#community support on Substack

[mehmetyildizmelbourne-blog]

Featured Newsletters by Substack Mastery Boost Pilot: Episode 14

Curated Newsletters Curated newsletters of writers contributing to the Substack Mastery publication on Medium to create synergy Dear Writers and Readers, Happy November, we were unable to post curated newsletters in October as we were busy with the design and testing of our new Substack Mastery Boost pilot. As announced by our chief editor Dr Mehmet Yildiz (Main) yesterday in the monthly…

[theoverstimulated]

Your Three Choices

I wrote this for myself, but I'm sharing it in case it helps you.

The Overstimulated

Jan 21, 2025

The people who hold the power are doing things I don’t agree with currently and for the foreseeable future. It would be easy to disassociate, disengage, and retreat within myself. As someone with a history that includes a Freeze response to traumatic events, it would be familiar and potentially even comforting to allow myself to shut down. There may be points in the future where I unwillingly end up in this state anyway, but I did not put so much work into my healing, learning about emotional regulation and how to deal with being dysregulated to succumb to a frozen state without trying to do what I can to work through these challenging emotions (and hopefully come out stronger on the other side).

“Washing one’s hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral.” – Paulo Freire

In this moment, the powerful people (and systems they uphold) are doubling down on prioritizing profit over people, our planet, and sustainable life for everything on Earth. Being one of those people who feels compelled to try to improve myself, my life, and in effect the lives of those around me, it is not in my nature to sit idly by spectating, if there is something that I can do. I also realize I am just one person. I may not ever take an individual action that tips the scales in favor of justice, but that does not mean that my personal activities will have no bearing on the big picture.

Everyone who pays attention to time travel stories knows that even the tiniest change can have major consequences. The butterfly effect within chaos theory describes how the fluttering of a butterfly’s wings can ripple out to have an impact on something larger like a hurricane in another part of the world. I read a quote once about how everyone can readily admit that small actions can end up having a larger impact, but no one ever really thinks that their own small deeds are influencing anything.

Going forward, I will be taking actions when and where I can, doing what I believe is the best option in the moment at hand, with the understanding that my meager contribution will impact something, even if I may not be present to witness it. It is entirely possible that my impact will do unintended harm, even though my intent is honorable. I will not let this unforeseen option prevent me from attempting to align my intentions and impact into something beneficial for the greater good.

My family members are notorious for sticking their heads in the sand to avoid having to look at any of the problems around them. I cut ties with most of them because this tendency, in combination with their repeated pattern of enabling and enacting abuse, was not something I wanted in my life. While I do believe that we will have to learn to work with people whose ideals do not mirror our own, including people who voted in ways we didn’t, I will not be rekindling any connection with my estranged family members.

Our falling out was not solely one of opposing political ideologies. Any potential sliver of solidarity we could share via our previous familial connection could not counteract the damage that they would do to me and my healing journey because they have not begun their own journey to heal. If I thought that they were doing work on themselves to self-reflect, accept responsibility for their own actions, openly & honestly communicate, and take actions to minimize the harm they cause, I would consider it. I will not waste my time trying to convince them that they should start this journey, as they have proven to me previously that they are unwilling, and nothing has changed between now and then.

I will be (re)investing in relationships with people who are capable of reciprocating healthy boundaries and have communicated a desire to maintain (and strengthen) our connection. This will require me to be open, honest, and vulnerable. Even though it can be scary to share yourself with others (and there are definitely situations where you may need to lie for safety reasons), the only way to create authentic connections with others, that become the building blocks for a stronger kinship, is to let yourself be seen and known. In the past, when I have hidden parts of myself (especially when it wasn’t an act of self-preservation), it only extended the inevitable, while embodying another form of self-betrayal. Even though I believe community and connection are crucial, I will not actively choose to be around people who I do not feel safe and comfortable being myself around.

This stance will only work to cultivate personal associations in the inner circles of my community because I will need to allow people who are on different levels of their own healing journey, with different tactics on how to proceed, within my larger community of collaborators. At times, this may include people I fell out with or people who have been known to cause harm to others (but truthfully, who hasn’t?) or people I just don’t personally like. This does not mean that I have to become best pals with them or unburden myself of every thought I have to them or go out of my way to cultivate intimacy together. It will be on a case-by-case basis who can be trusted, with the ever-looming knowledge that even those that have truly loved you can betray you for any reason.

“There's no reward without work, no victory without effort, no battle won without risk.” -- Nora Roberts

Your Three Choices

1) Do Nothing except what is needed to keep myself alive and comfortable.

This non-action helps preserve the status quo.

If you are in a space in life where you are struggling to even maintain basic survival mode activities, I’d recommend you focus on yourself. This doesn’t mean you can’t be thinking more long term on how you can help, but beyond being unable to pour from an empty cup, you are more likely to say/do things that are not in alignment with who you are when you are reacting during emotional dysregulation and/or overextended in bandwidth. I am not suggesting that you stay in “Do Nothing” mode forever (and we will all need to circle back to this option at times to avoid burnout and prioritize rest), but if you are truly in a space where you are incapable of caring for yourself, that should be your focus until you build enough of a foundation to take on actions outside of your purview.

2) Do Something on the side of the oppressor.

This action helps preserve the status quo.

There have been times in my life where I have aligned with the powers that be either through self-preservation, denial, rationalization, or a misunderstanding of the situation at hand. Once you realize that the actions you must take are in direct opposition to what you’ve deemed to be the best option, the situation becomes untenable. You can only continue with this option if you are comfortable exchanging your morals for other perceived benefits. Even then, you’ll only be able to do this until it begins to eat at your soul. There’s a difference between compromise and self-betrayal. Do not obey in advance. Preemptive compliance is active surrender.

Going forward, I will be sharing some of what I’m doing (and why). Some of these actions may seem small. Some may seem enormous. Some may be seeds planted for later. Some may be urgent. Alongside sharing my personal experiences, I will be highlighting resources and writings that I am referencing in my own journey. I plan to share links to things I’m reading both in the Chat and through restacks in the Notes. If you have questions, I will do my best to answer any good faith inquiries. I would very much like to build further community on Substack, so don’t hesitate to reach out if this interests you!

3) Do Something on the side of the oppressed.

This action helps challenge the status quo.

I plan to choose this option as often as possible, even at potential detriment to myself. There are so many different ways to take action, and all may be necessary at various points. Even when I cycle back to “Do Nothing” at times, as long as I don’t get stuck there, there will always be some action to take. I will continue to use whatever privileges I have, for as long as I have them, to help those less fortunate, even if that means getting uncomfortable, challenging myself, and potentially receiving negative repercussions from it. Anyone trying to resist will need to cycle through action and rest in order to sustain engagement long-term. There needs to be enough of us acting in unison to hit critical mass, and that will only be possible if we don’t burn out and give up from going too hard, too fast, too soon. No matter how many times you choose options 1 & 2, it is never too late to choose 3 and Do Something.

~The Overstimulated

https://theoverstimulated.substack.com/p/your-three-choices

[1introvertedsage]

In this post I talk about how learning to slow down can help to tap in to the suble guidance around us. I also shared the poem: Guided

[bynataliezubi]

Conquer Burnout: Reclaiming Your Energy and Well-Being

Feeling drained, overwhelmed, or like you're running on empty? Burnout is more than just exhaustion—it's a state of emotional, mental, and physical depletion that can creep into every corner of your life. Whether it's work, school, or personal obligations, the constant demands of modern life can leave us feeling disconnected and unmotivated. But here's the good news: burnout isn't a dead end. It's a signal that something needs to change—and you have the power to reclaim your energy and well-being.

In my latest article, "Conquer Burnout: Reclaiming Your Energy and Well-Being," I dive deep into the psychology and neuroscience behind burnout. I share actionable self-care strategies like setting boundaries, practicing mindfulness, and even rediscovering the joy in hobbies. You'll also find personal insights on how burnout has impacted my life—and how I've learned to navigate it. If you're ready to break free from the cycle of stress and exhaustion, this is your sign to take the first step. Read the full article now to start your journey toward balance and fulfillment!

[ranchdressingqueen]

Take a peek at the new home for my writing! And face reveal I suppose

[brooklynrat]

Finally decided to start sharing thoughts on Substack! If you're a writer on Substack too, share your @ so we can support each other :)

[see-arcane]

I wrote a book!

The Vampyres is the happy horrifying accident born of feverish scribbling in the wake of Dracula season* (*inhaling Dracula Daily and Re: Dracula at the same time May thru November). It features a number of familiar villainous faces from classic supernatural lit, though not everyone is wearing their original name anymore. The story takes place in the 21st century and you can only hold onto those sentimental titles so long in the mayfly mortal world before you start drawing attention.

Not that swapping out pseudonyms has done anything to thwart the new shadow looming over the revenant community…

Free Preview Chapters (If You Want a Sneak Peek)

All on my Substack here!

More info under the cut:

Description

Something is culling the undead.

Whether they imbibe blood, leech life, or traded mortality away to their devil of choice, the revenants of the world are disappearing. The Vampyre, a possessor of many names and collector of many lives, has been fretting over the phenomenon for some time.

A laughable fear, for he is one of those canny cadaverous few who made a deal for perpetual resurrection. The bitten may crumble, but the bargainer can rise from death after death. So he reminds himself. So he worries is no longer the case.

Not when the boyar in the Carpathians was one of the first to vanish. Still, the monster from the mountains may simply be in hiding, just as the rest of the bargainers must be. The Vampyre convinces himself of this for a single night…before the monster called Quinn Morse makes itself known.

Where to Buy

eBook: https://books2read.com/thevampyres

Paperback (Bookshop being a U.S. store search*): https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-vampyres-c-r-kane/21171669?ean=9798218374587

*Available internationally!

To Search by ISBN

eBook ISBN: 9798218374594

Paperback ISBN: 9798218374587

Art Pile

Announcement Post Flyer - Cover Conundrum - Preorder Announcement - Vampyre Valentine

Skull Scratch - Eye in the Sky - Food Chain of the Vampyre - A Long Night In - Red Smile - Prototype Book Cover

BONUS: Fanart Book Cover!

Ko-Fi

If you’d like to donate a buck or commission some art, I have a Ko-Fi here.

My ocular official site

Spotify

Tunes to run for your unlife to.

[catsonja]

new short piece I wrote on Trans Community Building Support my writing on Substack and Patreon follow my other content links

[drdemonprince]

I think we all know on some level that age is a pretty blunt instrument for measuring maturity and capability. We all develop at different rates and in different ways, especially when you take into account environmental factors as well as disability. I said my first words at six months old and didn’t get comfortable walking until I was two. Both of those are developmentally ‘abnormal,’ but in completely opposite directions. Intellectually, I was able to spar with most adults before I was old enough to drive a car, but at age 36 I still cannot handle cooking dinner or doing my taxes. (I also really shouldn’t be trusted behind the wheel of an automobile, if I’m being real).

Research suggests that many Autistic people develop social and emotional skills at a slower pace than most non-Autistics; in our 40s, 50s, and beyond we are still learning a lot of valuable lessons about how to better relate to people, and show less difficulty in our relationships as time goes on. I didn’t learn how to make friends or name my emotions until my 30s — was I not an adult until then? What skills must a person have to qualify as really, fully an adult?

This points to a major problem in how our current systems look at intellectually disabled people — their abilities and needs are often summarized using the confusing metaphor of “mental age.” A person with Down Syndrome who cannot read or use the toilet might be labelled as “mentally three-years-old,” for instance — but what does it mean to be mentally three? Which kind of imagined three-year-old is setting that standard? Which skills are important to determine someone’s mental “age”? If a person can write fluently using an adaptive communication device but can’t tell when they need a shower, what mental age do we give them — and which rights?

Why does ability level determine the rights that a person has, anyway?

In our current society, people considered “children” receive certain resources that nobody else gets, like free schooling and special state-provided health insurance, and if they do not have a guardian they are assigned one. A legal adult gets to make all legal, medical, and educational decisions for the child, and makes sure they remain housed and fed.

There are many adults who could use this kind of support. But relying upon others for such support means you don’t get the rights of a legal adult, according to the Support-Freedom Dichotomy. If an intellectually disabled person can’t understand complicated legal and financial documents, for instance, they’re likely to be placed under a conservatorship and lose the freedom to buy the things they like or live how they want to live. They do have preferences and insight into their own lives, but because they need help carrying those preferences out, they don’t get to make them.

I propose that rather than equating needing support with losing freedom, and instead of trying to define a simple category of people who does not get to be an “adult,” we ask specific questions about people’s needs, capabilities, preferences, and desires in a way that allows for everyone to get both the help and the autonomy they require.

I wrote about abolishing age as a meaningful way of categorizing what rights a person gets -- and what supports they are entitled to. You can read the full piece for free on my substack.

[hms-no-fun]

you were on cohost? i guess too late now, how was it for you?

cohost had its fair share of problems and i could often find the community there a bit too tumblr-core fingerwaggy if you know what i mean. but the site's dead now so it's kind of a moot point. what i find myself reflecting on most these days are the positives.

first, no numbers. i think their no numbers policy was probably a bit over-aggressive, but it quelled some of the rat race popularity contest aspect of social media that often makes it so tedious. i liked their tag tracking system, their robust content warning options, and the absence of infinite scroll. what i miss most about cohost is that their text editor supported CSS, which led to people programming elaborate text effects and puzzles and games in-site that harkened back to the days of flash animations. there was something in this combination of elements that drew out a rebellious creativity in users.

cohost came at a time when social media was across the board feeling terrible (and it's only gotten worse hahaha), particularly as someone who makes shit that relies on you clicking links that take you away from the website or app. algorithms hate this and punish it. users also just seem kind of lazy and disinterested in using the internet so much as letting the internet happen to them passively. but when a post of mine went viral on cohost, people engaged with it. it wasn't just likes and shares, it was comments and additions. it felt like a place that (at its best) encouraged actual conversation and the development of new ideas among like-minded peers. when my posts did well and i included a donation link, people gave me money. it felt genuinely like a website that COULD support professional blog work in a way that was more customizable even than substack yet still RSS friendly, and the Following tab which let you easily see posts of specific users was a REVELATION, like a mini RSS reader within the website itself.

but the enterprise was unsustainable for various reasons (not all of them outside the dev crew's control) and the haters got what they wanted. now our big social media alternative is bluesky, a website that dares to ask the question "what if there was another twitter?" the answer is that it fucking sucks. i hate microblogs so much dude, why on EARTH are we still acting like these disambiguited 300-character-limit posts are the most preferable means of social communication online??? why would you set out to make a better twitter and then deliberately choose to replicate literally every aspect of the user experience that encouraged low-information high-drama conflict fabrication? WHY WOULD YOU MAKE A VERSION OF TWITTER WHERE YOU CAN EASILY LOOK UP THE ACCOUNT OF EVERYONE WHO HAS YOU BLOCKED AND IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE A FEATURE NOT A BUG???????? i just don't get it. i don't even get the optimism of the early adopters. i've seen people decry the post-election decay of the platform like "of course the cishets come in to ruin a community that was defined by trans & queer people" i'm sorry HELLO???????? from literally day zero bluesky was aiming to be a hands-off centrist IPO-friendly tech startup, there was never anything structurally embedded within the platform itself to keep this kind of decay from happening, you just happened to be on there when there were dramatically fewer users most of whom were curious tech enthusiasts. seriously, how have we not learned this lesson yet? you can't define a digital culture by the vibes of random user behavior! unless you have LAWS and GUIDELINES whereby you fucking BAN people for being shitheads, unless you enforce an actual code of conduct and punish bigoted speech and design a system that encourages constructive conversation, you are always always ALWAYS going to wind up at unhinged facebook boomer slop!

the death of cohost and the utterly predictable decay of bluesky are a big part of the reason why i've been posting so much more on tumblr. this is like the last bastion of anything even remotely resembling the old web, with its support of longposts and tagging and how easy it is to find random hobbyists doing cool shit you never knew existed before. like, yeah, you have to search that shit out and tailor your feed to not drive you crazy, but that's what i like about it!!! i am an adult with agency who understands that life is complicated and as such i expect to have to put some work into making my experience with a website positive! but in the hellworld of the iphone everything is walled garden apps for aggregating content where the content and its creators are structurally established as infinitely replaceable and uniquely worthless punching bags to be used and cast aside. everyone's given up on moderation and real jobs don't exist anymore especially if you happen to work in the "creative economy" IE are a writer or critic or artist or hobbyist of literally any kind. we've given up on expecting anything from the rich moneyboys who own and profit immensely off of the platforms whose value we literally create!!! especially now with the rise of "AI" grifters, whose work has ratcheted good old fashioned casual sexism and racism and homophobia up to levels not seen in such mainstream spaces since the early 2000s.

i like tumblr because i don't have to use a third party app to get & answer asks at length, and because it is a visual artist friendly platform where i won't be looked at funny for reblogging furry postmodernism or transgender homestuck OCs. it is a site that utterly lacks respectability and that's what makes it even remotely usuable. unfortunately it also sucks! partly it sucks because this place was ground zero for the rise of puritanical feminist-passing conservatism in leftist spaces, so it's like a hyperbolic time chamber for brain-melting life or death discourse about the most inconsequential bullshit you could ever imagine. but it also sucks because it's owned by a profit-motivated moneyboy who has consistently encouraged a culture of virulent transphobia and frequently bans trans women who call this out. so like, yeah, this place is cool compared to everywhere else, but it is exactly like everywhere else in that is also on a ticking clock to its own inevitable demise. the owners of this website will destroy everything that makes it interesting and will EAGERLY delete the nearly twenty years (!!!!!!) of posts it's accumulated the instant it will profit them to do so. this will be immensely unpopular and everyone will agree it's a tragedy and it won't matter. the culture and content of a social media platform is epiphenomenal to its rote economic valuation. i mean, obviously it isn't, zero of these massive tech companies would be what they are if so many people weren't so eager to give their time and labor away for free (and yes, writing a dumb dick joke on tumblr IS a form of labor in the same way that doing a captcha is labor, just because it's a miniscule contribution in an economy of scale doesn't mean you didn't contribute!), but once a tech company reaches a certain threshold its valuation ceases to be tethered to anything that actually exists in reality.

all of which is why i remember cohost with a heavy heart. yeah, it was imperfect. it was also independently owned, made with the explicit goal of creating a form of social media that actually tries not to give you a lifelong anxiety disorder so it can sell you homeopathic anti-anxiety sawdust suppositories. for the brief window of time when it was extant, i was genuinely hopeful for the future of being a creative on the internet. part of why i spend so much time on godfeels, a fucking homestuck fanfiction with no hope of turning a profit or establishing mainstream legitimacy, is that my readers actually ENGAGE with the material. what brought me back to using this website consistently was precisely the glut of godfeels-related questions i got, and the exciting conversations that resulted from my answers. meanwhile i put so many hours into my videos and even when they do well numerically, i barely see any actual engagement with the material. and that is a deliberate design choice on the part of youtube! that is the platform functioning as intended!! it sucks!!!

what the memory of cohost has instilled in me is a neverending distaste for the lazy unambitious also-rans that define the modern internet. i remember the possibility space of the early web and long for the expressiveness that even the most minor of utilities offered. we sacrificed that freedom for a convenience which was always the pretense for eventually charging us rent. i am thinking a lot these days about what a publicly funded government administrated social media utility would look like. what federal open source standards could look in an environment where the kinds of activities a digital ecosystem can encourage are strictly regulated against exploitation, bigotry, scams, and literal gambling. what if there was a unionized federal workforce devoted to the administration of internet moderation, which every website above a certain user threshold must legally take advantage of? i like to imagine a world where youtube isn't just nationalized but balkanized, where you have nested networks of youtubes administrated for different purposes by different agencies and organizations that operate on different paradigms of privacy and algorithmic interaction. imagine that your state, county, and/or city has its own branch of youtube meant to specifically highlight local work, while also remaining connected to a broader national network (oops i just reinvented federation lmao). imagine a world where server capacity is a publicly owned utility apportioned according to need and developed in collaboration with the communities of their construction rather than as a deliberate exploitation of them. our horizons for these kinds of things are just so, so small, our ability to imagine completely captured by capitalist realism, our willingness to demand services from our government simply obliterated by decades of cynical pro-austerity propaganda. i imagine proposing some of this stuff and people reacting like "well that's unrealistic" "that'll never happen" "they'd just use it for evil" and i am just SO! FUCKING! TIRED!!!!

like wow you're soooooo cool for being effectively two steps left of reagan, i bet you think prison abolition and free public housing are an impossible pipedream too huh? and exactly what has that attitude gotten you? what've you gained by being such a down to earth realist whose demands are limited by the scope of what seems immediately possible? has anything gotten better? have any of the things you thought were good stayed good? is your career more stable, your political position more safe, your desire to live and thrive greatly expanded? or do you spend every day in a cascading panopticon of stress and collapse, overwhelmed to the point of paralysis by the sheer magnitude of what it's cost us to abandon the future? you HAVE to dream. you HAVE to make unrealistic demands. the fucking conservatives have been making unrealistic demands forever and look, they're getting everything they want even though EVERYONE hates them for it! please i'm begging you to see and understand that what's feasible, what's reasonable, what's realistic, are literally irrelevant. these things only feel impossible because we choose to believe The Adults (and if you're younger than like 45, trust me, to the ruling class you are a child) whose bank accounts reflect just how profitable it is to convince us that they're impossible. all those billions of dollars these fuckers have didn't come from nowhere, it was stolen from all of us. there is no reason that money can't and shouldn't be seized and recirculated back into the economy, no reason it can't be used to fund a society that is actually social, where technological development is driven not by what's most likely to drive up profits next quarter but by what people need from technology in their daily lives.

uh so yeah basically that's my opinion of cohost lmao

[mehmetyildizmelbourne-blog]

🎉 Celebrate Your Substack, No Matter the Size!

📢 CONGRATULATIONS on starting your Substack! Whether you have one subscriber or a thousand, every step forward is worth celebrating. 🎊 👇 Drop your Substack link below I will personally check out every single one of them and curators of my publications to amplify them because I believe in the power of connection and community. 🤝 🌟 What’s in it for you? I might discover gems that align with my…

[milkweedtussocktubers]

Help a Queer Farmer Stay Warm This Winter

Hello friends,

I'm a queer, regenerative farmer, running a diversified, collaborative farm. We've been in business for 25 years; I've been manager for 3. One year ago, my mother, who ran the greenhouse and plant side of things, passed away from complications with her Myasthenia Gravis. Since then, I've had to scale down, step back, and give myself and my father, who works alongside me, some time to grieve and reorient ourselves. I am transitioning the farm to one that works within the gift economy, sharing food, labor and building community.

All of this has taken time, and taken funds that we haven't had the capacity to replenish. And so now, after years of giving away food and creating a sanctuary here, we need your help.

This isn't a farm fundraiser - I just need some money to purchase heating oil, firewood and pay for the repairs to my furnaces. It's 5F as I type this, and we're running out of fuel. Our county has no more emergency heating funds left.

I know everyone says this, but every bit does help. All we need is a hand up, to help us hold on as we adjust to our new reality and new farm.

Thank you, and much love,

Milkweed

P.S. If you'd like to explore our work, and see that we truly are committed to our community-building mission, you can check out our blog at The Bittersweet-Milkweed Collaborative Substack.

I've been asked to add a Venmo or Paypal account to this, so here's my Venmo: we're @MilkweedTussockTubers, www.venmo.com/u/MilkweedTussockTubers

And Paypal is: @milkweedtussocktuber

[hyperions-light]

Okay so they fired a bunch MORE of the Tumblr staff

And like we’ve definitely been through the “tumblr is dying” rigamarole before

But in the event that it ACTUALLY dies

Where do y’all wanna go? It has to be somewhere we can all still talk and hang out and stuff. Somewhere public. What do y’all think?

I refuse to go on FB. Insta and TikTok I don’t think would really work for the stuff I do. Stuff like me just making a WP blog or a substack wouldn’t be that community focused. I don’t know any other major SocMed platforms operating at the moment, but if you have an idea, lmk!

[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.

[nateconnolly]

What Does the Lion Turtle Chant Mean?

A podcast episode about the spirituality of Avatar: The Last Airbender.

Transcript Preview:

Many people have told me they struggle to take Sozin’s Comet seriously because they would have killed the Fire Lord without hesitation. And, look, as far as I’m concerned — if you’re willing to kill a genocidal colonizer, good for you! Many blessings upon your journey! And the show isn’t trying to dissuade you. 

Aang is not the only voice of wisdom in Avatar. He’s not a puppet through which the text articulates its meaning. Avatar is about cultural exchange. When one character says what they think is true, that isn’t necessarily the moral of a story. That’s one voice, and the story is a conversation. So, I don’t think that Sozin’s Comet is using Aang to say “Hey, you, you, looking at the TV, you personally should never support violent revolution!” Water Tribe culture doesn’t seem to have any problem with killing on the battlefield. 

When Sokka lops off the Melon Lord’s head, there’s some very clear indications that we’re supposed to be troubled. The musical cue, Momo eating the melon, he lingering focus on Aang’s reaction … But I don’t think this scene is meant to communicate that Sokka is a bad guy. Or that soldiers are inherently bad people. I assume that Hakoda, Bato, and Tyro killed people. These figures are portrayed as admirable, and even as mentors. 

The scene in which Sokka kills the Melon Lord is there to illustrate the difference between Southern Water Tribe culture and Air Nomad culture. Sokka’s journey is about embracing and reclaiming all the parts of his culture that the Fire Nation tried to destroy. He wasn’t able to go ice dodging or to train as a wolf warrior, but he has found a way to become a strong, protective man anyways. And that does mean that he’s willing to kill or die for a cause he believes in. This scene doesn’t communicate that Sokka is a bad person. It communicates that Sokka is walking his own path, and that Aang is walking a different path. But the show doesn’t try to tell you one of them is wrong and the other is right. 

At the same time, I think we need to remember that Aang is saying something he believes. It’s not just an emotional problem for him. 

Aang gives multiple related, but different reasons not to kill the Fire Lord.

“I didn’t feel like myself.” 

The Fire Lord “is still a human being.”

Killing goes against “everything the monks taught me.”

“All life is sacred.”

In Southern Raiders, he also makes a more general claim that “violence is never the answer,” but I think that the writers had to use the word “violence” as a euphemism. In our normal usage of the word, punching somebody would be a “violent” act. Aang clearly has no problem whacking people over the head or shooting wind at them. I think this is a way of making the show more kid friendly, and that what Aang actually means is 

“[Killing] is never the answer.”

Some of these claims are about Aang as an individual. He’s saying he doesn’t feel like he, specifically, can kill someone. That it goes against the values of his culture. And some of these are universal claims. He’s saying no one should kill, not ever. 

But he also believes in a separate ethical mandate. As the Avatar, he has to protect the world. In this lifetime, that means preventing the Fire Lord from burning the Earth Kingdom. 

This is a story about moral standards, and they seem impossible to live up to. There’s no easy answer. If you believe that murder is wrong, and you believe in the duties of the Avatar, then you have a conflict of values, not just emotions. In order to understand the Buddhist themes of Sozin’s Comet, we have to understand Buddhist ideas of morality. 

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Nate's short story about Buddhism

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[emrowene]

Webserials and Why You Should Read Them

Welcome to a short primer on webserials! The concept behind them is pretty simple: webserials, also called webnovels or webfiction, are serialized online novels. If you read long fanfics OR webcomics, you're probably already familiar with the concept. Authors release new chapters on a fixed basis, usually one chapter a week (but sometimes more, sometimes less).

You can find webserials in several places: on big platforms like tapas and royalroad, on individual authors' websites or patreons, or on newsletter platforms like substack.

So now we know what webserials are, but why should we support them?

Because webserials are fun. Because webserial authors are sharing amazing works online for free! Because the publishing industry is disproportionately hard to get into for queer and marginalized folks, and those are the people writing webserials.

To climb a little higher onto my soapbox, I believe webserials are the future of accessible and diverse publishing. There's been more and more discussion about the problems with traditional publishing: how publishers are turning it into a "fast fashion" industry, spitting out books while overall book quality decreases. Regardless of whether you believe that, it's true that the industry prioritizes "marketability" over anything else. Experimental books, passion projects, books that have a lot of heart but no pithy "tropes" -- they stand little chance in the world of traditional publishing, and self-publishing is incredibly inaccessible for most of us. It's expensive, but more than that, it takes an incredible amount of time and effort. It's a business, and at the end of the day, some of just want to share the stories we love with people we hope will love them too. And that's the beauty of webserials!

One complaint I've seen about webserials is that "you never know what the quality will be like" - and I've seen this from people who regularly read fanfiction! Like fanfiction writers, we have our beta readers, we have our editors, we pour our hearts into developing our stories. So give us a try!!

Some recs and places to get started under the cut:

My webserials:

Fractured Magic - A queer epic fantasy series about a broken hero’s hunt for redemption and an elven prince’s quest to rescue his kidnapped king. The two estranged friends are racing against time - and dead gods - to achieve their goals. Will they make up and work together before it’s too late? (This story is currently ongoing)

The Case Files of Sheridan Bell - An old-school detective mystery set in Tamarley, a fantastical city with magical murders and doors to other worlds. Basically (queer, autistic) Sherlock Holmes but with more faeries. The first mystery is complete; the second will be published soon!

Some other webserials I follow/followed from start to finish:

What Manner of Man by @stjohnstarling - a queer gothic romance novel about a priest and a vampire.

The Warthog Report by @warthogreporter- this substack contains a selection of nonfiction writing, misc. fiction writings, and Battles Beneath The Stars, a serialized story about a tournament in a fantasy world, styled like a fighting game script/walkthrough.

Kiss it Better by DogshitJay - A (definitely 18+) queer adult romance about the messy endings and messier beginnings of love.

Warrior of Hearts by Beau Van Dalen - a queer slice of life romance following an online friendship that blossoms into something more. (Beau has lots of other great webserials as well!)

More places to look:

Tapas (Community novels page)

Royalroad (mostly known for its litrpg scene, but you can find other novels and genres here as well!)

The ao3 "Original Works" tag!