In the interest of full disclosure, I must admit that never did I plan to undertake this task. Ironically enough, despite the countless times that I threatened various and sundry characters of Club Penguin Armies with the way that I would paint them upon the closure of the community (including the very line, “if in 12 months, I sit down to write the obituary for CP Armies…”), I wrote such things knowing they were empty threats for the sake of rhetoric. It isn’t that I never thought warfare would end — I did, however, hope to shirk this task off to someone else, because I simply did not believe I was capable. Having been quoted in B2’s closing comments to warfare, however, I do not feel it appropriate that I continue my silence.
When I retired from Club Penguin Armies almost two and a half years ago, finding something appropriate with which to close my retirement post gave me a perhaps undue amount of stress, but gave me it nonetheless. As I went on to note in the post, it was an epic task — someone like myself, who achieved so much of what I did here through writing and writing alone, had to find the words to bring my career closure. Tonight, I seek not to bring closure to my career, but to bring some closure to Club Penguin Armies, a community that, having surpassed its ten year anniversary only recently, will end more spontaneously than it took shape.
One of the most prominent heroes of Greek myth is Odysseus, the Ithacan king who, after sacking King Priam’s Troy, struggles for ten years before he is reunited with his wife, Penelope, and son, Telemachus. In that time, Odysseus undergoes a series of labors that no mortal should be able to accomplish, witnesses the death of the entire crew with whom he departed from Troy, and is presumed dead by the rich men of Ithaca as they attempt to court his wife and claim the kingship. Odysseus conquers all, however, and returns to his rightful place at the conclusion of Homer’s work.
One story arc which Homer’s Odyssey begins but does not flesh out, however, is what happens to Odysseus at the end of his life. In the novel, when he travels into Hades and finds the prophet Tiresias, he is informed that he will die a peaceful death in Ithaca after another long journey, surrounded by his people. Though we, as readers, are never able to see Odysseus in his older years, the poet Alfred Lord Tennyson imagined the older king in his poem, Ulysses (Odysseus comes into Roman myth as Ulysses). That poem you read above (I hope).
In the poem, Tennyson points out a curious but obvious facet of Tiresias’s prediction: the idea of dying in peace runs in stark contrast to the way that Odysseus has lived his life up until this point. The older king laments that his laws seem futile, his existence seems futile, as he dreams of the exploits and adventure and war that he and his men once knew. This life of conquest is the thing for which Odysseus lived and breathed, and now an aged man, he is distraught by the fleeting nature of his success.
I choose to give you a crash-course in Greek myth only because I find Tennyson’s poem to be shockingly fitting to the situation that the Club Penguin Army community is undergoing. One might even argue that bringing this community to a close would have been easier if the slow decline that had been evidenced over the past few years had continued to flesh out. Instead, we are given a final date, and told to prepare. I must admit that when I heard of this reality, I worried for the army community, and worried how willing its members would be to accept the end.
For many, the conclusion of this experiment will not be hard to accept. Those people did not have their lives changed by this addendum to an online game, did not meet people with whom they hope to one day unite, did not become enraptured with this game of war and politics that we created entirely for ourselves. We must accept that, when reflecting upon the experience that was Club Penguin Armies, not everyone will believe this to have been such an integral part of their childhood. That is a fair, and warranted, human reaction to a human creation.
However, I do not sit in that camp. I believe what happened here was truly special, and I believe it has far-reaching consequences in its effects on our lives and the lessons that it teaches us. Many things will cease to exist over the next few days: event posts, practice battles, wars, tournaments, contests, awards, political battles, tactics sessions, snowball warfare, the emoji-offs, the Top Ten Armies, Legends Inductions, editorials, multi-logging, inaugurations of new leaders and CEOs. The nature of all of those things is fleeting, completely and totally fleeting. No one here will have their life profoundly stamped by the fact that another CPA Central CEO will not be inaugurated (least of all me, I’ll be the first to admit that). And if that was all that we could cite as the evidence of what we have built, if the eleven-year city was leveled to rubble tomorrow, I would not extol the experiment that was Club Penguin Armies. However, as anyone who has read any piece of my writing knows, I do not believe that to be the case.
Nor, evidently, does the aged king of Tennyson’s imagination. The experience of what we have done can be taken with us: “Yet all experience is an arch wherethro’ / Gleams that untravell’d world whose margin fades / For ever and forever when I move.” It goes unnoticed in the utilitarian facets of armies’ everyday operation, but something important is happening here. For my own self, I know that the people I met here caused me to understand a broader range of exactly how the human experience manifests, and to challenge my views and place them into a more global context. In addition to that, they gave me a crash-course in the things I was good at. As I look toward college in the next few years, much of what I now consider studying can be tied, directly, to the experiences I had in Club Penguin Armies as a leader, politician, journalist, commentator and writer.
Club Penguin Armies changed my life because they gave me something to believe in, gave me a cause to support. And so often can we miss how necessary that is to the formation of an informed conscience and unique personhood. I joined this community when I was eight years old, held CPAC CEO from the age of twelve to fourteen, and continued to manage major community-wide conflicts even after my retirement. In all of those exploits, the impartial gods of Club Penguin Armies gave me one challenge: want it? Take it.
I propose that one of the reasons we have changed so many lives is because of the very nature of this teenager-based community. It is the same reason that many teen-run clubs or activities succeed, while those with the overreaching influence of uninformed adults fail. So many adults are willing to make exceptions for those younger than them, while teens are not. Teenagers hold one another to standards of unmitigated success, demanding no less than something near immortality. We surmounted challenge after challenge, seeking to top one another and stake our name in the history books, and no one was here to tell us we just weren’t good enough yet, just didn’t know enough yet, just needed more experience. What we didn’t know, we learned. And the effects have been profound.
Tomorrow my life will be little different than it was today. I have not thought about Club Penguin Armies with much interest for some three years now. However, I propose to you that we don’t say things such as this with much certainty because we never know when we are and are not “thinking about Club Penguin Armies.” That’s true in both immediate, utilitarian — for instance, every time I write a paper I am using the skills of rhetoric and persuasion that this community helped me to hone — and in a way that is more difficult to grasp.
Isn’t that the unfortunate nature of human existence? Much of what matters the most is the hardest to grasp. The solution, however, may not be to try and sift out the ways in which this community has changed what will become our adult lives; it may, instead, be to accept that we have been changed and live with full knowledge of that change. That human experience, shaped by the independent lives we led here, will be both profoundly good and profoundly disappointing — that is to say, we will be washed down by the gulfs, but will also see the Happy Isles. And, though B2 chose to note the piece of my doctrine on fear of the unknown, I must admit that I’m a little, perhaps a lot, less scared now. And I’m a little less scared because I came here and built something, did something, that no one my age should be capable of doing, and did it with people across the world whose existence would be unbeknownst to me otherwise.
And so, my mariners, as we head off now and embark upon our own ships and our own paths that will bring us far away from the overcrowded Retirement Island that we all now call home, let the record be etched here for anyone who wishes to know: from 2006 to 2017, thousands of teenagers united in a community that only we could understand. We fought wars, and researched phenomena, and debated and laughed and relished in this escape from the everyday. In the process, we built something truly special, the lessons of which will remain with us for our entire lives. 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. For my single self, I would not trade it for the world. True, tonight Club Penguin Armies will cease to exist. But as Tennyson writes, something more may, infact will, be done. And though we will cease to do these grand things together, we will do all with the knowledge that at one time we all shared something inexplicable, but electrifying. Not unbecoming men that strove with gods, huh?
B1
Filed under: Club Penguin Army News, Site News | Tagged: Club Penguin, Club Penguin Armies, Club Penguin Army, Club Penguin Army Central |
FIRST!
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Rofl
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Toxic!
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Cody!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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It’s been a long time! Damn, I wish I was there for the final days.
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ACP Forever
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Clovers for life
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Lmfao
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Water Ninjas Forever
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So many memories. Thank you all for an enjoyable childhood. Wish you all nothing but the best.
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!!!!!!!
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GLORY TO THE LIGHT
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RIP
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-Play the game right
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Your ability to write amazes me. Your connections are practically flawless. Truly an amazing community. That last paragraph really got to me. Good game everyone.
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This post was truly amazing (even more so if you really did essentially make it up on the spot). Please, please keep writing.
It’s been a pleasure everyone. Waddle On.
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This was a very insightful post and once again demonstrates that we all learn something new each and every day. Your post will forever illustrate the profound effects that Club Penguin armies will have on all of us, myself included.
It was a pleasure being with all of you and I will never be able to find a community that changed my life as profoundly as this. Darkness and loneliness symbolized my life previously but it is with great honor to thank every individual in this community for making my life meaningful. This humbling experience to take part in one of the most complex experiments ever concocted by a few people will surely be a reminder of the love and devotion we shared for each other.
God bless you all and good luck in whatever life endeavor you pursue.
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Rest in peace, sweet prince
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rip
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Sieg Heil Club Penguin.
This situation is becoming Mein Kampf
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This post was incredible. This place does have meaning, and it meant something to so many people. I’m glad we had the time we did.
Take care everyone. Oh and don’t forget, Waddle On.
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So beautiful….damn both you blues brothers are fantastic writers. This is a post that needs no tl;dr …
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I have often been critical of your writing over the years. I found it, in many cases, for lack of a better description, to smack of the intellectual falsity that comes from the very slight misuse of words — a nitpicky criticism at best, but one that always bothers me when I am reading. Words placed in a way such as to be technically correct but to sound off to the ear, be it because of their context or their connotation. For that reason I would edit your major releases, correcting one or two such words along my way, secure in my impression that I remained the best writer this community had ever seen.
This is the best piece of writing I have ever seen from you, better than anything I have ever written. Truly, you have one more title to add to your list today, one I never thought I’d have to give up.
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Claps
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FEAR THE WINGS OF STEEL-rdcp
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Excellent post, Blue.
It is true that what we built is special, and I do believe none of us would be who we are today without the CP Army community.
Farewell!
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Yoooo
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Thanks for making my childhood everyone.
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Brilliant post as ever B1
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Fight for Glory! – Teutons
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gas elm
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https://cumshooterscp.wordpress.com/2017/03/30/cumshooters-have-the-last-event-in-cp-history/ cumshooters retire armies off on cp.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5UUaryLubM Club Penguins Final Moments.
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Was a pleasure
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Made by me, in loving memory of CP Armies. Thank you for an amazing decade.
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Good luck ahead, everyone of you. Great article, B1.
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March on, forwards.
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AR // ACP for life.
Love all of you guys.
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An amazing post. This is really something special.
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Kik?
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wow blue you’re amazing at making CP armies sound like something bloody awesome and magical.. and i suppose it really was!
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I’ll miss you all.
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Idk what to say but….YAY!! We all made it to the end! Farewell, guys!
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I’ll truly miss you all, thank you for making my childhood what it was. i’m forever grateful.
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Heil B1
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Fight the Good Fight – Fear the Wave
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Through this entire ordeal I have not felt so close to crying as I do reading this post and the comments. Thank you for this, and thank you for all you’ve done for CP armies.
March on, all, in everything you do in life. And may you fall in love, achieve success, tell your story, and find the places and people who make you feel whole. Blatant plagiarism, but I couldn’t have possibly put it better.
Best,
Alexa/Foxtails
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Venimus. Vidimus. Vicimus.
To Serve and To Protect.
We Will Change.
Win or loss, we are still the boss.
Might of the Night.
Golds. Redemption Force. Club Penguin Generation Army. Striking Raiders. Night Warriors.
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I too would like to thank everyone who participated during these 10 glorious years of CP warfare. A community built upon a game that forged paths of youngsters around the world, it was one that prospered with the collective effort of thousands of diverse and creative minds. May you all succeed in life, and I hope during its long existence this community was able to give, if not a life- changing experience, then at least a few nostalgic memories of having fun battling other armies 😀 Adieu to you all,
Yeasy
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An amazing post to conclude this wonderful journey. Farewell.
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it’s a real shame i won’t be able to read your posts anymore
this was really something
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It’s been a pleasure to get to know every one i this community and I wouldn’t have traded it for the world
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Club Penguin was the defining part of my childhood. Armies were the defining part of my early teen years. I am glad to have closure on this chapter of my life. I wish all of you the best.
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What happened to the awards fuck?
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is it possible that armies will return in club penguin rewritten?
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Hey. Adro3 here, long time since I’ve been on here. 🙂 I was very sad when I heard about the fate of Club Penguin and it reminded me of all thte great times I had as as member of the CP Army community from 2010-2014 as CEO of SMAC, leader of Team Gold and a prominent member of several other armies. I left this whole thing a year or two back because I was growing up and had much less time for Club Penguin in general but my time with you guys and the legends of the past (Pungy, Splasher99, Waterkid, Bepboy + many others!) I will always remember with great fondness. Thank you for the fun times and good luck in life!👍
-Adro3
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O hi
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What is the future of CPAC? Is this the last post…
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Thought I’d drop this here just to share some fond memories.
Club Penguin was our game, too.
Take care of yourselves, armyclowns.
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Oddly enough, it was the 100th compilation I’ve made since joining PR. It’s like fate decided it would end at a really big event.
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Win, Loss, We Are Still The Boss. Striking Raiders Forever.
I’ll miss you all.
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U kik discord?
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Yo do u fuckimg use kik
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no i just added people on snapchat idrc about kik anymo
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Discord?
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No
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Fuck
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no
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GOLDS GOLDS GOLDS GOLDS GOLDS GOLDS GOLDS
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I just want to thank a few people out there. I first want to thank Kyle for his amazing support. Also Toy for always being with me. I want to than VoYo who recruited me to this community. Fin was a great friend and really showed me how this whole process works. You will always be the most remembered. Red was amazing and I thank him for being a true friend. And one last person is Freezy66. He showed me what a true leader is. Thank you DarkWarriors. Burn the Light. -Daffy/Vinsin2
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It was only last week that I found out that all of this had now come to an end. This whole community was an indelible part of my childhood, I’m eternally grateful to have quarrelled, laughed, and cried with each and every single one of you. God bless.
“Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.”
– In Memoriam A.H.H. by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
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Cas!!!!!!!!!!!! 😢 I neve thought you would check back to see this! I really miss you, buf. Do you have kik or anything before l stop visiting this site?
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Cas………..
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Love you Casius Brutus ❤
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Miss you. x
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Glad to see you aren’t dead old friend, take care mate
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Cas kik me if you still have it. if not email me mikester.cp@gmail.com
https://polldaddy.com/js/rating/rating.js
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U god
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Not sure what to say other than fuck this community and everything stood for. I did however meet some great people here who I keep in contact with (Trey, Bam, West, Jester, Chrisi, Laoise, Wg, to name a few) and for that I am eternally grateful.
Going by what I was told, this community had become a mockery of its past self. People might argue that the community had “evolved” or “grown” somehow, but I severely doubt that. Over the years it has become a media-fueled farce. The act of intellectual discovery that fun once represented was replaced by one of greed, self-aggrandization and misplaced post-adolescent angst.
And now since it’s all over, dead and gone, I can gladly say that If I were to judge the health of the community over the last few years (including the year I was active, 2013) my prognosis would be “terminally ill”.
RIP you utter piece of shit.
-Daniel
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O
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A shithead is only capable of producing more shit through their mouth, you’ve proved yourself correct once again Daniel.
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A shithead is only capable of producing more shit through their mouth, you’ve proved yourself correct once again Daniel.
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No pics?
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Bam isn’t so great? Are you kidding me? When was the last time you saw a player with such an ability and movement with multilogs? Bam puts the game in another level, and we will be blessed if we ever see a player with his skill and passion for the game again. Boomer20 breaks records. Mchappy breaks records. Bam117 breaks the rules. You can keep your statistics. I prefer the magic.
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RPF is far from over.
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Subscribe and join Club Penguin Armies.
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If you want to be a part of the future of armies then join RPF.
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I haven’t been here in many years. God, I used to love this place. From the Golden Troops to SWAT to Cobra and the Water Ninjas. This was fun.
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Should’ve kept in contact!
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Ikr, wish i did
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What form of social media do you use now?
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#Pretzels ;P
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well i loved CP armies… i was a really big hopper
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DOXING IS WHY I LEFT.
This stuff is why I stopped going on those xat chats exc the NFL one there were crazy ppl trying to breach into ppls info even though it was never brought out on chats by a lot of ppl when I used to do that club penguin armies stuff. Those chats were mostly unsafe because there were two particular “Club Penguin Armies” up until cp closed at the end of march this year that were full of extremists and left winged white nationalist or far right Nutjobs. They were called the Nachos. They only had a few nice ppl. There were very few decent ppl based off my experience in that community online even though I used to visit the chats when I stopped doing cp because there were those armies I was most successful with that didn’t have assholes or allow them on their chats. I barely visited them even before cp closed after I retireds from cp. The safest armies chats wise in general were named: Doritos, Army Republic, Water Vikings, Ice Warriors, Sun Troops, Golden Troops, Dark Warriors, Global Defenders, Special Weapons And Tactics, Hot Sauce Army, Parkas, ACP, Ninjas, Green Team, Ice Vikings, Sky Troops, Water Ninjas, Black Bandits, Arctic Warriors, LOL Army, Ranger Troops, Romans, UMA, LT. Lot of ppl from the good armies have been threatened by the evil scumbags from the bad armies. But all the crazy mayhem started after 2013 started. The community became corrupt. Grudges were starting and stupid shit like that of course. I am Glad to have left by then.
But in the end these r the buds I will forever have respect for and hope to keep in touched withs on kik discord etc. Real great ppl hither. The ones im still in contact with. Even though I returned for the end of cp of course.
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I had been retired since 2015 before returning for the end.
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🐧
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Brothers, Sisters and Noobs like myself. We stood together through wars, turmoil and carnage against each other, competing to be the best. But all of us are one thing together, we are Armies, CLUB PENGUIN ARMIES! We had the best of times and now they shut us down and every other penguin that played this game. That doesn’t mean it’s all over guys. Find websites find people! Find yourself and who you are. Never give up and WADDLE ON!!!!
Love you all 😀
Your professional Noob and friend,
-Dark Lexicon
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Guys you realize you don’t have to give up. We have Club Penguin Island. I mean srsly? They came out with a new game and your gonna give up? I didn’t except this from Legends, CEOs and especially Leaders. I’m not saying your weak inside i’m trying to say, “don’t give up yet!” Please think about this. I beg you to keep CP armies alive once again and WADDLE ON!!!!!!
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As long as we have Club Penguin: Game Day! for the wii, it’s never over.
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Wow, truly sad. To come back and see my childhood hobby is gone. Thank you to the whole community and y’all have good lives. Proud to retire a member of Swat. Waddle on my friends.
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Does the ghost of Blue still haunt these halls? Paging Bluesockwa…
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RPF is far from over. The day CP shutdown we made the decision to host events on CPR. We planned to stay alive until May 2017 for RPF’s 10th bday. Thousands of new recruits joined. RPF has pioneered a new era. Life after death. We will do our best to preserve the history this community has endured. You will not be forgotten. (BTW we now use discord instead of xat)
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TLDR: RPF IS STILL ALIVE AND HUGE!!11!
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Elm sure — RPF is growing lmao. Not the community… no point in coming back if theres no one to fight. There are 4 armies and only 2 max more than 18 including RPF.
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jesus no lives
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i come back and read this once in awhile best piece blue1 has ever written
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how u doin
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Happy New Year! We are practically on course to enter the third decade of Club Penguin armies.
A new post on the Club Penguin United Nations website:
-Dee
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i am back bitches 😛
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the most awesome post in cpac
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