And people don’t like that sometimes, that I don’t take a lot of things and people at face value. I can’t judge without experiencing or learning, factually, what’s within. I used to hate myself for that. I’ve tried the method of agreeing with what people say to me upfront, but that’s ended badly as well.

People will insist something I enjoy is terrible or amazing without actually engaging with it. This applies to games, books, movies, TV shows, ships—media in general, really. They’ll pretend they’re the master of knowledge on the piece, when they have never even consumed it. All of their opinions come from second-hand sources and summaries.

Can you say you understand and hate Shakespeare by only reading summarized and rewritten versions of his work? Plenty do, I just don’t think they should be trusted.

I just refuse to be like them. I want to formulate my own opinions, and then listen to others. I’m not immune to being influenced. I’ve listened to criticism and praise and changed my views based off that, but it always came after making my own judgement.