#and if there was just one other seolite person in disco elysium but i think kim's racial isolation is purposeful

[pronouncingitwang]

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[moon-daisie]

i think it would have been such an interesting interaction to meet someone else with seolite heritage in the game, bc kim is literally the only one, and he’s adamant about having as much distance as possible from that side of himself to the point of being openly proud of not speaking seolite. he knows about his family’s history but which implies he was raised by extended family, or maybe he did some digging when he was younger? either option is interesting bc if he was raised by extended (also of seolite heritage) family, does he still talk to them? is he so hellbent on distancing himself from anything seolite he distanced himself from them too? if he did some digging and wanted to know his family history what made him stop? what made him look in the first place?

and then interacting with another seolite person during their investigation: would he give them the same speech he gave harry? what would he do if they reacted with anger, or confusion, or sadness (“i speak seolite. am i not ‘vacholiere’ enough for even you?”)? it seems as though he’s convinced himself that he has a foolproof sort of alibi but what good is his denial when the person standing in front of him is the same as him? if harry was racist to them or stereotyped them what would kim do? he doesn’t say anything when you stereotype lizzy beaufort and he’s a blue lives matter cop through and through but yet he doesn’t like bullies. he idolizes the aerostatic pilots from the same army that brutally murdered his parents.

[binomech]

some opinions on fanfic trends for Disco Elysium on AO3 for the past 2-ish years; i address racism, ableism, jean and kim tropes, accesorization of harry and the way the game themes appear to have warped.

some of you may know i've been reading every fic published on the disco AO3 tag chronologically since 2019 for a little over a year and jotting down some trends (not a proper statistical study, just some tracking of when certain tropes are introduced and when and how they reproduce because i like observing that kind of thing.) there's been an uptick in trans(masc) Kim and Jean character studies since late 2022-early 2023, among many others, but these ones were like overwhelmingly prolific once they were introduced.

harry, kim and jean are overwhelmingly the characters with most fanworks in the tag. and having read a little over 4k works it turns out that people engage in a very distinct way with them for the most part that tracks with the growth of the trans Kim and Jean character studies as a trend.

the disco elysium fandom's english-language writers are, according to my cursory snooping, overwhelmingly trans, some flavor of gay, white and from north america and western europe. given personal anecdotes, i also suspect they are upper middle class (though not as statistically huge as the previous things) and struggle with mental health. in the past decade or so a lot of fanworks have followed a trend of exploration focused on catharsis and personal relatability.

now, kim and harry appear so much in the text with so much detail that there's plenty of personal details to pull from to write them, where as jean's total presence in the game (rarely achieved in one run but i'm taking into account all his mentions and lines) is smaller so it follows that people need to fill in some gaps and there's more characterization freedom. jean is white, younger than both harry and kim, canonically depressed, non-canonically confirmed by his character player an amphetamine addict but presented as a functional person during the game, and covers a very specific narrative hinge that i understand as relevant: he's a bridge between pre-Martinaise Harry and his Martinaise self.

he's objectively a very comfortable character to play with because he's mostly a blank slate except for his relation to Harry and his vitriolic grief towards him. so logistically i understand why people who struggle with mental health, are white, are anywhere between 17 and 35, are functional and able-bodied and may or may not have a complicated relationship with a close person who struggles with addiction or other health issues might go "YES, GOOD CATHARSIS NARRATIVE FOR ME". but the sheer amount of works that value Relatability over engaging with the characters or the themes has resulted in a very strong ripple. which leads to trans kim.

the game paints a deep and vivid image of kim, both from within harry's own perspectives and the objective things he says out loud. he's a walking contradiction, he's alienated from his body and selfhood, he beat himself into submission to stay alive. he's a walking reminder of his assasinated communist parents, the people who killed them paid his salary, his body (racialized, disabled) is both a hindrance to his assimilation and a tangible proof that he could have belonged somewhere but doesn't, that no matter what he does it will be considered first. so he watches his words, his movements, his appearance. so he partakes in hypermasculinity. he's canonically gay, mixed race, diasporic seolite, and disabled. and somehow, the only one of this that is recurringly explored in most fanworks is his homosexuality, usually in the form of being a guiding figure to harry or as a Fellow Gay Cop to jean, or eyes, or someone else.

now, we have the trans kim trope. my opinion on the trope isn't relevant to the point i'm trying to make, but i will say i think transmasc kim is something i enjoy in theory, i think it's a worthy exploration that works very well with the hauntings of embodiment and perception that exist in kim's canon self. but it's very jarring when all of these tales of gay trans kim refuse to engage with race, or with physical disability. like, after you've read 800 trans kim fics you start noticing how solid that avoidance is, how big the elephant in the room is, and i can't help but think that, coupled with the explorations of Jean, the issue is: the white ablebodied writer is unwilling to engage with race and disability.

my charitable reading of this is that the white ablebodied writer doesn't want to write about what they don't know, they don't want to overstep. my neutral reading of this is that the white ablebodied writer doesn't consider how sexuality and gender's material realities are tied to race and ablebodiedness in the real world because they are the Default Categories and it didn't occur to them that kim's experience of them might overlap. my least charitable reading of this without directly falling into the assumption of ill intent is that the white ablebodied writer is uncomfortable with the idea of the fact that their experience of gender and sexuality isn't universal and it's not as emotionally cathartic to think about how they might be racist and ableist because they put on horse blinders and they're trying to write things they like, and understanding this is unpleasant and doesn't belong in their feel-good hobbies.

people love to talk about kim's body without acknowledging the way asian masculinity and femininity exist in relation to whiteness when it's harry or jean in the room. people love to talk about kim's body without engaging with the power relations that exist in many disabled people's sexuality.

the tropes' strength lies in the relatability factor (very high) and the willingness of both author and audience to engage with the canon material for the characters they are writing (very low). and so you end up with a lot of jean character studies about his feelings towards harry (when everyone but kim in the game also knows both harries, but jean is prioritized consistently) and a lot of character studies about kim (that ignore most of the lived experiences of him because they're directly tied to his and his parents' race and alienation that are not particularly cathartic for the white author and reader)

one of the big themes of the game, if not the biggest, is failure. specifically it asks the player to think about what to do when you have failed and you know there are no blank slates, and asks you to empathize not only with harry, whose every thought you're privy to, but to everyone you talk to that has the same rich landscape beyond your brief interaction. when relatability is prioritized in fanworks, this question falls apart, the purpose becomes to find ways in which these characters are like you (the author, the reader) so you can afford them the level of humanity needed to feel emotions about them.

harry's tropification follows four large trends: self-loathing, aggressive addict, psychic omniscient prophet, overwhelmingly emotional and adoring puppy. some authors sometimes are capable of depicting both, usually as if they are unrelated and it's a harry-esque contradiction, but it's truly baffling how rare it is to find stories that engage with all of them or with multiple of them as inextricably bound together like canon material does. harry needs to be relatably lovable (heartbroken, self-loathing, fixable by love, fixable by the universe, capable of change that gets exponentially better) or relatably hateable (physically and emotionally abusive, manipulative, unreasonably needy).

most fics in the relatable lovability fall on the kim/harry ship, most fics in the relatable hateability fall on the jean/harry ship. here's where it ties into the big tropes for kim and jean: the fanworks about a game that asks a question about failure and questioning certainty become stories about inevitability.

jean's vitriol in the game comes from the same place as harry's self loathing: a visceral response to decades of failure. they're not objective truths (i'm thinking about the mirror reveal being intended as a way to make the viewer realize harry isn't a reliable narrator at all, but especially about himself: you see a regular guy, conventionally handsome but clearly in pain and growing old and sick. he calls himself horrible shit, however).

playing up jean's part as the Bridge is comfortable because it allows the player to separate Harry's failures from their agency as a player (something that greatly drives the point of the game home, emotionally speaking -- you're not that different from Harry. Harry's not that different from anyone else he meets. the irreversible failures exist for all of us, as do the chances to try again.) if jean is right in resenting harry, and moreover, he's objectively describing harry's behavior, harry's failures become logical and inevitable consequences of his Way of Being. if Harry calls kim a slur, or threatens children, or scares civilians, that's just because that's how Harry is (according to Jean and Harry's own brain), so the possibility that one of your tries might be meaningfully good becomes... less weighty. it's a fluke, and you'll fail again, so don't get your hopes up. it's almost an excuse to believe that there's nothing new under the sun and going back to old habits is inevitable, but the conclusion becomes "so nothing i do really matters" instead of "it's hard and painful to try again when you've failed so many times before. what does this say about the person who tries?". and in that way jean is an interesting character because understanding why he resents harry for being able to try more freely than him without the weight of memory is important to the theme. what has to click to start climbing out of the grave? can anyone do it? will i ever do it? why now, and why not when i tried to pull him out?

and similarly, when we write about kim, we have to confront what makes him who he is and not another generic character to write, and the fact of the matter is that being a cop, being visibly of seolite heritage, having PTSD, having a visual impairment on record that interferes with his cophood, his cophood being the only identity he appears to have had a choice over, how he treats harry because he's a cop vs. other harry parallels who aren't, how he treats harry whether harry respects him or not... they're important. and trans kim could be a way to approach these themes but it's currently existing in a vacuum of authorial catharsis, and the refusal to address the real politics that give emotional weight to disco elysium is becoming a worrying, overwhelming trend. i urge you all to think about these things a little.

[ains-disco-spam]

Thoughts on Lena

The first time I played through Disco Elysium, I talked to Lena right after Kim joined my party and immediately got the dialogue option where she says something racist.

Because of that, I was iffy on her from the beginning. But I’ve seen a lot of people say that they actually didn’t know about this dialogue or that they didn’t get it on their playthrough. Whenever I see this dialogue mentioned, there are always a lot of people saying how disappointed they are that she would say something like that because she seems like a nice old lady.

I think that this moment is actually one of the most important depictions of racism in the game. Besides this one instance, Lena is friendly toward you and Kim. If you call her out on the implication that Seolites are a different species than her and Harry, she basically says that being a different species isn't a bad thing because white people have earwax that smells and Seolites don't.

The whole interaction is such a small moment within the game, and a small part of her character. It’s so easy to miss. And that is exactly how racism works.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been talking to an older person who seems kind and then all of a sudden they say something extremely bigoted out of the blue. I actually got the idea to write this after the nice old lady who is a custodian at my job said something transphobic in front of me and it totally broke my heart.

It’s easy to condemn a cross-burning KKK member or a homophobic preacher who says that all LGBTQ+ people will burn in hell. It’s a lot harder for people to condemn bigotry when it comes from people that they otherwise see as kind.

But most bigots are not like Gary the Cryptofascist or Measurehead. Most of them are like Lena. They are the uncles who think that “if people just cooperated with the police then they wouldn’t be shot.” They are the classmates who make fun of the professor’s accent. They are docile old ladies who think that Seolites are not as human as white people are.

And that makes it harder for people to see the bigotry within themselves. People can easily tell themselves things like “I don’t want all trans people to die, so I’m not transphobic. I’m just worried for the children.” When the media only portrays bigotry in its most extreme forms, it is hard to see that being a little bit racist is still being racist.

And this is even more interesting because of her and Morrell’s friendship with Gary. He is a self-proclaimed fascist with an extensive collection of racist mugs, but Lena and Morrell still keep him around, presumably because they are willing to overlook his “differing political opinions” because they think that he is a good person in other ways. And because his fascist ideas do not affect people that look like them.

So yeah, I want to see more people talking about how fascinating Lena and Morrell are as depictions of racism in Disco Elysium.

[elysiuminfra]

OK HIII here’s what i originally wrote before tumblr decided i couldnt post this. oh hi. ngl i got scared seeing this suddenyl pop up i thought de fans were going to GET me for that one but no i can explain. btw thank u for being thoughtful and respectful i appreciate it this isn't about kim's character at all. i feel like ppl would hang me if i commented on kim's character because i have seen people suibait over de discourse. i think the writers clearly understand systematic racism and the impacts of it. however . the worldbuilding on the other hand..... so seol (the country seolites are from, aka the fantasy equivalent of asia) is described as "protectionist and isolationist", which off the bat is very iffy because if we're talking real world correlations this is like, kind of a historical stereotype about japan and china. ppl talk about it being only a japanese and korean equivalent but a lot of the in-game discussion is very much about historic misconceptions about china. further reading: look up anti-chinese propaganda from the british colonial era and youll see the similarities in how seol is talked about in-game there are very much real-world correlations between the cultures of disco elysium. Iilmaraa, for example. many of the names (bashir being a group of people in iilmaraa) (a notable person baring the name samir) have direct correlations. these examples are of arabic and sanskrit origin, and certain people of iilmaraa are noted to participate in fasting and wield scimitars, both things correlating to real-life arabic culture (fasting being, yknow a major part of muslim holidays) (and the scimitar having been a common tool in those countries and further turned into a symbol). also digging into this specific lore and portrayal of arabic culture is like umm questionable too but like it definitely deserves its own separate post for it. my take so far is that its bad anyway seol specifically. its not... a "specific" asian country or represenative of a single culture in asia. it has like, traits of many many different asian countries (china, japan, korea) but then uses names that are korean and japanese. like it doesnt have a real-world correlation beyond "asian". becuase it just mixes everything together. kim's name for example. kim is a common korean name, kitsuragi is a japanese name. BOTH of these names are described as being seolite. the writing itself does not give you any insight into the country beyond "exotic and isolationist" which i guess is the point since youre in harry's brain and harry is like, racist already (another trait fans like to ignore apparently) but this like.... just kind of shoots itself in the foot because we do not see any discussion about seol as a country beyond racist misconceptions. so like ????????? hey de writers whats going on in there. why are you portraying an already generalized country in a way that doesnt even give any insight into anything beyond "it sucks and people are right to dislike it." but like u do not need me to tell you that korea, china and japan are all very, very diffierent countries with very different cultures (INCLUDING a history of colonization, exploitation, and imperialism of the korean peninsula). which leads into the point like. grouping all of these cultures together and generalizing them is.... ignorant at best, downright racist at worst. like i think its extremely irresponsible worldbuilding to take aspects of very very different cultures and throw them together because theyre all in asia. like i think the game is very good at handling how racism impacts people. but it still falls into the fantasy worldbuilding problem of treating asian cultures as a monolith, which is in fact a very common problem.  no one is immune to racist fantasy worldbuilding like dont get me wrong. i like disco elysium ( a normal amount.). it does something new. the way it treats addiction and mental illness in particular speaks to me, a mentally ill addict. but people really need to think before they praise the game fully because despite its strengths it is still deeply flawed and falls into the regular pitfalls of racist fantasy worldbuilding. long story short: the anti-racism game is still racist guys and i think we should talk about it more without killing eachother over it. because the behavior of a lot of disco elysium fans has caused me to believe that some of them are just not normal about it (literally they are maiming eachother in the poorest little meowmeow polls right now its crazy) (also the way i see almost everyone treat kim as a character) i kind of dont think you can claim to be anti-racist if u dont even stop to analyze the racist writing of ur favorite games. and given the fanbase of de i KNOW ppl call themselves leftists in there but like this is just my take on it and its not even an original take. i also fell into the hole of blindly praising disco elysium without analyzing its racist writing before i actually started listening to criticism about it and actually doing my own research. anyway shalom hava good one

can you expand on that (about disco elysium)? I’m not done with the game yet (a little less than halfway thru but I don’t mind spoilers) but I was under the impression that the world building was meant to reflect reality and the reason you have the options to be racist and fascist is bc that’s a part of the world and a part of Harry and you also have the option to be communist and everything. I’m not saying you’re wrong, I just would like to hear you out! no pressure to respond if you don’t feel like getting into it though. I understand it’s not fun dealing with fans who will go all out defending what they enjoy regardless of morals.

hold on im just testing this rq bc its likterally not letting me post this ask

[thevagueambition]

I saw someone mention how “faggot” is the only word censored in Disco Elysium and how this points to Harry’s own personal relationship with that word.

Throughout it’s pretty evident that the game pays particular attention to homophobia and if one pays attention to how these elements play out, it’s also pretty clear that Harry himself has a lot of internal struggle bound up in attraction to men. The most reasonable reading of his interaction with The Smoker On The Balcony is that he’s attracted to him but is not entirely willing, or perhaps able, to admit that to himself. The conclusion to The Homo-Sexual Underground thought offers no real answers, because Harry is not ready to answer those questions about himself yet. There’s a real sense that he’s aware of his own attraction to men, but doesn’t allow himself to really be conscious of that awareness.

This is why faggot is censored, too, when nothing else is in the narrative; Harry himself is censoring it out -- something made even clearer by the fully voiced version of the game. Harry doesn’t allow himself to fully hear or comprehend the word, the same way he doesn’t allow himself to comprehend his attraction to The Smoker On The Balcony or, arguably, to Kim.

And Kim seems vaguely aware of all this, as well. Kim comes across as someone who keeps his cards close to his chest, who is very measured in how he presents himself and when and how he allows others to know certain things about him. He’s always managing how he’s perceived, as a gay, part-Seolite man in the world he lives in, doing the type of work he does.

With that self-management comes both, I think, an awareness of the ways Harry is failing to do the same, an awareness that there are things Harry will not allow himself to see but is equally unable to hide, as well as a reticence to share of himself with Harry in the ways that would be necessary to help him in this particular way. I think the gently mocking tone he takes with Harry about the Homo-Sexual Underground stuff is to protect himself and Harry both, while still letting Harry know that a spiral of obsessing about it is not a helpful way to go about figuring out his sexuality. I think he knows that Harry is not ready for a more direct conversation about it and that either indulging or pushing him at this point won’t be helpful. Kim sees him, though, and he does relay that.

Of particular interest is the “Pissf****t” jacket. The game censors that both in descriptions and in the visual, because again, Harry does not allow himself to see it. He can wear the jacket, but he can’t really allow himself to fully perceive it.

Kim, by contrast, says that if he had to wear either the “Fuck The World” jacket or the “ Pissf****t” jacket, he would choose the latter because it packs more of a punch, showing us a lack of the type of aversion to the word that Harry has. He still refuses to wear the jacket, of course, but it comes off more like his professionalism and no-nonsense attitude than the type of inner conflict Harry, who will wear it but not let himself see it, has.

The file for “Pissf****t” jacket actually lists it as jacket_pissflaubert, telling us that just like the racial slurs used in this game are inventions for the purposes of this world, as is the homophobic slur. In-universe, it’s not actually “faggot” it’s “flaubert“, which tells us with even more certainty that the reason it’s the only censored word is not simply out of an avoidance of portraying that slur from the devs pov (the game is not afraid of being crass), but serves a character purpose as well.