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Well, this is it. The first day without Club Penguin and without the ACP. We did it, we made it to the end.
And that is absolutely heartbreaking. The ACP & the community as a whole was a part of our childhoods. To some the impact might have been small, but to others this community had a large impact on our lives and our development as kids and young adults.
I know, so far this post has been pretty somber. But this is only the end of this journey and the start of the next. I think B1 put it best:
I know that I’ve asked many things of you over the years, but if you’ll only do one of them for me, promise me this: fall in love, achieve success, tell your story, seek the places and the people who make you feel whole, and do it all a little more recklessly because of this experience which you and I have shared.
So, what happens next?
Before we depart for the final time I’d like to share some words of wisdom and end on a positive note.
Hang on to your friends
Hang on to the good friends you’ve made here, stay in touch. It can be hard at times, but it’s always worth the effort. They can help you through the difficult periods you may encounter in the future or they can share in the good times to come.
Each of us will experience life differently, but it’s always better to experience that life with others. Start a group chat, set a reminder to check in every so often, plan recurring reunions.
Half a year or so ago I managed to re-connect with some of the friends I had made years ago, when I was active in the army community, and it’s one of the best things to have happened. I know I can go to them for help and advice, and they know I will provide the same thing for them.
I’m not a fan of endings which is why this ending is going on for so long. I have so much I want to say, but I wanted to keep this post short. So, let’s end it.
As you finish reading this post I have one final request. I want you to think about your favorite moment in the ACP, or the army community in general. Think about it and write it down in a comment so you, and many others, can relive those memory through you. I’ll start:
My favorite moment in my 9 years of service was probably the first day I ever discovered the ACP, Jan 3rd 2008. The first time I came on chat and saw all of the other people who I would get to know and love (or hate :p) in the coming weeks, months, or years. This memory isn’t about all those people though, or even about the ACP itself. This memory is about the first time I met one of my best friends, my virtual brother as he so perfectly put it. This is about the first time I met Boomer.
My experience would be drastically different without him
, and his experience wouldn’t have been the same without me (though possibly easier at times I bet). He’s helped me out
with life advice when I’ve struggled and always had my back. He’s the most selfless person I know and one of the people I admire the most. I could say more, but many of you were lucky enough to have met him. Thank you buddy, for everything. It’s a memory I will cherish forever.
, and his experience wouldn’t have been the same without me (though possibly easier at times I bet). He’s helped me outAnd with that, I have one final thanks for everyone who will read this post and for those who will miss it. Thank you so very much for all of your time, all of your effort, and all of the fun times and memories you have created. Those memories will stay with you always.
~Defend Freedom, Preserve Justice, and Waddle On~
~Shaboomboom
PS: As one last thanks, I have to give credit to Alexa/Foxtails & Tori for proof-reading and critiquing this entire post. I’d be lost without them <3.
Filed under: ACP |
Awesome post Shab! Thanks for being a great friend, and a person I could always come talk to, if there was ever a problem, or something going on. I’m gonna miss you.
~Skipper233
Thanks Shab for everything you’ve done for ACP. I love y’all.
Thanks for everything Shab!
My favorite memory in armies has to be that day I rejoined ACP as a committed soldier. I’d spent time in ACP before but never really kept active until September 10th 2010. On this day, a late summer afternoon I had decided I’d go give it a shot and stay active, maybe even make it to leader someday. Because of that, along the way I’ve met so many people, some more specifically I made everlasting friendships with. Skloop, Twingy, Stew20, Mustapha, Wwebestfan, Smartuin, Cait, Ken, and Johny to name a few who I really connected with.
I’m proud of what we all did here and I’m glad it happened. I can’t thank you all enough for being part of my childhood. What we had was something great. In fact what we have is something great. It will always be part of us, and for that I’m a better person.
ACP Forever!
It was a hell of a time. ACP Forever!
Smartuin! It’s been a long time! Thanks for the good memories man!
I couldn’t make up my mind on a specific favorite moment, but I’d like to bring up one of my favorite posts on the site.
The Army of Club Penguin’s Mission
I think we can say now, with more confidence than ever, that we have acomplished our mission.
Thank you Shab, and even though there’s so much I’d like to say, I’ll save it for Oagal’s post.
Waddle on!
This post should be made into a page.
Kid Robot here, shared so many fun times and laughs with all of you and I’ll keep missing you all now that Club Penguin has ended. Waddle on, long live the DRACP, and keep the peace! Hope some of us will end up crossing paths some time in the future 🙂
Thank you for the fantastic post Shab, and even though I didn’t know you well I appreciate the work you did in the ACP.
As for a favourite moment, I can’t really think of a specific one. Flipmoo’s retirement event comes to mind, alongside the AUSIA division’s Green December in 2015 when we proved that we could still compete and perform with sizes not seen since AUSIA’s days of old. I’d also like to mention the day I became ACP’s leader alongside Albaro Lord, and the last AUSIA reunion on Club Penguin’s final day. This army has provided me with many fond memories that I’m sure I will not forget.
Thank you ACP, for the friendships and memories I’ve made here. Good luck to all of you! Continue to defend freedom and preserve justice.
Thank you for those final words. Boomer was a great leader and an even greater penguin to us all. And I’m glad I was able to check in every once in a while. To my brothers Cooldude and Sarster and many others who fought, laughed, got angry, and rose to the occasion with me during my ACP days back in 2008, I will always remember you as apart of my childhood. I may be a 20 year old man, but there are some things that will never die out in your soul. Never forget my brothers and sisters in arms…ACP forever!
Waddle on!
~ Pikachuboo ~
The most significant memory to me in my ACP history was first day I discovered ACP as a rogue on Mammoth in 2009. I met my recruiter “Pikachuboo” as well as several of the noobs I would come to fight with: Amnos, Monsterfully, every day against other rogue armies and the ninjas of Mammoth in the newly rehashed Dojo.
These noobs I met I fought with everyday, including our war against the Nachos that Boomer and Shab led us through.
Even after returning years later and being promoted to third in command twice and being made ACPRF Director as one of the founding members, nothing can compare to the way that ACP was during the heights of that leadership.
Being a part of ACP during it’s climax in undisputed power was an experience I’ll never forget. Thank you Oagal for making this army.
MY favorite moments in ACP were all the events i have taken part to. I really had fun in those moments. Tanks to all my ACP friends i met in this years!!
So many memories. WW3 was dope, especially the Battle of Breeze. War games are the shit.
hell yeah they are
Fr. I wonder if they would be good on any other games, now that club penguin is shutted down. And i’m not talking about cpps, or people who made their own cp games, like other games.
Shab/Dan,
I’ve taken a day since this post went up to process it – both to gather my thoughts in their entirety, and to find a time where I am sure I have enough time to do your words justice. I’ve since realized that both efforts are futile. I cannot possibly articulate how much ACP and the CP army community as a whole have meant to me as a person. I was an ACP soldier or veteran for all of my teenage years. The memories I have alone would fill a novel (or a few), and that’s not even to mention the lasting impact they’ve had on me.
Like I said last night or the night before, I am somehow not that sad, I think because ACP gave me more than I could have ever possibly asked for. Michael alone is a gift I can never hope to come to truly deserve. The rest of you – the group chat that for the past several months has been there full of laughs, life, and love – have been an invaluable addition to my life. I second everything you say in this post about that group chat. What a good thing. What a good thing, to have so many people to hold on to in the following months and years post-ACP. It would be a very different thing, to watch my childhood die and to not be able to say I had anything to show for it.
I will value not only the friends I’ve made here, but what my time in ACP did for me as a person. The way I talk, many of the hobbies I have, what I’m studying in school – those all have roots in ACP. Again, I cannot hope to list these things or do them justice in a mere comment, but they are numerous, and they are significant, and I don’t know where I’d be without them.
I don’t think I can choose a favorite memory in ACP. The part of me that loves ACP as an army, that loved being an ACP soldier, wants to name a battle or a political move, but honestly, I keep returning to the people. I’ve already mentioned how Michael is a treasure, but so many more – you, Lillie, Kieran, Eric, Alessa, Tori, Klug, Ken, and many others – touched my life in varying ways, all significant. So there are many, many moments with those people that stand out to me as favorites.
(Honorable mention: the ACP forums in 2009ish. Also, any time someone wrote a story and everyone got SUPER into it. Both of those times, it was really nice to come together as a community about something other than the fighting and the politics – both of which were also great, but both the forums and those story crazes showed that there was more tying us together than just CP – and that’s why the death of CP is a blow to the community, but not necessarily the end.)
I don’t have enough time to properly respond to this post or to tell you what it means to me. Not in one comment, anyway. Luckily, I have plenty more years to talk about this with you, Dan, and I am more grateful for that than I can possibly say.
Anyway, I’ve got to finish this up, because I’m sleepy and because it’s getting pretty lengthy. I specifically kept my replies to others’ posts fairly brief so as to save up my words for my response to this one, and, well, I guess I succeeded.
To Dan, I say thank you. For this, and for everything. To the rest of the ACP community, I second Shab’s messages. Hang on to each other, even if you depart from this site and xat, in whatever ways you can. We’ve all spent so much time here – we deserve to keep the people we’ve met here and the relationships we’ve formed here.
And thank you, all of you, a million times over, for making ACP what it was. For making ACP the greatest CP army of all time. For making ACP a place where I and other kids and young adults could grow, find a place for shelter, find a place to thrive, grow into themselves, and learn to live and learn to love.
This is Foxtails for the final time, I suppose. I was honored to be a part of this community.
Best,
Foxtails/Alexa
<3
The loss of something as irreplaceable as the CP army community is a difficult concept to comprehend. On one hand, there is the sadness that comes with the end of something so incredible and unique. Knowing that every day that passes is one day further into a future without such an integral part of so many of our lives is certainly not an exciting thought for anyone. However, on the other hand, there is the appreciation for the fact that I, and many others, have something so difficult to let go of.
As someone who has always reacted extremely poorly to change, I have always wondered about the day the army community was dissolved. Part of me always believed that I would live to regret finding armies in the first place, but as the end approached, I quickly realized that this would not be the case. More than anything, I am grateful for the eight years the CP army community has given me. As someone that never really contributed all that much, my career as a soldier is less than memorable and despite the years of dedication and love I had for armies, ACP specifically, it is most certainly not the highlight of my time here. My belief is that the people we are and the people we become are the products of the experiences, memories, and moments we go through in life and I can easily say that most of what I am today is thanks to my time here.
In 2009, I had no expectations for the army I was shouted at to join by a bunch of green penguins on Mammoth. I saw it as a short-term spring/summer hobby that would have no real significant impact on my life. Still, as it always seems to go, that is the opposite of what happened, as here I am eight years later, struggling to think of a single aspect of my life that has not been impacted by this community.
The height of my career was in the first half of 2010, but still, the highlight of that year came at the lowest point in my career. In the second half of 2010, I met my two best friends. The first, Buck, came over the word “selfie” and the second came as my saviour during a dramatic fight with the first. The second also happened to be the legendary Foxtails which was pretty cool for someone as irrelevant as I was.
In 2011, the game completely changed for me. At this point, I was almost completely uninvolved in the army aspect of ACP, but that didn’t stop me from spending a lot of my time on chat. Somehow, I had found myself in this fantastic new friendship with Alexa (Fox) which really blossomed after she decided to kill me in a novel she was writing. About a month into the year, though, she disappeared and didn’t return until June. Again, this wasn’t something I thought would be a significant friendship years from then, which makes it my favorite story to tell.
I see these comments about people who thank ACP for giving them the army experience and “a good run” and I think about the fact that I got all that and so much more. The summer of 2011 gave me more than I could ever deserve. My favorite story is the story of what is undoubtedly the most important friendship I have ever had, both in and outside of armies. Not only was our beloved Foxtails an incredible asset to ACP, she was, and continues to be, one of the most important people in my life. The person that I came into our friendship as had A LOT to learn, and Alexa/Fox was one of the first people to teach me any of it without even trying. For over 6 years, Alexa has been part of everything I have done. Every success and every failure was met with unwavering support, acceptance and love, even when I didn’t deserve it. Alexa is one of those special people who changes a room (virtually I suppose) just by being there. Not once in 6 years have I ever seen Alexa do something to hurt someone. She tries to lift each and every person that she interacts with up, regardless of the impact it has on her. She has given me more than I could ever thank her for here and I will always be grateful for our ACP roots, even though I hope we outlive them by a longshot and I hope that many others found a friendship like this. I think we have a pretty special thing going here though.
I can’t tell this story without giving large props to the guy who played a huge role in it who also happens to be the guy who wrote this post. Shab is another person who came out of absolutely nowhere and has been an incredible friend to me, and many others. In 2011, Shab was a legend and I was still not important, but he was friends with Alexa who was friends with me which meant that he had my back too. In one of our first ever conversations, Shab was so determined to help someone he barely knew and easily became one of the most genuine people I’ve ever met here. I often think of all that you have done for this army and the general community and if everyone is as painful to deal with as I am then I don’t even think a thank you is good enough. Unfortunately, that is all I have to offer, so thank you!
As we all got older and grew away from armies, we didn’t grow apart from each other. Alexa, Dan, Alessa, Eric, Noah, and Tori (which is in alphabetical order minus the two that I had already mentioned so that no one yells at me) you are all so important to me, I don’t even know where to begin here so I probably won’t go too far into it. I said it a few days ago and I’ll say it again and again until you all hate me but each and every one of you has done so much for me, especially over the past year or two. As is probably true for everyone else in this group, I feel like I had a unique connection to all of you that all had their own individual key moments and somehow it translated into one big fantastic family that I hope to keep close to for years to come.
Along with these people and many more, I am grateful for the diverse community of people, friends, enemies, and acquaintances that the army community allowed me to interact with. Before those green penguins in 2009, I was just an uneducated kid who figured everyone had as easy a life as I did. One of my favorite things about this community is how we are all a little (secretly or not) odd in our own ways, and I got to learn about a lot of different people. I also got to learn that not everyone had the blessings that I did. I feel like this year especially, it is becoming increasingly important to recognize the battles that people face every day and how important it is to fight for people, regardless of whether or not their struggles are yours too. The people I met here gave me names and faces to think of when I see issues such as bullying, homophobia, racism, sexism, and the endless list of problems we see every day and they helped me understand that their battles are in fact mine as well. Before ACP, I can’t confidently say that I would have been the person to stand up for any of these issues and perhaps that’s because I was like 7, but regardless, I believe that this community taught me important lessons of compassion, empathy, and the importance of having each other’s backs because we will always have people that try to shut us down.
If I had to choose one thing to say to everybody who was part of the army community, it would be to not let go. Don’t let go of the memories you have and the moments that changed your life, regardless of how silly or insignificant they seem. Don’t let go of the people who helped you during your time here and don’t be afraid to reach out to them. Don’t let go of the ones who you battled with constantly either because without them it’s hard to learn what you stand for. Most importantly, don’t let go of the feeling you feel right now, as you make one last comment here. Like I said at the beginning, it’s a gift to have something so difficult to say goodbye to, so appreciate whatever emotion you feel because it will help you remember how important this community was when you’re old and long gone. Don’t be afraid to say that the army community played a large role in your life or even a small one. All we can do now is reflect on the time we have had here and all that it has given to us, so even though we have to let go of this era, we don’t have to let go of all that it has done for us.
I might have gotten a bit carried away there, especially with the little political rant, but as the diverse community begins to disperse and we begin to forget the small moments we experienced here, it is important to acknowledge the successes of what we have done here. Of course, the army aspect is vital, as it is the ACP, but I figured I would take a moment to appreciate the fact that we all pushed each other to grow into kind, accepting people, and that this community had a profound impact on a lot of people who spent many of their most important developmental years here. The desire for social change and kindness that I saw here (besides a few unfortunate naysayers) is something that I think is pretty impressive for a bunch of kids trying to fight battles on CP.
My favorite part about this story is the fact that although ACP is ending, the story isn’t. The friends, many of which I regrettably did not mention in order to keep this under 2000 words, memories, experiences, and lessons that I have been able to take from ACP will be with me in everything I do. The way that I live my life will be inherently different than it would have been had I not joined ACP. I will always appreciate the army community and all that it contributed to my life and my growth. The work that was put in by every leader and every soldier created an environment that produced a lot of great things for all of us to carry with us for a long time. Above all else, I am grateful for the people that helped me get to where I am today, and I look forward to continuing to write this story for years to come.
<3
Yeah, your amazing friendship with Boomer really is filled with a lot of great moments.
Like the time you two accused me of being sexist all over CPAC for demoting an inactive leader of a failing army I helped build from the ground.
Given the trend above, whomever goes next I guess has to add at least 500 words more to their comment :p
This is a beautiful post, Shab.
You couldn’t have said it better shab.
I’ll really miss this and everyone here. Thank you guys for just everything. Maybe we’ll meet again, so just waddle on.
It was a pleasure knowing you, Shab.
Can’t believe this was almost a decade ago! I had some of my favorite memories being part of this, from chat to writing my stories. If you’re an old friend, don’t be afraid to say hi!
-Daniel “Pack”
I don’t know if you remember me, but we were good friends back in the day. I hope you’ve been doing well!
I do! You, Axevolution (I think that’s how it’s spelled) and Foxtails (Alexa) were the first people I met in this. I hope you’re doing well! It’s been too long- heck I’m in college now. This makes me want to go read all the stories people wrote again haha