I cheated for the past couple days with Goodreads reviews—one for Stim: An Autistic Anthology and the other for an academic reading of Red Dead Redemption and how the American Western influenced its creation. I have never played the source material for the latter book. I might if it comes to Switch. Even without having that hands-on experience, I came out of it respecting what the game did. There's also a point early on in which Margini talks about how developers design open-world games like Red Dead Redemption in which the world is designed around and for the player, including the storyline. The first open world game I played was Breath of the Wild and, much like Margini's book, it is a beautiful thing.
I actually owe it to DJ Slope over at Slope's Game Room where, after his Kickstarter news bulletin, he recommended a Boss Fight Books campaign. I have a couple of other books I received from said campaign, but I have other books I need to get through first.
I still need to finish Rachel Maddow's Blowout, but there are other comfort reads that I want to get through first. Starting with Logospilgrim's Masterful. There's also the first volume of Mobile Suit Gundam Origin. Manga is something I don't usually review on Goodreads since there are so many volumes that are a part of the same story. I can personally recommend Fullmetal Alchemist, Cross Game, Hunter x Hunter (still ongoing, possibly indefinitely), and JoJo's Bizarre Adventure if you're interested in giving manga a try.
I decided to get this year's flu vaccine. I hope that once this pandemic abates itself, the anti-vaccination movement will also head in the same direction. The stigma placed on autistic people through the demonization of vaccines is bad enough, but to resist something—ideally in a Biden presidency where science is taken seriously—that could potentially nix the coronavirus pandemic outright is problematic in its own right. I should not be drawing parallels between the current anti-mask outcries and the anti-vaccination movement, but I believe that it also cannot be denied.
I mentioned politics, so I should also share this article from Areo about the difference in a piece telling you how to think as opposed to showing you the complexities of the modern world in a narrative. As in, art versus lobbying and persuasion.
(I know that the article titles uses propaganda, but the whole "get your politics out of my media" thing from what I notice gets mostly used when a piece of entertainment has a woman as lead protagonist, has many characters who have a non-heterormative sexual orientation, or identify as trans or non-binary, etc. Same thing when a character who is not white takes a lead role and, yes, the scenarios listed above could or will intersect. As in things that should be non-issues.
On that note, Max Curtis makes an interesting observation about Jodie Whittaker's Doctor, noting that she deals with more religious themes than previous Doctors who were more logical and agnostic in their thinking.
I personally feel that writing what you know will produce political, religious, or philosophical themes in some form. Goes without saying that their appearance is natural and far from a bad thing. The major difference is showing versus telling. I should probably print that Areo article out...)
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