Thread:Asdf Mapping/@comment-25588282-20170701155930

As many of you already know, as of today I am leaving mapping. It's a hard decision to make, but I've been thinking about this for a while. At first, I wanted to leave on January 1, 2017 but then I started up Aqua Mapping and I knew I had to finish that project first. This blog is probably going to be very long, so just telling you in advance.

When I first discovered mapping, I was an immature 10 or 11 year old. In 2012 I would google "history of Europe" or "alternate history" on my dads iPad to try to find history or alternate history videos. One day I found MervueMeringue's alternate history of Europe series and I watched all 9 videos in his series. (The 10th one hadn't been made yet). But I soon forgot about Mervue's videos, as it was not something that I thought was that important. I never would have thought I'd be making videos just like his myself.

Two years later, in August 2014, I was very bored on my trip to Scotland and England so I decided to doodle on a piece of paper I had found. Remembering Mervue's series, I started to draw up a map on paper and make different countries fight each other. I remember creating countries such as Pylia in Egypt and The Goran Empire in the Sahara, (which later became Pylion and The Ghuran Empire respectively). One day, using my parents computer, I made up my mind to find Mervue's original videos. Eventually, I found them again and I was surprised to see that Mervue had uploaded a 10th episode so I watched that as well. In the corner of my eye, I saw yet another video just like Mervue's but it was uploaded by someone else called "MrOwnerandPwner". I clicked on it, and that is where I began my entry into the mapping community.

I watched all types of Mappers - good mappers, shitty mappers, decent mappers - every video I could find. Some of my favorites were by MOAP, Miki, and Goldenrebel25. On August 29, when I had arrived home, I discovered TheFutureofEuropes Wikia. I stalked the wikia for over a month until I found a video made by MrAmericanMapper on how to start making mapping videos. From then on I attempted to make my first mapping video, which I uploaded (with Extratere's help) on October 24, 2014. On October 26 I joined the wikia (although I forgot my password and had to rejoin with a new account a day later) and the rest is history. I fought in one or two wikia wars, made friends here, uploaded videos, played map games, joined collabs like Trapped on Neterra, played minecraft, fought away Alts and helped de-escalate crises and eventually became chatmod, moderator, and admin. Twice I have in a way quit this community before, first when Mich was a massive cunt in March 2015 (we've made up since then lol) and secondly where I went inactive during the middle of 2016 except for on the wikia. I rejoined the community, made a new channel called Aqua Mapping, made new friends, joined mapping whispers, got into more conflicts and reached almost 850 subscribers. When I first joined mapping, I hoped to get only 50.

So much has changed from when I first joined. When I started, the most subscribed mapper had 2k, and now the most subscribed mapper has 20k. Although most of the people I've seen here come and go and most people that I knew at the beginning I don't know now, it doesn't mean I will forget any of the Mappers I've met here.

I'd want to thank the best friends I've made in this community, but at this point - when I've been here for over 2 years and 8 months - there are too many people I would have to list and I would undoubtedly forget many of them. So I can't do that. What I can do is thank you all as a whole for all you guys have done for me. Although this community has been really shitty at times, and believe me I've seen it at its worst, it always pulls through and is a fun place to be around. I have confidence that this community can do well and succeed. My one wish for the future of this community can be summed up in a single quote:

"Don't be jerks to each other. Please guys, if you could do only one of my requests, just do this one. You guys have been jerks to each other for no reason at all. If you've read down this far, you're probably not a jerk and you don't skip through a person's final goodbye message. So just don't be jerks." - Goldenrebel25, May 7th, 2015

I think that is a very important thing to remember, and now, even after two years it still holds truth.

Many of you may know this story already, but throughout my time in this community a lot of the time in my real world life has been pretty shitty. From November 2014 to June 2015, I was in a rough situation where I really liked this girl and she didn't like me back at all. She and her friends would verbally abuse me, tell me to kill myself, and shit like that but I was unable to get over her until summer 2015. This really fucking stressed me out and made my life pretty miserable at times, but always when I was sad the mapping community was there to help me out. Even after all of that ended, from September 2015 to June 2016, the worst year of my life so far, I was utterly depressed and had some serious issues going on in my head and in general was a very sad person. Again, when I was feeling down, the Mapping Community was there to make me laugh or make me feel happier. Although in the past year, my life has gotten much better despite issues with my mom, the mapping community was still helpful when I ran into issues in my life and I didn't know what to do. I know I can never forget the help that the community has given me.

Of course, you could always say that if I never was involved in mapping in the first place I never would have been in the situations where I would have wanted to kill myself. There is some truth to that, but the reality is I really don't know how true it is and how different my life would be without mapping. What I know for a fact that mapping has helped me a lot through my dark times, and again I can never forget that.

Some people say that internet friends do not last. They're not fully right when they say that however. Yes, I will likely never talk to any of you again or in my future years and by the time I'm an adult you all will be long gone living lives all over the world that I couldn't possibly imagine. But I promise that you all will live on in my memory. Whether I know you from messing around on the wikia or skype chats, from map games or from mapping whispers, from YouTube sub4subs or from Nationstates, from minecraft or from discord, from administrating the wikia or from google plus, most of you will leave a mark on me. Whether you were a fun person to talk to, or someone who could tell me about life in another country, or someone who I memed with, or someone who helped out me and I helped out them, or even if you were someone who just made me laugh, I will remember the fun times we had together and the experiences I made with you guys as a young teenager in the mapping community. And memories like that are much more important and harder to forget. Those things do last, and although the friendships with each individual mapper I met won't, it doesn't matter. In this community, I made memories that last a lifetime.

So lastly, why do I leave? There are many reasons. I am going to Israel tomorrow and after that my life will be extremely busy. In my junior year of high school, I will simply not have enough time to continue being a Mapper or to be around in this community that often. I'm not saying I'm never coming back, because I know I will check back here sometimes, but those moments will probably be rare.

But I don't think that's the real reason I am leaving. I've planned my leave for a while and I think I'm doing it now because it's time to move on in my life. I've been a mapper for almost three years and I'm much older than I was when I first watched MOAP's video that day in England. I think we all have to grow up at some point and for the rest of my teenage years I want to enjoy my life just being a teenager, because these are years that I can never get back if I miss. I only have two years of high school left and I want to make the most of them before I go out into the real world. I want to try to make more friends, meet new people, have more experiences, and have more adventures in life. I don't know if I'll succeed, but as of now I'm trying and that is what I'm going to do. And even if I fail, I'll be happy that I know I tried.

This is less of a goodbye and more of an entry into a new chapter of my life. I'm excited and I will miss you all (no homo tho miss me with that gay shit).

Goodbye everyone and have a good life. 