Tim's "Inverted Review Of Final Fantasy VI" is a hell of a read. Lots of bad words, because it quotes directly from dipshit 90s teens. It is heavy. Tactile. I'm glad I read it.
I sat on the edge of my bed in my cargo shorts and hiking boots after my shift mutely pushing carts, measuring the heft of Chrono Trigger‘s turgid box. I’d bought it on faith alone. I tried to guess at how many pages its manual had. A confusion found me. It didn’t leave for a while. I think now that at last, with nonchalance, my hole had finally found me.
I'm pretty sure it's gonna get taken down in the next few months, because we're rearranging the site and not bringing everything over. Not everything on the internet will wait forever for you; much less than you think. In part, reading this made me reflect on how much of our tangible world has eroded in the last three decades. Details like a plastic case clattering into a video rental dropbox slot; craning to see an arcade machine's screen over the sweaty shoulders of taller teenagers; the heft of a box bought on faith alone. The world feels more immaterial now than ever, now that the external world is forbidden, now that we've been taken away from each other by the world's grimiest morons, now that the few places left to go, you can't go there. Life wasn't better back then; that's clear and painful, too. But there are pleasures, and there are regrets, in the tangible.
It's here.