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General Brewster

Brewster's final thoughts on his TWC participation through the years.

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Long have I aspired writing something that detailed my great deeds upon this website. Like how HorseArcher told the tale of the last Emperor. Fact remains I never did great deeds on this website so you cannot write about your great deeds if you didn't commit them. So maybe I'll write a bit about my mediocre participation on this board. As now more than ever and yes, I'm aware that I often announced my retirement from the site, the end of my time here really comes near.

I've had many ups and many downs on this site. Notable downs being so down and lifeless that I started sprouting my personal bits on here. Or having been so overwhelmed by anger that I threatened to resign my curatorship, or when I resigned my Gaming Staff role. There's also this time I was very angry with the CdeC because they didn't approve my citizenship request because I once called someone a Fuhrer in the foreign language threads. Or that one time I called everyone in the CdeC incompetent on warscape modding. Or the second time when I said that same. Notable moments were learning to mod, bringing out my mods and seeing downloads go over 10K in total. Forging a friendship with someone in my second week that is still upholding to this very day. Meeting grandiose people all over the world. Getting my citizenship came as a huge reward for my modding efforts. That also meant the eventual end of my modding. Which compared to greats like Darth Vader and Radious wasn't that great anyway.

I dare say the the Curia of 2012 was still packed with Titans. Titans I had been looking up too and wanted to mingle with. I am not someone who easily remembers something.. but that I do remember vividly. As I remember the countless of rants I had because people got elected without ever lifting a finger or something. Gods that can still rattle me. Anyhow. It kick started a pretty long Curial Activity span. Something I did with pride, honor and dignity I hope. Where I was imprinted rules were rules. You followed the constitution or you were publicly scorned. This was exactly the mindset I took into all the offices I held. Five times elected to the CdeC. Elected to the Curial Community Team, Elected Censor, Elected magistrate three times, elected Curator four times and was Curator for 16 months eventually. I literally spend years being a part of the Curia, helping it's offices and it's institutions. Hence my disillusioned manner when the various overhaul's happened. Yes the Curia had flaws but reducing it to a shadow didn't help either. My experiences say that you don't go against those that are active. Ah well.

During my early days I used to do a lot of exploring on the forum. Which eventually led me to the RPG's. After lurking a little I decided to give it a go. At the beginning my mastery of English and taking things much too literal and getting into petty arguments. Which caused a lot of upheaval and my departure from the site. Though that also had to do with other things off site. Eventually though with my return to the site, a return to the RPG's was in order. I didn't leave it since. People there now my shortcomings, my strengths and tolerate me. Which I often don't even do with myself

For many months I have been at crossroads. Technically with the inactivity of the RPG fora I have had no reason to stay. As they had become the only forum section I've been active for the past 1.5 year. I had a lot of time to reflect on my stay here. What it did here and what I didn't. I was not great at anything. Nor particularity good at anything you can do here on the site. I shined in mediocrity and it's probably the reason why I never achieved goals that I had set for myself when I got seriously active here. While for some I might have racked up some fancy medals.. they have little to no value to me. I earned them in a time there's more medals than ever before. I never got a gold medal, nor did I get the one thing I truly hoped to earn one day. A large award. I had always looked up to those we earned them. I realize that the happy moments and friendships are the most important I got from this site and that makes me happy. Happier than any set of pixels could.

With events transpiring the past two days I think that there's no place for me here anymore. Now that sounds hopelessly dramatic but I do mean it. With people failing to see the Constitution is there to adhere to for all Curia affairs at least. Those people undermine the very fabric of the institution that gave me my citizenship, which grants the ability to become Magistrate and gives the office of Magistrate it's powers. I do not think that I there's place for me to remain here as the old, conservative and mediocre relic of days gone by.

All in all, I think my greatest value to this board was nothing more than participating on it. Being a mediocre, average Joe that didn't leave, didnt want to change and eventually ended up with nothing.

Take care

Brew
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Comments

  1. Akar's Avatar
    You better not leave us, damnit, Brew.
  2. Dismounted Feudal Knight's Avatar
    I think I get this, I really do. I will say that short of people that basically piss on the idea of the Curia, your legacy has certain high points very few users can contest. You've outlasted many, your dedication to the site as a user is among the peak, and your dedication to a particular aspect of it, the Curia, is as impossible to match as that of someone who is a modern titan in another section who's stayed even as the rest has fallen. I won't say you're a Gigantus, but on the other hand, as he is for modding, you kinda are for the Curia. The dedication spent is not to be dismissed. Between being a user and doing what you did to keep the torch alight, in addition to a notable footprint in the RPG section, you have a legacy that people would be ignorant or foolish to dismiss; certainly one with far more meaning than mine, which cannot even remotely match how much you've ultimately attempted to do and reached even if it was not all you hoped to be. My input may mean nothing, but while I won't give undue boost, I do consider you something of a Titan, as much as anyone can be in the modern era, compared to what you may find perusing through virtually every section of the site at this time.

    As we've touched on, there is a very real issue on the platform at the moment, one that I believe boils down to a lack of modern day vision, leading to the erosion of various institutions, the Curia included. As we've also touched on, addressing this can only go so far without effort from the top. Yet we can go at least some distance. You may consider the battle of the last two days lost; I would have you consider your future value and perspective of the site to be wider than that window. Consider it a case in point for an issue to address. Alone the problem is indeed untenable. But perhaps if we use the opportunity for the Curia to do a bit of soul searching, perhaps assembling a committee or informal group of interested folk to review its place and implementation of its things with your considerable past investment in mind, we can let the past lie and see if we can't bring the best of it into a new future, for the Curia if nothing else even if it's the last thing you ultimately do. Patching the Curia is little without good linkage to the rest, but I'd consider you a welcome addition to an effort on that end, and I think you can offer more than a resignation from the thing, especially if it's had you hooked this long. One more stand that looks at the roots and goes from there, if nothing else.

    Plenty of folks have made rather silly cases lately and seen the Curia in ways that must undoubtedly seem insulting with your legacy in mind, but I'd call that an opportunity to try and get the place to find its vision again. Athelstan means well and is open to input, and now he's virtually assured to be the top of it; I wouldn't call it hopeless just yet. What you remember might be out the door, but still. I'd like you to find a way to adapt if only a little, if only enough to lend credence to a new effort to give the Curia a point, in the eyes of the administration, the broader site, and its own membership - in a way that goes beyond using the Constitution as the sole pillar to keep it standing.

    Give it some thought and a few more days before committing, and if you still think your day is done for good, I wish you the best of luck, hope you'll still show up around the boards and discord every so often, and if nothing else, I thank you for the years you've been on the site, because in my view, they amount to distinctly more than nothing and still have potential even now.
  3. Cope's Avatar
    Pls, don't commit Brewicide :(

    @Commodus, TL;DR.
  4. Cookiegod's Avatar
    Pls stay Brew! Or at least tell them what you told me in private, which is that I get to have all your medals, reps, titles and street cred.
  5. Turkafinwë's Avatar
    Like Commodus said, you are a Titan of the modern era. For little babies like me, you are of the ones we look up to (I at least look up to you, for what it's worth). TWC would lose one of its greatest assets, in my opinion, with you gone Gen. Brewster.
  6. Commissar Caligula_'s Avatar
    lol nerd

    Don't you dare leave tho
  7. General Brewster's Avatar
    I hate that I'm addicted to this board.
  8. Flinn's Avatar
    You remind me of my ex of long ago.. she used to tell me she was going to leave me every month or so, at the end it was me who left her

    Jokes aside, I'm too fond of you to let you go, don't disappear or you're gonna break my heart
  9. King Athelstan's Avatar
    You're not allowed to go - I've got you on here, Discord and Steam - no way in hell you'll not be spammed by me enough to to bring ya back
  10. Narf's Avatar
    Brew, I feel a little bit of the same(Of-course I cant know precisely), one of the hardest blows to my time here was when the RPG section was uprooted. And now I feel like you do perhaps, even if I hadn't really been active there in ages, one was rootless. In a sort of limbo. The place one belonged, is gone, I've found a few other things to be nerdy about, I know you are a very busy person like myself, but if you want you'd be more than welcome to help me with the Gigdex project or something else. Tell me if you are interested or if something else might help scratch that itch that would keep your interest. If nothing else we'll see each other on discord or steam and now and then play some games.