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| The Last Testimony of Sousen Ichimonji | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Jan 13 2017, 04:32 PM (887 Views) | |
| * Sousen Ichimonji | Jan 13 2017, 04:32 PM Post #1 |
You are calm and reposed, let your beauty unfold
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Hey everyone, I'll preface this bluntly, and with a remarkable lack of originality; I'm leaving DBZF, and I don't intend to come back. I'm not sure there are many who will object to this, but this post is for those who will. And for those who will probably punch the air when they read this lol. SoZ for the long read. I joined DBZF in 2009 despite having never watched a full episode of Dragonball Z. I did so because a good friend at the time, Mike, who some of you will know as Byakko, encouraged me to. It was my first forum and I remember being totally overwhelmed and impressed by the community, especially since I had this huge well of stories to dip into about the place with Mike. I was 16 years old, loved Deep Discussion (I was in awe of Rockman back in the day) and took part in collab writing projects with Mike, Zero, Mitas, among others. I was never too active but I loved the community, and made a few good friends here - back in the days when MSN messenger was still a thing. The tines messing around with Becca, Dan, Drew and Evan were amazing in particular haha. I dipped into the interview team, I got really into the parliament when that was going on, and I always got on well with the staff. I'd been on site as a pretty peripheral player for about 3 years when I checked in one morning (I used to check DBZF every morning on my desktop before school) and I had a blue name. I was a mod, and it had been done so flippantly and without discussion that if I remember correctly, Rogue had just asked Rockman one time who they should consider for mod, my name came up, and BAM, Blue Sousen. I was super grateful and loved being given the chance, but my activity never really improved to match my new role. I was super busy at that point in my life, and never really started... well, being a mod! There was no training, I felt pretty self conscious about being staff when I was so slight in my activity, and I was at a point I was too busy to contribute anyway. I definitely didn't pull my weight, even as the staff and the forum changed around me - Rockman moved more into the periphery, Tim became the big kohuna as he is now, the mod team shifted and writhed as it always does. And all the time, no one was saying to me 'man, you're doing a bad job here', or anything like that. By the time I realised I wasn't being a very good or proactive mod, I'd already sorta got stuck in the habit of lurking. My awareness of this definitely led to a bit of self-consciousness - plus, as many will attest to, I was already a bit of a dick before I became staff. I'd like to clear some air here and say that if I ever came across like I was lording above others with my blue name on an anime website, I definitely wasn't trying to. I never felt like I was too much of an elitist, just pretty snappy in general. I certainly can't ever be accused of taking the position of mod too seriously lol. I'm not going to duck responsibility here; for long stretches of time on this forum, I was either inactive, nonchalant about the effort I could be putting in, or just a straight up a*****. In my 7 years on DBZF, I went through some really tough times with potentially severe consequences, and I took a lot of emotion out on here. I've lost a lot of really great friends from DBZF overy the years, by being really distant, or really nasty sometimes. It was weird to me back in the day, as someone who doesn't really hold grudges (I'll take a dislike to someone, sure, i'm only human, but I won't hold a particular thing against them for a long time) that things I said would be held against me like, years later. That happened to me with Pookie and Sam, among others. That was probably about the time I started to actively not care about DBZF. I don't even know when, maybe like 2014 or something. Even before then I'd taken on a little mantle as a member of the staff team who was anti-staff, in a way. I'd challenge a loooot of decisions in the staff areas, and for a while took members of staff to task for being unable to take a joke at their own expense. (That was back in the original Capsule Corps days, that was a good time). At the end of the day though, as much as I like to look back and laugh at the days where I was a sardonic voice popping up every now and then to speak common sense before vanishing into the night like a s*** Zorro, that's definitely not how everyone else saw it. I was probably just a dickhead. Whatever good I did do was dwarfed by the negativity I brought to my position. Long bouts of inativity were probably of benefit to the forum. I retired twice over 2 years I think. I still don't know why I kept getting made mod again - good pals in the right places, I guess. The last time I was made mod, last year, I genuinely sent Tim a joke PM like 'Make My Mod' and that led to me becoming a Super Mod again lol. So I guess I wasn't as bad as I think I was on reflection. Just tolerably lazy. In the last few months, i've been back to not caring, in a big way. At one point I replied to a post by Steve with a link to autismspeaks.com because my flatmate at the time offered me a cookie to do it. Pretty reprehensible stuff which I don't feel good about. I didn't even get warned for that. Madness. There was a lot of stuff I did feel ok about recently - I banned Jar Jar Binks for being an anti-semite and racist piece of s***, while other staff dithered about it - there's a difference between some dude being a bit rude to other members when talking about Broly and a guy straight up supporting 19th century race theory on a board that's meant to be multicultural and all about respect. I'm still glad I was here to do that. I think of all the things I've done that I do have cause to feel bad about, it's how I treated friends behind their backs. Tim, who I consider a very firm friend and whom I do hope to hang out with irl some day, I spent a good couple of years dragging about how he should retire as an admin because he was inactive. Hilarious, coming from me. The other, Sam, I trashed behind his back for being what felt like a careerist; taking this place so seriously that it felt like he was making money off it somehow, and that becoming an admin was the most important thing he could ever do. Sam and I have in particular had a big falling out recently, a falling out which still seems to have a pretty strong flavour of careerist with Sam getting mad about my becoming a mod again 'whenever I want.' But it was this argument, grounded as it was in years of me being a bit of a toad on this site, which has prompted me to move on. As things are, I think DBZF is in the best hands possible, with a fantastic team of staff, and steady activity. I'm not going to do shout outs because this post would double in length, but I wish you all tremendously well, and hope you and DBZF have great futures. P.S. if Light comes back to DBZF someone who has me on fb or Twitter needs to message me so I can come back, I miss that magnificent son of a b*** too much |
 Call me a safe bet, I'm betting I'm not I'm glad that you can forgive, only hoping as time goes, you can forget | |
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Jan 13 2017, 04:46 PM Post #2 |
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While I haven't really interacted with you personally due to your lurking, I am still sad to see you go. I'm sad to see anyone go, really, because I think of dbzf as this safe place where nothing ever changes. When people leave, things change, and I inevitably become sad. All I can really say is that I wish you the best, I hope that you manage to successfully move on and allow this departure to benefit your life, and I will miss some of your more insightful posts in Deep Discussion. With love <3 |
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| Buuberries | Jan 13 2017, 05:01 PM Post #3 |
No
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one of the best things ive ever read on this forum holy s*** |
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| Sam | Jan 13 2017, 05:16 PM Post #4 |
It takes a mere second for treasure to turn to trash.
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Goodbye, thank you for the "shout-out". This is not the depressing end I wanted... but do what you feel. You and Byakko were my close friends for quite a long time. I'm sad to see it end this way. However, I apologise for nothing relating to my behavior. And neither should you. I am sorry for how this turned out. Good journies, Gavin. I'm sorry. I'd make this longer but it wouldn't be appropriate. I do mean those two words very much though. I'm sorry. I offered to fall on the sword and be demoted twice for my hand in our falling out and if it would make you come back, I am willing to offer it a third time. It wouldn't reduce my activity whatsoever. I wish you had been on Discord or I had been more patient with you these past two years; maybe we could have understood each other better without me just boiling over at a few things. At least you offer to leave on a brutally honest note of self reflection - more than some would be capable of. While I disagree with some specific decisions, that's water far under the bridge. I have never believed in isolating anyone in particular and do my best to ensure everyone is fair to one another and the rules are as relaxed as possible. I was an incomprehensible bastard between 2005-2008 and strict, to say the least, between 2010-2013. When I returned in 2015, I slowly made my change. I wish you were apart of that, but not everyone sees eye to eye, and I certainly have plenty of blame to take in this. I didn't want you to leave, just to stop certain behaviors. This isn't quite the full measure I had in mind. Anyone who has known me on DBZF the past year can testify that the following definition is not true about me:
I'd be pretty awful as a careerist to have the same position for roughly a dozen years now and not have advanced beyond the Team Leader title I received this year. I've even talked about retiring, prior to our falling out, because I know this has been a negative perception of me in the past. I've read a lot of things that were said behind my back, so, I've taken steps to (and sometimes screwed up going TOO far) become more relaxed and promote an environment people feel safe in. I was at your throat, Gavin, not because I blamed you for the "Make my mod" thing, but, because I didn't like hearing accusations against you and then having to defend you regarding people calling you a cyberbully for the things said toward Steve. It really annoyed me. I could have communicated that better, but, honestly, we drifted so far apart that I sometimes wonder if I changed or if you did. And that doesn't just apply to you, it applies to other people as well. I've made a LOT of friends on here this past year and a half - friends that I truly treasure and love the company of - but at the same time, there have been a few other people who were my friends that I've drifted away from or had some issues with. You are one of the best examples of this. I did not and do not want you to leave, I simply was being harsh because I didn't think your conduct reflected very well on us. I've seen you be a truly amazing Moderator and friend on here, and thought you were wasting your potential I guess. You could do so much more than I could ever do in your real life and on these simple forums and I told you that much. I'm not very smart, you know this. However, something nobody can say about me is that I don't put 100% into everything I do. I don't believe you're a cyberbully, Gavin, just at times it has come across that way. And I know that I'm not a "careerist", having offered to resign more than once last year and once this year, where I openly offered to be demoted if it would defuse tensions between you and I. I did that just yesterday, PMing Copy and telling him I was willing to go down for this if it meant things would calm down. It wouldn't affect my activity, and honestly, after 11 years of being a Super Moderator, I feel like I have lost touch with people to some extent, and have more than flirted with the idea of retirement openly on the forums. I don't think calling me a careerist is very fair, but, you haven't seen how I've changed these last ~1.5 years and I certainly would say "careerist" was more of who I was when I was still in high school. From 2012 onward, I really stopped caring. Our impact isn't judged by a usergroup but by the impression we leave on the people that have come and gone; the impact that our efforts have made, directly or indirectly, on peoples' lives. DBZF saved mine when I was 11 years old and suicidal at 12 because of bullying, and I am motivated by the sole purpose of trying to keep that same platform open for anyone else troubled by personal demons. I'm sad that this place can't be that for you anymore - but if you come back, I'd like to extend to you an apology and would be more than happy to do whatever I can to facilitate a healthy discussion. My #1 thing has been to try to not isolate anyone from the boards, and I utterly failed when I was so abrasive with you after our disagreement. While I can blame my handicap, I don't like to be defined by something like that and am willing to say that this is my fault and I apologize. I've grown up a lot, and I wish you had been here to see it, and by not communicating with you about my disapproval over some of your behavior, I never gave you the chance to see that I've changed. Hell, you didn't know about my major life-changing injury that occurred on August 29th, 2013. How could I expect you to have any inkling about what is up with me? I guess that's all I have to say. I wish you good fortunes. There were still a lot of great times between us. Hell, Cal just reminded me of the name fusion we did in 2011. You truly were one of the best friends I've ever had on here and I'm sorry for helping torch that to the ground. Edited by Sam, Jan 14 2017, 09:18 AM.
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WoW Legion Ending - Thank you Darker for making this into one, big incredible gif! <3 | |
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| Cal | Jan 13 2017, 05:26 PM Post #5 |
I may not deserve to live, but I will protect those in my reach with my reverse blade!
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I still remember when I joined here and asked the staff to allow podcasts on at the time from a small team in the UK that were doing anime ones and trying to make a name for their selves. Sousen was the staff member who stood up for me and for change (along with Tim). He argued against the likes of a few others in staff to give a new guy who no one even knew a chance to do something new on a forum that didn't have to do anything new. That led to me becoming a very productive member here and without it, I don't know that I would have stayed around. It also ended up later on producing some very original podcasts of our own. I've always appreciated that and always will. Edited by Cal, Jan 13 2017, 06:18 PM.
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| Cal | Jan 13 2017, 06:30 PM Post #6 |
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I may not deserve to live, but I will protect those in my reach with my reverse blade!
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Also, You motherf***ers can't be mad at each other or have a falling apart. You're practically the same person....  
[/quote] Light won't be coming back. You know this. http://dbzf.co.uk/topic/8401561/1/ http://dbzf.co.uk/topic/8401593/1/ http://dbzf.co.uk/topic/8401636/1/#new Edited by Cal, Jan 13 2017, 06:31 PM.
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| + Steve | Jan 13 2017, 07:30 PM Post #7 |
Greetings. I will be your waifu this season.
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Not that we were ever friends or anything but for what it's worth I took the time to read all that, sad to see such a big member go. Have a good life  |
 Definitely not a succubus, fear not | |
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| + Emmeth | Jan 13 2017, 09:27 PM Post #8 |
I ♥ Yoeri
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See you on the flipside, Ink! I wish you good luck in your future endeavors, any happiness you might find you deserve! Thanks for your contribution to the forum, and if you by any chance want to come back you're always welcome! |
 My Twitch Page | |
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| + Pyrus | Jan 13 2017, 09:59 PM Post #9 |
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Enjoy your life outside of here, buck. |
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Spoiler: click to toggle
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| * Mitas | Jan 13 2017, 10:03 PM Post #10 |
It truly was a Shawshank redemption
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Yeah, if you're reading this Gavin, good luck with life and everything it entails. |
 "Then you've got the chance to do better next time." "Next time?" "Course. Doing better next time. That's what life is." | |
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