i have rule i semi-adhere to for media criticism which is to ideologically meet shit where it's at (or where it's presented to me). i like to call it the "i didn't make you market it that way" rule--like, if lancer's union was just presented as a sci-fi setting, that would be fine. i don't expect all sci-fi settings to be communist utopias! but when the creators of lancer use the word utopia like 20 times & bandy around words like 'mutual aid' and 'post-scarcity' and 'anticapitalist' when describing it, then to me that becomes absolutely fair game. similarly if someone says 'stardew valley is fun i like farming :)' then i'm not gonna reply with a long post about how it's ideologically petty-bourgeois--but if they say 'stardew valley is anticapitalist', then they've opened up that can of worms and it's fair for me to point out that the worms exist.
it's the same phenomenon where a fantasy novel that says 'for the duration of this fantasy novel you need to just believe in the divine right of kings for the emotional stakes to make sense' is infinitely less objectionable than a fantasy novel that's also about restoring a king but takes painstaking time to point out how this king is A Good King who is Progressive and Nice and is going to do Nice Monarchy. when you try to sanitize something you end up turning any otherwise neutral or at least palatable depiction or framework you've included into a normative statement!
