A set of drawings for the lovely @TheRedBabyFox over on twitter

Back when I rocked dialup-only, furry art was a luxury, especially considering that many Internet plans back then were not "unlimited", including the one my family had signed up to, so for me, furry stories were the only inlet I had into the fandom, either from what few furry newsgroups there were, or from...

Mia's Index of Anthro Stories

It's tragic that my attention span these days has been all but whittled down to nothing, but in my youth it was easy to spend an entire evening with my clunky hand-me-down PC poring through story after story of fictional fluffy critters and their adventures. Even with my eventual loss of focus, this stuff defined me and my perception of what the fandom and the worlds of furries could be.

As my mind recovers from predatory social media, and I return to exploring the Old Web, I'm reminded of how fragile the Old Web can be. Mia's Index remains online to this day, but it was not a hosting service for these stories. It merely linked to them. After decades of time passing, the vast majority of those links are dead, pointing to files or even whole domains that no longer exist.

What happens to culture when its authors are not there to maintain it? A person may pass away suddenly, and their personal domain will lapse into non-payment, shortly to be swallowed by squatters. Data preservation is so vital. It's not a one-off act, but a continuous lifestyle that is handed off from one person to the next. Sites like the Internet Archive are precious, and individuals who dutifully fill M-Discs with archives of the things that matter to them are doing the Lord's work.

Gawds, I am such a sap.