Chobittsu

Well'p,  Mouse just logged off from the forums for the final time.  Now I'm just sittin' here... trying to think of some sorta emotional last words.
...something profound, meaningful...something befitting my legacy on this forum...
...

**** all y'all, I'm goin' down with this boat, no matter how rotted and stinky it is

Well, here's something I never thought I would be writing, a farewell.

First, let me start by saying that I'm always available to poke on Discord, I'm pretty easy to find since my username on there is "chobittsu".
Second, Mermaid's Wrath will be immediately moving operations over to our Discord, I pulled it outta mothballs so there will at least be SOME place to discuss and troubleshoot any problems;  https://discord.gg/p9577yBj

Now, that being said, do not consider either of these to be endorsements of the frankly ludicrous idea that Weegee has cooked up with deciding to close these forums. These are only desperate alternatives that I can rapidly deploy while a solution is found, or hopefully, Weegee realizes how insane this idea is.
Discord is prone to data leaks and information harvesting as well as numerous security problems, just a quick google search can point that much out. And speaking of google, what will happen now when someone is troubleshooting a problem, googles it, and gets a forum redirect to WoWS with a message of "Oops, sorry, we torpedoed our own community, lmbo, go download discord"
Games older than WoWS still have their forums intact, and active, so Weegee's decision here SCREAMS of ulterior motive.

But in any case, just in case things DO actually close and are forever lost, I wanna thank you, each and every one of my 128 followers and anyone else that wanders through here who are too many to name.    I can't remember how many years I've spent on this forum, how many hours I've spent goin' back and forth in discussions with you all. Joking around, posting memes, hot takes on the latest tomfoolery of this company and praising them on those rare occasions when they do something right... for all those years, I've considered this forum my home, even if I haven't been around much this past year or so.  The friends I've made here, such as @LittleWhiteMouse and @Lert... they're family. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't have to put up with Mouse's special brand of memes, or shake my head at Lert getting into another accident and using up one of his nine lives.
And I've met so many wonderful people, like the "golden era" NA team of Pigeon of War, Femennenly, Gneisenau, Niko_Power, even Hapa_Fodder, whom I famously butted heads with on the reg but came to see as an equal while the volunteer moderation team was built (guess he needed someone from the other side of the fence to help spot transgressors).  Not to mention the dozens of rank and file users around here, some I even got to meet in person like @YeOldeTraveller, and some who we all miss dearly like Dseehafer.
I've been a mod maker, a privateer, a supertester, a volunteer moderator, event staff, even a contract artist working for Weegee itself, short-lived though that was...   All of that happened because of the forum.
As much as I groan and complain, I'm not willing to let all that be for nothing, I intend to stay and fight, and be one of the last ones out the door when they start shoving people towards it.  With any luck, during the time between July 28th when they lock down new posting and October 31th when they bring the servers down they'll see what a huge mistake it was and we'll be allowed once again to be who we are; forumites