Post by Mini on Feb 8, 2016 22:03:57 GMT -4
Empty, barren branches rustled slightly in the cold winter wind. A fluffy, fresh layer of snow coated everything. Snowflakes were drifting down slowly from the dark gray clouds above. The world was strangely silent in the way that it only ever was as fresh snow fell and blanketed everything. It was very early, so early that the first rays of sun hadn't even began to dance their way across the sky. The birds hadn't even started to sing their cheerful morning greetings to one another. It was better that way, though. The silence suited her just fine.
Crouched down in front of a large tree at the top of a small hill was a young woman. She was all bunched up in a well-worn looking black cloak. It was wrapped tightly around her, almost like a security blanket. Although it was slightly out of season, she was also wearing a rice hat that hid her hair from sight and kept the snow from falling on her head.
She hadn't bothered hiding her footprints in the snow because she had thought that nobody would be following her. It had to have been the absolute middle of the night when she had snuck out of the shrine. What she hadn't known was that a girl much younger than herself had heard her waking up in the middle of the night and seen her sneaking off into the darkness. Too young to know that curiosity often killed the cat, the small black-haired girl had followed the older girl from the safety of the temple and off through the woods and up to this hill. When she found the girl simply crouched down in front of a big tree with her back to the rest of the world doing what looked like nothing at all, she was understandably all the more confused.
"Hello?” she called, wondering if the other girl knew she was even there. When she didn’t receive an answer right away, she took a few steps closer. “Umm… What are you doing?" the young girl asked, pulling her borrowed brown cloak around herself.
"I should ask you the same question, little one," the older girl replied without turning around. Her voice was soft, but it sounded a little hoarse. “What are you doing here?”
"I heard you get up and leave in the middle of the night. I was worried 'bout you. You were real sick when you just showed up at our shrine out of nowhere a few days ago. I don't even think I ever saw you up an' movin' at all. The priestesses were real worried 'bout you, too. We all were, and then you just get up and leave in the middle of the night without saying anything?" the young girl inquired, creeping a bit closer to the other girl. "Are you okay?"
The other girl laughed quietly. "Am I okay? I wish I could give you a simple yes or no answer to that, but I'm afraid the answer isn't all that simple." With a bit of effort, the older girl pushed herself up and turned around. A messy braid of bright pink hair was draped casually over one shoulder. Her hat was dipped down so that her eyes were hidden from view. She was smiling a bit, but it didn’t look like a very happy smile.
"I don't get it," the young girl asked, tilting her head to one side. "How's it not an easy question? You're either okay or not, right?"
"You probably hear this a lot, but trust me on this - you'll understand what I mean when you're older. I'll try to answer your question, though. If you mean am I feeling better, then... yes, I suppose that I am," the pink-haired girl said slowly, walking towards the little one. "What's your name, little one?"
The young girl stared up at the pink-haired girl as if she was just now noticing her unnatural hair color. “Whoa. Your hair. It’s—“
“Pink, yes, I’ve noticed,” she said, shrugging. “And yours is black. Your point is?”
“I never saw somebody with pink hair before,” the young girl stated matter-of-factly.
“The pink-haired girl’s smile grew ever so slightly. “Fair point, I guess.”
“Oh! My name is Chiyo. What’s yours?”
The girl was quiet for a moment before she answered her young, inquisitive new friend. “I’ll tell you a secret, Chiyo. I don’t actually know my real name.”
Young Chiyo gasped. “What?? But how do you not know your name??”
The girl simply shrugged and shook her head. “I grew up an orphan. If I had a name when I was a baby, then I’ve gone and lost it. I’ve gone by lots of other names over the years. Only one of them has really stuck with me over the years, and even though it might sound a little silly, it’s the one my adopted uncle gave to me.”
“Well, what did he call you?”
The pink-hair girl paused to chuckle softly, perhaps at her own inside joke or reminiscent though. “He called me Mini, because I was so little and annoying but in the cute way, he said.”
“Mini?” Chiyo asked, making a funny face. “That is kind of a funny name.”
“Mmm, I suppose it is,” she replied, turning back towards the tree. “I’ve held onto that name for a long time now. Longer than a lot of other things I’ve held onto.” She paused to let out a deep sigh. “But I think the time has come for me to let go.”
“Let go? Of what?” Chiyo looked around to see what it was that Mini was holding onto, but didn’t see a thing except for the snow and the big tree.
“It’s complicated. I’m not sure that I could explain it all even if I wanted to.”
Chiyo scrunched up her nose again. “Grown-ups always say that. I don’t see what’s so complicated.”
Mini laughed at that remark. “You’re right. You know, I didn’t think that anyone would follow me out here like this, but I think in the end, I’m happy that you did follow me out here, Chiyo. All right. I’ll try to explain it to you.”
With a soft sigh, Mini reached out and rested her hand on the tree in front of her. “You see, Chiyo, I’ve been here a long, long time. Longer than I ever thought I would be. In the beginning, I never meant to stay so long. I’m not used to staying in the same place long enough to get to know anyone, let alone hanging around long enough to actually make friends with people. I try very hard to keep to myself, because I’ve learned the hard way that when you get close enough to people, then that means that in the end, they can end up hurting you worse than you ever imagined.”
The little girl’s countenance fell as she listened to the beginning of Mini’s story. “Hurt you? You mean, like, by hitting you or something? But if they’re your friend, why would they do that?”
Mini shook her head sadly. “No, not necessarily by hitting you, though I suppose sometimes that can happen as well. I’m talking about an emotional kind of hurt. People can say mean things to you. They can betray your trust. They can make you think that they care deeply about you, but then when you turn your back, they stab you right where it hurts the most.”
“Stab you?? Someone stabbed you??” Chiyo asked, horrified.
Mini laughed nervously. “No, no—well, no, that’s a lie. There were times when weapons were used... ah, but I don’t mean that I’ve been stabbed in the back for real in this instance. It’s just an expression. My point is that in my line of work, I have found that it’s best to keep to myself. It’s… It’s for the best, really. By staying here as long as I have, I’ve gone and done the one thing I swore I wouldn’t do: I let myself grow very close to some people. Closer than I’ve ever been to anyone. For a short while, I was even in love. Me,” she said, laughing sadly as she shook her head. “And I’m afraid that allowing myself to grow so close to these people has gotten me into a whole lot of trouble.”
Chiyo frowned. She trudged through the snow in order to stand right next to Mini, who was now resting her forehead against the tree. “But… having friends and being in love is a good thing, isn’t it? How is having friends a bad thing?”
Another sad smile spread across Mini’s face. She turned around and slid down against the tree, sitting down right in the snow, not seeming to care how cold or wet it would be. “It’s both a blessing and a curse. For a time, I felt that I was the happiest person on the planet. For a short time, I was able to simply… be myself. I was able to smile and laugh. I had a lot of fun. I didn’t have a care in the world. The people who let me just be myself and accepted me for it have my eternal thanks, even now. I don’t think that I even know enough words to express how truly wonderful it was to be able to live like that, even if it was only for a little while. But like I said, it… it couldn’t last forever, and it didn’t. That time has come and gone.”
Chiyo looked like she was going to cry. She stared down at Mini, unable to see her face since her hat was blocking most of it. “What happened?”
The pink-haired girl shrugged. “A lot of things happened. Some of it was my fault. Some of it wasn’t my fault. Some of it was no one’s fault at all. I suppose you could just say that life happened,” she started to explain. While she spoke, she picked at a loose thread on her sleeve. “We all grew older. People don’t stay the same forever, no matter your race or how hard you think you’ll stay the same. People grow up. They change. Sometimes they change for the better. Sometimes they don’t. All of us, my old friends… our personalities started to change. Some of us simply started to drift apart as our lives took us down different paths. Some of us met new people, and the new people slowly started becoming more important than the rest of us. Some of us found a place to truly belong, and we met special somebodies, and we settled down, content with our new surroundings and our new special people. Some of us said things or did things that we didn’t really mean, but the things we said or did were too harsh, too mean, or too hurtful to ever be forgiven. Some of us lied, and when we were caught in those lies, we kept right on lying. We lied ourselves up against the wall, and it blew up in our faces. Some of us didn’t know how to react or what to say, so we just kept taking the hurt until it tore us apart from the inside and pushed us so far past our breaking points that we might never be whole again. Some of us were too angry, too upset, or just too oversensitive to see how our own emotions were blinding us from reality. Some of us act like everything is okay and keep on smiling, when on the inside we’re exhausted and sleep deprived and all we want to do is cry and have someone hold us and tell us that everything’s gonna be all right, but we know that life isn’t that simple, so we just keep on going while we break a little more each and every day. At one time or another, we all said things we didn’t mean, but after a while, the things we said got worse and worse. Even if we didn’t realize it, we all started pushing each other away from each other. Some of us even did the hurting on purpose, because it made us feel better about our own insecure selves.”
“But if you said something mean and you didn’t mean it, can’t you just apologize?” Chiyo asked innocently.
“You can try, Chiyo, but sometimes, the people you hurt don’t want to hear it. Maybe they have forgiven you, but they still don’t want anything to do with you. It’s just easier for them to cut you out of their lives and go down their own separate path, leaving you behind wondering what went wrong and asking yourself if there was anything you could have done to have stopped it from happening. Sometimes maybe there was, but sometimes there isn’t a thing you can do to stop it, nor is there anything you can do to change how things stand. Sometimes that’s just what happens, and there’s nothing you can do about it, so you just have to learn how to accept the truth for what it is and just keep moving.” Mini paused for a moment, lifting her head up. She stared outwards and into the sky, which was starting to lighten up a little. “And that’s what I’ve decided on doing.”
“What? What are you going to do?”
“Move on.”
Chiyo tilted her head to one side. “So what does that mean?”
Taking a deep breath, Mini slowly stood up. “It means that I’m leaving this place, Chiyo. I told you, I’ve been here too long. I need to get away from here. This place… it means a lot to me, don’t get me wrong, but the time has come for me to move on with my life. I need to figure out a lot of things, like why I’m here and what I’m going to do next, and I don’t think that I can do any of that while I’m sitting around here. Everywhere I look, there are things that remind me of the past, and right now it just… it hurts too much. I keep getting distracted by my memories. I keep thinking of people the way they were before, and it makes me sad to remember that the way I remember them isn’t the way they are now. I’m stuck in the past, and that’s where I’m going to stay until and unless I untangle myself from this place and the memories of who I used to be. I’m not that person anymore, and the people I remember aren’t the same people, either.”
Chiyo felt a great sadness welling up inside of her, but she didn’t quite understand why. She had only known this strange pink-haired girl for a few days. Until today, she hadn’t even spoken to her. Why did it hurt so much to hear that she wanted to leave? “Miss Mini… are you going to leave for forever?”
Mini was quiet for a long time. Very slowly, she slid her hat off and gave it a little shake to brush the snow off of it. Without looking at Chiyo, she reached over and gently placed it on the young girl’s head. It was far too big for her, but it was cute on her. “I don’t know. All I know is that right now, I need to go someplace else. Maybe I need to meet new people. Maybe I need to be alone for a while and think about everything that’s happened. Maybe someday I’ll come back, but there’s just as good a chance that I won’t come back, too. I don’t know what the future holds for me.”
“But what if your friends come looking for you? Won’t they be sad to know that you’re gone?” Chiyo asked.
“I doubt that anyone will come looking for me. The ones who might know how to find me if they really need to.”
Chiyo pushed the hat up out of her eyes and looked up at Mini. The young woman shook her head, causing her braid to fall down the middle of her back. She finally turned to face Chiyo, and for the first time, the little girl noticed that there were tear streaks running down both of her cheeks. “Are… Are you sure your mind’s made up?” she asked slowly.
Despite the tears running down her face, Mini smiled and nodded. “There’s no reason to keep looking back when there’s so much to look forward to.”
Without another word, the pink-haired girl jumped high up into the branches of the tree, far higher than a normal human should have been able to jump. Just as the first rays of sun burst through the thick gray clouds, Mini threw her cloak off and spread a pair of leathery looking bat-like wings. Not knowing where she was headed, she jumped out of the tree and took off towards the rising sun.
I want to thank you all for the wonderful years that I've had on IYRP. I first started this website when I was in 9th grade, and that was eons ago. I started it because a new girl had moved to my school, and she was in my gym class. Nobody was really talking to her, so I made the initiative to strike up conversation with her. I'm so happy I did, because she's one of my best friends to this day. She's the one who introduced me to Inuyasha. Without her, there would be no IYRP. I never once thought that when I started up my own roleplaying page that it would once be the #1 Roleplaying site on all of MSN Groups. I didn't have any idea that some of the people I would meet would become my closest friends and turn into people I cared very deeply about, even though I had never met them face to face. I have met some truly marvelous people through this website of mine, and I thank you all for sticking with me through the years.
While it was my original intention to shut this place down, it has been expressed to me by multiple people that you wish for this place to remain open. This place means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. I am truly blessed that something I did could actually have an impact on so many people's lives. It might sound a little corny, but I mean every word that I say. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. I will never forget any of you, even if we haven't spoken in years. I have decided that my time as Manager has come to an end, but don't fret. I'm leaving you all in capable hands. Nayr has graciously agreed to watch over this small, crazy hunk of internet for me. Although I may be moving on with my life, that doesn't mean that I'm leaving forever. There is a chance that I'll still pop in from time to time, and if you need me, you can always email me. My email hasn't changed in over ten years, after all.
Thank you again. It has been one wild ride. I wish all of you all the very best.
Insanely Yours,
Mini
Crouched down in front of a large tree at the top of a small hill was a young woman. She was all bunched up in a well-worn looking black cloak. It was wrapped tightly around her, almost like a security blanket. Although it was slightly out of season, she was also wearing a rice hat that hid her hair from sight and kept the snow from falling on her head.
She hadn't bothered hiding her footprints in the snow because she had thought that nobody would be following her. It had to have been the absolute middle of the night when she had snuck out of the shrine. What she hadn't known was that a girl much younger than herself had heard her waking up in the middle of the night and seen her sneaking off into the darkness. Too young to know that curiosity often killed the cat, the small black-haired girl had followed the older girl from the safety of the temple and off through the woods and up to this hill. When she found the girl simply crouched down in front of a big tree with her back to the rest of the world doing what looked like nothing at all, she was understandably all the more confused.
"Hello?” she called, wondering if the other girl knew she was even there. When she didn’t receive an answer right away, she took a few steps closer. “Umm… What are you doing?" the young girl asked, pulling her borrowed brown cloak around herself.
"I should ask you the same question, little one," the older girl replied without turning around. Her voice was soft, but it sounded a little hoarse. “What are you doing here?”
"I heard you get up and leave in the middle of the night. I was worried 'bout you. You were real sick when you just showed up at our shrine out of nowhere a few days ago. I don't even think I ever saw you up an' movin' at all. The priestesses were real worried 'bout you, too. We all were, and then you just get up and leave in the middle of the night without saying anything?" the young girl inquired, creeping a bit closer to the other girl. "Are you okay?"
The other girl laughed quietly. "Am I okay? I wish I could give you a simple yes or no answer to that, but I'm afraid the answer isn't all that simple." With a bit of effort, the older girl pushed herself up and turned around. A messy braid of bright pink hair was draped casually over one shoulder. Her hat was dipped down so that her eyes were hidden from view. She was smiling a bit, but it didn’t look like a very happy smile.
"I don't get it," the young girl asked, tilting her head to one side. "How's it not an easy question? You're either okay or not, right?"
"You probably hear this a lot, but trust me on this - you'll understand what I mean when you're older. I'll try to answer your question, though. If you mean am I feeling better, then... yes, I suppose that I am," the pink-haired girl said slowly, walking towards the little one. "What's your name, little one?"
The young girl stared up at the pink-haired girl as if she was just now noticing her unnatural hair color. “Whoa. Your hair. It’s—“
“Pink, yes, I’ve noticed,” she said, shrugging. “And yours is black. Your point is?”
“I never saw somebody with pink hair before,” the young girl stated matter-of-factly.
“The pink-haired girl’s smile grew ever so slightly. “Fair point, I guess.”
“Oh! My name is Chiyo. What’s yours?”
The girl was quiet for a moment before she answered her young, inquisitive new friend. “I’ll tell you a secret, Chiyo. I don’t actually know my real name.”
Young Chiyo gasped. “What?? But how do you not know your name??”
The girl simply shrugged and shook her head. “I grew up an orphan. If I had a name when I was a baby, then I’ve gone and lost it. I’ve gone by lots of other names over the years. Only one of them has really stuck with me over the years, and even though it might sound a little silly, it’s the one my adopted uncle gave to me.”
“Well, what did he call you?”
The pink-hair girl paused to chuckle softly, perhaps at her own inside joke or reminiscent though. “He called me Mini, because I was so little and annoying but in the cute way, he said.”
“Mini?” Chiyo asked, making a funny face. “That is kind of a funny name.”
“Mmm, I suppose it is,” she replied, turning back towards the tree. “I’ve held onto that name for a long time now. Longer than a lot of other things I’ve held onto.” She paused to let out a deep sigh. “But I think the time has come for me to let go.”
“Let go? Of what?” Chiyo looked around to see what it was that Mini was holding onto, but didn’t see a thing except for the snow and the big tree.
“It’s complicated. I’m not sure that I could explain it all even if I wanted to.”
Chiyo scrunched up her nose again. “Grown-ups always say that. I don’t see what’s so complicated.”
Mini laughed at that remark. “You’re right. You know, I didn’t think that anyone would follow me out here like this, but I think in the end, I’m happy that you did follow me out here, Chiyo. All right. I’ll try to explain it to you.”
With a soft sigh, Mini reached out and rested her hand on the tree in front of her. “You see, Chiyo, I’ve been here a long, long time. Longer than I ever thought I would be. In the beginning, I never meant to stay so long. I’m not used to staying in the same place long enough to get to know anyone, let alone hanging around long enough to actually make friends with people. I try very hard to keep to myself, because I’ve learned the hard way that when you get close enough to people, then that means that in the end, they can end up hurting you worse than you ever imagined.”
The little girl’s countenance fell as she listened to the beginning of Mini’s story. “Hurt you? You mean, like, by hitting you or something? But if they’re your friend, why would they do that?”
Mini shook her head sadly. “No, not necessarily by hitting you, though I suppose sometimes that can happen as well. I’m talking about an emotional kind of hurt. People can say mean things to you. They can betray your trust. They can make you think that they care deeply about you, but then when you turn your back, they stab you right where it hurts the most.”
“Stab you?? Someone stabbed you??” Chiyo asked, horrified.
Mini laughed nervously. “No, no—well, no, that’s a lie. There were times when weapons were used... ah, but I don’t mean that I’ve been stabbed in the back for real in this instance. It’s just an expression. My point is that in my line of work, I have found that it’s best to keep to myself. It’s… It’s for the best, really. By staying here as long as I have, I’ve gone and done the one thing I swore I wouldn’t do: I let myself grow very close to some people. Closer than I’ve ever been to anyone. For a short while, I was even in love. Me,” she said, laughing sadly as she shook her head. “And I’m afraid that allowing myself to grow so close to these people has gotten me into a whole lot of trouble.”
Chiyo frowned. She trudged through the snow in order to stand right next to Mini, who was now resting her forehead against the tree. “But… having friends and being in love is a good thing, isn’t it? How is having friends a bad thing?”
Another sad smile spread across Mini’s face. She turned around and slid down against the tree, sitting down right in the snow, not seeming to care how cold or wet it would be. “It’s both a blessing and a curse. For a time, I felt that I was the happiest person on the planet. For a short time, I was able to simply… be myself. I was able to smile and laugh. I had a lot of fun. I didn’t have a care in the world. The people who let me just be myself and accepted me for it have my eternal thanks, even now. I don’t think that I even know enough words to express how truly wonderful it was to be able to live like that, even if it was only for a little while. But like I said, it… it couldn’t last forever, and it didn’t. That time has come and gone.”
Chiyo looked like she was going to cry. She stared down at Mini, unable to see her face since her hat was blocking most of it. “What happened?”
The pink-haired girl shrugged. “A lot of things happened. Some of it was my fault. Some of it wasn’t my fault. Some of it was no one’s fault at all. I suppose you could just say that life happened,” she started to explain. While she spoke, she picked at a loose thread on her sleeve. “We all grew older. People don’t stay the same forever, no matter your race or how hard you think you’ll stay the same. People grow up. They change. Sometimes they change for the better. Sometimes they don’t. All of us, my old friends… our personalities started to change. Some of us simply started to drift apart as our lives took us down different paths. Some of us met new people, and the new people slowly started becoming more important than the rest of us. Some of us found a place to truly belong, and we met special somebodies, and we settled down, content with our new surroundings and our new special people. Some of us said things or did things that we didn’t really mean, but the things we said or did were too harsh, too mean, or too hurtful to ever be forgiven. Some of us lied, and when we were caught in those lies, we kept right on lying. We lied ourselves up against the wall, and it blew up in our faces. Some of us didn’t know how to react or what to say, so we just kept taking the hurt until it tore us apart from the inside and pushed us so far past our breaking points that we might never be whole again. Some of us were too angry, too upset, or just too oversensitive to see how our own emotions were blinding us from reality. Some of us act like everything is okay and keep on smiling, when on the inside we’re exhausted and sleep deprived and all we want to do is cry and have someone hold us and tell us that everything’s gonna be all right, but we know that life isn’t that simple, so we just keep on going while we break a little more each and every day. At one time or another, we all said things we didn’t mean, but after a while, the things we said got worse and worse. Even if we didn’t realize it, we all started pushing each other away from each other. Some of us even did the hurting on purpose, because it made us feel better about our own insecure selves.”
“But if you said something mean and you didn’t mean it, can’t you just apologize?” Chiyo asked innocently.
“You can try, Chiyo, but sometimes, the people you hurt don’t want to hear it. Maybe they have forgiven you, but they still don’t want anything to do with you. It’s just easier for them to cut you out of their lives and go down their own separate path, leaving you behind wondering what went wrong and asking yourself if there was anything you could have done to have stopped it from happening. Sometimes maybe there was, but sometimes there isn’t a thing you can do to stop it, nor is there anything you can do to change how things stand. Sometimes that’s just what happens, and there’s nothing you can do about it, so you just have to learn how to accept the truth for what it is and just keep moving.” Mini paused for a moment, lifting her head up. She stared outwards and into the sky, which was starting to lighten up a little. “And that’s what I’ve decided on doing.”
“What? What are you going to do?”
“Move on.”
Chiyo tilted her head to one side. “So what does that mean?”
Taking a deep breath, Mini slowly stood up. “It means that I’m leaving this place, Chiyo. I told you, I’ve been here too long. I need to get away from here. This place… it means a lot to me, don’t get me wrong, but the time has come for me to move on with my life. I need to figure out a lot of things, like why I’m here and what I’m going to do next, and I don’t think that I can do any of that while I’m sitting around here. Everywhere I look, there are things that remind me of the past, and right now it just… it hurts too much. I keep getting distracted by my memories. I keep thinking of people the way they were before, and it makes me sad to remember that the way I remember them isn’t the way they are now. I’m stuck in the past, and that’s where I’m going to stay until and unless I untangle myself from this place and the memories of who I used to be. I’m not that person anymore, and the people I remember aren’t the same people, either.”
Chiyo felt a great sadness welling up inside of her, but she didn’t quite understand why. She had only known this strange pink-haired girl for a few days. Until today, she hadn’t even spoken to her. Why did it hurt so much to hear that she wanted to leave? “Miss Mini… are you going to leave for forever?”
Mini was quiet for a long time. Very slowly, she slid her hat off and gave it a little shake to brush the snow off of it. Without looking at Chiyo, she reached over and gently placed it on the young girl’s head. It was far too big for her, but it was cute on her. “I don’t know. All I know is that right now, I need to go someplace else. Maybe I need to meet new people. Maybe I need to be alone for a while and think about everything that’s happened. Maybe someday I’ll come back, but there’s just as good a chance that I won’t come back, too. I don’t know what the future holds for me.”
“But what if your friends come looking for you? Won’t they be sad to know that you’re gone?” Chiyo asked.
“I doubt that anyone will come looking for me. The ones who might know how to find me if they really need to.”
Chiyo pushed the hat up out of her eyes and looked up at Mini. The young woman shook her head, causing her braid to fall down the middle of her back. She finally turned to face Chiyo, and for the first time, the little girl noticed that there were tear streaks running down both of her cheeks. “Are… Are you sure your mind’s made up?” she asked slowly.
Despite the tears running down her face, Mini smiled and nodded. “There’s no reason to keep looking back when there’s so much to look forward to.”
Without another word, the pink-haired girl jumped high up into the branches of the tree, far higher than a normal human should have been able to jump. Just as the first rays of sun burst through the thick gray clouds, Mini threw her cloak off and spread a pair of leathery looking bat-like wings. Not knowing where she was headed, she jumped out of the tree and took off towards the rising sun.
I want to thank you all for the wonderful years that I've had on IYRP. I first started this website when I was in 9th grade, and that was eons ago. I started it because a new girl had moved to my school, and she was in my gym class. Nobody was really talking to her, so I made the initiative to strike up conversation with her. I'm so happy I did, because she's one of my best friends to this day. She's the one who introduced me to Inuyasha. Without her, there would be no IYRP. I never once thought that when I started up my own roleplaying page that it would once be the #1 Roleplaying site on all of MSN Groups. I didn't have any idea that some of the people I would meet would become my closest friends and turn into people I cared very deeply about, even though I had never met them face to face. I have met some truly marvelous people through this website of mine, and I thank you all for sticking with me through the years.
While it was my original intention to shut this place down, it has been expressed to me by multiple people that you wish for this place to remain open. This place means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. I am truly blessed that something I did could actually have an impact on so many people's lives. It might sound a little corny, but I mean every word that I say. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. I will never forget any of you, even if we haven't spoken in years. I have decided that my time as Manager has come to an end, but don't fret. I'm leaving you all in capable hands. Nayr has graciously agreed to watch over this small, crazy hunk of internet for me. Although I may be moving on with my life, that doesn't mean that I'm leaving forever. There is a chance that I'll still pop in from time to time, and if you need me, you can always email me. My email hasn't changed in over ten years, after all.
Thank you again. It has been one wild ride. I wish all of you all the very best.
Insanely Yours,
Mini
