#cog talk

[crystaloregarden]

behold: what happens if you make @boigameista 's frog pattern when you 1) have never sewn a plush before and 2) didn't read the instructions because you sewed it while watching a stream with your partner

my server has named him "the boppie" and he is now an emoji that shot to the most frequently used tab in mere minutes

Long live the boppie

[animesickos]

The Sickos remembered that we have a form we shared a long time ago where people can submit horror stories from their workplaces, and we finally read some of them! Then, we discuss if Joe should get a Vespa so he can fit in with all the Italian guys.

Submit your own cog tales here, perhaps we'll remember to read them one day: https://forms.gle/aBFBueBAGQr4xtcx6

[songinabottle]

I tried to switch my calendar/s to start with Monday because, "Yeah, I guess it does make more sense." But then my clever brain rebelled. It said if my calendar starts on SUNDAY, it looks like I don't have two days in a row off. But in practice? Oh ho! I've tricked them now!

For unnecessary context: I live in the USA (on Shawnee land), and I coordinate a lot of calendars for M-F/9-5 work reasons. Even if those aren't always my hours.

[vivianvixen]

My favourite thing about working with used books is when people bring in boxed sets that they’ve filled with sort of just whatever volumes they happened to have at hand.

And by “my favourite thing” I mean “the bane of my existence.”

[keferon]

Guys. Guys they’re miners. They’re tiny cogless miners. Guys

I blacked out and filled the whole three canvases with sketches of them being itty bitty goobers. Figured Imma show you some haha

[paper-lilypie]

something something gaining perspective

[peace-hunter]

tfone au where OP is created as the last of the primes but way after them, a sparkling born at what were thought to be the last days of the war against the quintessons, the beginning of a new generation of peace after eons of war. a child meant to be loved and raised knowing nothing of war nor sacrifice.

he's kept mostly out of the spotlight by his siblings, who don't wish to expose him to everyone's optics so young, and want to wait until the war is done and over to properly introduce him to their people.

except of course the primes are betrayed and murdered by sentinel, the war is lost and everyone who knows and cared for the truth is either banished or outright killed in order to suppress it.

and the high guard, the ones the primes trusted the most, the ones that were supposed to protect them, the ones who failed in their most important duty, have to make a choice. to take the last prime, their last hope, with them to the surface, a hostile environment where there's little to no supplies and where they'll be hunted down by both sentinel and the quintessons as the biggest threat to their regimen.

or hide him in plain sight. place him where sentinel won't think to look for him. one more sparkling among many. and hope it will be enough to keep him alive. pray to primus that he'll protect his last child long enough for them to come back for him when it's safer (even if most of them have already lost their faith on him when he allowed the rest of his children to be massacred like that)

they almost lose their resolve when they realize they will have to take the little one's cog away in order to make him blend in with the rest of the newborns (and oh do they burn with murderous intent when they see what sentinel has done to their people but it's not the time yet-) but in the end they decide an impaired little prime is better than a dead one.

and so in the chaos of thirteen dead primes and a sudden energon crisis, a little sparkling who very few mechs really knew about and even fewer had seen completely vanishes. and in the depths of iacon a mech in charge of a new batch of newborns scratches their helm in confusion as they realize they must have miscounted the first time.

optimus prime is quietly erased from any official records by sentinel, written off as dead when they find a sparkling's frame mangled beyond recognition after an attack on the base of those rebels that insist on being a thorn on his side. killing the sparkling hadn't been precisely in his plans, he probably could've found some use for it after all, but he's not particularly upset about it either.

and orion pax grows up with an ache on his spark that tells him he's missing something far more important than a t-cog and dreams of gentle and loving hands, cradling him against the frames of mechs he cannot recall the faces of.

[witchlingcirce]

I don’t think we talk about Isabelle Lightwood literally ripped Sebastian Morgensterns hand off.

and the fact that his wrist is still SCARRED.

Everyone say thank you Isabelle !

[ewwww-what]

Talking about cogs and gears and such.

[looking-for-wisdom]

the “ex-something” character in disco elysium is so interesting to me because what we finally learn about the true Dora from harry’s dream sequence & conversations with the 41st precinct initially undercuts the first impression you get as a player. We learn things that makes it seem like Harry should be over her leaving. Specifically, the fact that she and Harry were never actually married and that it has been six years since she left.

Everything we’re told about Dora needs to be taken with a grain of salt, since it primarily comes from Harry. He’s an unreliable narrator and, if we had her perspective on things, there would surely be more to the story. But even with that said, I feel reasonably confident that the player’s first impression — that whoever this ex is did some damage even beyond typical breakup heartbreak — isn’t completely wrong.

We know a few things for certain. Harry was a gym teacher before they met, and Dora was the reason he joined the RCM. We can also do the math to figure out that they were together for around 12 years. Married or not, that’s a serious relationship. There are implications that Dora might have been pregnant at some point.

Dora’s family was wealthier than Harry’s, but they struggled financially when they were together. They had to rely on her parents for support.

Harry is a grown ass man who is responsible for his own choices. None of this changes that. But the way he is starts to make more sense when you consider that it wasn’t just their breakup that was traumatic. Their relationship itself seems unhealthy.

Harry clearly likes working with kids. Kim actually points out how he is easily able to connect with Cuno and the other teens in Martinase. With that in mind, I imagine he probably liked being a gym teacher. But we learn that Dora encourages him to join the RCM to do more for the greater good. Again, Harry had to agree to this — she didn’t force him to quit at gunpoint. But it rubs me the wrong way that, shortly after they start dating, she implies that his work isn’t fulfilling or important (probably patently untrue in an area where kids won’t necessarily have stable home lives). And, more than that, she suggests that joining the police is the solution.

Granted, we’re told there’s a lot of crime in Jamrock. Maybe it is as simple as her thinking law enforcement helps prevent that. But given the political tones of the game, which intentionally critique cops and the moralist forces they represent? I think it’s notable.

Speaking of which. The class difference between Dora and Harry has to be thematic. So much of the game discusses the struggle between the working class and the bourgeoisie. There’s an inherent power dynamic there. It’s her parents who are consistently paying their bills and keeping them afloat. She has an out that Harry doesn’t. Money won’t be an issue for her when they split, but Harry will be left without any support. Regardless of whether she intentionally held this over his head, this game shows that even without meaning to, the capitalist system harms the poor. That strain must be felt in their relationship, and could cause a lot of damage over 12 years.

All this to say: their relationship clearly wasn’t some fling. And, if Harry is to be believed, the blame for things falling apart was largely placed on him: working to much, not bringing home enough money, not being enough. But even if Dora wasn’t actively manipulating him and he came up with all of this on his own, I think the facts still point to a dynamic where he was made to be small in the face of a woman who came from more. Their backgrounds create an imbalance where Harry was always going to feel the flaws in their relationship more acutely. He starts with little, and gives up much of what he does have to pursue something better for the both of them. But when that isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, he’s the only one left with nothing. She can leave the country and start over.

It makes sense, to me, that he might not have recovered from that in six years. Especially when that rock bottom feeling seems so permanent that he isn’t trying to get better so much as numb himself enough to exist another day.

That doesn’t mean he isn’t responsible or that he’s exempt from having to get his shit together. The game very clearly illustrates that everyone will turn away from him if he doesn’t. But it does complicate his character a bit more than “got left by extremely bangable woman, proceeds to make the lives of everyone around him worse.”

[crystaloregarden]

bro was shirtless picking the tomatoes

he WHAT [was paying too much attention to the fact there were so many raviolis in bigger raviolis]

[crystaloregarden]

every day i can't cook for my loved ones is just ever so slightly worse for it. every time i'm in the kitchen my brain is bringing up my internal list of everyone's dietary restrictions, even of those i haven't gotten to cook for yet. i always make enough food for an entire group, logically for mealprep reasons but spiritually so i never forget how to make enough for AT LEAST two people. the jolt is a machine made for feed loved ones

[yaoifuldnp]

my new favourite phan conspiracy is that dan did in fact run philslion but hes never mentioned it to phil and now its a 15 year long lie that he has to keep up that he DID run a fan account for his lion for 2 years

[cathalbravecog]

Drew these to practice drawing him but I went kinda ham on it again

[helenofblackthorns]

I wish the tsc timeline was stronger because I would love nothing more than to invest vast amounts of energy & time into figuring out the dates of Jace's & Livvy's deaths/resurrections. like it's not a want but a need to know how close together they were 😔😔

[demonogeny]

Summer 1991

They're happy and enjoying a break? Literally unheard of.

Song most listened to: High by the beach by Lana Del Rey