#the article is behind a paywall but it's actually a really good read

[macaiv]

Just wanted to share an excerpt from this article where Esteban talks a little about the Concours Excellence Mecanique competition of Alpine. This interview was done during the Alpine PR event held in Madrid last December.

[talxns]

Academic Articles that Analyze Queer Readings of Batman and Robin (Brudick)

There actually exist multiple!…but the ones I want to introduce right now talk specifically about how the creation of the batfamily was DC’s attempt to dissuade brudick readings. and that it can be argued that DC is still doing the same thing today.

The first article is called “All in the Family: Homophobia and Batman Comics in the 1950s”, published in the International Journal of Comics Art in Fall 2000 by Chris York. It was not available for free online, but I bought a digital copy of the volume it was published in and provided screenshots because it’s been 24 years and I hate the fact that academics are behind paywalls so I’m sharing.

This article was actually infamous because DC refused to grant permission for the use of their panels in this article.

Click for better quality.

Notable Quotes:

“National [Periodical Publications]’s biggest step, however, was the introduction of other members of the Bat-family, which would give them permanent female counterparts and solidify their heterosexual status.”

“It is clear that, although Batman and Robin remain partners, their interests are no longer as the Dynamic Duo, but as a Bat-family.”

“Taking the focus of the comic away from Batman and Robin was exactly what these superfluous characters were designed to do.”

The second article, published in the Iowa Journal of Cultural Studies in 2005, is called "Domesticity, Homosociality, and Male Power in Superhero Comics of the 1950s" by Mark Best.

Good news! This article is available online for free and it’s a great read.

Notable Quotes:

“In contrast to the Marvel family, however, the Batman and Superman families were modeled more after the familial relations of the nuclear family and the gender expectations of the domestic ideology.”

“One way the genre attempted to contain any “subversive” potential, including the possibility of homosexual readings of the comics, was through the narrative device of the “super­ hero family.””

Here is more academic reading with the themes of Batman and homophobia, written in 1991. This article is referenced in the former piece.

In summary:

(lest we forget) Batman has had queer readings since its inception, specifically between Bruce and Dick.

The creation of the batfamily served to curtail those brudick readings

It seems pretty obvious that the same attempts are STILL being made by DC, now with the exaggerated push for explicit familial titles like “father” and “son”. And are still working if you see any discourse online from fans who strictly oppose brudick on the basis of their “father/son” relationship (which seems to me a more modern emphasis compared to in the past, maybe i’ll make a different post about that later.) They are unknowingly parroting Freddy Wertham’s concerns and eating up DC’s new strategy of distancing Bruce and Dick, just under an accusation harder to argue against nowadays. It’s gauche to criticize queerness nowadays, but consider it incest and suddenly it’s acceptable to bash again.

I just find it incredibly fascinating that brudick had been discussed and analyzed in multiple academic articles! And reading some comments I saw lately of people exclaiming “I can’t believe Brudick is this popular!/Who on earth is shipping Brudick!?!” made me sigh and really want to pull these out. Brudick has been a thing before all of us were born. DC’s propaganda/internet purity culture has been doing too good of a job lately. We have to remember our roots.

[prezine]

Announcing: PreZine, a fanzine for the Precure series!

Hello, tumblr!

I don't wanna waste anyone's time, so I'll cut to the chase: I'm trying to put together a Precure fanzine with community contribution. You can find a submission form here, with plenty of detail about what I'm looking for. If you want more detail, keep reading.

My name's Nick, and I'm a huge fan of the Precure series. Each season varies in quality—there are some I love almost completely, some that disappointed me immensely, and a lot somewhere in between. I've watched on my own, introduced friends and family to the show, have the soundtracks on my phone to listen to, I've bought figures and other merch while visiting Japan... I like it a lot.

I've never actually interacted much with the fandom, though. I'm awkward when it comes to joining new communities, and tend to lurk more than I actively contribute. Recently, though, I had an idea. See, I love analyzing things I like. And things I don't like. And Precure is full of both of those things. I've also been mildly interested in webzine culture and the idea of creating some of my own. The writing is fun, and I've wanted to get better at layout work, so doing a little Precure fanzine could be quite a lot of fun!

But... it's not really "interacting" with the community if I'm just writing my own thoughts and throwing them at you, telling you to read them. I'd rather get folks involved! Details can be found further down, but the gist of what I'm doing here is that I want to gather volunteers for a free fanzine I'll be publishing. It might wind up being a single issue, or keep going for some time—we'll just have to see how things go. The zine will be freely available and not behind a paywall, but I will have a ko-fi set up to take donations. Proceeds will go towards paying contributors first, before I touch any part of them. I don't expect a high volume of donations or anything, but whatever I do get I want to go towards the continued success of the project, and that means making an attempt to fairly compensate those who contribute.

To that end, any contribution—whether it be an article, piece of visual media (art, cosplay, etc.), or something else I decide would be a good fit—will provisionally be worth $50. If we get enough donations on Ko-fi to fully pay those tabs, then they will be fully paid. If we get less, then each month I'll divvy up the money based on percentages of contribution, up until (hopefully) all contributors are fully paid.

To be clear, once again: the zine will be completely free, and I have no budget for this at the moment, so any and all payment will be dependent on folks donating us money. I strongly desire to pay every contributor, but at the time being it's best to view this as a volunteer passion project with payment as a distant possibility.

Now, what are we looking for? Well, all of the information below will also be found on the linked form for submission pitches, but...

Articles

I've already written first drafts of two articles, which I've linked as samples down below. What you write doesn't have to be in the same style or vein as mine, but at least that can give you a bit of an idea of what's guaranteed to be included already. Currently, what I'm looking for specifically are:

Characters that have influenced you

Musical analysis

Original Precure fiction

If you have ideas for things not on this list, you can also pitch those within the form.

Visual Media

I have no art at the moment. As this is a zine about a property I do not own, I am absolutely going to avoid using official art. I can decorate with other images I have the rights to, but to give it that actual Precure aesthetic, having visual media submissions would help a lot.

For the time being, I'm looking for:

Drawings

Cosplay photos

As with the articles, you can also pitch stuff not on this list.

Graphic Design

This isn't on the form, but if you've got any graphic design experience... well, you can see by looking at our Twitter or the avatar for this blog that graphic design isn't my passion. I think I do okay when it comes to layouts, but covers/avatars/timeline pics... not so much. PM me, here or on Twitter, if you wanna take a crack at addressing any of our graphic design needs. You will be compensated for your time in the same way as all other contributors.

So, if you're interested in contributing, here is the submission form once again. You can also check out my two samples, found here. They will be edited, so this isn't their final form, but they are roughly what I'm contributing in terms of writing.

And lastly, our Ko-fi can be found here.

If you have any questions I haven't addressed here or in the form, ask away!

[amazinglyspicy]

hello and sorry if i am barking up the wrong tree--do know of any good readings on media piracy, like critical theory, what forms do or do not affect certain kinds of creators, freedom of information/art etc? I'm struggling to find stuff online with the enshittification of search engines, and you seemed like you might know!

Hi there. The question you’re asking is very complex and there’s really no true one answer for it.

Media piracy as a whole is too new of a topic to really have much empirical studies or data to suggest if piracy hurts sales one way or another. We mostly have anecdotal evidence.

However, there is one study from the EU that suggest video game piracy in particular doesn’t harm sales numbers and in fact may help sales in some cases (i.e. trying out a game before you decide to buy, through the means of piracy). Going further, the same study found that piracy does negatively impact film and book sales, while music sales differences were negligible.

You can read about the study in this article, which also contains a pdf link to the study itself.

Generally speaking, I would suggest not pirating anything that’s worth buying. An indie game you pirated and ended up liking deserves to be bought.

Books always should be bought to support the author, and at local book store where the money actually helps your community too. Unless they’re overpriced textbooks.

If you use a cracked Spotify app and find a band you like, please look them up on bandcamp and maybe buy some merch too while you’re there. That does wonders more than paying for a Spotify subscription and streaming their music.

Big companies like Nintendo, Disney, Adobe etc. don’t deserve a dime. Always pirate their products.

As for what information/art should be free, I’m of the opinion, all of it should be free. No one should be denied the right to learn or engage with artworks because they are locked out behind a paywall. If you are privileged enough to help out independent game developers, authors, and musicians, then you definitely should! But just because someone doesn’t have that privilege themselves doesn’t mean they should never get to play that game/read that book/hear that music etc.

I know this isn’t exactly the answer you’re looking for, and I apologize for that. But you have to also understand things aren’t so black and white of “piracy good or bad?” Because it really depends on the situation of who is doing it and what is being pirated.

[great-and-small]

I’d love to learn more about the herpes viruses you posted about back in april! Do you have any recommendations for resources to learn?

Gah I have been absolutely pining for a really good herpesvirus book in the science writing genre (something like Rabid by Monica Murphy) because it’s honestly hard to find an accessible all-in-one-place resource for learning about this family of viruses. I am quite impatiently waiting for someone to write a comprehensive and entertaining book including history, pathology, and impact of the herpes viruses. Most of the reading I have done is from articles in journals that are behind paywalls, but if you happen to have access this is a good way to do some fun research. I really like the chapter “The Molecular Evolutionary History of the Herpesviruses” in the McGeoch book about viruses, though it may be a little dry.

Other than that I actually enjoy Wikipedia as a jumping off point. The main Herpesviridae page is a good overview and it provides links to many specific diseases of interest. YouTube has some pretty good stuff too! I really enjoy this short little video on immune evasion in herpesviruses, gives you an idea of how terribly clever their tricks are

[lewis-winters]

i do feel like we’re giving band of brothers a bit too much credit here. there is still a very deep undercurrent of “america is the best country on earth and yeah the war was bad but in the end we were a big ol’ Band of Brothers.” there’s a reason a lot of actual vets of recent American imperial wars thing TP is better

I mean... yeah? that's what I meant by "WW2 Nostalgia Propaganda of the Bush Regime (that the US government used to fuel the war on terror) and that's why I said The Pacific is a critique of that specifically.

my posts' point wasn't "which show is better than the other (i.e. BoB vs GenKill vs TP)" in terms of "what show has less america-first propaganda"? my posts' point is: the writing of BoB, GenKill, and TP are far superior to MotA simply by having a point/something to say about war that goes beyond "this shit sucks" and "💫cinema💫"

and if this is in reply to my "oh i hate hbo war it makes me want to examine the american public's relationship to war and how it's depicted in their war media" uuuuhhhh. i IMPLORE you to read that post again. properly this time?

............ sorry, that was snippy. just. reading comprehension's your friend, buddy.

anyway, if you wanna have that convo by all means we can have it. Though anything I can say about it has already been said better by Christopher Hayes and his essay The Good War on Terror (that you can find an EXCELLENT zine on, over here) and the journal article Operation Enduring Analogy: World War II, the War on Terror, and the Uses of Historical Memory by David Hoogland Noon, which is also very good. I sound like a broken record recommending them so much, BUT THEY JUST GET IT OK.

If you want a more contemporary essay try this one by the Washington Post The Danger of American Nostalgia for World War II by Robert G. Kaiser. This has a whole section ripping into BoB the show and Ambrose's work. Alas. It is behind a paywall. But there are ways around that *wink wink.*

edit: ok, sorry I'm being a little mean and a lot snippy HAHAHAHA but I really do feel like you're shouting this argument from the other side of the room-- meaning, it has its place as a conversation, but maybe not in the conversation that was already happening (i.e. why MotA's writing sucks). next time, I think we'd both benefit if you yelled 'SIDE-BAR' or 'WAIT, CHANGE SUBJECT' first before launching into a new tangent. kisses to you anon, I'm not mad, I promise. I have tone problems.

[raincitygirl76]

I’m quite sure that the Substack posts by @tvmicroscope by Young Royals have been linked by various people. But as I am a subscriber of theirs on Substack, I will take advantage of the convenience to link all their posts thus far.

The Competition Metaphor. The one with Felice’s eggs!!! Note this link is to Part 1 of a theme that’s spread over 2 posts. Part 2 of 2 is the post linked just below. Read the Competition Metaphor post before the Water Metaphor post.

The water metaphor, aka Part 2 of 2. Read the competition metaphor post first. Also, this is the longest post by far from @tvmicroscope I would suggest either setting aside about half an hour, or knowing in advance that you’ll read part of the post, and then come back to read the rest when time allows.

Please do NOT be be scared off by my warning to allow extra reading time. The water metaphor is a GREAT post. Long, but packed with amazing symbolism and thoughts. Well worth half an hour out of your day. You just might not have half an hour all at once.

Those above were the 2 most recent posts. I’m being rather disorganized. Had originally planned to link the posts in reverse chronological order. Then decided partway through to change my mind. The next 3 links are in chronological order. And that’s it. @tvmicroscope has only written 5 posts so far but I’m already hooked on the analysis.

Visual metaphors

The music metaphor

Symbolism and YR’s original score.

Also, I don’t know @tvmicroscope at all, so I’m not trying to convince you to shell out money for a friend of mine, I promise. But IF you are in a financial position to do so, I think subscribing to them on Substack might be a good idea to consider. Obviously, not everyone is in that financial position. And some fans have an ethical problem with fans monetizing at all. Not a position I share, but I respect that position.

I fortunately can afford to subscribe. There is zero subscriber-only content so far, and I have no idea if any is planned. But if someone is posting really thoughtful, thought-provoking analysis (or gifs, or vids) that I haven’t seen elsewhere, and they have a Ko-Fi/Substack/Patreon, I’ll think about it.

IMPORTANT UPDATE:

I hadn’t realized this, but there is also a FREE option to subscribe to @tvmicroscope on Substack without paying any money at all! So if you’re not in a financial position to get a paid subscription, you can still subscribe and enjoy the posts.

Also, any content that is not currently paywalled for paying subscribers will never be put behind a paywall. So the 5 articles I linked above will ALWAYS stay available to everybody, whether or not they have a paid subscription. More details in link below.

[f0point5]

On the Magui thing, she’s made the pivot into acting outside of her soap. She’s just filmed two projects in Spain that are quite big and she’s just been announced for a new show too. So it could be helping her out on the PR aspect but I don’t know.

The article was in the telegraph this morning but it’s behind a paywall. It was a good article tbf, the privacy issue coming up as a downside and the paranoia over who to trust.

I found a link to it so I read it. That part still reads odd to me but again, you never know what the actual context is of him saying it.

I definitely think hanging out with him has done good for career. However, I think he would be strongly discouraged from doing all that with her if it wasn’t also helping him. Hanging out is one thing but having her at the Historic GP was something his team would have known about. Maybe she got invited to the Charlotte tilbury dinner in Madrid on her own but I really doubt it. I think whatever they have going on is benefitting both of them.

And hey, it’s totally possible that they’re genuinely a couple and he is just helping her make the most of it because why wouldn’t he if she is going to be subjected to hell by his fans. I’m not writing off that they’re actually together but either way they’re making a meal of this.

And yeah, if indeed some random leaked his location, that’s crap. But that’s not really a “who to trust” because he likely never even met the person who called the paps. That person broke the social contract of not being shit and maybe he feels a bit unsafe in the world but that I think isn’t something you can take too personally. It’s hard to imagine that he would say that makes him paranoid but being in people’s likes and DMs, inviting influencers to races, and being filmed in real time by strangers in the street, doesn’t. He’s not me and I’m not him, he might just have a different relationship to the spotlight but that bit seemed planted 🤷‍♀️

The article generally was very good, it was well written, he is quoted very well, it’s a surprisingly clean and refreshing take on him in contrast to what’s been going around recently

[thistelltaleheart]

Hi! maybe an odd thing to ask but since you commented that you'd written about the subject, do you have any good papers/articles (your own included perhaps) to recommend reading about cellular memory? it's a fascinating topic to me and all the stuff I can find is behind a paywall or so badly inconclusive

Absolutely! My paper was actually on music x cellular memory in the heart (something I forgot until I went to look up the articles I used!). My paper is... less than stellar LOL. There are many better-written articles out there on it, but I'd be happy to send you a copy if you really want.

Here's the relavent article I used:

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2882105/ (cellular memory all over the body)

And here are some I found using Google Scholar (free as far as I can tell). Some of these didn't even exist when I was writing!

http://www.alternativemedicinenis.com.au/Organ%20Transplants%20and%20Cellular%20Memories.pdf

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0306987719307145

https://www.namahjournal.com/doc/Actual/Memory-transference-in-organ-transplant-recipients-vol-19-iss-1.html

If you have access through your library or a school, I'd recommend looking up articles via a more reliable research search engine (Google Scholar is pretty good, but it's not Academic Search Complete or a university library database). This is still a semi-new phenomenon without exact concrete proof, but there have been too many documented cases, not to mention the discovery of cellular memory, for this to go ignored. It's absolutely fascinating!

[betweenthings2]

11, 13, and 16 for the get to know your fic writer!

Thank you for the ask!! The list of questions is here if anyone else wants to see it!

11. Link your three favorite fics right now.

@drinkurkombucha's "Your New Aesthetic" and "Your Fractured Light" I'm combining this into one since it's a part one and part two, but I'm obsessed with these fics. I love this version of fictional!Matty so much and the writing is amazing.

"i think you think too much of me" by bliiinding. You have to have an AO3 account to read it, but it's wonderful. This particular version of fictional!Matty is grappling with gender and identity and I see a lot of myself at about 17/18/19 in it.

Lastly is "Making Headlines" by maydei which is a Hannibal fic and might be a little bit out of left field here, so to speak, but NBC's Hannibal is one of my favorite pieces of media I've watched and this fic is amazing.

13. What's a common writing tip that you almost always follow?

I think I've said this before, but I've never formally been taught creative writing and maintain that I am not actually a very good creative writer. I don't say that to fish for compliments, but there are a lot of things that I don't really know how to do or do well. That said, I make a point to use the active voice and vary sentence structure and word choice, especially when I write dialogue tags. One of the things I heard when I was learning how to write well in school was that the best authors read, and I do. I read fanfic, I read published fiction, poetry, non-fiction, academic articles, journalism, news, whatever, so long it's not behind a paywall, and I do think that makes me a better writer in many aspects.

16. How many fic ideas are you nurturing right now? Share one of them?

Many, so many. I have an idea that I kind of love and am very excited about that hasn't made it out of my notes and into my drafts yet because it doesn't really have a super solid plot, just some dialogue, and a vibe. I have a moodboard and I just have figure out whats going to happen, but here's a snippet of it.

“You’re a fucking miracle,” George murmurs. “A wet dream. A fucking revelation. Divine. Sublime.” 

Matty groans an leans in to capture George’s mouth with his own, all teeth and tongue and want. “I love you,” he says, like George’s mouth is a confessional, like George himself is a confessional. 

“I love you, too,” George answers. He says it like Matty’s body is an alter. 

“I love you,” Matty repeats. Now it sounds like a prayer. 

George runs his hand though Matty’s hair, grabbing a fistful at the back of his head. Matty tilts his head, increasing the pressure and closes his eyes like it’s a euphoric feeling. 

“You like that, G?” Matty asks. “You like overpowering me, making me do what you want?” 

George huffs a laugh. “No one makes you do anything. I tried.” 

“You could,” Matty says, voice low and with an edge. “You could make me do anything you wanted. All you’d have to do is ask.” He sinks to his knees and rests his hands on Georges hips and looks up through his lashes, like he’s looking at something divine. “I’d kill for you. I’d die for you. I say I want divinity, I have it. I have divinity, absolution, deliverance. I have you.” 

[friendofthecrows]

The thing that gets me about chat gpt is how tempting it is. If everyone was aware of the flaws and willing to do their own research on topics then there isn't really a problem. In that case, it could be like any other chatbot or AI generator that people mess with for fun or out of curiosity to see what it says.

Given that it generates stuff based on all the relevant sources it can get its metaphorical hands on, it's pretty good at seeing what kinds of thing people would talk about for a subject. It's GREAT for analyzing cliches and very typical structures in writing, if you give it vague creative writing prompts (fun exercise: tell it to generate some fiction writing prompts, then give it each of those prompts. get ready for some of the most generic fiction you've ever read.)

For research...I mean. Sometimes it does give a good overview of something but as the topics get more and more niche and there are either fewer papers/articles about it or the ones that exist are behind paywalls, chat gpt becomes less accurate and more of an estimation of what it thinks a paper about this should sound like. (using thinks loosely here). And as I said, so long as people are willing to do their own research, this is fine.

But getting a quick, easy, overview of the facts without having to do potentially hours of research, having a summary of many sources already synthesized rather than going through all of them and trying to mentally compare and contrast what different people say as you go...if it could work, any college student or knowledge/research-based professional can see how tempting it would be. "Wouldn't that be great? Think about all the time and effort saved!" your average person says. But your average person does not work in AI. Your average person does not work in data science either. Nor does your average person work as a librarian, archivist, or related field. Some of them do, but enough of them don't. The average person has already ignored every teacher's advice that there is really, unfortunately, no substitute for looking through as many different reliable sources as you can. We know the AI is mostly for fun, curiosity, or perhaps a jumping-off point, but they think "well it's accurate enough isn't it? The things it says are based on way more sources than I could read in the hour or two I'm willing to spend. So it's better, right? And it's so much easier." My beloved but misguided dude, a Wikipedia article is based on way more sources than you can read in an hour or two. And that at least has a fact-checking/review process! People have to add sources! Chat gpt is an estimated imitation of a Wikipedia article, but without the weirdly dedicated nerds (complementary) who check things for accuracy. And Wikipedia isn't even considered a good source. You'll notice that it's considered...a jumping-off point. *gasp* exactly how you should treat chat gpt if you ever want to use it to actually start researching something. Pls for the love of academic integrity just do further research.

But people are sooo tempted by the easy answers (understandable). And that's why so many people are blindly trusting chat gpt.

[butts-bouncing-on-the-beltway]

Serious question. RE the article about ASD and ADHD in genomes, I was excited at first but then got very nervous. I recognize you might not have an answer to this. Are they researching this so as to “cure” ASD and ADHD, or to genuinely learn more about these ways of existing?

This is often a really difficult question to answer because it almost never is explicitly stated anymore, and becomes a game of "follow the money".

In this case however! Spectrum news is typically a reliably well informed source for news on autism research, to the point that I sometimes allow myself to be lax with my fact checking! In this case, the article I shared by Spectrum was a news write up, and I admittedly did not take the time to do my own review of the study it is reporting on (until now) because I trust spectrum's reporting.

I'm actually really glad I did so. Spectrum's reporting appears to be an accurate representation of the study results! However as an autistic clinician with a research background I find the details elaborating on those results to be incredibly intriguing and am now caught up in wondering about how these findings tie into the genetic disorder ACC which also results from this same genetic milieu (not a biogenetacists term, just mine) as ADHD and ASD, albeit far more rarely. It makes me wonder about the implications of ADHD as one disorder, ASD as a second, AuDHD (as I have seen it amusingly called in layman's terms) as a third, and ACC as a fourth subgroup of genetic expression. They did not control for or discuss ACC in this paper though (few do, that's the curse of rare genetic disorders) so I will have to be left to my wonderings alone.

That said, your question is whether the study itself is coming at this research from a perspective of neurodiversity or of cures. I didn't see any contributer or funder names that immediately pinged as Cure Based Care, and an initial search for these names online brings back a variety of international genetics advancement players. These can be dicey because while many genetic advancement researchers and their funders are basically just "knowledge for its own sake" kind of people, plenty are there for the eugenic implications of what can be done with that knowledge. It can be hard to sort them apart from each other without a fair amount of digging and several more languages (at the medical level) than I currently speak. However, I also saw at least a few people whose specialties were in ADHD including one who trains mental health professionals like myself on the newest evidence-based recommendations (he also does work in schizophrenia care research which makes a LOT of sense and is somewhat reassuring for me gicen the context of this study).

The primary funders seem to be pharmaceutical companies, which doesn't scream "cure based care" to me as Pharma companies are rather notorious for rejecting cures even where they are a great idea due to profit concerns.

The TLDR here is that while I don't see anything that rapidly pinged as concerning to me about the intentions behind this study, I am prepared to be educated on anyone/anything in this paper that indicates otherwise because I am admittedly underprepared to rabbit hole enough to confirm with certainty that none of these pharma companies are A Problem TM.

If anyone wants to read the study for themselves (Spectrum's link is paywalled behind academic subscription services), check it out here!

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.05.20.21257484v1.full-text

Anyway, this was a great question to ask and while it's sad that so many of us assume there's good odds of research about us coming from a eugenics angle, I really think more people should know how to (and consistently utilize) the kind of follow up digging that the question inspires!

[czenvs3000f23]

Unit 10 Blog

Prompt: Describe your personal ethic as you develop as a nature interpreter. What beliefs do you bring? What responsibilities do you have? What approaches are most suitable for you as an individual?

Last blog post! Crazy to think that this semester is already almost over. I feel like these blog posts have been a good tool to supplement the learning that we did in the course. I've really enjoyed reading everyone's perspectives week by week, and definitely learned a thing or two by doing so.

As someone who's deep in the environmental sciences and seeks to pursue a career in this field, I feel as though I have strong personal ethics. In this line of work, you need to have strong convictions as environmental issues are deeply nuanced and are not as black-and-white as some other disciplines may be. From an ecological point of view, I truly believe that everything is connected and that everything has consequences if things go off-kilter. Even if we can't see it with our naked eye, I can assure you that the implications of anthropogenic changes can ripple through ecological relationships on an individual, population, community, and ecosystem scale.

I really dislike human-centric thinking in which changes in the environment don't matter unless they affect us, whether that be morally, economically, or politically. We as humans have to advocate for things that can't voice their opinions. I don't think that people realize how complex nature really is unless they strive for a career in the environmental sciences. I think the public school curriculum does a disservice in this regard, as they put more emphasis on fields with more profitability. It's surprising to me how out of touch some people are with their environment. I know people who can't identify native Ontario flora and fauna, which is essential to forming a connection with your environment. A mutual friend of mine hasn't even been to the Arboretum up until very recently in his 4 years of undergrad.

I also believe that at its core, environmental education should have no barriers. Children who grew up in urban environments deserve to experience nature at its peak-- not between cracks in sidewalks or confined in a concrete prison. Western science has been and still is dominated by cis-white men who have a very distinct view of what this looks like within an environmental context. We need to encourage other demographics to participate in academia to fill in knowledge gaps that may have not even been realized. In the same vein, I think that understanding Canada's colonial history is vital when considering knowledge gaps. Many Indigenous people are stewards of the environment, participating in guardianship programs to keep biodiversity intact. They also have a breadth of knowledge about the environment since time immemorial. Creating safe and equal opportunities in the name of conserving our planet is essential. I cannot stress that enough.

As I mentioned in previous blog posts over the weeks, I worked this summer as a camp counselor at a farm. I was the only counselor who had a background in environmental science despite camp programming being heavily focused on agriculture and nature. When working there, I often felt as though it was my duty to instill environmental education in the children. I wanted them to be inspired just like I was at their age with science. I frequently brought in my own resources (books, crystals, fossils) to show the campers and to ignite this curiosity.

Touching on the subject of accessibility again, I find that this is a big issue with scholarly journal articles. Personally, I don't think science should be put behind a paywall. Everyone has a right to understand the world around us. I also realize that most academics don't have a say in the monetary aspect of their papers and that the problem lies with the publisher. I'm probably approaching this with some naivety or ignorance due to my lack of knowledge of actually being in that world but, I still feel like my argument holds some merit. Today, so many people are still climate change deniers. When approaching this problem, I definitely think that open-access papers can help with this. People fear what they don't understand.

As a side note, I think that how science is presented in the journal articles itself should be rethought. I'm in a lab and fieldwork course right now where we're basically going through the motions of writing our own research paper. We were heavily discouraged from using synonyms, or really any interesting language. As an academic, I understand why this is. You have to be objective in order to clearly communicate the purpose of your paper. However, as a writer, this frustrates me. You could argue that journal articles are a tool of interpretation itself. Then, shouldn't we approach the methodology of writing papers differently? People whose brains are not wired for science might not even seek out articles about things they're unsure about because of the language barrier. Most people do not have the privilege of attending higher education and have to resort to media outlets that create outrageous/fear-mongering headlines in a subpar attempt at interpretation? Why does there need to be this middleman who profits from falsities and has their own biases?

Everything I've discussed in this blog post are beliefs I hold close to my heart. Without them, I don't think I'd be much of an ecologist or for that matter, a nature interpreter. I don't think we should conform to the way things have always been or approach the climate crisis with apathy. Things have to change. And the only way this can happen is through modes of interpretation. I think this post is a culmination of everything I bring to the table as an interpreter but that doesn't mean I'm right. That's the beauty of interpretation as well, there are always ways to improve, and there are always new perspectives or experiences that should contribute to the conversation.

[mrslittletall]

I was reading an article and it only was nagging about video game DLCs and that made me think. Are DLCs really that bad? I admit, there are DLCs that are nothing but a cash grab, but most of the time, when I don't want a DLC, I just... don't buy it... Of course, I say this right away, I think it is scammy to finish the whole game and then put part of it behind a paywall. That is not what DLC should be about. Now let's look at this from another angle. I played a lot of games. DLC only became popular around the mid 2000s. Before there was no internet. You either bought add-ons or special editions. Now... when do I think a DLC is okay? Actually, I think selling a DLC is totally okay if the main game is already an enjoyable experience on its own. Take Dark Souls or Bloodborne for example. These are two solid and very enjoyable games. Heck, Bloodborne might the best game for the Playstation 4 and one of the best games of all time. Both of them got a DLC and this DLC... while super duper hard, was also kinda the best part of the game. It built on the world and the characters that were mentioned in the base game and gave us a whole new playground and four whole new bosses to fight along with new armour and weapons and magic. That is what I want from a DLC. It should build of the main game and add things that are fun to do and items that are fun to use. Now let's look at a different game. Anno 1800. This game already had massive content when it came out as the base game. You could sink hours into this builder game. Over the years, the game got a few DLCs... and while it is expensive, according to my game magazine, the game with all its DLCs is one of the best builder games of modern times now. And the thing is... you don't even need the DLCs to still enjoy the game. You can just buy the base game and have massive fun in there already. But the DLCs added stuff and made other things that were a bit meh really fun, so they feel like they made sense. And why didn't they add all this stuff right away? Easy, because the game is massive and they neede time to create all this content first. They also could listen to player feedback and add things they wanted. But then there are DLCs who are just scammy. Take Story of Seasons Pioneers of Olive Town. You know what the DLC is? You get marriage candidats from the old games. There is no new gameplay, no new items, you can just fish up a few fish from the games. And even worse, they announced this DLC before the game was even released. I decided to never touch the DLC at all and I still haven't. Why should I buy something that I am not interested in? Another offender is The Sims. As much as I love the game, I can see how scammy EA is with the Sims 4. The base game was empty and not that exciting to play. I actually bought it with pets expansion to have a little more to do in it. It is kinda typical for Sims to only get really good with a few DLCs, but Sims 2 was enjoyable even without the addons (not DLCs back then, they still called it addons ^^) and now I look at the EA store and see DLC that act like classical add-ons and gameplay packs and item packs. And the item packs! Who even buys them! The Modthesims community is making FAR better items and recolours! Yeah, another example of DLC that is really only made for the money. And then, of course, there is the FREE DLC.

We see this a lot in indie games. Hollow Knight or Blasphemous for example. Both games got more content after release and nobody had to pay a single penny for it. And these games only did cost around 15 or 20 bucks in total to begin with. But the creators loved the game so much, they decided to finish them and not charge for it. Those people are the real MVP. Shovel Knight is another one of these indie games that got content updates for free. What is your opinion on DLCs? Do you gladly buy them if they are good? Do you think DLCs were a mistake? Do you think gaming should get back to classical addons or special editions? I am interested in your opinions.

[wain-wright]

This is my googled 30 min research so i'm just guessing for fun.

Looks like either you need to be a hip place that attracts so many new users (makes a splash in numbers for investors?) and get good press as THE place to be in order to attract advertiser dollars OR

Make your core usability lock behind a paywall like spotify, which is cashflow positive, but can't tell if this worked out for medium (probably not)- (and looks like Substack isn't doing too well) This focuses less on advertisers and more on users.

Alternatives? Monetizing content + ads on selected produced articles? That's a niche that isn't filled.

You know there's this whole style of paying for webnovels in China or something, like if they didn't ruin the concept of wattpad by viewing users... like that, instead of treating them like content creators a la Youtube. Which looks like it's going strong.

In lieu of nonprofit, I guess you'd have to get a community of people producing good content that the site made a no brainer to use- and a kind of distributive ad process like uh... tiktok.... hm..... untargeted is that big of a deal? But it'd take advantage of the tumblr social pathways- the ability to monetize a post if you chose. Can't remember much about post+ but that came out of nowhere... I don't remember having any idea how to use it. I hope it was something like- you can choose to monetize certain posts behind a paywall? That's the only way you could do it, right?

Fanfic concerns: nobody on youtube worries about this when making videos about established properties tbh. I guess don't write fanfic specifically and put that behind a paywall (or do and see where this leads us) but fanart is free game? How confusing. Home of fandom could be like.... reviewers.... taste makers..... god tumblr actually IS good at stealth word of mouth marketing for a lot of properties. Very funny.

But if I was thinking informational- or like "how to recognize chords", or news feed that would be an idea I didn't even think of when post+ in it's unclear use state came out.

Okay, maybe that wouldn't work- we come here to shitpost. Maybe you could have the option of making a goodpost blog (original posts only) behind a paywall. But a general fee, like spotify charges $5 for access to all songs, instead for monthly access to paywalled content? The response would be a little different now, I'd imagine.

Both options, as well as an option to see blogs more automatically as the constructed sites and not just on the dash like squarespace? that's doing well, though I've seen random complaints about the nature of the not-html style site constructions. Complexity was mentioned as part of the issue retaining users along with lack of immediate interaction/reason to stay, but showing off various blogs as their own sites and then letting you follow the author of the blogs on the dash seem like it'd work out..........

It retains the free functionality but the alternative would be presented as a sidegig.

Chaotic patreon.....Patreon and Reddit are private, with Reddit maybe having an IPO by the end of 2023, so I'll assume they aren't doing super great. Tumblr up for IPO soon?

Best case scenario for site survival: it's sold to huge company that can eat the cost of operations until the site is made hip to advertisers, or shrug.

But there really isnt a good microblogging site- that allows all the ability to make a searchable blog..... (I see maybe they were thinking they could just use the social part of tumblr and somehow get wordpress to show up on the rss feeds) but yeah there's not really any social capacity baked into to wordpress, on lj I would go over to see what people were doing for that day and read their comments. That site does live on in spirit in dreamwidth

Bluesky and mastodon have that character limit and you can't format anything, but if they get successful they can rake in ad money. I don't know about this. Can't even remember what pillowfort is like but I remember there was some weirdness with the founders that scared me off, I didn't think it was going to last well.

[prettypangolins]

Yeah I'm not gonna get over the z-libray thing because:

where I live the local council it a Tory-rotted, bankrupt mess, and they shouldn't be in control of what books people can/can't access

I simply don't have the income to buy all the books I'd like (I usually buy paper copies of things I really enjoyed via uk dot bookshop dot org)

all the requests I've made to the library to buy books I want to read have been rejected

so much shit in the library is OLD and outdated

I live in a 'rural town'. Like... my options are the shitty council library I can't get to due to accessability issues, or, in the town 30 minutes away, a Waterstones I can't actually get to due to accessability issues

academic articles are hard to access, you need a university account or to pay a fee or whatever, and learning shouldn't be behind a paywall?????

I just want to LEARN, I don't want to be at the mercy of what the local council has deemed acceptable to stock (which doesn't include journals or online access to articles)

just seriously, the options are so fucking limited and z-library was such a good place to go when nowhere else had the goods