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#just thinking thoughts...
birdmenmanga · 2 months
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I think there's no greater indication that disco elysium is sympathetic towards communism when it literally says "communism is failure" and then the literal gameplay itself rewards trying and failing. The most obvious one being the Shivers check at the FELD mural, which is an Impossible 20 check BUT opens itself up again and again the longer you spend in the world doing things, but even just looking at sheer probabilities, for any given white check, rolling first and THEN putting a point into that skill upon failure is more likely to grant you success than putting a point first and then rolling, but that would require failing first.
Other things too: Precarious world saying you'll 100% fail red checks no matter what (not necessarily a bad thing, btw!! throwing the boule into the sea is a success but like. in some other ways one would want a perfect petanque throw instead. but people wouldn't typically assume that failure is desirable sometimes from the start) persuading you to accept that you'll fail some things that is irrevocable, for a world where everything is just a tiny bit easier.
The faux game over screen when you faint after reading Dora's letter— emulating a sense of failure on the scale of the entire game. When it rolls up most people go "What?? Game over?? No way, what did I do wrong!!" and waking up after that, with no huge or lasting impact on Harry's health or morale really tells the player, "Sometimes things will seem so bad that it all seems like it's coming to an end, but it's not the end, it's really not the end, go drink so water, you can still go on despite this failure"
I'm sure there are other things as well that are eluding me but like. The literal gameplay rewards failing and succeeding far more so than simply succeeding every single time, and I think you get a fuller experience of Elysium that way too
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birdmenmanga · 14 days
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obsessed with this sequence in the tribunal cutscene tbh. what's with the heel turn as he fires his shot at the krenel guy. serving cunt??? at a time like this? ? ?
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birdmenmanga · 6 months
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it's so fucking heartbreaking that Glen wanted Ruby to become one of the Hardie Boys so bad because like. both of them are queer you know? and it's like he has his masculinity that he can fall back on to fit in with the other guys, but Ruby doesn't, not exactly... she's described as boyish by other characters but you just know at the end of the day Ruby isn't feminine or fuckable enough to be worshipped but also isn't One Of The Bros on account of being a woman. she cannot be accepted by the Hardie boys as an idol like Klassje, nor can she be a part of the boys. but Glen looks at her and sees someone like himself and he wants her to have a community so fucking bad... he's so crushed when it looks like all the evidence is pointing towards Ruby being the killer. he's not upset that Ruby killed someone. he's upset that... oh... we won't be able to drink beer and break bread together. that you'll be so scared and alone again. even though you're just like me. even though I wanted so much for you to be happy.
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birdmenmanga · 2 months
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do you ever think about the parallels between Dora and Harry, and Cuno and Cunoesse. The way both pairs of people are in this horrid codependent relationship that they keep spiralling back towards no matter what happens. Until things have gone on long enough that it's so abundantly obvious that there is no way out of this reality but into a single grave together. And then Dora and Cuno are presented with an opportunity to leave this hell. To move on and live in a brighter world. To leave your other half behind, yes, to leave them in hell, yes, but you alone, because of the background you come from (Dora coming from a middle-class family, Cuno not having that inherent distrust for the police that Cunoesse does), you alone can rise out of this and leave it all behind. You can become a better version of yourself. Not a poverty-stricken addict but someone who can contribute something real for society, something inconceivably more meaningful than sitting in a lightless shack with a drunkard about to kill himself. when cuno turns back to look at cunoesse, condemning her to that hell even as he walks into the next world, did you think about orpheus. or is it just me lol
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birdmenmanga · 11 months
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well okay but Miorine Rembran has got to be one of the most well-written tsunderes I've ever laid my eyes on. It works not only because of Miorine's background context of being a dueling trophy and a slave to her father's desires but ALSO because of how it bounces off and interacts with Suletta's complicated baggage of social anxiety and being manipulated by her mother.
based on her past it makes sense that she has trouble connecting with other people, because she's only ever been objectified and her own desires and wishes were never respected. of course someone who grew up like this is going to be prickly towards others, is going to be reluctant to trust them and constantly suspect ulterior motives. it makes sense then, that even when she falls in love with suletta she never explicitly makes it clear. not only is she not used to expressing affection at all, in some ways being true and honest about her feelings just makes her easier to manipulate.
Exhibit 1: Prospera knows that Miorine genuinely cares about Suletta, and that's how she's twisting her arm behind her back to get her to become the president of the Benerit group.
Miorine isn't stupid. She knows that her love for Suletta is a glaring weakness of hers. To advertise it, when her place in the power struggle is so precarious, is idiotic. It's much safer to pretend that she doesn't love Suletta, that it's all just a marriage of convenience, because they won't be exploited so easily that way.
(Check it out!! A solid, in-universe justification for tsundere behavior!! Instead of just some woman randomly being a bitch to the flawless main character because the scriptwriters needed to check off the "tsundere" box on the list of harem tropes!! [good video on the flanderization of the tsundere trope])
Then, of course, there's Suletta's whole deal with Prospera's manipulation. Suletta's social anxiety is probably her most easily exploited weakness— while she's a superb pilot, she feels like a fish out of water when it comes to social interactions, and her experience with El4n, when he suddenly makes an about-face and starts calling her annoying after being extremely courteous towards her, sows the seeds of doubt in her mind.
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Uh-oh! Miorine, are you sure about that last line? Not that you were thinking of "betraying" Suletta at this point in time...
When Suletta starts feeling useless towards the end of season 1, she even explicitly articulates the thought that "everyone was nice to me, but it's really just all in my head" to her mother.
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If you recall, Miorine confronts Suletta right after her phone call with Prospera, saying that she'd heard everything. So she knows that this is Suletta's weakness, and believes that this is the key to freeing Suletta from Prospera's grasp. If Suletta views all the good things she has in life as a by-product of obediently following in her mother's teachings, the link of causation must be broken. Even if she follows in her mother's orders, she should not be allowed to find happiness. And when she realizes these two things aren't connected, only then can she truly start to live.
It's no easy feat, but Miorine knows that she has all the cards in her favor. The earth house's initial distrust of her when Suletta had full faith in her bride, for instance, will be confirmed (the interaction she had with Ojelo, when Miorine was gone for 2 weeks to figure out what she wanted to do with Gund-ARM, and he went "who knows, maybe she just left us behind!" and suletta goes "she wouldn't do that" and he goes "oh yeah? you haven't known her long enough to know that." stands out to me in particular). What Suletta had perceived as apathy from Miorine (entrusting her greenhouse to a third party, and overall trying not to rely on Suletta) can be pushed further.
it's just such a lovely subversion of the typical tsundere trope where the takeaway viewers often get is "yes means yes, but no also means yes"— I said it right from the start, Suletta, you were just a shield to me, so why did you distort the sparks of kindness and affection from the sea of my apathetic behavior into something more when I never explicitly said anything about that? why did you think that "no" would magically turn into a "yes"? didn't you learn anything from el4n? from everyone?
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birdmenmanga · 2 months
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must be crazy being either of the kishimoto twins. imagine making a series so lucrative the company will never let him be free of it. now imagine he has a twin brother drawing in practically the same art style and genre except his stuff just isn't popular at all. I'm sure both of them are trapped in their personal hells
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birdmenmanga · 2 months
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I dreamt that there was this popular disco elysium headcanon that Kim Kitsuragi had twice's Feel Special as his ringtone (my subconscious is a fake ass de fan who doesn't know they don't have cell phones) and I woke up furiously thinking “he would NOT. years of acquaintances expecting him to be into the J- and K-pop scene simply because he is Seolite has driven him far away from the genre, to the point he probably even holds a mild disdain for it"
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birdmenmanga · 10 months
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I think dungeon meshi is really funny for tapping into that near-universal pet owner experience of going "sweetie. honey. what is that. what is that in your mouth. why are you chewing. what are you chewing. spit it out. SPIT IT OUT. NOW." but the human in the equation is the one chewing the Forbidden Treats
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birdmenmanga · 6 months
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ooough I'm just a little creature I can't draw backgroudns
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birdmenmanga · 10 days
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This is possibly the most important poll I've ever made thus far. No need to think too hard about it-- it's a face value question relevant to a post I will make later. I value your vote and input
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birdmenmanga · 3 months
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going home tips and tricks. going home speedrun any%. going home any% optimal routing. going home 0 weight grocery% tutorial. going home honkshoo ending WR. how long to finish going home
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birdmenmanga · 10 months
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ok wait before the next episode drops I want to present my theory that elan-4 and norea du noc were siblings just because I haven't seen anyone else say anything (maybe because it's too obvious?)
Mostly it's from the conversation between Elan-5 and Norea during episode 14.
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Norea, specifically, knows quite a lot about Elan-5's situation. She clearly knows that this Elan isn't the real Elan Ceres... but that's not really information that's publicly available. Of course, disposable lives are sourced from Earth, so it stands to reason that she could possibly know someone who was a part of this farce. The next lines from Elan-5 really cement this thought.
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Aside from the differences in clothing and accessory, the biggest difference between Elan-4 and Elan-5 are their eyes. Elan-5 resting expression has his eyes wide open, which you can see in stand-alone illustrations of him. On the other hand, Elan-4's eyes are constantly half-lidded... quite like Norea's resting face.
Anyways, Norea just went for a dig at Elan-5 and he's like, you know, a little bit spiteful so he really wants to hit her where it hurts. Elan-5's not going to randomly bring up the death of Elan-4 if he had nothing to do with Norea, because it really just cements the point Norea's making: you're a doll for Peil tech and you're going to die at the end of it.
But I think siblings is probably the correct answer, since their interactions seem to indicate that Norea and Elan-5 had never actually met each other until Asticassia. In this scene in Episode 13, Elan-5 is curiously present, and through this he could have deduced Elan-4 and Norea's relationship through their (maybe) shared last name.
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(Elan-5's the one holding the pad.)
Anyways back to this scene in Ep. 14.
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This description does match up with Elan-4's death pretty closely. Oh, I'm wasting my life away? Check out what happened to your loser brother! Lol!! And he does manage to rile her up. ("You're an irritating fellow.")
But even putting that aside there're a ton of similarities between Norea and Elan-4 regardless of whether they're actually siblings or not. For instance, there's a real strong parallel between how these two characters are introduced. Below are the beginnings of the first scenes where they have spoken lines.
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Even their character arcs follow a similar pattern.
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Anyways that's all I have off the top of my head thank you for coming to my TED talk can't wait for this to be jossed on sunday
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birdmenmanga · 2 months
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birdmenmanga · 9 days
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someone followed me on Instagram saying they loved my tumblr post on wolf children and rejecting part of yourself and in like. what post. I don't ever recall posting about wolf children
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birdmenmanga · 4 months
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It's panels like these that really get me wondering as to whether Sagisawa's first language is English... it would make sense since this is a crucial moment with no time to spare so if he defaults back to his first language it tracks. it's hard to notice that he's ACTUALLY speaking English when reading the English translation because... it's all English for us... even Fiona and Fox's horizontal text as compared to the bird club's vertical text is lost in translation...
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birdmenmanga · 4 months
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me when the alienation from peers hits
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