Time Out of Mind

Day 2,337, 16:33 • Published in USA USA • by Aeriadne


how sad and bad and mad it was - but then, how it was sweet

The Ghost of Parties Past
A week ago, someone messaged me. It was a simple message, not much to it. "Can I hear a story about the UIP?"

Thunder broke in my mind, and a soft storm set about my thoughts. Mention has been made previously of my involvement there, and I myself have often held up my involvement in that party's demise as a sort of joking standard by which I tend to stray from Party Leadership. Were I to have been born in Westeros, perhaps the albatross may have been my house sigil.

These are things we can never know for certain.

I never replied, for no story came to mind which honestly did not cause some sort of heartache and sadness to me. All I remembered was my anger, and my frustration, my youthful crusade against former friends. These are hard thoughts to deal with, even to this day. And I would have honestly let the question drop from my mind had it not been for another old time friend bringing up the subject that very day.

When Thedillpickl started playing, I will admit I did not think very highly of him. To me, he was the sort of player who would probably meddle about in party leadership, maybe even a small cabinet job, and then maybe burn out in a year or so. After four years, he's still playing, and still proving that this base assumption I had made was utterly wrong. The man is a determined player, and now a much larger level than I. The guy's even got a CP medal.

I'm proud he found his own.

But getting back to the point of this article, he approached me about the same person who had messaged me. And in his message he gave me this link. I had never seen this article, never read it. It was after I'd let Athanaric die. But even still reading it, it makes me sad.

I don't want that legacy. It's something I've tried moving on from for a great while, but something which still probably haunts me. Probably only haunts me. Regardless, I do have a story about the UIP, and I hope you won't mind the lack of pictures.

A Server Forgotten
It was the heyday of my UIP involvement, winter of 2010. My plans to change the party were merely selfish seeds I cultured in the garden of my own private ideals. Nothing rooted yet. Winterfest was in full swing, and the party was having fun with the Frost/CRoy faux rebellion. It was a weird time.

But a fun one. 2010 was arguably when another game, Minecraft, really hit its stride. And like many online gaming communities, our party had decided to have our own Minecraft server. Well, not specifically our own. We were sort of leeching off another server someone knew of, iirc. Regardless, GenMcBeckson, that old banana Pheno Sony, and I bumbled around the server and sought to carve out our own little niche.

Our first matter of business was finding a proper part of the map that could be used for our own needs and creations. We scouted out an island, and eventually erected a large banana in Pheno's honor. Underground catacombs detailing party history soon followed, as well as a large UIP emblem. We spent hours and says formulating our own little place, and I even went so far as to start creating a gigantic winter castle which I as Party President could call home.

I can't give you much more than that. Often, the greatest fun you have isn't very memorable because of the story it will make. You remember the feeling you have, the quiet contentment that washes over you as you lose yourself in a moment with friends. Those memories that you recall in perfect detail aren't the ones that are the best, most often. I still have the logs saved from the night everything in #UIP went to shit and I was finally banned from the party's private channel.

But nowhere are the pictures of our little UIP island except for in my memory.

What to Take, What to Leave
Minister of Fun is an interesting title, and many of the people who have come before me all have approached the job differently. In this age of the game, we don't have a lot of room for shenanigans. People are jaded. After so many years of playing, we all get very rooted in our own beliefs about how everything should go.

And very often, we forget some of the true enjoyments we had in this game.

One of my favorite memories from playing this game will always be the time I spent on that minecraft server with friends, just building things in dedication to a party that only existed because of the community we shared. I was happy. And it was fun.

I'd like, if you've read the whole way through this article, for you to share you own stories. Just one story. It can be short, or long. A tale from a time in this game where you truly just had a whole lotta fun.

Thank you for your time.