doing some research on parapsychology as a field. in short, it's the study of how the supernatural relates to psychology, and is largely regarded as pseudoscience with only a handful of people studying it, and very very few universities will even offer a parapsych program.

so… martin, buddy, did you just google 'what degrees do people get for paranormal research' and go with the first one that popped up? you did didn't you. idiot.

Hi! Your baby lion post made me think of a question. How do zoos tell the difference between animals? Obviously if a cat or dog has kittens you can put a collar on them or some animal safe dye so you can tell the difference, but zoos can't do that for like 99% of their animals.

Do they just take lots of pictures and figure out identifying markings and then just hope they can keep track of which animal is which as they're growing?

This really depends on the species, and the specific animals.

With adult animals, distinguishing features are generally used (although I'm not sure how this works for fish / insects, or if they're even tracked as individuals). Sometimes, though, I've seen zoos use other things: when I went to the Oregon Zoo around Halloween last year, their female polar bears each had a different paw with a shaved patch. It was part of their medical training, but the different location also allowed the staff to tell them apart much more quickly at a glace.

For animals like hoofstock who live in large herds or are very visually similar, colored ear tags can work like the collars you mentioned. They're commonly used in other animal management industries, and while they might not look the most appealing to guests, they're functional and minimally invasive compared to other options.

We've got lots of current and past zoo people on tumblr, I'd love to hear what else your zoos do!

Endangered Indian sandalwood. British war to control the forests. Tallying every single tree in the kingdom. European companies claim the ecosystem. Spices and fragrances. Failure of the plantation. Until the twentieth century, the Empire couldn't figure out how to cultivate sandalwood because they didn't understand that the plant is actually a partial root parasite. French perfumes and the creation of "the Sandalwood City".

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Selling at about $147,000 per metric ton, the aromatic heartwood of Indian sandalwood (S. album) is arguably [among] the most expensive wood in the world. Globally, 90 per cent of the world’s S. album comes from India [...]. And within India, around 70 per cent of S. album comes from the state of Karnataka [...] [and] the erstwhile Kingdom of Mysore. [...] [T]he species came to the brink of extinction. [...] [O]verexploitation led to the sandal tree's critical endangerment in 1974. [...]

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Francis Buchanan’s 1807 A Journey from Madras through the Countries of Mysore, Canara and Malabar is one of the few European sources to offer insight into pre-colonial forest utilisation in the region. [...] Buchanan records [...] [the] tradition of only harvesting sandalwood once every dozen years may have been an effective local pre-colonial conservation measure. [...] Starting in 1786, Tipu Sultan [ruler of Mysore] stopped trading pepper, sandalwood and cardamom with the British. As a result, trade prospects for the company [East India Company] were looking so bleak that by November 1788, Lord Cornwallis suggested abandoning Tellicherry on the Malabar Coast and reducing Bombay’s status from a presidency to a factory. [...] One way to understand these wars is [...] [that] [t]hey were about economic conquest as much as any other kind of expansion, and sandalwood was one of Mysore’s most prized commodities. In 1799, at the Battle of Srirangapatna, Tipu Sultan was defeated. The kingdom of Mysore became a princely state within British India [...]. [T]he East India Company also immediately started paying the [new rulers] for the right to trade sandalwood.

British control over South Asia’s natural resources was reaching its peak and a sophisticated new imperial forest administration was being developed that sought to solidify state control of the sandalwood trade. In 1864, the extraction and disposal of sandalwood came under the jurisdiction of the Forest Department. [...] Colonial anxiety to maximise profits from sandalwood meant that a government agency was established specifically to oversee the sandalwood trade [...] and so began the government sandalwood depot or koti system. [...]

From the 1860s the [British] government briefly experimented with a survey tallying every sandal tree standing in Mysore [...].

Instead, an intricate system of classification was developed in an effort to maximise profits. By 1898, an 18-tiered sandalwood classification system was instituted, up from a 10-tier system a decade earlier; it seems this led to much confusion and was eventually reduced back to 12 tiers [...].

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Meanwhile, private European companies also made significant inroads into Mysore territory at this time. By convincing the government to classify forests as ‘wastelands’, and arguing that Europeans would improves these tracts from their ‘semi-savage state’, starting in the 1860s vast areas were taken from local inhabitants and converted into private plantations for the ‘production of cardamom, pepper, coffee and sandalwood’.

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Yet attempts to cultivate sandalwood on both forest department and privately owned plantations proved to be a dismal failure. There were [...] major problems facing sandalwood supply in the period before the twentieth century besides overexploitation and European monopoly. [...] Before the first quarter of the twentieth century European foresters simply could not figure out how to grow sandalwood trees effectively.

The main reason for this is that sandal is what is now known as a semi-parasite or root parasite; besides a main taproot that absorbs nutrients from the earth, the sandal tree grows parasitical roots (or haustoria) that derive sustenance from neighbouring brush and trees. [...] Dietrich Brandis, the man often regaled as the father of Indian forestry, reported being unaware of the [sole significant English-language scientific paper on sandalwood root parasitism] when he worked at Kew Gardens in London on South Asian ‘forest flora’ in 1872–73. Thus it was not until 1902 that the issue started to receive attention in the scientific community, when C.A. Barber, a government botanist in Madras [...] himself pointed out, 'no one seems to be at all sure whether the sandalwood is or is not a true parasite'.

Well into the early decades of twentieth century, silviculture of sandal proved a complete failure. The problem was the typical monoculture approach of tree farming in which all other species were removed and so the tree could not survive. [...]

The long wait time until maturity of the tree must also be considered. Only sandal heartwood and roots develop fragrance, and trees only begin developing fragrance in significant quantities after about thirty years. Not only did traders, who were typically just sailing through, not have the botanical know-how to replant the tree, but they almost certainly would not be there to see a return on their investments if they did. [...]

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The main problem facing the sustainable harvest and continued survival of sandalwood in India [...] came from the advent of the sandalwood oil industry at the beginning of the twentieth century. During World War I, vast amounts of sandal were stockpiled in Mysore because perfumeries in France had stopped production and it had become illegal to export to German perfumeries. In 1915, a Government Sandalwood Oil Factory was built in Mysore. In 1917, it began distilling. [...] [S]andalwood production now ramped up immensely. It was at this time that Mysore came to be known as ‘the Sandalwood City’.

---

Text above by: Ezra Rashkow. "Perfumed the axe that laid it low: The endangerment of sandalwood in southern India." Indian Economic and Social History Review 51, no. 1, pages 41-70. March 2014. [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me. Italicized first paragraph/heading in this post added by me. Presented here for commentary, teaching, criticism purposes.]

If you're wondering why I'm especially not posting recently it's bc I'm doing my final uni year and major project. Check my designs for it so far, a trans doll club kid, a disabled groaning creature and a queen/king butch.

Thank you so much for your thorough response. I'm not always good at following production companies. Please ignore this if I'm overstepping, I've already asked for a lot of your time and research, but other than 9naa are there other companies you boycott because of how they treat actors? I know there were some issues with 2moons and I know there were some issues for Saint, though those were long before my time in the fandom.

That's completely understandable. There's so many companies now that do BL - some of them aren't even primarily into entertainment (a skincare company did The Promise, and I think there's at least one car dealership delving into BL things now too, while other companies are purely for investment and why would you even follow those if they're only about money?).

I'm trying to stay up-to-date because I'm interested in the industry side of things but I probably missed a lot of stuff as well.

Here's what I know for sure:

Motive Village

Motive Village did 2Moons. Then they did 2Moons2 with the same characters (and story!) but all different actors. THEN they did 2Moons: The Ambassador with (some of) the same characters (and story) and different actors again.

Why did they do that? Probably because they're so bad at managing their actors that they're all collectively running away as soon as possible. But that's not even the worst part. One of the actors from 2Moons2, Din Teerapat (then known as Earth Teerapat), was actively excluded and blocked from all promotion while being completely trapped in his contract. Other actors weren't paid and were badly mismanaged. Then there's very serious allegations that Din might have been (I'm phrasing this as carefully as possible) harrassed by one of MV's higher-ups. Din never spoke about it and has since decided to move on.

Aam Anusorn, who directed 2Moons2 (and isn't related to MV in any way) has spoken up about this, and his series Call It What You Want is supposedly based on some of what happened.

Other actors who "escaped" MV include Bas Suradej, Copter Panuwat, Kimmon Warudom (who went on to sign with Star Hunter for a while and did the very delightful Gen Y which is basically 2Moons fanfiction), Tae Darvid & Tee Thanapon (who did Triage), Boun Noppanut (who was never with MV but wasn't paid for his guest role in 2Moons), Joong Archen, Pavel Naret, Benjamin Brasier & Dome Woranart. The latest escapee seems to be Park Anandatej who will be in Monster next Door.

Benjamin Brasier and Dome Woranart seem to be back to working with Motive Village recently and I'm honestly a bit ?? ??? about it.

Y.Entertainment

Y.Ent did Unforgotten Night and For Him the Series. Recently, the leads of For Him, Tor Atagorn and Dew Nitikorn (along with Yoon Phusanu who starred in Unforgotten Night and had a cut guest role in For Him), have come forward saying that they were never paid for their work in For Him. Additionally, Tor has opened up about being continuously harrassed and stalked by someone on and off set during filming. It affected him so badly that he is now in therapy and on medication for depression and anxiety.

Just yesterday Yoon Phusanu held a press conference because he still hasn't been paid. He's one of the few actors who actually have the means to hire lawyers and go against his company. His lawyer has stated that not many young actors in Thai BL can afford to do the same.

9NAA

9NAA did Check Out, Venus in the Sky and, most recently, Kiseki Chapter 2. You know about 9NAA already but for everyone else reading this and wanting to know what's going on with them, here's a short summary.

Here's some other companies involved in Thai BL who have done some mildly questionable things:

Maximon who have since rebranded as Harikarn (with another company now named Maximon that might also have been emerged from the original Maximon... it's complicated) might have not paid their actors for Chains of Heart until the series had long finished airing. Haii Sarunsathorn and Boom Raweewit, the leads, made some very carefully worded joke tweets about it - which kind of makes you go hmmmm. There was also a freelancer who spoke up about not getting paid for his art, but nothing more ever came of it. Both Maximon and Harikarn have since ramped up production again - with some of the same actors - so I'm not especially concerned for the moment.

Well.Thailand recently annouced a bunch of new BLs and then promptly went bancrupt. One of their former producers immediately picked up the slack and founded EntSync in order to take over all projects and talent. They've already held the blessing ceremony for Black Forest and everything seems to be back to normal for the moment except for Born to be Y the series which should have aired this month but has since been indefinitely postponed.

Fix Entertainment is behind The Whisperer and is holding the series' final episode hostage because apparently a planned fanmeeting didn't sell enough tickets so they seem to have run out of funds. This is very ?? ???

Studio on Fire recently announced that one of the leads of their upcoming series Live in Love will be replaced, citing creative differences and "different work attitudes" (hate that phrase yet?) as the reason. Weirdly enough, said lead (Non Ratchanon) is from another company and was part of an acting pair with their own actor Hearth Chindanai. Hmmmmmm.*

*This kind of reminds me of what happened with Saint Suppapong during and after Love By Chance when he was basically almost bullied out of the industry because he wasn't with the same company as all of the other actors.

As I said, there's probably more but I didn't include actor scandals, unfounded rumours or stuff that has already been resolved.

I don't think people are honestly taking into consideration the fact that shitty/overwhelming work conditions DO impact relationships outside of the work environment. I haven't, until more recently, especially pertaining to my own work conditions.

Imagine working and socializing with customers and co-workers for 8+ hours a day, and all the good and shitty things that come with it...to then come home and do more work, and trying to socialize with friends/partners after all that.

Yeah, be for real. Cut yourself some slack. If you're friends with people with this sort of work-life? Cut them some slack (that isn't to excuse poor treatment of others, mind you)

We're just on the fritz as it is. Frazzled, even.

OMG! Just saw you’ve done art for Magic the Gathering now! Very very nice~

Thank you! I've always admired the amazing artists they have, never even dreamed of getting to have my art on their cards... especially since my style isn't at all their usual one! Wild things can happen I guess :')

Not an Aro-culture-is thing but I do have a question you might be able to answer? Is there an aromantic/asexual term for this: AroAce but if I wasn’t I would be gay? It might just be homoplatonic or homoaesthetic but idk if there was a term for it that relates to being AroAce. Thanks! <3

possibly you might vibe with oriented aroace labels, like gay aroace? i'll put this out there for other folks to consider as well, but I feel like oriented terminology sounds the most applicable from my POV.

"Survival" game: Press X to destroy that tree bare-handed. Now you have Wood, press Enter to access your inventory and turn Wood into a Crafting Table. Now press E on your Crafting Table and use Coal and Iron to make a Steam Engine.

Bebe Neuwirth as Avis DeVoto in episode 2x07 of Julia, "Shrimp and Grits"

Really extra tired of black and white thinking around COVID like can you guys activate your brain and understand that lockdown was NECESSARY to prevent massive economic and social breakdown that would have been induced by our entire population getting infected at once before we figured out how to treat it

Not to mention the whole "young people didn't need to worry about dying they shouldn't have been locked down what about their social lives!!11!!!"

Hi. Hello. I am a youth that was disabled by COVID how are you doing today. Oh, you're not disabled by COVID? Cool shut the fuck up forever.

directy directory ramble incoming

I wanted to type out my thoughts on the role of director and how its viewed. Especially coming from a perspective of seeing the streaming bubble pop and just..intense scope creep..and yeah , anyway. No reason specifically just my surface level musings that i always have. Its been 5+ years since I went from an animation supervisor to an animation director, to being able to do my own episodes. It wasnt something I wanted in the sense of a title, but I just like taking whatever the next step or challenge is. I've always been team oriented too, so that will always be in the back of my mind when being in a position with more power. The level of power you have as a director is not something I was expecting to have,so I try not to take it for granted.

Over time I really found that there are two viewpoints of what the job and the expectations of the director are. People have asked me for advice on the job and Its through these conversations that I really see the split opinion. The strongest camp is the one that represents the word least to me, and thats the people who think that the director is 'in charge' in the sense of always doing what they say. There are good and bad of course, but the directors job is to make the hard choices and to push boundaries and to enact a VISION (be it their own, a clients, ect). Their expectation soley revolves around the creation of the creative product. The other camp is the one that sees the Director as a leader first and foremost, who has a responsibility to their team as well as the product, and that leadership and team management skills should be on the roster as well as creative prowess. one thinks its about creative vision first and minimal people skills, and the other thinks it should be 50/50 at the very least. I'm in the second camp, and I have so many people that go 'YES, THAT IS WHAT A DIRECTOR SHOULD DO!' and as much as I agree, I also have to point out that is often not the actual reflected expectations that Directors get - expectations play a big role after all. When you enter a job or grow in a job you should know what your new responsibilities are, and if not you are left to fill in your own gaps. Studios in GENERAL are terrible with clear boundaries and job expectations, so its really no surprise that the stronger creative voices become the loudest in the room. Even the most well meaning people can get into an impossible mindset because no one has told them otherwise...we all know passion and creativity can take us places after all. Sometimes, one is thrust into a position of power without even knowing just how much their choices may impact the team. There are some notorious asshole directors of course but for the most part I've found that creatives in the director realm are well meaning. However, that doesnt change the reality that as well-meaning as you are, there is an entire team of people who can be effected by your mindest, choices and problem sovling for good or bad.

I've talked about this before, but a mindset can vastly change how you problem solve something. A director with no leadership skills may see work that does not meet their expectations and their first thought was that the artist did not do their job properly. A director with leadership skills may see work that does not meet their expectations and understand there are many factors. Heres a few questions I ask myself.

did that person receive proper expectations for the task ?

was there a communication mishap ? ( this happens ALL THE TIME. its ART !_! the amount of times i've written a note that i thought was super clear and someone takes it in a way that..i didnt expect but it also made sense ? SOMETIMES IT DO BE THAT WAY. WE WORK ON OUR COMMUNICATION SKILLS TOGETHER)

did they have enough time to do it ? or feel rushed?

is everything ok ? Everyone has bad times and blips in the production so its reasonable that sometimes things come in not 100%

if it is a hard skill issue, is it a one off or is it ongoing? how are we helping them work on it? The answers to these questions are FAR more valuable in actually getting your vision done to the best of your time and energy then just simply thinking someone doesnt have the skills or needs to learn more. ALL OF THIS TO SAY. That even just having good faith and a connection to your team as a director is incredibly valuable for your information gathering and problem solving, (you learn way more about your pipeline and where the real issues are.) but is vastly underrepresented as an expectation of the job. SO. IF YOU WANT TO DIRECT. you may not get told that your team is part of your responsibility, but if we want a sustainable and healthy industry we have to divide our passion for the project into our team as well as the creative end game. Take some leadership classes, learn about different communication types, or at least have people around you who can do that. You dont need to be everyones bestie, but you do have a responsibility for their experience on the project. ill post some tips and such about working with people later cuz this is long enough

Do you have any insight as to why annual sports titles have not gone the Live Service model yet given the fact each year it is mostly minor tweaks and roster changes anyway?

I've actually worked on and shipped more than one annual sports title over my career and I want say for the record that the idea that annual sports titles are "mostly minor tweaks and roster changes" is absolutely and categorically false. Annual sports titles absolutely do not have the same scope as AAA games with multi-year dev cycles, but they do absolutely have significant breadth and depth of scope each year beyond "minor tweaks and roster changes".

The majority changes that occur each year are spread out because they must be - there simply isn't enough development time within the ~11ish calendar months between launches to rebuild everything, so decisions must be made about what gets added/updated this year and what waits for next year. That means that, besides roster updates and minor tweaks, this year we're committing to change our animation system, these eight specific stadiums/arenas, these three game modes, update the commentary system, and rework the stat simulation. Next year, we're committing to these other eight stadiums/arenas, these other four game modes, the physics system, the VFX system, and the AI logic. This sort of round-robin approach is necessary - the dev team often isn't large enough to sustain working on everything each cycle so we need to pick and choose what we can do each year within the time we have. It also means that players who only engage with some of the game likely don't necessarily see (or notice) all of the changes we make each time around. This doesn't mean that we didn't do it or that the changes aren't there, but it can certainly look like not much has changed if the player isn't playing those parts of the game.

To your main question - The primary reason that annual sports games haven't transitioned to a live service model is because of inertia. There is a well-established and financially sustainable annual sales model that works. There would need to be a significant and tangible gain to be had by switching to a live service model other than novelty - all of the current existing tools and systems are built with the expectation of delivering a new retail game each year, and all of the dev experience built up is for delivering a new retail game each year. Switching over to an ongoing service would come at tremendous cost. There must be a gain to outweigh that cost in order for the publishers to do it.

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I need to gush about my upcoming game

[Alt text: A graphic with floral corner borders in the bottom left and top right corners with Chefs de Partie written in the center. Above the title reads hashtag Chefs de Partie. Below the title reads served on January 24th 2024 only at DriveThruRPG.]

Chefs de Partie is a co-op minigame for your ongoing RPG campaign that runs on Iron Core. Gather your party and cook a meal together, narrating your successes and failures with either heavenly or disastrous results.

This one page game includes the core rules (written by me) and six recipes that demonstrate how the game interacts with four different systems: D&D 5e, Blades in the Daek, Fate Core, snd Lasers & Feelings. The recipes are written by some of TTRPGs rising stars (literally my dream team!!!):

Austin Taylor, of Secret Mysteries of Nerd Histories fame whose game design you'll have seen in Deimos Academy and Til the Last Gasp

Basil Wright, a Storytelling Collective 2023 Creative Laurette and game designer of Pelegos

Danny Quach, author of Digital THICCNESS, AP superstar, and Roll20 angel

DT 'Honey' Saint, whose food based TTRPG contributions I've admired since she DMed Spice of Life at Roll20 Con three years ago, and whose charity work "Honeybunches of Hope" is incredible

Erin Roberts, a game design role model of mine whose name you may know from Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel

Poorna M, one have of Weave Games, who recently made one of my all time favourite games, a Christmas rom com duet called Love is on the Cards with her design partner Armaan Babu

As if that wasn't enough, we've got the one and only Nala J Wu on graphic design (they have perfectly brought to life my vision of a restaurant menu for the layout) and Marielle Ko from Tales of Sina Una as our editor!

Biggest one page RPG? Maybe (it's A2 dimensions)

Most designers on a one page RPG? Possibly

But cooking is best done with friends and I've implemented that philosophy throughout the creation process. I'm so freaking hyped to bring the world this game (the recipes range from brioche cinnamon rolls to podi masala dosa) because the dish descriptions are something incredible!

My hope is that we reach 51 sales* in the first month. With royalty split and $3.95 per sale, my writers should make $0.10 a word if we reach our target goal. I've priced this so everyone gets paid fairly.

*at full price. There will be options in the game description to buy the game for 50% or 100% off because games shouldn't be gatekept by disposable income.

This game is a little silly downtime activity and I love every contribution with my whole heart. I'm so excited for it to release next month and I hope you consider buying it if you can!

b7 forklift driver/long haul trucker au... i was trying to capture the feeling of early starts during the busy season, when the sun is starting to come up but it's still so dark that the lights of the warehouse are on...

SAG-AFTRA is officially set to join the WGA in going on strike. No filming, premiere attendence or other promotion of any kind allowed.

I hope to see nothing but support for this decision.