the beginning of hope

speaking of hedging, one criticism i always hate that's often levelled against people doing media criticism or analysis is variations on "oh they think all their opinions are correct" yeah i'd hope so--don't understand why someone would hold an opinion they think is wrong! i hate the culture of endlessly qualifying everything you say to mollify an interlocutor who feels like your strongly held opinion is an imposition on their free will and i think nobody ought to bend to it. make your criticisms and points with your fucking chest. if you think you need my permission to disagree with me then you will die my thrall and be buried in my tomb

dress up is one of the most important pillars of gameplay that is often ignored by game developers to disasterous results

so embarrassing to watch yourself become obsessed with a character that feels tailor made for you specifically to become obsessed with. feels like i fell into a trap made just for me. like damn they got me. those are all the things i like and go crazy for

honestly i think we kind of lost the plot on "therapy speak" as a bit of media criticism

i swear it used to refer to a story using a very formal, almost workplace safety-type tone of dialogue that's unintentionally jarring in context and feels like the writer is trying to make extra sure the characters come off as healthy and nice even though the language doesn't make sense contextually, now it seems to frequently refer to characters having any conversation about their feelings at all or even stories that are about therapy/are deliberately evoking that sort of verbage throughout as a stylistic choice. very odd.