#and this entire experience ive had to go through has definitely further cemented that in my belief system lol

[puppytoast]

has @diurnalcritters helped alleviate the feeling of dissatisfaction you've had with art?

Sorry this is going to get long winded as you’ve struck a thing I’ve had to think a lot about the last year and a half so I have a lot to say LOL. DiurnalCritters is one thing in a long line of things to help me get back to normal, and even better as a person as a whole, after nerve damage I suffered last year.

The TL;DR answer is It’s definitely been one thing has helped yeah. It’s been fun, people enjoy them and send me very kind messages on and off Tumblr about them, and they help me overcome a bit of perfectionism I started developing recently since I have been able to draw more again, and thank you you and everyone that has been supporting me with it! I know it’s different from my usual content.

This is where I start rambling about where the feeling started and how I am still overcoming things in full, but it’s all pretty personal gushy stuff so no hard feelings if it’s not read but It’s been cathartic to write out:

 In early 2021 I suffered some minor nerve damage that caused me to not be able to draw for about 6 months and still to this day I occasionally get pain from it. According to clinical tests it healed well over a year ago, so i’ve attributed it to phantom pain and the majority of it just being in my head. It really only crops up when I think about it too much and when I am trying to force myself to work on things when i’m feeling particularly rusty that day, and it never gets worse even when I push through it. (I can feel it very minorly as I type this lol) I’m at the point where I have just considered it a traumatic experience that left me struggling to pick up drawing completely again despite desperately wanting to, because deep down I am afraid of not being able to do this anymore. It’s the thing I am most passionate about and enjoy doing, and makes up a huge portion of who I am and what I care about. So being faced with the very real “if you don’t let this heal, you could damage it further and never be able to work again” broke something in my brain and caused a lot of other unrelated problems as well.

Not being able to draw for a significant amount of time left me incredibly depressed and when I still couldn’t even come up with ideas and was still dealing with pain, despite being okayed that the nerve had been healed, that depression got even worse. I chalked a lot up to dissatisfaction and brainrot and not really knowing what was wrong and being very distressed about it all. I ended up having to seek therapy and that has been very helpful and has gotten me to get better at managing some personal issues and be able to handle this entire situation better. I’ve started expanding my horizons and going outside of my comfort zone on things like volunteering at the local zoo and finally being convinced to join a TTRPG game (maybe even a second one soon), which gave me Tetra, who I had and have clung to as an anchor and who has become immensely important to me as something I was able to be creative with even in a time where creativity simply refused to come to me. She is an extension of myself and has also helped me with other long standing social and anxiety issues I’ve had that it would be an entire other long post to ramble about so I’ll stop myself there lmao.

Managing a lot of other problems and experiencing new things has helped me get the creative streak back, and while I am still slower than I would like to be, it is definitely getting better, and the recognition of what is wrong and taking steps to work towards overcoming it does very much help. I started getting into a bit of a perfectionist streak with commissionwork causing it to take twice as long as I really like it to, and DiurnalCritters has also been a very good overcoming of that problem in the shape of making me have to just get something simple down without thinking about it too hard, and even with DiurnalCritters I do still have that problem on occasion, but it is also getting better as I remind myself to recognize when it’s happening and just get whatever down and move onto my day.

I’ve been drawing WAY more recently again, and I’m feeling the best I have in a long time about creating, and i’m just very glad because I was terrified I would never get back to this point again.

Thanks if you read this long self-reflection.

[bookshelf-imagines]

Chasing Light | Part V

Pairings/Fandom: Lumity/ToH

Summary: More suspense! Odalia, Odalia, Odalia...That bitch.

Warnings: Violence, blood

PART I || PART II || PART III || PART IV || PART VI || PART VII

Luz panted from the exhaustion that settled in her bones from fighting the beast in front of her. She had been rolling out of swipes but she had lost too much blood from the first blow to continue much longer.

It was her fault.

When she turned around, Cerberus had brought down one of his gigantic claws across the legionnaire’s chest, following it up with a clamp with its sharp teeth on her right arm, rendering her dominant sword arm useless.

She should’ve seen it coming but she didn’t.

She was trained better than this.

It was the fact that Odalia had mentioned the gods. What would a mere mortal know about divine beings, and a Titan at that? Pluto was struck down to the Underworld to watch the souls of the departed. If Odalia had him in her pocket, Luz didn’t want to think about the possibility of the woman being more powerful than she had displayed thus far.

Cerberus widened his maw and missed its target by less than a hair. Luz had rolled to the side and slid into a crack in the mountain. Her chocolate eyes held a ferocity in them as they scanned the battleground. Her sword was in two pieces on the left side. She couldn’t make it in time and she highly doubted the ability of the steel to pierce the hide of the godlike beast.

However, before she could dive beneath the vicious dog, a yellowish-white light enveloped the animal, causing Luz to shield her vision with her non-injured arm. As soon as it came, it was gone, and so was Cerberus.

Luz carefully dislodged her damaged body from the crack and limped over to her sword while simultaneously searching for what caused the creature to miraculously vanish into thin air. So far, there was nothing. Until-

“You have done well, my child. Come, rest. Your body may be blessed with the blood of the gods, but it has yet to be awakened. You are still mortal. Close your eyes. We will help.” It was an almost ethereal voice. It wasn’t around her, more so echoing within the constraints of her own mind. It bothered her to no end because it sounded like her conscience but...real.

Before she could think too much about it, her knees gave out under her and she fell to the earth, allowing exhaustion to envelope her in darkness.

~~~~~~~~~~ A few moments before ~~~~~~~~~~

“You really should be in bed resting.” Willow informed.

Amity wasn’t having any of it.

“I can’t rest knowing that my...mother,” She shuddered, “Is out there. The things she’s capable of…”

“Amity...What exactly happened over all these years?”

The honey color in the brunette’s eyes had dimmed since childhood. They no longer held the golden speck when she spoke and they looked as if they were constantly in fear of something. Or someone.

“You don’t want to know.”

A rapping at the door broke the conversation. Willow opened the door only for her friend to come toppling through, barely catching her limp form.

“Luz?!”

“Look at her armor - there are blood stains, but she doesn’t seem to be bleeding.” Amity observed before helping carry the unconscious Centurion to a bed.

They laid Luz down and examined her.

There was no blood on her other than her armor. Her sword was missing and her hair had definitely seen better days. She seemed visibly normal in all but one area.

“Did she have that scarring before?” Amity crouched and gently took a hold of Luz’s arm, tracing what seemed to be scars left by enormous teeth.

“Not that I recall, no. What do you think happened to her?”

“Odalia.”

“How would she be able to do this?”

“I don’t-” Amity sighed, “I’m not sure. But we might want to check for any other injuries, just in case.”

“You sure know an awful lot about this.”

Now, of course, as sweet as Willow is, she’s not stupid and neither is Amity. The plant-lover may not have seen her childhood best friend for nearly a decade, but she still cared regardless of what happened. She didn’t blame Amity for it. Though, if she had known that her mother had forced her into slavery, things might have gone differently.

On the other hand, Amity still hadn’t forgiven herself for what happened. When she was ripped from the life she had, all contact to the outside world was lost. That included the only person that stood by her through thick and thin. What did she do with that trust? She grabbed it by its neck and snapped until the last bone was broken. It wasn’t on purpose, and it wasn’t her fault, no, but the guilt was there and the weight bared down on her shoulders more so than Atlas himself.

“The, um…” Amity stood straight but avoided eye contact out of habit, “the other slaves taught me how to properly tend to wounds whether they were deep or shallow. I have experience with...injury.” She trailed off and opted to gaze at the unconscious woman before her.

She had to admit that Luz was...attractive? She also had to admit that that probably was not the correct word. It’s just that Luz exudes confidence. She wasn’t quite sure what it was, but it was...neat.

“Amity...I’m-I’m so sorry, I never knew.” Willow’s tone drooped as she took a step forward, “Come here.”

Amity was embraced in a caring hug. The problem was that her body tightened as hard as a rock and froze in place as her expression was replaced with confusion.

“Wh-what are you doing?”

“I’m...hugging you.” Willow pulled away with worry, “It’s meant to comfort.”

“A..what?”

“You don’t know what a hug is?!”

“Stop...shouting. It’s too bright.” Luz, as disoriented as possible, groaned.

“Luz!” Both of the other females in the room sped over, but Amity took one of her hands.

As soon as Luz could register her surroundings and why there was an electric ache shocking her body, she smirked.

“Holding my hand before the first date, huh?”

“Wh-” Amity dropped her hand and blushed profusely, albeit without knowing why or how. Why was her face so...hot? For no reason? It’s not as though she learned much about...really anything to do with people, so this entire ordeal is new territory.

“Luz, what happened?” Willow inquired.

“Cerberus, Odalia, Pluto. Bright light. Sit down because this is going to be a lot.”

~~~~~~~~~~

Pluto leisurely stepped in circles around the woman currently shackled to the cement beneath her, tugging at her wrists and bringing her further into the Underworld with each struggle.

Odalia was bound to run out of luck eventually, and now she had. She was paying the price of what it meant to deal with a very, very angry god.

The God of the Dead stood in front of his victim and lifted her chin with a slender finger, clicking his tongue three times.

“You disappoint me.”

He crouched down and whispered.

“And you know what happens when you disappoint me.”

A chill sprinted down the woman’s spine as she kneeled motionless in front of the Titan.

A snap of his fingers was all it took before the souls of the damned came crawling from the River Styx, all too eager to feast upon such a delicious morsel.

They weren’t going to kill her, no. Oh, no. Just slightly…

Make her suffer.

[gutbrainaxis]

lemon balm

My first experience with ulcerative colitis pain was in June of 2018. I felt a searing pain under my lowest rib on my right side, stretching down to my pelvis. Later that night, I got my period. Aha, I figured. My period. Of course. That night my flow was so heavy that I had to supplement my tampons with dunkin donuts napkins, wrapped expertly around the crotch of my panties in an effort to not further stain my boyfriend’s bedsheets.

Towards the end of my period, I found that I was extremely constipated. My entire abdomen felt like a water balloon full of cement. I let my mom drive me to the emergency room, not her own, but rather the one she used to work at some 2o-odd years ago. It was frustrating to stop every few feet to meet my mom’s coworkers from 20 years ago.  I was hunched over and walking very slowly, in something like a bipedal fetal position. I don’t care how long ago you worked with my mom Sandra, my stomach feels like it’s about to explode. Intake was frustrating. A young, pretty nurse with an Apple Watch asks about my symptoms. I tell her my stomach feels like cement. Nothing else abnormal. Just the cement.

I finally get a bed in the ER. It’s a calm afternoon and my mom chats with the young nurse who gives me an IV. He completed part of his training at her hospital. They don’t remember each other. I get fluids and an ibuprofen and I’m discharged before I know what’s going on. I’m confused because I’m still in excruciating pain and I still don’t understand what’s going on. My mom says that I’m to follow up with my gynecologist.

Two days later, I’m at the OBGYN. My usual doctor, an advanced practice nurse, isn’t available, says the nurse. I catch her up on my medical history. I had had an abortion six months prior and yes I had followed up with the doctor and yes it had gone smoothly and no there was no pain. A white-haired gentleman speaks with me about my symptoms while pressing gently on my abdomen. He gives me a prescription for a vaginal ultrasound and leads me into his office, where we talk about the birth control I’ve neglected to take for the last 18 months. His office is decorated with pictures of his family and grandchildren and their crayon artwork. He strikes me as the type of man who is so knowledgeable about women’s reproductive health that he has embarrassed his daughters on several occasions. I learn that there is no medical reason for women to release their blood monthly. Did you know that the reason why the last week of a 30-day pack of birth control consists of sugar pills? It’s not because the woman needs to release her blood, as I had assumed. It’s a built-in pregnancy test. You could, theoretically, skip the sugar pill week. I leave the office with samples of NuvaRing in hand and sense of liberation from the Lutero-industrial complex.

We go to my mom’s facility, where a talkative Russian lady conducts my ultrasound and advises me in gentle terms to gain some weight soon. My ultrasound appears normal, although there is some evidence that I had a cyst on my left side that had already exploded or whatever. They don’t seem concerned.

Later that day, I go back to the ER. This time I give in to my mom’s advice and let her take me to her own ER. I’m reluctant to go there because I know she’ll be recognized and I’ll have to make pleasantries with all of her coworkers. It’s amazing how tone deaf they can be. It’s like, “Oh my how much you’ve grown! I saw you when you were 5 years old! Oh, you’re in horrible pain right now? Oh dear, you should definitely go to the hospital!” Still, I go.

This time they prepare me for a CT scan with contrast. I’m waiting for about an hour before I’m given a foul tasting drink that I have to down in order for the CT scan to appear with contrast. It looks like water but it tastes like freezer burn, if that makes sense. I take generous swigs and chase it with the thought that the taste is not as horrible as my pain.

They wheel my bed into a room with the giant eggshell colored contraption. I don’t remember much at that point except for putting my bra back on afterwards. I sit in the ER waiting for my results. It turns out that there is some thickening of my bladder wall, but nothing that causes any alarm or explains my symptoms.

Sometime around July 10, the pain morphs into something else. I remember waking up and immediately regretting being awake. I remember laying in bed paralyzed with pain. There was no comfortable position for any part of my body. I could not re-position my body without evoking the pain. I could not be awake. I took Naproxen that day, as per mom’s suggestion. No use. I took a good deal of melatonin in an effort to go back to sleep. Sleep was the only respite. There was a point when my body would not let me go back to sleep. It had been satiated. I was awake, regardless of whether or not I wanted to be. I stared at the flowers my mom had placed on my bedstand. Lemon balm sprigs, clipped from my aunt’s garden the prior afternoon on the way home from the ultrasound.

Lemon balm leaves are small, maybe just an inch in length. Its outer ridges are rounded. They have soft, tiny hairs that give it a velvety feel like a peach. They smell like sugar-dusted lemon, like a lemon bar pastry with graham cracker crust. I thought about the leaves. I thought about a single leaf. I thought about a single leaf so big that it could block out the intrusive daylight that continuously assaulted my eyelids. I imagined being a lady bug and sleeping under a hut made of a single lemon balm leaf. I thought about the cool earth underneath me, and the bliss of knowing nothing of the forest around me, only the packed earth below me and the leaf above me. I blocked out all other awareness. I let myself be encapsulated by its cool sweetness. I felt okay.

Later that night, my mom comes home from work. It’s close to midnight, or maybe just past midnight. She comes into my room and it’s dark. She says, “GutBrain?”I do not respond. The sound of her calling my name wrenches me from my lemon baum dream. I refuse to see her shadowy silhouette standing in my doorway. I can feel that it is there and with that growing awareness, I can feel the pain resurfacing with my consciousness. It grows logarithmically. She calls my name again. I can hear the concern in her voice. She asks me if I need to go to the emergency room. I grip the fringes of my daydream and lying as motionless as possible, I say, “Don’t… talk… to… me… it.. hurts”. A flurry of questions. I ignore them all. I grapple for the edges of the forest, the lemon balm leaf, my sanctuary. But it’s slipping away. Quick.

I whisper, “Sorry”. I know that I seem rude to her and I feel bad for that, but I also know that my guilt for being rude is a human emotion and at that moment, I couldn’t disentangle any aspect of my humanity from the pain in my abdomen. When I began meditating, I imagined walking through a series of doors and closing them behind me. I abandoned my belly pain in the same place that I abandoned all awareness of my human body and my human family and my human worries. When she called my name, it all came flooding back. I can’t unhear the sounds of her shuffling in the kitchen. The muffled voice of my grandma. I resign myself to being awake now. I use my elbows to leverage my lower half over the edge of my bed. My feet make contact with the carpet. A slow trek to the bathroom, lumbering under the weight of the magma in my body. Wince as I remove my pants. Sit on the toilet and stare at the cabinet in front of me as the pain galvanizes. Nothing comes out. I realize that if these doctors don’t figure out what’s wrong with me soon, I would have to kill myself.

  It was the first time that I had confronted that idea without crying. I had experienced depressive episodes and suicidal ideation before, but it was always like scratching a mosquito bite. It felt good to think about dying. I had imagined exotic scenarios that implicated those who had wronged me- donating a kidney to someone and then dying afterwards. I used to dream about my funeral attended by all my friends but not my boyfriend. I used to imagine my dad’s horrible girlfriend discovering my body in a pool of blood on the kitchen floor. I used to associate suicide with relief, justice, redemption.

It was only then, sitting on the commode, experiencing this otherworldly pain, that I felt that sadness of it all. It was only then that I realized that I didn’t deserve to die. I never did deserve to die. It was only then that I saw my own death as a tragedy. It was only then that I saw the injustice of my own death. It was then that I knew I couldn’t surrender.