tbf, I think she’s gotten a lot better than she was! I don’t know if she’s taking classes or anything, but while she’s primarily just a deadpan person, she did surprisingly well completely upending that in AHS:1984.

I think they didn’t do a lot with her because Lourd’s character wasn’t related to Leia. It would have been weird to give someone who, by all metrics, had very little to do with Leia a lot of screentime mourning her.

Even the retcons don’t necessarily go against TLJ! The entire point of Rey’s arc is rejecting what the past is attempting to force her to be, then looking back at it with respect while forging her new path. It made some plot choices I really didn’t like, but just because Rey has some big-name heritage doesn’t mean…

Honestly? I liked the movie. A lot. It was a mess, and there are parts I hated, and it did everything I didn’t want it to... but it did those things in ways I did not expect, it had to work around Carrie’s death, it had the legacy of 40+ years of the franchise to live up to, and it had to try to please fans (including…

Thanks! I remember being worried that it was so anime-laden because I don’t have much patience anymore for a lot of the fanservice that anime throws in, let alone a lot of the tropes that .hack//G.U. and such used, but TMS felt so much like comfort food a la Sailor Moon. I’d gladly replay it again tbh

You’re welcome! I hope that my reading was closer to Maddy’s intent.

I can’t speak for Maddy herself, but what I get from that segment is that GamerGate wasn’t the thing that changed online discourse; the internet itself had changed, with Usenet and Livejournal and webrings replaced with Twitter and Facebook and Tumblr. Where we had longer-form discourse, it’s become a lot more about…

For what it’s worth, I never noticed the text issue when I played it on Wii U.

Absolutely. I’ve never played Fire Emblem, so while I missed any references to the series, the game stands completely on its own. The only real carryovers from SMT/Persona are style and spell names.

The combat in this game is a blast, and the tone of it feels like an idol-themed season of Sailor Moon, with all the cheesiness and heart that anime of those ilk always have. It’s such a fun game. I can’t wait to get the Switch version.

The fact of the matter is, regardless of some people who got swept up in “ethics in game journalism” along the way, GamerGate was explicitly always about harassing Quinn. It wasn’t “co-opted”; there are posts showing that it was organized specifically to harass her. The majority of the people I’ve seen that seemed to…

Haha, yeah. I only say it to preemptively head off some of the responses, since it seems that people can’t handle generalizations like that. Like the greys that tried to insist they don’t hate critique, they just hate how Kotaku always pushes an agenda that’s just as bad as bigots. l m a o

I’ve appreciated seeing you around, man. I hope life treats you well. If you’re interested in staying in the same internet sphere, I’m over at @BrandoBoySP on Twitter. If not, I wish you all the best!

Reminder: if you’re here to insist Gamergate wasn’t about harassing Quinn or that there was collusion involved, you’re outright incorrect, and there’s plenty of proof out there showing it.

Absolutely this. There’s been a resurgence, imo, in the anti-intellectualism of film reactions, but gaming has always been like that. Any attempt at even the most basic of literary critique, anything beyond “I liked this” or “this sucked,” ends up met with complaints about games journalism, about thinking too hard,…

I’d doubt it would be decades. XIII-2 was, what, only 2ish years after XIII? And then Lightning Returns followed that pattern. They’re probably going to be able to get them out 2-3 years each because they have the engine and a lot of assets done.

Great article, Heather!

Video games are most certainly afraid to be that way; there’s still hardly any queer characters compared to how many games are out there, especially when we’re talking about AAA releases. This piece was written last year, but it’s pretty relevant. Plus, look at how the devs of Ion Fury refused to remove homophobic…

Definitely a fair statement, but I’d also like to point out that we get tender bromances far more often than we get actual gay romances.

Man, I loved the first one and own Before the Storm, but I haven’t gotten around to playing BtS. I’ve been waiting for this one to finish up--it’s good to hear it’s even better than the first.