You "have to be consistent in [your] standards as a critic?" You're writing on Backloggd and Steam, not ROM Chip. Even professional critics take a step back in the face of new information and correct themselves. Maybe they get snippy about it but they still admit they were wrong. You're not demonstrating the slightest bit of professionalism or some adherence to a substantive set of scruples, you're being a stick in the mud and saying anyone who dares to tell you that is creating a straw man argument, ad hominem, appeal to authority! Forsooth, I hath been owned by thine highlighting of fallacies which are logical in nature. Get off your high horse.

Why does a character's identity in any regard need to add something to a narrative? And when it is this subtle nod to those who are 'in the know' how is that tokenism? There isn't a big arrow being pointed at Madeline that tells you she's trans, it is something that, up until Farewell, was effectively just the authour saying "Yes, this is a reflection of myself, I am a trans woman, Madeline is a trans woman too." She is not winking at the camera, she is not stumbling over her own pronouns. Madeline, like so many trans people, simply presents as her gender. You encounter trans people every day who, for lack of a better term, pass as the gender they identify as. Madeline does too. To consider it tokenism is fundamentally no different from the idea of trans panic -- I did not know this character was trans until new information arose, and now that I have this information, I am upset by it. If it was not made explicit within the text of the game, or by Maddy herself, would you have even known? Would you have cared? Would the thought have crossed your mind that Madeline might possibly be trans?

We've latched onto that footnote because you put it there, a fly in the ointment. It had nothing to do with the rest of your review, its omission makes no difference to your argument, nor does its inclusion. It reads as a cisgendered person feeling they need to make their voice heard on a question nobody asked them. You admit yourself that you "will never be intrinsically knowledgeable of a transperson's experiences," so why make the attempt? That is not allyship, that isn't even sympathising with the proverbial Other, that is just you imparting your two cents on something you are not able to speak on honestly. An ally does not let the group they claim to be an ally for speak as a means for them to further denigrate them. An ally uses their voice for good when the voices of that group are stifled, and allows that group to speak when they are able while the ally listens. An ally doesn't even have to agree with what that group says, but they certainly should not try to school the group, should not speak down to them, should not point out the flaws in their argument. This is not school. This is not debate team. We are a group that is upset, so forgive us if we we express that upset without peer review and self-censorship. Maybe we've had enough of that for a lifetime.

I'm saying to play with the d-pad you goofy goose.

Anyways, I'd like to thank you for demonstrating with aplomb that cis white men are simply unable to admit they might not be able to speak truthfully on everything that is not relevant to themselves. Enjoy telling your friends you owned the tr@@ns and they had to resort to logical fallacies because you were owning us with facts and logic about how you're right. Definitely don't just take the L, stop arguing, and just take a step back and say "oh okay".