#personal stuff

[nobodysuspectsthebutterfly]

Just FYI, I'll be off until Wednesday evening for the first days of Passover. My queue will be going as normal, but I won't be responding to messages or tags until I'm back. See you, and a Chag Sameach to those celebrating! 💜

[weezly14]

It’s national infertility awareness week, and I’m still infertile.

It’s been 19 cycles of nothing.

No, not nothing.

Once I was 8 days late before I started bleeding clots.

Once I got three days of very, very faint lines. I told myself not to get excited until the lines got darker. Instead they disappeared, and the blood came. I tried to tell myself I’d just taken seven faulty tests over three days. It hurt less.

(It hurts, still.)

It’s national infertility awareness week, and my best friend has a newborn, and another friend just announced she’s pregnant. It’s a boy.

(What would my lost faint line have been?)

I’m in the middle of my first IVF cycle. Every morning and every evening my husband gives me injections of fertility meds. I’m bloated, fatigued, emotional. I’ve had headaches and nausea. I have bruises from the shots, and every other day we wake at 5:30 to drive to the clinic for bloodwork and an ultrasound. I can’t tell if it’s going well or not. Everything about IVF is shrouded in mystery and uncertainty. I haven’t been my best self, but my husband has come with me to every appointment, has held my hand and watched the fertility videos and kisses the bandaid he puts on me after he administers the shots, morning and evening. He buys me a hash brown after every appointment and dealt with the pharmacy for me. He woke up at 6 am today to wait for fedex to deliver my meds.

(My father left when I was a baby, wouldn’t go with my mom to visit me in the nicu. But my husband has gone above and beyond for eggs that may not even become embryos. Potential future sprout, you will never feel unwanted; you will always know the love of a doting, caring father. Before you even became, he took care of you.)

IVF is not a guarantee. It gives us a chance, but it’s still just that — a chance. A better one than we’d had, but it could still fail. It’s hard to hold onto that reality and the stubborn hope, too. Because it’s stubbornness more than anything that’s gotten me here. I don’t know when to quit. As scary as it is to try, I have to at least try.

So, this is trying. It’s four injections a day and bandaids shaped like cats or dogs. It’s a shared audiobook on the drives to and from the clinic, and hash browns on the way home. It’s tears and fear and clinging to the idea of success, holding each other when it gets to be too much. It’s the cats and dogs staying close and giving cuddles, like somehow they know how much I need it. It’s friends and family checking in and offering support.

(It’s the basket in the closet of an empty bedroom, filled with little things acquired over the past year and a half. Little things for a potential future sprout, socks and onesies and a blanket. In the room we haven’t filled, that we still call the nursery.)

Infertility sucks, but it’s more common than anyone wants to believe. 1 in 6 is the stat going around. National infertility awareness week is all about people sharing their stories, helping others feel less alone. It’s still fucking lonely, but it helps, somehow. I wouldn’t wish this on anyone. As much as it hurts when friends get pregnant easily, I’m so glad for them, too. I’d hate to see them go through what I have.

So, for whatever it’s worth, it’s infertility awareness week, and I’m infertile. I have two failed IUIs under my belt, and I’m on my first IVF cycle. Everyone’s journey is different, but they all suck. Not all of them end with a take home baby. If this is your experience, too, I’m sorry.

I don’t know how our journey ends. I might not for a while yet.

(Lost faint line, potential future sprout — you were always, always wanted. We’ll keep trying.)

[cads-the-cat]

Obviously, iv has always been amazing, but in recent weeks and especially since the start of the tour I've become obsessed to the point where I'm like oh god do I need to reconsider my asexuality?

Spoiler alert: I do not. It is, as usual, gender envy. Like really bad. Like iv's gender vibes are so immaculate it's gonna make me combust.

Ivy, babes, if you do have some of that gender left over, would you consider donating to a fan in need? Thanks bestie xx

[dougielombax]

I wonder what the largest shellfish is?

Edit: Okay this post is getting a LOT of traction. What is going on?

Edit: Fucking hell.

This post has set off a fucking MINEFIELD!!!

What have I DONE????!!!!!

I’ve lit the blue touch paper and found there’s nowhere to run to!

I’ve summoned a wolf only to unleash a tiger!!!!! Made of fire! And nails.

Probably….

Idk.

Edit 2: 5,000 Notes! Good god! What the HELL do you want from me. I’ve never had a post of mine take off like this until now.

Some got close like the one about homeowner associations (fucking powertripping middle aged mediocrities!) which got at least 1.5k notes but this is the most I’ve gotten on a single post so far.

Anyway.

AND this post has officially gone to hell. (6,666 notes)

Edit: 8,000 notes! Holy shit!

Edit: 9,000 notes!!!

Edit: 10,000 notes!!!!!!!!!

Edit: 15,000 notes!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Edit: 20,000 Notes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WHO THE HELL TURNED OFF THE REPLY THREAD FOR THE REBLOGS?!

Okay never mind it’s back. For now at least.

Anyway.

[maceofpentacles]

what are y’all’s tarot birth cards?

mine are the tower and the chariot

[terfarchive]

“he really likes you” yeah but what if i don’t like him “he made notecards to rehearse what to say to you” yeah but what if i don’t like him “that girl is a liar, he didn’t say the stuff she said he did” sure but what if i just don’t like him “you need to be more affectionate, i don’t know why you’re so scared of physical touch” yeah but what if i just don’t like him “he’s a really sweet guy” yeah but i don’t like him

[timeladix]

Friends with benefits but the benefit is giving each other societally unacceptable long hugs and generally being more touchy while literally being friends and not actually a couple

[flywiththewindclan]

So now I have my tattoo as familiars. :D Nice I love them.

[verbrannt74]

Style is spectrum

A small thing about style topic. Some personal stuff below!

I could never figure out which I like more: messy sketchy lines or clean shapes? painting or drawing? realistic or over-stylized? It's possible to make up an abyss of styles! For me a style is a part of a story/feeling a drawing shows, so I'll never can choose only one.

[aimasup]

[spanishskulduggery]

Just in case anyone needs to hear this - there was a time when I was REALLY bad at Spanish... I wanted to be good at it, but I wasn't

I have a core memory of me of sitting on my bed surrounded by flashcards and just crying out of frustration because I really did want to learn Spanish and be able to understand it, but I was not there

Whenever I got something wrong or messed something up or couldn't remember a word or just plain didn't know the answer to something I felt like such a failure and that all the work I was doing wasn't getting me anywhere

I think a part of me wanted to be really good at Spanish and if I wasn't perfect then I wasn't good, if that makes sense... and there were times when I wanted to give up but I also knew I couldn't or wouldn't give up

I don't know if this is determination on my part or stubbornness but as much as I despaired thinking I was never going to know Spanish, I also felt in me that I could not walk away from it, at least not for good

I don't know when the despair started to fade away... I think it was when I was starting to tutor people at school, or when I was understanding the grammar more - at least things I had already learned

Some of it was just the memorization of tenses and conjugations where it wasn't a struggle in every way at every moment

And then I started to get to the point where I was good enough to read things, and I could look up answers on my own with a dictionary and I could find other people discussing the grammar I had struggled with, or trying to find context I didn't have for some phrases I was seeing

I got to a point where I was more comfortable, but still didn't know as much as I wanted... all I knew was that people were struggling with things I already knew, which meant that I had learned it, and that I knew what I didn't know so that helped immensely because it made me feel like I had something to gauge my progress

So again if you see me and think "wow they know so much I'll never get there", don't compare yourself to me - I've been studying for close to two decades now and I still don't know everything about everything

Grammar I know because I took lots of classes and read A LOT, and not just books I mean I was reading grammar sites and dictionaries to try and figure out things like "what's that se mean?" or "why is this word feminine if it has the masculine article?" or "why are these two conjugations different but okay to use?"

It feels like it takes forever to get there, but learning Spanish to the degree that I have feels like a real achievement for me - it's not something I lucked into or got right on the first try, it's something I earned myself for myself

It's going to take time but if you put in the effort and if you really want it, you can get there too

[starlightshore]

i wanted to do a simpe fanart of chara. i don't do enough fanarts that aren't part of bigger projects enough

[xraiyax]

Ohhhh my ZoSan brain is mind blown with the realization I just had

Zoro is a Tiger

Sanji a Ram

My little one is a Tiger with Chinese zodiacs and Aries (Ram) in western zodiacs.

[cerbreus]

3 months with my partner today :-) ♥

[dougielombax]

Control be like:

Start of the game: A gun? Okay. Should be useful against the Horrors.

Later: The Horrors are kicking my ass but I’ll get through this one way of another.

Ashtray Maze: I CAN’T BE FUCKING STOPPED!!!!! *SMASHES A MONSTER’S HEAD IN WITH A STEEL CHAIR!!!!!*

Edit:

@the-haiku-bot

YOU AGAIN????!!!!!!!!!!

[maceofpentacles]

if you’re the type of person to say “be gay, do crimes” but get upset or uncomfortable when one of your friends ((or literally anyone for that matter)) has to steal food from the grocery store in order to survive, then maybe you don’t actually believe in your silly little motto.