#but it just applies to a lot of things in general

[xyymath]

It’s funny how not true that is.

I mean, if we’re talking about school calculus and school math, sure—math feels clean, rule-based, and knowable. But the more you advance academically (like real analysis, topology, group theory, and abstract algebra etc etc), the more complicated and nuanced it gets. You start questioning even the most basic things you were taught in elementary school.

In real analysis, you learn that not all functions are differentiable, or even continuous, and that the intuitive idea of a limit has to be formalized with ε-δ definitions just to make rigorous sense. Everything requires extensive solving and everything needs proving.

In group theory, operations that used to seem trivial—like adding or multiplying—become abstract structures where associativity, identity, and inverses must be explicitly defined, and not all groups are commutative.

In abstract algebra, you find out that division isn’t always possible, (i.e. Multiplicative inverses don’t always exist in general algebraic structures like rings, so division isn’t always defined) that not every polynomial equation has a solution, and that “solving” can mean working within rings, fields, or modules that behave nothing like the real numbers.

In topology, you discover that your everyday sense of shape and distance doesn’t apply. A coffee cup and a donut are topologically equivalent, and continuity doesn’t rely on metrics at all, but on open sets.

You realize very quickly that a lot of what you were taught before was a simplified model designed to build intuition, not a complete picture.

So yeah, we "math people" as you called us, are very very confused creatures too.

math people scare me. math people will be like "math works in mysterious ways TO YOU. i get it though." and they do and it's fucking terrifying.

[chaoticke-rambles]

I’m interested in how both Charles and Edwin treat the whole idea of being “detectives.”  Obviously, they are detectives.  They have formed a detective agency, they run cases, it’s their whole thing; it’s how they spend their afterlives.  But it’s more than just that.

They both take the detective work very seriously.  Edwin comes off, generally, as more serious than Charles about it, with his little asides about being a “proper” detective and the methodical ways he likes to do things, but Charles is clearly into it, too.  And sometimes it feels so clearly like they’re playing at the idea of being detectives that it’s almost like a game or a roleplay for them.  They want to be (and are) detectives, but they are two teenage boys who have styled themselves after the idea of being detectives.  Then there are moments where this “performance” of detective work begins to break down.

For Edwin, this happens earlier in the season.  In the first episode, he admits that the detective work matters because he needs it, emotionally, to matter.  His and Charles’s cases didn’t get solved, no one cared.  He needs someone to care.  That’s his investment in being a detective; its more than just a game for him.  When the Cat King casts his truth spell, this is only built upon.  He says he does the detective work, too, because he wants to stay out of hell.  For a while, though, I was trying to find Charles’s investment.  Yeah, his case was also written off when he died, but didn’t seem as upset about that as Edwin.  On the first watchthrough, I wondered if Charles’s investment in the detective work was simply because Edwin was invested.

Then there’s episode 4, when Charles beats the Night Nurse, and part of the speech he yells at her is about being a detective.  I think that’s when it started to click for me that there was something deeper going on with him, too, about the detective work specifically.  Charles is upset he died, he never came to terms with it.  I wonder if part of the reason he’s so invested in being a detective is because it gives him a sense of purpose and impact that he misses from being alive.  He could never stop the things he wanted to stop, never protect the people he wanted to protect, but at least he has this, with Edwin.  At least they are detectives, and Charles can feel needed, feel like his life didn’t end so early for no reason at all.  

I think a lot about the concept of ghosts having unfinished business and how that might apply to both Charles and Edwin, and I think that the detective agency, despite how it sometimes comes off as playacting, is deeply tied to both of their psyches.  Edwin needs the detective agency to feel like there was a point to everything that happened to him.  That maybe no one cared he disappeared, and maybe he ended up in hell, but it wasn’t for nothing.  They can try to keep it from happening to anyone again.  And Charles?  Well, he needs the detective agency because there was no point to what happened to him.  He shouldn’t have died, and he’s not ready to move on to an afterlife.  He needs to feel like he’s needed, like there’s something he can do.  If it hadn’t been a detective agency these two formed, it would have been something else because they had too many deep-rooted issues that have been sublimated into the agency itself.

[pxstelmxsings]

Excuse you, i need more girl dad Daryl headcanons.

Lol I need to write for TWD content as a whole. Also, as a general note here, I am using AFAB language, pronouns, and soical norms.

Girl dad Daryl Dixon headcanons coming right up!

1. Look me in the eyes and tell me Daryl wouldn't be hoping for a daughter. You can't because you would be lying to everyone. He wants his child to be a mini version of his S/O.

I also feel like he would be scared of having a son, but that's a whole other decision.

2. He tries his best to find lots of cute little girl outfits, toys, decor items, really anything he can when on supply runs. Despite it being the apocalypse, he will make sure to spoil his daughter.

3. This one applies to any sex or gender of his child; He will always aim for them to have a better childhood than he did. That is a promise he makes to his child when they are born or adopted.

4. Just like Judith, his daughter gets a nickname.I like something along the lines of little shins buster or head bunker. The whole world needs to know she is a Dixon and will beat your ass.

Tbt I think Daryl would give his daughter a bunch of different nicknames based on things she does, says, or eats. If she eats a little blueberries, then blue bear, nicknames like that.

5. Oh, he cries when she first says dada or daddy. Full-blown, happy tears.

6. You best believe he finds a hair guide book and learns all the cute hair styles. I think he would be especially good at putting ribbons into braids.

He picks buns and tight to head braids styles the most often because they are the safest styles to have with walkers and other dangerous people around.

7. This man does not understand dressing up or playing with dolls at all. The joy of it goes right over his head. But you best believe he tries his best to play along to make his daughter happy.

8. She learns weapon safety from a very young age. Even if there were no walkers, Daryl would be teaching her these skills.

9. A protective father 👏 No harm will come to his little girl for as long as he lives.

10. He learns traditionally feminine tasks right alongside his daughter to make things less stressful or scary. It actually becomes quite common to see them fixing shirts or canning vegetables together.

11. Just...in genreal, he gets more relaxed and emotionally more available because of his daughter. She wiggles him out his shell in a way no one else has been able to.

[halogenwarrior]

I would like to add to this: I know it gets often said that fans gravitate towards male characters and pairing up male characters because of wanting relationships with equality of power, with people countering how these stories have stereotypically gendered power dynamics all the time, just with two men. And I think the key is it's not about equality of power, but equality of sincerity.

The thing is, a lot of people (especially in the fan fiction writer demographic, but really a lot of humans in general) love sincere, powerful emotions in their fiction, and that's what often draws them to characters. They love seeing characters struggle and suffer, whether in a tragic tone or them ultimately triumphing over it, they love seeing characters have strong emotional bonds with each other deeply meaningful to their arcs where they would do anything for the other person (this particularly relevant to the reference I was making to fans writing shipping stuff), and they love both characters who wear their emotions on their sleeves and characters who don't, but have cathartic emotional transformations that forces them to face their emotions in their darkest times rather than just being stoic with unexplored depths 24/7, and perhaps growing into greater empathy and openness.

And the problem with this is that all of these forms of sincerity, in fictional narrative (in the qualities women are portrayed with) and in real life (in the qualities women are stereotypically ascribed), have been historically weaponized against women to show them as more sincere in those ways than men and portraying that as a negative thing. Women breaking down under intense suffering being used to "put them in their place" or fetishized, romances or other relationships between a woman and a man where the woman is so sincere about her love for the man that it absorbs her whole character and leaves nothing of dignity, competence or other facets of the self while the man is not all that sincere and just sees the woman as one small facet of his life, relationships between a woman and children where their deep love for the children is exploited narratively to show she should be nothing but a vessel for them without individuality, passionately emotional women shown as hysterical and unworthy of respect, less outwardly emotional women whose development into opening up more is inextricably tied to them becoming passive, feminine and "knowing their place" rather than having active goals and "cool" qualities.

So this leads to a situation where people are understandably jumpy about any of these narrative tropes being applied to women because of this weaponization of them, and try to make female characters in an insecure manner that avoids them. But all of these expressions of narrative emotional sincerity they are avoiding still remain things people find very compelling in characters and their stories, which means there is a whole range of narrative beats people are avoiding in women, and often in an annoyingly "meta" way (i.e woman who is guarded and strong not so much because her particular personality, life circumstances and outlook made it that way or she is trying to put on a front to herself or other people within the story, but because she is trying to prove something to the audience and always seems halfway through the fourth wall). People don't like the insincere female characters like this either, because they don't like insincere characters in general. And as long as there is a constant avoidance of things that tend to be compelling and popular in characters due to their sincerity and emotional resonance when it's a woman, women are going to be less popular.

And if someone does include those beats, even if they do it in a way that avoids the sexist weaponization that has often historically come with them when they are used on women, with their arcs basically being the same as male characters who had the same beats and characterization and are loved for it, people are so paranoid and tired of seeing it in women that they see them as a misogynistic stereotype anyway, and the character fails to get "credit" or love for it even when they are well-written. Because people often tend to laser focus on a given trope as sexist in the most literal sense, like an A.I would view it, rather than realizing it's the particular framing behind it that makes it sexist (or racist, etc., this happens with all manner of bigoted tropes) and if you took away the framing it would just be a neutral character trait or story beat. For example, the whole discourse around the "serious, practical woman in comedy show or media where people are doing exciting things " and the "manic pixie dream girl", which seem like opposite tropes but are really united in how they deny the man humanity. The problem isn't that the woman is serious, it's that they are serious in a genre where the exciting, funny or uncouth things are used as the medium to explore the character's humanity and make them interesting, so them refusing to participate in it makes them not be as human or interesting. The problem isn't that the woman is silly and free-spirited, it's that the narrative has no interest in the internal thought process, background and outlook that led them to be like that and just uses them as a vessel for a man's development (which leads in the worst case to real women who have those superficial traits but obviously not the narrative framing to be called manic pixie dream girls). As a result of all this you have things like posts I've actually seen where someone explicitly said "I would hate my favorite male character if he were a woman because he suffers so much in the narrative" (even though the suffering is part of why they love the male character). The fear of weaponization of sincerity makes people dislike it in a woman when they would like the same thing in a man, even when in this particular case it is not having the weaponizing framing and is literally just a gender swap of the male version.

There's something extremely depressing to me about how many people just don't want to get weird with female characters the way they do with male characters.

Like, I can kind of see why a lot of people feel weird about writing about bad things happening to female characters, but what it leads to is everyone putting female characters up on a shelf where you can admire them but you can't actually do anything interesting with them because that might be sexist or just make people feel bad. And I think that's actually a whole lot worse in the long run.

[storkmuffin]

What do you think about Yunho's marketed image as a "lucky guy"? I know it's a gimmick for variety shows but it genuinely amazes me how he somewhat manages to uphold this trait that's been a key part of his image since predebut. At this point, is it really just luck, or is it something else like being observant or having good memory? Is this linked to his competitiveness? Can one manifest good luck by being competitive and wanting it badly enough?

Saying this with these specific videos (though there are for sure many other exemples) on my mind after just binge-watching ateez content:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-oAq5tuLMA Him being the ony one to find the correct cup, twice in a row, while handicapped by not being allowed to touch the cups. That's a 1/64 probability?? I note that he's also the one who took this challenge most seriously.

https://youtu.be/QmoBHU8PrTM?list=PLolJoegDeAhSJoMsmmhxTAOa8GvWqU4NU&t=579 They played rock paper scissors arnd 3 times in this video and he won every time. Outside of this video, he generally never loses either.

Ooooh on the subject of luck I can wax lyrical, so here goes.

I'm a lucky person. I not only feel lucky, but I'm often also called lucky by others. This is one of the things that I guess I don't mind having in common with my bias (reluctant, angry, makes me prone to violence) Yunho. Am I right in suspecting, Question of Luck Anon, that you yourself don't feel very lucky? Because the questions you ask indicate that you don't, since you're clearly trying to figure it out.

To answer the questions you actually asked:

-There really is such a thing as luck. It hurts to think about this, but the privileged, the talented, the beautiful, the born-to-good-parents, the born-with-good-health, the born-in-safe-and-prosperous-nations of the world are lucky. There's no reason I, born in Seoul to my parents, should have such a significantly nicer life than the girl who was born exactly on the same day and time as me 200 kms to the north in Pyeongyang. I'm luckier than a LOT of people.

Setting aside depressing facts of the uneven distribution of wealth, peace, healthcare and education in the world, I would also say the following about the subject of Luck:

-Being lucky though is a matter of finders keepers, a lot of the time. Remembering details and having the capacity to pay detailed attention have helped me recognize when something is worth pursuing, which make it much more likely I get what I want. And then to people who didn't remember the details or people who aren't hypervigilant and hypersensitive it just looks like a weird turn of events that worked out to my benefit (and only my benefit). This is often described as luck.

-Lucky people are very competitive, yes. Some will lie about this, but it's just true. All lucky people are very competitive. Lethally, even.

-You can't manifest the trait of being born lucky. I am not sure how it works under all the traditional fortune telling of the world, but in the Korean methodology you are born with the winds of the universe on your side, or against you. You can't fix this part- all you can do is make the most of what you're given. BUT, you can actually manifest (bring about, I guess is the more accurate wording, but manifest sounds cooler) the next best thing, which is to make things work out for you in a way that you can keep wresting victory from the jaws of defeat.

You didn't ask but I will add - I think the key factor in luck is dual: You need to not accept that the bad place you may be in is the final destination (This can't be how it ends!) and be determined to find a better (or best) result and make that apply to yourself.

And now to discuss Yunho.

The second link you shared was this one:

So he wins the round here, and he wins an abnormal amount of rock paper scissors, but I raise you an earlier reality content, when Yunho says he's lucky and wins everything, but very much does not. FYI this video is a preview of the actual content so I don't know who actually wins.

My point is that the whole Yunho is Lucky holds up even through his defeats because he keeps telling himself (and everyone else) that he is lucky. It's propaganda. When something does work out for his benefit, it confirms what is already 'known' through the propaganda. If something doesn't, it's 'surprising' which only feeds into the propaganda. A sort of positive feedback loop, if you want to be complimentary. Gaslighting, if you want to be nasty about it.

If you look at what Yunho does though, during the selection process for pick the yummy vs corrupted option (like the things that look like coke - one is coke, the other is a cupful of soy sauce etc), he actually closely examines the thing before he picks it, but he also trusts his animal intuition (Intuition is the compilation of all your human thoughts and animal instincts and often will be more correct than anything else you have).

As for the "find the ice blocks" game that they played? This has nothing at all to do with luck. Yunho actually shows how someone gets 'lucky.' He thinks his way, out loud, through the problem. He doesn't fight being given the question. He doesn't get overwhelmed by it, or afraid of failing. He doesn't try to make the game be something it's not or play to a persona. He just accepts reality as it is (he's been tasked with solving this problem, on camera) and then he goes through an extremely logical deduction. This problem was set up by someone who needs to create content to be filmed, which means that the 'discovered' ice block needs to be easily captured on camera, which means that it will not likely be placed in the cups that don't show clearly on camera, which means.... Do you follow my drift? Yunho sets himself to win this game of what looks like luck by looking at all the facts, which he can do because he doesn't fight the problem, and figures it out from the point of view of the person who set the problem. This isn't luck.

Calling him lucky is actually the problem-setter's way of saving face. It's not that you made the obvious choices for someone who has to set up the problem, it's that Yunho is lucky. You didn't get outsmarted by your lab rat that you need to bleed for content, it's that Yunho is lucky. I will also note that they call both Yunho and Mingi scary here, but the ways that the word is used is completely opposite, for both.

One bonus one for you. The OP who put this compilation together uses the word luck, but if you watch, none of the games that Yunho's playing are games of luck, or more accurately, games of chance. They're all games of skill, and skill games that are physical of the type that Yunho just has a natural advantage for. The whack with a sword game is going to be easier for a very long, very tall, very fast, physically aggressive person to win. The game of Twisters, same thing - Yunho is just bigger, stronger and longer than the others. He's big enough to simply 'shrug' Wooyoung off. The cap-flicking game requires hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills. Isn't Yunho an exceptional gamer? The silly animal race - he picked a fast animal shape that wouldn't impede his legs and booked it. The pan-and hammers? Again, this is a physical skill game.

Claiming that something is Luck, by the way, is something that Yunho is happy to claim because not only does it serve to save face for his teammate/coworkers who keep losing to him, but it also saves his own reputation. He won because he was lucky, you see, it was just fortune smiling down at him. It wasn't that he won't let you win against him. If it's just luck, and Yunho is just lucky, then his winning is the natural order of the world, and everyone can be pleased.

Clever bastard.

[walmart-the-official]

“But that was cheap and poorly done fan service!” Maybe it was. But I had fun and enjoyed myself. Die mad. Not everything has to be perfect to be enjoyable

[gourmetpunk]

This is all very well and good if you either:

a) exist within some sort of community in which people will engage with anything creative others post in it or

b) have a pre-established following on the internet.

However, it doesn't really capture why someone like me would want to take the traditional publishing route (and to be fair to nostalgebraist, I know that wasn't necessarily their aim here, this is a perfectly good explanation of why it doesn't make sense to them - I just want to provide an argument for my side here).

Unlike people of the above categories, I don't exist within any such community online and I am basically an internet nobody. I'm mostly fine with both of these things - being in such communities generally means putting in the effort to engage in a lot of amateurish work yourself, which I simply don't feel is worth my time (sorry if that sounds snobby - if it's any consolation, this mostly only applies to writing, I don't have the same kind of standards for music). And I've seen the headaches that "internet famous" people have to put up with to know better than to want that.

However, unfortunately, these two things are the main factors for getting your writing exposure on the internet in any meaningful way. Take my example: I have about 50 followers here, most of whom are probably long inactive. Of the remaining ones, most probably do not follow me with the intent to engage in any creative product I throw at them. If I started posting my fiction here, quite likely the only people who would actually read it are the 3-4 mutuals who are people I also know in real life - and even then, they probably won't read it because sitting down to read an entire novel (or even several-thousand word short story) is a big time commitment! (And for the record, I'm not blaming them - I would also be unlikely to just sit down and read through whatever fiction they threw at me here too!)

So for people like me, traditional publishing is pretty much the only way we'll get any kind of exposure whatsoever. Plus it might even help open doors on the online exposure side - I'm not saying it's likely, but I do know that if I posted a story of mine here, it would probably go almost completely unread, whereas if I posted that story linked from a site for a Real Magazine where it had been traditionally published accompanied by a note that my store was recently published in Real Magazine, someone's curiosity might actually be piqued enough for them to click through to it and read some of it.

Another factor that I feel especially applies to my writing: it is weird. It's niche. It's not the kind of thing most casual internet readers will pick up to read on a whim. And this even applies to my friends online - again, this is not an accusation because I completely understand where they're coming from, but I have sent one of my stories to friends who are curious about it only to have them come back saying they found it interesting but couldn't get through the first section or so because it was not a style they were interested in. That's fine! But I think there might be a real audience for this kind of stuff out there that is not "my immediate friends" and it's possible that a publisher could actually help me find that audience.

Finally, a factor that applies to me pretty personally but I'm sure at least a few others share: I'm not 100% confident in my craft. I am like 90% sure that the way I'm doing what I'm doing is in line with the creative vision I have for it, but that doesn't mean there isn't potential room for improvement. I would gladly accept feedback from editors, even if I'm not going to agree with all or even most of it - it could help me re-shape what I've started with into something better simply by having outside eyes on it. And the easiest way to get someone to do this without accosting my friends again or paying someone else is...well, I don't really need to say it, do I?

Imagine that you can still draw, or paint, if you feel like it, and have the tools. That hasn't changed.

And (no, this post isn't about AI, there we go, where was I) all the other newer tools still exist too: Wacom tablets exist, and Adobe Photoshop, and every sort of camera, and so forth. If you have these tools ready at hand, you can just pick them up, and make pictures with them.

And tumblr still exists, and all the rest of the internet with it. And so – if you like – you can use these venues to share the pictures you make with others, easily and immediately, for free.

However, there is also another venue, for sharing pictures.

That is the only thing that is different.

The other venue is... let's say it's a magazine that only prints visual art, and which has an extremely large number of subscribers.

Everyone knows about The Magazine. Most people you know are subscribers.

Before the internet, The Magazine was the main way that visual art got into people's homes (if it wasn't created there in the first place). Your parents speak of The Magazine as though it's just where art lives, as though the notion that there might be art somewhere else has never really crossed their minds.

Much of what appears in The Magazine is, in fact, pretty good. Conversely, much of the truly great art of the recent past made an appearance in The Magazine, at some point, before or after appearing in galleries and/or being reproduced in other ways.

But a lot of it is just... fine. Trendy, competent, workmanlike.

You flip through the pages and mostly you think, yeah, this sure is the sort of thing that gets printed in The Magazine, in the current year. Occasionally you're impressed by something you see there, and even more rarely something moves you, transfixes you.

Much the same could be said of your tumblr dash, of course.

It must be noted, however, that The Magazine has a higher quality floor than your tumblr dash. Everything that appears there looks polished, professional, carefully worked-over. This counts for less than one might think; that professional gloss can do nothing to elevate ill-conceived or simply dull work (and The Magazine does print such things fairly often).

In a gallery, you might encounter mere sketches, or blatantly unfinished paintings (Leonardo left behind plenty of both, after all). But you will never find such things in The Magazine.

The Magazine's cultural and psychological prestige is immense. It holds the popular conception of "art" in its tight, totalizing grip. If you ever pick up a pencil and draw, it will be assumed – by default – that you aspire to eventual publication in The Magazine. If you are not very good, people will tell you to keep at it; maybe someday you will make the grade. If you are good, people will tell you so, and ask you whether you've prepared anything for submission, whether you've sent it, whether you heard back.

It is tremendously inconvenient to appear in The Magazine.

After all, anyone can pick up paper and pencil, but The Magazine only has so many pages per month. So, The Magazine has standards. It is persnickety. It couldn't afford to behave differently.

But even if it could afford to behave differently, it would not want to. For it so happens that The Magazine prides itself on its active role in the production of "art" (meaning, "that which has appeared in The Magazine").

Even if you are one of the "lucky" few who does not receive a simple rejection letter from The Magazine, you will not simply be allowed to put your drawing or painting or what-have-you into The Magazine as it is.

Unmediated transmission of art, straight from artist to viewer, is for lower-class venues ("tumblr.com," "physical reality and its tendency to project images of nearby objects onto the retina," etc). The Magazine has standards, and they have a full staff of not-quite-artist, not-quite-art-critic people who are employed to impose them. If you do not get a rejection letter, what happens instead is that you begin a long and laborious transaction with one or more of these strange middlemen. They will tell you that your work is a good start, but that you really should have put this part over there, or made the symbolism more obvious or less obvious, or "applied your evident talent" to a more socially relevant choice of subject matter, or something of this nature.

Eventually, after a protracted interaction like this, you might succeed! A new, different, quite possibly worse picture – produced by laboriously adjusting your original one (which, being original/unmediated, is of course unprintable by definition) until The Magazine's staff feel satisfied in the relative scope of their role versus yours in the collaborative act that is "art" production – will end up on a page somewhere in the next issue of The Magazine.

And, finally: real art has been produced! You've made it!

You're in The Magazine. And your work ("your"? you don't feel so sure anymore) does look nice, sitting there on one of those oh-so-glossy pages.

It is nice enough that you spend nearly a minute lingering over it, before you go back to tumblr.com, where all the rest of the pictures are.

(And then, on the weekend, you go to a museum, and look at pictures which were being lauded as masterworks centuries before The Magazine was even founded. You could never produce anything like them, you know – and you feel envious of their creators, not so much because of their greater talents, but because no one ever praised them by saying, hey, this stuff is good enough to be in The Magazine!)

But at least your mom and dad will look at your drawings, now, and think: my child is an artist. You were an artist before, too, but it was just amateur stuff. Now it's for real. Professional. In The Magazine.

Professional? Well, The Magazine did pay you a little in the end, as a prize. And there are some people who make their livings this way. They have good, longstanding, hard-won relationships with The Magazine's staff of intermediaries. They are unusual; by sheer force of numbers, only a select few can make a decent and reliable living in this manner.

(Indeed, The Magazine's insistence on imposing its standards is essentially inimical to steady, reproducible money-making for individual artists. You shouldn't feel secure already that they'll print your next picture without delay, before you've even sent it in for assessment – that would mean they are not keeping standards at all, wouldn't it? And so, cultural forces within The Magazine conspire to degrade its value as a potential source of one's livelihood.)

Those who appear regularly in The Magazine have unparalleled reach. As a child, perhaps, they shaped your notion of what an "artist" was; as a child, maybe you wanted to be just like them, when you grew up.

But then you did grow up – and so, you realized that they were employing the tools at hand (pencil, paper) to a very unusual end. Anyone can pick up the tools and draw. But few can make it into The Magazine, and perhaps even fewer than that should want to appear there.

After all, there is something almost shameful about the exercise, isn't it?

The Magazine says: I am the means by art is produced and disseminated. And many people, passively following the ambient culture, unconsciously nod along.

But in fact, The Magazine has no potency in it whatsoever. It is you, and the viewer, who create the work of art and create the experience of experiencing art. You can just draw things. You can just show your drawings to people.

And The Magazine cannot turn an uninspired artist into a genius, or an unskilled artist into a master; it can only trim perceived fat, arrange perceived rough edges into a more agreeable shape, apply gloss and trendiness and "professionalism." But those were never what anyone liked about art to begin with. You don't need them – unless you do, for your own artistic reasons (and your viewers'), and in that case home-made versions will probably do the job well enough.

There is, in fact, not much reason at all to want to appear in The Magazine.

And that, in itself, is a strong argument against the idea.

You ought not to play along in the charade, pretending that the whole laborious exercise has a point after all, if you know that it is in fact pointless. This is a matter of integrity, if nothing else.

Anyway, that's how I feel whenever anyone's like, "so are you gonna try to get this stuff published or what"

[isuggestforcefem]

https://www.tumblr.com/isuggestforcefem/782383791093301248?source=share

What about intersex people? Their relationship with their agab can be a lot more complicated.

In some cases, intersex people start developing traits opposite of their agab, usually when they hit puberty. If they took steps towards preventing their body into developing into something they don't want, wouldn't that be the same as transitioning?

In other cases, intersex people might have different genitalia from what they're expected to have. I'm not aware of how gender is assigned in these cases, but if they tried to align the mismatched pieces of themselves with their agab, would they still be cis? Even if they started taking hormones or got surgeries to become who they wanted to be?

They'll often face the same experiences and obstacles as trans people, regardless of whether they align with their agab or something else. Especially in the case of intersex people, who don't align with the sex "binary," their agab is often just a word on a document to try and categorize them in a system that doesn't make the effort to acknowledge their existence.

Shouldn't we let them decide whether or not they were transitioning, rather than defining them as "not really trans" for trying to be their agab? Shouldn't their own experiences and feelings about what they went through give them the validation to define themselves?

Well you see generally if you take steps to align yourself with your assigned gender you’re probably cis.

[bacchuschucklefuck]

and! barbarian!fig! its her

[getupsketh]

this is called top surgery or something

[wackywatchdotcom]

Seeing you be very normal about small details in the show got me thinking about Pomni, and I was wondering if you've thought about the possibility that Pomni probably hasn't eaten in several days. Like, we know they don't NEED to eat.. but it's probably not healthy for her mentally to skip the process of 'taking care of your body'. Ragatha, for example, says that participating in sleeping despite the fact they don't need to- helps keep them mentally steady. Idk just a thought..

ooooooooh.... its a good thought!!!!!

i DO think that like. theres definitely some psychological aspects to a lot of things like eating and sleeping that i feel like tadc characters would be at risk of neglecting... like with something like sleep, i think they can go without it for a LONG time without physical fatigue BUT at the same time like. psychologically sleep is IMPORTANT. i dont know all the science of it but iirc sleep isnt just a physical need but i get the feeling thats not smth that occurs to people in the circus often :[ ragatha seems aware enough of the benefit of the routine of sleeping and how the adventures can be helpful for that to BUT i imagine even she doesnt fully realize that sleep is still pretty important for them, just in a different way

on that note i could definitely see eating being similar!!!! its not something thatll physically harm a person in the circus if they dont eat but also eating is a deeply ingrained aspect of human life, and while i struggle to place a specific problem abstaining from it for too long in the circus couls cause, i COULD imagine it being like. at LEAST psychologically disorienting. especially with jax claiming he feels hungry??? it implies that its similar to the breathing thing that they may not phsyically need to , but their mind still assumes they do....

i DO get curious if they have like. regular meals?? i liek the hc that theres some sort of kitchen in the circus (seeing the weird little couch area was SOOO exciting for me, im super invested in finding out more about the layout of the circus!!!!! i like details like that theyre FUN) so imagine theres SOME way to access food just like how they have bedrooms (though, i get the feeling caine doesnt have a complete idea of what sleep IS but thats a diff thing). but also with them having a feast at the end of the pilot could imply they do, but with that 'reward' not being brought up at ALL in the next three eps (caine has the opportunity to mention it but noticably doesnt, especially in ep 2 where he just full on Leaves after the adventure- it seems more like he just sorta congratulates people on completing adventures and makes sure everyones accounted for and calls it a day) makes me think that communal meals are NOT super common, or at the very least them being coordinated by caine isnt...

all that to say that if shes only been part of the ep 1 feast (i cannot imagine she ate i feel like she was too out of it to do Anything😭) i am unsure if shed have gone out of her way to find a kitchen... if she wanted to know i think shed feel comfortable asking ragatha about it, but i wonder if its even crossed her mind???? and i imagine that would be jarring for her to realize, and also generally psychologically Not The Best for her...

[daisywords]

thinking about this post but also it's more than that. do you ever think about how stories starring men are allowed to be about humanity but stories starring women have to be about Womanhood

[theinsomniacindian]

Look, I love family-coded relationships in fiction and all but not every platonic dynamic, especially those with significant age gaps need to be familial e.g. father-and-child, siblings etc.

Sometimes they can be stuff like chaotic coworkers, mentor and mentee, ride-or-die friends, forced to work together, roommates, frenemies, reluctant allies etc.

Saying that every platonic or non-romantic relationship is basically 'sibling-coded' or 'parent-and-child' tend to dumb down complex dynamics into something simpler and easier to consume.

I'm not saying that familial dynamics can't be complex but most of the time, people just tend to follow popular depictions/stereotypes e.g. familial relationships don't always have to be sweet and healthy- they can be messy and even toxic at times- but most people tend to believe all of them are fluffy and unproblematic. Sure, it's a personal choice what you want to depict but for some reason, I've only seen romantic relationships being depicted as messy and/or toxic.

Such assumptions also push forward the idea that any relationship that isn't romantic can only be familial, which reeks of amatonormativity. In a way, it's almost like affirming the idea that romantic relationships are superior to others due to the assumption that they are the most versatile.

Tl;dr platonic dynamics can be pretty interesting and varied without being family-coded in some way.

Disclaimer: I'm NOT saying that you can't enjoy familial relationships or have familial headcanons. The problem is when people start believing that every platonic relationship has to be familial in some way with no other alternative, which is what this post discusses.

[humanconditionpoetry]

I agree with everything in this post.

Sorry for the late response as I already Explained in my Back to Loop Post 😅. Access the Post Here: Link

With that said, while I do agree that the writing and direction could have been used to focus on other things, such as The Cube and Quasar Diamonds like @salty-and-spiraling mentioned.

I would like to take a moment to stop thinking about the plot and just think about the characters and their ages with the combination of Psychology. Spoken as someone with a Psychology Minor and Currently Applied to a Clinical Psych Program! And since these post are about Rayla and Callum, that is who will be focusing on 😊.

So, where to begin as there is a lot to talk about....

For One, both Rayla and Callum were both in their early teens(13-15 years old) when they first meet and where thrusted into the world with a huge responsibility. And on top of that, had to deal with Loss of Friendships, Friends, Family Members and not to mention fighting and war. And all of this trauma impacts development, especially for teens. And while, teens do branch out and try to find their identities, cliques/groups and relationships, THEY STILL NEED ADULT GUIDANCE. Especially in the cases of trauma or a series of traumatic events if you will.

However, what sorta of kind of bugs me is the adults for the most part are kinda of checked out(maybe besides Amaya and Opeli). Most of the adults, really do not ask the teens, how they are feeling and helping them out with their decision-making(more on that later). Instead, they are treated like Mini Adults(which given the time period that the show is setting in aligns somewhat with the thought of the time: That teens are Adults). However, you would think that with a show that is so heavy on the themes of Love and being there for each other, they would emphasis a little bit more on "not being okay" and talking through that trauma, instead of moving on. In real life, when a traumatic event or events happen, there is usually a community to relay on, adults to help out, especially in the cases of children and teens. Whom may not know how to process the event or where to get help.

As previously mentioned, the adults are not really involved in our teens lives that much. I get it, there is a war going on and lots of changes are happening, truly I do get it. However, a really good example of this in early seasons is Lujanne, Who has three children at her doorstep and not once does she ask, "Hey...Umm Where are your Parents? Is Everything Ok"? I know what some of you may be thinking, that well, that's Lujanne and Lujanne is weird 😅. However, I would respond back that she is still an adult.... Still had a responsibility to these kids to see what was going on. I could literally think of other examples of how adults seem to kinda of neglect these kids(Besides a few), but we would be here till the sun rises(and I got other stuff I have to do 😅). However, I think most of you get the point - I could talk about generational trauma and how it impacts the world and its characters, but maybe in another post.

Going back to the topic, with the adults out of the picture and with teen behaviors and trauma, Rayla and Callum's relationship and the issues that come with it, start to make much more sense.

Rayla and Callum are similar in ages and only really have each other to talk about issues and process the trauma they experienced. On one hand, that is great thing to do, after all what is therapy besides talking and processing the trauma. This is especially true with the people that we trust. However, both Callum and Rayla are teens, and teens do not have the full physical, mental and emotional development to accurately process the trauma in a way that is healthy(unless with out some kind of support - support that they cannot get from each other). It is why in the real world, we work especially hard to get teens the support that they need, outreach and mental health programs. Now, I know that there is inequality on who and where this helps goes too, but gosh darn it, we do try and hopefully overtime, mental health and mental health programs would become much more common place and teens would not be ridiculed for getting such help or even better yet, have access to that help!

Putting that aside, Callum and Rayla do not have these support systems, expect for each other. They also seem to relay on each other to the point that many would say they lost their character and who they are as @stardustamaryllis78 mentioned. However, what if I were to tell you that this is a really common trauma response. Another common trauma response is being dismissive of someone else trauma or their own, which throughout the TDP Rayla and Callum have shown. It is also the the point of Trauma Bonding.

Again, while it is frustrating to see them lose themselves and almost being together far too much, it makes sense psychologically and with teen development.

On top of that, many of you( if you are 18 years and older), should remember that as a teen, at least once or twice, you made some wrong and bad decisions. And hopefully, you had some type of support system to help you through it and process it. Rayla and Callum really do not have that.

In fact, Rayla Gets Kicked Out of Her Community 😡! Yes, I am Still Bitter About That! And Katalios is No Better, Viren ran Katalios for a while, then it was Ezran and Now it is burned to the ground. What I am trying to get at here is that Kataolis is no more or less chaotic.

When Kids and Teens Live in an Environment that lacks some type of structure and support, things can go awry. With Rayla and Callum, things did go awry. All of this, plus the lack of physical development, in terms of Pre-Frontal and Frontal Cortex( the part of the brain that deals with many functions including higher-level thinking, decision making and future planning). Teens, for the most part tend to make rash and impulsive decisions, especially if Trauma is involved. An example of this and there is number of them in the show, is the most infamous, Rayla leaves Callum, practically ghosting him as @stardustamaryllis78 says. Rayla made a rash and impulsive decision to leave Callum due to lack of development in the Pre-Frontal Cortex(which is what we expect of teens-early adults) to Trauma and Generational Trauma at that. While, that was a terrible thing for her to do, it makes sense when you view it from a psychology lens. Please note, that I do not think that Callum should have forgiven her easily and in fact, maybe they should have broken up and try to get back to each other much more organically as that would be of a much more impact and consequence to decision. But like as I said before, Callum response also makes sense.

To quickly summarize, while it is frustrating that Callum and Rayla make poor decisions, are quick to forgive each other and do not really communicate. It does fall in line with trauma and traumatic responses and teen development. When it is looked through the psychology lens and ignore the plot for a bit, it actually starts to make sense and could bring more discussion and dialogue in the fandom(that I think is really needed).

To Those who read all of this, Thank you for reading! I Hope this gives some more nuance into the situation and characters. Perhaps maybe I will make a Generational Trauma post, because believe it or not, this a common trope in media. But let me know if you guys would like a post on that, for now my fingers are tired from typing.

Again, Thank you for bringing up the characters @stardustamaryllis78 and @salty-and-spiraling as it gave me the idea of this post. I hope to see more TDP content from you guys and I'll see around in Tumblr 😉.

Hey, do you guys remember when these two were actually compelling characters?

Yeah, neither do I.

Bait is by far the most interesting character of these three and I'm not even joking.

But lets start at the beginning shall we?

Let's start off with Callum, the protagonist.

He is the son of Queen Sarai and step son of King Harrow 🐦 and the big brother of Prince or King Ezran, depends on which part of the show you're on. I guess spoiler if you haven't got past episode 3 where Pip dies and Harrow is forced to eat bird food for the rest of his life. (I have MASSIVE feelings about that "plot twist" but that's a potential post for another day.)

He struggles with the idea of being a prince because he believes he's not good at horse riding and sword fighting, things a prince should be good at.

Ignore the horse, Bait is the one clearly in charge, Callum doesn't know what he's doing.

All (kind of) jokes aside, he was dorky without being too annoying and him getting the Sky Primal Stone which in turn allowed him to use Sky magic which made him feel like he was for once good at something was interesting to watch, especially after he had to smash it to hatch a dying Zym and learn the Sky Arcanum through other means. A good well rounded character.

Then we have Rayla, who used to be one of my favourite characters.

Not anymore.

She was originally so snarky, sassy and feisty but in such a fascinating kind of way. She also had a kind and gentle heart and would do anything to help those in need. Plus, she had the inner struggle of being an assassin who cannot kill but that didn't really matter because she used her skills for the greater good anyway.

Its a shame her first and only kill in the show came in the form of herself.

Character assassination at its finest.

How did Rayla go from this:

To this:

Best Dragonguard of the century guys 👏

From a girl who would do anything to help others in need, even a dragon that would torch tons of innocent people to legit turning her back on a dragon in distress. This is not Rayla.

But how did it come to this you may ask? Well curious Tumblr reader, I have one simple answer. One simple answer that will burn so much of The Dragon Prince's fandom down and will cause an all out riot but let me just tell you, I'm speaking nothing but the truth.

The answer is:

Rayllum

Yep! Them becoming a duo literally murdered their characters and I still o7 them to this day 🫡

What was once two interesting characters who found solace in each other and set off together (and Ezran was there as the third wheel) to stop a war spanning centuries became a poorly written soap opera.

So where did it go wrong?

I'm gonna sound like a broken record in saying SEASON 4 📢 HAHA!

But no, not season 4, it was actually before that.

It starts with Rayla leaving Callum the nicest birthday present anyone could give someone - ghosting them.

Now you'd think that Rayla would at least wait a day or two after Callum's birthday so he can have an enjoyable day first but nope! She decides to dip on whats supposed to be a happy day for him and make it miserable. What a woman! 👏

Now you could be saying to me, "But she needed to go with full urgency!" To which, no she did not. She went because it was a mission of revenge, something she LITERALLY said herself so she could have waited a few days but she chose instead to make someone she's supposed to love miserable on a day of happiness.

But okay, she dips and leaves Callum sad and miserable on his birthday. Surely when she returns, she apologizes right?

...Right?

I don't think arc 2 Rayla would understand the word sorry if it bit her right up where the Moon don't shine.

Anyways, its two years later (Yes, you heard me, two years) and Rayla decides to finally unghost Callum.

Now, Callum is understandably upset with Rayla after taking off on his birthday and leaving without saying goodbye. So whats Rayla's stance on this? Is she understanding?

Of course not, this is arc 2 Rayla we're talking about.

Imagine letting the guy she let down have some room to sort things out in his head. Crazy right?

But anyway, he eventually relents to Rayla because she won't shut up in typical Rayla fashion and they both snooze on the couch.

This kind of soap opera drama goes on for THE ENTIRE SEASON while they just gradually "make up" and its just such contrived conflict. Especially as nothing came of Rayla leaving for those two years and it happened off screen.

Plus, her not taking accountability for her actions is a big deal.

Sadly the writers did it with this ship. ^

I love Red Herring story lines that are spent so much time on and are SUPER built up only to have literally no impact on the plot whatsoever. 🤗

Loved wasting my time on the Dark Magic Callum story line.

BUT HEY, he did get some great looking tooth-paste in his hair! 🪥 Looks great on you Callum. 🤥

Now however, I must talk about the most beloved of all seasons and no, I don't mean season 6 or 3.

Clearly I'm referring to season 7, aka, facing sucking the season.

Like seriously, if I ate a Moonberry Surprise every time Callum and Rayla snogged, I'd end up needing medical attention.

That's not the offender I'm talking about though. It's Rayla's super selfishness and Callum choosing her over his grieving brother.

Somehow, the writer's thought that was okay.

Remember, this is the same girl who left him for 2 whole years to put her need of revenge before his feelings.

Callum betrayed his brother for her.

But it's not even just that, it's just the selfish nature of Rayla in season 7. Ezran has just had Katolis burnt to a crisp, and all she can think about is herself and her own needs. Ezran's feelings? They don't matter. As long as she's happy, that's fine.

I don't even want to talk about them all buddying up in the Silvergrove happily while Ezran is still dealing with Katolis' fallout.

Plus remember, at this point, Callum still believes that Runaan killed Harrow. I get forgiving someone but bro is literally choosing the guy who assassinated the guy who raised him over his grieving brother. It's actual insanity to me.

There is much more I have missed but I have reached my Rayllum limit for the day. This ship is as fun as watching paint dry so I want to do something that is going to actually bring me joy. Besides, I think I've got enough people to light their torches and sharpen their pitchforks! 😃

Have a good day everyone! Peace! 🫡

[classicslesbianopinions]

the thing about being a disabled grad student is that if you want even half a chance you constantly have to not only reveal but interrogate and explain your softest most vulnerable parts. while people around you act like this is just completely normal and actually that is not the softest most vulnerable part of you and actually you are exactly the same as all of them. so you feel like you are in disguise as exactlythesame while also completely exposed. and you just have to live like that. absolutely insane

[right-there-ride-on]

fandom nd ppl in general waaaaay overuse the word ‘twink’ for characters that term should definitely not apply to. johnny joestar is not one such case.