#terrible and sacred air

[turianhumanclient]

What I know about the situation at Zaum Studio OÜ, developers of Disco Elysium

Perhaps you've heard of the deplorable situation of Disco Elysium's fired leads, of the oust by majority shareholder and CEO, of the lawsuits and rest of the cultural association and 'old guard' still at work there, quiet and held quiet by corporate policy and perhaps embittered by the 'auteur' theory holding parasocial public.

What I am going to share with you is information that is publicly available through Estonian and United Kingdom company registers. I haven't seen any news outlet feature this information yet.

WHAT IS NEW HERE?

Ilmar Kompus, the current CEO who was installed in 2020, had actually been a shareholder all along since Zaum Studio's founding in Estonia.

Kaur Kender, the author in his own right and producer at Zaum, has founded a lot of game development companies in Estonia and United Kingdom, while Zaum worked, published and updated Disco Elysium. These apparently went nowhere, some of them are now defunct. All of them had Ilmar Kompus or some ZAUM subsidiary as shareholders, and some also shared correspondence addresses with ZAUM's UK subsidiaries.

The 'game pitch' that cost Zaum 4,8 million euros and funded Kompus' acquisition of majority share from Linnamäe, the so called Pioneer One, has been previously reported by one gaming news outlet to have come via Anu Reiman's YESSIRNOSIR Limited. I have discovered that Kaur Kender held a game company in UK called Pioneer One Ltd that was active between years 2018-2022, and it had an Estonian artist Kristiina Ago as its secretary. I cannot prove that it was this entity that sold it instead, but it is a glaring coincidence nevertheless.

Kaur Kender and later Ilmar Kompus have founded a succession of ZAUM studios (Zaum London, Zaum UK, Disco Elysium UK and now Zaum Studio Limited) which have held the main development operations in UK. Kurvits and Rostov/Taal hold minority shares in Zaum UK. The later ones are all Ilmar Kompus-held in shares. I suspect this is a method of his to sever the fired leads' means of control to the company's branches in UK.

Both the 'main line' of Zaum's UK companies and Zaum Studio OÜ back in Estonia have loaned money to the tune of millions to Newelysium and Revachol in UK (Note, Revachol OÜ in Estonia is held by ZAUM cultural association members and is not a game studio)

What does it all mean then? I am not certain. I have not practical experience in game dev industry to say whether constantly making side companies or shells is a sign of a healthy leadership.

However looking at all the shell companies made near annually, and how the successive ‘main studios’ have consolidated into Kompus’ hands, I am going to speculate a bit. This has been a long con. Whether there was going to be a product that sold well or not, Kompus, Haavel and Kender were going be the ones collecting the jackpot. There were shell companies being established even as the game was floundering after the estonians’ walkout. All the ‘artists’ had to do was just do the work and not get in the way of money.

But then ZA/UM made an award-winning darling game of the year. TV show adaptation deals. Lead developers like Kurvits and Hindpere standing at the Game Awards Show spotlight. Audience eating up all that and latching onto whatever crumb and morsel might come next.

A clean exit sale out of a modest studio became impossible. Now there were developers in the studio who knew they were worth A LOT and with shareholders’ power both in Zaum Studio OÜ and Zaum UK Ltd to hamper any sale to Tencent, Amazon or Microsoft. Now we reach the part of “toxic misogynist auteurs trying to steal the IP for themselves.” who had to be let go.

Kender's lawsuit around the turn of 2022-2023 and divestiture of his Zaum Studio OÜ shares as result muddles the water for this speculated theory even more as he still holds directorship in a number of shell companies with Kompus back in UK. There is also Dark Maths Studios that he founded this April in UK, so it remains to be seen what he'll do and if its with Kompus and Haavel or alone.

[bnnuy-wabbit]

Ummmm does anyone know what za/um is in-universe? I don't mean studio za/um. I mean the Extrenely Potent Za/um drug from terrible and sacred air. What does it do exactly?? Whats it made of?

[bananadramaaa]

Some Disco and 'Sacred and Terrible Air' boys for the soul ~

My friend finally started to play DE and it's so fun to watch their reaction XD It is the best type of entertainment 👌

[i-gwarth]

btw we do *get* that the worldbuilding of DE parallels the character's arc right? We understand that, right? That Our Guy commits all but a sliver of himself to the oblivion of amnesia in a moment where the only alternative he could see was suicide. And at the other end of that tragic attempt at self-annihilation he gets the chance to reinvent himself and overcome the longstanding, persistent habits that brought him to the cliff's edge to begin with. And that the world itself is presented as approaching an equally definitive precipice, with one of the richest characters in the cast even remarking that Capital is dead, and everything else being 20-odd years away from being swallowed by the pale

And we understand that the pale is forgetting, right? Right? It's informational entropy applied to the world, facts and events and places and memories being destructured and obliderated, reduced to an indistinct soup of whispers, past present and future. That it emerges from humanity's collective inability to imagine a future beyond moralist capitalism, and that this inability to see the horizon inevitably metastazises into Mesque's accelerationist nihilism that ultimately destroys the world. [starts shaking you] WE UNDERSTAND THAT RIGHT??

That the game's splash screen is a view from the bay of Revachol, from the deserter's island. And we know what it shows, right? Revachol, in the distance. And beyond that what? A horizon? No! It shows Pale. Because that's his perspective. Because he has abandoned all hope, lost all sight of the future and has committed to self-annihilation. For him the entroponetic collapse is imminent. We see that, don't we?

That the game is a thesis on hope. That the world has the chance to reinvent itself from the precipice of oblivion just like Harry does, and that the only thing that can do that is imagining the future. A future. Any future, and making it. Piece by piece, day by day, committing to it, and refusing to give in to despair and nihilism. We understand, don't we, that there must be no truce with the f-

you know what, nevermind...

[discardedtower]

''The world is cold and lonely...'' Part 4/4 Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Follow-up bonus

[arrimorr]

Started reading Sacred and Terrible air, what a ride

[yellow-yarrow]

Cosmism and Elysium - Hegel, time, communism, thoughts, end of the world

Plain text version here. Sources under the cut:

Various quotes from the following writings:

Russian Cosmism edited by Boris Groys

Timeline of Russian Cosmism by Anastasia Gacheva, Arseny Zhilyaev, and Anton Vidokle, e-flux journal

Optimists of the Future Past Perfect by Arseny Zhilyaev, e-flux journal

Cosmology of the Spirit by Evald Ilyenkov from Statis journal and an abridged version of the text

Noosphere wikipedia page

Disco Elysium, Sacred and Terrible Air by Robert Kurvitz, Disco Elysium artbook

[laughingpinecone]

(once the above temp link won't work anymore: here!)

Love in the time of certain ruin, or: world-historical thirdwheeling Dramatis personae: · Kras Mazov, father of scientific communism · Ignus Nilsen, his evangelist · Eight thousand years of failures, missed chances, fears and partings · ...and you, untethered from linear time more often than not, basking in the greatness of the end of all things, pale glorious and total, where all revelations turn to naught Be a good friend, will you?

A standalone Elysium fangame, approximately 4500 words per playthrough, four endings across six variables. Yuletide treat for @vriskarlmarx who wrote the most wonderful thing for it!

[fancydunamancy]

most authors writing a self-insert: they are a loveable misfit with depression and end up dating the hottest person around

robert kurvitz writing a self-insert:

[revacholianpizzaagenda]

New fan translation of the Disco Elysium novel posted on reddit!

This one comes with the extras and also the original writing/editing/worldbuilding credits, and the lists of hundreds of names of Elysium characters, geographical entities and assorted concepts that fill the inside covers of the printed copy. Hours of unrestrained fun with the lists alone.

And footnotes. So many footnotes. And fayde checks everywhere because you wouldn't believe the stuff that was canonized in English by the game to begin with.

[sillywizardman]

HI!!! After finishing Disco Elysium I wanted to read Sacred and Terrible Air, but there were two issues:

1. It’s not officially released in English

2. I don’t like staring at pdfs!

So I did what any sane person would do. That is take three days of my life printing and binding it.

TRANSLATION (“thank you Group Ibex” we all say in unison!):

PROCESS PICS:

I apologize in advance for anyone who has experience in this sort of thing this is so botched.

I have NEVER done anything like this before, I don’t even read books on my own volition, but if the Disco fixation wants me to learn how to sew and bookbind I’ll do that.

Four of the signatures above. There were nine total, eight of them with 8 sheets/32 pages and the last was five sheets I think. Threw the pdf into adobe acrobat and went straight to printing with those settings and the “booklet” option enabled.

Pricked holes through each signature! Used thumbtacks and a piece of foam I scavenged from my room, worked out great. It’s probably also worth mentioning I do not have a bone folder, book press, or any of the other fancy schmancy bookbinding tools. Flattened the pages with a pencil and pressed with D&D books…

SEWING TIME. I have never sewn in my life. My success in this regard can be majorly attributed to Sea Lemon on youtube, particularly this tutorial:

The process from printing to finishing sewing the signatures took ~8 hours. Now we hit our first roadblock, I had no glue for the spine! After going to sleep and waiting what felt like ages (literally 10 hours or so) before I was free to visit a craft store, I tried to find PVA glue because that’s what you’re supposed to use I think?? Yeah. They were out of PVA glue and my impatient ass got mod podge.

‘Tis glued! As you can see I added cardstock to the ends. Joyous day.

Also, you see that sketchbook in the pic? Yeah? You see that lovely cardboard?

It is now the cover. Rest in piss bristol sketchpad backing.

———

EDIT: I see a bunch of people want to attempt this so here’s a video on how to make the hardcover: https://youtu.be/Av_rU-yOPd4?si=7T5zgVJGAfPFBxn-

I didn’t use any measurements or advice from it but it’s a good reference for when it comes to assembling the cover from ~3:50 onwards. The boards are same size as your text block pages and spine, I think I made the cover width a bit longer just in case it doesn’t cover the text block though. Do not do this with the spine, I regret it.

And note, this is NOT a tutorial, it is the process of someone who got a bit too silly and decided to bind a book, obviously do your own research lol. Don’t be afraid to try it though, it’s surprisingly simple!

———

… So, now that’s done! I swore to myself I wouldn’t start reading SATA/PJÕL until I finished this project completely, meaning I’ll be doing that now yippee :]

[soup-mother]

*guy who was lived his entire life trapped in a church censer and has thus never known a breath not tainted with incense* "sacred and terrible air? uh yeah all air is sacred and terrible"

[halimaidmf]

“They were bourgeois, every last one of them. They read their chuuni manga. Chuunibyou bourgeois eyepatches and lolita clothes, magic power stories. It’s all bourgeois. Every chuunibyou is actually a weapon of the bourgeoisie.”

[nofaceuserr]

«5, 12, 13, 14»

SACRED AND TERRIBLE ZINE spoiler

[cusn0]

me and who

[cyborgghost]

Reading Sacred and Terrible Air after playing Disco Elysium gave me whiplash because how differently female characters are handled in each work...

I like Pjõl! But besides the Lund Sisters, the only other female characters are mothers, a failed date, a suicidal opera singer and a teenage lingerie model. They're all secondary and don't have stories of their own. None of them are in positions of power or playing a major role in the lore.

Not to mention, how off-putting the depiction of the sisters is... I know we're supposed to see them through the lens of hormonal teenage boys and obsessive maladapted men but the over sexualization of this young girls makes it such an uncomfortable read.

No wonder these girls wanted to disappear and never be perceived again if this is the inescapable male gaze that follows them!!

The book obviously condemns pedophilia while making not only the antagonists, but many of the main characters pedophilic or something adjacent. It's a prevalent theme in the story. I am aware of that. My critique is that the only purpose of most female characters in this book is pushing this narrative. In other words, they're only there to show how traumatized the main characters are. A lot of male writers are guilty of this, putting young girls in morbid scenarios as a prop for shock value. It feels exploitative and dehumanizing, it could've been handled better.

I'm glad Disco Elysium is different, its characters are multidimensional and have unique personalities and back stories. They have story relevance within their world. This improvement is probably due to all the year of experience between the two artworks. But I don't want to give Kurvitz too much credit (I think this fandom tends to idealize him, partly because they feel sympathy for the whole ZA/UM legal rights situation), he didn't singlehandedly write Disco Elysium. There were many other writing professionals who contributed to the project to make it better than its novel predecessor. (Many of which are working on the new Summer Eternal project, I'm excited for that!)