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this made me cryIt all started in April of 2012. At this point in time, I had already been playing Minecraft for over 2 years, so I was already very familiar with the game. I was friends with someone at the time who also played Minecraft (I won’t say their IRL name, but if you’re interested, their Minecraft name was _spoink_), and one day while I was over at his house, he introduced me to a neat little server called Minecraft Survival Games. I asked him what exactly it was, and he explained to me how it was basically a Minecraft version of hunger games. That night, I played my first game ever, but it was on his account (too lazy to log into my own). We alternated back and forth playing games on his account until we both fell asleep. Neither of us won a single game.
When I got home the next morning, I hopped back onto the server first thing, from my main account, soggypickle. I don’t remember the exact day I first logged on, except that is was late April or early May. I’ll admit, I was hooked. On May 20th, 2012, I met my first ever MCSG friend, Hunter, or beeegs123456 in-game. We randomly teamed, and soon afterwards exchanged Skype names. I had talked to people on the internet before, but nevertheless, I was still super shy meeting new people. In our first Skype call, I kept my mic muted and told him I didn’t have a mic because of how scared I was. It was a few days before I actually had the courage to start talking. So, we typed to each other for a while.
On 5/20/12, at 10:20 AM, Šõggÿ wrote:
> Best I've ever gotten is 3rd place, no victories D:
I didn’t really get involved in the community until late June. On June 22nd, 2012, I registered an account on the forums. Later that day, I also managed to get my first win! Unfortunately, the entire network crashed shortly after and erased that first win. I’m not kidding. By the 27th, I had amassed an amazing 13 wins! This was the day that Minecraft Survival Games transitioned out of beta. It was time to shine.
In mid July, my first MCSG friend, beeegs, blocked me on Skype over an argument we’d had. Both of us were in the wrong, I won’t lie and say he was the only one. We never spoke again.
Later in July, I began actually posting on the forums. The first thing I ever put up there was a status update, but the first actual post I made was this: http://www.minecraftsurvivalgames.com/threads/map-1-beast-stradegy.9885/page-2#post-78502
Well, I wasn’t the nicest guy back then, haha.
This is also the first thread I ever posted… never got a response. #icri
http://www.minecraftsurvivalgames.com/threads/combat-effect-ware-off-tribute-reconnecting.10026/
Not much happened in the next few months, except for me rocketing up the leaderboards. Back then, you could get on the first page with under 100 wins, and competition was scarce. With my years of previous Minecraft experience, I was able to climb my way up easily. I hit 100 wins on September 14th, 200 wins on October 8th, 300 wins on October 30th, 400 wins on November 16th, constantly getting 100 wins in under a month every time. For comparison, I’ve probably gotten about 40 wins in the past 6 months. The soggypickle who played back then has since disappeared. By this time, I had broke my way into the top 10 of the leaderboards, and kept going.
On September 17th, 2012, I applied for Rebels, which would go on to be my first experience in a major clan. The app is still intact! Scroll down a bit: http://www.minecraftsurvivalgames.com/threads/the-rebels-us-clan.13422/page-25
Here, I met many amazing people, such as zenoCrafter, CHEEDOS, Krafty_, Branbob83, and many more.
On October 6th, 2012, I met Edog786, someone who I am proud to say is my longest MCSG friend that I still active talk to. Back then, we were just squeakers in a Skype call. <3
I also met Kerbals around the same time. The three of us used to stay up in Skype calls for hours playing MCSG, or just talking and laughing.
Throughout the next few months, I tried to get Mod. I posted about 5 apps, and all of them were denied. I kept contact with most of my best friends, like Bran and Edog, but others came and went. I drifted away from people who were close friends like Soulv2, Tironas11, and ITsM3TYL3R, and started to move through other crowds of friends -- probably way too many to list. By January, I had hit 500 wins, and was ranked 8th on the leaderboards.
In February of 2013, MCSG V2 was released! The leaderboards from different regions merged, and I was pushed down a bit. I guess this pretty much the part when I stopped playing competitively, and I let myself plummet down the leaderboards without a second thought.
In April, Krafty_, ARB1T3R, Kosmish, and I finished a map we were building for MCSG called “Valleyside University”. At the time, Krafty_ was still CraftyKratonite, ARB1T3R was still a Sr. Mod, and Kosmish was, well, still a girl. Our map got accepted and we were super excited! We all ended up getting VIP for our contributions on June 29th, 2013.
I left Rebels, and moved on to Forgotten, where I was a Leader for a few weeks, before I quit that too (this was long before it ever got blacklisted). I quit clans altogether at this point, because back then, you couldn’t be in a clan as a Moderator, and I was still trying to get accepted.
On August 29th, 2013, I submitted my 6th Moderator application. It was about 2000 words, and I had spent quite a while on it. But, to be honest, it was terrible. Definitely not up to today’s standards. I crossed my fingers, nevertheless.
Sometime in early September, I was alone in a public channel, when someone joined named “monsters689”. They had waiting rank, so of course, I immediately started fanboying. We talked for a bit and got to know each other, and I explained to him my struggle of trying to get Mod, and how I’d already burned my way through 5 applications. I thought he was super lucky to have even gotten the chance at an interview. I was envious. Plus, I was a VIP too, so I guess he might’ve been fanboying me too? In any case, we grew closer and became very good friends.
A bit later on, more or less the same thing happened with someone else named “Tzazon”, who was a Moderator. He joined my channel and we started fanboying each other, which eventually lead to a genuine friendship. I introduced Tzazon and monsters689, and we became a pretty awesome trio of friends.
On September 19th, 2013, my close friend Edog786 was permanently banned. I won’t talk much about the reasons - that’s for him to talk about if he wishes - but it surprised both of us. I won’t lie and say it was an unjust ban, but it upset me nevertheless because I’d known him for nearly a year.
A few days later, on the 22nd, my app was denied. I was devastated. I thought the reasons were unjust, so I went to Antster and asked him to elaborate. I was expecting him to agree, but he started whispering “what?” to himself, sounding very concerned. He had a talk with Dave, and then ended up reopening my application later that day and setting it to Pending. Two days later, on the 24th, when I was falling asleep, I decided to browse the forums on my phone. I had 1 alert. It read “CaptButterToast has replied to the thread ‘[Interview] soggypickle - Mod App’”. I was absolutely overjoyed. After trying to get mod for over a year, working my way through 6 applications, I had finally been given a glimpse of consideration. I immediately went to the TeamSpeak app on my phone, and got slasherxtreme to give me my waiting rank. It was a bit awkward being a VIP and a waiting rank at the same time, but I didn’t mind too much.
So, let’s see if I can recall all my waiting buddies. There was monsters689, ErinEquinox, HonestAbe17, KitMencha, _AquaTechMC_, samson888, Aedrift, LadyOfLove, masonmojo, DracoHD, and probably tons more who I can’t recall. I became very well acquainted with them all while waiting for my interview.
After being told I was going next, then the interviews ending for the day multiple times, I finally had my interview on October 3rd. Benny joined the waiting room and said the the Sr. Staff would be breaking apart into 2 different groups to do interviews faster. Masonmojo was originally going to go before me, but since they did this, we ended up having our interviews at exactly the same time. He told us to prepare in the most intimidating voice possible, and went back up to the interview room. With the knowledge I was going to be moved up any second, I was shaking. I was fairly certain I wouldn’t be able to keep my voice steady. Then, a few moments later came the “You were moved.” notification through my headphones. I died a little bit on the inside.
The people in my interview were Benny, CAm (when he was a Sr. Mod), Le0, and kpwn. Upon being moved up, I was able to completely relax for some weird reason. I worked my way through the interview being as confident as I could. It seemed timeless, I don’t even remember how long it took. Near the end, they started asking me some “joke questions”, which was pretty fun and helped make the interview a lot less stressful. At the end, I was moved back down to the waiting room, where they would decide my fate. The other waiting ranks immediately started asking me how I’d done.
“I did great, I feel really confident that I’m going to get it,”, is what I said, and that was true. I felt like I’d done amazingly, and really thought I was going to get it.
I was moved back, and they told me that they had good news and bad news. I started celebrating internally, because Tzazon had already told me that this is what they’d done in his interview to scare him before giving him Mod. I knew I had gotten it already, but decided to play along.
“The bad news,” began Benny, “is that we will be removing your waiting, and your VIP.” Both ranks were removed from me, and I was left with a weak little arrow.
“The good news,” he continued, “is that you’ve been accepted for Mod.” The arrow exploded into a symbol of crossed swords, and I felt like I was on the verge of tears because of how joyful I felt. I celebrated with them for a bit, and was spam-poked by everyone on the TeamSpeak, congratulating me. It felt amazing.
Everyone in that waiting group ended up getting accepted. After lots of celebration with my fellow Mods, I split away from the group to hang out with Tzazon and monsters689. They continued to be my best friends on the staff team for many months to come. We met tons of other people in that time, like iSilverr, TLerDaily, ParryThePlat, Metagrosscat, DatCuppaJoe, YouGotPowelled, and Bluedog649.
In February, iSilverr and TLerDaily resigned. DatCuppaJoe, Metagrosscat, ParryThePlat, and YouGotPowelled disappeared and were removed from staff for inactivity. The next month, Tzazon also resigned. I had no friends left on the staff team except monsters689 at that point.
On April 1st, 2014, Branbob83, Krafty_, and I created a clan called Trivium (no, it wasn’t an April Fools joke). Its purpose was to create an atmosphere that felt like the old Rebels clan, and we did a great job of doing that at first. I became very close with a lot of people here, such as ChrisComedies, AndyFlips, jacobcrocks, Ultimability, AuroraV2, XxSolarBearZxX, mikeyman209, Ceroria, and many more. We took pride in being a “nice” clan, one that didn’t start drama, and played in clan battles with the best sportsmanship possible, even if the other clan was cheating. Our clan battle records might’ve suffered from this, as there were several instances where we could’ve gotten the other clan disqualified, but we put our integrity before everything.
Edog was unbanned sometime within the next few weeks, after being permanently banned for 7 months. It seemed like a miracle. Turns out a lot of that was thanks to Tzazon, as he had spoken to Chad and Col about Edog’s ban shortly before resigning, and they had eventually agreed to give him a second chance. We played a lot of games together in celebration. He saw me as a Mod in-game for the first time that day.
Not much happened in the next couple of months. I had drifted away from monsters689, and he had ended up getting removed from staff (reasons I won’t divulge into), which left me completely alone in the staff team. I knew nobody. It seemed like a lot of people who had resigned earlier in the year had more or less disappeared as well. Whereas I had celebrated my previous milestones of time served as a Moderator with friends, I spent my 9-month anniversary sitting alone in a Mod Chat for most of the day.
One night in late July, I was hanging out with my clan, Trivium, and we were chilling on the creative server. We decided to make an underground maze in our creative plot, and have some funny/weird signs at the dead ends. I tried to keep them out of the PG zone by euphemizing any profanity.
My loneliness in the staff team came to an end when, to my delight, two of my closest friends from Trivium ended up getting Mod: jacobcrocks and Ceroria. The 3 of us had lots of fun as Mods, and the future looked bright.
On the 24th of July, I had to go on vacation to visit some family, and so I had to go “On Leave” for a week. Little did I know this leave would last much longer.
I was completely disconnected from the internet for 4 days after arriving, since the part of family I was visiting didn’t want me using electronics. On July 28th, 2014, I decided to get on my phone while I was falling asleep in bed, and hopped on TeamSpeak. Immediately, I was poked by jacobcrocks, “GET OFF THE TEAMSPEAK NOW”. I went to poke him, and noticed he didn’t have his Mod rank. I asked him what was going on, and he dragged me onto another TeamSpeak to explain.
He created a private channel, and I recall Branbob83 being there as well.
“They found the maze,” is the first thing he said. For a moment I wasn’t sure what he was talking about, but then I remembered: the maze on the creative server is what he was referring to. He explained to me that he had gotten removed from staff for the signs. He said that because Ceroria and I were involved too, that we probably were going to meet the same fate. I didn’t think I was going to end up demoted, I had been a Mod for 10 months and had never messed up before this. I had made sure any profanity on the signs was removed and replaced with more appropriate words (replacing the f word with fudge, for example). Had it not been enough? I probably had just been acting stupid, and figured it would be easy to talk my way out of it, especially with my perfect history as a staff member. I told Jacob and Bran I was going to go talk to the Sr. Staff about it.
As soon as I went back on the MCGamer TeamSpeak, I was pulled into a meeting room by two admins who I won’t name. It was explained to me that the signs were very inappropriate and unprofessional for a Moderator, and that I was being removed from my staff position. Just like the interview I’d had almost a year before, the discussion I had with them seemed timeless. This time though, it was not a joyful kind of suspense, it was dreadful. My voice would not remain steady, and I ended up embarrassing myself every time I spoke. It could’ve been 10 minutes, it could’ve been an hour, I couldn’t tell, but at the end, I gave in. I couldn’t turn it around at all. My Mod rank was removed off of TeamSpeak with a painful echo of “Server group revoked”.
Before I left, I remembered that I had had VIP before getting Mod. I asked them if I would at least be getting that back, but they said no. I was being demoted to a regular.
The rest of my vacation consisted of sulking and sleeping.
When I got back, I played some MCSG with my sad green name. Lots of people asked me in-game if I had resigned. August was a terrible month for me. I felt awful about what I’d done and wish I could’ve gone back in time and told myself to stop.
One day, I told myself, I was going to come back and make things the way they used to be. I had been taking my Mod rank for granted, and excluding myself from others in my last few months as Mod, instead of being thankful for them.
To sabotage everything with the “nothing to lose” mindset at this point would’ve been ridiculous. I knew deep down it wasn’t over yet. I had permission to reapply, and sitting around doing nothing wasn’t going to get me my Mod back.
I typed a 4500 word app and submitted it on the 26th of August. It was set to pending on September 1st by Kit, but then declined on the 7th for “forum inactivity” by someone else. I was devastated. I decided to wait before reapplying until the 21st. In all honesty, I had only changed one part of the application. _AquaTechMC_ set it to pending the next day. I hoped this would be the time I would get it.
On the 23rd of September, I had the strange urge to check my forum inbox before leaving my house to catch the bus for school. I had 4 alerts. The most recent one read “Krypton has replied to the thread ‘[Interview] soggypickle - Moderator Application’”. I was so excited that I missed my bus for school just to go on the TeamSpeak and get my waiting rank.
I was only waiting for 2 days, because on the 25th, the Sr. Staff decided to do interviews. There were nearly 15 waiting ranks in the channel at the time, all of which had been waiting much longer than me. Despite this, Benny joined and told me I would be going first.
My interview was humungous. Because my case was very special, a demoted Mod getting a chance to return, understandably, many of the Sr. Mods showed interest, and attended. Remember how the channel before had had 15 waiting ranks? The interview room seemed about the same size. KellieBreanne led my interview.
This time, I really knew what I was doing. It seemed very similar to the interview I’d had a year ago, so I was able to get through it much easier. However, I noticed there were additional questions to make it more challenging. I was able to overcome these obstacles as well, and even managed to crack a few jokes through the duration of the interview. I was given the opportunity to reflect on my demotion as well.
“Sometimes, when you look at a person’s actions, the good really does outweigh the bad,” I had said at one point.
According to Razzledgirl, my answer had set her on the verge of tears. With the interview wrapping up, I felt extremely confident, and proudly announced that confidence when I was moved back to the waiting room for them to decide my fate.
It took no longer than 3 minutes before I was moved back up.
“Sometimes,” said Razzledgirl, “the good does not outweigh the bad.”
I felt 90% sure she was joking around, but part of me remained unsure. Surely they wouldn’t of dragged me through this interview process just to deny me for what I did on the creative server again, would they? If you disregard the demotion, you’re left with an application process and interview which I went through smoothly. So why would that be coming back to haunt me now of all times?
The entire channel went silent for several seconds after Razzledgirl spoke. It was suddenly interrupted by a voice, which said “Server group assigned”. I was a Mod again. I had done it.
I can say without a doubt that since getting Mod back a second time, it has been the happiest time of my life. I’ve met so many new people who have become great friends since returning, enough to the point where I don’t know if I’d be able to list them all. It’s so much more fun than being lonely all the time, let me tell you. I’ve been working harder than ever before as a Mod, involving myself with any project I can, in hope that one day I will be able to fully atone for my misconduct and the trouble I caused the admins. The sad truth is that what I did will always be stuck on my record, and that’s something I’ll have to live with forever. It’s not a stain that can be removed, but it’s one that I believe can be dulled with enough effort.
One piece of advice I want to give everyone is that you can recover from anything with enough time and hard work. I was able to recover from something terrible, and even today am still recovering, but you can’t get to the top of a cliff without climbing it. If you’re struggling through a bad time, I assure you, it will get better.
Edwag | Edog
Bae | kjh567
Branbibbity | Branbob83
Zaz | Tzazon
Jodemoted | Jodimo
Joeltimability | Ultimability
Kraff | Krafty
Rorav | AuroraV2
Riles | Spectral_Slayer
Ree-da | GetRidaHim
Froggypickle | Froggytv
NickMencha | KitMencha
Stanley | krackan
Shan | ChandelleMC
Vanicle-essa | Vanicle
The “how soggy is your pickle” girl | violetheart17
Chelss | Chelsea19
Colsta | Col_StaR
Zennoh | Zeno
Cerorimod | Ceroria
Jackob | Groot
Mickey | michael harmon
Thapplay | Thapple
Miley Cyrus | iSilverr
Toolehr | TLerDaily
Scott four six seven four three | Scott
Sam Pepper | rf2minecraft
kden | xStatiq
I’m Oh Fancyyy | OhFancy
Mash | Smashify_
Dacklav | duckluv321
Solarsnout | SolarBears
Scrandy | AndyFlips
Bloodawg | Bluedog649
Arby | ARB1T3R
ChrisComi-day-uss | ChrisComedies
Ibber | iBearHD
Kerballer | Kerbals
Lizzypickle | LizzyBethyMC
^^^ Thanks to each and every one of you for making this journey amazing. I wouldn’t of come this far without you guys.
With that, my story concludes. Time to sit back and see what the future holds for me next.
piqqleIt all started in April of 2012. At this point in time, I had already been playing Minecraft for over 2 years, so I was already very familiar with the game. I was friends with someone at the time who also played Minecraft (I won’t say their IRL name, but if you’re interested, their Minecraft name was _spoink_), and one day while I was over at his house, he introduced me to a neat little server called Minecraft Survival Games. I asked him what exactly it was, and he explained to me how it was basically a Minecraft version of hunger games. That night, I played my first game ever, but it was on his account (too lazy to log into my own). We alternated back and forth playing games on his account until we both fell asleep. Neither of us won a single game.
When I got home the next morning, I hopped back onto the server first thing, from my main account, soggypickle. I don’t remember the exact day I first logged on, except that is was late April or early May. I’ll admit, I was hooked. On May 20th, 2012, I met my first ever MCSG friend, Hunter, or beeegs123456 in-game. We randomly teamed, and soon afterwards exchanged Skype names. I had talked to people on the internet before, but nevertheless, I was still super shy meeting new people. In our first Skype call, I kept my mic muted and told him I didn’t have a mic because of how scared I was. It was a few days before I actually had the courage to start talking. So, we typed to each other for a while.
On 5/20/12, at 10:20 AM, Šõggÿ wrote:
> Best I've ever gotten is 3rd place, no victories D:
I didn’t really get involved in the community until late June. On June 22nd, 2012, I registered an account on the forums. Later that day, I also managed to get my first win! Unfortunately, the entire network crashed shortly after and erased that first win. I’m not kidding. By the 27th, I had amassed an amazing 13 wins! This was the day that Minecraft Survival Games transitioned out of beta. It was time to shine.
In mid July, my first MCSG friend, beeegs, blocked me on Skype over an argument we’d had. Both of us were in the wrong, I won’t lie and say he was the only one. We never spoke again.
Later in July, I began actually posting on the forums. The first thing I ever put up there was a status update, but the first actual post I made was this: http://www.minecraftsurvivalgames.com/threads/map-1-beast-stradegy.9885/page-2#post-78502
Well, I wasn’t the nicest guy back then, haha.
This is also the first thread I ever posted… never got a response. #icri
http://www.minecraftsurvivalgames.com/threads/combat-effect-ware-off-tribute-reconnecting.10026/
Not much happened in the next few months, except for me rocketing up the leaderboards. Back then, you could get on the first page with under 100 wins, and competition was scarce. With my years of previous Minecraft experience, I was able to climb my way up easily. I hit 100 wins on September 14th, 200 wins on October 8th, 300 wins on October 30th, 400 wins on November 16th, constantly getting 100 wins in under a month every time. For comparison, I’ve probably gotten about 40 wins in the past 6 months. The soggypickle who played back then has since disappeared. By this time, I had broke my way into the top 10 of the leaderboards, and kept going.
On September 17th, 2012, I applied for Rebels, which would go on to be my first experience in a major clan. The app is still intact! Scroll down a bit: http://www.minecraftsurvivalgames.com/threads/the-rebels-us-clan.13422/page-25
Here, I met many amazing people, such as zenoCrafter, CHEEDOS, Krafty_, Branbob83, and many more.
On October 6th, 2012, I met Edog786, someone who I am proud to say is my longest MCSG friend that I still active talk to. Back then, we were just squeakers in a Skype call. <3
I also met Kerbals around the same time. The three of us used to stay up in Skype calls for hours playing MCSG, or just talking and laughing.
Throughout the next few months, I tried to get Mod. I posted about 5 apps, and all of them were denied. I kept contact with most of my best friends, like Bran and Edog, but others came and went. I drifted away from people who were close friends like Soulv2, Tironas11, and ITsM3TYL3R, and started to move through other crowds of friends -- probably way too many to list. By January, I had hit 500 wins, and was ranked 8th on the leaderboards.
In February of 2013, MCSG V2 was released! The leaderboards from different regions merged, and I was pushed down a bit. I guess this pretty much the part when I stopped playing competitively, and I let myself plummet down the leaderboards without a second thought.
In April, Krafty_, ARB1T3R, Kosmish, and I finished a map we were building for MCSG called “Valleyside University”. At the time, Krafty_ was still CraftyKratonite, ARB1T3R was still a Sr. Mod, and Kosmish was, well, still a girl. Our map got accepted and we were super excited! We all ended up getting VIP for our contributions on June 29th, 2013.
I left Rebels, and moved on to Forgotten, where I was a Leader for a few weeks, before I quit that too (this was long before it ever got blacklisted). I quit clans altogether at this point, because back then, you couldn’t be in a clan as a Moderator, and I was still trying to get accepted.
On August 29th, 2013, I submitted my 6th Moderator application. It was about 2000 words, and I had spent quite a while on it. But, to be honest, it was terrible. Definitely not up to today’s standards. I crossed my fingers, nevertheless.
Sometime in early September, I was alone in a public channel, when someone joined named “monsters689”. They had waiting rank, so of course, I immediately started fanboying. We talked for a bit and got to know each other, and I explained to him my struggle of trying to get Mod, and how I’d already burned my way through 5 applications. I thought he was super lucky to have even gotten the chance at an interview. I was envious. Plus, I was a VIP too, so I guess he might’ve been fanboying me too? In any case, we grew closer and became very good friends.
A bit later on, more or less the same thing happened with someone else named “Tzazon”, who was a Moderator. He joined my channel and we started fanboying each other, which eventually lead to a genuine friendship. I introduced Tzazon and monsters689, and we became a pretty awesome trio of friends.
On September 19th, 2013, my close friend Edog786 was permanently banned. I won’t talk much about the reasons - that’s for him to talk about if he wishes - but it surprised both of us. I won’t lie and say it was an unjust ban, but it upset me nevertheless because I’d known him for nearly a year.
A few days later, on the 22nd, my app was denied. I was devastated. I thought the reasons were unjust, so I went to Antster and asked him to elaborate. I was expecting him to agree, but he started whispering “what?” to himself, sounding very concerned. He had a talk with Dave, and then ended up reopening my application later that day and setting it to Pending. Two days later, on the 24th, when I was falling asleep, I decided to browse the forums on my phone. I had 1 alert. It read “CaptButterToast has replied to the thread ‘[Interview] soggypickle - Mod App’”. I was absolutely overjoyed. After trying to get mod for over a year, working my way through 6 applications, I had finally been given a glimpse of consideration. I immediately went to the TeamSpeak app on my phone, and got slasherxtreme to give me my waiting rank. It was a bit awkward being a VIP and a waiting rank at the same time, but I didn’t mind too much.
So, let’s see if I can recall all my waiting buddies. There was monsters689, ErinEquinox, HonestAbe17, KitMencha, _AquaTechMC_, samson888, Aedrift, LadyOfLove, masonmojo, DracoHD, and probably tons more who I can’t recall. I became very well acquainted with them all while waiting for my interview.
After being told I was going next, then the interviews ending for the day multiple times, I finally had my interview on October 3rd. Benny joined the waiting room and said the the Sr. Staff would be breaking apart into 2 different groups to do interviews faster. Masonmojo was originally going to go before me, but since they did this, we ended up having our interviews at exactly the same time. He told us to prepare in the most intimidating voice possible, and went back up to the interview room. With the knowledge I was going to be moved up any second, I was shaking. I was fairly certain I wouldn’t be able to keep my voice steady. Then, a few moments later came the “You were moved.” notification through my headphones. I died a little bit on the inside.
The people in my interview were Benny, CAm (when he was a Sr. Mod), Le0, and kpwn. Upon being moved up, I was able to completely relax for some weird reason. I worked my way through the interview being as confident as I could. It seemed timeless, I don’t even remember how long it took. Near the end, they started asking me some “joke questions”, which was pretty fun and helped make the interview a lot less stressful. At the end, I was moved back down to the waiting room, where they would decide my fate. The other waiting ranks immediately started asking me how I’d done.
“I did great, I feel really confident that I’m going to get it,”, is what I said, and that was true. I felt like I’d done amazingly, and really thought I was going to get it.
I was moved back, and they told me that they had good news and bad news. I started celebrating internally, because Tzazon had already told me that this is what they’d done in his interview to scare him before giving him Mod. I knew I had gotten it already, but decided to play along.
“The bad news,” began Benny, “is that we will be removing your waiting, and your VIP.” Both ranks were removed from me, and I was left with a weak little arrow.
“The good news,” he continued, “is that you’ve been accepted for Mod.” The arrow exploded into a symbol of crossed swords, and I felt like I was on the verge of tears because of how joyful I felt. I celebrated with them for a bit, and was spam-poked by everyone on the TeamSpeak, congratulating me. It felt amazing.
Everyone in that waiting group ended up getting accepted. After lots of celebration with my fellow Mods, I split away from the group to hang out with Tzazon and monsters689. They continued to be my best friends on the staff team for many months to come. We met tons of other people in that time, like iSilverr, TLerDaily, ParryThePlat, Metagrosscat, DatCuppaJoe, YouGotPowelled, and Bluedog649.
In February, iSilverr and TLerDaily resigned. DatCuppaJoe, Metagrosscat, ParryThePlat, and YouGotPowelled disappeared and were removed from staff for inactivity. The next month, Tzazon also resigned. I had no friends left on the staff team except monsters689 at that point.
On April 1st, 2014, Branbob83, Krafty_, and I created a clan called Trivium (no, it wasn’t an April Fools joke). Its purpose was to create an atmosphere that felt like the old Rebels clan, and we did a great job of doing that at first. I became very close with a lot of people here, such as ChrisComedies, AndyFlips, jacobcrocks, Ultimability, AuroraV2, XxSolarBearZxX, mikeyman209, Ceroria, and many more. We took pride in being a “nice” clan, one that didn’t start drama, and played in clan battles with the best sportsmanship possible, even if the other clan was cheating. Our clan battle records might’ve suffered from this, as there were several instances where we could’ve gotten the other clan disqualified, but we put our integrity before everything.
Edog was unbanned sometime within the next few weeks, after being permanently banned for 7 months. It seemed like a miracle. Turns out a lot of that was thanks to Tzazon, as he had spoken to Chad and Col about Edog’s ban shortly before resigning, and they had eventually agreed to give him a second chance. We played a lot of games together in celebration. He saw me as a Mod in-game for the first time that day.
Not much happened in the next couple of months. I had drifted away from monsters689, and he had ended up getting removed from staff (reasons I won’t divulge into), which left me completely alone in the staff team. I knew nobody. It seemed like a lot of people who had resigned earlier in the year had more or less disappeared as well. Whereas I had celebrated my previous milestones of time served as a Moderator with friends, I spent my 9-month anniversary sitting alone in a Mod Chat for most of the day.
One night in late July, I was hanging out with my clan, Trivium, and we were chilling on the creative server. We decided to make an underground maze in our creative plot, and have some funny/weird signs at the dead ends. I tried to keep them out of the PG zone by euphemizing any profanity.
My loneliness in the staff team came to an end when, to my delight, two of my closest friends from Trivium ended up getting Mod: jacobcrocks and Ceroria. The 3 of us had lots of fun as Mods, and the future looked bright.
On the 24th of July, I had to go on vacation to visit some family, and so I had to go “On Leave” for a week. Little did I know this leave would last much longer.
I was completely disconnected from the internet for 4 days after arriving, since the part of family I was visiting didn’t want me using electronics. On July 28th, 2014, I decided to get on my phone while I was falling asleep in bed, and hopped on TeamSpeak. Immediately, I was poked by jacobcrocks, “GET OFF THE TEAMSPEAK NOW”. I went to poke him, and noticed he didn’t have his Mod rank. I asked him what was going on, and he dragged me onto another TeamSpeak to explain.
He created a private channel, and I recall Branbob83 being there as well.
“They found the maze,” is the first thing he said. For a moment I wasn’t sure what he was talking about, but then I remembered: the maze on the creative server is what he was referring to. He explained to me that he had gotten removed from staff for the signs. He said that because Ceroria and I were involved too, that we probably were going to meet the same fate. I didn’t think I was going to end up demoted, I had been a Mod for 10 months and had never messed up before this. I had made sure any profanity on the signs was removed and replaced with more appropriate words (replacing the f word with fudge, for example). Had it not been enough? I probably had just been acting stupid, and figured it would be easy to talk my way out of it, especially with my perfect history as a staff member. I told Jacob and Bran I was going to go talk to the Sr. Staff about it.
As soon as I went back on the MCGamer TeamSpeak, I was pulled into a meeting room by two admins who I won’t name. It was explained to me that the signs were very inappropriate and unprofessional for a Moderator, and that I was being removed from my staff position. Just like the interview I’d had almost a year before, the discussion I had with them seemed timeless. This time though, it was not a joyful kind of suspense, it was dreadful. My voice would not remain steady, and I ended up embarrassing myself every time I spoke. It could’ve been 10 minutes, it could’ve been an hour, I couldn’t tell, but at the end, I gave in. I couldn’t turn it around at all. My Mod rank was removed off of TeamSpeak with a painful echo of “Server group revoked”.
Before I left, I remembered that I had had VIP before getting Mod. I asked them if I would at least be getting that back, but they said no. I was being demoted to a regular.
The rest of my vacation consisted of sulking and sleeping.
When I got back, I played some MCSG with my sad green name. Lots of people asked me in-game if I had resigned. August was a terrible month for me. I felt awful about what I’d done and wish I could’ve gone back in time and told myself to stop.
One day, I told myself, I was going to come back and make things the way they used to be. I had been taking my Mod rank for granted, and excluding myself from others in my last few months as Mod, instead of being thankful for them.
To sabotage everything with the “nothing to lose” mindset at this point would’ve been ridiculous. I knew deep down it wasn’t over yet. I had permission to reapply, and sitting around doing nothing wasn’t going to get me my Mod back.
I typed a 4500 word app and submitted it on the 26th of August. It was set to pending on September 1st by Kit, but then declined on the 7th for “forum inactivity” by someone else. I was devastated. I decided to wait before reapplying until the 21st. In all honesty, I had only changed one part of the application. _AquaTechMC_ set it to pending the next day. I hoped this would be the time I would get it.
On the 23rd of September, I had the strange urge to check my forum inbox before leaving my house to catch the bus for school. I had 4 alerts. The most recent one read “Krypton has replied to the thread ‘[Interview] soggypickle - Moderator Application’”. I was so excited that I missed my bus for school just to go on the TeamSpeak and get my waiting rank.
I was only waiting for 2 days, because on the 25th, the Sr. Staff decided to do interviews. There were nearly 15 waiting ranks in the channel at the time, all of which had been waiting much longer than me. Despite this, Benny joined and told me I would be going first.
My interview was humungous. Because my case was very special, a demoted Mod getting a chance to return, understandably, many of the Sr. Mods showed interest, and attended. Remember how the channel before had had 15 waiting ranks? The interview room seemed about the same size. KellieBreanne led my interview.
This time, I really knew what I was doing. It seemed very similar to the interview I’d had a year ago, so I was able to get through it much easier. However, I noticed there were additional questions to make it more challenging. I was able to overcome these obstacles as well, and even managed to crack a few jokes through the duration of the interview. I was given the opportunity to reflect on my demotion as well.
“Sometimes, when you look at a person’s actions, the good really does outweigh the bad,” I had said at one point.
According to Razzledgirl, my answer had set her on the verge of tears. With the interview wrapping up, I felt extremely confident, and proudly announced that confidence when I was moved back to the waiting room for them to decide my fate.
It took no longer than 3 minutes before I was moved back up.
“Sometimes,” said Razzledgirl, “the good does not outweigh the bad.”
I felt 90% sure she was joking around, but part of me remained unsure. Surely they wouldn’t of dragged me through this interview process just to deny me for what I did on the creative server again, would they? If you disregard the demotion, you’re left with an application process and interview which I went through smoothly. So why would that be coming back to haunt me now of all times?
The entire channel went silent for several seconds after Razzledgirl spoke. It was suddenly interrupted by a voice, which said “Server group assigned”. I was a Mod again. I had done it.
I can say without a doubt that since getting Mod back a second time, it has been the happiest time of my life. I’ve met so many new people who have become great friends since returning, enough to the point where I don’t know if I’d be able to list them all. It’s so much more fun than being lonely all the time, let me tell you. I’ve been working harder than ever before as a Mod, involving myself with any project I can, in hope that one day I will be able to fully atone for my misconduct and the trouble I caused the admins. The sad truth is that what I did will always be stuck on my record, and that’s something I’ll have to live with forever. It’s not a stain that can be removed, but it’s one that I believe can be dulled with enough effort.
One piece of advice I want to give everyone is that you can recover from anything with enough time and hard work. I was able to recover from something terrible, and even today am still recovering, but you can’t get to the top of a cliff without climbing it. If you’re struggling through a bad time, I assure you, it will get better.
Edwag | Edog
Bae | kjh567
Branbibbity | Branbob83
Zaz | Tzazon
Jodemoted | Jodimo
Joeltimability | Ultimability
Kraff | Krafty
Rorav | AuroraV2
Riles | Spectral_Slayer
Ree-da | GetRidaHim
Froggypickle | Froggytv
NickMencha | KitMencha
Stanley | krackan
Shan | ChandelleMC
Vanicle-essa | Vanicle
The “how soggy is your pickle” girl | violetheart17
Chelss | Chelsea19
Colsta | Col_StaR
Zennoh | Zeno
Cerorimod | Ceroria
Jackob | Groot
Mickey | michael harmon
Thapplay | Thapple
Miley Cyrus | iSilverr
Toolehr | TLerDaily
Scott four six seven four three | Scott
Sam Pepper | rf2minecraft
kden | xStatiq
I’m Oh Fancyyy | OhFancy
Mash | Smashify_
Dacklav | duckluv321
Solarsnout | SolarBears
Scrandy | AndyFlips
Bloodawg | Bluedog649
Arby | ARB1T3R
ChrisComi-day-uss | ChrisComedies
Ibber | iBearHD
Kerballer | Kerbals
Lizzypickle | LizzyBethyMC
^^^ Thanks to each and every one of you for making this journey amazing. I wouldn’t of come this far without you guys.
With that, my story concludes. Time to sit back and see what the future holds for me next.
