Happy Fediversary to me. I still cannot believe that it has been 9 years of my life on here. I feel old.

I remember that I wasn't going to join up but then I discovered SLC which was very lenient and allowed most content which I needed at the time after twitter practiced shadowbans on me without telling me. Twitter was a miserable place to be and I'm glad that I jumped off there when I did because it would only get worse after I left and didn't really look back.

It's ironic that free speech platforms like SLC end up being more tolerant than leftist or corporate platforms Facebook and Twitter. I didn't have to be so afraid that I'd be ban for saying the wrong thing. That is really important. A lot has changed since those days, I've had a few accounts on different instances, we've lost SLC and FZP, we moved to activitypub over ostatus. I started out on GNU Social and moved to pleroma. Had a lot of teething problems with mastodon and pleroma and other software like it.

One thing that has remained consistent for me is that I have spent most of that time as a moderator. I started on SLC as a moderator after a wave of users after my wave came over. I then moderated SLC and FZP together. Then I started to moderate SPC. I would moderate all three but we lost SLC and FZP around this time. Since then, we have lost SPC and so now I just moderate/admin SPW. I am extremely grateful to sun for continuing to let me moderate SPW, for entrusting me with moderation and for hosting us. I wouldn't be here without him continuing to provide these services for us and for being a great guy. Thank you, sun.

I am also one of the few here to be fortunate to have found love on the fediverse. Anything is possible. The fediverse has really shaped my life here. I have had so many good conversations, and I am fortunate to have known so many of you on here. Many we have lost along the way, I miss them. Others I cherish even though I don't say it enough. It is humbling to me that I remain tolerated or even liked on here. I appreciate this. Thank you for making my experience on the fediverse better, for getting me through some of the hardest times in my life. It is the community, it is the people and the conversations that matter most. I hope that this has made me and continues to make me a better person.

From here, I think that I would like to make it to another year and then we can celebrate 10 years. That would be special as I didn't think I'd make it this long.

Thank you, fedi. For the good conversations, for the laughs, for getting me through hard times. For the memes, for those times we shared reading books or films or games together. For the kindness, for being able to learn and share opinions with each other. I hope we can continue to have more of these things and to continue to associate with each other. These are the blessings that we give to each other, that I have been given here.

To celebrate, I shall share the remains of Tintagel Castle with you. We love castles here. Long live castles.