Yup.

I haven’t posted on this blog for ages, and to be honest I’ve lost interest in Poptropica. I haven’t played an island since Mocktropica, and that was over a year ago. I don’t feel like I should take up an author spot if I’m just sitting here.

On top of that, I’m in high school now. Do you know how stressful high school is? Really freakin’ stressful. I’m taking AP classes, so I have to do well on the AP tests. There are so many standardized tests; I have to do well on those. Finals loom over every high school student’s head; I have to do well on those.

But now for the story of my life.

Prior to 2nd grade, I was a very shy kid. I rarely talked to anyone besides my parents and my teacher, and I had exactly two friends.

Then that all changed.

The year was 2007. I had just started 2nd grade.

I was on funbrain.com, a website I had discovered from a summer camp my mom had put me in a few years back. An ad for Poptropica was on the main page. I thought it looked cool, so I clicked on it.

That was where the adventure began.

Poptropica was brand new when I clicked that ad. I guess the creators really didn’t know where to advertise and decided on a website their own company owned. Back then, Early Poptropica was the only island, there weren’t these new-fanged GUIs, there weren’t episodic islands, there wasn’t membership, and heck, there wasn’t even a store yet.

When I beat the game (which, again, at the time was only Early Poptropica), I loved it, and on the next school day, I told all of my friends about it. Some of them loved it, and some of them hated it.

As time went on, more and more islands were slowly released. Shark Tooth, Time Tangled (which was never actually called “Time Lapse Island,” take note PHB), and <strike>Monster Carnival</strike> 24 Carrot all released in my 2nd grade year, and with time, Poptropica became more and more popular. I remember running around outside before school started with several friends I had made through Poptropica. We were all pretending to put bunny drone ears on each other. Good times.

Summer came and Super Power came out. It was right around this time the Poptropica Creator’s Blog came out. On the second or third day it was out, I sat on my mom’s computer, hitting the refresh button over and over again, waiting to see if anything would be posted.

Later that summer, Spy Island was revealed. I fell in love with the concept at first sight, and a few days into 3rd grade, Spy was released.

But apparently over the summer, some of my classmates told other classmates about Poptropica. So when I started 3rd grade, literally EVERY SINGLE KID IN MY CLASS PLAYED POPTROPICA. It had even spread to the other grades.

Which was wonderful, for two huge reasons. For one, my classmates were playing Poptropica. I finally had something I could actually talk about with other people.

The second reason was that everyone LOVED Poptropica. That meant that everyone thought the kid who had discovered it was the coolest kid ever.

That’s right. For a time, Tough Spider here knew what it felt like to be the most popular kid in the grade, and maybe the entire SCHOOL.

Again, time marched on. Nabooti came out, then Big Nate. The store came somewhere in here, too.

Astro-Knights came out. My Reading teacher (who was also the Computer Science teacher for the older kids) threw a party for us at the end of the year because we read enough books. The party consisted of going out to McDonald’s (as a 3rd grader, this was pretty exciting) and getting to play on the computers all day. When we came back to play on the computers, I didn’t see a SINGLE kid who wasn’t playing astro-knights.

Summer again. Long drought of no Poptropica islands. Counterfeit finally came out December of 4th grade. A few people left Poptropica; they were too impatient waiting for Counterfeit.

RTV. Mythology. Kids watched my friend with membership play it every day after school. Summer. Steamworks.

Then came 5th grade. *sigh*

We had a TON of homework in 5th grade. It was crazy. I had more homework in 5th grade than I do now in 10th grade. Most of our assignments were projects, on top of that. I just didn’t have time to play Poptropica anymore, and neither did my friends. So slowly, Poptropica – and my social life – faded. The one good thing that did come out of 5th grade was the revival of Pokemania. But that’s a story for another time.

I played Poptropica over the next summer, but it really wasn’t the same since I didn’t know anyone who played it anymore. But islands like Shrink Ray and Mystery Train and Game Show that came out around then were some of my favorites.

I changed schools for 6th grade, and I didn’t have time to play Poptropica anymore because the obsession in 6th grade was Minecraft. But again, that’s another story.

The summer thereafter was when I discovered Thinknoodles. If you don’t know him, he’s a youtuber who used to be famous for his “Road to Captain Thinknoodles” series, where he would put up blind walkthroughs of him trying to complete the islands. It was very entertaining, and kept me into Poptropica for 7th grade, when I changed schools again and lost the few new friends I had made in 6th grade.

At one point in 7th grade, I was looking around on the PHB and thought to myself: “You know what? I could do this, too.” I found what was essentially the Poptropica blog advertisement page on the PHB and looked around for a blog where help was wanted.

There I discovered PfD.

The PfD was “Poptropica for Dummies,” created by Magic Onion. The site has since been taken down, but it will forever be in my heart. Magic Onion held a competition where you had to write a story about Poptropica. The authors of the three best stories would get author spots. I wrote “The Adventures of Young Jumper” and ended up in 3rd place, which was dead last. But it was good enough.

This was where I met Silver Wolf, Spotted Dragon, Sticky Clown, and Perfect Dolphin. Silver Wolf and I in particular had common interests, and we became very close friends.

There were some, erm, issues with relations of people on the blogs, and people resigned and made new blogs. After all was said and done, I had resigned from the PfD and joined the PTFP – the site you’re on right now – where Fearless Fox happened to be a blogger.

That spring, Fearless Fox announced to us that he would be starting a story series called Poptropica Adventures which would feature authors and blog viewers as the main characters. I was really indecisive about my own character, and so I just asked Fearless Fox if I could co-author Poptropica Adventures. To my suprize, he said yes. From then on, I worked with him on the newly renamed Poptropica Universe, an ongoing story which featured Cool Smarticle (a then new blogger who I also became close friends with) as the protagonist. We became the best of friends, and Poptropica Universe was a huge hit.

Disaster struck on August 4, 2013.

I didn’t know what happened, and to be honest, I still really don’t know what happened on that day two years ago. But when I logged on to the PTFP, Fearless Fox had “resigned.” Apparently, he had a major fight with Silver Wolf who thought it was in everyone’s best interest to kick him off the blog.

This was incredibly hard for me to deal with, since Silver Wolf and Fearless Fox were my two best friends who I had met in the Poptropica blogging community. I felt like I couldn’t talk to either without taking sides, which just made Poptropica blogging awkward and almost painful. I didn’t help that I started 8th grade, a year where I only had 2 or 3 teachers who weren’t completely incompetent. To make matters worse, I was put in classes with very few of the friends I had made the previous year. I real life, I became irritable, grumpy, and depressed.

But things got better as time went on. I met new people and made more friends. I kept working on Poptropica Universe with Fearless Fox. Eventually, by November of that year Silver Wolf forgave Fearless Fox and readded him to the blog. It was the best birthday present I could have hoped for.

We continued to work on Poptropica Universe. I didn’t actually play Poptropica anymore. I don’t remember what islands were coming out around this time. The only real reason I was still on the PTFP was Poptropica Universe and my friends.

Fearless Fox left the PTFP a few months later. We kept working on Poptropica Universe, but not for much longer. Soon he became inactive on Poptropica Universe. I invited Silver Wolf to continue the story with me, but we only published one more episode.

I had moved on. I had completely lost interest in Poptropica and just stopped posting on the PTFP. I waited for Silver Wolf to fire me.

And waited.

And waited some more.

About six months ago, she emailed me asking why I hadn’t resigned. I told her it was because I had vowed to continue working on Poptropica Universe with her. That never happened.

And now here we are. Today. 10th grade. 2015.

The real reason I’m sure you guys read this entire post is because you want to know what will happen to Poptropica Universe. To be honest, I have no idea what will happen to Poptropica Universe. I’m never going to touch it again. It’s Silver Wolf’s now. She can continue it if she wants. Maybe she’ll open it up to the public and let commenters continue it. Maybe she’ll just publish the document that had Fearless Fox’s and my original plans up through the end of season 1. I don’t know. That’s her choice.

Now, <strike> just to drag this post out as long as I can </strike> I want to personally thank some people.

To all the viewers: You made my dream come true! Without you, the whole blog would have been pointless. You gave me an excuse to have so much fun on this blog for three years. Thank you.

To the new bloggers who joined since I became inactive: Hi. I’m that person in the author bar who hasn’t posted anything since the PTFP reached 100,000 hits. I didn’t get to know you at all. I wish you the best of luck on the PTFP! 🙂

To Sticky Clown, and all the variations on his name: Well, ya never had that contest everyone wanted you to host so badly. You were still a really fun person to be around, and you really added to the atmosphere of the PTFP. I will miss you!

To Spotted Dragon: I know this is about a year late, but congrats on landing a spot on the PHB! The PHB is the pinnacle of the Poptropica blogging community; It’s a huge honor to be on that blog. You totally deserve that spot! I haven’t formally talked to you in a long time, but I’m sure you’ll be blogging about Poptropica for years and years to come. You did so much for the PTFP. You were a great asset to the blog, and a great friend. 🙂

To Nameless Undefined: You left the Poptropica community not too long ago (at least, it doesn’t feel like that long ago). You became a good friend of mine towards the end of the road. Despite the drama with you and CS and email accounts, we stayed good friends. I hope your life treats you well. Maybe we’ll cross paths again in the future! 😀

To Cool Smarticle: Okay, all those walls of text about 5SOS and Luke in the group google chat got pretty annoying. xD In all seriousness, you were a really nice person to be around – really friendly, really funny, and really encouraging. I hope you’re grateful for being the star of PopU! XD I’ll miss you for sure! 🙂

To Fearless Fox: I have no idea if you’ll read this or not, since you don’t comment on this blog anymore and since you don’t reply to my google chat. But if you do, I just want to say thank you. It was SOOOOOO much fun working on Poptropica Universe with you – it was a defining part of my life for a year. I only have good memories of all the conversations we had; everything with you was fun. I cannot express how much Poptropica Universe changed my life. Once again, thank you so much for everything! I’ve missed you for the past year or so. Have fun with your life, aussie-foxy! 😀

To Silver Wolf: Wow. I have so much to say. You are the person who, without a doubt, I became the closest to on the PTFP. Our interests were so so similar that there’s no way we could have met and not become friends. 🙂 You completely changed my life. You felt like a friend I knew in real life, not someone I just met over the internet. Thank you for getting into Poptropica all those years ago. Thank you for joining the PfD. And thanks for adding me on the PTFP. If any one of those three things hadn’t happened, we wouldn’t be the great friends we were and still are. You’ve been there through thick and thin. We’ve had our fights, but in the end, we’ll always be great friends. I want to keep in touch with you, without a doubt. Don’t let yourself think otherwise. 🙂

Goodbye everyone, it’s been a great run.

So this is Tough Spider

Signing Off.

~TS