Hello there friends!

Ah… Summer is more than halfway done. Hasn’t really felt like a summer, more like an oven. It’s been record heat here in SLC (as is has been everywhere, but the high dry desert plus horrible air quality has done a bit on my asthma).

Before we really dive into August, let’s review July!

Blog Post

This seems like a very niche topic, but I swear July’s post is accessible to all readers! This post explores problematic archetypes of scientists in fantasy looking at one fantasy/D&D character in particular!

Blog post here!

Honestly, I’m surprised that no Critical Role fans have come after me for my critique of this beloved character. Then again, I don’t really get any comments on my posts anyway, but this is the one time it’s a boon!

I’m debating doing another dragon post for August, but I may finally dive into grafting (magical arms replacing amputated limbs, etc). It’d give me a good excuse to talk about recognizing non-self immune cells.

Research?

Good news and “meh” news for my research.

Good news: I finally, FINALLY got a draft of some sort for my research paper. I’ve also finished the stinking venaflux assay after having to redo all of my data. (The Venaflux assay is where I dye my platelet cells, flow them across some molecules, and see if they stick). Huge progress there!

“Meh” news: I’m still waiting on the first round of “edits,” if I can call them that. I just need to know if I need to do major rewrites, if I need to change my direction, etc.

Am I tired? Yes. Extremely. I’ve been in “crunch time” for months now and I’m starting to see an end in sight. But that end won’t really come until fall, so I’ll keep chugging along.

Scicom Projects?

Oh boy, oh boy. I have a lot on this part.

Besides my blog, I’ve actually gotten major edits for my science-based Dungeons and Dragons adventure! One of my siblings edited the adventure (thank you, bro!), but before I could finish the major edits, my initial editor (whom I thought had been too busy to look through it), got back to me and said he’d also comb through it.

So scicomm D&D adventure is in editing phases (And I’m commissioning two small art pieces to add to it! So excited to have them in the adventure!)

I’ve also been coming up with more video ideas. It’s frustrating, because I really want to explore videos as a scicom medium (I’m really inspired by Dr. Simon Clark’s video work), but obviously, with the need to focus on this paper, I haven’t been able to touch video making.

Now, I have plans for not only basic writing videos, examining science writing videos, but now I want to make videos that walk through papers (see the image below). I don’t mind testing out all of these to see which one sticks; that’s how content creation works. I fully expect only a fraction of these videos to actually gain interest. But right now, these experiments are only hypothetical until I have time.

Writing is an easy medium for me, but I want to try to tell visual science stories. I hope to do an in-depth video, animations and all, on the article I publish so people outside of my field, even outside of STEM, can understand what I’ve done.

Creative Writing?

We are now on chapter 14 of my dragon story. Because I’m going to comical with this story, I’m

…I keep debating how much I put of this book into this newsletter. I think I’m still too self conscious to discuss the story.

I did put the first chapter up on a writing group discord. I did get some good critiques, but ultimately, I don’t know if people enjoyed reading the chapter. That’s one way to put a damper on one’s writing, especially when one is trying to write a comedy to make people smile. I also had someone tell me that they weren’t sure they could take the story seriously… I don’t know how to take that, as the story’s clearly supposed to be light and funny.

In any case, I’ll stick to showing you bits and pieces of the story, but I’m not ready to show off parts of the actual writing yet.

As I have shown this to my alpha readers, I can show you what the main character looks like!

I feel like she’s a character you either absolutely love for how positive she is, or you absolutely hate her for how sickeningly positive she is. I don’t think there’s any in-between. The one thing I can say, however, is that she’s a chemistry and biology nerd. She solves her problems with science, which has been so much fun to write.

Map Of the Month

I managed to whip up a fun map on Inkarnate for the table top role playing game, Daggerheart. There are some lovely folks at the Legendarium Cafe that have been amazing to play alongside as we explore this fantasy world. I made this depiction of the pirate town our game master has created for us to play in:

Other News?

I’ve been enjoying seeing my parents take advantage of their retirement and adventure across Europe! Very jealous of their massive hikes!

Waves to amazing parents!

That’s a wrap! Hopefully I’ll be able to actually produce something by the end of August! I’m also planning on taking a small vacation in the middle of August to visit my D&D friends (a small break! Yay!).

Let’s see what we can do before the school year officially starts! (Also, if the sun could cool down for, like, a week, that’d be great.)

That’s a wrap for August!

-Becca