(NOTE: This journal was carried over from the previous iteration of SoFurry as the updated version of the website no longer offers support for user journals. As such, some verbiage may seem out of place.)

This will be my last journal ever posted to SoFurry. I'm not going anywhere, not that I am aware of at least. SoFurry is however. This iteration of the website is shutting down after the July 4th weekend and everything will be imported over to the new SoFurry Next website, which does not support journals. (My content is already there, so I don't need to worry about this, though I suspect because this website doesn't support multiple pictures as one art submission like the newer site does that I might have some cleaning up to do.)

I remember when this place was new. I remember it vividly, because there was a lot of heated discourse on all sides. Prior to being known as SoFurry this place was "The Yiffy Story Archive", or just "Yiffstar" for short. I very fondly recall signing up on Yiffstar because it was a website that was purpose-built to host furry writing... and only furry writing. "This hole was made for me," in other words. When the switchover to SoFurry happened in 2009 and Toumal and the staff announced that the new site would be expanded to allow for art, animations, music, and photography there was a lot of unrest. We lost something that day, and I don't think the gravity of that ever really sank in. Yiffstar's identity was "the place to go for furry stories" because FurAffinity was and always has been total garbage for hosting text-based content and none of the other sites that have come and gone over the years were able to assert themselves as "the new Yiffstar" because every single one of them were also Swiss Army knife websites that had options for everything and because of it fell into the "jack of all trades master of none" pit. I have no proof of this claim, it's just a hunch, but I often wonder if becoming the go-to place for stories back in the day was unintentional genius because back when Yiffstar was created bandwidth was still a concern and transmitting plain text was a hell of a lot less resource intensive than serving up images.

Despite the rebranding enough people clung onto this place to the point where even as "SoFurry" this website managed to retain its reputation as being the centerpoint for fiction in the furry fandom. With every upgrade, every overhaul, and every rebrand however, people fall off as dead weight is shed. Yes, old submissions are coming over... but the people who made that content may not. Private messages, comments, shouts, those sorts of things are also not coming with us on the ark. A 16 year long chapter in the history of this fandom is coming to a close, and I suppose in a way that's the textbook definition of bittersweet.

I am not one to talk, I suppose. I joined Yiffstar so long ago that when my original account was brought over into SoFurry my registration date fell outside of the server's nexus time so rather than show a date my profile had that ambiguous "joined a long time ago" message. But, I intentionally destroyed that and now it just says 2023. In the grand scheme of things it's not very important to me though because obsessing over join dates and using that as some metric of who is and isn't "in" is stupid. That's weird Something Awful goon behavior. Besides, a join date doesn't really mean much of anything now because if you actually know who someone is their join date is a poor indicator of "when they joined the fandom". Take user "dmfalk" for example, I saw him leave a comment on the recent global announcement regarding the imminent shutdown of this website and that's the only reason he's fresh in my mind right now. I know who that person is, you might actually know him too. His SoFurry join date is 2011, but I know for a fact this guy's been around since the mid to late nineties; just as long as me. Though, if you did not have that prior knowledge you might read his page at a glance and assume he's only been around 14 years. So, join dates are meaningless. I'd even go as far as to say that submission dates are meaningless too because if something is good enough then it just becomes "timeless" and the exact date when it was posted is insignificant. Republications can happen too, anyways.

A good number of people here are upset over the sudden change to SoFurry Next and I'm having flashbacks to the original fiasco of Yiffstar becoming SoFurry. To all of you who came to SoFurry first and this was your original home within the fandom, this message is for you: things are going to be okay. Yeah, the change of scenery is going to suck for a while and there's a whole other interface you'll have to get used to. But it's the same website, and most of the things here that you've enjoyed over the years will be on the new place too. It's staggering to think that there will be stories hosted on SFX that were once originally uploaded to Yiffstar two whole decades ago. In that regard, Toumal has really done an impressive job preserving the important parts of this place. In the biographical section of my personal website I remarked that SoFurry is the only website I decided to post my writing to when I returned to the fandom for the simple reason that I trust Toumal. He has never mired himself in weird controversies (that I am aware of) and when I was dealing with the mental process of coming to terms with deciding to depart the fandom a decade ago he had my back and was nothing but supportive. When I was at my worst and feeling like I had to just walk away from something I truly cared about, he was there for me. There's a reason why I stepped up to the plate and claimed SFX's gold-tier supporter badge; I believe in the project, because Toumal has done this once already and I believe he can do it again.

I will see you all on the other side. If you see this before the switchover happens you can find me on SFX at: https://sofurrybeta.com/u/Viscosisaurus