Dear all of our watchers,

Please read. This is an important message to all of you.

Another of the people I watch left today. Not permanently, but she says she's only going to be posting art occasionally and only replying to her close friends.

I'm finding things really odd at the moment. In the seven months Dale and I have been here, there have been different views on deviantart from the deviants themselves. Some call it the thing that relieves their stress--a few go so far as to say that dA saved their lives. But among the deviants are people who have gotten downtroddening messages, whose art has been stolen, whose dignity has seemingly been ruined. And they go so far as to leave this place.

But for what?

To ignore the mountains of fair critique and helpful tutorials, in the midst of which is one measly troll comment?

To say goodbye to hundreds of friends that love and appreciate their art?

To walk away from the place that they themselves decided to join, to meet other people with a passion for the arts and to become a better artist themselves?

A while ago, if any of you noticed, I got a very rude comment on one of the Universe for Thought chapters. It wasn't even a fair critisism, no advice to make it better, just saying it was the f*ckiest piece of crap ever. Since then we've hidden the comment.

That's all I did. Hid the comment, and ignored it, only ending my work on Universe for Thought when you guys voted against it and my own heart didn't feel like working on it anymore. But I forgot about that comment, even though it was made by the account of one of my RL friends.

She said it was a hacker. Should I believe her? I don't know.

All I now is that the comment was nothing compared to the advice and support that Dale and I have gotten from this place. We've done so much on here. We've perfected both the art of faving and running and the art of writing a strong critique, ane we've gotten past 5,000 pageviews--and still growing! Most of all, we've found artists and writers like us who are willing to share their advice, critism, laughter, tears, and all-around good times.

I'd just like to give a big shout-out and thank you to all of our supporters. You mean the world to us, and we're not leaving anytime soon.

~Maia

P.S. Don't forget to thank Dale for the new journal skin!