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I'm not posting in the crew lounge. When you read this you will understand why. I'm sending it to Aphous and to Joxcab. If you want to post it there I won't mind. I don't consider myself a member of the Eureka Seven Guild anymore.

My stance is that I am only back in this guild because my friend Jox asked me to be.

At the time that you left I would tend to agree with you. There was a good crew of people that were dedicated to making the guild a friendly place where fans of the show could talk on equal standing and had fun.

Over time though that has changed.

what the heck has been going on.

unlike everyone else who will talk about the last two days. I'd like to talk about since you left. About a year ago we were still at a point in the show where fans were coming in on a regular basis. They were excited by the show airing on TV and spoke openly and often about how it affected them and who there favorite characters were. They were inspired to play roleplaying games, write stories and even make predictions about future extensions of the show.

That continued on into 07 and everyone was having a ball. I kept the roleplaying games going with stories and we picked up additional crew members to help watch over the forums on a regular basis. Sveners fan fic was a big success and acted as a continuation for fans who had already finished watching the episodes. Jox was also there then. Acting as a crew member and being our one and only "enforcer of the rules". (mostly watching LinitaLena and her crazy sex referances and cussing). I considered it alot of fun. So did many others.

Eventually though I became overwhelmed by the level of work I was putting into the guild and decided to leave it to a younger group to run the place. That's when Ross was chosen to take over. He had impressed me with his ability to run the Club Ray=Out topic and kept it alive while still making himself active in the guild. His promotion of the show acted as a good way to promote the guild.

It was about a month before his promotion that Rekkaryuu joined the guild. She appeared one day at Club Ray=Out and met Kayako and myself roleplaying there. She became like a little sister to our banter and took to Kayako like a long lost friend. This is about the point that Kayako started to become less of a fan girl and more of a prominent voice in the roleplaying games. She and Rekka would spend hours and hours chatting in the roleplaying game topic and after a little while this strong bond gave them the confidence to venture into the main forums where they began to have fun there as well. As a team they brought silliness and insight with a touch of smart a**.

When Ross took over he asked me what I thought of them and I said exactly what I thought. Rekka was mature and level headed and Kayako was her friend. You couldn't promote one without the other.

Ross took to the guild quickly and wanted to run it as a friends hangout. A place (like Ray=Out) where everyone was welcome and treated like equals. Rekka and Kayako were his lieutenants in a way, they petrolled the site trying to keep discussions going and on the look out for rule breakers. It was about this time that "Looking for rule breakers" seemed to become an important thing in the guild. Before we had been mostly Reactive. With the girls it seemed more Proactive. Jox was still a crew member then (about to be promoted to vice captain) and maybe it was emulation of him that made everyone decide that it was a priority.

This lasted for a few months and Ross grew to realize what kind of a work load it was to run this guild. He talked to me about handing it over to someone else and I suggested Jox. Jox (as to well know) has been one of the most dedicated fans to the guild and the show that we've ever had. He was there very early on encouraging people to post and join. I remember when he first asked to be made a crew member and discussing it with you. We both considered him to be an almost crazed fan boy. LOL.

Anyway when it came time for Ross to leave he handed the guild over to Jox to run. I personally think that Kayako was jealous and considered herself to be a more active member of the guild than him. Very few in the guild knew it at the time but a single topic had began to grow over all others. The OOC topic in the roleplaying sub forum. Where most of the topics in the guild averaged between 2 to maybe 9 pages the ooc topic had grown somewhere around 300 pages. (today I think it's around 550 pages) This seemingly innocent little topic had secretly become the hub of the guild. The place where much was discussed off handedly about the show, life, other shows, amvs. and all sorts of stuff.

Membership in the roleplay (something I am sad to say I caused to be very selective) gained you standing in the ooc topic. I'm also sad to say that DanielCraigs Roleplay group never posted in the OOC topic even though it was a place for roleplaying out of character discussion. I always felt responsible for them wanting to leave the guild and create there own. I know that it was Daniels idea but in some ways I feel like by ignoring his game and not trying to be more involved in it. I had push him and his group away from the group I was playing with. This is something I have always regretted.

Anyway. By the time that Jox took over the guild it had grown to over 500 members and was running strong. Posting was heavy most days with slow periods during the middle of the week. New members were always looking to join in on discussions and even hop into a roleplaying game.

Fan art was popular and created by many. Or just posted from other sites.

Steeveeo was the next crew member to appear. He seemed to be over flowing with enthusiasm and wanted to do everything it took to help the guild. He ran a DJ booth at one of the parties we held at Club Ray=Out and helped to promoted the Hoverboard petition with some very nice artwork. I encouraged Jox to promote him to crew status and it happened without argument. With his new title he looked to the others as examples of how to be a good crew member. What he saw was this same "emphasis on the rules" that had been going on earlier. While still taking the time to be active in discussions, Steeveeo seemed to become the new enforcer that Jox had once been. However, with no sex related discussion anymore (because of the one banning that had happened with Linita) he acted more like a Gaia forums moderator.

The term Mod (in reference to the guilds crew) started to get used around this time. Rules about off topic discussion were enforced along with the deleting of topics that were deemed "Not related to Eureka Seven" Many topics were moved to the general discussion or other sub forums in order to keep the main page "uncluttered". While the guild was organized and neat. It did seem over moderated at times. This is not because of any one persons actions.

The last Crew member to be added to the group has been Olorin. He is a wonderful fan of the show and had experience with a guild of his own before joining the E7 guild. He joined in on the main page topics often and really seemed to enjoy the place. After a strange incident where Jox's main account was banned Olorin was quick to help out and show his knowledge of guilds by contacting the GGN (guild network) to see if they could help get the captain status straightened out. He and I helped Jox get a new account set up as the captain again. Well, mostly me since I was his Vice Captain at the time, but since Olorin had been so public about trying to get it straightened out (and all I did was push the buttons anyway) I let him have all the recognition. His loyalty to Jox and the guild quickly won him crew member status.

Let see. I think it was the fat talho pic that seemed to make things change. A few months ago before the show had actually stopped airing and we were still enjoying regular new membership and member posting (something not to be confused with regular crew member posting) a topic was created by jox with a funny picture of a fat talho on a toilet. It was meant as a joke and somehow turned into a reason to question Jox's leadership skills. It was deemed immature and childish by the crew. Seeing it as nothing more than a joke I joined in with ridiculous pictures of my own in the same topic along with a bizarre conversion about going out to bars and looking for strippers. Jox and I had a good laugh about this. So did many members. The crew however did not see it as funny. What would have been a two or three page topic that died and was of no importance back a year ago, was considered a slight against the long standing and very serious business of running the Eureka Seven Guild.

Shortly after that I had a falling out with the roleplay troup. My lack of interest in the game had been growing for awhile. Though I had wanted on many occasions to remove myself from it I kept finding I was brought back by circumstance or a desire to see it continue. Ultimately a strange situation in the game where I was playing a villian who was much older than Rekkaryuu's character made me stop. The scenario was just to creepy for me to do it and I left on bad terms. Regular arguments with Kayako followed in the game and after a time I found myself more frustrated with the crew than happy. I gave up being the head of the game and left seperate topics to differant members to try and keep the power stuggles there even. What I didn't expect was for Kayako to finish the story and then declare that the game was still going but that no one could do anything in it until she came up with a new story. This is how it stands today.

Discussions were no longer a challenge. After over a year. I had learned so much about the show that I felt like a walking encyclopedia of Eureka Seven. It had past the point of obsession and gone into the down right ridiculous. In the guild people would joining saying they were big fans and knew stuff about the show that was at one time a big deal. Things like Hollands relation to Dewey and how Talho was once in a relationship with Dewey. Or how Axel Thurston had made the ref board that the Nirvash uses and even made the second one.

Today that stuff is considered old news. Say something like that today and you stand a 50/50 chance of being laughed at. Now you need to know things like the brand of shoes that Renton wears "klies" or the name of the city that the voderack live in. Fandom has become a status symbol and Crew status is your proof of being important.

I don't intend to stay a member of the Eureka Seven Guild. I have nothing else left to talk about. There's been many other shows that I've watched and enjoyed since I first watched this show last spring. While Eureka will always be one of my favorites. I don't have any reason to continue to toot that horn. I did it.

The current crew however is still fairly young. Many have been dedicated to the idea of the guild and consider this place a symbol of there standing in Gaia. While they know that active members are low they still come here and talk about the show. They are dedicated fans and they haven't burned themselves out. But the point needs to be made that it is not the members that are posting here really. It is the crew that keep topics alive. member posts are actually very low. New members are called Newbs and told to respect the crew or they will be eaten. (that's not an exaggeration)

I guess that's the best I can do. There's been alot going on since you left Aphous. Some good some bad. Alot of it where no one could see it. But it's all been in the name of the guild. 4 months ago the crew number was increased because there were so many people joining and posting in the guild. today that influx doesn't exist yet that high number of crew is still there. It's made the guild top heavy and they are hard at work trying to make themselves look valuable to the guild.

You'll see all of them clamor to show there support of the guild. Olorin will support Kayako in any stance she takes. (after all he's waiting on her so he can play in her roleplaying game again). Steeveeo likes "Moderating" in the main forum and so he wants that to continue. Rekka would happily volunteer to run the guild herself it it would mean being able to hang out and talk with her friends here. Kayako just wants to be shown Respect, Civility, Obedience, and submissiveness. DanielCraig.Well, I can't speak for him. He's created another guild. the newest roleplaying guild. I think Daniel really is dedicated to roleplaying. Renton Thurston. Poor Renton Thurston. So many people have made fun of his spelling and English that they don't even take him seriously anymore. he's not even American and he tries really hard. He's one of the oldest and loyal fans this guild ever had yet he gets comments like "is that even English?" and "Learn to spell."

COMMENTS:
I think if you really want this guild to continue you should listen to the topic you made about re-electing vice captains. I think you'll notice really quickly that the members won't be the vocal ones. Well Soren and Demitrius will be. they are regulars in the roleplaying ooc topic. It will be the crew that tell you what they want there. Look at how many non-crew actually post. How many active members (instead of crew) the guild actually has.