TheWarOfTheRing

Hi. Been a while since I wrote one of these. Matter of fact, it's been a while since I wrote anything here. I've been trying to get myself to write more and post more stories, get more involved in the community. There are so many lovely people here I'd love to know better, and such a fabulous Lit community I'd love to be more involved in. The past few days or weeks, I've felt like I'm finally starting to make progress. Just yesterday (or maybe it was the day before), I posted a pair of poems here. Nothing much, but hey, writing is writing. I have drafts of ideas, big and small things I feel like I could post here. I've been working on some stories and projects I'm really excited about and would love to share. I've been wanting to talk about one in particular for a long time, but I've felt like I couldn't until I have some more stories under my belt. Otherwise, it'd feel more like advertising. Point is, I'm getting to a point where I feel like I can be more involved in DA and form closer connections with the awesome people here.

And then, there's Eclipse.

This morning, I read Abbi-Normal 's journal about trying the new Eclipse version of the site, which you can read here if you like:  EclipsedThe "Eclipse" toggle appeared at the top of my DA screen today. Since from what I understand, this option will soon be rolled out as mandatory, I thought I'd have a look at what we're "in for" here. The first thing I notice, is that it is S L O O O O W. Maybe I should be charitable and assume that they're still working on optimization and the issue will be lessened by the time they put through the full implementation. But at the moment, I've actually several times resorted to checking my phone to kill time, because I got tired of waiting for a DA page to load. I assume this is because anything and everything now has infinite scrolling, at least partially. The old layout, I seem to recall, had an option to use pagination instead. I hope this is also re-implemented before it comes totally mandatory.The inability to opt in or out of infinite scrolling is particularly egregious on a site that hosts so many thousands of sequential stories of various styles (webcomic, manga, long stories/fanfic to name a few). They've basically made it so that instead of marking your place in a book you're reading, you have to flip past every single page from the beginning until you see the one you're looking for, whenever you want to read. Another issue I've run into already, the kind of thing you don't think about until it's missing: gallery-specific searchbar. I noticed it was gone when I went to search up an older deviation of mine that I'd suddenly realized had never actually made its way to my Tumblr. I had to use the general site-wide search, and look for the name of the image with my username. If the image name hadn't been such a weird word, I might not have found it.Maybe it was the eye-strain: The default colour-scheme took a little less than 2 hours to start hurting my eyes, so the Dark/Light theme option is at the very least appreciated. At first I thought it was the "Try Eclipse" toggle, though obviously that confusion will be eliminated by the rollout itself.Many other people have criticized the huge decrease in customization of one's profile. I have to agree. Layout options feel very constrained, and widgets seem to have fewer features. Because of the slowness of the site, you may have to remove a lot of information for your page to load on your audience's computers. The biggest problem with it I have--and if there's a way to change it, please tell me!!--is that the deviantID as it appears on your main page is now very tiny, and displays only a couple of lines. The rest of it shunted away onto a totally different page (which I have more Words about in a minute). Ironically, given that they gave everyone infinite scrolling, they somehow couldn't make the Bio text expand in-place in the widget (which is what a widget is for). Profiles no longer support html of most kinds in most places, and journal skins are disappearing soon, page-wide skins are already gone. Aside from the exact pictures displayed in the Google+ -like (a platform that is permanently shuttering in April, it's worth noting) photo-timeline-aesthetic newest/featured/gallery boxes, everyone's profile looks pretty much exactly the same now. If you have CORE (or don't but can spare your one custom box alloted to your profile), you could put the information in a custom box instead, leaving your actual Bio/About page barren, but that's about it. And about this "About" page. It contains the full actual text of your bio. Which it shunts into a single column across the right half of the screen, so it takes the same amount of space across as the widget on your profile did. Maybe something else is meant to go there on the left. Maybe if my bio was more elaborate with more pictures and stamps and things, they would show up in that space. Either way, that's not really solving the real problem, which is that putting all this information on its own page that you don't look at for any other reason and which contains none of your art means that basically no one will see it ever. All they had to do was make the widget expand in place like it already it, and like similar things do on other sites. The About Page has no reason to exist, and makes it MUCH harder for artists and watchers to get familiar with each other. Also, the About page is the leftmost tab on the new profiles. Your actual profile, which is the landing page when one goes to your DA URL, is the second tab. I've been costantly misclicking, thinking one tab is the other. The index/landing page goes at the front. It's basic design. Like. C'mon. Seriously. Get it together. Also, personal opinion: As an art site (which attracts mostly visual people), it could also use more visual cues in basically every part of the UI. It's very stark, and all options & menus look the same, making it hard to navigate. Some icons would be nice.I can't change anymore how many journals appear in the journal widget, which is now called Posts, and shows a Facebook-like newsfeed of your non-deviation activity. It seems to show at least 3 journals back, and there's no way to set it to show only the latest. This is because they're putting extreme emphasis on Status Updates as the "normal" way of interacting and communicating on DA, so the new Posts widget encourages lots of small frequently-updated thoughts over occasional substantial entries. Ways to post and view status updates have been placed in prominent locations around the UI and posting interface in general, and seems to be being groomed into a Facebook-like (again) system of internal content sharing (for example, posting a status update sharing another poster's deviation they wanted to talk about. This will discourage people from making their comments on your actual art instead of their own newsfeed, and also means that everyone who sees an artist's work in the feed of a friend they already follow will view and fav it from the feed they already watch, instead of watching the new artist's gallery--in fact, they likely don't even visit the actual deviation page, so they don't even see the new artist's comments on their own work. This draws attention away from a piece's creator, and makes the relationship between artist and viewer very impersonal. As you can see from the one (1) and only status I ever posted, back when they came out at first, this is a change I'll be adjusting to only under great duress and considerable protest. It is also heavily emphasizing on-site selling. The prints & paid downloads features, and the point-commission widget system have been been synthesized together and sized up into a whole tab of their own on your profile. Which would probably be a good thing--if they actually let you use real money. Like the commission widget before it, the Shop tab can only conduct business in DApoints. There are a Lot of Bugs still so far. Some I've experienced myself are:Changes to profile, gallery, settings and other things of that nature not saved, and have to be made several times before they "take". Eg, you're removing unwanted widgets that appear by default your first time in Eclipse mode. You leave the page and return, now they're back. This may be caused by how slow Eclipse is to register things. Dunno about anyone else. But my avatar pic, the full-size one on my main profile/gallery page, is blurry as hell. It's fine everywhere else on Eclipse, as far as I've seen, because those versions are all smaller (ie are the normal size they used to be on normal DA), so I guess it's upscaling my old-sized avatar because it's now too small. I don't see what the new size should be posted anywhere (I got the cover image size from the mouse-hover altText on the upload button).In the Bio section, the Social Media Links section does not not recognise my etsy link! I've tried both directly copy-pasting the link as it appears in my store when I go there, I tried de-localizing it like I usually do (ie, using .com/shop instead of the .com/ca/shop I get automatically when visiting the same URL in Canada), and also just putting my shop name instead of my url. Rejects all of them. If I type in either form of the URL, they're fine. They work fine on my art Tumblr. The work fine if I put them in the Website Link section under Bio, instead of under the Social Media tab's field, it works fine. The Tumblr link in the Tumblr field in the same tab works fine. It's this one field in this one tab. This is kind of a pretty big bug on a site like DeviantArt.The UI can't count. I keep getting a New Notification icon in my top bar, opening notifications, and finding there are not, in fact, any notifications at all. It also insists I have at least one thing saved to the Shop tab/commission widget. I don't. I know because I just deleted all the ones id made as experiments to see how it worked when it was new. It shows the empty category box when I actually look, but the bracketed number on the tab stays at (1). Also, I'm preeeety sure (but not certain) that numbers like how many deviations I have are different between Eclipse and normal DA.Another personal opinion: I am Less Than Happy with DA for "surprising" me today with the need to spend half the damn day sorting out what I can and cannot now do with my gallery and profile, and how to work around it. And also the need to maintain two entire profiles on the same site, until mandatory rollout happens, at which point I'll lose the already-working one I actually liked. And also I now need to come up with a 1600x800 cover image to fill the wasted space at the top of my new DA profile.So. I guess I'll just go get on that then, now. Hurray.
I doubt Abbi's intent was to fearmonger or demonize Eclipse, but I definitely didn't find what she shared encouraging. What it sounds like Deviantart is doing is making the site far less casual and user-friendly, and more like a business geared towards selling art or a Facebook-esque social media site. I understand this is an early version and that it still has time to change if user feedback is negative enough, but I don't know if the people running the site are interested in or willing to change. Deviantart doesn't exactly have the best history of listening to its userbase? People who've been here longer than I have can probably better attest to that.

Maybe I'm just paranoid about big corporations in general, or maybe the memory of what happened to Wikia and Tumblr is still too fresh in my mind. Suffice it to say, I'm very worried about the future of this site. I worry we might see a lot of features disappear, a lot of things becoming less intuitive or user-friendly, and just being here becoming less fun. If that happens, I can only imagine a lot of people are going to leave. So, this brings me back to the efforts I've been making to be more involved here, to share more stories, to get more involved in the community - what if it's a waste of time? Am I building on an unstable foundation? Should I be putting so much effort into getting more involved in a website that I fear is going to throw me under the bus, or a community that I'm worried might shrink or evaporate in the near future? 

In all honesty, if not for the people I'm watching and the friends I've made here, I don't think I'd still be on Deviantart. I don't really have much motivation to post stories here, outside of the hope that I can use that as a way to get more involved in communities or engage with other writers here. I have other places I can share my stories, other places I can get feedback. I'm still here because my friends are here. If Eclipse is as devastating as I fear it is, I don't want to lose track of the people I've followed and talked to and known for so long. If they leave, I don't know if I'd stay.  

Am i freaking out about nothing? I hope so. Do I have any clear evidence to back up my panic that this is the DApocalypse? Eh. Have I even tried Eclipse for myself? No. Do I have a history of freaking out at things that don't warrant that reaction? Hell yes. So, maybe this long-winded and rambly journal is just me panicking for no reason - if anyone has an alternate take or a different opinion on Eclipse, please tell me, I'd love the reassurance - but even if that's true, I'm glad I wrote this journal. It's given me a better idea of why I'm still here at all and how I feel about Deviantart. To all my friends here, whatever happens to Deviantart, I'm so glad I know you all. You're the best. 

help save my dad (update)      


UPDATE 6.16.18: update on my dad! we've had some questions answered and things are looking a lot better than it did before.
he doesn't have multiple blood clots, he just has one really large one with the threat of others spreading. that threat is much lower now that he'll be on blood thinners for what looks to be 6 months.
his older age is the most likely cause for his thrombosis.
his life, for the time being, isn't in any danger. if this changes and we need more help, i'll keep you all posted.
it's really been an emotional week. i've been planning out everything for the worst case scenario and who to call and how to communicate to my spanish-speaking siblings what's happening but now those are worries i can let go of for the time being. it's just tough when you're the only kid

I can't contribute any money atm, but I said I'd spread the word.

The absolutely wonderful saturdaystorytellers just produced a narration of one of my stories, Silence, and posted it on her Youtube account. It sounds absolutely wonderful, I highly recommend you listen to it. Also, take a look at her group, Inspiring Stories, where she shares other uplifting stories and makes narrations of them.

Thanks so much again to saturdaystorytellers for doing this!

AltairSky urgently needs money to help pay for medical bills for a badly injured cat. She's offering $10 commissions. I, unfortunately, can't pay directly since I don't have a credit card, so I'm spreading the word instead. Please help her, it's for a good cause.

Details here:  Sam had his surgery!I'm opening commissions to donate to this rescue center and help save this cat. He needs surgery and jaw reconstruction. I would also love to be able to adopt him.
The money will be donated to save this specific cat.
Here is his donation page with his story:
https://letsadoptinternational.com/2018/01/help-his-jaw-is-in-pieces-the-bones-are-exposed/

as you can notice, he looks exactly like my cat Minchio, who died 6 years ago from a mouth infection that my vets couldn't (or didn't want) to cure:

I still feel so guilty, all I had to do was to change vet and he might be still alive today... But I trusted the vets and he ended up dying from this infection. So now I want to help this cat and see if I manage to redeem myself and feel a little better (I doubt it though, unless I also manage to adopt him)
Here is the video with the link to the donation page if you feel like making a donation directly to them without me drawing s

(also she's a really good artist too so check out her gallery if you get the chance)