InahoSabremere

Hello everyone. I want to talk about something important regarding my experience here at DeviantArt. I've been on the Internet for 23 years since March 2001, six months before 9/11, and have been a member of DeviantArt for many moons since July 1, 2005, sometime before the events of Hurricane Katrina. Since I joined here, I tried making friends and associates and came here to post and share my art and improve my drawing skills and to grow up to be a better artist. And with you all, I've tried making friends and an active following, and it was a profound gratitude that I was able to bring you drawings of many different types of my OCs and as well as my map drawings and my other works.

But after the last decade (or 10 years), I am already grown extremely sick and tired of this keeps occurring and coming later and after every other year, and after those nine years have passed, I will speak up and need to make a very serious journal to put my foot down.

I am NOT a villain, and I am not an evil person. I've been through many curses (not blessings) in life since 2013 and 2015, and plus, I have NO business wasting my health and time into letting those who blocked me control my life and take advantage of me like this, and I sucked at respecting prohibitions regarding people whom I met on DA and Picarto a long time ago having me blocked on their active block lists! That is enough! I'm going to leave religion, the "stop blocking me" pleas people making, and DeviantArt telling users to "respect the block" out of this, I have a neutral outlook toward this problem. Every time when people blocks me over a disagreement or other minor dispute that the issue wasn't serious enough to warrant a block, I get extremely upset and assumed that I can't have good friends or look at their art galleries or OCs. But myself seeing the same people blocking me and treating me very badly (jerking me around) every other year for a long time since 9 years ago really bothers me so much. That was pure evil, chaos and madness! It makes me want to delete my account and quit the whole site and disappear because of what happened.

I would rather hear your story and speak up than being blocked and slashed out of society in the online realm. Just because I made an unintended small mistake, accidental wrong statements in the past, or drawing different types of characters in my work for my own pleasure with my artistic merit, and just because I exist, that doesn't mean that I have to be your target or you have an asinine intention to block me for every small problem or minor mistake in life on DeviantArt and the rest of the World Wide Web. I find this kind of behavior like that extremely disgusting, horrible, and highly irresponsible. It really causes bad memories and now I had to relive those painful memories about being blocked every time when I dwell on those that happened in the past. I'm at wit's end because of this happening and it makes me wanna assume that someone blocking me every other year like that for almost 10 years are engaging in deliberate social rejection or may have been going through some form of mental health crisis, stress or anxiety. I hate being blocked. I feel that I am the one being targeted by the blocking by the same people. I can't enjoy life and have friends as a result of this bad association. It really tears up my physical health, blood pressure stayed up, and my livelihood and quality of life deteriorated on DeviantArt and this has been a subsequent problem since many moons ago. I am not a perfect person and I only have imperfections. I have zero tolerance for such asinine blocking behavior and bad association. I am sensitive to being blocked by people and feared of losing friends on DA and Picarto, I have a life outside DeviantArt and I do have boundaries, and it makes me feel insecure and more lonely when people just block without warning, despite the ongoing loneliness epidemic here in the USA, and people NEED to respect that and have more decency around here, and engage in meaningful dialogue and make amends with each other intended to put an end to blocking and forgive and move forward and don't bring up the mess again.

To prevent this kind of bad association from ever happening again, I am changing my friends and association around, and I am going to make changes to how I block people. Blocking nasty bot accounts will continue as normal. And lastly, I have grown too old for this and I'm now 33 and trying to enjoy life and live my life to the fullest, because life is too short. I'm tired of all the same chaos and madness and I don't deserve being slashed out like this. I've been monitoring my visitor log in the Stats for a long time and have been watching out for bad association and got to speak up. From this time forward, if anyone visiting or monitoring my page, even if you do happen to visit my page while in incognito mode with any intentions to repeatedly block me and being inconsiderate or make negative journals out of me and cause trouble after I wrote this journal will be blocked and placed on my permanent blacklist. No questions asked, no exceptions.

I'm going to be honest, but I do not trust empty accounts interacting with me or my artworks. I've been monitoring the favorites and likes and other interaction for a while since last year and noticed that after I uploaded my Sakurako and Viola drawings, empty accounts started to add my art into their favorites few days ago. I don't even know if I'm getting any real people supporting me properly in the last few days, but every time when I get a notification about someone adding my OCs and my work into their favorites and if they turn out to be an empty account, I really don't trust those type of empty accounts.

I find those empty accounts with no avatar, no comments made, no content, no journals or statuses, and zero interaction, fetishes in their favorites, and other unusual stuff highly suspicious. I don't know if they're either a real person or a malicious bot account or something.

I politely ask everyone that your empty account must be active and have at least 5 or more comments in your Comments Made section, have at least 5 deviations in your gallery, 3 or more status posts and journals, 5 or more watchers, and please show me your Desktop, your web browser, and your Task Manager to prove that you're human and not a bot account. If I ever see any empty accounts adding my characters or my other work into their favorites and your empty account don't have any content or interaction and looks inactive, I will block you and revoke your favorites on sight, no exceptions. I don't want to jeopardize my online safety and privacy.

If you're a real person and I do know and recognize you from memory, regardless of any circumstances, you're good. There's no need to take any action. So you're good and safe!

Good afternoon everyone. I don't make these kind of journals like this lately, but I've been seeing a number of people on DeviantArt had been having numerous issues and disagreements all over DeviantArt's front page for journals and status posts today, which I find it concerning.

It has come to my attention that a number of Senior members are engaging in blocking other people, accusing one another, making personal attack journals against another Senior member and causing disagreements that kept happening between those parties involved on DeviantArt's front page. These social disputes, blocking, and the disagreements have caused unexplained chaos, drama, and disruptions and division across the DeviantArt community. When I came across one of the Senior member's journals, I decided not to read it at all. But I find this whole situation very concerning and pretty disappointing to see the whole community being torn apart by this chaos and pandemonium.

I love the truth. I do not take sides with others over this drama for the sake of neutrality, and no one is obligated to take sides with each other. Social rejection and disruptions to the DeviantArt community will not stand, and such chaos, division, and drama in the community will not prevail. We are imperfect and we all make mistakes, and just because we're imperfect, it doesn't mean that we have to take everything for granted.

In order for everyone involved to properly remedy the incident, all they have to do is to stop making personal attack journals and accusations against other deviants and begin engaging in meaningful dialogue to resolve the disagreement. I also again, urge all Senior members involved to cease all blocking, negativity, libel and slander, disruptions to the community, and adhere to DeviantArt's current Community Guidelines and come up with a planned action plan intended to bring the situation to an end like adults, and apologize and forgive each other in an orderly fashion and take the right path in life and move forward in a civil manner.

Again, I am not going to get involved with this concerning incident in any way or take sides with others for the sake of neutrality. I wish that these people involved have a change of heart and draw art with our human hands again and be happy.

Thank you for taking your time to read this. I have drawings, characters, maps, and other projects to do and I'm going to restart my drawing activities and projects with my head up and step into the light.

Here we are, and this is it. This is my last journal for 2023. New York is already out of 2023, but we have finally made it to the other side of 2023 and this year is on the way out, and in less than 30 minutes, 2024 is set to arrive in my time zone.

With that being said, I would like to say thank you very much for your support, and I hope everyone and you to stay safe and healthy and be happy as we walk into the year of 2024 and into the mid-2020s era!

WARNING: LONG JOURNAL, MENTIONS OF LOSING A LOVED ONE, THE AFTER EFFECTS OF THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC, FAMILY ARGUMENTS, MY SEVERE WEATHER EXPERIENCES, INFORMATION THAT MAY BE DIFFICULT TO UNDERSTAND, AND NEWS STORIES AHEAD

Hello everyone! This is my 2023 Year in Review.

The curtains are coming down and 2023 is on its way out! It's time to take a look back over the year and put the perspective of how my life, experiences, and art journey went through this year. And now, before I start my report, I am warning my readers that this Year in Review report contains upsetting content, mentions of losing a loved one in death, family conflict, rants, YouTube's aggressive anti-adblock campaign, and even mentions of the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. This journal I am writing today is not intended to cause trouble, make people feel angry, upset or offended, go against each other, encourage others to track down users (witch hunt), block or unwatch other people, provide medical, legal, or social advice by any means, endorse art purges, or create an unsafe or unhealthy environment. This Year in Review report I am writing for the year of 2023 is intended to reflect and look back at what I've experienced and endured throughout 2023 with my own experiences. Alrighty, then, let's begin this year's report for 2023.

Looking back at my experiences with 2023

January - Checking on my grandmother and Reworking on my Mermaid OCs

I start with the month of January at the time when me and my mother was checking on my grandmother on the phone and see how she was doing because I was worried about my grandmother's worsened heart condition. At the end of January, after I came back from my art hiatus, I grabbed my LG G8 smartphone and turned on my Sketchbook app and start reworking on my mermaid OCs Amelia, Leilani, and Sakurako and changed their character designs so I wanted my characters to follow the original context of the Mermaid. (After many years of drawing them with seashell bras since 2018, I decided not to give Amelia and my other mermaids those seashell bras anymore). After I started drawing my WIPs, I gained some new watchers at the end of the month.

February - I got sick, New OC, and Uncertainties going on around my grandmother

As my time progressed into February, I got sick with a post-nasal drip (not COVID-19). After I starting to feel much better, I drew my primitive hunter girl OC Viola and practiced drawing the anatomy and the posing, especially at the end of the month and got at least 4,000 views in my first drawing of her. I was focused on getting the human anatomy and the posing right and I had to make corrections to my drawings, but when I was about to start drawing again, I got the bad news from my mother that my grandmother's health had gotten much worse and we needed to go to my grandmother's house. I had to pack up my luggage for the third time with all of this uncertainty going on around my grandmother's failing health. My mother had to get her car serviced and checked out and everything came out good, and we got my mother's car ready and filled up the gas tank. I made two long road trips to my grandmother's house, all of them were about my grandma's failing health in late-August and mid-September 2022.

March - Made my emergency road trip to Mississippi only to lose my grandmother in death upon arrival

When March arrived, I was going to start working on Sakurako and the rest of my mermaid characters and color them, but my grandmother's health had gotten much worse to the point where my grandmother's doctor allowed us to come to her house. On March 7, I packed up and put the luggage in the car's trunk, but when I got behind the wheel of the car, the garage door automatically closed on me for no reason and when I shift the gear to reverse, I accidentally struck the back of the garage door at a dead slow speed. I immediately got the car out of the way and opened the garage door and find that there was a small dent to the bar holding the garage door, but the car wasn't damaged. After we left home and got on the interstate, I told my mother everything about the situation, then my mother pulled the car over and we blamed my brother over the situation, but instead, my mother believed that the garage door automatically closed on me before I got my mother's car out. We started driving on the interstate again, but about 200 miles later, we forgot to fuel up at the truck stop, and now we had to drive further to Farina, a small town in Illinois, to get more fuel. Afterwards, we got back to the interstate and make our journey south through the central United States. As we made it to the southeastern USA and reached Mississippi, I got my chance to respond to PapierRoboter in the Notes about my mermaid OC Sakurako, and I was satisfied with the new color palette and appearance of my character. So I decided to post the new Sakurako to my gallery while I was in the passenger seat. But as I got closer to arriving at my grandmother's house, I saw the look at my mother's face (after she got a call from my first cousin or my aunt) while we were driving down Mississippi Highway 35, fearing the worst to come. After a long road trip, we arrived at my grandmother's house only to find out that my mother told me and my brother that my grandmother is deceased. I sat down on the porch chair and buried my head with my hands, and I said: "We came here to her house too late. We were too late."

March - Unwanted disruptions, big arguments, problems, and ruined trip, again

During my time in Mississippi, I went to the visitation and then my grandmother's funeral and saw her one last time, and then the burial at the cemetery, but during my time over there, the 5 year old girl from August 2022 kept bothering me again and I was very upset I can't even focus on the tragedy of my grandmother, since now that I lost all of my grandparents in my adult life! And that 5 year old girl bothered me so much that she even bothered me at the funeral at church and I can't even tolerate her repetitive behavior towards me like that, and she again bothered me while I was trying to start charging my aunt's mobile hotspot in the kitchen! And during the luncheon after the burial, me and my mother got into a big argument after the girl bothered me at my grandmother's house until my aunt intervened, and then, me and my mother got into another argument again late at night before our return trip back home. On March 12, me and my mother got into yet another heated argument in the car again while we were driving on the highway. I was so upset, that I have had enough of my mother treating me badly like this days after the 5 year old girl ruined my trip while I was dealing with the tragedy of my grandmother's death!!! After we arrived back home in Illinois, I was not satisfied with the whole trip. Ever since August 2022 and up until my grandmother's death in March 2023, I made a total of three major road trips to Mississippi, all of them were in sad occasions, and after going through all of this mess, I did not start drawing again and went back to hiatus from drawing art because of my grandmother's death and the negativity the 5 year old girl caused for me.

April - Unusual severe weather outbreak and tornado warnings on March 31st before April came

Before April came, on March 31, I've experienced unusual severe weather conditions and had severe thunderstorm and tornado warnings. Then, when April came, I experienced more severe weather on April 5. As my time through the month progressed, the ongoing coronavirus pandemic is still out there as COVID-19 still tears through the United States since January 2020.

May - The end of COVID-19 Emergency Orders and Provisional Measures

When I was still living under COVID-19 emergency orders in Illinois for more than 3 years since March 2020, Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker extended the remaining COVID emergency orders to May 11th, the day the United States ends the national Public Health Emergency. Indiana, and other neighboring states have ended their own emergency orders a while ago, but I felt it has been forever to get back to some kind of normalcy three years after we were ordered to abide the mandatory stay-at-home orders we had in the first half of 2020, and I thought there would be no end in sight for all of those life disruptions. But on May 5, 2023, officials at the World Health Organization declared that COVID-19 is no longer a global Public Health Emergency, and warned that COVID-19 is still a global threat to humanity. On October 1, 2022, Canada ended their COVID-19 state of emergency and provisional measures, and here in the United States, the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency and their own provisional measures ended on May 11, 2023. After the emergency ended, there are no more free COVID-19 vaccines, testing will no longer be free, no more government press briefings and conferences on TV and online, and no more stay-at-home orders or some other kind of COVID-19 lockdown. In addition to the national COVID emergency ending on May 11, the governor of Illinois declared that all COVID-19 emergency orders and provisional measures in Illinois have finally ended on May 11, 2023.

June - Inflation, strikes, and Crunchyroll goes down due to people trying to stream Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba - Swordsmith Village arc

In the later days of May 2023, the inflation began in the US, and then the SAG-AFTRA strike took place, and when I turned on the TV, many TV networks, even the over-the-air TV stations aired reruns of late night TV shows and movies, showing old episodes of game shows, old episodes and segments of cartoons, and no new entertainment or movies on any traditional TV or in theaters. And I again, missed the opportunity to participate in drawing my character art for this year's MerMay, and felt very disappointed I ended up missing MerMay for the third consecutive year since 2021. I had an old drawing of Amelia in my gallery from 2020 but I kept getting empty accounts favoriting my old picture of her, all because of the algorithm and started blocking empty accounts because I don't know if anyone behind those accounts are real or not. Then in June, empty accounts with no avatar and no content started auto-faving my old picture of Sakurako from 2020 into their favorites and then they started favoriting my old picture of Rena, and then my primitive hunter girl OC Viola in the middle of the month. Then I went on Crunchyroll to try to watch Gintama and my favorite anime but they're all locked behind the Premium plan, and One Piece is the only series that is still open to everyone, but Crunchyroll crashed as tons of people came to see Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba - Swordsmith Village to see Tanjiro and Nezuko Kamado and friends. On June 27, 2023, smoke and haze coming from Alberta and Quebec choked the cities of Chicago, Detroit, New York and other cities across the USA, Toronto, Montreal, and other cities across Canada, and the rest of North America and then Europe with horrible air quality. When I took out the trash, I smelled charcoal-like smoke despite that I was wearing my mask, and the air quality was horrible, that I had to hurry up and get back inside the house. And then, I told my mother not to light up any scented candles because we had an air quality index of 258 at that time.

July - Huge argument resulting in my Wisconsin road trip getting cancelled and facing more violent weather conditions

In July, after spending more than 3 years living under COVID-19 stay-at-home orders, travel restrictions, and emergency orders, I was going to get ready for our next road trip to Wisconsin, but all of a sudden, me and my mother again, had a huge argument and I was very disappointed the road trip was cancelled, and severe weather got in the way when the NASCAR race took place in Chicago. On July 9, after the severe weather and power failures, the power company shut down the power grid and repaired it, and turned it back on. On July 12, I faced more violent and extreme weather and there was a big tornado outbreak in the western suburbs of Chicago and one tornado tore through Elgin, another ran parallel to Interstate 55, a waterspout formed over Lake Michigan, and another near Chicago's O'Hare Airport. Then on July 15, I experienced a big severe storm and had a lot of damaging winds, heavy downpours, and frequent lightning. Almost every severe weather I've experienced, I nearly lost power. At the end of the month, we reached 95 degrees outside and more severe weather and straight line winds, but July was the stormiest month I've ever seen in my adult life, but July was the worst month I've ever faced for violent weather events!!! On August 10, 2020, I had a derecho and lost power for 17 hours.

August - Annoying bot accounts and Remembering 9/11, 22 years later

In August, spam accounts inundated the Internet and onto my DeviantArt page, and those were the so-called "muse" or "mural art" bot accounts or NFT accounts contacted me through the Chats in this month, and I was so fed up that I blocked them because I find those accounts to be suspicious. I don't want to put my online safety and privacy into jeopardy and I don't do free requests for strangers and those who are not my watchers. When September arrived, I get more and more unwanted watchers despite that I was away from drawing and posting art due to losing my grandma in death back in March. On September 11, I took my time to remember what happened on that horrific day, and I was 10 years old when 9/11 happened. 22 years later, I'm 32 and still remember seeing the horrific terrorist attacks that happened at the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center on live TV a long time ago.

September - Heavy rainstorm and flooding, and putting my foot down on bad association

In the later times of September, heavy downpours and flooding hits the suburbs of Chicago, with Calumet City being the hardest hit by the severe rainstorm in centuries and many of the city's residents experienced flood damage to their cars and houses on September 17. Then, in later days, I made a journal because I wanted to crack down on bad association, and I felt that the blocking incidents, misunderstandings, bad association, and the disagreement needs to stop, because I feel that I need to put my foot down, stand up, and address those subsequent blocking incidents happening to me every other year since 2015.

October - Another big argument, and YouTube's aggressive anti-adblocker ban campaign and post-crackdown inappropriate ads

In October, me and my mother had a big argument over getting a wall-mounted TV and home improvement stuff in the house on October 22. Then, on October 30, YouTube started to get so greedy, that they launched a globally aggressive anti-adblock campaign and blocked me from using my AdBlock Plus and then LOCKED me out of YouTube until I whitelist YouTube or turn off my AdBlock Plus and sit through ads or pay an annual $139 for Premium for an ad-free experience. YouTube even froze up not only my Google Chrome, they froze up my six year old Windows 10 on my HP ENVY desktop computer!!! On my mobile devices, I got a lot of Temu ads, but ever since I whitelisted YouTube, now I'm getting a LOT of inappropriate Hero Wars ads, even when I watch normal videos, I GET INAPPROPRIATE ADS with some female character from Hero Wars devouring other characters, or another female character who is fused to a rock formation and made other characters walk inside of it!!! And then, when I watched actual 9/11 news footage and camera footage about what happened at the World Trade Center or watch certain live severe weather streams, I don't get ads and YouTube leaves me alone. But when I watch normal videos like people unboxing a Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra or cooking/making street food in South Korea, YouTube bombards me with a lot of advertising messages, from getting ads about Hero Wars to I think, the Evony mobile games! I prefer watching ads and infomercials on traditional TV than on the computer or on mobile devices. I found out that in November 2023, Xfinity Stream doesn't allow my AdBlock Plus anymore and now I was forced to whitelist Xfinity to continue watching TV on my computer. I have a bad feeling that this could be the end for ad-blockers like Adblock Plus, Ghostery, and others and totally free content in favor for ad-blocker detection measures and the rise of Free Ad-Supported TV content on the Internet these days. I was very disappointed about this and it ruined my experience on the Internet. I miss the old YouTube and the old Internet but this new day is just... unbearable!!! I'm trying to save up money to buy a new computer after the Paris 2024 Olympics in August and September 2024 because Microsoft doesn't let me to bring my current computer to Windows 11 due to their strict minimum system requirements. I can't upgrade from Windows 10 to 11 on my six year old computer!

November - Earthquake, and coming out of my art hiatus almost one year after my grandmother's death

On November 15, I had an earthquake on that day but don't feel the shaking early in the morning, and in the later times of the month, after spending almost 9 months away from drawing since my grandmother died, I came back from my art hiatus and started coloring my mermaid OC Mary and posted the colored version to my gallery for the first time since March.

December - Losing my legacy Beta Tester star badge and restarting my annual Year in Review reports

And finally, December came, and I was going to reload my Core Membership when it was on sale but I decided to let my Core Membership lapse and run out and lost my legacy Beta Tester star badge permanently in the process. I waited about two weeks for the Core Membership to go on sale again, and then, it went on sale again and bought Core Membership again. With the last week of the year is about to end, I got my chance to take a look back at this year and write my Year in Review report for the first time since 2020.

End of 2023

I thought 2023 was going to be an awesome year, but instead, it came down to all of this negativity. I ended up traveling to Mississippi only to lose my grandmother in deathupon my arrival at her house and getting bothered by the annoying 5-year-old girl during my time down there, being bombarded by a lot of severe weather events, the subsequent COVID-19 emergency orders I had before the emergency ended, having problems with my mother, YouTube banning adblockers and forcing you to watch ads or pay for Premium, and there were a lot of negativity, curses, and unexpected events happened to me throughout 2023. And now that today is the end of the year, this year is nothing short of a miracle. I did not get any blessing or anything good, but curses, unexpected events, my Wisconsin road trip went through the cheese grater and sliced up, and uncertainty regarding COVID-19, and ultimately, losing my grandmother to heart failure caused by an older type of chemotherapy from a long time ago. I was wrong to expect that 2023 would be a great year.

My thoughts on previous years

As for the years of 2021 and 2022, I did not write any of my Year in Review reports for those cursed years except 2020. Not to mention that in the second half of 2021, I heard and watched about the "pandemic of the unvaccinated" stuff from US government officials on TV from July until in October 2021, I was so irritated and annoyed by that kind of stuff on TV and streaming that caused my blood pressure to rise and my mental health being affected by those, that I had to turn off the TV and used my computer to watch Canada's world news and other foreign news channels instead of the US news channels. I can't enjoy life like this under these conditions. Everything I've been through with 2021 and 2022 were nothing but cursed occasions, and I feel that the whole early-2020s era are nothing but curses and uncertainties. 2020 was brutal because of COVID-19 and being cooped up at home as a result of the stay-at-home orders and restrictions and lots of people dying from COVID-19, I find 2021 to be a cursed year because of the politicized stuff over the COVID-19 vaccines where I live, 2022 was full of more curses and uncertainties flooding the whole year, and 2023 was a storm of curses and unfortunate events resulting in the loss of my grandmother and my Wisconsin trip went down the cheese grater and then into the garbage disposal unit and ripped apart. And then the war in Israel started in October, the protests, and everything, and this year was a complete disaster in my entire adult life.

Concluding remarks

The year 2023 was catastrophic and a total disaster. It was a storm of curses and burdens for me. It even earned a horrifying distinction for my experience: 2023 is the most cursed year of all-time for unexpected events, deaths in the family, bad association, a cancelled trip, uncertainties, fear of the future, and violent, extreme weather events I've experienced in my entire life since my father died in 2014!!! I really hate the way of how the early 2020's turned out for me. I felt I was shut down by all of this and everything I went through, especially with enduring the COVID-19 pandemic and trying to enjoy life in these times of crisis and uncertainty. But in that case with 2023, this year was catastrophic, cursed, and a total disaster. The only good and positive thing happened to me was that on October 4, I upgraded to my new Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra from my 4 year old LG G8 because my old phone is obsolete and no longer receive any updates as of September 2022. But I do not get an opportunity to either unbox it or setup my new phone myself because a tech came out and setup my new phone for me. But when I upgraded to Android 14 in November, I got to set my phone up for that operating system.

The early 2020s era, however, are finally on the way out. I wish if someone out there could please give me a sign.

If anyone who made it through my latest Year in Review report, I would like to say thank you for reading. I hope 2024 and the mid-2020s will be a great and amazing year and era, and I wish you all to be safe and healthy.