So I started using Pixiv. And now I know where DA got their user interface ideas from! DA is definitely evolving backwards. But an interesting note, in general I would get about 100 views per art post here, having supposedly 1000 watchers. But on Pixiv with 12 watchers I've got around 30 views! So for like an order of magnitude less viewers I only lose 2/3 viewership! That tells me it's pretty sleepy here at DA.
That said, I do miss a journal. Pixiv doesn't have one that I can see. I suppose I could post a "novel" entry, I might try that for fun.