I know this is probably a shocker to all of you who saw the F-List notification to get here, or to those of you who've known me since then who stumbled upon the journal title first. First of all, before I begin, I want to make it clear I have absolutely no shade towards F-List, or anybody who uses or moderates the site. I've just abruptly decided to put my own account to rest. I know this is a massive shock to probably everyone who knew me over there, which is a lot of people, as I've been around for ten years. No, I was not hacked, I was not blackmailed, coerced, threatened, or anything of the like. All of this was done deliberately by myself. It was a really difficult decision to make, as I'm going to be leaving behind a good chunk of people I knew over there, as well as potential RP partners, but this was something I felt I had to do.

Anyways, let's go back to where it all started. One evening on October 26th, 2014, I was a sophomore in college, 19 years old, and I stumbled upon F-List through somebody's FA page. It may have even been a day or two earlier, but that was the very date I created my first OC, my only OC, which would be Elex. It wouldn't be until another year when I had an official ref and art of him. Until then, I just used Smeargle porn I found on e621, going as a default Smeargle. I spent hours upon hours of my free time back then ERPing and interacting in different chat rooms, spamming ads, finding more and more partners to roleplay more and more lewd scenarios with. Needless to say, I was a hyper-horny little shit, as I'm sure many of us were back in our late teens, early 20s. A lot of time has passed since then, and with that, my interest in RPing has dwindled more and more. Yet I found myself coming back to it daily, way too much, and I would only idle in case any potential interesting RP partners hopped on, be it profiles I bookmarked, or new faces who piqued my interest approaching me. I was at a point where I wasn't actively approaching people anymore, and avoiding setting a looking status ironically to avoid being flocked, as I've accumulated a shit ton of bookmarkers at this point. As of this very moment I'm typing this, the Elex profile sits at 50965 views and 409 bookmarks.

Maybe a month or so ago, I sat myself down and I really thought about it. None of this was healthy for me, especially at this point. The more I thought about it, the more I realized I quite literally had some kind of obsession with being present on the site, with ERPing. Yet, in reality, I wasted so much of my time sitting on my ass, waiting to hear from certain people on the site, idling about, hardly getting any if not no action whatsoever recently. All of this I brought upon myself. I know for a fact I'm capable of doing so much more in real life. Truth be told, this was something I've had on my mind for a while, yet I hesitated for the longest time. And why? Because this was where it all began, where Elex was created, where my very identity within this fandom, that I've grown to love with all my heart, was born. And also because of that wretched feeling of "But what if I miss this person being online today?" At this point, none of this matters to me anymore, and so what? There is much more important stuff in my life than a cyberfuck session. I've ultimately decided that I want to find a more productive hobby, going back to what I said about being capable of doing much more. I want to contribute more to the fandom than sexy RPs; I want to pursue doing art again, at least give it a try. I've been thinking about how I initially planned on doing so, but I've had a difficult time committing to that grind. And for those of you wondering why I never made an announcement prior to deleting, that was kinda the point. I wanted to make some jaws drop, I wanted to catch some people off guard, because you never know what can happen, or what the next day could be like. You never know when that one cool regular you see in the store, or that one online friend who's online every day, will be the last day, so reach out to them while you can. I'm not going anywhere personally, just breaking away from one platform.

Fortunately, over the time I've existed within the fandom over the past decade, I've made more of a name for myself, be it through the art I've commissioned, or just through interacting with others within the community. I have an overwhelmingly supportive friend group, who I feel I owe my life to; y'all know who you are~ And all of these things I realize I'm never going to lose by no longer existing on F-List. These are far more important to me; my friends, my followers, my gang, you all mean everything to me. Some of these friends I've carried over from F-List as well, which is really damn neat. I'm not truly losing anyone, and I'm most definitely not losing myself. I'm simply just letting go of something that's been holding me back from being an even better version of myself. I'm sure people are going to ask "Why don't you just take an indefinite hiatus and leave the account intact?" Truth is, I've tried. I kept coming back to it. Every. Single. Time. I need to cut myself off completely, or this cycle is going to repeat over and over and over again. If I know there's something for me to come back to, I'm going to keep coming back to it. Again, I was 19 at the time I started RPing and using F-List a ton. The site undeniably opened up a whole new world to me. I'm going on 30 this year, in not even two months. I'm more mature than I was, and I want to take this decade of my life much more seriously than I did the previous.

Reflecting on my interactions back on F-List, I know some may be disappointed I'm gone, while some may be glad I'm gone. I won't hold back on admitting I was certainly a pest and didn't have a positive reputation amongst some people I interacted with. To those people, I sincerely apologize for my behavior. I took out a lot of my frustrations with personal experiences on the site on people who didn't deserve it, and I'm definitely responsible for burning a few bridges that shouldn't have burned. I've pestered others for RPs and grew distant towards friends I've had for years over there, became increasingly unresponsive to messages, and admittedly this was because I was miserable. I'm sorry again to these people, from the bottom of my heart. However, I've maintained a good number of friendships with others on the site at the same time, and some of which I have over on Telegram or Discord. If anybody else on F-List wants to keep in contact with me still, you can reach me on Discord with the same username as my FA, or through a note if you're on FA. Just let me know who you are if I don't recognize your name. Chances are I probably won't be ERPing, or seeking it anywhere near as much as I used to. But I'm still happy to keep in touch with those of you who were genuinely interested in me as a person.

Elex is NOT going anywhere, I am not putting the character to rest. Elex is still my OC, and with that, while I understand I singlehandedly don't hold a lot of power over this, I have not, will not, and do not give anybody permission to roleplay as Elex, or use any of the commissioned art of him I paid my own money for, as references for their RP profiles. That being said, anybody you see as Elex is NOT me, as my decision to step away from F-List is final. If you see anybody doing so, it would really mean a lot to me if you'd redirect them to this journal in hopes that they respect my wishes. If you truly like my Smeargle, the least I can ask is that you respect the man himself.

Exiting, thank you for the decade of memories over on F-List. Some experiences were chaotic, some were wholesome, some were funny, some were sexy, some were worthwhile. I'm never going to forget the lot of you I met over there, including the profiles I got to know that no longer exist, and the times we all shared. Also, I appreciate each and every one of you who are still sticking with me to this day. We're going to make even more memories down the line. With how much I've been working lately, I'm going to work towards affording going to more cons, because having been to my first three, I've had some of the most enjoyable times of my life being around the fandom in person. To all of you over on F-List, keep the footplay channel poppin' for me, and stay well! I'll remember you all.

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tl;dr: I'm leaving F-List behind after ten years to focus on things that make me happy, and MAYBE pursue my dream of being an artist, or streamer, or something else I find genuine enjoyment in. F-List basically became an obsession that's been holding me back. Elex, the character, is not going anywhere.