> FloodOS Version 2.6
> Flood detected
> EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY!

This game has, without a doubt, had the BIGGEST impact on my life. Without Flood Escape, I wouldn't have made my first digital drawing, my first drawing of a person, my first fanart, my first animation. Nothing would have happened without this game... but of course things aren't smooth sailing, not at all. There are some things I need to find peace with, somehow, and I think this might be the only way.

So, if you'd like, you can read about my time in this community and how it affected me. Some things might be heavier to read than others (as it is more for me to write as well), so keep it in mind.

Act 1: 2019 - 2021 (?)

In 2019, I discovered a cool video of a Roblox game I hadn't heard of. It was part of Gentleberry16's series of FE2 glitches and tricks. I'm not sure what caught my eye, I remember I had a sense of familiarity, and it might have been that I had watched another video previously that I had forgotten. For regrettable reasons, I already had Discord at this point (11 YEARS OLD LOL, THAT'S AN ENTIRE OTHER STORY) and I saw he had a Discord server, so pfft. Might as well join it, this guy seems cool!

That was where I had a lot of happy memories. I started playing FE2 with my first full ONLINE friend group (so scary!!), and eventually I would become a moderator. I was barely turning 12 so, well. I wasn't a good moderator lol. Not sure how that happened. Drawing fanart for him was my introduction to drawing humans (Warrior Cats kid), and I remember so many nights where I was up at midnight or pulling all nighters to talk to my friends and have to stifle my laughs. There was a Minecraft server I still have a picture of.

And I mean, this friend group and server really was special. I would complain about my dad a lot, saying he sucked and whatever, but I was really scared of him. I was always scared of him, and I wouldn't know exactly why until years later, but I remember my biggest fear at the time was he would take my friends away from me forever. And in the end, I was having trouble with real life. New "friends", the loss of old ones (Elementary was crazy, I thought I had so many friends and they ditched me the moment we started middle school? Rude.) and ever increasing problems with my father. During my first year of high school, I was suggested to do some "Spring cleaning". Clean as in cut off all my online friends because well they aren't reaaally your friends right? Especially if they're doing all these MINOR things that have been bothering you just slightly, or something. And that stalker? What if they're using them to spy on you hm? So, I did that. I left it all, actually. And I was shit talking over those stupid, tiny things that don't even matter at all now, so I kinda had it coming for me when almost no one cared I left. I was weird and annoying anyway so who gives a shit about Eve, right? Lol, I'm writing this partly because I always regret this to some level. None of what bothered me compared to what happened during high school, and honestly? We were all young. At the very least, I'm glad none of you were ever there when I was in high school, I'm glad you never had to find out how bad things with my dad actually were. I'm not strong enough to try contacting anyone because I'll genuinely start crying, lol, and I'm still really weird and annoying, for sure. That's cause I'm autistic though and usually I won't feel bad about being like that but recent family meetings have me on edge again.

If somehow any of you have found me, and this website, and this page, for what it's worth: I'm sorry. You can always try messaging me somewhere if you want to say hi, I won't mind. Just don't call me weird, and don't be surprised if I seem to forget a lot of things, they've only come back to me recently. Thank you for being my younger self's joy, thank you for being there during a rough time of my life.

Interlude: Unwelcome

Honestly there's not much to say here. It was shit. After leaving everything and everyone, I basically exiled myself from the community for the next 4 years. I hold a lot of guilt, and other issues... so when I felt that first regret after leaving, it just... started spreading. In a sick way. The reasoning for my self-exile went from kinda nothing to "I deserve this". FE2 always was one of my special interests, and it's unimaginable that I spent those years fearful, guilty, and barring myself from finding comfort in it, because I didn't deserve to love that game. And if that wasn't it, then it was because no one deserved to be unfortunate enough to see me again. And if not even that, I couldn't go back because I thought EVERYONE would know who I was and what I did. That they would torment me and chase me out again, because how dare I show my face where I know everyone knows I'm not welcome.

Act 2: Return

Before I continue, I should make a quick note that apprently I did actually play fe2 sporadically during my exile? I have no memory of it, but the stats don't lie apparently.

During my final year of high school, I took a Digital Art and Media class. Which gave me access to computers and MEAN wifi speed... and the first thought I had was "Could I play FE2?". So I did that. This was more of me just being curious about how my skills would be like with WASD controls in a 3d space; I previously played like 2 minutes of FE2 on my friend's computer like that a few years before, and I wanted to see what it was like again.

I was dogshit.

The controls felt so bizarre to me (mobile demon) I GENUINELY got scared that I missed the opportunity to ever be good at WASD controls, because I never played when I was younger. And then the school banned Roblox on the computers because of me, so I had to get my first laptop (for college work... totally...) to keep trying. I have a clip of me FALLING INTO THE MOAT IN CASTLE TIDES. MULTIPLE TIMES. BECAUSE I COULDN'T GET UP.

I need to backtrack though, because I think with the timing of some of these clips, some of this happened after I returned to FE2. SO HOW did that happen?
I think it was because Forsaken (Yeah. x_o) had it's first collab with Flood Escape 2. I actually had gotten a lot of my followers from Forsaken, so I thought a small doodle of Guide wouldn't hurt me. No one would know, right? So I posted that... and then I don't know. I made another art when he came out, because I was really excited seeing a character from my old favorite game, and I took a chance with tagging FE2. People really liked that art! And even though I had the small fear of being recognized still, I was comfortable enough to keep posting, and soon I was only posting FE2. That's how it started, that's how I came back.

And eventually, I did get recognized by some old friends and acquintances, and they never had an overt negative reaction. I felt like I was free again, finally home. And I made it my goal that I would keep making art and things for the community, like, kinda to absolve my past self? It's not great, but I was motivated by this urge to undo anything wrong I did before; I wanted to make people happy to atone for making people miserable. That's long passed now, I do everything now because I genuinely love FE2 and its community. You welcomed me in as an old friend when it mattered the most. That's something I'll never forget.

Wait, it's a loop?

So... something interesting I noticed in my time here was that a lot of the things that were happening were just repeats of what happened during my first time in this space, just on a larger scale? I found something familiar, decided I would join the community, I drastically improved my art, I made an animation that people wouldn't let go of. (See: Chime Meme, Sinking Town) Things only got crazier when I got indicted into FEHOAX... you guys are awesome. We started doing crazier things there, most notably contributing to Crazyblox 1x1x1x1. Nj got us the chance to work on it, leading to me storyboarding the intro and outro animations, making his pop-ups, and Jace doing some SFX work. It was REALLY COOL, and just kinda was surreal to me. I got back into FE2 because of Forsaken, and ended up kinda helping with a small part of the collab. And we ended up starting the Official Wiki with a few extra friends. That's a fun story for another page.

Final thoughts.

I LOVE THIS COMMUNITY... SO MUCH. I think I have genuinely grown into a greater person because of it all. I cannot express how much pain I used to be in, and how much of it was healed by coming back here and making new friends. That's not an easy title to earn. I adore you all so much, and I'm so so grateful for all of you. And of course, thank you to Crazyblox and the rest of the FE2 Dev Team for making and continuing this wonderful game. Peace to all.