Did I Ever Say Goodbye?

Oh boy.

I don't think I truly said goodbye to you, Mibba. Not in the way you deserved. You're more like a glance in the rearview mirror to me these days and that sucks - it really sucks - but as bittersweet as it is that this site has gotten lost in the shadows, I have nothing but good memories.

I occasionally come here to read my favourite fics again, to die a thousand fiery deaths over my teen writing, to look back at some of the sweetest comments on my stories and half wish to go back in time because I never felt as validated in my writing than when I posted on here 6/7/8 years ago. Yes, my writing was awful but everyone made a point to comment and say nice things, and that pushed me on to keep writing so - oh god. I just remembered. I wrote my old stuff in first person. FIRST PERSON. Who was I?

I do still write on Ao3 although it's primarily fanfiction now, which would have shocked 18 year old me to her core. It's also a lot less frequent than when I was uploading on here because it's harder to wring words out of my brain. Maybe a part of that is the lack of feedback; everyone seems so much more embarrassed to really say how they feel now, we all take fics we love for granted. Maybe we've all forgotten how much work it takes to get words out on a screen. Even if the writing was horrendous, you could always count on people commenting on your story here.

Wow, do I sound bitter. That's not what I'm trying to do, I just wanted to highlight what I loved about Mibba. There was SUCH a sense of community. I made friends here; they made me layouts for my stories and we would talk all the time and, on one occasion, WROTE ME AS A CHARACTER INTO THEIR FIC! This was probably the first website besides myspace that I really, really got into.

So, this is it. A proper goodbye because I'm a sentimental git and I feel as if I owe this website a hell of a lot in terms of my love for writing as a hobby. Even if nobody is left here to read this.

Cheers for putting up with my whiny teenage self because lord, did I whine.

p.s. please don't delete this website because I really do like to come back and reread my faves.