I forgot to write this yesterday, so I'm writing it today.

November 27, 2015, I would have had my deviantART account for four years yesterday. I don't feel anymore "homesickness", but sometimes I think back on all the people that I left behind and wonder how they are. It's not on my head all the time, but I think back on it sometimes because dA was a big part in my life; even though I closed that chapter in my life doesn't mean I can't open it up and re-read it.

DA is where I first started putting my art online back in 2011 and I was ignored for a while. I started getting critiques and I started improving a lot around 2012 and 2013. Around 2012, the HawkFireWarriorCat drama happened with a circle of friends that were acquaintances to me. It was nothing big, but it was my first time in real internet drama. HawkFire harassed me and some people in that friend circle, impersonated multiple people including myself on join.me, and stole my art along with other people's. We later found out who HawkFire was because that person fessed up and we forgave it and moved on with our lives. I forgave it, but I didn't forget it because of the fact that it was my first taste of how deliciously putrid and foul the internet can be. I was thirteen when I first joined deviantART, late thirteen or early fourteen when the HawkFire drama took place.There were minor bouts of drama in 2012 and 2013, but nothing that stuck out to me like the HawkFire incident.

Between 2011 and 2013, I was a person that I would want to slap in the face multiple times with a wet spatula if I met someone like that in the present. Granted, I certainly wasn't BlueShineWolf 2.0, but I was still a little shit. I was one of those people who didn't like critique if you were harsh, everything had to be sugar-coated to spare my feelings. I thought I was the next Picasso and then I'd bitch when I got knocked off my high horse. I automatically thought everyone with differing opinions were trolling; I'm surprised that 4Chan never sent the /b/rigade after me back then, and I didn't do enough shit to earn an article on Encyclopedia Dramatica.

In 2013 or 2014, I was promoted to founder of the daBloodHounds group. I felt pretty cool since this is the first time I truly was in a position of any kind of authority, and surprisingly enough, I didn't abuse it. The one time that I did overstep my authority, one of the members outed me for it in the comments on the journal and put a swift end to that since I wasn't void of logic and reasoning. The group wasn't huge, but the name got around. All we really did was publish journals about art theft, harassment, etc. We certainly filed reports about people to the staff, but we were mainly a public callouts thing. Before I deactivated my account, I passed the torch to PinkPeppermints, who still has the group open last time I looked (which wasn't too long ago).

Fast-forward to early to mid 2014. I grew up a lot from back then and it showed in how I handled critique and differing opinions, but I still wasn't quite there yet. Not much happened in terms of drama, but I did learn a lot. This is the year where I stopped thinking of dA as a sanctuary and became cynical of the mods and the community. Not just dA's, but I started becoming cynical in general. After seeing a Tumblr post about the mods outright ignoring a case of tracing, I left and kept my account open to keep in touch with friends. I was somewhat active here on Weasyl, but I was mainly on Tumblr during this time. I had personal experience the the moderation team's laziness as well. I noticed that reports I sent in regarding art theft were taking longer to be replied to if at all, and when I did get a reply it most likely was the mods giving me a bullshit excuse as to why they won't do anything (I can take screenshots of this, I still have those notes) Near the end of the year, I went back to dA in hopes that the recent public outrage changed things but I learned that it didn't change a damn thing. I changed my online name from TheFelineLife to GlaringFeline last year, so that was a big step for me. I changed because I found out that someone named TheDogzLife made their account long before mine, but leaving behind the shit-smeared experiences I had between 2011 to 2013 was a nice perk. It was a clean slate, and I didn't mess it up.

Now this year, 2015. My art has gotten a lot better than it was the years prior and it will continue to improve in the years ahead. Early or in the middle of this year, I deactivated my deviantART account and made Weasyl my new home. I was homesick, but I knew I was much better off. DeviantART's moderation team is atrocious and they aren't going to give a shit about the state of that site until it's too late. I'd like to make another account there if they can get their shit together, but I refuse to go back to that cesspool of poor moderation, shitty recolored Sonic OCs, cell-phone dick-pics in Artistic Nudity, eye-blistering sparkledog OCs, vore, pregnancy, and diaper fetish pictures of children's cartoon characters(inb4kinkshaming), and the waves of SJWs that started setting up camp shortly before I left.

That site wasn't all bad though, a lot of my art inspirations are there: Blitzengels/Wyethcat, Xurnam/Urnam7, PurpleKecleon, SkittyStrawberries, BlueKyoKitty, JenovaSilver(even though her account seems pretty much abandoned, she's still active on Tumblr). FazbearFever(previously Hikarichu325), and Kawiku. Even though I'm deactivated, I'm still going to look at their art and my friend's art from time to time.

DeviantART wasn't a long part of my life, but it most certainly did make an impact on me as a person and it impacted my art positively. There, I got my first taste of the harsh nature of the internet, made a lot of friends, and grew a lot as a person. My art got a lot better because of deviantART. As I got older, I realized that deviantART's mods and the community are a cesspool and I jumped out before I smelt so much like shit I wouldn't be able to wash it off. I definitely enjoyed my time on that site through the good and the bad because of the friends I made, but all good things come to an end. It would have been nice to be there for my four year anniversary, but it isn't worth being there if I'm supporting what can be described as a tumor on the internet's left asscheek.

Thank you for reading this wall of text, have a good one.