Berwyn's original author definitely wanted to finish writing him
A lot of people want to finish stuff, the problem is that not all of them actually
do. The original companion thread had an actual bullet point about this:
We want people who will be responsive and on the ball. If a major plot scene requires your input as a writer because of something your companion might do, you're expected to be relatively prompt about it. Otherwise, people are going to write for you, and as above, it's irritating for everyone involved. Keep in communication.
I don't know Berwyn's original author (HugsAlright I think?). I actually liked his work considering that I liked Berwyn, the little bit of him that was there. But him and Quin were extremely underdeveloped, with Qin's author (BubbleLord) at least patching him up and working on lots of different projects, meaning he still does stuff for the game even if it's not Quin related and he keeps communicating that.
If Hugs really has serious mental problems then I feel sad for him. No, really, I do. But the rest of the world doesn't stop and at some point the question of Berwyn has to get a definitive answer: Are you still working on this and will we get something to code in the near future?
It seems the answer was no. And as much as I hate it I think it was the right call considering that no one else wanted to actually pick up Berwyn on a permanent basis.
Berwyn filled a niche which is now unfortunately empty. But in the end there is one immovable fact people need to accept: There are many people (on here and on other, far less civil, complaints forums) who want stuff. "I'd like to see X in game!" is a really easy thing to say. Actually writing X is hard. It gets worse because NPCs are supposed to interact with each other, companions even more so than normal. Someone not doing
anything slows down everyone else working on related projects.
This sucks for Hugs personally but letting this continue would've sucked for a lot of other people. Knowing how long he's been AWOL would be helpful but considering it was quite drastic to remove him entirely it seems he was completely gone for at least months on end.