#can you tell i've been playing disco elysium

[floating-goblin-art]

comm for @onlyheretolookatthings!

[psychescape]

He's sure he can feel a pang of something traverse the connection between them, like a signal traversing the myelin sheath of a nerve before reaching its terminus. That terminus is him, in all his frazzled glory. All it tells him is that he shouldn't have said that. This conversation wasn't about Viv and her thing for Goro; her thing with him. He just made it about that to avoid the suffocating scrutiny he was under.

'But you're good at that, aren't you?' he can just about hear some disembodied voice tell him. Suddenly, Vince is taken back a few years — early '70s, when disembodied voices indeed weren't that rare an occurrence for him. 'Hanging on to other people's pain to beat them to death with it?'

Manipulative. Tsk-tsk.

He shakes his head — at himself, not her. Deliberating which road to follow now feels like it'll come down to a coin-toss: he can apologise and hope it'll get her to stay long enough for them to fix whatever this is, or he can let her go and maybe touch upon ... all this tomorrow. Or not! That feels equally likely. It's not like he isn't used to ignoring an issue to death.

The conclusion to this fight could wind up feeling just like home, in that sense.

It feels like an eternity, but in fact it spans no more than two seconds for him to grit his teeth, release his arms and throw them up. “Wait, don't go. I shouldn't have gone there — I'm sorry.” His hands come down, and he remains rooted to the spot. The last thing he wants to do is make her feel cornered, too; trapped in this musty old room when all she might need is fresh air.

Damn the volatility of his feelings. Anger is always the easier route, and now all he has is regret and compassion. “Do what you have to,” he relinquishes at length, slumping against the nearest wall again. “I'll be here till mornin'. I'm goin' after Songbird when I wake up. Feel free to chase other leads in the meantime.”

I'll be dead when all of us are actually dead on the ground. Not one fuckin' second before!

She wants to snap at him. This fucking thing - this want to think himself already a dead man. She would be a fucking dead woman walking when either Johnny shoved his silver arm so high up their asses they'd be their puppets or she had another bullet lodged somewhere in her skull.

Her jaw locks. She sits very still. Brown eyes watching as he continued, she cannot stop herself from scoffing, half laughing at his reaction. Like two children throwing rocks at the passing cars - telling each other to get fucked. Except here it's both of their very real fucking feelings, torn and worn as they were slowly being blipped out of existence that were the bullseye of those same rocks.

The laugh leaves, dies from the edge of her mouth but the mean smile stays behind, the lower half of her face hidden once more by the arm that rested alongside her body, squatting in that middle of fucking nowhere broken into apartment. Ah, of fuckin' course - her eyes narrow and her teeth sink into her lips until they hurt.

   "Cute, real fuckin' cute, Vince." she finally says, her lips pressed against her lower lip. She gets up, faster than she anticipated but able to maintain the balance easily. She still feels herself shaking. The words slither through her teeth and regardless of how much she tried there was no pulling her mouth closed, not now, even if she tried to bite it shut.

She was the mouth of this group for a reason "Y'know what? Fuck you too."

   "The difference is that I can clearly see why he is doing this. The skin that he has in the game. I know he will throw us under the bus at the nearest opportunity he has." did it make it easier? No, but he would not be the first guy to try to fuck her over once they had no use for her. Did it help? To know that it was only a matter of time? The knowledge that it was there? No, but there was little comfort - little help in the work that they did.

So yes, she would take whatever comfort she could get. But she would do it with her eyes wide fucking open. She just wanted him to do the fucking same. Still, didn't change the fact that he was right, in a way, more right than she'd like and that still fucking hurt.

There were other motives, but that was not the point. She wasn't sure what the point of this conversation was anymore but reason wasn't it.

   "Plus," she throws the half smoked cigarette onto the floor, pressing on it with her worn boots. A grimace on her lips, she feels her heart beat in her ear. When her eyes lift she hoped she would feel less angry and yet with each second, each passing breath, she felt only her anger stoked "there is also the fact that I know that he will never love me, but I'm guessin' you know that already too - let's just put it all in the open while we're at it!"

If she were to be stabbed, if the truths were all to come out and play, she supposed it was best that she was the one to wield them straight into her body. Nodding, she tears at a skin on her lower lip, turning away from Vince and breathing slowly. Great, so this was it then? They would just chase after fucked up cars like rabbies filled dogs until the end of their days. Used to attack and do whatever new master provided any level of hope.

This was no fucking life.

She needed a drink. And with that thought, she sees Johnny move in the background. Fucker.

   "Y'know what?" Viv nods, half breath drawn, throwing a sharp glance over Vince, turning on her heels to grab her leather bollero with her whole hand and throwing it on "I think I'll find somewhere else to sleep for the night."

[peachjumex]

can you tell I've been playing disco elysium

[biggaybunny]

I know it's already been talked about a lot, but I'm still thinking about that "wouldn't disco elysium be better if it were about a girl in the alps looking for her neighbor's lost cat" (paraphrasing) post. Because I think part of the problem is that it comes from a lack of understanding of videogames as a storytelling medium.

Not saying that anyone misunderstands that videogames have a story, but that's different. The story in a videogame is usually understood as something that contextualizes the player's environment and options for interacting with that environment. Even if the story is not about you the player as directly as something like, say, skyrim, but is instead about a character like Leon Kennedy in Resident Evil or something, the contract between player and game is that the player will assume the role of Leon Kennedy for the duration of the story.

You are not Harry Du Bois! You are not meant to assume the role of Harry. You can like him and even empathize him, I'm not saying any of that is wrong. But your role is very close to that as any other voice in his head. Honestly if anything I feel like Volition represents the player the best. You're basically picking this wet threadbare gym sock of a man and going "fuck's sake, I guess this is what I've got to work with".

The game tries to point this out to you, too. You are not Harry. It is Harry doing these things, saying these things. These are Harry's decisions. What happens if you try too hard to be reasonable and conciliatory and nothing like a Rechavolian cop in a backwater town? You get called the "sorry cop" and mocked for it. If you try too hard to play according to your personal politics? Everyone comments on your weird overzealous and out-of-the-blue "feminism", or you wind up pestering the queer characters in the game with out-of-place and clumsy mentions of their sexuality. What happens if you try not to be inflammatory and opinionated? "Say one of the communist or fascist things or fuck off".

The game doesn't stop you because that wouldn't get the message across. It's a very good game. It is, in my opinion, very possibly the best example of videogames as a storytelling medium we've ever seen. And it's willing to show you just how out of place you'll be if you try to put yourself into the crocodile-leather shoes of Harry Du Bois. In fact it can do that and still tell you the rest of the story it's trying to tell, because the writers were that damn good at their job.

And yeah, the game's going to make you uncomfortable. Harry himself is going to make you uncomfortable. He's supposed to. It's like Trant says near the end, Harry is like a magnetic tape, pressed against the world, recording everything. Even the ugly bits. Maybe especially the ugly bits. But you can't just throw out the ugly bits.

Sometimes you've got to work with something imperfect. Alongside imperfect people. And you can still accomplish amazing things with imperfect people. It doesn't mean accepting their imperfections or ignoring them. It just means knowing what's important to prioritize, and understanding that a good deed done by a not so good person is still a good deed.

But to understand that, you need to be able to look at Harry and recognize him as separate from you even as you go through the story. He's your point of view because he's the protagonist, and you have control over the narrative to an extent because a videogame is not one-to-one comparable to other forms of media like movies or books. But it's still a story you are experiencing, not partaking in. I don't think that's going to be revolutionary for most people, but I also think that most videogames blur that line enough that not everyone's going to innately recognize the difference. I hope I've done a good enough job explaining what I'm getting at.

Besides, Harry would be way better at finding a neighbor's missing cat.

[dailyadventureprompts]

So I've been reading Triangle Agency...

For those not in the know: Triangle Agency is a new weird/corporate horror TTRPG heavily inspired by things like the X files, Delta Green, and Control. You work as agents for the titular organization which sends you out to stabilize reality by dealing with various paranatural Anomalies.

Don't think of this as a review, until I sit down at a table and play this system over a few sessions I won't be able to tell you how well it actually works. What I can tell you is what the game is trying to accomplish with its storytelling and mechanics, and what it's trying to do is interesting.

Unlike a lot of TTRPGs I've read, triangle agency is not interested in giving you a system that you can use to tell whatever story you want. Instead I can compare it to a tabletop version of a choice heavy videogame like Disco Elysium or Bg3: where engaging with the story/mechanics will lead you to one of the endings the authors prepared for you. This is not to say the system is inflexible, that you can't put your own spin on it, GMs can design missions however they want, and player choice is a major focus, but as long as you're playing the game you're furthering the meta story.

As such, this might be the first game that I'd consider running out of the box with only pre-prepped adventures, which is shocking considering how much of a homebrewer I am. Instead, I'd be interested in putting a group of players in this game and just seeing what it does to them, though it'd have to be a very specific group of players than my regular ol gaming group.

The ideal Triangle Agency player is one that's got a primary focus on storytelling over mechanics, who're interested in making big narrative swings happen as a result of their choices. They also need to be comfortable with improv storytelling, as the primary means of interacting with the game requires a quick " what if" session to justify how you're moulding reality into a new shape:

Where another game might have you roll your character's strength for something as simple as kicking down a locked door, Triangle Agency has your party brainstorming a reason why the door would be weak enough for you to kick down in the first place: IE the building has a termite problem, and the hinges were subject to poor storage conditions by the contractor who installed the door. Then you roll. If you succeed, the door is knocked down, the building has a termite problem and has *always* had a termite problem, and an entire human being, Gary the negligent contractor, has been spoken into existence. You are likely to meet him on your next mission.

In many ways this is explicitly like Blades in the Dark's flashback mechanic, except made an explicit part of the game world. Your characters have the same reality distorting abilities of the Anomalies they're hunting, and they have to be careful lest they delete whole swaths of their life trying to angle for a better roll.

This is where we get into Triangle Agency's focus on character, and the secondary requirement that players be the type to get invested in their eldritch business blorbo as they are subjected to various corporate horrors™. This is a game interested in change whether it manifests as choice, trauma, or metamorphosis, and the ante for these interactions is your player/characters investment in the world. Part of this is with your character's contacts, NPCs who are as essential to an agent's build as their anomalous superpowers or their job with the Agency. To give extra weight to these relationships, each one is portrayed by another player at the table, which I thought was an ingenious way to not only take the burden off the GM, but also to give players more screen time even when their primary agent is off stage.

That leads me to the genius primary progression mechanic: The choice between whether to spend time with your Agent's contacts, focus on their Agency job, or delve into the eldritch truth of their powers, and how to split their finite time off between them. Here we get player choice, story, and mechanics all tied together in a neat little package as progression along any of these tracks unlock new abilities while also revealing more and more of the game's secrets. Possibilities for the game's story open up/are blocked off specifically with how the players choose to personally spend their XP, and if that's not a feat of game design ( or more aptly, craft) I don't know what is.

Final Thoughts: Despite having a delightful time reading the rulebook/optional mission pack (Seriously, the vibes are stellar) I don't know if I'm actually going to get to play Triangle Agency at any point in the near future. I think getting the most out of this game depends so much on finding the right playgroup for it and then pouring in enough time to unlock one of the endings. I'd want to see the mechanism of it's story/mechanics/drama play out, but doing so is one heck of a commitment.

However, if you've got a group full of storytellers that are up for the challenge and you're looking for something substantial to play next, I don't think I could recommend it enough.

I'm also going to be keeping my eyes out for longform actual plays of this one, I'd love to see what a group of performers could do with this.

[rathayibacter]

been thinkin a lot about a neat little trick Disco Elysium and Pathologic pull with dialog options, where instead of presenting you with two to four responses from distinct characters (Paragon Shepard vs Renegade Shepard, for example) and ask you which one you'd like to be, these games offer you a set of immediate reactions from a single character and ask which one you blurt out. Artemy Burakh's first reaction to things annoying him is to swear or insult the person he's talking to, and his second thought is to cool off and be reasonable. when playing him, you're not changing who he is as a person, but you get to decide which impulse he listens to. Harry DuBois is a sharp detective, but is also stuffed to bursting with flights of fancy and self-destructive impulses, and you can try to remain on task or say something stupid that he immediately regrets.

one of the clever advantages of this is that it makes the character come through much more sharply, even when you've been given a lot of control mechanically. Harry is an incredible example of this, as you get to decide the kind of person he becomes much more than the protagonists of Pathologic. however, nothing at all you can do in the game stops Harry from being himself, you can steer him in a dozen different directions but they all feel true to who he is. moreover, the choices you don't pick still work to characterize these protagonists! Burakh having so many sharp responses tells you a lot about him even if you never pick them, and Harry has to reckon with his fascist leanings even when you go full commie.

this also makes breaking with your typical pattern feel much more natural. playing through Pathologic 2, i roleplayed Artemy as collected but very, very tired, and only occasionally prone to fits of anger. but when those fits came out, they felt earned in a character sense. i'd spent the last week holding my tongue around this guy, and now finally one more indignity has been dropped into my lap and i've just about had enough! once i've calmed down, i'll see how unproductive this all is, but in the moment it doesn't feel like i'm jumping the track from Good Artemy to Mean Artemy, it feels like Tired Artemy has finally reached his limits.

i dont really have a wider point to all this than "isnt it cool what game systems can do narratively?" i keep thinking back to an old FoldingIdeas line about how video games are extremely textually dense because "the text" contains everything you can do and every way the game can respond to it. that's fuckin sick! anyway later

[nipuni]

Blog time Hello! We are back from our trip! I'd say I'm feeling refreshed but coming back to sweltering dry heat shut down that feeling very quickly. Now we are even more determined to move to the seaside within the year though 🏃‍♀️ It's incredible how much of an effect on your health the weather can have. These days we have been hiking for around 8 hours a day in the mountains and coast without breaking a sweat in 17-22ºc high humidity weather. In contrast, today back home we walked to the store five streets away in a dry 33ºc sun and we felt like throwing up and never leaving the house again lmao and it only gets much worse until september aaaa I can't wait to move out of the city and start a new colder and quieter phase of life where I don't have to dread the coming of summer every year!! But at the same time I've been feeling this trepidation about settling down somewhere permanently, I realized that every 5 years or so I get the itch to move somewhere new and it worries me a bit tbh, I hope it is just my fear of commitment acting up and the fact that we just haven't found the right place yet. And the longer we spend in this place the more we feel like it will be the right one so I'm hopeful!

We have also been watching more of David's filmography! we watched Des, Single Father, Recovery, Bad Samaritan and Deadwater Fell. We enjoyed Recovery, Single father and Deadwater Fell the most, all were really good!! then Des was decent and Bad Samaritan was terrible. But as expected David steals the show every time and you end up sitting through the most ridiculous scripts just to see him give it his all and elevate the whole thing with every scene lmao the sheer range of this man!! let me gush for a second, he goes from the most charming and pitiful train wreck you would kill to protect to the most terrifying monster of a person so effortlessly you can hardly tell it's the same actor. He is so outstandingly good at every role!! Anyway I love watching our little shows of our favourite guy with Nicolas everyday, it has been the highlight of my year 🥰

I've also been meaning to get back into games but I just can't find the right one! I tried the whole cozy farming/survival/sandbox game thing and came to the conclusion that it's not for me, I don't find them engaging enough so it ends up feeling like a time sink 😞 I also thought of going back to FFXIV but the new expansion doesn't sound like something I would really enjoy and while I love RPG I'm finding it hard to commit to 40+ hours of storyline lately, BG3, Cyberpunk 2077 and Disco Elysium have been sitting in my library for ages now and I can't bring myself to play them even tho I want to!! I'm hoping DA4 will get me back into the RPG mood. I've also played Hades II but I'm all out of content until release! Maybe shooters will do the trick, something fast paced I can play for a little bit as a distraction from work. I've been meaning to check how Warframe is doing too, I love it and haven't played in ages, and every time I check it's like a completely different game so that could be fun! but I'm rambling now, if you have any game recommendations let me know! I hope you are all doing well 😊 I'll get back to drawing now and will share some sea pictures later!

[grape-eating-vampire]

as you can likely tell from my recent reblogs, I've been playing Disco Elysium a lot. here's some parts I screenshotted for various reasons

spoilers ahead!

[2flyingfoxes]

If you could only see the beast you've made of me I held it in but now it seems you've set it running free

Howl by Florence + The Machine

Art for chapter 8 of Nike, who hesitates.

Guache on paper, touched up digitally. (I've been playing a lot of Disco Elysium lately, can you tell?)

[fazgoo-connoiseur-1987]

hey can you tell i've been playing Disco Elysium

[callmegaith]

I don't blog enough about games on here so here's some stuff I've been playing lately

Bunhouse:

4.2/5

Very fun game where you play as a rabbit and you do gardening. That's it. Simple concept.

You can change your rabbit any time with a press of a button and this game can be played in co-op. Is it the best gardening game ever? Probably not but I fuckin love it and it gets extra points for letting me play as a rabbit.

Cult of the Lamb:

4.0/5

I beat this game and it was super charming. I love the color pallets and I love the animal designs. Combat got kinda boring after a while tho and once you start racking up a lot of Devotion dungeons seem kinda pointless cuz u get venders who can just sell u the items u need. Managing your cult was more fun than the dungeon part

Car Mechanic Simulator 2021:

4.8/5

Uuuuh probably my current obsession. I fucking love this game. I got car mechanic simulator 2018 for free on EPIC and got hooked on that so decided to get this one despite it being basically the same game but better

I also love building cars in this game it's super relaxing. You take everything at your own pace and GOD, THATS GOOD. No stress, a totally relaxing game about fixing cars and that's it. I got pretty into picking up junk cars from the junkyard, renovating, and selling them for higher.

Also I love using this game for car references!! I'm defo gonna be using it to draw Mills with some cool cars 😎

Sorry, we're closed

???/5

As u can see by my playtime. I haven't played this game much but....... It's very disappointing. I don't find myself excited to open it up and play more. If anything I feel like getting through it is gonna be a chore and a half. People sold me on this game as "Killer7 meets Silent Hill"

When I picked up killer7 I couldn't put it down it got me hooked instantly. This game? Did not. The writing is extremely on the nose and cheesy and the characters feel a little.... Stereotypical. The world itself is interesting but the characters are not. The designs are good tho and the art is gorgeous which is probably the aspect that's gonna make me come back

Also to ppl saying this game is "Killer7 but gay" I'm sorry you didn't understand the complexity of relationships in Killer7. Subtle this game is not. I did not enjoy how hard it's going with its themes rather than rely on being subtle and weird. I honestly expected Disco Elysium level of poetry but oh well :/

Also gun play does not feel even as half as good as Killer7. Your third eye range in this game is so pathetic enemies need to be right on you for you to be able to see their weak spots and hit them which MAKES GUNS POINTLESS IF I NEED THE ENEMIES TO BE 2 FEET IN FRONT OF ME TO SHOOT THEM GOOD. You can stun them but the stun is so fucking pathetic by the time u aim for their weak spots they'd already be out of it and attacking you. Tell me it's a skill issue I do not care. I did not enjoy how this game plays and if u needed enemies to be this close to hit them in Killer7 you'd be fucking dead.

Don't get me wrong. This is not a bad game, not by any means. It's just not doing it for ME.

Atlas Fallen

???/5

Only reason I'm not rating it is I haven't finished it but if I wanna give it an early rating I'd say 4.0/5

Snappy fast paced combat IS MY SHIIIIT. This is the sort of combat I love in video games!! This game had me hooked on its story instantly too. It was engaging from the prologue and I'm still looking forward to uncovering more of the story.

Character customization is lacking but I made a character I like enough c:

Very fun game that's all about kicking ass hard and fast, parrying, dodging, and killing cool monsters AND ALSO SLIDING ON THE SAND. Very very fun game with fun ways to traverse the open world. Looking forward to playing more. Though if you compare it to other games in the genre, this game doesn't really give you anything new. It's not gonna be a brand new earth shattering experience. It's mid. But that doesn't mean it can't be fun. Having a good time with this one

[gamequoteshowdown]

Thank you everyone for making this happen! Now, without further ado, the match-ups for Round 1!!!

Round 1

"I've been waiting for this!" - Akihiko Sanada, Persona 3 / "You're just a corpse who doesn't know he's dead" - Valter, Fire Emblem: Sacred Stones

"Are you going to be our goddess of victory… or our angel of death? Doesn't sound too bad to bet my life on that." - Keiji Shinogi, Your Turn To Die: Death Game by Majority / "Don't fuck with a witch!" - Bayonetta, Bayonetta

"Teammates!? Friends!? To hell with that! Why am I inferior to you!? I was extremely particular about my life, my grades, my public image! So someone would want me around! I am an ace detective! A celebrity! But you… You're just some criminal trash living in an attic!? So how!? How does someone like you have things I don't!? How can such a worthless piece of trash be more special than me!?" - Goro Akechi, Persona 5 / "I was just gunna ask you to sell a gun to this child." - Starlo, Undertale Yellow

"I want you to live." - Charlotte Wiltshire, Hello Charlotte Series / "Your hair… sunset colored. I like it." - Queequeg, Limbus Company

"The hope to end pointless conflict… The hope to tell your daughter how much you care… It is our mission as apothecaries to ensure that everyone lives long enough for their hopes to become reality. Even if it costs us our own lives." - Castti Florenz, Octopath Traveler II / "Game is clear when 2 zombies hold hands!!" - "How to Play" Narrator, Loving Deads: The House of the Dead EX

"Thanks to you, I am saddled with unnecessary… feelings" - Miles Edgeworth, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney / "I am so fucking normal right now" - Harry du Bois, Disco Elysium

“SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL IS GOING TO HAPPEN” - Harry du Bois (in the form as a potential mural painting), Disco Elysium / "You pull out your cellphone and access your old Tumblr. You have ten, but you specifically access the Garfield one." - Narrator, Monster Prom

"… Nice meeting you again, you FUCKING WHALE!" - Ishmael, Limbus Company / "My guess is no one's ever loved you before" - Woody, Kingdom Hearts 3

"Take care, [player]. I was lucky to have known you. Though the parting hurts... the rest is in your hands!" - Grovyle, Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky / "Far out, man." - Netzach, Limbus Company

"I'll be back once I eliminate that devil called poverty from the world!" - Partitio Yellowil, Octopath Traveler II / "Elder gods from the whole cosmos have awoken to taste your cookies." - Narrator, Cookie Clicker

"Hello! This is the part where I kill you!" - Wheatley, Portal 2 / "Now we come to the question : Do I kill you? Do I tear you apart to my heart's delight? The choices of the beautiful are unbearable. How's a girl to choose?" - Alice Angel, Bendy and the Ink Machine

"I am Ferdinand von Aegir" - Ferdinand von Aegir, Fire Emblem: Three Houses / "Her metabolic processes are of interest only to historians." - Miles Edgeworth, Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations

"It ain't a matter of guys or chicks... I'm just scared shitless of being rejected" - Kanji Tatsumi, Persona 4 / "...also Stanley is addicted to drugs and hookers" - Narrator, The Stanley Parable

“You’ve met with a terrible fate, haven’t you?” - Happy Mask Salesman, Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask / "I have no idea what to do with my life, but that's okay! Because I'm still working hard! Even if it's on nothing at all!" - Papyrus, Undertale

"Despite everything, its still you." - Narrator/Chara/Frisk???, Undertale / "In this world, it's kill or be killed." - Flowey, Undertale

“Heart. Lungs. Liver. Nerves. Heart. Lungs. Liver. Nerves…” - Voices of the Paranoid, Slay the Princess / "In the quiet glade, across old bark. In the ancient glade, it's always dark." - Gabbro, Outer Wilds

"You take away all their sins, and people aren't people anymore!" - Rokurou Rangetsu, Tales of Berseria / "Do you even get how it feels to have nightmares about doing tango with raw chickens? Eh?" - Heathcliff, Limbus Company

"Life is worth living, even if it hurts you, even if you hurt in it." - Solid Snake, Metal Gear Solid / "I often think about the god who blessed us with this cryptic puzzle... and wonder if we'll ever get the chance to kill him." - 2B, Nier: Automata

“Oh? Is that how it is? Yeah, okay, I like you too. Neat! Still going to kill you, but now we can both enjoy a mutual romantic subtext to the murder.” - The Razor, Slay the Princess / "Now it’s Reyn Time!" - Reyn, Xenoblade Chronicles

"You lost the coin toss. We both did." - Catherine Chun, SOMA / "I like to drink blood. . . and smoke the weed!" - Dracula, Space Funeral

"Pick a god and pray!" - Frederick, Fire Emblem: Awakening / "Can you believe it? Dragons! In your own homeland! What are you going to do?" - Florentia Candidius, Elder Scrolls Online

""Did you get the Broom Closet Ending?! The Broom Closet Ending was my favourite!" ...I hope your friends find this concerning." - Narrator, The Stanley Parable / "It’s dangerous to go alone, take this!" - Old Man, Legend of Zelda

“Close your eyes for a sec, will you Chigasaki?” “You mean physically? Or to the criminal acts I’m pretty sure you’re about to commit?” “Both.” - Chikage Utsuki & Itaru Chigasaki, A3! Act! Addict! Actors! / "You are all about to perish, do as you please. I'm sorry." - Meta Knight, Kirby Super Star

"Boy" - Kratos, God of War / "Take care of yourself, kid, cause someone really cares about you." - Sans, Undertale

"Almost Christmas means it wasn't Christmas!" - Phoenix Wright, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney / "Dios mío!” (Draw a cross.) “A LIBERAL!" - Harry du Bois, Disco Elysium

"That's it. I'm not paying one cent of my taxes!" - Ema Skye, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney / ""Trust your partner"... And I do. I can't forgive you, but I trust you." - Neku Sakuraba, The World Ends With You/Subarashiki Kono Sekai

"Hey, you. You’re finally awake. You were trying to cross the border, right? Walked right into that Imperial ambush, same as us, and that thief over there." - Ralof, Skyrim / *clap ... clap ... clap ... * "Oh good, my slow clap processor made it into this thing, so at least we have that" - GLaDOS, Portal 2

"hallOO. chikkEN. OKs?" - BOb, Slime Rancher / "Pretty good plan. You could say it was the greatest—" - Charles Calvin, The Henry Stickmin Collection

"Blood comes in four types: A, B, O, and AB. However! No blood test can determine whether a murder was committed… in cold blood!" - Phoenix Wright, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney / "You ain't my partner anymore, man. You're my friend! So trus' that, yo!" - Beat (Daisukenojo "Beat" Bito), The World Ends With You/Subarashiki Kono Sekai

"I always come back." - William Afton, FNaF Pizzeria Simulator / "So -- as you can see, I'm a *pretty okay* detective -- and an absolutely GIANT COMMUNIST." - Harry du Bois, Disco Elysium

"Ears have a nice mouth feel, very chewy!" - Briar, League of Legends / "This is like taking candy from a baby, which is fine by me." - Shadow the Hedgehog, Shadow the Hedgehog (2005)

"It's a beautiful day outside. Birds are singing, flowers are blooming... On days like this, kids like you... Should be burning in hell." - Sans, Undertale / "In the dark times, should the stars also go out?" - Steban, the Student Communist, Disco Elysium

“We are a path in the woods. We have no beginning, and we have no end, but something cold and unnatural sits watching us from just beyond our edge.” - The Wild, Slay the Princess / "Strong Pokémon. Weak Pokémon. That is only the selfish perception of people. Truly skilled Trainers should try to win with the Pokémon they love best." - Karen (Elite Four), Pokemon HeartGold / SoulSilver

[seeminglydeathlessredshirt]

Ramblings on Disco Elysium

It's taken me a bit to gather my thoughts on this one.

There are some pieces of media out there that people will heap praise after praise upon, to the point where you keep putting it off because there's no way it'll live up to the reputation established by everyone else. Of those, you'll eventually get around to some of them, and realise, to your horror, that they are as good as everyone's been saying. Disco Elysium is exactly that experience.

Before I get into why I adore this game, I feel I should point out that the original devs got the boot a while back and got even more screwed over by the company that owns the title. It's hard to summarise, but simply put, don't buy the game. Also, I'm not going to be discussing specific plot details, but I will be talking about some overarching tropes and concepts that may clue you in on some of the things the story has hidden up its sleeve.

As you likely already know, the game centres around an absolute wreck of a human being. Poor health, mental and physical, and a tendency to do or say things that are generally ill-advised. Worst of all, you have no memory of how you got into this mess, the part of town you're in is reaching its boiling point, and the murder case you're here to solve is the only way you can make things right. Despite the outlandish nature of his behaviours, the detective is one of the most relatable characters I've seen in gaming. Seeing someone brought to their lowest point time and time again and trying to crawl their way out of the pit in a time where I've felt that low provided a bit of solace. That being said, it's not an easy climb, neither here nor there.

One of the most interesting things about this game is the way every single skill is giving a role to play, and not just in the way of having ample amounts of checks for each one, but also in giving them a defined personality. Electrochemistry is constantly egging you on to indulge in various substances, Encyclopedia won't tell you your own name but will tell you everything you ever wanted to know about the Coupris Kineema, Rhetoric speaks like a Tumblr user who's about to post the most rancid take you've ever seen, and so on. It all ties in wonderfully with this general otherworldly feeling that comes from the blending of the mundane and the unreal that becomes more apparent as time goes on.

It's in this space in-between the two where the game genuinely shines. The world feels genuinely outlandish, but the people and the conflicts feel real in their own little ways. Revachol lies at the intersection of the modern era's most well-known ideologies, and the consequences of that are felt in everyone you meet. You can fall in line with any one of them, but it won't have much an impact on the situation. You can help everyone you come across, build up trust with your equally fleshed-out companion, and preach about the replacement of the capitalist order with a classless utopia, but nothing can change the fact that you are a cop, the physical enforcer of the state's monopoly on violence. The characters will constantly remind you of what you are throughout the entire game, and it's important to understand that, despite getting to see the detective's own humanity, that his line of work requires doing inhuman things. Disco Elysium is about a lot of things, and the tension between combining two diametrically opposed concepts is one of them. It's a fantastic work of art, and I hope this isn't the last we see of the people who brought it to life.

Don't listen to Rhetoric.

[onesecretperson]

10 bloggers you'd like to know better challenge/prompt. tagged by @redpenship

last song: Return to Krocodile Isle, again, because I've been on and off listening to it after work since I first watched that animated music video. Just good kind of musical stuff.

favorite color: I have a very difficult time with Favorites in general, but I'll say a Dark Shade Of Purple right now, like one that'd be good for colour palettes in nighttime scenes.

last book: A Libertarian Walks Into a Bear, a nonfiction book that I'm only just finishing because of how sporadically I actually take time to read books. It's very amusing though, written like a long TV Documentary, though I imagine I'd find a lot of a nonfiction is written like that If I'll actually find more to read.

last movie: Adams Family Values, watched on a Discord Watch party, which is where I see most movies now a days. It was a fun movie, and surprisingly good.

last tv show: Mission Hill, also watched on a Discord Watch Party. First time I saw it & I was so surprised by how impressive the character animation is. It's also so well written for it's humour.

sweet/savory/spicy: Savoury. I can't handle a lot of forms of sweet anymore, like I can feel it actively damage me. Still eatch lots of sugary things but at a limited scope. Spicy is pretty good too but I don't like capsaicin much. Honestly though, whatever the flavor genre that brand cereal, oats, etc are in is the most common thing I eat.

relationship status: Single. Actually just started being interested in the idea of a romantic relationship this year. But... I only want to interact with people over shared interests. Putting energy into dating for the sake of dating is hard to justify.

last thing I searched: Aw heck, capsaicin, because I wanted to double check the spelling and if I was thinking of the right thing. I usually keep a thesaurus open due to my random dips in how confident I am in my understanding of basic words, so I don't have to use the search engine for it. Before that though was "Pathfinder Troop."

current obsession: I don't have a specific obsession above the rest right now, my brain is hopping between topics constantly. I AM however just falling off of a Disco Elysium obsession. Actually more like I'm actively forcing my thought patterns to change to stop thinking about it because I played the story twice now and I really don't want to start making fanfiction pitches and outlines for it. I also don't want to get stuck trying to perfect a run in it like I did when playing Suzerain for a month straight.

looking forward to: Trying out some sort of anxiety treatment, because I was never worried about how much I worried until I just recently started to consider that maybe my Psychiatrist is right about OCD to a limited extent. I also that a lot of my frusterating behaviors seems anxiety driven, and having more control over what I am able to do would be so nice.

BONUS TOPICS

favorite drink: Water. So much Water.

song playing on a loop in your head: Ms Langtree's Lament song from Over the Garden Wall. Mostly because I always forget certain lyrics and replaying the song to figure out what the lyric is.

current favorite character: Kim Kitsuragi. The hype about this man online was correct, he is such a perfect supporting character for a video game. Like he is so patient, but he also constantly has tells that reveal his interests and real opinions. He's so interesting.

fun activity you would like to get into: Making very simple video Games. Maybe even with other people.

last video game: Game Dev Tycoon, because I was weak last night and let myself slip into one of my annoying looping thought patterns around that game's gameplay. Luckily I actually didn't have as rough of a time getting stuck into it like I tend to.

last comic/graphic novel: I think the latest was the update of Jareddilon's Wayward Comic. But yeah I'm still trying to learn the skill of reading graphic novels. I have a lot of IDW physical prints but never read them veyr far yet despite enjoying what I did read. I was always so frustrated as a kid that I couldn't read comic either whenever I tried.

Tagging -I've just tagged people I've interacted with through Tumblr at least once before. Don't think any of these people have many interests in common: @noeggets, @bethdehart, @antirepurp, @slunberparty, @buginacup, @lonicera-edulis, @fridka, @snewdraws, @friendlyfangs, @skelleste

[bloomburnweepwilt]

How ships can be healing

I dont want to be super asscociated with fandom anymore like i was on my old account, but i do want to share some thoughts on how ships are a weridly good way to process emotion.

So- uh- I'm almost done with Disco Elysium, its a really good game, a game that makes you a better person by playing it (esp if you're mentally ill and struggle with feeling like a "good person"). And I'm starting to really get attached to Kim and Harry, like a lot. And as my OCD is fuckin with me in the ass I'm literally starting to conceptualize my thoughts as these two. I know Harry is being irrational, he's catasrophizing, he's being quite stupid frankly. But Kim is literally right there, telling him what reality is, the bad things that could actually happen and not the doom spiraling. Everything is okay, and if it isn't you'll be fine.

This is something I had already been doing but honestly just- having Kim there makes it better, and being a character that connects with me a lot even though he's horrible reassures my brain that I'm not alone.

And the fact that it's a ship, a ship that would have been canonical if the writers decided to leave it an unfinished thread (which is a valid decision but ohhhhh it hurts) is kinda crucial in my opinion. Because they're connected, pieces of a whole, that whole is you and its you're heart and mind.

And I'm pretty sure I've done this with other ones, like tamaki and haruhi from ouran, gaara and naruto, honestly all of the ships in school zone girls, yatora and yotasuke in blue period, i could probably go on if i thought about it hard enough.

Like- shipping isnt just something you do for fun, its about learning and being a part of yourself and i think thats beautiful

[miera-mountains]

I've been thinking a lot about Harry and running in Disco Elysium and I wanted to compile all of my screenshots in a long post somewhere. It's a game mechanic being justified by the story but if you are willing to take it a bit seriously (have fun with me!) it does give you some insights on the characters I believe.

I find it very funny that Kim understands really quickly how important it is for Harry to be running around and will use it to calm him down. Like that one time where he has to drag him out and take him on a walk after he tries to put his gun in his mouth or after Harry gets sad during the pleasure wheel scene.

It's also worth mentioning how Jean and Kim differ on this topic, I'm always thinking about the contrast between the two lines below. Kim is also genuinely impressed by his endurance.

The whole running thing is used as a metaphor a lot, but I will leave the analysis to smarter people. You also have all the parallels between Harry and Idiot Doom Spiral (both addicts with memory issues). IDS only remember losing his life because he got locked out of his house after a run. It's hard not to project some sort of metaphor on his story. The game tells you that they both used running as a way to control their mental health but all the running around did not save them though...

Also, on a pure physical level, isn't it interesting how good Harry is at endurance running?

While Jean and Harry himself will comment on the way you have "let yourself go" physically, I have a really hard time believing that Harry wasn't still training regularly in his 40's. Or maybe the insane amount of Jamrock shuffling that his work required was already equivalent to to a training harsh enough to make him capable of running for hours while being extremely sick.

The distance covered is not anything crazy according to that one "30km" line (I reach it around day 3 personally), but I think it gets interesting when you take into account that even in your condition you literally outrun Kim! A guy who is not currently dying, who prefers running for his training, and who seems to be the type of person who would train at least semi-regularly. That was so shocking to me the first time I played the game lmao.

Maybe I'm overinterpreting how badly he is doing physically and I shouldn't be so impressed but to me, Harry's body is shutting down. Some skills say that he's weeks/days away from dying, he shows serious signs of liver damage, he's addicted to drugs, cigarettes and alcohol. All things considered, he's running extremely well!

It seems to me that at his peak Harry must have been genuinely great, and I mean above the level expected of a gym teacher. During the balcony scene, you can say that you are running a lot because you want to train for a charity run. It seems that he says this out of nowhere/as a joke but it doesn't seem far-fetch at all to assume that Harry used to do some races or at least wanted to. You will always start the game with high running capabilities which is not the case at all for every other physical activitiy. (I see fanon Harry often associated with heavy lifting which is not wrong at all but I think people should start drawing him with a hydration vests more, he's a runner before anything else in my heart lol)

Anyways, I've been collecting all sorts of lines about running because I love them all.