Hello everyone. It has been a year now (awkward timing, sorry), and there are a few things I want to clarify. Mostly things I have seen some confusion over.
A lot of it is to do with the spreadsheet. I've seen a lot of rumours thrown around about it by people who never actually read through it, or are perhaps just misremembering it. This is mostly my fault, the spreadsheet is private these days, so there is no way for these people to cross-reference what they have been told or misremembered. Although I'm sure it is still floating around out there somewhere.
First of all, it was NOT a spreadsheet keeping track of all of the animals who died at SaveAFox. It was a spreadsheet keeping track of all of the animals that had ever been under the care of Mikayla and SaveAFox.
The spreadsheet showcased many, many animals that had been rescued and rehomed. Even if you don't agree with the idea of buying foxes from furfarms to place in sanctuaries or private homes (which I personally do not) Mikayla was responsible for taking in a lot of pet surrenders who had nowhere to go. I'm not going to sit here and say she never did good work. She did. Anyone who looked at the spreadsheet could see that. But I'm also not going to sit here and say that no animals were harmed in her care. They were.
The spreadsheet was an objective source, I documented both good and bad things. I did NOT insert personal theories into the spreadsheet. I did sometimes mention rumours that had some level of evidence tied to them, and sometimes share my opinions. For example, the arctic fox Oliver supposedly escaped and was replaced by another fox behind the scenes- there is some evidence tied to this, but it's very flimsy. I mentioned this on his tab, linked the evidence, and shared my own opinion, but made sure to clarify that I do not know the truth of what happened, and left him labelled as 'Unsure' instead of dead/escaped. Ultimately, wherever I could, I just put down all the information I was aware of, and left the reader to decide what they chose to believe. I was always careful not to foster misinformation- which I will touch on again later.
I also did not 'assume an animal was dead' when they hadn't been posted for a while. If they disappeared from the public eye I marked them as 'unsure'. EVERY animal that was marked as dead/missing was announced publicly as dead/missing by SAF (excluding Scotch, see below paragraph). Even animals who would have outlived their lifespan by now were marked as unsure, although they are certainly dead these days.
I cannot stress enough that everything on the spreadsheet was information that was publicly available online. Everything that came from outside sources (not directly from an official SAF social media page) was very clearly labelled as speculation (excluding things that I considered hard evidence, like the pictures of Scotch's dead body- and no, don't suggest it was ai, that picture has been floating around for years). If Mikayla ever did see my spreadsheet, she saw only the results of her own actions. And again, the vast majority of the spreadsheet content could be considered positive!
I have been asked why I made the spreadsheet in the first place, or where I found the time for it. The simplest answer is that it was a personal project, and I used my time on it as you would for any hobby. At the time I was thinking a lot about SaveAFox, you could say it was something of a special interest for me. And I like spreadsheets. I enjoyed making it, so I did. The better question would be why did I share it. I guess I thought people might find it interesting like I did, but also I wanted people to be aware of it all before choosing to support SaveAFox, especially financially. It's good to have extensive knowledge of the place you are donating to before you decide to donate. There are almost always skeletons in the closet, and I think most people like to be aware of them. We all want to know exactly what our money is going towards. I say all this as a former supporter of SAF.
Final word about the spreadsheet. No, it's not coming back, and no, you can't look at it, at least not in the state it was in previously. Why would you want to? Doesn't it seem disrespectful to continue to debate on the actions of a dead woman? MAYBE one day I can revamp it into a SAF specific spreadsheet. But I have no interest in doing that. I don't like that it fostered harassment, and I don't want that to happen again. I made it very clear that I did not want anyone mentioned in the spreadsheet to be harassed. I could not have stopped people from using it that way, but it still sucks that it happened.
Before the announcement, I actually did not know that Mikayla was being harassed online. Most of what I did was scroll through the SAF social medias, and I very rarely saw negative comments. In fact the most negative comments I did see were on her posts about horse riding (which I never even mentioned on here, because I don't have a problem with it)! So I did not know that my spreadsheet, which was intended for spreading awareness, was apparently being shared for the purposes of encouraging harassment. And I genuinely had no idea that the SaveAFox snark subreddit even existed. I don't use reddit and I never have, and no one ever mentioned it to me. I'm glad that place is gone now.
I never personally interacted with Mikayla, not even once. I did not message her, I did not comment on her posts, I did not harass her. All I really did was compile public information and occasionally make speculations using that information.
No, I never said that the harassment I received was worse than what Mikayla received, obviously. What I DID say was that the harassment that I had received was worse than what I personally had ever done to Mikayla (which, again, was nothing. I had literally not ever interacted with her once)
No, I never said I wanted Freya to be taken away from Mikayla and Ethan. In fact, I said the opposite.
No, I did not want Mikayla to die. I was very clear about this.
I've never tried to hide what I did. I did not change my bio or remove posts out of shame. I removed posts for privacy concerns, and as for changing my bio... It was kind of just a knee-jerk reaction, to be honest. Yes, my bio used to say 'saveafox callouts' in it. I took it out when I heard the news about Mikayla because why would I leave it there? I decided that same day that I wasn't going to do that sort of thing anymore. Especially when my blog was flooded with people who, ultimately, were grieving, I wasn't going to tell them they were wrong to feel that way. Although yes, I will say they were wrong for the things they did and said, there is no excuse for that kind of behaviour.
Despite what people may think, I also blocked everyone I saw celebrating her death (including a former mutual, yikes), and in the entire history of my blog I always tried to correct misinformation when I saw it. When someone came into my inbox calling Mikayla neurotypical, I reminded them that she was openly autistic. When people tried to say Mikayla didn't actually care about her animals, I pointed out that actually I think she did care, a lot.
The thing is, something I don't think people realise, is that I always firmly believed that Mikayla always firmly believed that she was doing the right thing. But intention doesn't negate impact. Not for her, and no, not for me either.
There is a reason I don't talk about animal rescues anymore. There is a reason the spreadsheet is private. I still don't believe that I, personally, did anything that was all that bad. But undeniably, it had an impact, although we'll probably never know to what extent. And that's not something I want to repeat.
A few other miscellaneous notes:
I DID NOT CARE THAT MIKAYLA HAD AN ONLYFANS. I don't believe I ever spoke about this, and it's because it wasn't something I felt the need to call out. Anyone I know who did talk about it DID NOT have a problem with her doing sex work, but were more concerned about her using animals as props in her sexual photos. But again, it's not something I ever personally cared to speak on, I support sex work (which, by the way, many of the people harassing/doxxing us did not!) and people can do whatever they want with their bodies. I had nothing to do with that old drive folder floating around that used those posts as some sort of 'evidence against her', and I don't know who did make it. I also didn't care that she did drugs. I don't think I ever even mentioned that.
Before the announcement, I had never heard of kazeolion before, I did not know who they were, and I barely know now. However, from what I do know now, I CAN say that I don't like them. I do hope they are safe though.
Additionally, I had never directly spoken to any people running blogs that posted about SAF, with the exception of isthedogawolfdog (who is fine by the way, their blog is gone but that is for reasons completely unrelated to SAF). I did contact several of them afterwards, to check that they were safe. Fortunately everyone that I've spoken to has confirmed that they are doing fine. I don't have a comprehensive list of every blog that was affected, and I haven't spoken to all of them, so if you have questions about anyone in particular send in a message or ask and I'd be happy to share what I know (leaving out any details, obviously).
Finally, I would like to reiterate that Ethan himself blamed reddit users and people that Mikayla knew in real life for the harassment that affected her so much. Blame was displaced by angry fans. Did tumblr have an impact? Undoubtedly. But as I said earlier, we will never know how much.
In the end... everything did blow over. People did forget about it all. Which is nice for us, but also kind of sad, in a way. As always, I send my love to anyone who was negatively affected by Mikayla's death.
Anyway, that should be everything, I think. I wouldn't say I'm trying to clear my name or whatever, I know this won't change anyone's opinion of me, I just got tired of letting rumours float around. Do feel free to ask if you have any more questions. Unless other stuff comes up, this is probably the last time I talk about it.
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