hello, my name is eloise. I'm not really sure how to start this post as it might be quite long, contain sensitive subjects, and most likely will be in the wrong category since I haven't used the website for about 3 years.

i'm sitting on my couch right now, right next to where my desktop used to be in the mid to early 2010s. putting this in perspective, I was once a 9 year old child who spent 99.99% of their time on the internet searching for a place to feel loved and welcomed.
I'd always had been scared and confused in that time, I lost my father for a while, I was in a struggling home and didn't go to school.
being stuck on heavily moderated and separated communities left me in a state of isolation on the internet, i had no platform for speaking or communicating with other people my age in any way shape or form. my favorite video game had shut down and I had lost a sense of comfort I needed so desperately.
I found this website in 2013, and looking back at my life it defined a part of me that I couldn't imagine anything else filling the void of.

if you've been here for as long as me, somewhere you have a private message or a reply directed at you in a poorly formatted angry rage. I changed my name about every other day, I had several usernames and most of you might remember me as XxJaylaxX. I was stuck on discovering my sexuality, my gender, the way i talked....I compulsively lied about every aspect of my life when I was 9 to 13 years old.
whether I was mara, lana, jayla, renn, or whatever name I had come up with that I so felt suited me and my emotions at the time I was probably here.
I was an angry child, but to a community of just as lost children they treated me equally with open arms.
this was my life, my home.

it's 2020, almost 6 years later, I'm turning 16 in a few weeks and....actually...sometimes i still log on here to reminisce on old messages, there's so many of you i probably owe an apology to. so many of you i'd wish i still knew, and so many of you that moved on to be bigger and better people.

I could never be more happy for a forums dedicated to a game of thrones themed club penguin reboot packed with guns, gangs, and drama.
I met my best friends here, that I still have the pleasure of talking to everyday.
yes, i can say i matured and became a more loving person than most of you came to knew. i'm filled with a sense of growth and nostalgia, i wish a few lost friends would be here to see me now. but I'm so happy to see new children that can have a new welcoming community to love them. sometimes I wish I could go back to our simpler times and relive it all again, so many faces and names that I still hold in my heart forever.
some of you that i've even found on instagram got married, graduated college, and got jobs.....which....is incredible.

it's such a great thing you all have here. damen was someone who unknowingly changed the childhood of a kid who needed it so much.
I wanna put this post out for jasmine, sarah, nela, dobe, and every person who made an impact on me who may or not remember who i am at this point.

I love this community more than words can describe. from the bottom of my heart, i am so happy to say thank you, for everything
I'm so proud of all of you.