I've Updated My Intro Post With My Main Url As That's Where I'll Follow/interact From; I've Pinned The

Literally the most embarrassing thing about having a pouf fictive is suddenly remembering how viscerally annoying I (the person who watched the caa) found komugi

Can we please make things slightly easier for Pouf, he is about to flay himself alive

Went to a local beach and collected a few pieces of mother-of-pearl, I think I may carve one into a butterfly, symbolic of the gap between my lives being bridged by what was then, and what is now.

Why would you bring a man back to life and take away all of his defining features except for his neurotic, debilitating anxiety

on love arriving unannounced

Ah, I see, it was all about love.

I missed him.

Going to an irl con today as well! I have some regret towards not bleaching my hair for it, but I won't be there for most of it unfortunately; telling myself I could have also painted my nails but that's also fallen by the wayside. I'll have much cleaner opportunities in October and December to pull everything together - those are dates I know about in advance.

Almost funny in a sense that all my chronic illnesses are showing symptoms that look similar to butterfly traits.

I have POTS, for sure, I self-tested with my blood pressure cuff and laying down, I had a heart rate of 71 bpm, while standing brought it up to 134. That's a 63 bpm difference, when only 30 is necessary for a diagnosis. I still need it officially documented so I can request accommodations and whatnot, but you know what else is a sign of POTS? Inability to regulate body temperature. I'm often cold and need to either layer clothing or sit in sunlight to help warm myself up.

Notably, a trait seen in insects.

POTS symptoms, specifically the heart ones, are eased with the addition of lots of water and extra salt into your diet. I would consider that to be nothing short of a miracle cure ("cure" loosely used).

Interestingly, butterflies need to supplement salt in their diets due to nectar not providing it, leading to behavior called "puddling", because they're usually seen feeding from mud puddles, though tears and blood and other sources also provide the necessary sodium.

Lately, I've also been noticing a flare up in my stomach issues; I'm thought to potentially have gastroparesis, with my main issues being that I have stomachaches after nearly every meal, as well as losing my appetite early into meals. I'll be picking up some soups and broths tomorrow to try and get myself to eat something, going for an almost entirely liquid diet.

Do you know what else famously has a liquid diet?

I've now had two (2) dreams in the past week about pulling together my cosplay in public, help

Was thinking a bit on main this morning about how my kin identity can be used as a litmus test regarding whether or not I feel like someone can fully respect me.

On a surface level, it's almost silly, oh it's this guy? The butterfly that cried glitter and screamed all the time, who was awful and mean and nasty towards the end? Well, yes. That is indeed the surface level of this, I saw everything he did that make people cringe, and yet there was still that element of resonance. Once I feel like the more jokey part of this is accepted, that's when I feel I can pull the curtains back and begin to show some of the psychological horror that underlies this.

To show what I've discussed in therapy, to talk about how a large theme of my connection is the idea of servitude and how I was forced into that position for my family, how I wasn't able to form an identity outside of this predetermined role and how I was to perform it to the best of my ability, and how any deviation was punished, to the point where I held these standards to myself and would pull myself apart when I couldn't meet them. To show how deep this truly runs carries a certain type of despair, not necessarily for myself, but to really show someone else what this means to me and how it is such a vital part of myself.

It's for sure a certain type of intimacy, it puts me in a vulnerable position on every front; on the surface I could be made fun of, in which case I laugh along and maybe even retract a statement or two, and on a deeper level it blows my trauma wide open and exposes a lot of the most damaging things I experienced. It's an odd place to be, but I'm not upset by it. People who are aware of it don't necessarily bring it up unless I talk about it, which in and of itself is a rare occasion. That stands in comparison with actually seeing myself be called Shai, something which only one person has done, and it has delighted me to no end.

I feel that the odder aspects of myself need to be things that will be met with respect. As someone who grew up trans, queer, and neurodivergent, I've been seeking that kind of respect for quite some time. When it does come, it's almost always from those who share a trait with me. I enjoy the bonding, and of course enjoy the respect, but I just wish it was something more easily seen; to just grant someone in the margins respect and decency.