#martin martinaise

[submrna]

Homosexual what

[meriahlatyar]

Smokers...

[disco-archetypes]

YOU - "Only if you promise that we'll talk again. It's *important*."

KIM KITSURAGI - Something flutters in the corner of the lieutenant's mouth as you're saying those words.

EMPATHY - It's laughter!

SMOKER ON THE BALCONY - "We'll talk," the smoker assures you, brushing his hand through the hair. "Just not tonight."

SMOKER ON THE BALCONY - "Take care, alright?" he says with another disarming smile, before slipping off into the night.

CONCEPTUALIZATION - And he's gone again. Looks like it's becoming a theme for him.

YOU - "He's always leaving... Why is he always leaving, Kim?"

KIM KITSURAGI - "Who knows, detective? It's a... mystery," he says, turning his face away from you.

EMPATHY - There, he's laughing again!

[nerdacious]

“Fancy meeting you again, Gendarme,” a soft voice settles next to him.

Kim turns to see the man from the balcony from Martinaise, cigarette in hand as usual, shirt still unbuttoned. Kim’s expression doesn’t betray his surprise at this interruption. This was the last person he expected to meet tonight.

A year ago today I posted my first Disco Elysium fic, Call Me By His Name. So I commissioned the talented @snaxk to draw a scene from it to mark the occasion!

If you like pining Kim haunted by the (metaphorical) ghost of Harry, you should check it out! And if you like case fics and slow burns, you should read the follow-up!

[stiwfssr]

Disco Elysium

[your-favourite-plague]

Portrait of Brett Anderson. Smoker on the Balcony. Brett Anderson. Smoker on the Balcony. Bre... Both.

It's a follow up to this post. Theoretically, I still don't have time, but I also don't have self-control ✌

Reference photo under the cut

[rpgchoices]

100  lgbtq+ videogames characters (215): SMOKER ON THE BALCONY (Disco Elysium)

[saorsay]

Not sure if this has already been discussed here by ppl much smarter than me. But how much are we willing to bet that "The Homosexual Underground" is an actual term used to refer to the queer community in revachol/insulinde/elysium and not just some shit the Smoker on the Balcony made up on the fly to fuck with the Apparently Amnesiac cop he just met lol

[mapping-elysium]

Coast Orb: Snow Shivers

WEST

More coast with abandoned buildings and piers

Pre-revolution effort to gentrify the coast

Coal city

Boom town from when revachol was powered mostly by coal

“in the shadow of Saint-Martin”

Supplanted by offshore petroleum and hydropower from Esperance

Infrastructure crumbled. Now a poor area “only the weakest remain”

Below the mines: L'Ossuaire Municipal, Revachol's underground cemetery

Les Petits rats attempt to to find Le Royaume (royal burial chambers)

EAST

Canal and Martinaise

[see PLAZA ORB] whitest part of town

Run-off point of a long forgotten canal

NORTH

Church

1 of 2 remaining stave churches

Originally of a set of 8 called Les Sept Souers “other six sisters were destroyed during the revolutions”

World’s end

Islets

Sea Fortress: The 114th Anti-Aircraft Division of the 4th Army of the Commune of Revachol

Résurrection: Popular spa for  Ozonne residents

A couple of other islets scattered and uninhabited

Martinaise Inlet

Bay of Revachol

1200 m depth

Ozonne

SOUTH

8/81 - raised motorway

Separates Martinaise from Jamrock

Buildings under the motorway (Labyrinthine alleyways)

The Pox

Once a park for the Old Military Hospital

In the 20s was a quarantine center during measles outbreak

Abandoned after the outbreak

Completely wild now, overrun by feral dogs and wolves

Police keep deepest corners cordoned off

Precinct 41

Line of motor garages 

Repurposed silk mill

Central Jamrock

Utility district - Library, florist, saramisizian restaurant

Brothels, drug dens and Zemlyaki(gang) chopshops

Built around lake formed by meteorite strike [Ship in the middle]

Below

sand poisoned with industrial run-off. The storm drainage. Hidden bunkers

NOTES: This is unfortunately the last of the notes I had written ahead of time so things may move slower. Hopefully I've made enough posts that you all can understand the format I'm going for. Joyce's Reality Lowdown is going to take a long time to work through

Shivers - Winter, slow to let go of Revachol, flecks some more wet snow from above...

You - Look around you.

Shivers - The snow falls lazily, making the beach sand paler still, mixing with the rust-coloured sewage run-off.

Shivers - And to think -- it seemed as though it were already spring.

You - How does it feel?

Shivers - Your teeth chatter as the snow melts on your exposed skin, running down your chest and your back in icy rivulets. To distract yourself, you look around...

Replaced with "Your teeth chatter as the snow melts on your exposed skin, running down your chest and your back in icy rivulets. The toes of your one bare foot are growing numb. To distract yourself, you look around..." if HasShoes() == false and (CheckEquipped("shoes_snakeskin_left") or CheckEquipped("shoes_snakeskin_right"))

Replaced with "Your teeth chatter as the snow melts on your exposed skin, running down your chest and your back in icy rivulets. Your bare feet are growing numb. To distract yourself, you look around..." if HasShoes() == false

You - What's in the west?

Shivers - More winding coastline lined with abandoned buildings. Crumbling piers, salt water lapping at their dark piles. Grey and red, forgotten city blocks. What remains of the pre-revolutionary effort to gentrify the coast.

You - And beyond that?

Shivers - The waters turn black. Coal City in the shadow of Saint-Martin, a boom town, back when coal extracted from countless shafts near the city was needed to power Revachol.

Shivers - No more. The coal was supplanted by petroleum from the ocean floor and hydropower from the Esperance. Everything crumbled. These days, only the weakest remain in Coal City. Their hopes of getting rich linger in the defunct shafts under their feet.

You - What is there?

Shivers - Below the old mines -- L'Ossuaire Municipal, Revachol's underground cemetery. *Les petits rats* brave the underground passageways, trying to get to Le Royaume...

You - Le Royaume...

Shivers - ...where the Filippian kings were interred, with their doctors and their admirals. Mausoleums, burial chambers, leaf gold still remains on the Double Door of the Morning.

You - That's where Cuno said he's gonna go...

Shivers - Yes. To peel the gold off with his fingernails.

You - Les *petits rats*...

Shivers - Children under 14. They go underground, looking for artefacts to sell to foreign museums -- and for fabled relics. Their parents let them. They go deeper...

You - Deeper...

Shivers - ...after rubies, melchiorite, lapis lazuli plundered from Safre and Seol during the time of the Suzerain. In the burial chambers of the kings: Grand Old Filippe, Guillaume II, and even in the mausoleum of Filippe the Opulent.

Shivers - Two kilometres underground, in a winding shaft along whose walls mirrors have been placed so that daylight may eternally fall upon the richest of all the kings.

Shivers - The mausoleum contains untold quantities of gold -- and that special, purest-of-the-pure magenta cocaine favoured by Revacholian royalty.

Electrochemistry - Did someone say *untold quantities of cocaine*? Drop everything immediately and go looking for this hoard!

Logic - How can it be pure if it's magenta?

You - Wipe the snow from your shoulder.

Shivers - Few *petits rats* return from the shafts -- and even fewer find what they're looking for. A small child steps out of a black tunnel, with silver trinkets in her pockets.

Shivers - All around her, white snow on the extinguished coke furnaces, and on the weather-worn shacks, where fathers beat their sons after drinking. The snow melts on your fingers, turning to water.

You - What's in the east?

Shivers - The canal you crossed to get here, and beyond it -- Martinaise proper, the district the police forgot to police. There is laughter, lights, attempts at entrepreneurial activity, cynicism.

Shivers - Someone is scraping snow off their windshield. At the roundabout, in the midst of which a statue of Filippe the III serves as a destination for grade-school field trips and a fine perch for winter birds.

You - And further...

Shivers - A fenced-off yard. There's a truck belonging to a logistics company parked next to the gate. Bright light from a building behind the fence reflects off its hood.

Replaced with "A fenced-off yard. There's a truck belonging to a logistics company parked next to the gate. You've seen it. Bright light from a building behind the fence reflects off its hood." if Variable["jam.dlc_truck_shivers_orb_done"]

Replaced with "A fenced-off yard. There's a truck belonging to a logistics company parked next to the gate. You've heard about it. Bright light from a building behind the fence reflects off its hood." if Variable["village.idiot_cocaine_dlc"]

Conceptualization - Clean white light, coming from the windows of a clean cube-shaped office building hidden amidst ruins. A secret...

You - What's in the north?

Shivers - The abandoned church. One of two remaining stave churches which were collectively called les Sept Soeurs. The other six sisters were destroyed during the Revolution.

You - And further north?

Shivers - A serpentine strip of land weaving its way into the Martinaise inlet. Unfortunates on the run -- from the law, from themselves -- sometimes hide out on nearby islets. Little dots in the ocean that are occasionally submerged when the tide is high and the weather foul.

You - And on the islets?

Shivers - The remains of a camp on a jagged piece of rock -- a tent, old dishes and cutlery. Long since abandoned. A hermit crab scuttles among the debris, looking for a new shell.

Shivers - Further out, the lights burn bright on Résurrection; way beyond Martinaise -- a popular spa destination for ample-bodied Ozonne kids with equally ample pockets.

You - And on the other side of the inlet?

Shivers - Then there's Ozonne... but the snow falls too thick. You cannot see that far.

You - Before that? Before the curtains are drawn...

Shivers - The Bay of Revachol, vastness, great depth -- over 1200 m at its deepest. Water, air brinier than here. It is crisscrossed by huge cargo ships bearing company logos: Wild Pines, ZAMM, Moriyn.

Shivers - And, at the farthest reaches of the Bay of Revachol -- the shadow of Coalition Warship Archer, on perpetual patrol duty, ready to unleash artillery fire if you were to rise up against the market. You shudder.

You - What's in the south?

Shivers - The raised motorway, 8/81, separating Martinaise from Jamrock. Vehicles whoosh past one another day and night, while those who reside in the labyrinthine alleyways beneath the motorway attempt to carry on with their lives in the snow and the slush. And south of the 8/81 is the Pox.

You - The Pox...

Shivers - ...was once a park, a place for reflection and recuperation for the patients of the Old Military Hospital. In the Twenties, it was used as a quarantine centre during a measles outbreak that killed many children. Most everyone has avoided the hospital and surrounding park ever since.

Shivers - The Pox is completely wild now. Evergreen thickets covered in snow and industrial dust. Feral dogs and even wolves roaming in packs. The police try to keep the deepest corners cordoned off.

You - But still...

Shivers - ...heavy drug users do slip through and hole up in the Old Military Hospital, hoping to find something to get high on among the hastily abandoned supplies. Or just to overdose in peace.

You - Further south...

Shivers - A line of motor garages with armoured carapaces, hunched in the cold. A mechanic is hard at work, patching up bullet holes in the side of a Coupris 40. These are the garages of Precinct 41. Snow settles on the roof of the re-purposed silk mill that serves as your station. Shivering RCM personnel hurry in and out of the main entrance.

Mack Torson - "Wonder if Vic's found his hetero-sexual life partner yet." The man in the fishnet wifebeater looks over at Chester McLaine.

Chester McLaine - "Damn, I don't know. Even a real *bröderbund* like that can't survive everything..."

Shivers - Around you, the snow continues to fall. To the west, the ocean swells.

You - No, it was home. I want more.

Shivers - The stairs descend -- to Central Jamrock. A man named Kuklov has a snow-covered stall there, in the market across the bridge. He sells kebab infested with fly larvae to your colleagues who believe eating it will make them immune to food poisoning.

Shivers - Snow falls on the utility district: the library, the florist, the Saramirizian restaurant that offers homemade wine. And also on the brothels and drug dens, and the chop shops of the zemlyaki.

Shivers - All of this built around a lake that formed in a meteorite strike. At the centre of this lake, there is a little ship. There are lights at the bottom of its hull. They are lights directed toward the sea floor, looking for something, like whiskers...

You - For what?

Shivers - A chill comes over you, crawling down your back. The sand under your feet is wet. Somewhere in the south, tarpaulin flap in the wind.

You - What's below me?

Shivers - Layer upon layer of sand poisoned with industrial run-off. The storm drainage. Hidden bunkers. Rats scuttle...

You - Tell me a secret of the sands, wind.

Shivers - Someone's stuffed a big old polar anorak into a concrete pipe under the boardwalk. It would keep you warm. You will probably never happen across it, but who knows.

You - Stomp your feet for warmth, brushing off the snow. [Finish thought.]

Kim Kitsuragi - "We should keep moving. Who knows when this snow will let up?"

[cosmiccomma]

ENCYCLOPEDIA [Trivial: Failure] - You recall a movie, directed by one Martin Scorsese. The tagline is emblazoned on the inner tongue of one of the many pairs of shoes you have acquired during your stay in Martinaise.

LOGIC [Medium: Success] - If this movie has been immortalized by this pair of boots, (until the shoes deteriorate, that is) it must be an incredibly popular movie. Surely, everyone has seen it.

VOLITION [Easy: Failure] - You need to ask the lieutenant how he feels about this movie. Immediately.

YOU - You remove your shoe and show the inside of it to your partner.

“Hey, Kim. Is this a good movie?”

KIM KITSURAGI - He looks at the shoe, clearly slightly perturbed by its presence directly in his face. Then, he looks up at you and blinks, confused.

“Detective, I am not quite certain this movie exists.”

DRAMA [Trivial: Failure] - He’s lying to you, sire. He’s just never seen this movie, and is embarrassed to admit it to you. This idiot hasn’t seen Goncharov.

[godspeedmajortom]

I love Firewalker as a call sign for Harry, beyond its reference to Twin Peaks. The name evokes for me a phoenix, one who passes through flames that destroy their old form and emerges on the other side reborn anew.

Except Harry is such a shitty phoenix, oh my god. He's not reborn in majesty with plumage spread, ready to take flight. He returns from the edge of death as a hungover naked baby covered in slime and barely able to stand. His bender killed his old self, but his new self struggles to be born. That’s the real trial by fire.

Besides the initial call to Precinct 41 (after which I loved Jules’ beleaguered sigh at the name every time I called in), I only used the name Firewalker one other time. After igniting Cindy's graffiti, I had this exchange with Gaston:

GASTON MARTIN - "*Mon dieu*, you set it on fire!” He looks at the plaza. “What kind of policeman are you?”

YOU - "Firewalker. I walk in the flames."

And at this point – after the tribunal, after another near-death experience, after five days of helping the people of Martinaise – Harry has finally walked through the other side of the flames. 

[stressfulsloth]

and now I'm. Just thinking about the loneliness that is SO pervasive through Elysium. Every character is steeped in it. Harry, obviously, alone both in his grief of his long-gone relationship and in his lost memory, trying to navigate a completely unfamiliar world where everyone is a stranger. Kim, wrapped up in his professionalism, alienated from his colleagues by their racism and homophobia but also from his own communities because of his status as a cop. The Paledriver, alone as she wanders through memories that aren't her own, worlds preserved in amber. Lilienne and her dead husband, her dwindling community in the fishing village... "All the men are dead or drunk." Tommy and his family that he's leaving behind every time he goes to work. Klaasje and her lying about her identity to the point that nobody really knows who she is. Victor Mejean and his solitary drinking. Martin Martinaise and his Sunday friend, who isn't really a friend, who'll never stick around, who is so distant and alienating just by the way he speaks. No one is really alone but everyone is lonely, somehow, even in the middle of a crowd.

[revacholianpizzaagenda]

Lungs and heart

Metaphorical use of lungs and heart to signify love, devotion, joy, spirit etc in Disco Elysium: a copypasted list

tl;dr heart beats lungs 5 to 1 and that's rounding up and with some very generous skipping of heart-related lines that were pretty similar. Lungs only come up when literally talking about or to Dolores Dei/Dora, one moralist-flavoured mention by Empathy, one likely symbolic use by Lilienne, one use by Shivers which may or may not be related. In common parlance, everyone from the skills to the crab man to Dora herself would appear to use "heart" same as we do.

Heart:

You - (Bow down.) Yes. My heart forever beats for Revachol, I am all she has left. The constant kingsman.

Endurance - Your heart can belong to Revachol or it can belong to darkness. As long as it's torn between them it's broken and useless.

Inland Empire - Alcohol and heartbreak.

The Hanged Man - The blue heart? Oh, that's good shit, you'll love it. Just press down and *fuck* it open like you always do.

Washerwoman - "I've seen it all before. You think they've got *our* interests at heart? Rich men are always selling poor men promises they never plan to keep..." She pulls a dark red rag out of the bucket and puts it back.

Authority - The virtue you exhibit in even the most difficult of moral dilemmas, speaks of the purest of heart and soul. Soon it will be time for another Arch.

Inland Empire - Heartfelt gratitude -- but does it feel like closure? What *really* happened?

Suggestion - You're dealing with a subject near and dear to their hearts. It might behove you to tread *lightly*.

Jean Vicquemare - "Good bye, Harry. And -- I know it won't happen, but..." He looks at you, heart steeled and eyes cold.

Inland Empire - Heartbreak Welkin.

You - "I blacked out -- from sheer heartbreak -- and lost all memory of the world."

You - "At ease, patrol officer Pigs, your heart is in the right place." (Bow.)

Egg Head - "Here we go, hyper-soul, inside -- into the MEGA-heart!"

You - "... each of you tearing at the other's innards, leaving a gaping emptiness, a vacuum heart that still hurts ceaselessly!"

Shivers - THERE IS A HOLE IN MY HEART.

Church Doors - ... in the heart of the city.

Egg Head - "But how could it *become* harder-core? I know the answer in my heart, but cannot think it in my head. If this is not hyper, how could anything be..."

Volition - His pleaful smile is disarming, but you can withstand it's glorious assault, if you just put your heart into it.

Rhetoric - This must be it. Beyond this door lies the beating heart of radical communism in Martinaise.

Coalition Warship Archer - "The heart of the city, the old town, is a district composed of weathered marble, comprising thousands of columns and arcades arranged around a series of grand plazas. During the day it's a beautiful sight, equal to any of the great cities of Perikarnassis."

Empathy - Her wishes are sincere. You can take heart from that, at least.

Coalition Warship Archer - "That's why the old town is sometimes called 'The Ceremonial Heart of Humanity'..."

Savoir Faire - You will. I'm here to make your life better. They call me the Man-About-Town. Gilded Heart-Throb. Master of Money.

Call Me Mañana - "Yet it calls back to an older era, where this was commonplace. You have a true boiadeiro heart."

Noid - "Many non-Occidental cultures share a beat at their heart.

Noid - "No need to fake it, we know you're still a cop at heart..."

René Arnoux - "I was 22 when I returned from King Guillaume's Ikeira Operation in the south and found my sweetheart in the arms of this wretch..."

Gaston Martin - "But it wasn't the revolutionaries that *sullied* the idea for you, was it?" He looks at the old soldier almost gently. "She gave them to me too and your jealous little heart just couldn't accept it."

Plaisance - "My precious! Her dedication brings joy to my heart."

You - (A hand on your heart.) "On my honour."

Empathy - Tugging at his heart strings like that... doesn't it feel a bit manipulative?

Conceptualization - This is how a sea monster sees the world. You've become a sea monster -- giant, hidden and... strangely tender at heart. All is blue.

Empathy - Push Tommy and it will break his heart -- and his spirit. Don't expect you to be pals.

Drama - It's true. We would have caught a lie. But... a *kind* heart is tricky.

Composure - Yeah. You know, beneath it is just heartbreak, a pulmonary tract infection, atherosclerotic disease.

You - Who broke my heart?

Beautiful Necktie - Your heart is broken, *bratushka*. And it cannot be mended. Believe me, I've tried.

Hand/Eye Coordination - Your hand shakes so hard you can't even muster up the courage to *try*. Maybe you're just too *wild* at heart?

Authority - You acted with great compassion and dignity, not taking advantage of this man. Praise thine honourable heart!

Tiago - "If you could submit to the mother -- sing her praises with your burning heart -- you could be free from selfish desire."

Tiago - "Look, man. I'm at liberty to talk about the sacred blaze of the Mother's glorious heart. But not about the coffee."

Soona, the Programmer - "Hold on." She's behind the keyboard now, typing in some numbers that only she understands. The terminal beeps, and the light inside starts pulsing like a glowing heart.

Evrart Claire - "Harry..." He sighs. "You wound me, Harry. In the heart.

Hand/Eye Coordination - It's me. I'm keeping his hand from moving. We're not doing that anymore. We're not reading those words. People have died. He needs to work, not ache his heart for something that will never return.

Inland Empire - Have you stirred the ghost of the Doomed Commercial Area from its rest? Could this be its dismembered heart, beginning to flutter?

Joyce Messier - "I'm over-exposed, baby. My travels take me through the pale dozens of times a year. I've got the longing -- and I've got it *bad*." She points to her heart.

Inland Empire - There was a sting in your heart at the mention... before.

Shivers - THERE IS PEACE IN THE HEART.

Empathy - No, not an idiot. You're just more of a *sensitive* type. Thinks with his *heart*. This woman's *pain* draws you in.

Cuno - "That's cold, Pig. Sub-zero. Cuno ain't like that. Cuno's got heart."

(had to split the heart list in two because it was too long for tumblr)

You - "I just said what was in my heart. I can't apologize for passion."

You - "I know what's going on here. I've been *wronged* too. I got this fucking dark shadow over my heart."

Inland Empire - And a hole in his heart. That first.

Logic - You have cold hard facts to protect you from heartbreak -- and that is enough.

Measurehead - "YOUR AGREEMENT MEANS NOTHING TO ME. YOU'RE A MAN *DEFEATED* BY LOVE. IT IS PLAIN TO SEE. IT IS IN YOUR FACE, IN YOUR VOICE, IN YOUR HEART. LOVE TAKES COURAGE -- YOU DID NOT HAVE ENOUGH."

Cindy the SKULL - "They'll never be SKULLS. But..." She softens. "But their hearts are in the right place."

Ruby, the Instigator - "So, heart-of-gold Tommy fucked me over too..."

Pissf****t - "Cold-hearted cop..."

Empathy - At least she still has her heart intact, unlike some people here.

Inland Empire - Your heart knows. But it does not want to say, not yet. Let these things be unknown for now.

Shivers - MY HEART IS THE WIND CORRIDOR. THE BOTTOM OF MY AIR IS RED. I HAVE A HUNDRED THOUSAND LUMINOUS ARMS.

Idiot Doom Spiral - "Beside your gun and your badge? You said something about your hope, or heart, or something. To be honest the details are a little hazy..."

Inland Empire - All of this, accompanied by a musical composition telling of the heroism of old, when men were bigger in both body and heart. You feel strange kinship to this old soldier. You and him are the same now.

The Deserter - "Everyone is a blobber in this world. Everyone betrays everyone. They're all already locked up -- for betrayal. The best ones, the ones with heart, were slaughtered, trampled..." He looks to the city.

Limbic System - Coz only love can break your heart...

Evrart Claire - "Harry, Harry, Harry!" He flicks his fingers. "Do not fixate on this little matter. Maybe it was a rabbit stew... or a hair dryer, or an iron. The point is, her heart wasn't in it. Mine *was*."

Dolores Dei - "Oh, yes. This is real darkness. It's not death, or war, or child molestation. Real darkness has love for a face. The first death is in the heart, Harry."

Lungs:

You - "Bourgeois love from a bourgeois god-queen towards a world getting rapidly more bourgeois, that's lungs for you."

Conceptualization - Why wouldn't they be? Are the lungs not the place where you hold the breath of your soul?

Egg Head - "LOVE!" he suddenly yells and the world seems to stop. "In a woman's lungs! Lonely as I am, I'm not afraid! This strange, damaged feeling grows on and on, 'cause I've never loved someone like you before!"

Egg Head - "Lungs are for love!"

Egg Head - "When Dolores Dei was anointed innocence, her lungs started glowing through her body, for the world loved her and she loved it back! YEAGH!"

Empathy - Come on. You know in your lungs that true authority flows from institutions, not individuals. That's the single principle that separates civilisation from barbarism.

Lilienne, the Net Picker - "Aye. Brains, generally, aren't very good, are they? I prefer backs, arms, shoulders -- lungs, too." She smiles. "You know..."

Damaged Ledger - You jam the compartment shut, it's hard to breathe. The air in your lungs feels sour somehow. The drawer is locked, blue ink drips from the white pages in your hand.

Inland Empire - Then it's you. *You* will make her lungs glow. Your pain is NOT meaningless.

Dolores Dei - Her chest rising like a pillow, warm exhalations against the side of your mouth -- her tender soul moving through her lungs. (+ related lines in the same scene about Harry wanting to make her lungs glow again)

Conceptualization - That is why the lungs are the symbol of love for the cultures of the Reál Belt.

Shivers - I ALSO RESIDE IN YOUR LUNGS AND VESTIGIAL ORGANS. EVERYWHERE THERE IS SPACE.

[disco-archetypes]

I started a playthrough of Disco Elysium today, died from moral damage trying to investigate the footprints immediately, and apparently my game never autosaved so I would have to redo the thing. This game is lucky it's a masterpiece or else I'd give up right now.

thats so real my game tends to crash after talking to the smoker on the balcony (as in the conversation ends but the ending animation doesn't start so im eternally stuck at the very end of the dialogue with no way to save or exit) and i have to close off the entire game and redo the entire conversation with my boybestfriend martin martinaise

[nerdacious]

I screwed myself over by posting my fic all at once instead of one chapter at a time. So here’s my shameless self promotion!

We’ve got:

What if Harry didn’t recruit Kim? (Post game, so spoilers)

Pining Kim is a mental wreck

Kim’s notebook (What’s in there?!)

Precinct 57 (featuring 2/3 of the Aces and Alice)

Imaginary Harry being a menace

La Revacholiere works in mysterious ways and is very tired

How Kim Got His Groove Back

“Martin Martinaise” makes you feel special

Some angst with a side of porn

Kim/Harry in a Kim/Smoker suit and also a secret third thing???

The sequel is complete!

You can find it here: Call Me By His Name

[willknightauthor]

about your last repost, how do you think DE deals with it? good or may be better?

Are you talking about this?

Anything in worldbuilding is relative. So like some worlds will be way out there, with tons of justification for new economics, religion, philosophy, even biology. In that case not putting a similar amount of thought into sexuality and gender is really noticeable.

With something like Westeros, the world is basically just a historical reskin for ancient and medieval Europe, and it exists mostly to give George RR Martin an excuse for his plotting and characters, which are where he shines. The gender politics in Westeros are frustratingly inaccurate to medieval times though, they're more a negative stereotype than anything, which itself reflects the fact that a lot of the medieval history people learn is about the male warlords and no-one else. (As goofy and purposefully anachronistic as it can be, "Catherine Called Birdy" feels more like medieval life from a woman's perspective than GoT.)

Disco Elysium is an interesting case because it's going for this liminal space between the hyperreal and the surreal. Elysium is like someone's dream of our world. It seems too recognizable, but the more you focus on any part of it the more alien it becomes, even down to the laws of physics. It's our world through a funhouse mirror, which also makes it perfect for allegory. You have to explore it like some alien land, but what you discover reflects back on yourself, so you can view your own world as an outsider. The same applies to sexuality in DE, I think.

In the small slice we get in DE we don't see a lot, but it's clear it's not like our world now or in the past with homophobia. At least as far as Martinaise, homosexuality seems to be an understood thing that people don't flaunt but they also don't hide, even though the fascists are definitely homophobic (in line with their sexism and hatred of love and pleasure). Part of it's that the world is very neoliberal, so understandably gender relations will be very neoliberal. It's one of those worlds where I think because it's trying to reflect back our own world to us in an alien way, I don't expect anything too adventurous. (So "good" I guess?)

It's when there's magic and completely alternate economics and history that it feels weird to not think about sexuality. Personally my biggest gripe is that people seem to refuse to worldbuild the family. How family works has changed so much across human history, but there's no thought about that. At most you get some poly fantasy of how a polyamorous society would work.

You can immediately tell whoever's writing it doesn't have kids, because the question of children is completely glossed over. How do your kids compete or not with their siblings, half-siblings, cousins, other kids, and why? How do people balance their kids and their partners, and how does gender play into it? Who raises the kids? Who provisions the kids? Etc. It's completely glossed over.

People fought whole wars with their brothers over land rights, exchanged kids with their cousins to ensure diplomatic ties, turned their bastards into advisors, or owned their husband's children as slaves. The regulation of gender and sexuality grows out of this intimate morass. Because people can't theorize the family, they can't theorize sexuality or gender. It's at that basic level that reproduction and gender distinction initially happen, and begin to take on the political and economic significance that creates shit like patriarchy.

Yet the supposedly worldly and open-minded speculative authors can't envision how the world works for the next generation. All of humanity is just childless adults. It's as though societies simply pop out of the ground ready made, and never die. Kids get raised and survive, it just works itself out, and no-one in-world seems to care.

Disco Elysium has similar family structure to ours, based on similar political economy. The reason I don't mind is because it feels like a deliberate choice, not just them being lazy. They're trying to do something with it, not just wave away a part of the world that they don't want to spend energy on.

An example of it done well would be this banger post.