The failure of one community almost 20 years ago lead to me coming here in the first place. It was traumatic to lose all that, and my friends there. Some of them are here but we don't talk anymore.

I saw the redirect to some cesspool of hatred and the other hiccups. Brought up fear in me. Being weird is terrifying. Especially when you're young and small and all you have is your tiny little island of acceptance. And anyone else that knows wants to hurt you. That's been buried for so long being on this safe stable island that I about forgot it existed.

The hiccups are causing people to provide avenues for users to follow them on other platforms, as if before some cataclysm. I don't read the forums or the chats or whatever. I'm learning by only reading journals. I don't really know what's going on. But the fear is real for other furs.

I don't think FA will fail. It is a staple for a community with a pretty good amout of money and a good deal of smart and benevolent people. If one person was a keystone to the whole thing, Im sure that the torch can be picked up. FA seems to be simple compared to other sites. It's easy to say there's something great going on here and the clout of being in charge here would be insane, weilded smartly. Dragoneer was a hell of a benefactor.

I forsee, at worst, a slow death brought on by a sell-off to some big company that tries to pay wall and monetize every aspect worth seeing. Even if it ends up like this a little bit, I can understand. I almost never do nice things for free anymore as that's basically my entire business. Doing nice things for people and getting paid for it.

Even if FA does somehow become a pixel stain on the wall of the internet, it's not likely that you're going to want to follow me anyway where I go. I'm not so sure I'd continue with the furry community at all. I'm a busy dad with a goldfish attention span and my own business to run. Social acceptance and artistic exploration are the last things on my mind. I'll miss you all, but in the meantime I think we're gonna be here awhile.