I just want to take this opportunity to say my sincerest goodbye to all my fans and foes alike. You know who you are.
This is an outlet to share a part of my past with everyone, as well as thank a bunch of extraordinary people I have had the pleasure of getting to know in one way or another throughout my time spent here. My time on this site wouldn't have been the same without them. This post is a final farewell. I have spent a long time putting this together. There is a lot of closure to be had for the years I have spent on here every day.
I would like to honor the people I have had the pleasure of getting to know well. I like to take an outgoing approach with my faith. If it can affect just one person in a positive way, it would be well worth the effort. At the center of my faith is gratitude for Allah and the people around me. Without the grace of Allah and the support of others, my experience on this site and life in general would be much different.
It's strange how we all come here just to have a good time, but things happen along the way that changes us for the better. I started playing this game back in 1998, but I didn't start looking to play competitively until 2007. The first site I got involved in was PokeBeach. Their site was limited in terms of gaming capacity, but the environment was friendly. I became a prolific player on the ladder. It was a way of sharpening my skills in the game. The ladder was an addiction for me because there was no limit to how much I could play. The more I played, the better I got as a player, which only led to me wanting to play more. I was able to develop my game in a short time largely due to the volume of games I would play on ladder. Now everyone knows me as the best UU player in the history of Smogon.
I was the kind of person who liked to keep to myself and interact with friends. Some of the things I have done could be interpreted as having an air of egotism attached to them, including posting this. That was never the driving force behind my actions. It was just a label some people might spread based on their expectations of the motivations of someone they had never spoken to before. My viewpoint on it is that everyone has different courses of action they can take. It is the choice of each individual if they want to sow a seed of encouragement or destruction. I try my best to do the former and surround myself with people who do the same. I do have to thank people who disrespected me in the past because I feel like they motivated me in ways I could not on my own.
Well, I guess that's the end of it. When one chapter ends, a new one begins. My involvement on Smogon has felt in a lot of ways like a winter vacation. It's been a long stretch of time where I've spent it doing whatever I pleased. That kind of situation isn't permanent and I never expected it to be. One thing I truly believe in is to leave a place better than you came. When I first came here, not many people knew me and I didn't immediately have anything special to offer to the community. Now that I am on my way, I can only hope I had the kind of positive impact that so many people had on me. There's a lot disrespectful comments made in the community, and I haven't been an angel more than the next girl. At the end of the day, you have to think about what you personally want to get out of this site. If nothing else, the one thing you can take out of this post is to treasure the time you are here. That's the last point of this post for me: It's to look back and enjoy all of the memories.
Have fun and Allah bless. The WhiteQueen. Out. Forever.