Powerwing-Amber

Sadly no, it's not the start of a familiar Eggman and Shadow joke.

So... as pretty much the majority of you know, Eclipse will be permanently upon us in a few hours. Unfortunately, this means something I've been debating on doing for awhile, but I doubt I'll be able to drag my feet on for much longer.

I will have to leave deviantArt.

Maybe that might upset some of you, some of you might be mad, and others could probably care less, but I need to host my art at a website that actually respects their artists and will listen when they voice their needs and concerns. dA is not that. It hasn't been that for years. They sold us out to their Wix overlords years ago and the site has been getting worse and worse. However, I stuck with it, since change is a big deal for me and it's not easy. I've put up with a lot of crap over the years, but Eclipse will force my hand.

They'll be removing stash writer, one of the more important tools I use on this site, since I use it to store a lot of in-progress stories, character bios and RPs; and custom HTML/CSS, albeit I never got too fancy with it, I still used it and liked seeing the uniqueness of artists' pages that used it. Now, it's all going to look samey, sterile, boring...

Eclipse also does not work on any of my mobile devices. Hell, dA barely works on them now. The only thing that worked properly was stash and that's pretty much only text.

Anyway, I'm trying to decide which alternative art site I want to migrate to. I've narrowed it down to ArtRise and Pixiv. However, ArtRise is still in beta and I'm not sure if they're going to remain neutral to political (both sides) art and other controversial art (that isn't against the law). Albeit, I wouldn't be interested in seeing such art, it would give me a good idea on whether or not the art site will censor people based on a certain bias, you know? I'm all for free-speech and freedom of expression, no matter what side of the political and/or religious spectrum you're on. So, I always take that into account with new art sites.

I'm still reading more about Pixiv too. I know it used to be a Japanese-only site, but I'm unsure about how well the community engagement is. There are other art site options too, but those are the big two I'm thinking about.

Until I'm able to settle into a new site, I will linger on dA for a little while. Unless Eclipse doesn't work well on my desktop too... I'll respond to comments and fav friends' and watchees' artwork, when possible. However, if I do post art, it'll only be for the groups I'm in and even that, I'm not sure how long I'll stick around... I'm still on the fence about removing all of my art once I leave too. I know that some people would not like that, since they enjoy looking at my art; but at the same time, I don't know if I can in good faith keep my art on a site that cares nothing about me and will farm said-art for money and traffic. It'll be a long decision process here.

Anyway, whenever I become fully integrated with a new art site, I'll post my final journal entry about it (or whatever the equivalent of that will be here). No one will be obligated to follow me there, of course, but for those who do, you will be given easy access.

Until next time...

So long, space cowboy.

Well, I said this was coming.

So, I've been pretty quiet for... honestly I don't remember how long it's been. November, maybe? Well, no matter. Here's what's been happening lately and a lot of it accounts for the reason why I've been dead around here.

As typical of what's happened the last few years, my S.A.D. (that's seasonal affective disorder, AKA seasonal depression, for those who don't know) tends to hit sometime around late October/early November, which means I try to spend less time online, mostly with social media-type sites, since they tend to aggravate my condition. I've actually been doing much better with that, so I guess this is working.

I've also been spending less time with PKMN Sky-related activities since, I feel like I'm losing interest. There are many reasons why this is and I won't get into that here, but it's just getting harder to enjoy the place, you know? I've put myself on an unofficial hiatus from Skies for the time being. I doubt I'll need to ask them for an official one, since I might throw up a picture or two before activity check even occurs. If not, then I can put in my official retirement, instead. I know it seems like I go through this with groups every-so-often, so perhaps my hiatus will allow me to reflect and see whether I really want to stick around much longer, or not.

However, there is another group that's kinda caught my eye, thanks to a picture I saw from Ciress. The group ISN'T pokemon related, but yokai-instead. Now, THAT is interesting and a bit different. I might reserve a creature there at some point and try my luck at getting in. Might be fun. ^^ This won't happen anytime incredibly soon, though. This is because...

I FINALLY got a commission! I'm so excited about this! I've been working on it for awhile and it's something that, let's face it, I was probably going to draw anyway. It's Sonic-related for a Sonic group's twitter banner, a group that I happen to be a part of on their discord server. I've been a part of that group since mid-November, so it's fairly new for me. But, I've enjoyed it so far. Yes, this means you're going to be seeing more Sonic art from me compared to other stuff. I've gotten heavily back into it again and this discord group is just putting more fuel on the fire.

There is some bad news, though. After Christmas break, I caught a nasty case of bronchitis from my sister, who CLAIMED her coughing was just drainage, but that wasn't the case, now, was it? I've been taking a lot of medicine for it and while I've gotten much better, especially compared to last Thursday, I'm still not 100% recovered. I still have a little more ways to go before I can actually get out and do stuff again without contaminating everyone.

At least, I have a Switch to keep me occupied! Yep! Finally, after all this time, I got a Switch. Right now, I just have Mario Kart 8 and Sonic Mania, but I'm planning on getting Smash Ultimate, Breath of the Wild and Mario Odyssey at some point. Maybe Splatoon 2... but I'm not 100% sure my interest is strong enough for it yet. I don't have an online subscription, either. I feel like it's a waste of money right now, especially since it's a Peer-to-Peer network, which is stupid. At least get an actual, stable server, Nintendo.

Aside from all that, my iron count has gotten better after taking the iron supplements given to me. So, my health is definitely getting better. I'm planning on working on a book in the near future. I'll have to advertise about that once I get most of the story finished.

And, that's pretty much it.

If you have any questions, or comments, please direct them here. Thank you!

Hi, everyone. It's been awhile since I've made a journal entry, huh? Also, you may have noticed I've been pretty quiet and inactive for the majority of August. So, what's been going on? Well...

Basically, my grandfather took a pretty serious fall on the 8'th of August. Slipped on a wet spot on the stairs outside, hit his head on the metal railing and fell on the concrete. I heard it happen (and at the time, was the only one who heard anything) and I just knew it was going to be bad. I told my grandma he was hurt, and we both rushed outside. I called 911 for like, the second time in my life. I thought maybe because they got to him so quickly, that he would be okay. He was still conscious and talking, as well as joking and remembering everything. Sharp as a tack. They sent him to the hospital about two hours away from my town.

X-rays were fine, but he was complaining about numbness in his hands, so they gave him a MRI. Turned out he had pinched a bunch of nerves in his neck, so he had to have surgery. He also had to get a plastic surgeon in to stitch up his face. There was a deeper gash there than I realized and he almost got his eye gouged out by the corner of the railing. His glasses prevented that and took the full blow that could have been his eye. His glasses are pretty much obliterated, but better them than his eye.

All of his surgeries worked out, but now he'll have permanent metal pins in his neck, so he won't be able to turn his head much. He also has a torn area in his shoulder, but that should heal on its own. He's going to have months of physical therapy ahead of him. He was in the hospital for the majority of the month, because he's too nauseous to eat and kept wanting to sleep all the time, not to mention he had to get some extra therapy at the hospital in order to get used to moving around with a bolted neck and very weak arms, the latter of which, we hope will get stronger. Everyone in the family was pretty stressed out and exhausted from the whole ordeal, as you can imagine.

Granddad finally returned home on the 28'th of August and he has to have physical therapy for every weekday. However, he looks really good. The plastic surgeon did an excellent job on his face. The only thing he'll have visible is a small, cartoonish scar under his left eye and to be honest, it's barely noticeable. He can talk and recall memories as well as he did before the fall. He can walk around just fine on his own too. However, his hands and arms are really weak right now. He can't lift them up high, nor can he grip things as tightly as he used to. We're hoping the therapy will improve these things. The therapists and his doctor are also keeping an eye on his mental health, since he's been having bad nightmares involving his traumatic ordeal, of which, I can totally understand. However, he does need a good night's rest, so he might be put on some mild sleep aids until he can get past this. Not sure yet.

Now that things are settling down, I'll try to get back to doing my usual, slow art stuff. So, I hope you guys are still around to see that!