#just one last word

[cozy-the-overlord]

I was playing with watercolors and drew some of my OC’s

[coffeecatcraze]

I would just like to say how hard it hits me in the chest to see Charlie masking every time she's onscreen the day before the fight (including what we see on Vox's spy screens of course), except when no one is with her but Vaggie. Even during her emotional speech she tries so damn hard to keep that confidence up and smile on. But we do see her stop masking twice, when the only person watching her is Vaggie.

First:

No one's really paying attention to her, and she's not smiling; she's worried. When Vaggie approaches her, she doesn't put on a happy face. She talks about her mom with the same smile as in the first episode (during a very emotionally vulnerable moment with Vaggie, might I add). It's not happy or confident. It's nostalgic, wistful, and sad, because her mom's absence is something very personal and painful for her. When Vaggie asks if they're ready, Charlie doesn't instantly start to smile or answer with confidence even though she usually would (even within that short beat of time), because her mask is off. She's not confident or optimistic. She's scared. She's not ready.

Then Pentious comes out and she's all smiles again! The mask comes back on when someone other than Vaggie is there.

Second:

Of course, one of our favorite scenes. Charlie's alone when she breaks down, but when Vaggie shows up, she keeps the mask off. She admits how scared she is. When she does smile, it's not the big smile she's been throwing on throughout the day, and it's not strained either. It's soft, gentle, and real. She's not masking. Vaggie is genuinely making her feel better when she's finally letting herself fall apart, just by being there and reminding her that no matter what happens, she's already accomplished so much, and she's so loved.

Charlie is under a lot of stress and pressure. She's scared. She's not as optimistic as she's making herself out to be. She's giving everything she's got out there being a strong, confident, inspirational leader and friend in front of everyone, and it's only with Vaggie that she lets it go. She doesn't have to try to be strong. She doesn't pretend. She lets down her guard, because for her, Vaggie is that one infinitely special person who gets to see every part of her; the one person she can always be her honest self with.

There were plenty of times in other episodes when Charlie didn't mask her negative emotions around people, but that was when she didn't have anyone looking to her as a leader. She's running on adrenaline and the weight of people's expectations as Extermination Day gets closer, and she can't let the mask she's put on slip in public. She has to seem like she's totally ready for what's coming. But Vaggie is different.

The amount of trust and love Charlie has for her is staggering. She's under an insane amount of stress and pressure, and having Vaggie by her side is probably the only thing keeping her from completely falling to pieces. Seeing a relationship so full of deep trust and love is absolutely beautiful. <3

[buttercupshands]

can you even call it a warm up if I'm going to bed without drawing anything big

and a sketch I made while sitting in the park today

[stressfulsloth]

I've seen a couple of takes about Disco Elysium being copaganda going around recently, and beyond the fact that DE is relentlessly critical of the police force in general and makes explicit reference to the failures of the system that allow the officers in game to abuse their power, I also think it's important to note that there very literally is an in-world version of copaganda that the writers of the game use to parody that romanticised view of the brutality of policing. The RCM at their inception were structurally inspired by in-world copaganda- their culture, their "fashions, even weapon preferences, borrow heavily from classic Vespertine cop shows." Every investigation is it's own little drama, every officer imagining themselves to be the bad-ass hero of their own crime serial. Detectives name their cases like they're naming episodes of a TV series in a "robust but literary system"; a title that "draws inspiration from snoop fiction and Vespertine cop show staples". They give themselves nicknames to sound like cool, suave fictional officers- Ace, Dick Mullen, etc.- from the cool, suave world of copaganda.

The legend of the RCM's inception, the "point of contention" over its uncertain origins, is even an extention of that; the whole organisation is shrouded in this self-fictionalising mythos that allows for distance that in turn obfuscates much of its violence to the officers that participate in it. They get to convince themselves that they're not abusing their power; they're the hero of the story! The dichotomy of "good guy" taking out the "baddies," a manifestation of the libertarian fantasy of the "good guy with a gun" who does what it takes, just like in Annette's detective novels, and at the same time who rails against oversight bodies like Internal Affairs/'the rat squad' because due process slows down the immediate satisfaction of Swift Justice, despite Internal Affairs existing to protect the citizens from overreach on behalf of the police. "Wanton brutality" from police in their real world is a cold bitter reality but Dick Mullen was "made to crack skulls," "bend the rules and solve cases no one else can," and which version of that story is more comforting to the overworked, underfunded officers of the RCM?

The level of fantasy and detachment required for the cops to still see themselves as the good guys after everything that they do in the line of duty mimics The Pigs and her breakdown too; she parallels Harry so clearly. Both "did right by the kids" in the past, hoping for a better future- Marianne (The Pigs) by looking out for Titus and the Hardy boys when they were young, Harry in his role as a gym teacher. Both abandoned and left behind by the system that the RCM uphold- a brutal capitalist landscape with no safety nets. Both turning the source of their trauma into a costume, a performance, a shield, shaped by "radio waves and cop shows." The Pigs uses RCM items scavenged from the Esperance where they'd been thrown away, while Harry uses the Dick Mullen hat that Annette gives him but both are essentially in costume.

Harry identifies himself with the fictional detective as a kind of wish fulfilment; Dick Mullen is "wicked smart." He doesn't fuck up his cases and when he's sad it's not pathetic; it's effortlessly cool brooding and everyone sympathises. Everyone loves him. His violence- "skull crack[ing]"- is justified because he's a "good guy" enacting that violence against the victims of police brutality sorry "bad guys". He doesn't ever face repercussions; "Dick Mullen won't be sent to the clink for the sake of some legal niceties!" So if Harry is Dick Mullen then his failures, his breakdown, they're all just a part of being a "bad-ass, on-the-edge disco cop." He's not wrong, he's a hero! This idealised fictionalised idea of the police force, this "new, sadly better, reality" that both Harry and The Pigs cling to is "escapist stuff," "receed[ing] into a ludicrous fantasy world," so far removed from the brutal material reality that they're in.

My point is, idk. Disco Elysium is so far from being copaganda. It is a multi-million word long dissection of it, of the purpose of policing, of state sanctioned violence and its interaction with capital and the fallout experienced within the wider community as well as the trauma cycle created for individual officers. A dissection of how copaganda interacts with RCM culture and perception, and by extension how we interact with irl perceptions of police through that lens.

[hollytree33]

JUDGEMENT

Finally, her fourth and final card for Trespasser!!

1. The Hanged Man

2. The Chariot

3. The High Priestess

[sensitiveheartless]

(the rest is under the cut!)

[starry-bi-sky]

more clone^2 memes because i think they're funny

[the-meme-monarch]

hey you may remember these posts from recent. these were originally just coincidental and separate unrelated drawings but i was asked this and resolved to find a third doll outfit for cap’n and afterward i was suggested this vinyl scratch figurine by gracebeth3604 and i liked it :] you may also remember that last linked post where i said i didn’t know where the skirt that i used for sweet’s outfit came from and well good and bad news I found out what it was. if you know you know I don’t want to go into in on a post like this. divorced from that context i think it’s fun that 2/3 of them turned out to have outfits from unicorn characters. and that I was sure it was a skirt like on a human shaped doll but it was in fact a dress and that’s how I drew it on them. anyway

if you ship scc go away from me please 👍

[peachyutdr]

i finished it, was kicked out of the game, and then spent the next 10 minutes drawing this. i will now go take a shower, most likely cry, and then go through the emotional turmoil of convincing myself to reset so i can do a geno run. i hate it here :D

[parkersloths]

Here's a little old angst amid the kot kot chaos

[cozy-the-overlord]

Me: <sees dandelion> “SÁGA?”

[sky-is-the-limit]

Abby Anderson is gay, spread the word 🙏

[sharptoothed-gaze]

Damn I just finished reading the entire statement from the ex-Qsmp web developer and HOLY SHIT WHAT THE FUCK.

As someone who has fucked around with coding and web design, the conditions that worker had to endure were simply unacceptable.

3 Hours as a deadline for anything relating to coding and design (especially as your first assignment) is almost hard for me to comprehend. It’s so incredibly last minute, and it sounds absolutely anxiety inducing.

In the field of coding, if you fuck up one thing even if everything else is right, whatever you’re working on will simply cease to function. It’s a job that involves a lot of time and effort and it requires you to get things right or else it will all collapse.

I mostly do more superficial design because coding pains me, but I cannot imagine getting less than a 1 day notice before a deadline. And I have always considered /that/ incredibly last minute and a sign of horrible planning and coordination. The fact that I consider a 1 day deadline sucky, should tell you exactly how I feel about a 3 hour deadline.

OH ALSO $5 AN HOUR WHEN YOURE WORKING 60 ON A SINGLE PROJECT WILL NEVER BE OKAY. I HAVE LITERALLY NEVER SEEN A DESIGN JOB AT ANY OFFICIAL CAPACITY PRICED LIKE THAT.

NOT FOR A JOB, NOT FOR AN INTERNSHIP, AND NOT EVEN FOR WHEN I EDITED MY COLLEGE NEWSPAPER.

To any artist that feels like they have to work so incredibly hard for so little:

Fuck that you’re worth more.

[beaulesbian]

Star Trek: The Original Series 2x9 Most unusual. Unlikely. In fact, captain, I would say quite impossible.

[i-am-not-a-who-i-am-a-what]

so about the header that proceeded today's statement:

Viability as agent: Low

Viability as subject: None

Viability as catalyst: Medium

i didn't know what to think of this part of the entry at first, but the longer the statement went on... was the institute in this universe trying to manufacture avatars?

the dice can't do anything without someone to use them, they can't be an "agent" by themselves, but might be capable of manipulation, so in that aspect their viability is "low."

the dice could be a "subject" in the sense that they could use further studying, but the statement itself was a very thorough investigation of their workings, so in that aspect their viability is "none."

the dice seem to influence their holder to roll them, or at least find more victims to roll them, and could therefore be described as a "catalyst" for someone's becoming. but, as seen in the statement, their owner can give the dice to someone else (albeit not without consequences), so in that aspect their viability is only "medium."

so what about the line following all this, what does "Recommend referral to Catalytics for Enrichment applicability assessment" mean? if we go by this interpretation, i'd say it could mean the institute wanted to find a way to make the dice even more potent as an artifact, maybe even remove that pesky ability for their owner to reject them.

imho all of this this brings a whole new level of context to the events of episode seven, of unknown violent agents going after an influx of objects that seemed straight out of artifact storage. was that the nature of the titular "magnus protocol" first mentioned in episode four, the one that involved the starkwall group? containing or destroying potential artifacts before the institute could get their hands on them?

it also makes their "gifted kids program," and sam's link to it as one of the kids being studied, all the more horrifying to think about. was it not just avatars in general they were after, but child avatars specifically? no wonder gertrude got so defensive over the possibility of sam and celia dragging gerry back into the institute's business last episode, we all picked up on her clearly knowing more than she's letting on but now we might know the shape of that information a bit better.

and one final bit of food for thought... this statement had a lot of familiar themes, didn't it? free will or the illusion of it, gambling and not-so-random chance, the statement giver being done in by one final hit from what feels like a bit of an addition... all hallmarks of a certain mother of puppets. doesn't it seem fitting that "chester" would use this kind of statement to warn sam about what harm pursuing the magnus institute could bring to him, considering the one his voice might draw from? and doesn't it seem so painfully ironic that his warning seems to have only driven sam further into that web?

[solarockk]

i need to try new things for my art ngl i feel a lil stuck (have one of my favorite life serie scene as a treat tho!)