Nala15

Hey everyone,

I hope you're well! I'm hanging in there. In case you noticed, I've been kinda gone from DA (and most of the internet if you follow me anywhere else like Patreon, YouTube, TH...) Not by choice. It started by choice. I wanted to knuckle down and get a bunch of owed art done. Spoiler alert: I DID get a lot of owed art done. Massive upload is due super soon.

BUT

Following up from this post... All of last month was really stressful. We got snow in early March and then that turned to ice. By the time I was able to leave the house again, the snow took forever to melt and most of my energy that wasn't spent at work was zapped by having to walk through snow, shovel snow, tread on ice, etc. Those 2 weeks felt like 4 months. Wasn't the worst snow I'd ever been in - it was just so LONG.

Things started to get better after that until... my parents and immediate family were essentially getting evicted from the property they've rented for 20 years. (Warning: Real estate/home market jargon ahead. TL;DR: My family had to move out in a hurry and I was caught up in the stress.)

Long story short, the original landlord sold the property a few years ago to a developer. Its been a pending thing with my parents being expected to leave the property, BUT there were a lot of delays on the developer's part. My parents have looked for a new place ever since, but ran out of time literally 2 weeks ago, time of this writing. They had a place to move into lined up, and had to wait the customary 30 days before closing on the new place. The development company wouldn't give them any more time (even though the real estate market is to blame) before giving them the final boot. So Ras and I helped them with moving some things. The clock had been ticking down for a week or more leading up to this, and the stress definitely got to me - even though I wasn't directly affected/involved. Heck, I'm STILL coming down from it all. They did close on the new place and are moving (again - from my brother's place where they had to stay for a bit) to that home as I write. So, crisis over at least.

THEN

After all this went down, April Fool's Day came around. And I had plans, you guys. I really did. Those were derailed, though, thanks to a very painful situation Ras and I experienced with one of our IRL friend groups.

I'm not comfortable sharing all details here, but what I will say is that we were accused of something that we didn't do (in a rather passive-aggressive way as well) - and it exploded into a terrible spiral of stress, sadness, and anger. For 3 days I felt like I was in a waking nightmare. I'm still not sure if the responsible party is quite clear on what they caused. Trust was broken and it was really hard to do much of anything except think about that and run through every scenario that might come of it. And none of it was an April Fool's prank. (And I'm not sure if that would have made things better or worse.)

Fortunately, trust is actively being re-built. Things aren't 100% back to us being completely comfortable yet, but we did learn that our friends have our backs and actively care about us. Not that we doubted that, but for a moment it felt like everything we'd built with them would crumble to ashes from that one situation caused by one individual. It was scary. It was disturbing. It wasn't my first time experiencing something like that, but I always hope it's my last whenever it does happen. Thankfully, such times have been few and far between.

The combined stress and anxiety/uncertainty from all those events have really held me back. Heck, I fell another week behind because I felt overwhelmed just thinking about talking to anyone (online or otherwise) in the fallout of the last situation. I'm just in the last couple days starting to feel more like myself.

If you made it all the way to the end, thank you for your time. I hope that I'll be able to be around again more often. I have some things in store that are going to be partly for myself to get back to having fun again, and for you guys too! Of course, more Brothers pages are being sketched and worked on for here and Patreon. AND that mass upload I've been teasing will drop sooner rather than later. Highly likely there'll be something in there you've been waiting for, if you've been waiting on things from me.

I'll be catching up on messages as I'm able. I think I replied to most DMs, but please message me again if you don't see a reply from me in the next few days. Always feel free to ask me for updates on your commissions, etc, and/or to ask if I got your message. DA is still weird at times with notifications and things can and do get lost in the shuffle despite my efforts.

Again, hope you're doing well! I'll be around again super soon! Miss you guys!

Later,

Nala15

P.S.

If you can check out my post seeking help for my friend, that'd be very appreciated!

Not one of the sources of my current/recently passed stress per se, but I do worry about them.

UPDATE: It got worse, you guys.

(See the comment section of this journal for info on how to report them. PLEASE report these comment threads to DA.)

Hi guys,

If you, or anyone you know, has any cub fanart of the TLK sub-canon characters Tojo, Malka, Tama, Kopa, Kula, Chumvi, etc - you might want to check your comments sections. In case you missed my status update, please have a look. https://www.deviantart.com/nala15/status-update/I-highly-recommend-blocking-the-1014752486 (there's some art there in comments to click on with examples of what I'm talking about)

Otherwise, I'd highly recommend blocking the accounts HunterMars05 and DinosaurTrainer1 if you'd like to avoid or prevent these comment chains in the future. I don't know if what they're doing is against DA TOS (or reportable)... but some of the RPs are a bit uncomfy at times imo. If any of the comment chains you see (on your own pieces or not) do get explicit in any way, please take screencaps/copy comment links and report those to DA because that IS against TOS.

You can click on the pic below to see what I mean in its comment chain too:

This was just a quick one. I was just logging in to prep for Rehemuary... The people that make every fandom look bad need to chill the frick out already...

Btw, if you find any images with comment chains, please comment on them to get the artists' attention about the situation. You can put said art here on my journal too - sometimes the mention pings help.

Later!

Nala15

I hope you all have an amazing holiday season and a happy new year! I wanted to say that I appreciate all of you for your support and just for being there during 2023. You're all amazing and you all make me happy and give me hope every time I see a fave or a message from any of you!

I know I've been kinda scare here lately (if you've noticed - apart from my posts/rambling about the book Branded By Tears), but I'm gonna be around a lot more often in the coming days and posting a lot of everything so... brace yourselves. By the by, thank you to everyone still waiting on owed stuff - your patience is so super appreciated!

In the meantime, I wish you all well! I know several of you have had a really rough go this year (and some of it you were faced with very recently), and my heart goes out to you. I hope the new year will treat you better.

So from me, Ras, and Brandy - Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Later!

Nala15 P.S. Yes, the wood stove is still amazing!! Thank you all!!

I wanted to alert you that Patreon changed the way locked content appears for non-patrons or for patrons who aren't in certain tiers. Instead of being super blurry, now the blur is barely enough and you can like actually read whole segments of comic pages. I've contacted support about this (and I recommend you do too). They acknowledged my concerns at least as being legit, but I think if more creators get on board, the quicker and more likely Patreon staff may act and get this "fixed". The biggest workarounds for this right now are to make sure the first image on your post is like a blank image OR an image with a text notice of some kind. At least that bumps the main image to be smaller and more segmented, making it harder to see/read.

Here's the link to the form to use to submit a request: https://support.patreon.com/hc/en-us/requests/new?ticket_form_id=12864137196941

Here are the options to have selected:

If you could spread the word too and encourage creators to contact support, that'd be great.

This is what I said in my help request (if you need ideas/a template): "The new way to blur posts for non-patrons or for patrons that are not logged in when viewing my Patreon page are too clear. I post comic pages and art. The blur and opacity allows the viewer to see almost everything clearly, making it easier to see pay-to-view content without paying simply by accessing the site and not being a patron. I wish to request that a stronger blur and cover is implemented to protect my work and preserve the privileges of my patrons. Thank you." The response I got leads me to believe they at least are taking me seriously. (Fingers crossed.)

The more of us who can send these requests for help in, the better.

Hello there!

This is literally the first day this year I've been able to log in to DA. I might ramble a little bit because I have a lot to catch you guys up on, but I'll try to get to the points. Bear with me. Power outages, wild weather (no snow storms, though, thank goodness), and other challenges aside, I've had a pretty crazy busy time between October and really New Year's Eve. It was hard to do anything creative, let alone anything that took a longer chunk of time. And that was heartbreaking for me. It physically and emotionally pains me when I can't draw, write, or dedicate my time to something I'm passionate about. It wasn't all bad, I did draw and write, but it wasn't really anything I could (or had time) to post here or on Patreon except for Brothers (when I could dedicate time to something, that's usually what I chose).

But now, things are turning a corner. First up, I invested (with the help of the funds earned from my Patreon Pride - thank you!) in some backup power supplies (UPS) for my computer and Ras' so now, the occasional brown out or black out won't completely screw me over. I wish I had enough fingers to count how many times this winter I've sat down at my computer to do some art, and then had EVERYTHING go dark on me JUST seconds or minutes later due to a power fluctuation or an outage (lasting from seconds to hours, to a couple days). We live out in the country and things like this are expected, but it's MORE than frustrating. Now with this new tool, it's taken off a huge load of anxiety I started getting every time I'd sit down at my computer. It's a HUGE relief.

In other news, I've got a backlog working for Brothers pages now. I'll be uploading one within a few minutes of me posting this journal. There's always more to read ahead on Patreon, but because of the setbacks I've had for... literal months now, it's been sporadic at best. I want that Wednesday schedule back and I want it bad. With the Brothers pages being caught up, it's felt like I freed a huge logjam of creative blocks in my mind and it's such a relief. I'm slowly catching up on commissions. They will be my priority (outside of Brothers) going forward, starting with a couple I've promised priority to (you know who you are), and then doing any and all character design commissions - including Rehema cubs I still owe - since Rehemuary is rushing around the corner! I will do an early bird Rehemuary this year but ONLY for 3, very limited slots.

Finally, in other-other news, I'm working on two big projects. The first is an original comic/graphic novel that will be launching on Patreon first, and then to DA (similar to how Brothers is now). It takes place during the Pleistocene and follows a saber-toothed cat as the main character. More info to come. The second is a series of videos I've got in the works. One is a collab with a good DA friend, and a few others are Lion King related. Betrothed the Series is returning this year too, of course.

I'll be around again soon! In the meantime, enjoy the Brothers page as a promise of things to come!

Happy New Year! I wish you all the best in your 2023. Please let me know how you're doing. I've missed you all! Remember you're awesome!!

Later!

Nala15