Thank you, DA, for showing me that terrible artists can still contribute to the artistic community. Thank you for showing me that people absolutely devoid of talent or the will to improve will continuously churn out garbage, and that others will nonetheless praise them for their genius. Thank you for showing me that other people are so desperate to have their favorite subject rendered artisticly that they will raise up and celebrate talentless hacks who do so (poorly) in mspaint. Thank you, DeviantArt.

Thank you, DA, for introducing me to fetishes so weird, bizarre, and incomprehensible that my simple GIGANTIC BOOBS fetish seems normal by comparison. Whenever I feel ashamed of typing "huge breasts" into the search box, I simply bring to mind the artists sexualizing pool toys, saturday morning cartoon and videogame characters from the late 80s and early 90s, the morbidly obese, amputees, bubblegum, animals, conjoined twins (although, in retrospect, disrespecting the sex lives of *actual* conjoined twins is not my intention), cannibalism, and... y'know, let's just leave it at you've introduced me to sexualized cannibalism and leave it at that. I can feel much better about fantasizing about giant breasts so long as I know there is a distressingly large community of people who masturbate to the thoughts of devouring another human being. Or *being* devoured, for that matter. Thank you, DeviantArt.

Thank you, DA, for introducing me to pompous artists who believe they are above criticism and who can do no wrong. Thank you for showing me that fans of even the worst work will defend their favorite "artists" with tooth and nail if need be. Thank you for showing me that amazing artists with the ability to render fantastic concepts almost photorealisticly using digital or traditional means can be lumped together with people drawing Sonic the Hedgehog characters (poorly) in MSPaint, and that the folks using Paint will get more positive comments than the former. Thank you for showing me that my reluctance to refer to myself as an "artist" was not in vain. Thank you, Deviantart.

I suppose, secondary or tertiary to those previous paragraphs, that I should thank you, DA, for the artists you've introduced me to who fit none of those criteria. Thank you for causing me to find, purely by chance, artists who are not above sharing their work with crazy fetishists and single-minded fav'ers; folks with a sense of humor when it comes to their own artistry. Thank you for showing me that, rarely, an amazing artist will appear who responds well to criticism, is willing to appeal to fans, and can create great works across a variety of genres if requested. All within good taste, of course. Thank you, Deviantart.

I guess I'll close by saying I still don't consider myself an artist. I doodle or copy what I see from time to time, but my ability to truly create something original and/or unique is fairly stunted. I need practice, but practice bores me. I will continue to try, though, and subsequently post my non-terrible stuff here. Or my terrible stuff, should I feel self-depricating.

By the way, don't take this as an overt stab at DeviantArt itself. As any open community, it has its fair share of shitheads and terrible people. I don't take offense to the weirdness of other peoples' interests or desires, but it certainly makes me feel better about my own quirks. My only wish was that people who cannot create for themselves would not leech off of talented artists or sick their rabid, mediocrity-loving fans on *actual* artists. In my time here I've seen people go from drawing stick-figures in MSPaint to drawing impressive characters with inspired designs. Likewise, I've seen people drawing terrible blobs in MSPaint move up to... drawing semi-terrible blobs in MSPaint and claim that they need not get any better due to their amazing fan base. Which, honestly, I have no idea how they get fans in the first place.

So... thank you, DA, for showing me that people as terrible as myself can coast along without a problem, yet that accepting my limitations and simultaneously determining to move beyond them will make me a better person in the end. Assuming I don't get greedy and start pandering for commissions when I can barely draw a circle. Bleh, getting mixed up here...

Thanks for showing me that, despite my mediocre skills, I *can* improve, and that doing so without complaint while retaining a sense of humour may leave me a happier and more productive person in the end. In theory.