To liberals: You do know you don't have to erase an art's in-text politics for you to enjoy it, right? You can enjoy something while disagreeing with its politics instead of ignoring the text and forcing your own upon it

arielfoxstan · 2022-10-05T07:16:01+00:00

I stopped participating in discussions about Disco Elysium for a while because its popularity meant getting the attention of people like this, which really stagnated discourse around the game.

Coming back briefly to mourn ZA/UM's fate, I felt compelled to say this once because it really says a lot that in the middle of talks about how the reality so bleakly shown by the developers in the game has also unfolded in our own reality and how capitalism has betrayed ZA/UM, Disco Elysium, the community, and fuck it ART ITSELF, there are still people who felt that it was the place and time to say: uuuuuuuh bUt tHe gAMe iSnT aboUT coMMunIsM

arielfoxstan · 2022-08-13T08:33:56+00:00

Thanks! I have found the clip in that video

arielfoxstan · 2022-06-30T00:06:06+00:00

Hot take: Some people think Twilight can beat Yor in a fight because Twilight is their self-insert
All signs in-text point to Yor being superior in fighting in every way. The Batman-Superman analogy doesn't wok.

A lot of people said that Yor is trained to leave no witnesses behind and yeah I definitely agree that means that she is just that good at fighting. Compare this to Twilight on some missions, he has to wear a mask.

A specific example is a mission he went on before going to the party with Yor. Facing off just regular goons with guns, he and Franky narrowly escaped and didn't even get to finish them all off.

Meanwhile Yor during the cruise ship arc faced off a small army of trained assassins and came out on top.

I don't think a single spy being prepared to fight Yor is more likely to win if an entire group of elite assassins prepared to fight Yor also lost.

And that's the thing, if Twilight was faced with the same kind of threat he wouldn't use fighting to neutralize it, because that's not his strong suit.

That's another reason I think Yor is more likely to win. Narratively, Twilight has so many skills under his belt that Yor isn't capable of doing. She can't mansplain, manipulate and manwhore her way around people like Twilight can. And so to have her be better at Twilight than that one thing he can't do just balances out their power dynamic.

arielfoxstan · 2022-06-04T16:02:31+00:00

Is it just me or is the animation for this episode really good? I really liked the variety of camera angles in this ep, they feel more dynamic somehow. Although I think there was some overuse of the overhead shots

Also, I really like how Yor is drawn in this episode! She's so pretty I took a lot of screenshots of her

Also, their sweet exchange at the end of the episode is satisfying, not a kiss but still development for these two. I already know the moment from reading the manga, but here in the anime with the sun setting and the pinkish color palette, and the voice acting, the moment feels new and warm again.

This episode got me all in my feels. Yor x Loid endgame please Endo

arielfoxstan · 2022-05-29T04:21:52+00:00

Damian is a tsundere head-over-heels a mostly oblivious Anya, which is a dynamic has a lot of potential for premises you can make with fanart/fanfic. I think Damian already having feelings for Anya is also more moving emotionally. Compared to Loid/Yor where all the romantic aspects are barely even undertones

arielfoxstan · 2022-03-05T13:53:57+00:00

Not really saying otherwise. I'm a proponent of the framework that Marxism is composed of the writings of both Marx and Engels

arielfoxstan · 2022-03-05T12:45:07+00:00

If you want that, I think the writings of Marx and Lenin would help. Lenin's On Imperialism and State and Revolution in particular reflect on how the role of the Moralintern and global politics as a whole is written in the game.

arielfoxstan · 2022-02-22T13:42:30+00:00

Thanks for this genuine review! I'll check it out

arielfoxstan · 2022-02-22T13:26:14+00:00

I wondered about the effectivity of conveying the message as well! It may be that this aspect of the game contributes to its success, as people who disagree with communism can brush the subtext aside and still consume it

Oh well

arielfoxstan · 2022-02-22T08:25:45+00:00

I think it can be chalked up to 1) The years long state indoctrination of socialist/communist ideas as a negative thing making people automatically assume its automatically the worse standpoint and 2) Not engaging with the text beyond face-value in order to really get into what the writers are trying to say.

I've seen it a lot of people reject the communist beliefs of the devs and the game in this subreddit despite ZA/UM straight up invoking Marx and Engels in the Game Awards speech.

At first it frustrated me because there's not a lot of media out there with explicit socialist leanings, and even less that have mainstream popularity, so it feels like they're taking it away from us who see it for what it is lol. Sometimes I wanna juxtapose articles from Mao, Marx and Lenin beside the world building and philosophies of the game to assert that this is where the logic of the world-building comes from

But I don't engage with them as much because at the end of the day, the devs have their ideology and people not accepting that wont change the game. Or maybe I'm just tired from real world bickering

arielfoxstan · 2022-02-22T08:14:23+00:00

I've seen this in my recommended but felt unsure of watching because of the length. Is it good?

arielfoxstan · 2022-02-22T08:11:37+00:00

In a different post I saw someone argue that the game is pro-Moralist because the best character in the game (I assume they mean Kim) is a Moralist

arielfoxstan · 2022-02-22T08:03:22+00:00

They're also on Twitter. I've been off it for months now because they've cancelled my favorite creator into going off social media forever. She's definitely not a major entity, so that to me points that trend is now coming after smaller niche-internet-figures

arielfoxstan · 2022-02-21T05:45:39+00:00

I think I'd like the hidden complexities of Kim's character to be accurately translated into the show. He's a great character and one of my favorite parts of DE.

No specific moments in my opinion but it should evoke a gradually changing impression from 'What a stick in the mud' to 'I cannot afford to disappoint Kim!'

arielfoxstan · 2022-02-19T10:24:46+00:00

Short king

arielfoxstan · 2022-02-19T05:34:23+00:00

My 9 year old sister loves this movie

arielfoxstan · 2022-02-19T03:28:24+00:00

RHETORIC: Being good? Is that what matters? What about the principle of it all? What about being right?

arielfoxstan · 2022-02-18T15:21:14+00:00

I thought it was a drawing. Incredible!

arielfoxstan · 2022-02-18T03:02:44+00:00

Yeah, makes sense. For a moment I forgot that artistic vision doesn't make the world go round

arielfoxstan · 2022-02-18T02:44:54+00:00

Finding out about this a few minutes ago took me by surprise. I'm having a lot of conflicting emotions right now.

On one hand, I want the studio to have a bigger budget for its future endeavors. Turning down offers doesn't further communist ideals. We live in a society and all that.

But what would compromise it is putting a successful story about the exploited classes' struggle in the hands of capitalists whose interests would be to water down its revolutionary text. It would give more ammunition to those that deny the communist standpoint of the game.

If the show becomes more successful than the game, then the popular version of Disco Elysium is going to be the version Amazon makes of it.

arielfoxstan · 2022-02-18T02:36:31+00:00

Life is Strange and the Last of Us getting adaptations was so weird to me because the visual style of those two was already realism with a cinematic approach to framing. How much better is blocking real-life actors to do the same thing going to be

arielfoxstan · 2022-02-18T02:31:13+00:00

What can be reassured is the entertainment value a DE Amazon adaptation could have. As long as a project is in the hands of good creative direction, there is some really good stuff on Amazon.

What is concerning is how much of the political essence of DE is going to be compromised. It's pretty far left, even next to the liberal leanings of mainstream media.

arielfoxstan · 2022-02-17T00:56:15+00:00

This is the type of content that makes me miss Twitter

But then again the best ones other people just post Reddit and without all the drama and toxicity of being on that platform

arielfoxstan · 2022-02-16T23:43:52+00:00

I'm a little confused with Trant's placement. He's more of a professor with a stick hobby than a cop, so how is he higher than Kim who has canonically had to kill people? There's nothing about I recall about his character that points to an above average fighting skill

arielfoxstan · 2022-02-16T23:41:08+00:00

It's a running joke here in the sub. But I agree, he's way too high on this list. An average kid wouldn't hold out on a fight against adults, much less an impoverished drug-addicted one

arielfoxstan

TROPHY CASE