough. Needless with life and kid, time for online is less than it used to be.

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@Zanzibar I was wrong! I actually did read it. I guess it’s been so long that I didn’t remember what it was called, and my mind had merged that story with Arc’s comic… which I suppose makes sense given that Arc’s is like a continuation