[FFML] Farewell, my adolescence

[XStylus]

I first joined the FFML back in 1999 (maybe earlier), and never left. 
Few may know or even remember me since I posted so rarely, but allow me 
to indulge in saying a few words nevertheless.

It's been a long time since I wrote or even read anything on the FFML, 
to be honest. All these years I've still retained my email subscription 
to it, and my email filters dutifully filed any incoming messages from 
it to an FFML folder I had scarely ever touched.

Why had I retained my subscription if I never read anything? I think 
perhaps it was because it was a small tether to a bright spot in what 
was an otherwise mediocre teenage life. The FFML provided me much joy, 
with material flowing frequently and freely, consuming hours of my daily 
life well into the decade thereafter.

Life has since gotten better in ways none of us could ever have fathomed 
back when the FFML first came about. Anime, our ultra-geeky little niche 
hobby, has since become hugely mainstream (for better or worse), and its 
on-demand accessibility for next to nothing is incomprehensible compared 
to back then.

The FFML is something that we will tell our grandchildren about as they 
watch anime on their phones and type their own stories via tablets with 
ubiquitous internet while riding in self-driving electric vehicles.

The closing of the FFML is bittersweet, like the passing of a friend. 
But that friend lived a life well lived.

[raises a glass of wine, 1999 vintage]

To the FFML.


-Troy "XStylus" Williams