#the place names like revachol and martinaise

[voltas-do-mar]

Skillsposting Ask Game!

[Send an emoji or two! Some of these are more suited to skills, but there should be some that works for everyone!]

👍 What's your best quality? 👎 What's your worst quality? ✅ What does a check success look like for you? ❌ What does a check fail look like for you? 🎉 What's your favorite check you've succeeded on The Hanged Man case? 🎲 What's your favorite check a different skill has done on The Hanged Man case (success or failure)? 👔 Favorite talking inanimate item? 🤝 Which skill do you get along with best? 👊 Which skill do you disagree with the most? ✨ Which skill has the best design, in your opinion? 🏆 Which skill would you award an extra point to (if you had to choose someone other than yourself)? 🫥 What would happen to your host if you weren't there? 💭 Favorite thought in the thought cabinet? 🪞 Imitate a different skill. ☯️ Act like the opposite of your skill. 💌 Give another skill a compliment. 🗺️ What's your favorite place in Martinaise? 💚 How do you feel about Harry? 🧡 How do you feel about Kim? 🖤 How do you feel about Jean? 🌆 How do you feel about Revachol? 👖 Favorite article of clothing of Harry's? 🖋️ Favorite item Harry has picked up or received? 📚 Favorite thing from the bookstore? ❄️ Ideal weather? 💢 Name a random thing you dislike. 🏷️ Word that would best describe you other than your title? 🌹 Favorite nickname someone has called you? 🌎 Favorite thing about Elysium? 👋 Favorite person you've talked to during The Hanged Man case? 💬 Favorite line you've ever said? 💵 If you found 100 reál, what would you suggest to do with it? 🪛 What's a hobby or side project you wish you could work on or start? 🪩 What song would you choose to sing for karaoke?

[disco-elysium-via-polls]

🎵 Church

4. It's not possible to live.

KIM KITSURAGI - As that great and desperate thought passes through your mind, the lieutenant draws an x-shaped cross from shoulder to shoulder.

Do the same as you get up.

STAINED GLASS WINDOW - Your fingertips touch your chest four times. Then you rise from your knees, into the apricot-coloured light of the window. Above you, the woman still smiles her distant smile, sundered by the crack in the glass.

"This is Dolores Dei."

[Encyclopedia - Medium 10] How did I know this is the *mother of humanism*?

[Visual Calculus - Challenging 12] Reconstruct the cracked glass.

Turn away. [Leave.]

KIM KITSURAGI - "The old woman in the village was right..." He looks around. "This must be the Dolorian Church of Humanity in Martinaise -- or the Small Pinewood Church in some records..."

"You knew of the place?"

KIM KITSURAGI - "It's a minor landmark, not easy to find. Most maps misplace it..." He lowers his voice. "It was built not long after Revachol's founding, 300 or so years ago by first-generation settlers."

ENCYCLOPEDIA [Medium: Success] - On the coast of an uninhabited archipelago, where only animals had roamed before. In the wild reeds.

"What else do you know?"

"Okey-dokey."

KIM KITSURAGI - "There used to be seven stave churches on the coast. Les Sept Soeurs they call them -- The Seven Sisters. Only one remains. The rest were burnt in the Revolution, or used for building materials."

"We should be respectful here, although the building appears to be deserted. I do not believe we'll find anything connected to the lynching here. Something else, perhaps..." He looks at the machinery lying around.

CONCEPTUALIZATION [Medium: Success] - Respectful? Is the lieutenant a follower of Dolorianism?

EMPATHY [Easy: Success] - There it is again -- a small pang of guilt. It's time to ask him what happened here.

"Do you know *why* it was abandoned?"

Better to not intrude upon him.

KIM KITSURAGI - "I have a theory, yes." There's a pause, then he continues: "There was a police raid a while back. I heard the place was shot to pieces."

"The old woman in the village was being tactful with us when she didn't mention it. She has more respect for the RCM than many around here."

"Who conducted this raid?"

KIM KITSURAGI - "Well... your station was involved, I hear. Although I can't be sure."

RHETORIC [Medium: Success] - How come the lieutenant isn't sure? Is this confidential information?

2. "You're not sure?"

KIM KITSURAGI - "Three Precincts were involved in the raid and people say Precinct 41 was one of them."

"I don't remember being here."

"I..." (Look around.) "I guess I could have been here."

KIM KITSURAGI - "I'm sorry, I'm not saying you were..." There's a pause. "It was a clandestine operation. I don't know anything about it. Why it was conducted or who participated. I try not to pry into extra-district matters."

3. "If I was here, I should find out what I was doing." (Proceed.) 4. "Better to forget about it." (Proceed.)

KIM KITSURAGI - "Good luck. You will not get information on a confidential operation from your station secretary just by calling. If you really don't remember -- it might be better to keep this one forgotten."

+5 XP

"It happened a while ago. It's unimportant to our business in Martinaise now."

1. "Kim, are you a follower of Dolorianism?"

KIM KITSURAGI - "Yes. We all are. Her name, body, and rule are synonymous with humanism. The laws we enforce are Dolorian in origin."

"Hmm…" (Stroke your chin first.)

"I didn't think you were spiritual."

"I don't like her. She looks like a *leaver*."

STAINED GLASS WINDOW - The woman looks by in silence, smiling enigmatically.

"I didn't think you were spiritual."

KIM KITSURAGI - "It's not spiritual. It's constitutional. The Dolorian system does not demand faith -- only accordance."

2. [Encyclopedia - Medium 10] How did I know this is the *mother of humanism*?

ENCYCLOPEDIA [Medium: Success] - Despite the damage you've done to yourself, the title appears lodged in your hippocampus. This is Her Innocence Dolores Dei -- the innocence of humanism, internationalism, and the welfare state -- perhaps the most famous human being ever to have lived.

No amount of *Commodore Red* can wipe her sad smile from your brain-thing. It has survived the deluge and haunts you still. And will haunt you forever, as it haunts all men.

Wait, what exactly is an innocence? I've heard of the system...

Okay. When did she rule?

What else do I know about her?

I want more.

Was there something... *terrifying* about her?

To hell with this.

ENCYCLOPEDIA - The highest category of historic individual -- an embodiment of the World Spirit.

A ruler?

A tyrant?

ENCYCLOPEDIA - In a way. An innocence is elected to office by the Founding Party, a precedent that has taken place a mere six times in the entirety of History. The legal system of the Reál Belt is built from the ground up to accommodate innocentic rule, should it coincide with our time.

An innocence is infallible. The decisions made by one are not decisions. They are inevitabilities -- what would have happened anyway, only accelerated, packed into decades instead of centuries. An Innocence is a continuous, compressed event, a sacred human being. It is an honour and a glory to live when one is in office.

Is one in office now?

ENCYCLOPEDIA - No. We are alone.

Okay. When did she rule?

ENCYCLOPEDIA - Three hundred years ago, in the wake of the discovery of this isola -- the Insulindian -- by explorers from the continent of Mundi. She is, among other things, the innocence of interisolary travel and the connected world.

2. What else do I know about her?

ENCYCLOPEDIA - Many things. You know she was a woman of the court, the wife of an influential *marchese*, and eventually the principal advisor to Irene La Navigateur, Queen of Suresne (modern day Sur-la-Clef). Also, that she was gorgeous beyond beauty.

INLAND EMPIRE [Easy: Success] - Draped in ancient sadness. Are you sure you want to remember this bit of historic trivia? Standing under her long slender form like this, dwarfed...

HORRIFIC NECKTIE - Yes -- big bummer. Boring history. Gotta keep it light, man, keep it moving. Get fucked up instead.

Where is this coming from?

Right. Better not to go poking any further.

Okay, what else? Was she smart?

INLAND EMPIRE - The past. It's a *silo* of sadness. Fermenting. You should keep away.

HORRIFIC NECKTIE - Fuck this pain, bratan. It's unhealthy.

CONCEPTUALIZATION [Medium: Success] - No. You *must* know.

2. Okay, what else? Was she smart?

ENCYCLOPEDIA - Terribly. Women of the court were expected to play both contract bridge and chess sufficiently well to prove an interesting challenge to a man -- a similar grasp in matters of philosophy, theology, and science was encouraged. She was, by all means, a kept woman...

She made the most of her position in the Antedolorian court -- a court visited by the most prominent thinkers and artists of the day. In secret, she was becoming the era's pre-eminent philosopher of the state. A scalpel, a piercing gaze...

She was an almost preternaturally magnetic and intelligent individual. To her contemporaries she appeared out of time, a messenger from the future of the species. We *all* fell in love with her, head over heels. Even before she was declared an innocence her influence was tremendous.

How come?

ENCYCLOPEDIA - It was on her advice that Irene La Navigateur sponsored a number of voyages into the pale. A costly, often tragic endeavour, ultimately vindicated by the discovery of the *New New World*, the piece of reality you're standing on...

She was crowned two years after the first expedition returned, setting in motion what is widely considered the greatest era in history -- the Dolorian Era.

Wow.

I don't care.

ENCYCLOPEDIA - Wow indeed. When her innocence was declared -- and the queen she had advised for years fell on her knees before her -- she was so overcome with emotion that her *lungs* started *glowing* in her chest...

Bystanders reported golden filaments lighting the already sunlit chamber around her, clearly visible beneath her dress.

CONCEPTUALIZATION [Medium: Success] - That is why the lungs are the symbol of love for the cultures of the Reál Belt.

3. I want more.

ENCYCLOPEDIA - As did we all. The lands of Mesque and the Occident and even far-away Supramundi -- altogether twenty one of the forty Mondial nations of the time -- immediately accepted innocentic rule. Even before her crowning.

Her crowning?

ENCYCLOPEDIA - In a city called Advesperascit, in Vesper-Messina, her homeland. The name of the city means 'Evening comes,' but it happened on a winter's morning with the canals frozen and slush falling out of the sky.

She was dressed in a white and pearl dress on an emptied-out plaza, with the crowd far away. Already her *Therriers* -- the secret servicemen of the innocence -- were worried about an assassination attempt.

She must have been beautiful...

I don't care how she looked. I don't care. It doesn't hurt me.

ENCYCLOPEDIA - Oh, she was insultingly beautiful. She was humanity's young mother, a perfect mother. It was as if her face and shoulders and hands were covered in a soft down of under-feathers. You know this well -- very well.

Midwinter snow was beating the cobblestones around her. A small attaché of officials stood by as her Therriers placed a white gold wreath on her head. The crowning was mostly witnessed by secret servicemen.

Then what?

ENCYCLOPEDIA - One of the men in this secret service killed her -- 22 years later. A young man who had come to suspect that Dolores Dei was not entirely human, but something else.

What?

ENCYCLOPEDIA - Something that had walked in our midst, watching us stumble for hundreds, if not thousands of years, until it decided to interfere -- interfere in the course of our history. 'We were supposed to come up with this ourselves!' the man was reported to have screamed at the innocence...

Dolores Dei was shot in the chest with a fowling piece, eight times. The man, thought to be insane, said he once touched her and her body had been unnaturally warm, like a furnace -- and that sometimes while on duty he observed her forgetting to breathe for over ten minutes...

This *inhuman* quality was witnessed by many others as well -- glowing lungs and all. It is commonly attributed to mass hysteria and religious psychology.

4. Was there something... *terrifying* about her?

ENCYCLOPEDIA - *Terrifying* is a term too emotionally charged for your semantic memory. Or what remains of it, but...

INLAND EMPIRE [Easy: Success] - Terrifying. It's a simple word. She was *bad* for humanity and you shouldn't have started thinking about her!

You're right. Time to heed the warning.

No -- was there something *bad* about her, I want to know...

ENCYCLOPEDIA - You already do. Although she is often considered to be the greatest human being to ever live, there *was* something ominous about Dolores Dei -- constantly surrounded by her Therriers...

She was the most socially secluded and least self-aware of all the innocences. Some modern thinkers would consider her a war criminal for the campaigns she waged against the Mesque state. And then there were the resettlement programs...

What happened?

ENCYCLOPEDIA - The Mesque state tried to detach itself from innocentic rule. Parts of the world were experiencing whiplash from accelerating into secularism. Her mandatory education programs and mass resettlement of upstream Magritte were problematic as well. Dissenters were suppressed by a military force she called “The Army of Humanity"...

RHETORIC [Medium: Success] - Suggesting those who fight against it are not part of humanity.

ENCYCLOPEDIA - She adored chess, yes -- but also military war games. Dolores Dei often holds a tiny tin soldier between her index finger and thumb -- in icons such as this. She was also blonde, the blondest woman you have ever seen, with green eyes the colour of the Pisantic *mare interregnum*...

Little is known of her marchese husband. It's as if he vanished from history after completing his role -- which was to introduce Dolores Dei to court. In conclusion, yes, there *is* something lonely, paranoid, and even terrifying that people seldom mention, but *feel* when they think of her...

+5 XP

CONCEPTUALIZATION [Medium: Success] - This subtle terror is part of her iconography.

KIM KITSURAGI - "Lieutenant-yefreitor, you've stood there for over five minutes..." The lieutenant's calm voice echoes in the cold air of the church."

"What are you thinking of, if I may ask?"

[myrfing]

im not gonna say something like. “empathy veers towards moralism so empathy is bad” wrt disco elysium but it tends to do so not to. just bond to the universal experience of feeling pain and wishing to be offered relief but because empathy is just, a feeling. a feeling that, without thought, has no inherent action and still tends to take the path of least resistance to absolve itself for being felt. this is the core tenet of moralism; the hearts of people ache for the world. so the answer to this heartache has mostly been to cover up pain, to sequester poverty and war to places the bleeding hearts don’t see and would have to seek to see (and won’t, because it hurts), to eradicate people who suffer in the first place and rob them of their resources and lives to further boster the wealth and beauty of those who live on the other side of that line, because that is the solution that provides the most immediate stability to the fragile heart. and why it’s capable of such great cruelty that gets ignored and forgotten—it’s not so easily named as a point-blank evil as say, fascism, even if it can be just as reactionary or is even intertwined with it—and thus given a carte blanche to happen again. i hope this is not like, lost on people, that it is the veil over capitalism, and that when harry begs the coalition archer, he is asking to be saved himself, like a dog begging at the feet of his master, and shivers begs him not to go and leave martinaise, revachol to die. LIKE…YOU KNOW?

[skeleton-klng]

How do other writers managed to make up names for places that still sound like actual names?

I've been replaying Disco Elysium and like all the place names sound like they could be actual names: Revachol, Jamrock, Martinaise, etc.

All the place names for my WIPs just sound like made up words.

[lichposting]

Biggest shock of disco elysium was all the Frenchness

[spyramy]

When I learned that ZA/UM had a studio in Brighton/Hove, I got thinking about some of the seaside areas on Martinaise, and took some pictures as I walked up the coast to Rottingdean.

Brighton and Martinaise have a fair amount in common (and a lot not in common). There's a Harbour in Shoreham down the coast, a large amount of fading, crumbling infrastructure and one of the largest drug/alcohol problems in the country. What struck me most was Joyce Messier's story about how Martinaise was 'built' by the ruling class as a holiday destination.

Brighton, at earliest recognisability, was a 16th century fishing village known as Brighthelmstone. It grew it's population into the 17th century, but saw economic decline into the 18th, and was then overhauled by the ruling classes as a 'health resort'. A move which brought wealth into the city, and built a grand Victorian seafront, boardwalk and (now burnt down) pleasure pier.

Brighton also has no shortage of memorials to absurd royal figures. Chiefly the Royal Pavilion. Serving as much as a monument to a monarch's profligacy as to their greatness. Much like a certain exploding horse statue.

In the 20th century, due to its fading appeal as a resort, and the effects of the wars, the city became popular with artists, bohemians, communists and anarchists across the economic spectrum. A notable 1930s Anarchist called Harry Cowley still has a mutual aid organisation/bookshop/social space/anarchist club named after him on London Road. It's economic decline dipped lowest in the 1980s (like many places under Thatcherism). The exploitable fashionable nature of its history has now led to it being a hugely expensive place to live in the UK, as well as being service industry based and for those residents who don't work for the one or two global companies with offices here, financially crippling. It's also a mishmash of absurd uber-rich empty developments, studded into a town of rotting buildings, slum landlords, massive homelessness, and stretched to breaking drug and alcohol services.

At my former job at a now sadly liquidated karaoke bar on a troubled street in the gay village, we used to call Brighton a city of lost souls.

As you walk across the cliffs, or look out over the sea towards the offshore wind farm, in the rays of a clouded dusk, you can sometimes feel the tension of the city dissipate. The rough edges between what this place was, what it has been, what it is now, and what it may become seem to soften slightly towards one another, like begrudging neighbors over long decades.

A fishing village. A health resort. An artist's commune. A neoliberal grind.

I know you could draw connections between Revachol and any city in Europe. Possibly the world. That's the beauty and genius of the writing. But I'm grateful for the chance to reflect on my city, re-examining it through this lense has allowed me.

Finally. The Smallest Church in Saint-Saïns is based on the song The Smallest Church in Sussex by Sea Power who were Brighton based for a long time. And describes the Seven Sisters, a nearby chalk cliff formation which I, and most others who live round here, have walked.

I would often go there

To the tiny church there

The Smallest Church in Sussex

Though it once was larger

How the rill may rest there

Down through the mist there

Toward the seven sisters

Toward those white cliffs there

I would often stay there

In the tiny yard there

I have been so glad here

Looking forward to the past here

But now you are all alone

None of this matters at all

[sleepymarmot]

YOU - "So you don't know what to write?" CINDY THE SKULL - "Have you ever tried your hand at graffito? When faced with a blank wall, most people write unimaginative stuff like *Pigs Go Home* and *Mona was here*." CINDY THE SKULL - "We rarely see pigs 'round here, though, just Union cads -- and my name's not Mona, so..." EMPATHY - She wants it to be something true -- and *total*.

---

TRICENTENNIAL ELECTRICS - No one replies, but the static grows stronger like rainfall. Then a female voice speaks out, completely different from the one before. Glorious and *total* somehow. Crawling inside your head. SHIVERS - FOR THREE HUNDRED YEARS I HAVE BEEN HERE. VOLATILE AND LUMINOUS. MADE OF SODIUM AND RAIN.

---

SHIVERS - I AM A FRAGMENT OF THE WORLD SPIRIT, THE GENIUS LOCI OF REVACHOL.

---

YOU - Wait, what exactly is an *innocence*? ENCYCLOPEDIA - The highest category of historic individual -- an embodiment of the World Spirit.

---

ONE DAY I WILL RETURN TO YOUR SIDE - The graffito has been painted over the traces of the fight that took place here. It smells of blood and heavy fuel oil. REACTION SPEED - This was Cindy the SKULL. YOU - Looks like Cindy the SKULL finally found the words for her masterpiece.

YOU - "Does this have anything to do with 'The Return' Klaasje is waiting for?" KIM KITSURAGI - "Could be. In Revachol West, someone somewhere is always whispering about Le Retour..." He squints his eyes at the writing. "It's an *aerograffito*, meant for Coalition aerostatics in the lower troposphere." INLAND EMPIRE - The return to her side. RHETORIC - The return of light.

INLAND EMPIRE - What if the words are not directed at the people of Martinaise, or even the Coalition aerostatics above the city -- they're meant for something above even those... SetVariableValue("plaza.graffito_concept_god", true) --[[ Variable[ ]]

---

ESPRIT DE CORPS - The officers go, leaving behind the writing -- still smouldering. ONE DAY, it says, I WILL RETURN TO YOUR SIDE. THE DESERTER - "Always waiting." The old man turns his eyes from the shore and back to you. YOU - "For what?" THE DESERTER - "For her to return." KIM KITSURAGI - "Her, who?" THE DESERTER - "Girl Child Revolution."

---

YOU - "Yeah, I lit it on fire. It was a poetic gesture." JEAN VICQUEMARE - "I knew it. Didn't I tell you, Trant? I told you it was our shitkid." TRANT HEIDELSTAM - "The line is from Lu Jiatun's 'Mirova 82', isn't it? About Girl Child Communism -- the titular *returning* character. The ghostly apparition of..." He looks around and, noticing the impatience of his companions, stops himself. "Good choice, Harry." ENCYCLOPEDIA - He is correct. It was the Seraise poet Lu Jiatun who in the Fifties of the last century composed a...

The words Cindy finds are *total* — like the voice of La Revacholière. They’re addressed to something high above — nicknamed “god” in the game data. The closest thing to gods this world seems to have are innocences, as well as the World Spirit they embody. According to La Revacholière, the World Spirit does exist, and she is a fragment of it. The Deserter thinks the writing refers to a different entity/idea anthropomorphized as feminine — the revolution. Trant and Encyclopedia clarify that it’s a line from a century-old work of literature, referring not to revolution but to communism, and the choice of the word “titular” is interesting — might the girl child be synonymous with the city of Mirova in that case? According to Inland Empire, the return is not by, but to someone who is referred to with she/her pronouns.

[enkisstories]

Detroit Disco

I’m in the process of creating the Disco Elysium precint 41 officers as sims to unleash them into my Detroit save. In the meantime have this drabble:

Detective Gavin Reed pressed his phone to his ear, only to move it further out the very next moment. The background noise was worse than ever. It was almost transcending static noise and coalescing into sentences, the echoes of each and every phone calls that had been made in Detroit since the invention of the telegraph.

“You were saying what?” Gavin asked. “Ah, I see. A drunk police lieutenant. Laid waste to his hotel room and threatened to blast his own brain out. Huh, right, that really sounds like ours. I’ll send someone over to pick him up.”

The detective covered the phone’s micro with his hand. “Your partner was found, Connor. I’ll dispatch a patrol android to fetch him.”

Returning to the phone, Gavin asked: “But how in hell did you manage to rile the motherfucker up like that? Wait, he did what? Toss your Great Skua against the wall? Why’d you show him a fucking Great Skua anyway? Hank is phobic of flock birds, of course he’d lose it, man! That’s on you!”

♪♫ So turn ‘round the fire with a glass of strong ale ♪♫ the stereo bawled. ♪♫ And tell us a story from beyond the Pale ♪♫

In Detroit PJ700-302 entered a regular DPD patrol car to drive to Martinaise. She returned with Harrier Du Bois.

In Revachol Judit Minot entered one of Precinct 41’s remaining three Coupris Kineemas to drive to Greektown. She returned with Hank Anderson.

Hank Anderson’s finger moved from one officer to the next.

“Gavin. Tina. David. Check.”

“No! Chester, Judit, Mack!”

“Uh-uh”, Hank shook his head. “That’s not Officer Mack. I’m a bit confused about how many Macks we have and what they all look like, but this man isn’t one of them.”

Three pairs of eyes moved towards the door when it opened. In came Trant Heidlstam, accompanied by Satellite-Officer Jean Vicquemare. A French sounding name, a name that wasn’t out of place in Detroit, similar to “Martinaise”. So why was Hank unable to place that particular neighborhood on his mental map of the city? He couldn’t have spaced out that badly?!

Jean took one look at the stranger, his internal Conceptualization and Visual Reconstruction agreed on the man’s differences to Harrier being neglible and therefore slotted him into the same spot in his mind, regardless of how often the other officers stressed that Hank wasn’t Harry. What the heck, they even started with the same letters!

“Look, I told you I didn’t want to deal with this crap. Clinically depressed and all.”

“Clinically?” That tidbit at least piqued Hank’s interested. “As in: diagnosed? I never had the energy to get diagnosed. Even if I had, what would it have changed… They’ll only ever tell you things aren’t the way you make them and the problem is you.”

Yay, all I need is a change in perspective and Cole is alive again!

“But things ARE the way they are, and so you nod sympathetically, tell the psycho lady her mantra has helped you a lot, go home and uncork another bottle. Not that anybody would fucking care. They only want you to function, like an android.”

There it was again. Androids. This Hank person mentioned them every second sentence, with great disgust, but also with a scarily detailed lore attached to the idea. Where Harry had temporarily forgotten reality in the past, Hank seemed to have filled the holes in his mind with a construct. A construct involving a slave race of artificial people. It was probably a highly sophisticated political commentary. Alas, it was also highly annoying.

“So what are we doing now with Commander Corkscrew?” Chester asked.

“Shut up, Gavin!” Hank snapped. “You’re not helping!”

“I’m not…”

“I said shut your trap! Not just because it’s enervating as hell, but if you are serious about your promotion, you got to act more professional!”

So. There. He had said it. There wasn’t anything wrong with Gavin Reed’s detective work, just a minor tendency to jump to conclusions. Putting effort into improving his work performance might earn Gavin a bit of promotion credit, but the big chunk was to be gained in the categories “Teamwork” and “Character development”, two areas the detective neglected.

“But I don’t care to get promoted!” Chester McLaine protested.

And then he screamed on top of his lungs, when Hank lunged forward, hugged him tightly, kissed him on his forehead and cheered: “That’s the spirit! Our boy is growing up!”

Falling back on what he had mentally filed as a Hank-repellent, Chester whimpered: “A… ndroid? Android!”

“Yes, yes”, Hank promised. “We’ll buy you one after your promotion.”

The promotion Chester McGavin didn’t want, the officers realized. So there was no risk of having to really gift him an android.

“Say, there is a certain logic to this man’s ramblings”, Trant mused. “His brain is working differently, but it is working. I’d say it’s save to put him back into the contest…”

“Case. You mean the murder case, of course”, Jean corrected. He liked where this was going (namely a Hank-free office).

“…and figure out everything else while we’re going”, Trant finished his sentence.

And so it was decided.

*

“I’m not Disco.”

“Come again?”

“I’m not Disco”, Connor repeated, clearly puzzled and probably also feeling insulted in a profound manner. “This is about the only thing I got out of the stranger. Other than that he isn’t Hank Anderson, I mean.”

Gavin Reed slammed his cup onto the table, causing an elaborate castle Officer Tina Chen had built from potato chips and nachos to crash.

“And why is that so?” the detective challenged Connor. “Why are you unable to make progress with the deviant cases or to find the amnesic weirdo in our database? Because you’re not Disco! See? He told you!”

Gavin triumphantly leaned back in his cafeteria chair. He really had no idea in what way not being “disco” was supposed be a shortcoming. But he wouldn’t have been Gavin Reed, had he not jumped to every opportunity to diminish Connor RK800.

“If only you tried to be more Disco, you’d have the deviant cases solved in no time!” Gavin went on, under the impression that he was driving the knife deeper.

Connor, however, blinked, and stated: “But then I’d replace you even earlier, detective. If I solved the deviant cases, I’d proven that the RK800 detective android is superior to a human one.”

“Oh, shut the fuck up!” Gavin demanded, while swiping the chips into Connor’s direction like artillery fire. Then he kicked his chair back, pounced Connor and rammed him against a column. “Take your racist bullshit out of my police station and don’t forget to grab your new partner on your way out! I don’t want to see either of you again before sunset!”

“My new partner?”

“Well, you lost your previous one. If you don’t want to file a Lost & Found, you better take Detective Mindblank along instead.”

“I don’t think the Lieutanent being missing warrants a Lost & Found, Detective.”

“Don’t want him back? In this case we agree on one thing. Nice!”

“No, I meant that a human missing warrants…”

But Tina and Gavin weren’t listening anymore. Grabbing the android’s right, respectively left, arm, they escorted him into the foyer.

“You have your orders.”

[inspiringraisin]

Elysium in Martinaise and Alrest

A spin off from my previous post about the Fury Sisters and Disco Elysium, I want to talk now about Elysium itself, and compare its concept to another game that I've been watching a let's play of called Xenoblade Chronicles 2. This is also some of my own personal feelings in regards to how both are represented and how it affected me.

The plot of Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is long and complicated, but the gist is, the main character Rex wants to go to Elysium to try to save everyone due to issues with land masses dying off called Titans. Lots of politics and beating god later, they go to Elysium, which was interpreted as this lush green utopia. However, when they get to Elysium, it's this desolate wasteland and is long since emptied. After fighting the final boss, Rex figures out Elysium was getting the surviving Titans together as a sort of utopia.

However, with Disco Elysium, Elysium is more of a... concept. Yes, the world is named after Elysium, but it's an old term that isn't used much anymore. The club can also be named Disco Elysium, which really represents Harry's character as a whole. But it more represents how Harry feels in limbo, or in purgatory, while having lost his memories, as referenced to the river Lethe in ancient Greek mythology.

While I don't think Xenoblade 2's representation of Elysium is inherently bad, I think Disco Elysium handled it better overall. I relate to Disco Elysium so much more with the idea of Elysium/purgatory because of how much more real Harry's struggles felt compared to Rex's.

In Xenoblade 2, however, Elysium felt more like just another place to go to. Having never seen the game before watching a let's play, I had a feeling that it wasn't going to be how Rex and the crew believed it to be, and I was right. And this wasn't like an amazing subversion that I predicted but wasn't sure about that made everything make sense, it was just... there. So I don't think it hit the same way to me as did Elysium in Disco Elysium, due to the stronger connotations between that game and Xenoblade 2 with the concept.

And maybe this is me just being an old fart at the age of 21, but I related to Harry's struggles so much more than a 15 year old with god and anime by his side, and I can't tell if that's sad or not. The political climate of Revachol reminded me so much of our present day world. It felt so, so real, and added layers onto the themes of Elysium. I feel in political purgatory likely as much as Harry does.

Yet, with Rex finding Elysium, I honestly forgot about it after a while due to the concept not being executed well enough. It could have been called anything else, and nothing would have changed. i.e. calling XC2 Elysium 'the Garden of Eden' would have similar connotations while keeping the religious themes. I honestly think that it would have worked better, especially with Xenosaga's strong connections to Christianity.

If I was younger, I might have liked the story of XBC2 more with Rex than Disco Elysium, especially as the anime protagonist route. That you have to fight god to try to make things better. However, Disco Elysium taught me that you have to do you, and you have to take care of yourself before you can help others. And that just helping yourself is sometimes all you can do, even if you feel in purgatory all the while. Or what I call chronic 'I don't know disease'.

Further, Harry's self hatred and suicidal tendencies felt more... real, than Pyra and Mythra's self hatred. I honestly forgot about Pyra/Mythra's while watching the game, but was constantly reminded of Harry's self hatred when he put himself in danger, or had negative thoughts about himself. It's such a minute detail in XBC2 that isn't really important until the first fight with Pneuma where Pyra/Mythra tell you why they want to go to Elysium, it could be cut out. So I sympathized more with Harry than Pyra/Mythra.

TDLR: Elysium in Xenoblade Chronicles 2 felt more like a plot device to me rather than an abstract concept that represented the feelings of the protagonist. Therefore, I think the concept of Elysium was done significantly better in Disco Elysium than Xenoblade Chronicles 2, and made the character more relatable as an adult.

[disco-elysium-via-polls]

3. "Are you cooking *morphine* in there?!"

LOCKED DOOR - "Oh, come on!" There's a pause, before you hear the door being unlocked.

KIM KITSURAGI - "That was smart," the lieutenant says, nodding toward the unlocked door.

Looks like a fine mattress.

REAL ESTATE AGENT - "Satisfied? My name is Marielle Charpentier and I'm an agent with Martinaise Realty Associates. I am *not* breaking in, as I have every *right* to be here. The keys, see?" She jingles a set of keys in her hand.

EMPATHY [Medium: Success] - Her voice is really cheerful despite her obviously *hating* you.

REAL ESTATE AGENT - "Do you want to see my ID as well? You can't *legally* ask for it, but why not? Want to see my residence permit, too?" She fumbles through her purse, fishing out a light paper-clad passport.

Inspect the passport.

"I don't need to see your ID, I just need to ask you some questions."

[Leave.]

REAL ESTATE AGENT - It feels flimsy in hand, with the words 'Revachol Zone of Control' written under a nondescript municipal logo. There's a picture of her with shorter hair inside, along with all her personal details.

SUGGESTION [Medium: Success] - Be friendly.

"Nice haircut." (Hand back the passport.)

"Everything seem to be in order." (Hand back the passport.)

REAL ESTATE AGENT - "Thank you." She slips the passport back in her purse. "Do you have any questions? I need to be back in midtown in an hour."

"What are you doing here?"

"Who lived in the foreclosed apartment down the hallway?"

"That's all, thank you." [Leave.]

REAL ESTATE AGENT - She sighs and looks around. "I need to get it ready for the next lease, but as you can see, the previous tenant completely trashed the place."

[springon1on]

i literature analysis-ed my playlist cuz apparently i'm not burned out from uni anymore

it's all about the journey and the bad taste left in your mouth

if before i wake - the districts

This song starts quiet then builds and molds itself into a familiar scene to anyone who’s played Disco Elysium. Harry in his head, woken up by “thunder”, fueled by a looming self-hatred and -pity we can’t yet identify. We’re as precarious as the world we’re in, and this is where we start our disco journey.

hollow log - beck

I don’t fuck with Sorry Cop Harry. This song to me represents his instincts, what’s left in his body by the time we get to him: addiction, drowning out thoughts of an ex-something (lover/home/taskforce) and Jamrock Shuffling till you drop. A small, sad hobo-cop bop. The speaker in the song encourages this behaviour in a way that reminds me of some of the skills.

list of people (to try and forget about) - tame impala

So this is my brain’s convoluted playlist logic: the more upbeat/disco the song is, the more we’re in super-duper-denial-star-cop mode. The lyrics fit superficially (forced?) amnesia)), but to me it’s really about the vibes and the vibes are anodic music that was deemed too sad for the club.

ordinary pleasure - toro y moi

Groovy anodic music that’s too sad for the club pt 2: There’s a nihilism and hopelessness to this one that reminds me of our guy. Key words: Hedonism and addiction. And then there’s also this:

‘Cause this world makes a lot of noise for me

Makes it hard for me to hear what I’m thinking

Sometimes I don’t understand what I say

So it’s fine if you gotta get away

The rest of the lyrics might be a little bit of a stretch ngl, this has a wearier perspective then someone so ‘new’ to the world could have. But I still like it :)

tenement funster - queen

This one is dedicated to Raphael Ambrosius Costeau, as only he could pull of these lyrics without a hint of irony. As if instead of a check to come up with a name, you try to come up with a whole alter-identity, but some depressing self-perception leaks into the delusion babble by mistake. You may not be young, but you might be ‘crazy’. I like how the song ends, the speaker hoping to ‘make the speed of light outta this place’ in an ‘open car’, which in an HDB context, is a line loaded with dread.

sirens - the weepies

So the car from Tenement Funster has been driven into the sea. ‘Here lie remains’. That’s us, and our MC, and the world of Martinaise. We crash off a musical cliff and wash up into this small, sad song with voices ‘calling out emergency’ for Revachol and for us. The end is near and we are picking up the pieces, blaming the little fragments of memory we do have (Dora) for abandoning us. We ‘drift through history’ trying and failing to reconstruct it and slowly coming to terms with our part in it. Very memory, loneliness, apocalypse, but still searching for something outside ourselves to blame.

i will dare - the replacements

I love this song. Any sort of 80s dad music feels very Harry to me, although that’s not his preferred genre. It has everything: cigarettes, not knowing your age, idealising a love interest and being desperate to spend every moment of your time with them. A little pathetic, a bit misguided and obsessive, it feels like a realistically unhealthy angle of how Harry could approach post-Martinaise with Kim.

no drugs - pinegrove

Navigating a sober (but not self-motivated) Harrier. Longing for Kim’s approval (‘I can feel light moving in everything you say’ is as deifying as his halo) and struggling (‘Maybe I just could and you could just look the other way’). On the one hand it’s a hopeful song about new beginnings and relationships, on the other it’s about attempting to justify problems with drugs and alcohol that make the foundations you’re building volatile. Sunrise parabellum.

ahhh i made a playlist for harry! the vibes are not ‘:)’ tho, i lied

[disco-elysium-via-polls]

🎵 Miss Oranje Disco Dancer

There's actually *no* music in this scene, and this track doesn't play in the game at all. I'm pretty sure this is where it's intended to be?

3. "You might be."

KLAASJE (MISS ORANJE DISCO DANCER) - "No, I'm not." She waves you off.

EMPATHY [Easy: Success] - She doesn't seem to be overly distressed. Or distressed at all, really.

KIM KITSURAGI - "My colleague has an *exploratory* sense of humour. Don't hold it against him."

ESPRIT DE CORPS [Easy: Success] - He's thinking: "I like this kind of prodding, whatever the situation. It may lead somewhere yet..."

+1 Reputation

4. "How do I know you've told us your real name?"

KLAASJE (MISS ORANJE DISCO DANCER) - "If I were to lie to you, I would come up with a more *mainstream* name than *Klaasje Amandou*. It's... a weird name."

DRAMA [Medium: Success] - She seems to be telling the truth, sire.

5. "Okay then." (Conclude.)

KLAASJE (MISS ORANJE DISCO DANCER) - "Okie-dokie." She pours herself more coffee.

COMPOSURE [Medium: Success] - If any of this made her nervous, it certainly doesn't show in her expression or her movements.

7. "Thank you. That's it -- for the record."

KLAASJE (MISS ORANJE DISCO DANCER) - "'The record' -- so official!"

2. "Nice room you've got here."

KLAASJE (MISS ORANJE DISCO DANCER) - "Yeah, it's pretty *De Luxe*."

SUGGESTION [Easy: Success] - No one likes to talk about their dirty laundry and their empty bottles. Maybe if you phrase it emotionally...

"What are you doing here -- in the Whirling-in-Rags?"

(Look around.) "Hate to say it, but you've got *Sad* all over the place."

"You have quite the collection of prescription drugs down there."

"Where does that door lead to?" (Point to the door on the roof.)

"That window is new."

"I have other questions for you."

KLAASJE (MISS ORANJE DISCO DANCER) - "I'm wintering."

KIM KITSURAGI - "How long have you been staying here?"

KLAASJE (MISS ORANJE DISCO DANCER) - She calculates. "About four months. I came in November."

"Why here?"

"Understood."

KLAASJE (MISS ORANJE DISCO DANCER) - "Here in the Whirling, here in Martinaise, or here in Revachol?"

"Here is the Whirling."

"Here in Martinaise."

"Here in Revachol."

KLAASJE (MISS ORANJE DISCO DANCER) - "I heard this is where the washed up disco has-beens go."

"You came to the right place."

"You're too young to call yourself a disco has-been."

"No. This is Sassytown. It's where the future of dance lies."

"Understood."

KLAASJE (MISS ORANJE DISCO DANCER) - She smirks. "I'm really not."

2. (Look around.) "Hate to say it, but you've got *Sad* all over the place."

KLAASJE (MISS ORANJE DISCO DANCER) - "Yeaaah..." She draws out the vowel. "I've contaminated it pretty bad."

"Is that why you're out here?"

KLAASJE (MISS ORANJE DISCO DANCER) - She nods. "The Contamination spreads from room to room. First I escaped upstairs. The Sad got that too. Then I found the handle for the summer door..."

"What exactly is the nature of this 'Contamination'?"

"Got it."

KLAASJE (MISS ORANJE DISCO DANCER) - "For me it's a mix of *me* with a lack of cleaning services. How about you?"

"Talk around the establishment is you have an industrial Sad-spill in there." She taps the roof with her heel.

INLAND EMPIRE [Medium: Success] - Somewhere below, military-grade Sad is dripping off the walls... you should say the first thing. It's honest. It will lead to introspection.

"Something is bad," point to your head, "in my head. In the past."

"It's a demon who smells of betrayal. And apricots."

"For me it's alcoholism, miss."

"I don't know what it is."

Okay.

KLAASJE (MISS ORANJE DISCO DANCER) - "That's where it always comes from, isn't it? From the head -- and from the past."

"It's a feeling. White and filled with doom. Gaseous. Invisible. Deadly. It's everywhere."

(Nod.) "Anyway."

KLAASJE (MISS ORANJE DISCO DANCER) - "Sounds like an advanced form of what I've got. With a bit of old love sprinkled on top."

"Doesn't feel like love at all."

"Probably, yeah."

(Nod.) "Anyway."

KLAASJE (MISS ORANJE DISCO DANCER) - "Are you sure? Love is *terror*..." She breathes in a large billow of menthol-infused smoke, savours it, then lets it out slowly.

+5 XP

3. "You have quite the collection of prescription drugs down there."

KLAASJE (MISS ORANJE DISCO DANCER) - "Thank you -- I've put a lot of time and effort into it," she says without any discernible irony.

AUTHORITY [Trivial: Success] - Technically, possession of narcotics is legal in Revachol. But you should still reprimand her.

SUGGESTION [Easy: Success] - No, no, don't listen to *the stiff*. Be cool.

[disco-elysium-via-polls]

"Was it made by a sea monster rising from the depths?"

RENÉ ARNOUX - "No," he says without even smiling. "It was left by heavy artillery fire."

"Okay, it's a crater left by heavy artillery fire -- but why?"

RENÉ ARNOUX - "Why what?"

"Why was heavy artillery used?"

RENÉ ARNOUX - "Because that's what happens when communards hijack your country, execute your supreme leadership, and turn your capital into a slaughterhouse. You use *heavy ordnance* to clean up your home."

"Wait, who are the 'communards', again?"

"Did *you* use artillery fire against them?"

"Maybe we can do this history lesson later."

RENÉ ARNOUX - "Commies, communists, socialists, anarchists -- call them what you like. They just chose the name to feel special." The carabineer frowns. "Senseless sentimentality."

2. "Did *you* use artillery fire against them?"

RENÉ ARNOUX - "Sadly, no. It was the foreigners who brought them to their knees. We fought valiantly -- too valiantly. So valiantly we got licked," he adds, squeezing a *boule* in his fist.

"Should've fought dirty. Like they did with their suicide sex cult propaganda and *mad anarchist women* strapped to shrapnel bombs. We didn't though. And we lacked *calibre*. God bless him, but the suzerain's cannons simply weren't big enough.“

"Why shell them here in Martinaise?"

"They should have chosen a place away from people and buildings."

(Look around) "I understand. I'd bomb this place too."

RENÉ ARNOUX - "Because this place is the damn Beachhead," he says, pointing to the bay. "Had to soften the commies up first."

"The Beachhead?"

RENÉ ARNOUX - "Yes," he nods, inspecting you with some disdain. "The military-coordinated amphibious landing to take back Revachol."

SUGGESTION [Medium: Success] - He finds your lack of historic knowledge troubling. A sign of mental deterioration in the proceeding generations.

RENÉ ARNOUX - "Martinaise was used as one of the three footholds in Revachol during Operation Death Blow in '08. The other two are off in Stella Maris and the Delta." He points to the northeast.

"Death Blow... sounds grim."

Nod thoughtfully and turn to look northeast.

Shake your head and look down at the crater.

RENÉ ARNOUX - "This here is blood ground, where Coalition boots first made landfall and cleaned those rabid dogs out. Most likely," he says, looking down at the soil, "we're playing pétanque on their mangled corpses."

GASTON MARTIN - "Blood ground..." The other one shakes his head. "You got old René going there. Like he isn't angry enough already..."

"Hold on -- the Coalition?"

"Is that why everything is so bombed out?"

"Ah, that explains all the war damage."

RENÉ ARNOUX - - "Mhmh," he grunts. "Don't get me wrong, officer. I hate those foreign dogs. But the enemy of my enemy and all that. They're the lesser evil."

"Is that why everything is so bombed out?"

"Ah, that explains all the war damage."

"Actually I already know all this. I just wanted to know if you do too."

RENÉ ARNOUX - "Damn right, son. They laid the fire of hell on this city before they stormed it. And it worked, too." There is a strange gleam in his eyes.

"The rest of the city got cleaned up, but Martinaise they keep as a *monument*." A dark shadow runs across his face. "And now the Union socialists are practically running the place."

GASTON MARTIN - "Well, it's your own damn fault," the jolly man remarks. "You, we, the Coalition, Revachol -- whoever you wanna blame -- never finished the job. Officially the Party never surrendered. Of course they still hold influence."

RENÉ ARNOUX - "You don't even *begin* to truly understand the players on the table, let alone the specific circumstances surrounding the..." He stops mid-sentence and turns to you. "What do you think?"

[s0ym1lk]

I'm definitely not with you on the idea that people can't be better than their circumstances, or that people must be exactly as bad as their circumstances warrant. Frankly, if someone told me that I'm a better person just because I've had it easier than other people, I'd laugh in their face. I've put in the work to be better thany circumstances, and other people are capable of that too. The fact that someone had it rough doesn't excuse them from trying to be better, (or mean that they can't be) and I think that's where the game loses me. For example - Klaasje may not be forgiving Lely for what he did, but she's certainly enabling it. She excuses his behavior to everyone around. She allows him to continue it, to use it as jokes and sex roleplay. Now you tell me - if I deployed to another country and participated in such action, can I bring that back to my home country and perpetuate it without being asked to change? Is it okay simply because I've been traumatized? Klaasje is speaking out of turn when she condones those things, in a way that directly harms people. Who knows how many people Lely has hurt with those actions? We know already that racism is serious in Revachol, and that Kim has many experiences being told he doesn't belong despite being a natural-born citizen and never embracing his Seolite heritage. I imagine there are refugees from war in Martinaise too. It's really not acceptable that Klaasje excuses those things, even in a personal relationship. Accepting them in her case means no accountability. Allowing them to continue.

What I'm trying to point out is that the game makes this 'hurt people hurt people' argument and then clamps on this 'so you should accept them just as they are' argument. NO. YOU. SHOULDN'T. People always have the ability to be better, and it's our responsibility to hold them accountable for that. The reason this argument bugs me so much with Klaasje is because the place this argument comes up over and over again is in gender relations. It's objective reality, first, that women who go through the same things as men do not hurt people nearly as much - crime statistics show this. It's also objective reality that men hurt women much more than women hurt men. So here you have the game evoking feminism and actively working against it to say that we should just accept people as they are, when in fact the 'hurt people hurt people' argument has justified gender inequality for all of history. If we take this acceptance theme that DE is pushing, in the way the game frames it, it justifies some categories of people continuing to hurt other categories of people in the name of acceptance.

Again, the game stops just short of being totally clear with this argument - because Klaasje won't SAY that Lely sexually assaulted her, but she WILL say that she doesn't want to 'think' of him as having done that. The game does this over and over again where it wants to stick its toe into complexity, but it doesn't want to commit to it, because it knows if it does, its argument as currently framed unravels. If Klaasje admits to being sexually assaulted, making Lely a sympathetic character is much harder. For good reason. That's not to say that Lely wouldn't still be traumatized or in need of empathy, because he went through some shit, but we as players would want to hold him accountable for hurting Klaasje, and it's going to be much harder for us to accept that Klaasje's arguments are coming from a place of rationality rather than from a person trapped in an abusive relationship.

The fact that the game tries to paint Klaasje as a rational actor when she's clearly not, and then use that to perpetuate narratives which have enabled gender inequality for thousands of years, does not sit well with me. I'm sure that wasn't, like, the game's active intention. But it clearly is trying to do some active work against feminist narratives via Klaasje's plot arc, and it turns out that those feminist narratives exist in the first place to fight this exact problem.

I would like to get into a character that I feel very ambivalent about: Klaasje. Not so much Klaasje herself, but some of the narratives that her character (and other female characters) embody in Disco Elysium.

(Warning: spoilers ahead, as well as talk of sexual assault and Klaasje’s canonically batshit relationship)

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