TheAntimonyElement

Soooooo...last post was two years ago? That sounds...wrong.

I'll admit it's been a bit hard to be on DA lately, so I've been avoiding posting / interacting much. I'm still here to view all the wonderful pictures and comics that the talented people post, but Eclipse is just...wow. It's awful. It took me 10 minutes to figure out how to write this journal, because there was nowhere to add a new one by the old journals or in the "posts" tab. Like, this is a travesty of web design and I hate it. Plus I spend 99% of my time on DA from my phone, which is even worse for Eclipse...if you haven't tried, there is basically no mobile functionality. It's almost impossible to find comments, it's glitchy as heck, and there's no way to edit your cover photo / profile / etc. I had some things that I wrote in my bio back when I first joined in 2008, which had gotten gently hidden by the sands of time and profile management, until it got dragged violently back into the spotlight thanks to Eclipsegate and I got to remember what a cringy teenager I used to be (why was everything misspelled???)

Sooooo yeah. I still feel...conflicted. The fact is that DA is, for now, pretty much the only game in town as far as casual art sharing / community websites, and your other options are either to go way casual like Tumblr or srsbsns with a profile site. And that's not what I want! I want to look at a wide range of art and interact with talented people. But when literally tens of thousands of members of your loyal userbase sign a petition saying that your website update is hugely problematic for a number of specific and legitimate reasons, and you just...ignore them? Like, that sucks. I've loved DA for 12 years, it has such a great community of users and I have so many fond memories wrapped up in this site...I don't know. I just dunno.

And of course, 2020 is just...the fourth year in a row of disheartening nonsense, and I am not a person prone to either depression or nihilism but I just...have such a hard time caring anymore about all the terrible sh*t because there's just so. much. of. it. constantly. And even if the election goes favorably, I still don't see an end in sight. Most of the really crippling problems with our country and our world are still going to be there; maybe we'll manage to flush the toilet but the house is still falling down around us. The world is just so full of hatred and bitterness and suffering, and that pain is passed down from one generation to the next so that everybody is traumatized and wounded and so deep in their own hole that they don't realize that everybody else is tunneling right alongside them. And in the meantime the wildfires and hurricanes and rising sea levels and dying wildlife just keep...going.

Like, I'm crazy lucky compared to 99.99% of the planet, I know. I have a loving family and a good job and a social safety net. We suffered a sudden loss in the family two months ago which was tragic, but we have so many loving friends and family who were there for us and still are. And I'm doing fine, really. I got married in January and it was beautiful and perfect and the timing was nothing short of a miracle because I know at least two other couples that have had to postpone their own weddings because of the virus. I'm getting some nice art done which I'll post for you guys soon when I can access my other computer. I've played Breath of the Wild and Pokemon Sword. I've gained 10 pounds, and am trapped in a constant struggle between "go to to the fracking pool, PLEASE, PLEASE YOU BLOB" and "but creamsicles." Both my husband and I can telework full-time. I'm so, SO lucky. But it hurts, you guys.

I don't know, I didn't mean for this journal to get as...this...as it did. But it feels good to write about it, actually. I dunno. I blame my brown study at least partially on having watched "The Breadwinner" last night, which...is intense, you guys. If you haven't seen it, give it a watch. It's as beautiful as any of Cartoon Saloon's other movies, but it's probably the most stressful animated movie I've ever seen and it's just...it's a lot. Go in for "Middle-Eastern Mulan," stay for the brutal and unending desperation of life for women/the disabled/the poor/etc. in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan circa 9/11. Woof.

Nolite te bastardes carborundorum, you guys. Hang in there. The wheel keeps turning, and one of these days, it has to swing back up.