#pre-canon disco elysium

[harps-chord]

martinaise blues

[palin-tropos]

it’s understandable to see folks saying pre-amnesia harry is a fixed character and your choices in the game can’t change who he was. but it’s also fascinatingly incorrect

when you talk to idiot doom spiral about your tequila sunset escapade, idiot doom spiral tells the story of that night slightly differently depending on what political leanings you’ve chosen, and what “copotype” you’ve adopted

I know it’s a small thing but I noticed it in game and immediately thought “oh it’s cool that the game changes who harry used to be based on how you play him now”

but other people seem really confident that there is only one pre-amnesia harry du bois so 🤔 idk what to make of that. it seems like there is a case for disagreement here

[1tbls]

extremely funny thinking about jeanharry unspoken repressed mutual sexual infatuation pre-martinaise, and then harry comes back with all the gay repression hang-ups wiped clean but all the pavlovian reactions to jean still ingrained. so he returns to the office like:

*huffing jean's neck first thing in the morning* "fuckkkkkk you smell amazing jean"

*thousand yard stare at jean's biceps during a meeting* "huh? sorry i got distracted jean your arms just look so fucking sexy with your sleeves rolled up like that."

*unrelenting urge to touch his hair and face and waist and hands and legs and*

[dotssu3]

costume contest

[clownery-and-fuckery]

The fact that Harry is canonically FEARED by people in Jamrock really surprises me. Like, I know he's the "human can-opener" and that has boosted his reputation and name among the people, but learning what he was like pre-amnesia is a whirlwind of an experience. Why don't more people talk about it?

This is coming from the wiki page so some things might be a lil inaccurate (I honestly don't know how well I can trust that source just yet) but it says he was on drugs/drunk for the majority of his service (even pre Dora), I imagine this got worse especially during those six years after Dora left him. By that time, he had already partnered with Jean, and had probably rejected his promotion number one.

After Dora left, the substance abuse got worse, but his work got better. It was hard to discourage their best detective, I guess. Even though he was actively funding the thing he was trying to shut down. It's a conflict of interest, he shouldnt have kept his job.

Also, during "THE UNSOLVABLE CASE" its said he left a man unable to walk, held a woman hostage, and shot wildly at a man.

That's just one case. You don't get a reputation like Harry's from one case. You don't make someone run at the mention of your name in the area. Ruby didn't run because of that one case.

Harry was a scary man. An ex gym teacher, off his rocker on an amount of drugs he couldn't count on two hands. He was talking to the tie before he lost his memory. The skills probably weren't a new thing. I like Harry, too, but his routinely "the women are the bourgeoisie" bit isn't just a post-amnesia thing, that's a cemented belief that's hung around his head long enough to become a foundation of every belief, even if you're an ultra-liberal. I don't think he was that popular with anyone he met.

The public were honestly right to be afraid of him.

But the RCM promoted him again. Or they tried. Because, what, Jean somehow managed to cover up everything Harry had done? What else has he done? How bad did things get, if beating a man with a ledger isn't anything more than a footnote in a case file?

Speaking of Jean, he confuses me a little. I mean, he respects Harry enough to cover up everything he did/does, but when it comes to talking about/to him, he puts him down, chews him out, makes it sound like he thinks Harry's actions are unacceptable (which I'm inclined to agree, at least pre-amnesia) but he also actively tries to make this narrative of Harry being crazy and wild and dangerous a thing, to everyone. Even Kim. Especially Kim, at the end. Look at this dialogue:

Those are the words of someone hurt over and over, watching a cycle repeat in another. But Jean still, when he doesn't really need to, decides to cover up Harry's missing gun and badge, and hears him and Kim out at the end of the game. He tears Harry down out of habit, but he also helps him out of that same habit.

He uses the word bewitched. That interested me, because it's infinitely more affectionate than manipulated, or tricked or just lied to. Jean uses it in a sympathetic manner, because he, like the RCM, like Dora, had been drawn in by Harry, and forced to stay until they left, like Dora, or became too bitter to go, like Jean.

It set up an interesting narrative for an aftermath. Would Kim, too, be driven away? Or would he get so sucked into the endless torment of being Harry's favourite, that like Jean, even if he wanted to, Kim wouldn't know anything else? Or had Harry actually changed? Does he get better, or does he get worse?

I would love to see more exploration on Harry after the events of Disco Elysium. I want to know how his reputation shapes how he acts after, I want to know how people interact with him. Its so interesting to me. It's all a bit of a jumbled ramble but yeah!!! :D

[decepti-thots]

here is an ask that is a free excuse to talk about any disco elysium prowldome thoughts you have because i am FASCINATED by it in the abstract but having a hard time nailing it down

so your original tags on the post this relates to specified that CD is Kim (and therefore, Prowl is Harry) and that is what actually made me really interested. because not making the self-destructive amnesiac character CD (who in canon is... that in a different way) was SO interesting to me. i will cut this both for potential DE spoilers and also so people can choose whether or not to read my overlong ramblings. lmao.

so the thing about DE as a text is that it's doing a really specific thing gameplay wise, derived from the biggest inspiration it has mechanically, which is the game Planescape Torment. specifically it is doing this thing where the idea of the amnesiac protagonist as a 'clean slate' is troubled by constant catastrophic interaction with NPCs that knew your player character before they lost their memory, so while you as the player are roleplaying as them as vessels to project yourself onto because of their diagetic memory loss, you are constantly having that fantasy of 'starting over fresh' and total control over them as an agent undermined by the reality that other people remember them, and their influence on this fictional world pre-dates your own.

i think that's SUCH a fascinating lens through which to look at what Prowl does as a character; his constant attempts at- and more to the point failure at- reinvention, because the thing that constantly gets in his way is always... himself. his own past actions catching up to him and his inability to handle that. right? so he's an incredibly interesting kind of archetype to put into this story just because the thing that always undermines him is his inability to get away from his impact on other people. he can change how he feels or who he is, but he can't change what he's done. this is a really great character to put into a narrative role like Harry in DE.

the thing is that Chromedome is not Kim, because the entire point of Kim is to give you someone to make that new first impression on. right? Kim is the character from out of town who knows of you by reputation but has no pre-existing relationship to you as an actual person. who you decide to play Harry as in the moment becomes who Kim knows you to be.

if Chromedome is anyone, surely he's. you know. Harry's ex he keeps alienating by calling her and freaking her out begging her to come back because he thinks they're inevitable and he refuses to tolerate life without her. he's Dora, at least very loosely. (well. he could be Jean, i guess. but like. I do not give a fuck about Jean. sorry.)

so i was thinking this over and like... a DE version of these two where the twist is that you think Chromedome is Kim and this is how these two meet on a case and become (professional) partners, and in reality he's been lying since realising that Prowl has no memory and he is, in fact, the ex that Prowl's limbic system keeps dropping hints he's really fucked up over (and who he has lingering repressed guilt over the knowledge he did in some way fuck over)... i think that's how i see this working tbh. it's fascinating to imagine how Chromedome would like. respond to that. and what his motivations are- both what they start off as and where they end up depending on how things go, and what an amnesiac Prowl decides to do and how he chooses to conduct himself.

there are a lot of things that i think are completely inextricable from DE even in the context of vague wonderings about silly hypothetical fandom AUs. first off, DE is about politics, and the kind of person Harry becomes in the face of his amnesia is tied extremely closely to that. fandom tends to gloss over the fact that a ton of Prowl's negative development in exRiD specifically is also linked to that comic making some points about politics, i feel; it's not that they're subtle or anything lmao, fandom just tends to focus on characters in a very individualist sense that doesn't always line up with what that comic is using them for. Prowl is someone who refuses to relinquish wartime power (and the abuses thereof) in the aftermath of a (from his perspective, still ongoing) conflict. and he is the guy, in DE, who would have been intellectually sympathetic towards the revolution, but he'd also have been working to put it down. (also, this is clearly different from Harry, who grew up in the aftermath of its failure, the generation dealing with an after that was traumatic.) and so much of Prowl's moves towards that tight grip on authoritarian power in exRiD comes from a contextually developed fear- both for himself (if he relinquishes his sunk cost fallacy there are a lot of things he did that were not justified) and for the society he imagines is under constant risk of falling into chaos if he does not. but what does he believe when he doesn't remember all the things that brought him to that point? i mean, the prowl we saw in Shadowplay thinks very differently than the one we see in the present. and specifically Roberts writes Prowl as someone whose initial drive was to try and escape the war and its conflicts altogether. so your angle there is very in line with what DE does with Harry and his amnesia, I think.

Chromedome meanwhile... i think the idea of a post-war Chromedome who has survived his own attempts at self-destruction and come to loathe Prowl playing this role of silent, judgemental observer of Prowl with this ostensible opportunity to change, who lies about not knowing Prowl as a kind of mirror to the way Chromedome has erased other relationships in his life to avoid confronting the pain of them... is really interesting, honestly. (there are versions of this where he is married to Rewind and there are versions of this where Rewind is at least temporarily still dead, and i like both tbh.) does Chromedome want Prowl to be able to genuinely change through this? perhaps the cracks in his story start showing when unlike Kim, he responds with increasing frustration at Prowl actually doing so, a thing it doesn't make sense for him to be bitter about if he's really a stranger. meanwhile Prowl is clearly and immediately latching onto Chromedome as someone he has decided he admires, and declares trust in. (harry idealizes kim a lot; the vision he has of dora, too, calls him out on literally deifying her; and we see in idw canon that for all his irritation with Chromedome now he casually asserts ludicrous stuff like 'you're literally too fantastic at your job for it to kill you' and so on.) had Chromedome comfortably convinced himself that was all bullshit and Prowl has no actual remaining feelings towards him, that it was all just to get Chromedome to do useful shit for him when he snapped his fingers? does seeing evidence to the contrary- that Prowl's feelings continue to be, annoyingly, real and genuine- destabilize him?

god there's a TON more i want to think about here. obviously there are a lot of things DE explores that bringing into this complicates as well. DE talks about suicidality and addiction extensively, obviously, for starters. (which are probably themes most people would automatically project onto Chromedome, which makes this specific configuration really interesting, i think.) the inevitable futility of trying to be an individual who is 'one of the good ones' in a system where that doesn't matter and will never allow you to be. you could probably tie that in with functionism if you wanted, and Prowl's seeming baseline agreement with at least some parts of that system on some level despite it clearly not benefiting him overmuch. right? there's a lot of potential room to engage directly with not just the basic plot setup of DE but its actual themes i think, which sort of surprised me to realise. (and is why it kept bopping around in my head, because that's really the only way i would be interested in a fusion AU kind of thing modelling itself on Elysium; i'm not here for the trope-y setup, i'm here for what DE actually does thematically and the crunchier topics it commits to exploring.)

anyway. please consider. you know that skill check you can get in the last dream with Dora? the one you can 'succeed' and it's really, really bad to do so, actually? yeah. please consider that skill check in this context. ahahaha. I SURE AM

[bittersweetresilience]

sunny's year half year in review

because i am all about that self celebration 👏

achievements

🏅 joined a fandom 🏅 got married (🌖) 🏅 made friends (🏮��🌋🍜🍀🕊️🦌🧬💤🦎🦭☄️✍️🪨🪶🦚💝🎞️🪄🍞) 🏅 learned new things (📸🪡📑) 🏅 sunnyscrambles

creations

an ongoing amélie dissertation in sentitwin soulmate au. next chapter will be posted on new year's day and will feature art from @moonieratty!

félix and amélie webweaves. my favorites that i've made! all literature is from my graham de vanily reading lists.

ladynoir amv. so many episodes in this. my storage space...

multifandom webweave. the first one i made and still very important to me!

i entered a feverish haze after @nemaliwrites's remixes introduced me to a softer world and the result was Feelings.

my favorite fic i wrote this year. mind the trigger warnings.

recommendations

running in the shadow

i cannot describe how much this fic means to me. i left hundreds of messages during my liveread and i wept all through my comment and my reblog and still it's not nearly enough. it's one of my favorite gifts, one of my favorite fics, and one of my favorite works of art i've ever seen. thank you to @wackus-bonkus-maximus for being a role model, an inspiration, and my first fandom friend.

i love you (for senti-mental reasons)

as the head of the as time goes by pr team, i would be remiss not to recommend something from this series! félix in this universe makes me turn into dynamite. second recommendation is betcha on land (they understand). i'm a big fan of @redundant-lava, you see.

i know there's been pain this year (but it's time to let it go)

what's there not to like about @ninadove's sentitwins? her christmas fic blew me away. i love her creative costume designs, her references to classics and video games, and her accompanying fic art. honorable mentions to la nuit, tous les chats sont gris and everything i did (i did for you).

bon voyage

one of the original highlights of my summer. the dream sequence in chapter four blew my mind. the way this fic was planned to end drives me nuts in the best way.

bell the cat

the single most amazing fantasy au i've read. i'm regularly awed by how incredible it is, and awed by @heartfulselkie's writing, art, and person in general. if i learned how to bind books, this would be at the top of my list. i keep saying it because it's true.

thirteen

our monthly dosage of pain, exquisite backstory exploration, and gorgeous @anna-scribbles prose. i'm always a sucker for pre-canon and this is The fic for adrien pre-canon fans. christmas félix will make me explode.

a rose by any other name

i love everything @asukiess makes but shoutout to loveybug au for being such a fun and creative time for the lovesquare fandom. this fic also comes with the loveyvelours art of all time. the other day i started thinking about kuro neko unprompted. autumn is in my brain...

phoenix félix

this isn't a fic, but i'll never miss a chance to scream about art by @luckychatons. phoenix félix is immortalized in my discord profile picture. i'm blessed to receive secret félix doodles and catsona designs on the down low!

moonie

just scroll through their entire art account. everything they make is an eye feast, and they haven't even posted the half of it. my partner and creative inspiration. the moon to my sun. buy them a coffee for always supporting dead girls club.

[mercyisms]

necro elysium: director's cut

in which i tell you bonus things about necro elysium (yuck!!).

genesis:

i'm not exactly sure how i came up with the idea, other than it was probably 2022 and i had been playing a lot of disco elysium. i was also thinking a lot about mercymorn, as is my terminal condition. i'm sure i talked a lot to ave about it. i also know i had a conversation with ama, where i soft-pitched a disco adaptation where certain skills would be in cristabel's 'voice.' it seemed like an interesting way to dissect lyctorhood. posts had been circulating about the parallels between harry du bois and harry nonagesimus, but, i'll be honest with you, i think i have very little capacity to write either harrow or gideon. but writing mercy seemed a) something i could pull off, b) a way to gesture at the harrow/mercy parallels without requiring me to leave my zone of interest, and c) there is something about mercy that seemed much more in line with harrier. i think they are both porous, both lacking a certain kind of filter, i felt like if mercy was given a disco skillset, it would really wrestle within her. augustine, i think, would be a bit more a kim. something that at least made pretenses of cohering. (more on augustine later, ofc.) possibly this was also, bc, for the purposes of this fic, i am a subscriber to cristabel having quite a big personality. also, following the release of nona, which gave us some cristabel (!!!) but also kind of dashed my cristabel oct is an e-girl (at least pre-res), I was keen to try and bring my cristabel characterization in closer synthesis with what was now in the text. also, once i realized the obvious semi-pun of "necro elysium," i knew i'd have to write it, if only for the wordplay alone.

anyway, i wrote 1,000 words, dashed off a bit of fanart, and then rolled away.

the skillset & mechanics:

as my fanart attests, the first mercymorn disco skills i pitched were not where we ended up! exclamation and discontent merged into indignation; scrutineer felt distinctly covered by the perception skills; i really wanted to keep acupuncture, because it was by far the funniest, but as i wrote the fic, anatomy was getting significantly more play and i waffled on merging them.

i wanted the skills to still retain a lot of the disco roots, but we weren't trying to have perfect fidelity. we were also integrating the presence of cristabel (more on that later). still, i wanted to be true not only to mercy's 'build,' but also the fact that she is a baby lyctor at the moment of the fic. because she's a just-ascended scientist, her skills are very blue (disco's "intelligence" set) coded. i initially also wanted to give her a skill called "scientific method," but didn't want to upset the balance of skills 'speaking' & so i hope some of mercy's methodical inclination come through in other ways. i planned for her to have very low artistry (a canonical disco skill), but the staging opportunity didn't present itself.

it was important to me that mercy failed some checks, because that feels true to the character & the spirit of disco elysiums checks & how harry interacts with his world. you will notice that mercy fails maybe ever composure check. this was absolutely intentional.

as for acupuncture, it clicked into place once i recategorized it from a 'blue' skill to mercy's sole 'red' (physical) skill. i very much see acupuncture as anatomy applied. canonically, we know mercy & cristabel contributed spirit magic to the megatheorum (see also: the eighth house's reliance on soul siphoning). her pivot to an anatomist also struck me as something born out of repression and grief, and so acupuncture is there to sort of illustrate this shift. the beginnings of a 'brute force' skillset she will continue to grow. in any event, it let me not kill my darling and keep both anatomy and acupuncture in, which felt right.

the art:

now we have to talk about the art because i'm always talking about this art. this art! when i was 80% of the way through the draft, i pitched the wonderful ama/smapis on drawing something for the fic. this was mainly bc ama is one of my favourite tlt artists ever & her mercy and disco elysium art rules. she was beyond kind enough to indulge me, at which point i sent her the draft & left it all in her immensely capable hands.

ama dignified my very silly fic to a level i couldn't have imagined! you may note that also encoded each of mercy's skills to different bodily systems (circulatory, muscular, skeletal, digestive, etc. are all accounted for), which is? genius?? her artistic vision elevated the whole thing & made the synthesis between lyctorhood and whatever's going on in harry's head so much more rich and meaty and nuanced. i cannot praise it enough. it's so good. i gaze lovingly upon it every day.

the unwanted guest:

"You can't admit what's happened here because you're fixated on this idea of the soul as inviolate and inviolable—this perfectly solid, impervious thing, the diamond sitting in the glass of wine. But souls are permeable. When they rub up against each other, they bleed—they mingle—they contaminate each other."—Palamedes Sextus, "The Unwanted Guest"

i started writing & had the thematic beats of necro elysium in 2022, long before we knew "the unwanted guest" was a glimmer in tamsyn's eye. but can you believe? can you believe how prescient i would've looked if i had a) finished a tlt playtext fic and b) also finished a fic about soul permeability? alas, it was not to be. but the publication of "the unwanted guest" did make me want to return to necro; it gave more weight to the reading i was using disco's format to impart.

i will say my personal reading is not that mercymorn is pious because that's cristabel as-a-nun inside her. i think mercymorn is pious because she was literally resurrected by her friend who literally has god-tier powers. when thinking through cristabel's skillset, i was thinking of aspects of mercymorn's personality where cristabel's would be most at home, would maybe latch onto, emphasize. i think of her as a bold and underline, as a different inflection into the lyctor's personality. some were obvious: now that i knew cristabel was a nun, piety was a clear fit; joy was another non-negotiable, as it was the guiding characterization of cristabel we get in harrow the ninth (john saying the saints were to be named after their cavs, augustine calling her a "twerp" and likening her to a child also, through the dark prism of augustine's mind, implied to me someone more exuberant). then i also wanted cristabel's "master of the sword" characterization present and to put the cannibalized cav swordfighting skills in purple (psyche), which is mostly "cristabel" coded skills, but also is, for me, anything gained through lyctorization. hence death's presence.

when we finally meet cristabel, a little, pre-res cristabel, in nona, she's much more utiliarian and practical than the cristabel i had spun out pre-nona. drawing from the way she counsels john, rigour seemed like the driving force. someone who achieves mastery through hard work, through discipline, but also joy is also v present in any sword-fighting scenes to balance it out & suggest that cristabel mastered swordplay partially out of duty & partially out of sheer joy.

one way my fic's use of disco elysium's skillset departs a little from disco elysium's is i wasn't as concerned with creating hyper-distinct voices for each skill. this is partially due to my own limitations and partially because some sets are meant to be, as i say, inflected with cristabel's personality & thus coherent to each other (hence: the whole climax where her voice comes together across traits). one could argue, this is to illustrate the permeability even between these seemingly separate traits. one could also argue i was just not very imaginative.

whatever souls are made of:

i also wanted to note that i sort of see all three of tlt fics in conversation with each other, but whatever souls are made of especially mirrors necro elysium. astute readers (lmao) will notice i hit some similar beats or ticks. is this because of my own limitations?? maybe! but also i do have readings of these characters i'm attached to & am interested in furthering.

i think there's something sort of fun and pleasing and characterizing about how much of whatever souls are made of, which is filtered through augustine, is collaged of references and quotations. it's also a cacophony of voices, but for augustine they're cribbed and for mercy, they're positioned as a fracturing internal monologue. i do think this is consistent with augustine's performative and also deceitful relationship to lyctorhood and the repression surrounding it & to mercymorn's more tortured self-image and inescapable emotional honesty.

the bigger parallel (if we can generously categorize it thusly) is that alfred and cristabel say very similar things to their necomancers. again, i have a beat!! but i hope people will forgive the symmetry for its slight differences. alfred says to augustine that he 'never wanted to be without' augustine (possibly, also, a longing to be included); cristabel hopefully speaks with a bit more righteousness, 'i could not have you stopped...least of all [by] myself.' cristabel's, i hope, adds in an element of someone who believes in mercy's 'greater' destiny, to the wider divinity of the world john is building, who believes that it is loving to propel someone forward. this is also, ofc, connected to how pre-res cristabel propels john forward. is that ethical??? is it good??? maybe not, but it is love. it is a kind of love.

okay this is much too long!! but tysm for reading. i received a few very, very nice asks about other specific parts that i am keen to blabber about, but i will do those in separate posts to give us some breathing room. everything will be in my fanfic tag.

but tysm for reading the fic & ty to the few kind anons who indulged me in this director's cut. <3

[ask-the-furies]

Welcome to ask-the-furies!

About: What is this?

Who are these characters?

What can I ask/what can I expect to see?

What’s the tag system?

COMPLETED THOUGHT PROJECTS: Flocks, Herds, And Schools Gender? I Hardly Know Her!

About: What is this?

This is an askblog for the skills of Disco Elysium! It will be written in the style of the game itself. It will be a mixture of canon information and headcanon interpretation, with references to multiple routes and canons in the game itself along with semi-fic-ish elements to it.

Who are these characters?

These are the skills from Disco Elysium, the stats that determine Harry Du Bois’ abilities and thoughts. They are the personified manifestations of his capabilities that exist within his brain as voices. Here are my designs of them:

Limbic System and ARB:

Since they’re so broadly defined as both game mechanics and as characters, I’ll be using my own headcanons to represent them (so we’re gonna get a little silly with it.) I’ll give a brief rundown of the skills as they’ll be represented via their functions:

INTELLECT:

Logic: he/him. Ability to piece together clues and detect inconsistencies.

Encyclopedia: he/him. Pre-existing knowledge of the world of Elysium.

Rhetoric:they/he. Ability to argue against others and convince them.

Drama: he/she/they. Ability to lie and detect lies.

Conceptualization: any/all. Ability to discern deeper artistic meaning and subtext.

Viscalc: he/they. Ability to determine and inference things based off of visual clues.

PSYCHE

Volition: he/they. Moral fortitude, mental health, focus on work.

Empathy: they/them. Capacity to understand how others are feeling.

Inland Empire: they/them. Imagination, hunches, and being fascinated with the mysterious.

Authority: he/him. Ability to exert or impose command.

Esprit De Corps: any/all. Understanding police culture.

Suggestion: they/them. Ability to plant ideas and subtle subterfuge.

PHYSIQUE

Endurance: he/him, physical health and vitality.

Pain Threshold: she/they. Ability to seek out and put up with pain.

Physical Instrument: he/him. Ability to use the body as a tool.

Electro-Chemistry: he/they. Base instinct of seeking pleasure.

Half Light: she/he. Fight, flight, faun, or freeze response.

Shivers: she/her. Connection with the supra-natural elements of the city.

MOTORICS

Hand/Eye Coordination: he/him. Ability to throw, catch, and shoot.

Perception: she/her. Ability to pick up details that activate the senses.

Reaction Speed: she/they. Ability to think/act quickly.

Savoir Faire: he/they. Agility and grace, in both a physical and social sense.

Interfacing: he/him. The use of tools with finesse, like operating a second body.

Composure: they/them. Capability of staying focused and collected under pressure.

THE DEEP BRAIN

Ancient Reptilian Brain: he/him. Controls base animal instincts.

Limbic System: he/him. Controls emotional responses.

(If you have other characters you’d like to talk to that aren’t listed, like the horrific necktie, feel free to try and ask anyway. They may have something to say?)

What can I ask/what can I expect to see?

You can ask the skills just about anything you’d want to know from them. Since there are 24 of those assholes living in Harry’s brain, they need a way to get attention and enrichment, so they made this blog. Ask them about what you’re curious about!

This blog will get about as risqué as the game does— potential mentions of drug use/abuse, sex and sexuality, violence, etc. As such, no minors here, please. Ship content probably will happen and you’re more than welcome to ask about it, just be cool.

That’s generally rule number one for this blog lmao is just be cool! If I don’t want to answer something then I just won’t.

You can expect to see posts written in the style of the game itself, with the skills answering. Sometimes it may be accompanied by art, but not always!

You can also probably expect to see some skills art get reblogged (both my designs and other peoples designs) If you make fanart for my skills designs make sure you tag @ask-the-furies in it so I can see and RB it!!

Tag System?

The relevant skills and their groups that get mentioned/speak in will be tagged in the post— a post containing Interfacing will be tagged #/interfacing #//motorics, for example. If there are continuing ask threads/a storyline or conversation that fits into a particular canon, I’ll make unique tags for those as well.

#ask is for asks.

#ooc post is for ooc posts.

#/thought cabinet is fort posts that introduce a new thought to the cabinet.

I can’t promise I will answer every ask but I sure will answer the ones I think I can write something funny/clever about : ))

Something important: don’t take any of these posts too seriously. I work in a pretty superfluous way with what I imagine the skills are like, what their relationships are like, their lore, etc. The skills are best friends. The skills are roommates. The skills are in love. The skills are coworkers. It’s all true to me where. We are getting silly with it.

[atlas-0]

New chapter of my Disco Elysium longfic is out (has been for a few days but I forgot to post lmao)! I can't believe the work currently has 101 kudos, genuinely so wild. Give it a shot if you want to read about post-canon things :)

Title: Sharp and Vivid Existence

Category: Gen

Rating: M (although for now the actual content is closer to T)

Word count: 74k

Chapters: 9/?

Relationships: Harry Du Bois & Kim Kitsuragi, Harry Du Bois & Jean Vicquemare, Kim Kitsuragi & Jean Vicquemare, Pre-Kim/Jean/Harry

Additional tags/info: Post-Canon, The Pale, Supernarural Elements, Case fic, Queer themes, Revacholian Politics

[moodr1ng]

i said it once in the tags of an old post but never in the post proper so heres my thoughts on the 'good' ending of disco elysium.. while i generally both enjoyed and admired the writing and messaging of disco elysium i think its 'good ending' fails, because its not good, but its framed as being good. harry is not a man who should be a cop. like, no one should be a cop, but if anyone is going to be a cop it should not be harry. hes at best a week sober, hes been going through an extreme mental health episode during which he put both himself and civilians in danger while completely disregarding his duties, and he has not become reliable or stable in one week. he should not be going back to work now. he probably should never go back to work - not just because of this particular incident but because he has also committed police brutality in the past and that does not paint a good picture of what hes going to do in the future.

if disco elysium wanted a 'good' ending, i think harry should have had the option to quit - i think the game is rather clear about the police being essentially amoral tools of the current power who exist only to defend the status quo, and i dont think a game that makes that so clear can also have a truly positive ending where thats just what the main character remains.

but also, im not sure disco elysium needed a 'good' ending. i mean, it feels good, in an immediate emotional way, to get a 'good' ending for this sort of story, so i get it. but to me, the ending we got is like.. kind of a tragedy, and i dont think that was on purpose?

harry is a man who should not be a cop, not for himself and certainly not for the well-being of anyone else, but he also has no other choice. he has no one outside of his few cop buddies. he has nothing else going on, and, more than that, what amount of kindness and tolerance hes shown by those few friends is dependent on him being a cop. for harry, being part of the police force is his last tenuous community tie, and the only reason anyone is giving a shit about him or willing to give him any benefit of the doubt. kim is only around, being patient and kind to him, because harry is a cop. this is the last thing that allows him any social worth anymore.

and i think the game reflected this in the character of 'the pigs', marianne leplante. shes someone who was abandoned by her loved ones, left without community support, dealing with significant mental health issues, who copes by believing shes a cop. but unlike harry, shes not. and we see what harry would be if he werent a cop: scared, confused, and deeply alone. shes like a mirror held up to harry. we could easily imagine him acting similarly erratic during his pre-canon breakdown. but shes not a cop - so she just gets subdued and taken back into her loneliness.

harry cant stop being a cop - not even if you make him the biggest commie imaginable in-game - because there is nothing else for him out here, not that he can fathom at least. and thats tragic. hes a deeply fucked up man stuck in a deeply fucked up role doomed to continue hurting himself and others through acting out this role - who also has no other choice he can see.

so like, if the game wanted a good ending, then yeah, i think we shouldve been able to have harry quit but still be given community support in the future. but i dont think the game had a realistic good ending in it, not right now. and ig i was just disappointed that it seemed like it wanted me to think it did, when it didnt.

[harps-chord]

I don’t want to be this kind of animal anymore.

[flownwrong]

happy wincest wednesday (in advance, i'm actually thinking ahead for once)! I'm all about the crossovers this week: how do you think Sam and Dean's Disco Elysium stats work? They've obviously got a lot of points put in everywhere, what with all the hero stuff, but what do you think are their signature skills? Do they have any unique ones? Thoughts, thoughts <3

happy happy ww, z! thanks for the awesome question <3 (your previous one is still not forgotten btw!)

oh jeez! i can immediately see dean generally tending towards psych/phys, obv, and sam more confident with intellect/motorics (like lol e.g. i think it's more or less canon dean is a somewhat better shot, but that boy does Not know what composure even is, let alone savoir faire)

i do think they're fun custom builds though — sam is defoooo high up on volition scale, to the point it's my closest contender for signature, and suggestion—a deadly, borderline sociopathic combo, when you remember all that composure and rhetoric waiting in the wings. but with that much volition—he has a final say in what he is, always and ever, as demonstrated in swan song, the entirety of s9, the list is endless.

and no one can beat his endurance+pain threshold combo. we saw many try. it's just easier to hit him in a thinner spot (electrochemistry seems to be one. not much care over it, but also not much control. the rubys and lady tonis of the world see it plain as day. it won't make him open up to you, but it will work as a carrot for choice goals.)

dean, i imagine, lives life immersed in a conversation between half-light (isn't it fun to think of moc > demon dean pipeline as his natural half-light predisposition steadily getting maxed-out to the point it cancels out his psyche sensitivity?) and drama (which, in his case more of a genuine mutability + desire for connection and participation than a performative weapon. comes with the ability to see through it in others (ruby anyone?) and i'd go with it for signature.)

i believe all of this is modified by his high empathy turned endless feeling of responsibility, leaving half-light in more of a fear of abandonment+pessimism line of thought position than a deranged aggro position.

i'd also bet he's not bad on shivers (all those long drives in the impala, talking gently to the road!) and very much an esprit de corps guy when it comes to hunting teamwork, while sam is the resident encyclopedia king, not opposed to flexing the authority either.

all of this is just the usual framework where sam is immutable and dean is relatively easy to mold, but not easy to fundamentally change, whatever he might think about his own liabilities and failings, of course.

and a little of those unique skills, as a treat; i know DE fandom loves inventing those, which makes all the sense, we don't all live in harry's head, so.

i'd give dean the one called family business, haha. that would be john's voice in his head when it comes to all that hero responsibility paid for by own desires (it would have a field day with WIAWSNB dean or the pre-s6 family guy dean), hunting community (e.g. the whole bobby deal), taking in companions and friends to that end, occasionally finding himself in a mentor position later on. mostly unpleasant. always loses checks against anything sam-related.

sam, i'd go with boy king, lol. his natural ability to pick up and use supernatural skills that, when maxed out enough to mess with his volition, gave us the beauty of s4, let lucifer get hold of him to the degree he did in s7, and in later years made him suitable for trials and rowena's trust and occasional spellwork, but, from his point of view, is just kind of a nuisance, and a dangerous one at that. imagine what fun it would be to listen in on this tempting voice always suggesting he go back and flex those powers, it would be so easy to just—yeah.

(you said unique skills not cool skills!! unique fuckups are just more fun)

anyways. that's that. thanks again it was so much fun to think about!

[sybilius]

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Let’s spread the self-love ❤

In no particular order:

pliant as gold (which is no apology) New Japan Pro Wrestling, Okada Kazuchika/Jay White, one-shot post WK17

I feel like it's a law to put on at least one fic from whatever is currently rotting your brain. This was my first in the incredibly specific ace4ace dynamic they have going (ace as in asexual, ace as in wrestling ace) so it has a special place in my heart right now.

Oesterlé's Derealization Claim Disco Elysium, Harry du Bois/Kim Kitsuragi/Jean Vicquemare, multichap mathematician AU told in the game's style

This one has a special place in my heart due to its loving specificity -- where else do you get not just an academia AU, but a mathematician au?? I always get the best comments on this fic :)

Static Contact Disco Elysium, Kim Kitsuragi/Jean Vicquemare, ham radio AU/pre-canon

A collab with @dansedan that still has a deeply special place in my heart. I was thinking about it again today. One of the things I'm most proud of is how for a while we really did I think meet the goal of bringing more people into the Kim/Jean ship.

The Grey Desert Mythos The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, Blondie/Angel Eyes, multichap Blair Witch Project AU

This is an insane, artful piece that is probably unrelatable to most people but will haunt me forever.

and dread, that unusual aphrodisiac The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (70s AU), Tuco/Angel Eyes, Cask of Amontillado AU (but make it hot and sexy)

This is like, an insane AU to an AU that @believerindaydreams lovingly constructed and we collaborated on (also a VERY special fic). I'm proud of this one because it's the best of Syb porno. Specifc, way out there, a little funny, a little heartfelt, a little mindfucky. Also I love cask of amontillado lol

Thanks for reading if you got this far, and thanks for the ask!!!

[nullcanary]

15, 26, 32 for the writer asks! :3

Sorry it took so long to answer, but I've really been chewing on the line that has stuck with me and I may have gone a little overboard.

15. Do you write in the margins of your books? Dog-ear your pages? Read in the bath? Why or why not? Do you judge people who do these things? Can we still be friends?

Yes, I write in the margins as well as underline/highlight phrases that stick out. I used to dog-ear pages, but I now have plenty of bookmarks that I regularly use. I read in the bath and at the pool. I do not judge people who do these things. Yes, let's be friends 💌

26. How do you get into your character’s head? How do you get out? Do you ever regret going in there in the first place?

Getting in: Firstly, I'll listen to voice lines, read related canon material. I'll emulate their gestures, facial expressions, and tone of voice. Act them out.

Next, Disco Elysium skills helped out with this one a bit because it really helps to pick apart a character's inner dialogue and mind map. What are the strengths and weaknesses in their intellect, psyche, physique, and motorics? How do they play off each other? How do they clash?

I'll use a grounding technique to settle into my setting: Identifying 5 things said character can see, 4 things they can touch, 3 things they can hear, 2 things they can smell, and 1 thing they can taste.Try to fit into their skin, try to imagine thinking like them.

From there, I try to imagine the emotion they both are trying to convey and conceal. What are they feeling? How do they respond to physical touch? What burdens them? What spark drives them forward? What do they fear most? What do they crave most? If they're in a position of power, how do they maintain control?

Getting out: Crafting something with my hands. Going for a long walk outside. Making a warm cup of tea. Listening to some vinyls. Essentially, separating myself from the character and it's associated media. 

Regret: Oh, but of course…

32. What is a line from a poem/novel/fanfic etc that you return to from time and time again? How did you find it? What does it mean to you?

This will not just be a single line. The entire chapter might have been able to exist outside of the story. It feels like a painting, which is fitting given the context of the chapter.

Excerpt from Chapter 15 of Kinesthetic by littlewhitemouse

Noriaki had been lying to himself when he said, if he had ever said, that he had been ‘corrupted’ by anything.  The concept that an outside force can create something inside you that is not already there is a self-deception. Intensify, curate, encourage, maybe alter, but not create. Corruption as a noun is inherent, necessarily pre-existing; corruption as a verb can only be self-directed.  Were Noriaki to explicate his realization of his inherent corruption, he would like to start with his taste in art. Not that that is necessarily the best way to tell the story, but that is what he would like.

.

The stranger was silent. Trying to quash irrational nervousness but not quite managing to keep his curiosity at bay, he looked up at him, turned his neck to gaze up at his height, like he was turning to the sky.  He was staring wordlessly at him, his lips slightly parted. Stilled and subtle, something turned his face soft and white, like satin. He saw with eerie curiosity that it seemed like that face almost didn’t fit him, as if he were wearing a fantastically articulate mask. It seemed as if, almost, he floated above his body, his pale face unnaturally pure and light, an angelic visage coming out of the darkness.  “…Who sent you?” asked the stranger.  Noriaki’s heart suddenly started up. The strangeness of the situation. The surreal, patchwork miasma surrounding the whole situation, a new life starting in a room of graves. What was he saying? “I came here myself,” he told him. A smile spread on his face like a slash of pale yellow watercolor paint, splitting the red waters of his lips on either side.  “But you shall not leave that way,” he said, solemn conviction, and he lifted his arm for Noriaki to grasp. “Shall we?” It was as though he was watching something that should not move extend its clutching hand to him; Lucifer of Liège lifting high his crown and whip. With no manners, no bow or placating grin, he asked him, “Shall we what?”  The only change in the strange stillness of the man’s unearthly pose was his smile spreading into his glittering eyes, which he hadn’t noticed weren’t smiling before. “Go.” 

I found this fic when I was first reexploring fanfiction. I was really into Jotaro/Kakyoin because of the angst and tragedy. This fic… was different.  It was written with a very train-of-thought, loose prose, synesthesia-esque, textural repetition, language of the mind style. In many ways, I kept reading because I couldn’t look away? 

This fic was a formative experience, highlighted by chapter 15 in particular. An analysis of corruption. An ode to historical dark art. The formation of taste for the macabre and grotesque. The exploration of how that shapes one's inner landscape. And furthermore, what another can do to exploit, abuse, and manipulate those feelings. The temptation to interact with a mysterious force that ultimately expects complete and violent devotion.

I think this fic is what relaunched my love for art, for museums, for history. I feel in many ways it was the first thing that made something in my own mind click into place and begin processing both my love for dark art and fiction and the traumas that suppressed my ability to allow myself to enjoy it.

Each referenced piece of art has an attached link with the image, so as to pull you further into the visual scenery, the spiraling descent of this madness and trauma.

When I think of Dio’s “dubious sensuality”, I think of this scene. I think of the raw, defense-crumbling experience of meeting a powerful, influential force within the very setting that has shaped who you are as a person. Someone who you feel sees you exactly the way you wish to be seen and accepted. Noriaki never had a chance. Dio is a living, breathing sculpture that he can explore and in turn, be shaped by. His fault is in thinking he ever had control of the situation. 

I love the character study this provides for Kakyoin. There is a violence, a viciousness, a cruelty that roils underneath his skin, independent of outside forces. 

Knowing Kakyoin as he did now, knowing him to be self-controlled, conspicuous, patient, considerate, it was hard to even recall or explain the cruelty he possessed, not until and whenever he chose to display it again. And again, and again. Kakyoin was cruel on occasion, not as his rule, only when provoked, never without a defensible reason, but he was cruel. He was beat you to the brink of death cruel, but Jotaro understood that. He was also lick my heel and apologize for what you did cruel, which he didn’t understand.

He tries to hold it down, hide it away, in order to atone for his sins, his “corruption”, the horror of what Dio was able to convince him and, later, command him to do. There is an underlying bitterness to it all after the fact. This chapter, these lines, add context to why that is. How exactly Dio shaped him into a weapon. How after escaping and freeing his mind from Dio’s impulses, he recognizes that the cruelty still remains. Sculpted and sharpened. But ultimately, something he will be able to reclaim for himself in a healthier setting with proper reflection, character development, growth, and healing. There's something cathartic about the entire experience.

[weepylucifer]

Are you taking disco Elysium questions because 5 10 and 14

Yeah bud i do!!!

5. What is a popular fan interpretation that you don’t like?

The whole "Kim is so repressed and stoic he'd never admit to having feelings for Harry until it's 20 years later and they're literally 2 seconds away from being engulfed by pale" thing. Like, come on, Kim isn't actually that repressed. He's a marginalized person and has to navigate the world very carefully because of that, but that doesn't mean he hates feeling feelings or is a huge fan of self-denial.

Also Harry and Jean's 10-year friendship that straight up does not exist

10. What are your headcanons for pre-Martinaise Harry?

It's pretty much all there in the canon innit

14. Wild Pines vs. The Débardeurs’ Union – what do you think of the Evrarts and Joyce Messier and do you root for any of them?

Oh, Débardeurs forever and always. Evrart girlie before gods and men here. Evrart is by no means perfect, he has a tendency to make his plans and overlook bad effects they could have, like his problem-solving applies an overly broad brush to delicate affairs on occasion (people might not want to leave the fishing village even tho it's comparatively wretched. At one point he says he'll soon get rid of the Dolorian church, evidently not knowing what's actually in there) but he's definitely definitely the better option compared to Wild Pines. Joyce seems like she's kind and knows what's up, but look past her stories and mannerisms to what she actually does, and you'll find pretty much your run of the mill disaffected rich person who could do tangible good in the world but simply doesn't. Also if you finish the secret task you find out that all her talk abt being beholden to her Wild Pines bosses is likely bullshit and she is a major shareholder, so you CANNOT tell me that her hands were TOTALLY tied when it came to the mercs