#it's the same pattern i can see it!!!!

[balkanradfem]

About your experience with that other woman, I'm sorry and that is heartbreaking. But, if that is of any consolation, I had similar. I used to have that personality type, typical slavic woman, I could not speak about myself, and was only giving and giving to others, and I was extra serious about relationships, wanting to make it as in legends, with greatest honesty. And I also would apologize forever, if someone was slightly unhappy with me or not responsive, I would forever think what did I say wrong, why did it change, they focused so much on me, and now not. I burned many times so that personality of mine naturally changed though pain haha but I still do not like it when someone pays too much attention on me either.

But, about that woman, I had similar friend. Whenever I approached her, to invite her somewhere, she would always be happy and very excitedly agree and be proactive. But then the day before meeting or on the day of meeting, she would write something akin to 'something came up, I can't' . And also would tell me the details of what came up, usually list of family issues or sickness, so I would instead of being frustrated, of course, empathic towards her, sorry for her, and write her words of support. Well that continued for some time, but I noticed a pattern after a while, and then asked her why is that happening. And got reply along the lines that she is absolutely fed up with me, cutting me out of her life forever, bc I bring only negativity and she's tired and wants to clean her life of me for fresh positive energy, all that guru stuff you know. Personally I think it was often backwards, I empathically listened to many of her scary family stories, but it's also true I was then massive walking trauma after abuse. But I was never figure out, why, if she disliked me, she never said 'no, i dont want to go' or gone though that mysterious ritual of wasting my time. I put it on some of her unability to say no, masking due to trauma or similar, but I was still quite hurt by that. And that last time was the only time she ever showed me anything that was not excitement and support, so I gained many trust issues that someone might act that way and it would be all fake and she secretely hates me, bc from her last email it seemed like she hated me whole time. And I always felt that something is wrong, but she always had excuses that lulled my feeling of wrong. So currently I also feel that she wasted my time majorly. I had some few similar experience where other woman just kept feeling me few kind words or few promises, just like men do, to keep me foggy enough and to keep up my hopes enough that , despite never getting reciprocation to resources I invest, I would still keep investing. And then the cutting me out always was sudden, sometimes with raging email like that, sometimes with just sudden cutting off without any explation, sometimes with mutual friends whispering reasons. I have no idea why women do that, I feel that if you have any respect for other woman, you do not do that. I had experiences where I was cutting off others from my life, or explaining we can't connect or talk, but I always explain it clearly as I can (unless they scare me) and without ranting in something that would hurt them, and I do not accept anything from other person in such case either.

So, if that is any consolation, here is my story. since my habit is just giving others similar stories of mine, to show that is it common social issue, or in hopes it gives insights from similar type of experience. personal is political and all that.

Yes I can see the exact same pattern in your story, you are so right about this! It's not that mysterious.

She first created fake expectations 'I will go with you to an event and we'll have a great time', so you'd have something to look forward to together with her, and then when she'd fail you, she looked for empathy from you. I think a big part of why she was your friend was this exact empathy, and cancelling the event gave her a convenient excuse to go on and on about the stuff that was bothering her, so it didn't feel like she was 'unloading all that on you for no reason', she 'needed to explain to you why she failed your expectations'.

The pattern was working perfectly for her while she had your attention, empathy, and eagerness to invite her, enabling her to go on with this, but once you caught on, she realized she could no longer do it, and the scam was ruined. It's insidious how some people can do that, I do not understand, and her behaviour is gross to me.

There's an alternative route of being someone's friend, offering and giving empathy naturally, sharing your struggles without some weird fake expectations or excuse for failing them, this is just such dishonest and weird behaviour. I'm so sorry anon that you were put trough this, and good on you for noticing and pointing it out! I believe those people don't want to be accountable for anything they do, so when you even point it out, they just lash out in rage and try to hurt you as much as possible so you'd never call them out again, or just completely cut you off, when you've done nothing wrong, only caught onto them.

I'm sorry also that you had that slavic woman experience, I didn't know it was a common one! I thought I talked about myself a lot since I have a whole blog where I share my little stories and adventures, but I guess in private with people I'm much more reserved and assume that nobody wants to know all that hahaha. So sad our personalities have to change just for self preservation, I do believe there's nothing inherently wrong with us, we are just too conscious of everyone's needs and people exploit it.

[goosesartblog]

my art program crashed like 49 times while drawing this

[sundrykitsch]

all dressed up!!

[uncanny-tranny]

Another bonus to learning a fiber art is being able to speak to others in a Lovecraftian language that nobody else understands...

...and also being able to read things like THIS:

[puppyeared]

updated Sleight ref!!

[thepresentman]

New students

Bro I’m so excited for the new season wowowoow

[silusvesuius]

this drawing is from a couple mouths back now; ......but i still like it 😝 forbidden love as witnessed by ms. Varona. it killed off my traditional art kick when i was done with it, but i had fun. i used very faint watercolors for this one just to see how well i'd do with them and pencils together. my favorite part of it is this tree, love how it looked in this WIP pic i took:

and some random bits of the drawing but closer because i do love pencils as yk✍

had to compress the whole pic a bit cus it was huge, but a version that's a bit better can be seen heare, still not the best it could be, still crunchy, but better nonetheless

[ryllen]

He will never get it next time or anytime,

but in my arms he will be my favorite loser woooo~~

[shadystranger]

Even he was weirded tf out x2

[marsbotz]

whats ur fucking deal

[aroaceleovaldez]

in your most recent tyson post, you said something about leo being distinctly autistic-coded and I was wondering if you could elaborate on that? it sounds really interesting (sorry if you've already posted something on this, I couldn't find anything though)

Of course! I do have a specific tag for talking about Leo's autistic-coding/traits - [here], and [one for Nico as well].

The main aspects with Leo being autistic-coded actually have a lot to do with Nico being autistic-coded, because it's the comparisons between the two that most clearly indicate Leo is autistic-coded rather than it just being his ADHD or etc.

So with Nico being autistic-coded, it's very clear in the Titan's Curse that he's intended to be autistic. First, the first series has a repeating pattern of secondary characters being very distinctly neurodivergent-coded in different ways (Annabeth's adhd/dyslexia, Tyson's down syndrome-coding, Nico's autism-coding). With Nico's introduction, he's pretty stereotypically autistic and we're given a lot of descriptors about him that are notably not attributed to him being ADHD, like it would be for other demigod characters. He doesn't register social cues such as people getting annoyed at him, he's asking/making inappropriate or impolite questions/comments, he gets particularly upset about change (such as Bianca joining the Hunt) and generally gets emotional, and one of his most notable traits he's introduced with is the fact that he has a special interest (MythoMagic) - and we're shown that this special interest particularly colors how Nico navigates the world. While ADHD has hyperfixations, we don't really get much acknowledgement of hyperfixations with demigods usually - Annabeth gets a little, but most others don't and it's not nearly as focused-in on as Nico's is.

Then as the series continues we see these traits stick with him and him start to show or voice more traits that similarly indicate he's autistic: He regularly mentions how he doesn't understand living people and prefers the company of the dead (social issues). He has more notable stims than other demigods (twisting his ring, fiddling with bones, etc). He's indicated to have strong sensory preferences (usually wearing mostly black/aversion to bright colors, usually wearing layers/his coat, multiple times he's described as wearing loose/baggy clothing or clothes too big for him). He has specific comfort items (his ring, likely his jacket(s) as well). We later get even more information about his special interests (Mythomagic/mythology/history and an older interest in pirates - the latter he specifically notes likely heavily influenced his feelings towards Percy). He struggles with emotions and facial expressions and tone. He struggles particularly with ostracism and feeling like he doesn't fit in and has something distinctly different about him from the people around him (who notably, all have ADHD, which indicates it isn't the ADHD that's making him feel that way), and other characters regularly describe him as being off-putting because of his strange behaviors - again, different from specific ADHD traits they recognize. And that last point is kind of notable because we have Hazel and Bianca for comparison - we know people are off-put by both Nico and Hazel because of being children of Hades/Pluto and their powers/aura, but other characters get past that general feeling of discomfort way faster with Hazel. And even after characters get past the death stuff with Nico, there's a second thing that they aren't moving past that isn't a factor with Hazel (Nico's autism).

So that brings us to Leo - Leo is paralleled to Nico a lot. And there's some very specific traits about him that we know are autistic-coding because of how they're used with Nico: He similarly struggles with social cues/etc, and in a very similar parallel to Nico describes how he prefers the company of machines to people because machines make more sense to him. He has similar types of clothing/sensory preferences (again some stuff with layers but also - pockets! He likes having pockets and things to put stuff in! He's even introduced as having a jacket with lots of pockets), and he has a distinct special interest (machinery) that we specifically know heavily influences how he views and navigates the world (constantly comparing things to machinery, describing things with machinery metaphors/terminology, etc etc). He even describes his entire general worldview to Hazel and it's a machine metaphor. He also similarly struggles with ostracization like Nico does, the only difference being that Leo specifically puts on a persona to compensate for areas he knows he's lacking in and very explicitly describes it as a means to make people like him, because without it he normally struggles to fit in (He's masking!). We also see notes of characters describing that similar discomfort with Leo's behaviors that they do with Nico, except without the aura of death this time. And when we're in Leo's POVs we see a very stark difference between his masking and his actual personality/behaviors such as his internal dialogues or how he behaves when he's alone. Also, like Nico, he stims more than other demigods, though for Leo it's more attributed to his ADHD. Leo also, more often than most, similarly struggles with tone and reading the room, such as making misplaced jokes/comments or etc.

But yeah! It's really interesting. Also it's just a fun thing that ADHD/dyslexia and autism have comorbidity, so it makes sense that we see demigods who are also autistic. It's also really fun to look at how other characters are coded in the series, what coding looks like in the riordanverse specifically (usually it's tied into the mythological stuff - like Chiron being in a wheelchair but he's actually a centaur, Grover being introduced as having a muscular disease but he's actually a satyr, demigods having adhd/dyslexia, Tyson being coded as having down syndrome but he's a cyclops, etc etc - it's a lot of specific metaphor stuff that I've talked about a bit before), and to look at how characters are compared to one another.

[slavhew]

fun fact the word "dirk" sounds exactly like the root of the croatian verb "drkati" which means to jack off

get the dirk brush here

[goldenspringmornings]

another petty thing that bothers me about acotar on a technical level is that all of the characters sound the same- none of them have fun or unique speech patterns, nothing special to distinguish them from each other. like I really wish I could describe it better but it all just feel….. early 2000’s fanfic writers idea of “sophisticated” speech. idk if that makes much sense but it’s writing 101 that you can’t have your characters all sounding the same because it’s just boring, it makes your characters feel lifeless like the cardboard cutouts you’re trying to elevate them from

[galedekarios]

i hope in about a year-ish, we are ready to talk about how bl**dw**v* is literally the any two white guys trope

[fisheito]

i love how eiden pauses at every outfit reveal with a . hotboy synopsis like clan member: *steps out of the changing room* eiden: and now, if i can have ur attention--- FEAST your eyes on this MARVELOUS hunk of grade AAAAAA+++++ prime meat..,, his accessories perfectly accentuate his finest features...! His fit ! is flawless!! BREATHTAKING. REVOLUTIONARY!!!!!!!!! and yet!? one can't help but get excited... for what lies UNDERNEATH that BREATHTAKING attire ( ͡• ͜ʖ ͡• )

[the-woman-upstairs]

It’s just…so painful to watch Armand readily submit in order to obtain the love he so desperately craves. And while it’s most assuredly a manipulative tactic, it’s still one borne out of fear and desperation. He cannot lose this person he’s come to love and so will become whatever they want, do whatever they want just so they’ll stay with him. But it won’t be enough. No matter how much he acquiesces or seeks to control (himself, others, the environment), he won’t be able to make Louis stay with him in the perfect life, perfect self he built in the hopes of finally being loved. It will all crumble with Armand left alone in the rubble of what he created, the author of his own abandonment.