#that's why I haven't been posting lately

[the-cat-and-the-birdie]

When you're writing an essay and the Tumblr app reloads and deletes half of it so now it's never getting done because your motivation is completely shot and you already spent an hours worth of spoons you didn't have on it :)

It's incredibly upsetting and exhausting

This has happened to my last three essays. at this point my writing motivation is shot. I can't do it anymore. Idk when I'll get back to writing essays but writing a bunch of stuff only for it to disappear genuinely takes so much outta me.

Sorry.

[uncanny-tranny]

Genuinely, doing things "half-assed" or for a short period of time is generally better than never having done it in the first place.

Writing one sentence is better than none. A minute of brushing your teeth is better than zero minutes. Answering two questions for a homework assignment is better than answering none.

The overwhelming mountain of things can be done peacemeal. You do not have to do it all at once. It is okay to take life in whatever amount you can. The point is to allow yourself the grace to be.

[jugacolours]

[thiswindingroad]

𝚒𝚗 𝚘𝚗𝚎 𝚠𝚘𝚛𝚕𝚍

𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚎 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚊 𝚠𝚛𝚒𝚝𝚎𝚛

𝚠𝚑𝚘 𝚠𝚛𝚘𝚝𝚎 𝚊 𝚜𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢 𝚊𝚋𝚘𝚞𝚝 𝚊 𝚌𝚘𝚙

𝚒𝚗 𝚊𝚗𝚘𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚠𝚘𝚛𝚕𝚍

𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚌𝚘𝚙 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚕

───── ꩜ ─────

[cryiling]

tried drawing tulin last month 😣

[caramellashton]

Happy 27th Birthday to the one and only calum hood!!

[lamentkishi]

due to me having an (UNINTENTIONAL) art break have this watcher lemres

[bogkeep]

i forgot how long it takes me to work on comms these days

[solradguy]

The hell's up with all these anti-trans men/masc memes lately because I'm getting real sick of it real quick. It's not cute and it was never funny.

[tiredela]

Soo, there's this necromancer

[meymeyzart]

I'm back with a tatsurinne doodle

[archesa]

Trahearne deserves to go full feral at least once. You know. As a treat.

[tcfactory]

Sometimes I feel guilty about focusing all on my recent svsss fics when I really want to continue my BG3 and ffxiv WIPs as well, but I've been in a strange headspace about ffxiv and its story (tl;dr.: I wasn't invested in the post-EW story at all so I mostly focused on raiding and that's about it, but it's fine, sometimes a little break is good for you) and whenever I want to continue my BG3 fic I realize that I still need to finish my Orpheus-route playthrough and then go do another as a refresher so the decisions in the fic make sense and honestly I'd rather play literally anything else so uh.

Yeah, those stories will live in my head for a while until I can find motivation to work on them again.

[webbedphantom]

... I think I'm depressed again-

And because of that, I kinda want to ramble/vent about things. But since I don't wanna be a nuisance, I'm gonna just leave it under here for anyone who wants to read it.

Maybe it's just because of how hectic things have been lately, and how I missed my therapy appointment this week, but I'm just... constantly tired, even now that I'm starting to feel better from whatever I had a few days ago. And today I've just had that constant feeling of just... not knowing what to do, so I don't do anything. And when I do find something to do, I lose interest moments later.

Like I've tried to write replies, but then I'll hit a snag, or be unsure which reply to write, or think it's pointless because if they reply back, I won't be able to keep it going because I can't trim things without my computer... which I can't set up because my desk is still in storage, with no way to get it here without a truck, and nothing I can use as a temporary desk in the meantime.

And this goes on and on with a bunch of stuff, games I want to play, stuff I borrowed from the library, there's always something that gets in the way that keeps me from really sitting down and enjoying myself.

I hate feeling like this, and I hate even more that I feel like I can't talk to anyone about it, because when I'm depressed, I isolate myself, which makes it harder to reach out because I don't want to bother anyone. And I sure as hell can't go to any of my "family" about it, as lately I've been feeling like the term has no meaning, as most of mine just use that shared blood as an excuse to get things from you.

Which is kinda why I'm even making this. I don't typically do this, I don't like putting my personal problems out in public like this. But I don't really know how else to deal with these feelings, because I really don't wanna bother anyone, even though I know all of the people I'd usually tell this stuff to would be okay with it.

I'm not really sure what to do... My next therapy appointment is on Wednesday, but I go back to work on Tuesday, which kinda makes me anxious, especially since the person who hired me got transferred, so I have no idea what to expect anymore.

And on top of that, I just don't know what to do with myself in the meantime. I don't really have the energy to use any of my normal coping skills, and the few that I do haven't been working, so I'm just... lost.

Best I can think to do is reach out to my case manager and see if he can help me work through this, but... I'm not particularly hopeful about that. Still, it's all I got, and I did need to meet with him anyway, so I just gotta hope things work out.

I'll get through this. I always do. Doesn't mean it'll be easy, but... life is never really easy, is it?

[weezly14]

so i used to use this more as a blog where i talked about my life and my feelings and there's been both a lot and nothing happening in my life lately but i sure do have feelings! so i'm gonna write it down and send vibes into the universe because why not. what else do i have to do today?

i've been a little MIA in terms of working on my fics. i've barely written. first it was a rough fucking winter; then summer kicked my ass just as bad. i hate summer.

"but why has it been rough?"

well, because i'm not fucking pregnant yet.

we've been trying for a baby (i hate this phrase) for ten months? ish? and nothing has happened. in school they made it sound like you skip protection once and you'll get knocked up; my mom got accidentally pregnant twice. and here i am, charting dates and peeing on ovulation predictor sticks and tracking symptoms and the whole nine yards, timing sex and taking fucking prenatals and vitamins and not eating sushi or steak during the two week wait and not drinking at all, and all i've gotten to show for it is my fucking period, every month like clockwork.

the studies say, it can take up to a year. yes, most couples get pregnant within six months, but sometimes it takes longer. sure, fine, whatever.

so it's been hard enough trying to get pregnant and then failing (because it does feel like failing, every time), but then two things happened in quick succession:

my best friend got pregnant, sort of accidentally;

i got sent for bloodwork and the results caused my doctor to refer me straight to a fertility clinic.

when i saw the results i cried, but i thought i was just spiraling and being over dramatic. sure, my AMH is really low, but it's technically still in range, and that's not everything, right? my other tests were mostly fine, not totally out of the normal range. then i called my doctor's office, only to be told "we're referring you to a clinic, your ob/gyn doesn't think you'll get pregnant without treatment."

it's a hell of a thing to be told while standing in the pasta aisle of a grocery store.

in the midst of being referred to the clinic, i of course googled. read articles and papers. cried to my husband, my mom, my friends. of course the clinic was booking weeks out; in three weeks i'll go for my first appointment. my mom said, well maybe now you'll get pregnant. it happens, you know - people struggle and then as soon as they get booked to see a specialist, or start IVF, they get pregnant.

my period started over the weekend. it was not a good time.

the thing about trying for a baby is that every month is the same fucking rollercoaster, only you can't get off, and despite knowing exactly how it'll go, it's still somehow traumatic every time. every cycle there's the devastation when your period starts, followed by the hopeful/planning mode of "let me now track ovulation, let's chart out when we need to have sex." then there's the actual sex - trying to still have fun with it as opposed to the clinical "literally all we need is for you to finish," though sometimes it is just the quickie before work or after dinner because it's Fertile Week and we need to optimize our chances so it doesn't matter if it's not very romantic, we can have romantic sex later. after that it's the waiting game, the two weeks of overanalyzing every ache, every twinge, of looking up expected due dates and thinking about how to announce to family and friends, of hoping and thinking that maybe you are actually pregnant - all followed by the two, three days leading up to your period where every trip to the bathroom has the potential to devastate. where every pms symptom is enough to set off a fresh round of tears until your period actually starts. i've stopped taking pregnancy tests early. the stark white negatives (or rude NO - on the digital tests) was too much for me to handle in my already hormonal, pms state.

it hasn't been a year, which makes me feel like i shouldn't be so upset already. on the other hand, my egg reserve is apparently incredibly low - that is, i'm rapidly running out of eggs, and who knows if the ones i've got are even any good. in three weeks we'll see a fertility specialist, and based on my extensive research and trolling on reddit and listening to podcasts, i'm fairly confident they're going to tell us it's IVF or bust.

because i'm running out of eggs, for reasons that might not exist, or might just be "sometimes things just suck for certain people." some people get a diagnosis of "unexplained infertility," which basically means the doctors have run every test and there's no reason you can't get pregnant. we aren't in that camp, we're likely in the "diminished ovarian reserve" camp. for reasons that are unexplained.

meanwhile, my best friend is pregnant, and i can't talk to her without crying.

we moved into a bigger house a year ago in preparation for kids. we got our finances in order, we made sure our marriage was solid, we planned - and now? we've always wanted two, maybe three. at this point i think we'll be lucky to get one. maybe i'm being pessimistic. i'm trying to be confident but also realistic. IVF doesn't work for everyone. even my clinic, which has the best numbers in the state, has a 63% success rate. sounds great, and it is - but that's 37% of couples who don't go home with a baby. nationally, the outcomes are something like 50ish% of IVF cycles will result in a live birth (they measure by both pregnancy and live birth, because even if you've managed to get pregnant, there's no guarantee you'll stay pregnant.)

today is a good day, by the way. today i can talk to my mom, i can call up our insurance, i can write this and be factual and calm and not crying. today i feel like we have a good chance, like we will end up with a take home baby. today i'm cleaning my house and looking up meal plans to increase my fertility. exercise regimens to help me get in shape to increase my fertility. tomorrow might be a bad day. bad days are when i can barely get off the couch, where i cry at the thought or mention of my fertility. where a tiktok of a dad and baby sends me spiraling. when it all feels fucking useless and unfair.

today is a good day. i don't know what tomorrow's going to be yet.

i've been isolating all summer, which isn't hard to do when most of my friends aren't local. but i find i don't want to be around anyone, really. i don't want to talk to people. i don't want to be asked how i'm doing, i don't want to be asked what's new or what i've been up to.

"i've been cleaning my house and trying to get pregnant and failing. last week i made a new recipe, and today i cried."

it's not an exciting life i'm leading these days. and anyway, no one wants to hear about fertility struggles.

it's not that i'm too stressed. i don't need to go on vacation, or get drunk and have sex, or relax and then i'll get pregnant. sure, i could use a vacation, but that's not the magic ticket. the problem isn't lack of sex. i have depression; the stress is always there, but that's why i see my therapist and my psychiatrist. that's why i take my meds and do my self-soothing shit.

i'm not pregnant because i'm just not. and hopefully the specialist will have a plan and hopefully that plan has a more than 30% chance of succeeding, and hopefully we get to bring a baby home - but today? today i'm not pregnant, and it's not a guarantee that i ever will be.

so even though today is a good day, i'm still really fucking sad.

but, you know. i'm trying to have hope.

that, too, is a cycle.

[puckluckie]

Sidney Crosby/Evgeni Malkin • 12.868 words • Teen and Up

When the stranger moved into Old Lew’s cabin, the only thing that Zhenya found odd about it was that anyone would choose to live in that ramshackle building at all. Maybe he should have paid more attention to his mother's stories.

A @sidgenospookyfest fic for @cascara-soda. Thank you to the mods for organizing the event!

Alternate Universe, Not Hockey Players, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Folklore, Getting Together, attempts at creepiness and gothic tones, Mysterious Strangers, Sidney Crosby's infamous banana bread, Implied Sexual Content

Read on AO3