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Mind Palaces

Mind Palaces
Key art from the Borderlands videogame shows the character known as Psycho wearing a distinctive white and brown vault hunter mask with glowing blue eyes and a mechanical respirator over the mouth and holding his right hand to his temple in a finger-gun gesture.

Empty Worlds of Wonder

By Maddi Chilton • May 29th, 2026

As games get larger, mechanically denser and infinitely longer, I have a renewed appreciation for Borderlands’ thinness.

Mind Palaces
Detail from the cover art of The Tainted Cup shows a metal goblet surrounded by lush plants and flowers in a nighttime setting.

Memory Games

By Maddi Chilton • April 2nd, 2026

Especially in a mystery, characters are developed by their functional interactions with the world.

Mind Palaces
An illustration of two characters, Snufkin and Moomintroll, sitting on a small wooden bridge in a natural, autumnal setting.

Escape to Moominvalley

By Maddi Chilton • February 26th, 2026

The perfect gentle world of the Moomins doesn’t exist in real life, but parts of it do.

Mind Palaces
A still from Barquero of a rugged man leaning forward in the bright sun, a beat up hat on his head and a well-worn shirt worn open barely hanging on to his shoulders.

A Fistful of Westerns

By Maddi Chilton • January 30th, 2026

There’s nothing as satisfying as a well-framed shot of a horse running fast.

Mind Palaces
A still from Adaptation features Nicholas Cage in a dual role as twin brothers, mid conversation in a dimly lit living room.

Bad Good Ideas

By Maddi Chilton • January 7th, 2026

I am on board, conceptually, with Adaptation’s ambition.

Mind Palaces
Clea Duvall and Natasha Lyonne gaze at each other in a dance club in this still from But I’m a Cheerleader!.

Does This Dress Make Me Look Straight

By Maddi Chilton • December 3rd, 2025

Walking away from the practice of homogenous heterosexual cohesion is just as legitimate as walking towards it.

Mind Palaces
A lonely, derelict house sits solemnly in a field of long grass.

All Houses Are Haunted (By Heterosexuality)

By Maddi Chilton • October 30th, 2025

In both Sarah Waters’ The Paying Guests and Yael van der Wouden’s The Safekeep, the lesbian main character keeps a neat, controlled house in lieu of a more traditional home life with a husband.

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