MajorBowman
wouldst thou like to live fergaliciously?
Not covering my eyes
...
All good things come to an end
To make room for new beginnings
All good things come to an end, an end
But it's not the end
I have been Tier Leader of Doubles OU since April 1, 2018, and it’s been a great three and a half years. Getting to lead a tier and a community I truly love has been incredibly fulfilling and I’m very thankful for this experience. However, it’s time for me to move on.
The writing has been on the wall for me for a little while, really since the end of last year. I finished my master’s degree in August 2020 and started working towards my PhD, but I got pretty burned out by working from home 24/7 that summer due to COVID quarantine. The remainder of that fall semester was a huge slog, and it started to take the fun out of things I had previously found enjoyable. By the end of January, I knew I had to make some kind of change or I just wasn’t going to be enjoying the next few years. I made the decision to leave grad school at the end of the spring semester and spent the next few months stressing over switching career paths and finding a job. My anxiety flared up really badly, which meant that it got harder and harder for me to enjoy putting time into the staff side of DOU.
This was also compounded by a couple Smogon-related things at the end of last year, notably DOU getting removed from SPL. SPL is what got me into DOU and onto Smogon, and it was such an important event for the tier and the community and to me personally every year that it felt like a limb got cut off when we got dropped. After I spent a week campaigning my heart out to get DOU added back to no avail, I think that was the beginning of the end. I don’t really want to dwell on this happening since I think it sort of worked out in the end; the DOU community really rallied together, and I felt the support behind me big time. We got OSDT out of it, which I think was a big success. Also just to be clear - I, of course, am not blaming this situation or anything in my personal life for my loss of motivation here, that falls solely on me. I just wanted to provide some insight as to why I knew that I had to start working my way towards the proverbial door.
Much like talkingtree when he retired in November, I am hopeful that vacating the leadership positions I’ve been holding for a few years now will pave the way for others to step up. While I know I wasn’t the perfect leader, I am very proud of what I’ve been able to accomplish throughout my time in DOU, even before I was a tier leader. Putting together the first full DOU circuit with kamikaze and co back in 2017 was so much fun for me, and I was so honored that he asked me to take the helm of the circuit and then the whole tier the following year. Our circuit and tournaments have been my favorite child through the entirety of my time here, and I will forever be proud of the work I put into them. C&C and PS get honorable mentions as well, and while they may not have been my main focus, I still got a lot out of those contributions. More importantly, I'm super proud of the community that we've fostered over the past few years. I always wanted to make sure that DOU is a place where everyone feels welcome, and I think we've done a good job learning and growing together. While the pokemon part of DOU is great, how we treat each other is way more important to me, and I've loved sharing this experience with our little family. I can’t wait to see how every aspect of DOU evolves now, as with new leadership comes new visions and goals which I’m confident will be fantastic.
As for my replacement – the next DOU tier leader joining Yoda will be Paraplegic. Having worked with Paraplegic on various things for the better part of a couple years now, his passion for DOU is preeminent. There is no doubt in my mind that he will continue to move DOU forward both as a tier and as a community.
I’m not going anywhere – I’ll still be around and will get back into playing more again soon. I’ve just come to realize that DOU deserves more than what I can give to it as a leader. I’ve moved twice in the last three months and started a full time 9-5 job in June so my free time plummeted, and my motivation to work on DOU projects has yet to rebound. I would be lying to myself and to you all if I told you that I thought I was doing a good job as tier leader for the past few months, so it’s time to let go and make way for people who can do the position justice. Despite a bit of a slide at the end, I hope you all remember me for the good times we had.
I started a new chapter of my life when I started graduate school a few months after I became TL, and now I’m moving on to the next chapter of my life both on- and offline. Think of this as the next chapter of DOU as well. As the title song says - all good things come to an end to make room for new beginnings - but it's not the end.
This is not an exhaustive list so please don’t take it personally if you’re not on it - there are just a few people that deserve an extra bit of thanks.
talkingtree - sharing this position with you for the majority of my tenure was such a blast. There isn’t much I can say that hasn’t already been said, but I’m beyond thankful that DOU brought me a friend. And always remember - if you’re in a burning building and can’t find the exit, you probably didn’t want to live anyway.
tennisace - who knows if you’ll even see this but I wouldn’t be writing this post had you not taken a chance on me 6 years ago. It was an honor to develop the Tigers Dynasty with you, thanks for always being someone I can message at 2am with my latest woes.
Zodiax - the May to my Cody, the Yuumi to my Twitch, and the Except For to my Serena. If one good thing came out of covid quarantine it was playing way too much league and couples counseling simulator with you. Happy to call you my friend.
Coconut - I don’t even remember when we first spoke, but I’ve always felt some sort of bond with you. Us lower tier TLs gotta watch each other’s backs, and I really enjoyed getting to work with you on 1v1 and vent about random shit. Keep holding down the fort and keep an eye on DOU for me.
kaori and Dawg - if SPL is what brought me to DOU, you two are what kept me there. We haven’t talked in a while, but I still treasure the early days of us staying up in call with the rest of the Aussies late into the night and having a great time together. Hope you two are doing well.
TonyFlygon - I’m not sure I ever expressed how comforting it was to always feel like I had an ally on the TD team when you were there. Thanks for always being willing to help and hear me out when it came to tournament matters, that meant a lot to me.
talkingtree - sharing this position with you for the majority of my tenure was such a blast. There isn’t much I can say that hasn’t already been said, but I’m beyond thankful that DOU brought me a friend. And always remember - if you’re in a burning building and can’t find the exit, you probably didn’t want to live anyway.
tennisace - who knows if you’ll even see this but I wouldn’t be writing this post had you not taken a chance on me 6 years ago. It was an honor to develop the Tigers Dynasty with you, thanks for always being someone I can message at 2am with my latest woes.
Zodiax - the May to my Cody, the Yuumi to my Twitch, and the Except For to my Serena. If one good thing came out of covid quarantine it was playing way too much league and couples counseling simulator with you. Happy to call you my friend.
Coconut - I don’t even remember when we first spoke, but I’ve always felt some sort of bond with you. Us lower tier TLs gotta watch each other’s backs, and I really enjoyed getting to work with you on 1v1 and vent about random shit. Keep holding down the fort and keep an eye on DOU for me.
kaori and Dawg - if SPL is what brought me to DOU, you two are what kept me there. We haven’t talked in a while, but I still treasure the early days of us staying up in call with the rest of the Aussies late into the night and having a great time together. Hope you two are doing well.
TonyFlygon - I’m not sure I ever expressed how comforting it was to always feel like I had an ally on the TD team when you were there. Thanks for always being willing to help and hear me out when it came to tournament matters, that meant a lot to me.
I love every single one of you reading this post. When I first became active on Smogon back in 2015 for SPL 7, I had no idea how much of a bright spot in my life it would become. You all have been a big part of my life for the last six years, and for that I thank you.
Your favorite weatherman,
Jake
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