#I've been getting a surprising amount of interest in the idea of portraying some of the 'grosser' aspects of disability

[bonefall]

Briarlights death makes sense to me. As much as I love her character, the movement technology you’ve come up with wouldn’t be enough to keep her alive in a society where her nether regions are constantly exposed to the outdoors. She would get UTIs and kidney infections very quickly, which would be fatal when you can’t feel pain. My partner has to use catheters to avoid them (he is paralyzed in the same spot Briarlight would be.)

I think it’s disingenuous to have a character that’s paralyzed but have no other health problems or concerns regarding it, even if it’s uncomfortable to think about for some readers. It’s just as ableist to minimize the additional struggles she’d face as it is to kill her off unnecessarily.

Not accusing you of ableism, but expressing my concern. They’d need to find a way for her to poop and pee in a way that’s sanitary and a way to combat infections long term - even if the thought is “gross” to some people it’s the reality she’d have to live with. She should, at the very least, remain immunocompromised.

That is a valid concern. I will keep this in mind-- I'll make sure to note her immediately being cleared out of camp at the first sign of sniffles to avoid it. My cats can do some very minor building and there are now several cats on Jayfeather's Garden Patrol, it wouldn't be too much of a problem to make that area into a comfortable "satellite camp".

I do want to add though that my most important guiding principle is a stronger narrative which includes better portrayals of disabled characters, not perfect rugged woodsman realism. The medicine I add and the guides I write are in the hopes of better representing the lives of the real-life people who see themselves in the fantasy battle cats.

Realism does factor into that of course! But it goes out the door the minute it would smash up against a disabled character's inclusion. This is a series for human beings like your partner; as close to it as I can get by bending the setting when needed.

For example, Epilepsy

Epilepsy was deadly before modern medicine. Full stop. The herbs I created for that guide would not save someone like Shadowsight, whose convulsions are at extreme risk of turning into Status Epilepticus. It would help manage, but Shadowsight's life would have been very brief.

All the chamomile in the world wouldn't replace phenobarbital... or even the older medications, barbituates. Barbituates have been replaced and good riddance, but it's important to understand that even this drug known for causing EXTREME lethargy and horrible side effects was revolutionary. It saved countless lives.

But I'm not here to write a story for the real-life horror that is epilepsy in a pre-modern society. I'm here for the parent who personally thanked me for making their daughter feel less alone.

Evil spirits attacking the living! God knocking over trees! Attacking a bulldozer! That all happens; there's no reason they can't help Briarlight too!!

But I'll make sure to include her being immunocompromised. And I'll include ways they handle that. Just like I included a cat engineer who made a blanket sled.

So... suggestion accepted! I will keep this in mind.

Briarlight's Canon Death

...I will maintain though that the canonical death of Briarlight was one of the worst, most short-sighted, cruelest decisions that has ever been made in this series.

Because ultimately Briarlight is not a real person. She is a writing choice. She is a character based on Vicky's paralyzed cousin, "Dan," and Briarlight was directly modeled on Dan's personality and recovery.

What did the new writing team do, the minute they were writing a series without Vicky? Killed Briarlight to fucking greencough. For shock points. Narrative moves right on back to the MAIN conflict-- Alderheart having feelings for Velvet and Jayfeather enforcing the vow of chastity. ShadowClan officially falls apart in the background lol

It was never about realism, or realistic portrayal of disability.

This series doesn't care about realism when cats have bloody Freddy Kruger deaths in their sleep, or when shadow goo starts eating cat hell, or when lightning strikes Shadowsight. But they suddenly care about how realistic it is that the only paralyzed character survives greencough?? No! Of course not!

In the middle of the CONSTANT "Ohh she's finally in heaven where she can run and jump and not have a disabled life"? And the infamous Squirrelflight's Hope line, "You don't want to be alive again, Squirrelflight! You might become disabled like BRIARLIGHT"

(WHICH BTW THEY STILL HAVE NOT REMOVED DESPITE PROMISING IT YEARS AGO)

I absolutely do not believe for a second that they had a realistic portrayal of an immunocompromised cat in mind when they did it! Hell, screw it. I'll just say it outright;

I firmly believe that the new writing team killed Briarlight because they did not want to deal with her.

I flatly refuse to give them charity towards this choice. At NO POINT did they earn a speck of good faith. They continued every negative trend that was set up by the previous writers (including Vicky herself tbf), and went a step further by killing her to "we need to get rid of some randos" disease.

Not only that; but the Clan dynamics were NEVER the same after her death, because there was no character who could replace her personality. In this cast of cardboard cats, they plucked out one of the few optimists with a clear, unique perspective, not shared by ANYONE else.

My ire wouldn't JUST be because they happened to kill a disabled character in the way they did (though that is frustrating on its own imo). It's because it was Briarlight.

I hope every writer involved with the decision to kill Briarlight in the "Nothing is Happening! Quick! Kill Someone!" book of AVoS chokes on it. I will DIE on this hill and my blood will never wash out of the grass.

[saltyr3mix]

i love you so much omg your long asks on the outsiders owen blog are actually just. so fun sheesh

i'll respond and queue the ask in the morning but yeh just wanted to thank you for that because oh my goodness gracious me you wrote so much in that ask that you recently sent in THANK YOU SALT !!!!!!

owen and apo will defo have fun responding to this one :D

It must be because I'm a writer :D

And omg I had so much more I was going to say that I cut out so be expecting a second one around the same length or longer once you answer the first.

Jokes aside, I'm really glad you like the length of my asks I always get scared their too long and that I'm taking the spot light off of others because of it.

I have .....too much fun....with this blog of your some tine. I've really started to develop characters out of these two voices of mine and I think about them a lot.

And it's not my fault you give interesting responses too! I can tell you really understand the characters your portraying and that makes it do much fun yo interact with. So THANK YOU FOR RUNNING THAT BLOG!!!

In fact going through it and seeing my asks get read has really been the highlight of my days sometimes. The amount of times I'll be out rith friends and mindlessly check on it because of habit. And swiftly break out into laughter or have to slam my phone down because I've caused problems.

Because OH BOY DO I CAUSE PROBLEMS

Is to many yo count at this point.

I'm very much looking forward to thier response. Afterall my only goal here is to achieve the highest amount of entertainment I can squeeze out of these two......and if whatching a murder becomes part of that story well.... I like angst. :)

Oh! I also want to give a thank you to the other voices as well! For being understanding and cool , and really fun to work with! Everyone has their own idea of what they want to happen and I'm genuinely surprised at how well everyone respects that. I was kinda expecting a lot more Fighting between opposing views but that has mostly calmed down giving a lot more room to make something really cool!

So yeah! Thank you pearl for running this blog! Thank you other voices for being respectful and super cool!

And I'm sorry for the pain I'm about to cause poor pie dou. (I'm not sorry in the slightest)

[ladyinbooks]

are there any tropes or genres that you love and always come back to?

Oh ho! Lovely Anon, you've asked me a delicious question here! I'm assuming you're generally asking in terms of writing, but to be honest the same tropes I enjoy writing, I very much enjoy reading too.

So, I think it comes as no surprise to anyone, that there are definitely tropes I love and always come back to. I've tried to keep this as brief as I can but - well, we all know I like to ramble on!

Enemies to Lovers Completely unsurprising, I know, but I do love this trope. Love. It. However, I do tend to be more on the 'enemies who are lovers' side of things, rather than 'enemies to friends to lovers'. I like seeing how love works across boundaries; across moralities and socio-political divides. I also occasionally like to play around with how far, exactly, the trope can be pushed. (See: literally anything Hespherus Jones does.)

Which leads me neatly into...

Love As A Weapon I love, love, love mucking around with this idea. If I had to sum up a lot of my writing: for me it tends to be about dangerous people, doing dangerous things because of love. I really enjoy the concept of love-as-a-violence, by which I mean love being weaponised. This can be both against the main couple, between the main couple, and by the main couple against the obstacles they need to overcome. The concept of love as a dangerous thing is great fun to play around with, because for me I sometimes get oversaturated by the large amount of generic media that portrays love as something saccharine, and triumphant and good. Of course it can be all of those things! But I think it's sometimes nice to consider the awful things people are capable of doing too, in the name of love.

There Is No Top Less of a trope here, and more of character dynamics.

So, something I'm sure we have all bumped into at some point in our fandom lives is topping/bottoming discourse. The older I've got, and the longer I've been bouncing around different fandoms, the more I've come to realise that a lot of the traditional top/bottom shipping dynamics are just... not really interesting to me (and neither is the discourse). I'm talking here about both physical positions in sex, but also dynamics and behaviours of characters.

So, one of the things I really enjoy is writing about characters who sort of don't fit those dynamics. If they do stick to a particular physical role, it's because there's a reason for it. (See: Samiel Tremark and his desperate need to both display ownership and please at the same time.) So, in terms of romantic relationships between characters, I think for me switching (in both an emotional and physical sense) is something I enjoy writing about.

Standing Your Ground And in the same theme: I'm someone who enjoys strong characters. I can't always say my writing does this topic justice, but I really, really try to avoid 'woobifying' characters. (And you'll have to forgive my 'ye olde fandom slang' here, but it's such a satisfying descriptor). I want relationships between equals. I want friendships and dynamics between equals. I want characters to be able to stand their ground, even against someone they love and respect, and just not bloody have it if they think their counterpart is wrong. (See: Daniel Waters and his righteous rage issues.)

Blowing Up the Beginning One of my guilty favourite tricks, is to start a story in the middle. I think I've done this with... well, pretty much everything, so far. I'm not interested in the 'getting to know you' start of a story; I'm interested in dropping characters into the middle of a massive disaster, and then making them (and the reader) work backwards to find out what went wrong, and how things move forward. It's great fun to write, and it actually really, really helps in terms of world building. (Because it forces you to make damn sure you know a large amount about who your characters are, what they've done, and the world they inhabit, before you get started.)

Genres No surprises here, I'm sure! Sci-fi. I love Sci-fi. I love strange, alien worlds, and the freedom to create. Obviously my formative years included a bucket load of things like Star Wars, Dr Who, Star Trek etc., and what they taught me was this:

You can make it all up. All of it.

I think a lot of the time now, there's pressure to create 'realistic' sci-fi, but I came from a background of consuming media that literally didn't. I mean: 'Wibbly wobbly, timey wimey' as an explanation on time travel? Fine. Why not? Why not have a time travelling machine that looks like a battered old police box? Why not have a group of warrior monks with laser swords, who use this mystic thing called 'The Force' and essentially create space magic?

Sci-fi gives you the freedom to create fantasy, and put it in space. And add space ships. What's not to love?

Fantasy is my other go-to genre, and largely for the same reasons. If my sci-fi consumption was a diet of television shows in space, my fantasy consumption was books, books and more books. (Keeping in mind that until Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy was released, fantasy as a medium in film and television was not having a drastic impact all over the world.)

So, I have to be fair: I gobbled up literally anything Terry Pratchett put his hands to. Anything. I love his ability to create fantasy and make it real. I love the way his characters inhabit and breathe and live the worlds they are born into. Sam Vimes? Granny Weatherwax? They taught me that no matter how extravagant a fantasy plot or setting is, if you don't have characters you believe in, then you're not going to enjoy the journey, and that is the key to fantasy for me.

I also tend to just... read so many fantasy books. Good, bad, forgettable, terrifying. Fantasy for me is a wonderful excuse to remove yourself from the day to day, and go on an adventure somewhere new!

I'll leave it there for now, but thank you so much for this question lovely Anon! I hope I've answered it a little, and I've had great fun thinking about this, this evening! ❤️❤️❤️❤️

[rookie-critic]

When You Finish Saving the World (2022, dir. Jesse Eisenberg) - review by Rookie-Critic

When You Finish Saving the World was almost completely unbearable. The film follows a mother and son, played by Julianne Moore and Finn Wolfhard, as they struggle to understand one another (and Wolfhard's character Ziggy Katz frustratingly struggles to understand practically anything about the world around him) and connect in the way they used to when Ziggy was younger. It seems like a standard coming-of-age comedy-drama on the surface, but man, do all of these characters suck. I spent almost the entire film just sinking deeper and deeper into my theater chair until I thought I might just phase through it into the floor. It seems like every decision the central characters make is built around the idea of making you unbelievable uncomfortable. They are, in a lot of ways, horrible, self-serving people. When I saw it with a friend on Sunday, we were the only two people in the theater, and I think I said out loud, multiple times throughout the film, "Wow, I really hate this family." I will state that the characters are written this way almost assuredly on purpose, I don't think Eisenberg wants you to like the Katz family (the father included), they're all extremely flawed. I'm not opposed to unlikable protagonists in films, I thought Red Rocket was an extremely effective movie that had an absolute dirtbag as its central character, just to pull an example from last year. Granted, even that film I found a tough pill to swallow, and even though I really liked it I'll most likely never watch it again. Here, in When You Finish Saving the World, I don't get any kind of effective message. I'm sure that Eisenberg is trying to say something worthwhile about "white liberal" activism and the privilege that comes with being raised in a white, well-off environment, as well as the way that privilege plays into the exploitation of others to further selfish ends, but none of it really comes across for me. I see all these points and I don't have a problem with them being made, in pretty much all cases I agree with the points as written on paper, I just have absolutely nothing to latch on to emotionally. Nothing resonates with me at all because I could not care less about these characters. When the film ends the characters don't seem to have really changed at all (MINOR SPOILERS in the next sentence). Sure, they seem to have a renewed interest in each other's lives and a willingness to make a connection with one another again, but that doesn't show any kind of actual remorse or change in their ideology from all of the absolutely cringey and horrible things both of them have been doing the entire rest of the film. There's one scene involving Ziggy and a poem that his crush wrote that is almost too much. It comes out of absolutely nowhere and does nothing for the story except highlight just how completely out of touch Ziggy is and how appalling he is as a person. All of these things would be ok if the film actually portrayed them as the villains of the story, but it really seems like Eisenberg wants the audience to empathize with them by the time its all over, and I just can't understand how that's possible.

Sitting here, writing this review two days after having seen it. I'm genuinely rifling through my memories, searching for something good to say about it. I did take note of some pretty decent camerawork at a few spots in the film. Nothing that blew my socks off, just a couple of shots that caught my attention as being pretty good. Julianne Moore is, of course, a great actress and, given the material she had to work with, does a good job. Finn Wolfhard also showed a surprising amount of promise in his performance. I've been a fan of Wolfhard's, like most people, since he showed up in Stranger Things. While I do like him and think he's got talent, I feel like he's struggled to find roles as he gets older that play to his strengths, and even though I vehemently hate his character, his role in this movie does play to those strengths. I will also give it up to Alisha Boe, who plays Lila, a girl at Ziggy's high school that he has a crush on and is also one of maybe two likable characters in this movie. Maybe if the film had been about her and her struggles to deal with this completely inept teenage baby the movie might have been way better. Also, a quick aside, I feel like I've been harping on Wolfhard's character a lot in this review, but Julianne Moore's character Evelyn isn't any better. She basically spends the entirety of her portion of the film stalking a teenager.

I will acknowledge that, based on the reviews I've read, whether or not you like this movie hinges entirely on if you find the characters funny or grating, and a lot of people (my moviegoing companion included) leaned on the side of finding them funny. I'll admit to laughing at a decent chunk of the film, but it was really more a 50/50 split of genuine laughter and that anxious/nervous laughter that we all sometimes do just as a coping mechanism and a means of trying to diminish how uncomfortable we are. It's almost akin to laughing at Michael Scott in The Office doing something unbelievably awkward and upsetting, which is completely valid and, again, a lot of people really enjoy that kind of humor. After seeing When You Finish Saving the World, though, I can definitively say that it's just not for me.

Score: 4/10

Currently only in theaters.

[pinkpruneclodwolf]

I love your analysis on Rook. I really think he's a wolf putting on a sheep's clothes. The sheep outfit is sparkly and glittery though. There's something I've been thinking about recently about the best ways a hunter could evade his prey's attention (It was about a police stakeout but that's off topic. I just felt I had to explain why I was thinking about that so that you wouldn't think I'm Rook disguised as a Tumblr user and I'm hunting you out). Sorry. Anyways, you can either blend in with your surroundings (The most traditional approach) or stand out too much you make your prey think there's no way such a glittery attention catching bird is out for your poor life. Rook stands out much on purpose (The freaking fedora). When someone gives you nothing, you wonder what he is hiding. But when someone gives you a whole staged personality. The art lover & the beauty adorer you think you know him so you don't care much about asking the questions that truly matter.

Also, yesterday I read about Mickey's movie "Thru The Mirror". Which has the Ramshackle dorm based on, and I was surprised that the climax of the film involved the king and queen of hearts. About how Mickey made a pass on the queen so the king fought him and then Mickey defeated the king. It's probably too much but wouldn't it be amazing if the Ramshackle house had a big secret related to that event.

One thing I found interesting and more probable to have been considered in the game's writing is that in the movie, Mickey's soul leaves his body to head through the mirror and find himself in his house but everything in his house has turned crazy.

So, Grim & MC are actually staying in the crazy version of Mickey's house in the movie and he's living beyond the mirror in the normal version.

One last thing, since his birthday is tomorrow, I guess Cater's super villain potential lies in his tendency to make people do the work for him. Feels like a great potential corporate owner torturing his employees to death and enjoying the fruit of their hard work.

My submission yesterday was supposed to be way longer than it was talking about how you changed my view of a story I wrongly thought was superficial and childish and now I can't wait to read Book 3 and get acquainted with Azul's greed, Jade's infuriating calm facade and Floyd's incredible neediness.

I think the reason why Rook feels so one dimensional is because he portrays himself that way Pomefiore represents keep up appearances, and Queen Grimhilde best shows that—

I wanted to go more in depth with my Rook analysis but I deleted and rushed through cause I didn't want it to be deleted again lmaooo. I'm actually planning on doing a Case Closed:Warrant Filed type of analysis where I conclude my ideas about Trey and Rook.

ALSOS I DO NEED TO CATCH UP ON SOME READING THO

I kinda showed a more sympathetic Cater because he usually hides his villainy in plain sight—when making the first years paint the roses, trying to worm his way out of situations (Ace come get ur brother) and the like—and since no one can truly get mad at him he kinda just exploits it.

Maybe you could make him more nonchalant towards others feelings because he's so disconnected?? Maybe a bit passive towards violence even with the slight tweaking to his personality after the events of Chap 1.

Mickey might be trapped in the mirror as Yuu and Grim possibly took his place in twst, I think there was movie or episodic DVD set about Mickey exploring a world like twst but idk I need to catch up honestly—

That kingdom hearts hame kinda rotted my brain to other Mickey crossover villain stories—

Also, I can't believe I changed your perception of the game???? I'm just some random spouting weird ideas on the net bc I cannot cope with the real world around me lol (Cater is me, I am Cater).

At first I thought the game was kinda superficial and so I took it at face value but the amount of loose ends they leave (the potential of Trey's power, Rook, Jade) kinda had me looking deeper—thru the looking glass if you catch my drift.

I can't wait to see your other theories!!!!

[bookwyrminspiration]

Yo, if you have spare time, I'd love to hear about Twilight!

I tried reading the first book, but as I was in my Percy Jackson hyperfixation, my brain rejected any new thing that I threw at it, so I never finished it.

I have however seen almost all of the movies; New Moon is my favorite thing to watch when I'm sick. (I have no idea why)

I'm also curious, is it like most things that were made into movies, are the books better and would you recommend that I do try picking it up again?

(I don't really care about spoilers, I just love hearing people talk about things they're interested in, so this can be as long or short as you'd like it to! If you feel overwhelmed in the slightest about the amount of asks in your inbox, wait as long as you need.)

luckily for you, nonsie, I simply love to talk about Twilight. it's like a morbid fascination. is it good? no clue. do I know nearly everything about it and regularly reread them? yea.

it's fair that you didn't finish it!! I'm honestly surprised that I did and ended up as fascinated with the story as I am. It's definitely not the kind of book people would expect me to read, and then once I got started it was like well shit now i gotta go all out. My mom and sister watched all the movies with me, but my dad refused and just sat by the fire (like a campfire in the backyard. there aren't just random fires around) and I remember being vaguely annoyed at the time but now I don't think I'd let anyone watch with me!! it's simply an experience I'd prefer to have alone--also because I'm horrible to watch movies/shows/anything with because I won't stop talking and critiquing things

As much as I love the series, I don't watch the movies very frequently! Movies are very hard to watch just in general, even my favorite movies like Pan's Labyrinth (i've seen it like three times total). So it's very likely you've seen them more than me!! If I had to pick one though...breaking dawn part 2 perhaps?? I do love inhuman creatures so that's maybe why. But overall I really don't have a ranking for the movies

oh also they weren't available on netflix or any streaming site I have access to so the extra steps it would take for me to find them other ways wasn't worth it to me. But there was a period of time where I had the first movie downloaded to my google drive. it might still be there honestly.

I think I do personally prefer the books!! I prefer the way Bella and Edward's relationship and interactions are portrayed in them over that of the movie. Bella's a lot less...compliant? Might be the right word but who knows. It's been a while since I saw the movies, but I remember her really being that doe-eyed helpless girl who was just so in love with Edward nothing else really mattered. In the books she has a lot more attitude and argues with him a lot more. She expresses herself and has opinions!! She wants what she wants and she doesn't sell herself short--aside from being human and sad about it.

The book is older and smeyer definitely isn't the best person so there are a few phrases and ways things are worded that kinda snap me out of it when I'm reading and make me a little uncomfortable, so if you would want to read it I'd advise caution in that regard. The one that immediately comes to mind is in the very first book where Bella accused/asked Edward "Do you have a multiple personality disorder or something?" when she's mad at him and he's apparently acting like two different people. That line always stuck out for some reason as a bit off, but I can't remember the other ones right now.

as for whether I would recommend it...that's a complicated question. twilight is one of those series (for me at least) where you don't really encourage people to get into it or engage with it. If people happen to, good for them!! Glad you got into something about it on your own!! But it's more of a "if you know, you know" kind of situation where I don't actively recommend the story to anyone but it me talking about it leads to them reading it and they want to talk about it, I'm more than happy to!

I think when people ask for recommendations they're more looking for enjoyment or quality, like they're asking for a good story or one that has a certain quality. But when it comes to Twilight, you don't read it because you think the story is good or because the characters are well developed or the arcs are satisfying or anything like that. You don't read it for the reasons you usually read a book. It's more like you read it for the experience, to be a part of the group of people who saw this demonized media and went "I'm going to find a way to love this anyways" if that makes sense. At least that's how it is for me.

So it's up to you whether you want to try again! It's not for everyone and that's perfectly okay. But if you want the experience of reading the Twilight Saga, then go for it! And if you want to talk about it then I'm more than happy to. The choice is up to you!!

(and thank you! I don't think I really included spoilers in my response, but nice to know I can talk about any aspect! I talked more about the experience behind twilight than the actual context, so hope that's cool! and again this is just my personal feelings surrounding the saga, not everyone's.)

I hope some of that made sense. your ask reminded me that I need to rewatch the movies!! It's been far to long, so if I have spare time when I get home definitely gotta do that!!

[douchebagbrainwaves]

I'VE BEEN PONDERING SUMMER

In Lisp, all variables are effectively pointers. Why go work as an ordinary employee for a big company, or have they abandoned the center for the suburbs?1 Especially if it meant independence for my native land, hacking.2 It's hard to engage an audience it's better to start with what goes wrong and try to trace it back to the root causes. A lot of the new startups would create new technology that further accelerated variation in productivity is far from the only source of economic inequality, the former because founders own more stock, and the rate at which it changes is itself speeding up.3 When we first started Y Combinator we have some kind of secret weapon—that he was harming his future—that hacking was cold, precise, and methodical, and that was more than enough technical skill. There is a name now for what we were: an Application Service Provider, or ASP. How little money it can take to start a company of any size to get software written.

I needed to remember, if I could give an example of a powerful macro, and say there!4 Design means making things for humans. Wrong. Big companies also don't pay people the right way to get an accurate drawing is not to make the poor richer. This sort of thing was the rule, not better off, as more than a plan A. In some ways, this assumption makes life a lot easier for the users and for us as well. Why did desktop computers take over?5 Programmers have to worry about infrastructure. For the first week or so we intended to make this point diplomatically, but in many ways pushes you in the opposite direction.6 Similarly, good new problems are not to be had for the asking. Don't be too legalistic about the conditions under which they're allowed to leave.

Now, when someone asks me what I do, I look them straight in the eye and say I'm designing a new dialect of Lisp;-Though useful to present-day union organizers rather than an attack on early ones. I think mathematicians also believe this. In the middle you have people who are poor or rich and figure out why. We were just able to develop stuff in house, and that if grad students could start startups, they'll start startups. Eric Raymond here. Which seems to me one of the most interesting differences between research and design. In fact, it may be slightly faster. We were terrified of starting a startup, there are even worse tradeoffs than these. I think about why I voted for Clinton over the first George Bush, it wasn't because I was shifting to the left or right in their morning-after analyses are like the financial reporters stuck writing stories day after day about the random fluctuations of the stock market.

This metaphor doesn't stretch that far. Maybe it will also be your cell phone. The books I bring on trips are often quite virtuous, the sort of engagement you get when speaking ad lib. It doesn't necessarily mean being self-sacrificing. For the first week or so we intended to make this an ordinary desktop application. You can't trust authorities.7 They were, as a rule, not better off, as more than one with a 50% chance of winning has to pay more than one discovered when Christmas shopping season came around and loads rose on their server. I'm letting you in on the secret early. But since then the west coast has just pulled further ahead.8 It is not the way it's portrayed on TV. And if you're writing a program that attacked the servers themselves should find them very well defended.

Sometimes I can think with noise.9 Our only expenses in that phase were food and rent. It's hard to imagine now, but when they do get paged at 4:00 AM, they don't think of themselves that way. When you switch to this new model, you realize how much software development is affected by the reactions of those around them, and c they're individually inconsistent. If you want, but not totally unlike your other friends. And that might be a great thing. As long as our hypothetical Blub programmer wouldn't use either of them.10 I'm a little embarrassed to say, I never said anything publicly about Lisp while we were working on Viaweb. As usual, by Demo Day about half the startups were doing something significantly different than they planned. So there you have it.

Notice I said what they need, not what a piece of code. Fortunately, there were few obstacles except technical ones. And more to the point of view. And creating wealth, as a rule, not better off, as more than a plan A. You never had to worry about those. If you work this way too.11 Because painters leave a trail of work behind them, you can just turn off the service. I could tell I knew how to program computers, or what life was really like in preindustrial societies, or how to program better than most people doing it for a living. I think few realize the huge spread in the value of 20 year olds.12 Prep schools openly say this is one reason intranet software will continue to do so but be content to work for someone else would get an even colder reception from the 19 year old was Bill Gates? Programs.13 The way to get in the software as soon as they got their first round of outside investors 36x.

It allows you to give an example of this rule; if you could count on investors being interested even if you're not certain, you should get summer jobs at places you'd like to work. You have the users' data right there on your disk.14 And you don't have to be poked with a stick to get them to stay is to give them enough that they don't dress up. Only 13 of these were in product development. No one will look that closely at it. You have the users' data right there on your disk.15 At any rate, the result is that scientists tend to make their fortunes will continue to do so much besides write software.16 So startup culture may not merely be different in the way of having the next. Though we were comparatively old, we weren't tied down by jobs they don't want to, but they didn't actually drop out of college and it tanks, you'll end up at 23 broke and a lot who get rich by taking money from the rich. If you write the laws very carefully, that is a good idea—but we've decided now that the party line should be to discover surprising things. This was done entirely for PR purposes. What you're afraid of competition.

Notes

Management consulting.

If you're expected to do work you love, or boards, or even being Genghis Khan is probably a losing bet for a couple hundred years or so and we ran into Yuri Sagalov. Most of the reason the founders. In fact the decade preceding the war had been a waste of time on is a new version from which they don't know. 6% of the products I grew up with much greater inconveniences than that.

Even in English, our sense of a startup enough to invest in a safe environment, and then a block or so and we did not become romantically involved till afterward. They seem to be hard on the grounds that a startup is rare. Companies often wonder what to do whatever gets you there sooner.

9999 and.

Globally the trend has been around as long as the web have sucked—A Spam Classification Organization Program. The point where things start with consumer electronics.

People and The Old Way. But if you tell them what to do video on-demand, because you can't even claim, like the bizarre consequences of this essay talks about programmers, the other cheek skirts the issue; the point where it was briefly in Britain in the Ancient World, Economic History Review, 2:9 1956,185-199, reprinted in Finley, M.

Inside their heads a giant house of cards is tottering. In fact the less powerful language in it.

The only people who might be 20 or 30 times as much income. Selina Tobaccowala stopped to think about, like arithmetic drills, instead of editors, and astronomy. Incidentally, the police treat people more equitably. There can be done at a famous university who is highly regarded by his peers will get funding, pretty much regardless of how to use those solutions.

For example, because it doesn't cost anything. What will go away. In a startup in a deal to move from London to Silicon Valley like the increase in trade you always see when restrictive laws are removed. Come work for us now to appreciate how important it is certainly part of a safe environment, but mediocre programmers is the discrepancy between government receipts as a technology startup takes some amount of damage to the size of a startup, as on a map.

Success here is that they've already decided what they're going to need to run an online service, this would work.

But no planes crash if your school, secretly write your dissertation in the right sort of wealth, not like soccer; you don't know of no Jews moving there, only Jews would move there, and power were concentrated in the imprecise half.

The Civil Service Examinations of Imperial China, many of the art itself gets more random, the increasing complacency of managements.

For example, the laser, it's this internal process in their target market the shoplifters are also startlingly popular on Delicious, but since it was 10 years ago.

In a project like a core going critical.

How could these people make the right not to stuff them with comments. The state of technology, companies that an investor, than a product of number of discrepancies currently blamed on various forbidden isms.

If you did that in practice that doesn't lose our data. Anything that got built this way is basically a replacement mall for mallrats.

Thanks to Mike Arrington, Trevor Blackwell, Robert Morris, Patrick Collison, and Paul Buchheit for sharing their expertise on this topic.

[uomo-accattivante]

One of the things you can’t help noticing when you talk to Oscar Isaac is just how incredible he is at playing the part of Oscar Isaac. It’s not that he’s putting on a performance. But when you talk to Oscar Isaac, the public idea of Oscar Isaac begins to make a tremendous amount of sense.

We talk a couple of days before the release of Netflix’s new Triple Frontier, an action-adventure heist/American military allegory flick (it’s a lot) that Isaac stars in, and Isaac manages to, within the span of a few minutes, quote Shakespeare and express guilt about shoplifting in his college days. In other words: He’s sensitive with a risky streak. It’s no wonder the Internet has declared him its boyfriend (and more recently, its husband).

This quality, of course, is part of what makes Isaac so compelling to watch when he’s playing an actual role. He seamlessly shades his characters with duality; by turns he can play dour and charming, cerebral and clueless. Take Triple Frontier. Isaac portrays a character, Santiago ‘Pope’ Garcia, who is essentially a stand-in for Donald Rumsfeld. He’s tasked with rallying an all-star gang of ex-Special Forces agents (played by Ben Affleck, Charlie Hunnam, Pedro Pascal, and Garrett Hedlund) to execute a covert heist of a South American drug lord. It’s an ill-fated, and perhaps misguided, operation, but Isaac makes you believe that nothing can go wrong—and, moreover, that what they’re doing is inherently right, all while emitting a sense of manifest failure.

On the heels of turning 40, Isaac hasn’t given much thought to where he wants to take his talents for portraying complex characters next, only that he wants to scale back. “Doing the circus thing can get tiring after a while,” he says. Though, it won’t be long before he talks about what a thrill it was to train for a daunting high elevation chase scene. The change of tune comes off genuinely; he digs a good adventure, but also wants to settle down. It’s both. And it’s Oscar Isaac, so you believe him.

Happy birthday!

Thank you.

Did you do anything exciting?

We had a little bit of a house party. We just moved to a new place. So we thought, “Why not trash it? Have a party.”

It was a pretty big birthday [40]. As you move into middle age, are there new kinds of roles you're interested in playing?

No, not necessarily. But it's just kind of fun to start a new decade.

Do you have a philosophy in terms of how you choose roles generally?

Oh no, if only. Things would be so much easier. Choosing roles is really more like falling in love. I don't have a specific type that I'm looking for. It's just kind of if I read the thing or speak to the director or see some art that's connected with it and it incites something where I can't stop thinking about it, then I keep moving towards it.

Tell me about how you fell in love, then, with the character of Pope in Triple Frontier.

I worked with J.C. [Chandor] on A Most Violent Year. That had gone well. And I knew he was somebody I could trust in the editing room. You could try lots of different things and he won't make you look like an idiot. And then he talked to me about the kind of guy this is, the parables behind the whole movie, it being an allegory to the way the United States has operated throughout the world, and how in some ways my character is the Donald Rumsfeld of the story. [Pope] says, “Look, we can do this. We can take out a really bad guy. We'll be rich. We'll be in and out. No problem.” And so there's a bit of hubris there about their skills—even though these characters are incredibly skilled. But he underestimates the team's greed.

Once I became involved, we started having conversations. We thought an interesting complication—and one thing that would make it not feel so cliché—would be making the character of Pope actually from the area that he's been working in. There's a familial connection to it, so there's something more at stake. He wants to take out this guy not just as a trophy but because he actually thinks it'll make a difference.

In Annihilation you also played someone in the military. And I read that you at one point had considered joining the Marines. Is there something about diving into that military world that attracted you?

Yeah. That's definitely something I had been into when I was younger, and I had imagined that that was an avenue I could've gone down for my life. And I was very near going to boot camp and starting that whole process, and then other things happened that took me away from that. So I think there's always something inside of me that wonders about the What if? of it.

I can be quite a good student when it comes to certain things. So learning the mechanics of working with the weapons, learning about situational awareness and clearing the room, the team-building exercises—all those things, I got very excited by. And also, there was a lot of high altitude training.

What was that like?

What was cool was that all of us had a different physical task. Garrett [Hedlund] was the MMA fighter and there was a whole MMA fight that ended up getting cut down quite a bit. So he ended up spending a lot of time training that way, training with jiu-jitsu. Pedro [Pascal] spent a lot of time with the cockpit and flying. And then Charlie [Hunnam] and Ben [Affleck] both found things that were specific to their characters. And for me, I knew that I was having to do this extended chase sequence in Colombia, which was between 10,000 and 13,000 feet, depending on exactly where we were shooting. So I knew that was something I needed to train for just so I'd be able to do more than one take without throwing up. And I found a place here in New York that's a hyperbaric chamber that's able to replicate what it's like to run in different altitudes. They have a treadmill in there. And an oxygen mask, and even a tent you could sleep in at night to get your blood saturated with oxygen.

When you were preparing, what kinds of things did you learn about the military that surprised you, or that you didn't know when you were considering joining the Marines way back when?

I was a kid back then, so I didn't know much. I was like, “I'll get fit. I'll get money for college. I'll go in there because some of my friends are planning on going in there as well.” There were some people I admired who had been. This was like 1998. But the reality of it is the amount of sacrifice—not just physically, but emotionally. Being separated from your family for long, long periods of time. And especially special forces guys, who are just the elite, top of the top. There's this sense of [it being] these tough guys, these killers, chest-pounding guys. The truth is the people we spoke with [have] humility and soft-spokenness and ethical codes they go by, [there’s] lack of rejoicing in violence, the desire for connection, and the way deadly force is viewed—all those things I found to not be clichéd adolescent ideas of what being a military guy is.

The movie is very much an allegory about the American military and the country's greed. But how did you internalize the individual sense of greed that you're portraying in the film?

There's something that's epic about it. It's a very primal tale. Macbeth is the same thing. Macbeth is a heroic soldier. The entire first part of Macbeth is everyone saying what an incredible soldier Macbeth was, what he did, how he was fearless, courageous, how he saved his men. He is the hero. And then that little thing gets in there like an infection, this thought, What more could I have? "What do I deserve for everything that I've done?" And that’s mixed with the violence the person is seeing. So that for me was very interesting. Noble people who have a tragic flaw that brings them down. For my character, it was less the money. It was more revenge, taking out this one guy he's been hunting since he's been down there. He actually believes that if he cuts down this head, the rest of the thing will fall.

Did you return to moments in your life or career where you caught yourself letting greed get the best of you?

I think when I was in college I definitely did some damage at the Tower Records across the street. And the Barnes & Noble... And a couple liquor stores. There was a sense of, “I am a college student. I can barely make ends meet over here. This is a big company; they're not going to mind if I take this book of poetry.” So I could justify snagging a few items here and there. But of course Tower Records closes down, and I can't help but feel at fault.

It’s not your fault.

It was a flawed system. They had the bargain DVDs right next to the place where you walk out. So you could just put [your bag] right there next to it, go through the metal detectors, and then reach back and grab your bag.

Do you think you could graduate from Barnes & Noble theft and pull off an actual heist?

No. I wouldn't know where to begin or what to do. Anything I know about it is from movies.

Are you a fan of the heist genre?

I like the heist genre thrown on its head. My favorite movie is Dog Day Afternoon. And that is another thing where it's like, Let's do this thing. We're going to rob a bank. In and out of there. And everything that happens after that is, to me, the most exciting part. It's people in extreme situations. I worked in a hospital when I was younger, and that's something I learned a lot from, seeing people in extreme situations. You see the entire spectrum of humanity in those moments.

As a musician and a big music fan, how do you use music to get yourself in the mindset of a role?

I've done that for ages. Often for me, it's less specific about, This makes me think about this thing. It's more about what gets me to a place of readiness, openness. What makes me feel connected to the earth a bit more. Sometimes I'll put together music that I find inspiring thematically, or tonally. But I think if it's something that needs any real depth of emotion, there's this one guy named Ernst Reijseger, an incredible cellist who did the soundtrack to Werner Herzog's Cave of Forgotten Dreams. I listen to that and it puts me in a primal state. It opens me up so I'm able to receive anything that's floating around inside without judging it too much.

Were you listening to that for this role?

For this one, there were a couple moments when I did. But I think I listened to a lot of Sepultura, a Brazilian hardcore metal band. It gave a sense of the chaos and the violence, and it has some Brazilian kind of tribal elements to it. So it felt like a bit of a mix of everything they're getting involved in down there.

What's the best piece of direction you've gotten in your career?

The first one that comes to my mind was just like the sweetest way of saying "Tone it down." A great writer, Hossein Amini, he came over and in the sweetest way said, "The camera is just not able to capture what you're doing right now. We don't have the technology yet to get what you're doing. So you just have to bring it down a bit so we can capture it on the camera."

My editor insisted I find out about the footage you filmed for the Disney Parks upcoming Star Wars-themed lands. Is there anything you can tell me?

I'm afraid I can't, because actually I don't really remember [laughs]. I think some of it happened in the middle of filming the actual movie. So they were like, "Hey, today you're coming in and you'll be in the cockpit." So it's those kinds of situations. I'm sure I'm in the cockpit and I'm screaming about something important.

undefined

[mostthingskenobi]

Hellooo! So, I have a question for you I've been wondering about for ages now... What do you imagine Obi-Wan and Satines first kiss in the clone wars series would've been like if they'd done it? Would Satine kiss Obi-Wan or would he kiss her? And what would the situation be for them to finally do it? If you're not sure then maybe some ideas? Btw I love your blog and hope you'll stay much longer. I'm sorry about what's happened to you. I hope you're getting better because you're just amazing

Hello there, my friend! This ask gave me a jolt of pure joy!! What a fun and pleasant thing to think about… and I’m sure it’s no surprise to you that I’ve given this quite a bit of thought. So here’s what I imagine (I’ll try not to be too wordy and take up too much of your time… who am I kidding…. this is going to be the longest thing I’ve ever written):

OBI-WAN AND SATINE’S CLONE WARS KISS THAT NEVER HAPPENED BUT SHOULD HAVE… **QUIETLY SOBS IN THE CORNER**

OK, to start, I understand why Obi-Wan and Satine never kiss in the Clone Wars. George Lucas believed that Kenobi was the embodiment of the perfect Jedi, even to Obi-Wan’s own detriment. It’s why Lucas never allowed Obi-Wan to kiss Satine, or respond to her dying “I love you.” It’s why Obi-Wan didn’t fight Maul during The Lawless, and George Lucas certainly shot down Dave Filoni’s idea that Korkie was Obi-Wan and Satine’s child. Obi-Wan Kenobi was a pure Jedi Knight.

My problem with that: it’s boring.

It’s not boring that Obi-Wan is pure, it’s boring that he never slips. As a writer, I believe it’s more interesting when a character’s standards are challenged and they are forced to break their status quo. It’s more gratifying for the audience to see a character change and grow, to struggle, give in to temptation, relent, and ultimately succeed (Luke Skywalker anyone???). This is ESPECIALLY important when you brutalize a character. Star Wars is very hard on Obi-Wan Kenobi and he receives very little validation. For the audience’s sake, Obi-Wan Kenobi deserves just one moment where he follows his heart FOR HIMSELF.

(This is all rhetorical, of course. If it isn’t obvious by the fact that I run an Obi-Wan Kenobi blog, Instagram, and AO3 account, let me say that I love Obi-Wan just as he is. Though as a storyteller, I may have changed a few plot points on his timeline.)

That being said, there are 2 places I can picture a kiss between Obi-Wan and Satine.

THE SLOW BURN

The first scenario is a slow burn that builds through the Mandalorian Arc in season 2. I imagine Obi-Wan would be doing his best to ignore his feelings for Satine and keep things “strictly professional.” But after the multiple assassination attempts made by Death Watch, and the Duchess wrongly being accused of murder, I would say Kenobi’s guard on his feelings would gradually begin to drop. Satine is one of the few characters Obi-Wan reaches out and physically touches in The Clone Wars, and he touches her a lot. To me, that indicates a certain level of familiarity that is not present between Kenobi and other characters.

I don’t think Satine would make the first move. I think she would encourage it subtly, but she would not kiss Obi-Wan first and here’s why:

1. She cannot be the one to break the Jedi Code. If Satine forces Obi-Wan to betray his oath before he’s ready, then she is the villain, the temptress, the distraction. She has no wish to change him or undermine his achievements. I wrote this in my first piece of fan fiction, A Jedi’s Resolve, and I still think it’s true of Satine:

“How could I ask you to give up the Order that you loved so much?… Don’t you see that you are a paradox? I loved you as you were, and forcing you to leave the Jedi would have made you a different man.”

2. Satine already told Obi-Wan her feelings in Voyage of Temptation. She laid her heart bare. If something is going to happen between them, it needs to be because Obi-Wan wants her enough to break his Code. He needs to want her in a “we’re soul mates and the Force will not let us be apart” sort of way, not be tempted to break his Jedi vow for lust.

I know this sounds all boring and moralistic, but as discussed earlier, Obi-Wan is a pure knight, and, in my opinion, this is how he would stay in character and kiss Satine. The act has to tie back to honor.

How would it happen? Well, Obi-Wan would have to be pushed to his limit by, let’s say, the pain of losing Satine again… or by not getting to tell her how he feels before she returns to Mandalore… or by overwhelming memories of their young love… Once he’s at his limit, they need to conveniently end up alone together where they can finally say what needs to be said without the risk of being overheard. I’m building up to this in my fic The Jedi and His Duchess. Or if you want something short and sweet, A Jedi’s Resolve is a one-off I needed to write to give myself closure. These fics detail exactly how I think this situation would unfold.

As much as I love this scenario, Star Wars would never go for it in canon. It’s too hypocritical to give Obi-Wan a love interest, especially when they portray Anakin’s love for Padme as a betrayal.

HOWEVER!!!! There is a line, I think it’s in the episode Corruption, where Satine reveals to Padme that Obi-Wan has told her all about Padme’s adventurous spirit. This implies that Obitine has remained in touch during the Clone Wars.

THE ULTIMATE TEMPTATION

The second scenario would take place during The Lawless. I have serious issues with this episode, for many reasons. I cannot watch it without sobbing… because I’m a huge emotional baby. BUT I also feel like the episode is extremely rushed. Maul spends an excruciating amount of time building up his underground crime syndicate and spends all of 10 minutes exacting revenge on Obi-Wan.

As an audience member, I’m far more fascinated by the interpersonal relationships: the conflict between Maul and Obi-Wan, the love between Satine and Obi-Wan, the betrayal between Maul and Sidious. This is more interesting than 2 full episodes of crime mongering. And I’m sorry, but Satine dies in Obi-Wan’s arms and like 5 seconds later cracks a joke with Bo-Katan. WTF, Kenobi?

What we should have gotten:

1. Much more time spent between Obi-Wan, Maul, and Satine, like at least 2 episodes.

2. Obi-Wan needed to tell Satine something while she lay dying. This woman died for him, lost her home, her planet, her family, her life’s work for this Jedi. She was used as a means to an end. The least Obi-Wan could have done was kiss her properly when he rescued her or said he loved her while he held her in his arms. She died not knowing how he felt about her. (I’m suddenly feeling inspired to write a ficlet of Obi-Wan rescuing Satine properly  0_0  )

3. A moment of real Dark Side temptation for Obi-Wan. It didn’t have to be as extreme as my series, The Dark Side of Obi-Wan Kenobi, but there should have been something more significant in that moment. Or at least more visible grieving into the next episode arc. Obi-Wan gets over Satine really fast and it really pisses me off. He’s such a perfect Jedi that it almost makes him seem heartless. I’ll say it again: GRATIFY YOUR AUDIENCE!!

OK, sorry… this is a little less about a kissing scenario and a little more about asking for a moment where Obi-Wan reveals his feelings to Satine… But that’s OK… right??????

I’m so very sorry, Anon!!!! This is the longest thing I’ve ever written and I’m afraid I may not even have answered your question!!! This is probably way more than you bargained for. I apologize for rambling on and on. But thank you for the lovely ask. I honestly really appreciated thinking about something other than my own awful life :) Thank you for your kind words! And thank you so much for following my blog!!!!!!! It warms my heart that you enjoy my stuff. Please keep in touch!!

[m0th-punk]

This is something that's been on my mind for a long time. Long ramble under the cut

TL;DR: Grazer-razor has some of the worst black and white mentality I've ever seen and I can tell he has never critically examined his biases a day in his life.

Because I'm a terrible little gremlin who can't leave well enough alone, I've been reading these posts

Ignoring the absolute stupidity of these statements (I'm pretty sure the lack of rainbow logos is because in many middle eastern countries, homosexuality is a crime and these companies just want to make money. But I'mnot going into the nuances and implications of rainbow capitalism today.), something stood out to me.

Does Grazer... genuinely think nobody has ever criticized the Muslim faith? That we all ignore the homophobia present within the religion just because they're a minority? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I've seen even some of the most staunch leftists criticize things like their horrible treatment of homosexuality or the rampant sexism often sanctioned by radicals. Even other Muslims, especially women and lgbt+ Muslims, have been critical of these things.

It wouldn't shock me if Grazer believedthat anyone who supports Muslims believes they can do no wrong. After all, he thinks any criticism of Christianity is hatred, and dismisses any harmful things Christians do as not being "real" Christianity in a classic case of the "No True Scotsman" fallacy.

Note how he didn't even respond to the first asks comments, just accused them of being me (because obviously any time someone sees his blog it's all my fault /s)

So it seems like in Grazer's mind, there are only two options when it comes to religion: Uncritically praise and defend everything a religion does no matter how heinous it is and justify it because it's done in a God's name, or condemn anyone who practices it as hateful terrorists. Because he doesn't see people doing the former for Christians, he automatically assumes that they're doing the latter, and vice versa for Muslims.

Also note how he gets mad when muslim faith is "respected" (again, homosexuality is criminalized in many of these areas) but then demands a secular children's show cater to his religion for the sake of his precious childhood.

(Also, can we just talk about the absolute fucking cruelty in this answer? There are people out there that had their childhoods ruined by abuse, illness, losing loved ones, homelessness, poverty, bullying, near-death experiences, having their countries torn apart by war, a shitty foster care system, teen pregnancies, and so many other things that can absolutely destroy a life.  Grazer's was ruined by…  *checks notes* a cartoon character supporting gay rights and a drag queen singing a cutesy children's song.  So yeah, if that's the worst part of his childhood he's pretty damn lucky, and the fact that he has the gall to still complain absolutely makes him selfish and ignorant. It's disrespectful, plain and simple, and if he were truly a good Christian he'd have some compassion.)

Okay, so Grazer has some weird "rules for me but not for thee" shit when it comes to religion. This isn't news. Where am I going with this?

Well, turns out he has this opinion about more than just religion. Know how I know this? His response to ESRB ratings and trigger warnings.

So it seems like Grazer sees the ESRB as some sort of moral compass, in a way. Something being rated E or E10 means it's pure and good and wholly unproblematic, while anything higher means it's evil and disgusting and he can't even look at it.

This is further confirmed by this post, where he flat-out states he sees the ESRB as deeming what things are and are not morally acceptable.

Now Grazer, I'm gonna explain this as best as I can, because it seems like you don't quite understand this. Read very carefully.

This is not the purpose of the ESRB rating system.

I repeat, this is NOT the purpose of the ESRB rating system.

The ESRB does not decide on what is and is not morally correct. It simply says "This game contains these topics, and as such is most suitable for people in this age group.". That's it. It's a guideline, not a rule.

Let's take cartoon violence, for instance. It's a very common warning the ESRB puts on games. Almost every game from Mario to Sonic to Crash Bandicoot and even Monster Tale has this warning. These games are all rated E for everyone. Does this mean those games are promoting violence to children, or claiming things like Bowser kidnapping Peach or Pinstripe trying to gun down Crash are perfectly okay and morally correct? Of course not. It's simply saying that these games contain mild, non-graphic violence, but most children should be able to handle seeing it.

On the other side of the coin, let's take a look at the warnings for nudity and sexual themes. Most games that contain these topics are rated T at the lowest and AO at the highest. This obviously isn't saying that nudity and sex are inherently bad or evil. All it's saying is that these topics are best handled by adults (And, regardless of morality, it is illegal to distribute sexual content to minors unless it's meant to be educational, like a health class textbook).

A few extra points:

. Games can be rated different things in different countries. Different countries have different regulations. Do you know why the blood in Danganronpa is pink? It's because in Japan, games with excessive amounts of blood and gore are given a Z rating (Japan's equivalent to an AO rating). They got around this by making the blood pink, securing the game its desired M rating. Meanwhile here in America, Mortal Kombat is allowed to show as many graphic, brutal deaths as it wants and still receive an M rating.

. ESRB ratings are not legally enforceable. I was so convinced as a 16 year old that the employees at gamestop would try to card me or something when I was picking up a copy of Bayonetta, and I was surprised when they simply rang me up in two seconds, no questions asked. It doesn't happen. For fuck's sake, one of the first games I ever played, at the tender age of four, was Soul Edge. A T rated game. The only instance ESRB ratings are legally enforced is in the case of AO ratings, as these games often contain incredibly graphic violenceor sexual content. If this outrage is coming from the idea that certain ratings will keep younger people from playing these games from a legal standpoint, don't worry. A nine year old is not gonna get arrested for playing Among Us. Just don't buy them GTA San Andreas or Leisure Suit Larry and everything will be fine.

. No two consumers are exactly alike. While one 13 year old may be perfectly fine with the jumpscares in Amnesia, another may be too scared to even go near the piano in Super Mario 64. That doesn't mean either of these games is rated incorrectly. The ESRB is there, once again, as a recommendation for the average consumer, and doesn't take individual experience into account. An individual experience is not their responsibility. It's also on parents (or you yourself!) To decide what the consumer can or can't handle.

"But Haley," I hear you say, "What if this piece of media DOES contain something morally bad?"

Well it's simple. You are allowed to like things AND still criticize the bad parts of it.

Hold on now, I'm not telling you that it's perfectly alright to enjoy things like Birth of a Nation or anything like that! Contrary to popular belief, there are some pieces of media that are truly too steeped in hatred and morally reprehensible things to be supported, even through a critical lense. The only merit things like that have is to serve as a warning: This is a terrible thing made for terrible reasons, and we should not allow it to happen again.

But outside of those rare circumstances, it's not so cut and dry.

Let's take a piece of media i actually enjoy, for instance, so you know I'm not a hypocrite: Persona 5.

Persona 5 is easily one of my favorite games in the Persona series. It does a lot of interesting stuff, the artstyle and soundtrack are (in my opinion) the best in the series, and overall it's very enjoyable for me.

But, like anything, it's not perfect. I'm incredibly uncomfortable with the hypocrisy the game has in regards to the sexualization of teenagers. While Kamoshida is rightfully condemned for his sexualization of teenage girls and Ann's persona awakening comes from rejecting this objectification, the game and story undermine it by not only putting Ann in a sexually revealing outfit, but also making light of Ryuji's sexual harassment by adult men (Allegedly Persona 5 Royal tries to fix this by making the men drag enthusiasts who think Ryuji would look good in drag and giving them more sympathetic personalities, but it's still really weird and hypocritical of the game to do this.). The teenage protagonist is also allowed the option to date adult women, including his teacher, and the game rarely if ever touches on the problems with this.

The game's homophobia also left a bad taste in my mouth. Aside from the aforementioned men who sexually harass Ryuji, the only other canon LGBT+ character is a bar owner who is either a drag queen or a trans woman (or both?). Sure, she's portrayed as being kind and protective of the protagonist, but there isn't much room to interact with her or learn more about her. On top of that, not only can the protagonist not romantically pursue his male friends (A feature that even the SECOND persona game had), he's not even allowed to give them gifts or platonically show affection towards them without the dialogue mocking him. The game that allows a teenage boy to date his teacher won't allow him to simply give his male friends a present.

And yet, despite those criticisms, I do still enjoy the game. I don't consider the game irredeemable garbage based on those poorly handled topics alone. And I also understand that for some people, those topics make them so uncomfortable that they don't want to play the game at all, and I completely respect that.

Criticizing the things you enjoy is not only normal, it's oftentimes healthy. Being able to step back and say "I like this thing, but I don't like the bad things it's done. This thing would be better if these issues were fixed." Sure, sometimes some people tend to complain a bit too much about the media they supposedly enjoy, but for the most part being able to acknowledge the bad with the good is a good skill to have.

Oh, wait, all of this means nothing because Grazer thinks that critically enjoying things is nothing more than an excuse to consume media he doesn't personally agree with. Okay then.

So if he can't even realize something as simple as "it's okay to criticize some parts of media that you otherwise enjoy", how can he be expected to look critically at a religion that he's been raised in and around all his life?

Soooo yeah, Grazer has some serious problems with black and white thinking that he refuses to acknowledge, further worsened by the fact that he's practically been brainwashed into believing that Christianity is the ultimate moral compass that everyone should follow. I understand that this tends to be an issue for neurodivergent people, but it's not an excuse for the actions he does that are related to these things (sending death threats to the ESRB, antagonizing others, etc.