## It Started on Valentine's Day

Fedl began as a Valentine's Day special. A small server, a silly name, a handful of friends who wanted a place to hang out and play games without the noise. It wasn't supposed to become anything. But it did — because it filled a real gap.

Gaming communities are loud. They're full of memes and cliques and, often, genuinely toxic behavior. I wanted the exact opposite: a quiet, supportive space where people could show up, be themselves, and game. So I built it around a single, non-negotiable principle.

## The One Rule That Matters

The entire philosophy of Fedl comes down to one line: zero tolerance for toxic behavior, total support for the people there to game. That's it. No endless lists of what's allowed and what isn't. No gray areas to lawyer your way around. If you're here to bring other people down, you're out. If you're here to game and be kind, you're home.

That rule is easy to state and genuinely hard to run. It means actually moderating, not just posting a rules channel that nobody reads. It means having a mod team that cares. The result is a community where people feel safe enough to be themselves — which is the whole point.

## The Powered-By-Next.js Detail

There's a fun little technical footnote to all this. I connected the site to Discord using a Next.js API route — a single API route that acts as a bridge between a beautiful, hand-built website and a fast, modern Discord community. It's a reminder that the community tech stack doesn't have to be ugly or bloated.

Every time I build a small bot or a little integration, I'm reminded how far "cozy internet" has come. You can stand up something thoughtful and homey with a few lines of TypeScript and a clear vision for what you want the space to feel like.

> Toxicity isn't a personality trait; it's a choice. And we don't have to make room for it.

## Why It Matters

The internet can feel huge and hostile. Fedl is my small argument that it doesn't have to be. You can curate the noise out, you can set the tone, and you can build a corner of the internet where people actually want to spend their evenings.

Growing a community is slow work. You earn it one good conversation at a time, one game night, one person deciding to stick around because the room felt safe. That's the real devlog — not the code, but the thousands of small moments that turned a Valentine's Day joke into a home.

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