So. SoFurry is back up and alive, after what is probably what, 12 months? 18 months? of downtime?

SoFurry used to be my preferred website to upload furry stories because there was a large® demographic of furries there who specifically read stories vs artwork. Nowadays it seems the pendulum is so hard swung towards visual art, with things like VRChat focusing entirely on visuals (and to a lesser extent, auditory) and websites such as Twitter/BSky catering for pixels-on-screen with specific limitations to post length.

Even on here, uploading each chapter to InkBunny is an utter pain in the arse. No matter what file type I upload, the formatting (specifically of italics and bolds) don't carry over which means I have to use InkBunny's own writing tools to italic and embolden every single sentence that requires it. And I can't use CTRL+B or CTRL+I like any other 21st century writing program!

This is vs the dumpster fire website that is FurAffinity that happily embeds my story in a window without the need for me to reformat it. Yup, it's way easier for me to upload each chapter to FurAffinity!

SoFurry at least did keep formatting when I copy and pasted chapters. However it still required tweaking, but it was worth it: I would get 10x the engagement on there vs here or FA.

Sadly, I think SoFurry has been down for so long that there is no longer a large userbase. Well, I say large, I believe the userbase was already small if not quite active and bustling, but I believe most people who have waited and waited for the website to come back on have simply moved on to other websites.

On the last note, I'm a little disheartened. The story I write is purely for myself, and not for views and comments, but the juxtaposition between my stories (which have taken hours and hours and hours of work and craft) and a visual commission I purchased is night and day: 700 views and 90 favourites on one picture, vs maybe 80 views and 15 favourites on five separate chapters, one of which is a spicy sex scene, so it's not even NSFW vs SFW!

Still, I can't blame people. Stories take time and patience, and reading is becoming less favourable to the instant gratification of stunning visual artwork. Don't get me wrong: The state of furry art now is awesome and I'm happy the fandom has so much visual talent. I just wish people gave the stories a go, too.