#thesis editor

[utilitycaster]

hm. in the process of doing some informal research re: Kollok I found this line on Polygon:

"One of the show’s gimmicks is that players who subscribe to the channel on Twitch can then make their own characters and are then allowed to embark on a freeform text-based role-play via Discord."

And I gotta ask but has anyone from the Polygon TTRPG/Actual Play writers every been on social media because I'm like, pretty sure any fan of any show can make up an OC and do text-based roleplay on a Discord server; it just might not be an official Discord server. I really do increasingly feel like Polygon capes so hard for Kollok and the heavily film-edited D20 seasons because they don't actually have a good grounding in basic actual play and fandom culture and are honestly a little embarrassed by it. Unfortunately this also means that they're like "Gadzooks! What are these Incredible New concepts like Text-based Roleplay and Longform Campaigns Of Undetermined Length!" and overall it gives off the vibe of a not terribly bright and profoundly stoned college sophomore trying to appear knowledgeable about music by acting like the guitar was invented in 1995 by Oasis.

[durchdenspiegel]

29.04.2024

After the stress of writing my first draft, somehow the editing still feels a bit daunting. I still have a few unfinished sentences I need to figure out as well as my conclusion… but even if it feels different, the worst is really over 🌸

[capetowncapers]

They need to invent a job search process that doesn’t involve me wanting to gnaw my own arm off like it’s caught in a bear trap.

[the-casbah-way]

summer is Writing Season for me but i was holding out because my final thesis left me feeling completely deflated and out of my depth and i wasn’t sure i wanted to write again because it’s too anxiety inducing to care about something this much but now i’ve received my feedback i’m clapping my hands and meowing and wagging my tail and going yippee i’m going to write all summer

[tardis--dreams]

There's been interesting developments at work and i need to do a lot of work for university so i think tonight is the Perfect time to finish beyond evil

[bmpmp3]

oh god genbu and aiko are going to be locked in some kind of purgatory dimension forever

[writingatthepark]

Sorry Dear, I have to cancel our date. Something just came in the mail...

[hey-op-just-kill-me]

How tf did I become the sound guy???

[ariiiloves]

I only have like three weeks off college left, and after that I'll be in my final semester 🧍🏼‍♀️

[boggsart]

I’ve decided to post all of the progress here as well, not just on instagram. Some people have asked to be tagged once I post some progress, but I can’t remember who they were. So if you wanna see future progress, let me know and I’ll tag you!

This one may not look too different from the previous one, but nothing really turned out the way I intended to.

The colors, the textures, the focus, the sounds, the camera, everything just seems so off, and oh boy the animation… this is the result of rushing and not knowing what I’m doing, just inserting keyframes, tweaking the graph editor and hoping for the best. So maybe signing up for this project wasn’t a great idea after all lol. Plus the datapad’s not even fully textured, you can literally see where I started adding details on the front, then for some reason I just left off lol

One thing I’ll definitely work on in the future is the menu itself, because if this project is for a graphic design thesis, then I might as well try to make the only thing that has something to do with it look more presentable. I’ll definitely be changing up the fonts, and I have some other ideas for the background as well.

But for now, I’ll move on to the remaining 5 character menu animations. Originally there were gonna be 5, not 7. At first I was randomly picking out the characters I wanted to make one for, then I realized, it’d probably be best, if each squad got one animation. The 501st gets Rex, the 212th gets Cody, the CG gets Fox, the 104th gets Wolffe, and the 241st gets Tukk. CF99 got Hunter but I really wanted to make one for Tech as well, since modeling and texturing him took the longest 💀

Once all of that’s done, I can finally move on to animating the trailer video. Which I’m terrified of, but oh well lol

[kianamaiart]

Hey hey! You’ve probably been asked this a lot but what made you want to start creating I Don’t Want To Be A Magical Girl?

Also I drew Akia in my style!

Hope you’re having a great day btw ! :0)

First of all this is so rad!!! I loooove how you drew her

And what made me want to make I Don't Want to be a Magical Girl... It was a lot of things! (im assuming you mean the pilot in general)

The idea started off as a stupid doodle/character design practice. It wasn't gonna be anything more than that. I just felt like drawing a cute character with a gun really hahaha.

It's not a particularly original premise and I didn't plan to do anything more with her (as I do with most of my ocs/designs). But I actually did really like this one and couldn't help but think of little ideas and scenarios with her. Things started ramping up in my brain more when I realized I could attach a personal story and personal experiences to it to make it feel less cliche. That's when I started designing the other characters and coming up with bios and stuff

And then that was gonna be it again. I'd maybe do a comic here and there but there was a combination of things that happened that led to me jumping in and making a pilot.

First of all, I had a two month hiatus coming up so I had so much time. I also decided to step down from my directors position to be a board artist again in the coming season. So I really wanted to get some storyboarding practice in and what better way to do that than with this character I ended up really liking? I also don't have a portfolio and I'd been wanting to make something that's very me rather than my work from an existing show.

I'd offhandedly mentioned to my editor at disney that I wanted to do a board for these characters and she told me she'd help me make an animatic if it ever came to that. I couldn't pass up that opportunity! Now, since it was gonna be an animatic and I didn't want it to just be my scratch, I reached out to a bunch of VA friends to see if they'd be interested and they were!

Then other than having that support, just seeing my friends work on their own personal projects has been really inspiring and made me want to also do my own thing! Me and my friend group had just made a whole video game for our friend as a bday present which was so creatively fulfilling and made me realize like "oh my god we're artists we can literally just make stuff".

In the past I'd been so afraid to share my original work and for similar fears I've never wanted to showrun despite having the opportunity to pitch. While it's flattering to be wanted there was this pressure that felt like "oh you HAVE to make something, you're wasting your talent otherwise." (lol this is ironically the thesis of idwtbamg). And as a qpoc, i'd felt this extra layer of pressure to have to make something perfect on all fronts because if i fail in any capacity, i'm failing my community. it'd just be another another reason for people to say "ah queer media and work centering poc just can't succeed." then on the other end, i can only do and write what i know and feared that other people in my community wouldn't resonate with it or would feel like it's inaccurate to their own experiences.

but that's an exhausting way to feel and i've finally decided for myself that i'm just gonna tell stories that are authentic to me and it will reach whoever it needs to reach~ this realization was kind of the final step i needed to push myself to go all in. and now we're here!

[monsteracademia]

monster theory reading list

this list is going to be some recommended reading when it relates to literary teratology or monster theory. some of these works predate 'monster theory' as a concept (which was coined in 1996 by jeffrey jerome cohen) but are foundational to that work regardless.

i'll try to include links to any readings that are freely available online and links to doi etc but if something isn't and you're really keen, hit me up and y'know we'll see what i can do.

monster theory: reading culture (1996) by jeffrey jerome cohen - the original and defining text on monster theory by the man himself. here is a link to a pdf of the first chapter, which i spoke about at length in another post.

the horror reader (2000) by ken gelder (editor) - an incredibly insightful collected edition about the horror genre as a whole, however gelder's introduction to part three, as well as marie-hélene huet's chapter introduction to monstrous imagination were incredibly helpful to my work personally. very generously, gelder has allowed free access to the entire work in pdf form!

the monster theory reader (2020) by jeffrey andrew weinstock - an amazing collected edition featuring cohen, creed, kristeva and a number of others that provides a really good foundational background knowledge of what contributed to the creation of monster theory as well as some fantastic takes on it post cohen.

classic readings on monster theory (2018) by asa simon mittman & marcus hensel - similar to weinstock, this collected edition features a number of classical foundational essays and some more modern ones surrounding monster theory. a very helpful starting point! here is a link to the introductory chapter by mittman and hensel in pdf form!

the monstrous feminine: film, feminism, psychoanalysis (1993) by barbara creed - creed's idea of the monstrous feminine is one of the foundational underpinnings of monster theory and is key in comprehending the 'other' as monstrous, particularly as it relates to women in a patriarchal society. highly recommend! here is the entire book in pdf form!

powers of horror: an essay on abjection (1982) by julia kristeva - kristeva's idea of abjection is a precursor to a lot of theoretical frameworks regarding the horror genre, in particular as a direct precursor to creed's work, then to cohen's work. here is the entire book in pdf form!

this is definitely not an all encompassing list of sources, but it is a good starting point for anyone interested in this particular niche field of literary theory. these are texts that were crucial for me in understanding the basics when i was starting work on my thesis.

[tyrantisterror]

There was a writer at io9 who I lowkey viewed as my nemesis despite never interacting with him in any way because whenever I encountered an article with an absolutely dogshit shallow take on pop culture 9 tiems out of 10 it was written by him, and generally in mindless praise of Star Wars. I bring this up because before I quit reading the site he posted an article called "I don't get why geeks don't like sports" or something like that, and the thesis of the article was that geeks who love sci-fi and fantasy fiction should LOVE sports because they're basically the same thing - that everything one loves about sci-fi and fantasy fiction can be found in sports. To which I say:

No the fuck it can't

You, a man who is paid to write about geek shit for geeks to read about because your editors inexplicably believe you know why geeks like what they like, clearly lied on your resume

The argument went that sports have everything sci-fi and fantasy fans like, which it specified were, like, stakes, and drama, and people to root for and against, which is basically all it takes to make a sci-fi story, right? Like Jesus Christ it was so stupid, like, Jeff Bezos described how easy it is to make a great TV show stupid.

BUT! It did give me an idea. See, one of the big appeals to me about sci-fi and fantasy stories is the fantastical shit that shows up in them, like monsters, for example. Another big appeal is to see a how our current world can be reflected in the fantastical one - whether we see a better world, or one that's worse in a very dramatic way.

So, here is my suggestion for making sports just like fantasy and sci fi fiction: we add a new position to every single sport called The Minotaur. The Minotaur wears heavy body armor as well as a big, intimidating horned helm, and brandishes an axe with deadly efficiency. The Minotaur is a free agent, allowed to wander in and out of the stadium/ice rink/golf course/what have you as he pleases, but he must attempt to kill one player per game. The players are not allowed to take weapons into the game to defend themselves - only through sheer athleticism can they either evade or disarm the Minotaur, and in doing so save themselves.

If they did this, then finally they'd have everything I love in my sci-fi and fantasy movies in sports.

[cryptotheism]

If it isn’t too big of a question, what is your research process? Where do you find your sources offline and online? What do you consider to be “enough” research, if any? How do you store your sources? How do you pick what to look at first? How many things do you typically read “at once”?

I start with reference texts and sourcebooks. I generally cross-reference them to see what they consider important. If several academic sources cover the same thing, it's probably something I should focus on.

Then I look for specific sources. Primary if possible. For example, I've recently been writing about Ibn Hayyan on Patreon. I can't read medieval Arabic, but several sourcebooks pointed to a book by a scholar named Syed Nomanul Haq. If a text is prohibitively expensive, or exclusive to university databases that I don't have access to, I'll pirate a copy. I have strong convictions about the accessibility of scholarship. 80% of my research library is digital, a single external drive.

I try to do two reads of every source. A quick skim, and then a deep cut on the things I need to check up on. Generally I know I'm up to speed when I can make jokes about the topic.

I don't really like reading several things at once. I like to finish one topic and then move on to the next. My editor @livesouls has been a massive help there. Tbh I never feel like I know enough about anything, but he constantly reminds me that I am writing an introductory pop history, not a PHD thesis.

[writingatthepark]

The new edition of CMOS is coming out on September 19, 2024! You can pre-order using the link above.

CMOS is the style manual that governs all fiction published in the US and Canada as well as most nonfiction books, certain academic works, etc. All Chicago style publications published after September 19 should adhere to the changes in the 18th edition.

Self-publishing fiction authors and PhD candidates in the humanities and sciences, this means you!

You can learn about some of the major changes here. A more detailed chapter-by-chapter list can be found here.

[contemplatingoutlander]

FiveThirtyEight is gone. Its legacy will endure.

Nate Silver’s website suffered because of Trump and changes in political news coverage.

Opinion | Perry Bacon, Jr. | March 7, 2025

FiveThirtyEight became famous for its “forecasts” from founder Nate Silver. But the website (where I worked from 2017 to 2021) was trying to do much more than predict presidential election results. FiveThirtyEight was an attempt to improve and reimagine journalism. I think it succeeded — even though the website is now defunct. ABC News, which owned FiveThirtyEight, this week laid off the site’s 15 remaining staffers. The network had already made drastic cutbacks two years ago, with Silver himself departing back then. We are in the midst of staff reductions throughout the journalism industry. That said, ABC News is not a newspaper in a declining city in the Midwest. If the network wanted to keep the site going, it could have. This decision probably wasn’t just about money. [...] Political journalism has changed in ways that have made FiveThirtyEight less essential. Silver started the website during the 2008 presidential campaign. (There are 538 votes in the electoral college.) He correctly saw a flaw in American political coverage. Journalism professors and many within the news industry had for years argued that political news was too focused on the “horse race” (who was going to win the next election) instead of policy issues. What Silver argued was that horse-race coverage, while extensive, was often quite bad. It was overly fixated on a single poll or arguing that a candidate appeared to be surging after delivering a strong speech, without any other evidence. Averaging polls, scrutinizing demographics and voting histories of states — that all seems obvious now. It wasn’t 17 years ago. [emphasis added]

I will miss FiveThirtyEight. It was always a reliable source of aggregate polling data. It also provided a lot of background information about the potential bias and reliability of individual polls.

R.I.P. FiveThirtyEight March 7, 2008 - March 5, 2025

_________________ Collage sources (before edits, starting in center, then moving top left to right clockwise, ending bottom left): 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06, 07

[See more excerpts from the column under the cut]

In 2010, the New York Times hired Silver and starting hosting FiveThirtyEight on its website. A few years later, ESPN hired him to create a FiveThirtyEight that would cover not only politics but also sports, science and other topics with statisticians and more traditional journalists working in a combined newsroom. The site grew in size and influence. And other news organizations started borrowing its methods, averaging polls and producing statistical models to analyze elections. [...] The site often had political scientists and scholars write pieces. Fact-checking was extensive, adding to the site’s reliability and reputation. But I knew FiveThirtyEight was in trouble when I saw not only stories similar to ours published in the Times and The Washington Post but also those larger organizations poaching our staffers. Another factor that made the website less relevant was Trump. He made politics more about tweets, firings and other drama that the data can’t really capture. [...] But for me, FiveThirtyEight staffers and its devoted fans, the site was about much more than election predictions and even Silver. It was an alternative, higher form of journalism. It was also a lovable community of nerds, wonks and junkies. Our readers were Democratic-leaning, but they weren’t people watching MSNBC just to hear how terrible Republicans are. They wanted us to tell them if a Democratic politician was going to lose. They loved that every article seemed to involve the writer examining election results down to the county level and producing three charts to support their thesis. Silver now has one of the most popular political Substack newsletters; former managing editor Micah Cohen is now politics editor for Apple News; reporter Anna Maria Barry-Jester has moved on to cover public health for ProPublica. But from my vantage point, FiveThirtyEight is everywhere in more subtle ways. The amount of charts and data in stories about politics in particular is much larger than it was two decades ago. The chief political analyst at the New York Times is a data whiz named Nate (Cohn) who joined the paper essentially as Silver’s replacement. If you tell someone about a poll, they will often ask whether other surveys show the same result. There is still too much horse-race coverage. I hate when I see polls of the 2028 Democratic primary. Can we wait a minute? But FiveThirtyEight made that coverage smarter and more rigorous — creating a legacy that will endure.