#obviously Klaasje is also there but like

[renmorris]

I keep thinking about how Harrier's call sign is Firewalker. Not a coincidence in the game where there’s a skill called inland empire.

And I’m thinking how much Laura Palmer would’ve loved Disco. And about her penchant for identifying with violent men. (Her thing with Leo, in the diary)

What I’m saying is Harrier Du Bois would be Laura Palmer's blorbo, her poor little meow meow. She’d get a narrative about addiction and trauma and she’d have a nice shitty guy to safely identify with. She’d think Kim is too good for Harry, just like how she feels she’s not good enough for James and Donna.

[stressfulsloth]

What do you think of the like “It won't put smoke back in her mouth...” from Harry’s dream on the third day?

I took it somewhat literally and thought maybe Dora smoked, maybe she smoked with Harry specifically, but not on her own. Maybe she quit shortly before they split, or maybe he just had a fond memory of her smoking. Harry does seem to go for smokers (Klaasje, Kim, The Smoker on The Balcony, Tommy Le Homme according to some- which I didn’t pick up on but I’m pretty dense) which is pretty much the only thing that lends any credibility to my interpretation.

But I was curious if you (or anyone else) had any other interpretations or if I’d missed something completely.

So I think there are multiple implications to that line, although ofc I could be way off base! Smoking as a literal piece of Harry's life, something that actually anchors a lot of his remaining memories, and also as a pretty layered metaphor for love under capitalism. That line is a continuation of this section:

"The smoke in her mouth," sounding a lot more literal in the first section. These are concrete memories, sight memories- potted flowers, faces in a crowd, a half-remembered woman always mid way through breathing out a lungful of smoke- and the smoke lends them a kind of ephemeral half-obscured quality. It sounds likely in these half-remembered scenes that Dora was a literal smoker and was from the beginning- maybe to impress him? It's something that she refers to in the final dream- she saw him "smoking in the bus stop" and thought he was the *coolest* (as has been pointed out, a parallel to Harry's reaction to Kim smoking on the balcony!). You're right that Harry goes for smokers, and they are not in short supply in Martinaise. Smoking is a stress reliever, an appetite suppressant, a crutch for people struggling to get by- Martinaise has few places to buy proper food but does have a kiosk to buy cigarettes. Perhaps Dora's smoking started like their relationship, as something she thought looked impossibly cool, and slowly became an unhealthy coping mechanism tangled up in stress and poverty.

I think because Harry's fragmented memories are so steeped in cigarette smoke, he also associates cigarettes with longing for the unattainable, with things lost never to be regained, with his youth. He calls the smoker on the balcony the "god of youth and cigarettes". The smell of cigarettes triggers a wave of "warm nostalgia," invokes a time before he became ground down by life and by his job. Dora smoking, mouth full of smoke, sets her amongst these unattainable desires.

I think Dora smoking symbolically has a lot to do with the "lungs are for love" idea, too, with smoking being a slow corruption of that love. Glowing lungs slowly filled up with tar, idealised love slowly succumbing to the pressures of capitalism, of poverty, until there's barely room left in the lungs to draw breath. It's another shadow cast by Dolores Dei and her glowing lungs, glowing because "the world loved her and she loved it back!" (although I think it's fair to say that given the war crimes committed by her "army of humanity," her love for the world can be called into question somewhat). Obviously there are a lot of Dora-Dolores parallels and so I think that if Dolores' lungs are significant then Dora's are too (not even touching on the supernatural subsuming of Dora's self within Dolores, the literal consumption of her via the historical embodiment of white bourgeois femininity). Where Dora and Dolores have become irrevocably tangled in Harry's mind, he fixates on her glowing lungs, her love and her unattainability. Her smoking in that initial flash of memory is something very innately human, compared to the symbolic thing that she warps into later on, more "inhuman," more "unsettling." Putting the smoke back in her mouth- putting the Dora-ness back in her? Rewinding the clock to before this all-consuming unattainability.

Anyway! I am sure that's a much longer and more rambling answer than you wanted, and I apologise for that! But yeah, I agree that Dora probably was literally a smoker 😅

[sapropel]

Possible DE spoilers

Did I miss something?

Why did Klaasje cover up Lely's death? It seems like that was totally unnecessary

Also why didn't the Hardie boys know he was shot? Obviously they knew he was dead before they hanged him so why were they surprised?

[ferallair]

Goddammit, Klaasje! I have distrusted this woman since the first time I talk to her and almost 250 in game hours later I finally get it. She's a goddam spy for Wild Pines.

Everything below this is probably crazy:

So first, Klaasje is a liar. Nothing she says in true. I've never belived her story that she is on the run from being burned by her former employers. The fact that she confesses this is enough for me to think it's not true, at least not totally. Yes, I have trust issues. But she also knows way more about espionage then she lets on. For instance, her knowledge of telecommunications and radios:

You did what with the what now? That's class A espionage stuff right there. She obviously knows how to do more then just flirt and steal documents like she claims.

She also arrives in November.

What does that matter? Ok, bear with me:

At some point in there is a raid on the abandoned church in Martinaise. Something top secret, undercover, that multiple precincts where involved in, including 41, and Harry was most likely a part of. Drug dealers might have been involved, the place was shot up and people were probably killed. Ruby is running from La Puta Madre because she betrayed them in some way and she knows all about Harry the can opener, so I suspect she was a part of this raid in some way. And according to Titus the only drug dealers in Martinaise are Union approved one's like Ruby. What exactly happened is a mystery (one that niggles and crunches my brain at 3am sometimes), but I suspect it happened right before November. Why?

Harry gets a new badge in November. Perhaps he lost his old one in a shootout in a church? Or perhaps he got a promotion for a shoot out in a church? (November's seem bad for Harry).

So November Harry got a new badge, Klaasje rolls into town, so what? Well, the strike starts in December. I think what ever happened in that church peaked someone's interest in Martinaise, in the Union, or both, so they sent in Klaasje. I don't think it's a coincidence she immediately makes friends with the Hardie Boys and Ruby. She targeted them to "party" with. Even her affair with Lely was probably at the behest of her real employer wanting to keep an eye on Krenel. I also think that whatever happened in that church lead to the strike. Perhaps too many people were getting too close to the Claire's drug running scheme so he locked up the harbor as a distraction. I suspect Klaasje isn't the only spy keeping an eye on things.

The Sunday Friend always seems so out of place. Why would a high ranking bureaucrat who is supposedly in town for a booty call with a sex worker WANT to talk to the police? He doesn't offer that much to the case and Mr Martin Martinaise could just as easily have given the police his friends testimony. But he wants to meet them in person. It sounds like he makes a special trip out. Probably because the smoker on the balconey is actually a Moralintern spy and the Sunday Friday is his handler. He wants the RCM to know they are being watched by their "boss". I don't think it's a coincidence that the Smoker plants himself in the middle of the Whirling in Rags after you interview his friend. He's keeping an obvious eye on the Hardie Boys, Harry, and probably Klaasje as well.

And technically, Harry is also a there as a kind of spy for the RCM. Harry isn't just there to solve a murder, he's also supposed to be investigating Krenel.

Plus there are a number of unseen spies, spies for the Union, Spies for Krenel, ect.

I wondered at first if Klaasje was a spy for some other, unnamed, company, but then I remembered this:

She's got a great vantage point up on the roof, where she stays all day until 11pm, after which she mysteriously vanishes.

Anyway, I'm probably crazy so if you got this far... sorry? I don't know, I need a nap.

[head-empty-river]

i may have to be the first (on ao3) to write a disco elysium/baldur's gate 3 crossover fic. bc i need that in my life. harry is durge, obviously. and kim? maybe just tav, maybe laezel? they have very similar vibes. if we're putting more disco characters in bg3 roles it gets tricky. jean gives me shadowheart vibes. judit reminds me of wyll. trant is most similar to gale. the parallels between ruby and karlach are pretty clear. klaasje also gives shadowheart vibes, though maybe minthara could work. garte is volo 100%. cuno is arabella. halsin reminds me most of trant actually. maybe neha would be gale. i think messier, kortenaer, and evrart are the big 3. messier would be ketheric, kortenaer would be , and evrart would be gortash. beaufort would be isobel maybe. easy leo would be (yes, time to cry). hm. maybe halsin could be titus tho. or minsc? idk, most of the other characters don't parallel as cleanly as i'd hope. maybe it'll just be harry and kim. that's definitely easier, bc then the main story structure stays the same while the only different variable is kim remembering martinaise and harry being durge. i think in terms of classes for the two it could go a few ways. i think harry could either be a spirit bard or a drunk monk, so high charisma, wisdom, and dex. multiclass if we're feeling spicy. kim would be a mastermind rogue if that subclass was a thing in bg3, but arcane trickster could work in a pinch. or a battle master fighter with high int. hm. actually oath of devotion paladin could work. they'd both definitely have mastery in investigation, and harry would have at least proficiency in insight and perception, also persuasion. kim would have nothing in perception, proficiency in insight and deception tho. his dump stat would be str while harry's would be int. like if we're going point buy, harry would probably be str 12, dex 16 (+2 from class), con 14, wis 16 (+1 from class), int 8, cha 14. if bard switch dex with cha. kim would be str 9, dex 17 (+2 from class), con 10, wis 14, int 16 (+1 from class), cha 12. this is all off the cuff and idk if the numbers even add up right. pls don't get mad at me, this is just a thought experiment. but, please share your thoughts on this idea tho! just like, be nice

[miss-oranje-disco-dancer]

38 + 49 for the writers ask game :3

hiiiii <3

38. Weirdest story idea you’ve ever had

i don't have many super *weird* ones (i mean, i have ddlg in my drafts but i already post that). i can think of two that i couldn't figure out how to write - 1 was going to be about teenage rose who discovered she could time travel through pictures (and wanted to get that shit out of her bc it would happen accidentally). so, first of all, obviously chris and leon are her parents in this one, so they both somehow end up going back to the rpd and stuff pre- raccoon city incident and leon gets to see chris' memories and see what he missed out on but chris has to see the people he was friends with, knowing they're going to die. i was also going to have rebecca be the medical person trying to 'heal' rose and she convinces rose to let her go see billy after the events of re0 the mansion incident so she can kiss him goodbye.

also, a leon x reader where they were divorced but leon gets a head injury and suffers amnesia, forgets how shitty he was (he was the reason for the divorce) but he is told that he has a brain tumor and eventually has a limited time to live and since he has no family and his friends are all off fighting bioterrorism, reader ends up taking care of him, and they kind of get back together and talk about what could have been and obv he's very apologetic and she finds out he had gotten sober before the head injury etc. and obv he dies at the end (i feel like it's too cliche to write and just sad for the sake of sad)

49.  Which character would you most want to be friends with, if they were real?

be "friends" with *wink wink* = jill (ideal woman). but be actual friends with, i would choose klaasje and hope she wouldn't betray me :( i love her. or i would choose norman from heavy rain bc i genuinely think we would be besties (he's canonically gay and probably autistic imo)

[brainrotdotorg]

okay @bloomellaa's recent post about jean as alice in wonderland all because of him in the bottle got me. thinking. an inordinate amount about a disco elysium alice and wonderland AU (reskin more like I suppose? just putting the DE characters in appropriate character slots lol) so you can have her to blame for this

Harry as the Mad Hatter and Kim as the March Hare, OBVIOUSLY, this is hands down the first one I came up with and the most obvious. You think harry wouldn't flip his lid for a fucking hat like that? Have a crazy tea party? Hell yes he would love it. And Kim, though he isn't as mad as Harry is, will definitely play along, at least for a bit. Wouldn't be as crazy as the hare but he's more wild than people give him credit for.

Trant as the white rabbit! Can't you just hear him saying "oh dear, I'm late for a very important date!" in that strange little inflection of his? Plus it gives him a thorughline to our Jean:Alice parallel since a lot of people like pairing up trant and jean.

Cuno and C as Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum. This one goes without saying.

I think you could make a good case for Klaasje as the Cheshire Cat- being misleading and a little unsettling, sending people on wild goose chases and being dishonest

The Hardies as the cord knights I think fits very well! Which also supports Evrart as the Queen Of Hearts. Leaders who are characterized by unfortunate fatphobia. real shitheels. but also: "Harry, do you really think I would rig this croquet game against you? Do you really see me as so dishonorable of a ruler? I'm a just and fair queen, Harry! Now, if you don't play along, I'm afraid it will be off with your head, and I'll imagine we both don't want that, Harry!"

[cuntstable]

oh oh also top 5 fictional characters...if you can sum them up with a little paragraph + why you like them if you know. regardless of source material type

oh man. okay i tried to not write an essay lenght post but i. ended up doing that anyway LOL. so ill save everyones dashes with a readmore

1. pucci. obviously….. the main villain of jojos stocean, an insane catholic priest trying to create ”heaven” on earth, that in short is a world where everyone will know their fates/futures from birth and will thus be able to avoid tragedy and/or make peace with the inevitable, as inspired by his backstory thats essentially a tragedy formed out of crazy coinsidences or ”faith”. he wants to make a world where things like that cant happen anymore and is willing to die to make it happen LOL.

idk man like where do i even start….. its very funny bc reading stone ocean there wasnt any single Moment where i went crazy mode about him it just gradually happened like i finished the story and thought about him a little and went ”Wow. WTF.” like im almost certain half of the things i think are interesting about him are accidental and ive just added to all the vague thematic implications he has but still. like hes very clearly inspired by characters like oedipus from classical tragedies and he embodies the main themes of the story hes in perfectly As The Villain (memories, faith, the avoidance of faith, the strenght of the human spirit and will etc etc). all the while being an interesting and TO MEE incredibly compelling and sad character in his own right, and also an interesting criticism of the catholic church and christianity at large (religious mania, justification and blindness to atrocities through god, apathy and nihilism towards the material existing world in favour of focusing on some uncertain World to Come etc etc). ARGH

2. almalexia…….. main villain of morrowinds tribunal dlc, a mortal turned god now losing her divinity and trying to hold on to it as she slips into insanity LOL.

this is definitely a character thats been elevated to me by my own musings on her and what ive seen others do with her as opposed to just the source material but i do still love her lots… i think i just have a bias towards delusional insane manipulative religious villains doing awful things that theyre convinced are necessary for a better world. that and girlbosses LOL

3. klaasje disco elysium….. a lover of the murdered man the plot of the game revolves around, shes on the run for corporate espionage and works as an important clue giver to the main character….

she so criminally underrated its CRAZYYY to me that people dont talk about her that much. anyway yet another two faced manipulative character on the list……. shes so interesting to me because shes clearly an incredibly sad and lost person with a lot of guilt all the while STILL being a bad person. shes the kind of character who wants to simultaneously die and to keep living no matter what, so she throws everyone she cares about under the buss so she can keep running and then turns around and associates with the worst people and parties too hard and lives very dangerously. idk. its interesting to me. that and shes also generally an incredibly charismatic character both in game and TO ME.

4. yuyuko touhou….. a ghost princess who rules over the underworld of hakugyroukyo. shes the main antagonist of touhou 7 in which she tries to resurrect an undead cursed cherryblossom tree and the unknown person buried underneath, only to eventually find out that the person buried is her very own corpse.

shes been my favourite character for like over a decade LOL. my first ever Blorberino if you will…. i just like her a lot i think shes a fun character as this mysterious hedonistic ghost aristocrat that likes to play dumb and relax even if shes incredibly smart and powerful. and also reading fanwritten doujins and fics about her (ill be fair) very sad backstory (was born as a cursed human and ended up killing herself and being sealed away by her gf so she could live a grief free afterlife with out memories) as a 13 year old did lasting psychological damage to me and my taste in characters I THINK

5. lady hideko from the handmaiden movie…… a japanese aristocrat living in occupied korea in her adoptive uncles mansion, she runs away from her abusive life with her handmaiden after they attempt to scam each other and fall in love instead

shes a random ass character to throw into this list LOL but i do love her…. one of the cinema characters of all time….. and yet another favourite of mine that falls into the Insane Manipulate character archeotype. i could talk about her more at lenght but this post is too long as is so like ill just say that shes a man hating lesbian that murders her abusers and ditches her societal status to go and suck some korean peasant boobs. so ofc i love her lost :)

[firearmsandflashdrives]

i do realize that canon klaasje may be closer to the r*ddit version (manipulator, selfish, never shoots straight with harry/titus/ruby) than how i think about her/write her, even tho the r*ddit version is def the most uncharitable reading you can have of her actions (without it being completely unfounded) & there is no definitive answer about what kind of person she is, because at the end of the day she doesn't trust harry

on the other hand....you can pry sympathetic, fascinated by masculinity but confined by happenstance to heterosexual womanhood, too young to have lived the life she's lived, constantly guilty about telling lies to save her own skin, tragic klaasje from my cold dead hands

[eleord]

Things are rotating in my brain...

Ok disco elysium is in some (many) ways a game of personal choices. You can choose to do drugs (they are... really easy to find) or drink (also easy to find). Your character, as an addict, is compelled toward substance abuse. You can choose to be a fascist and/or a racist. You can choose to be mean to people. And the game responds by offering you different, meaner dialogue options. People don't like being around you and they don't really want to talk to you the same way.

But you can also choose not to do that. You can choose not to drink and to be nice to people. And from looking through the tags and fanwork, it seems like most people choose to essentially "be good," at least on their first playthrough.

Which is kind of weird, bc one of the things people like about the RPG genre is its ability to let you roleplay as the kind of asshole you aren't (or maybe are) in real life. In one of the first conversations of the game you have the opportunity to be a total sleezebag to a random woman in a hallway. I wonder how many people hit on Klaasje when they first talked to her then didn't take any more of the risque dialogue options for the rest of the game.

So like, why? Obviously, the answer is Kim. "I don't want to let Kim down." I think Kim's character is *essential* for making the game work. He's the first person to react whenever you do something good, or something heinous. Ok, slurp rum off the counter, do drugs, he might not trust you very much after but you're really only hurting youself. Be mean to people? He does not like that *at all* and tells you so. It would be *really easy* for Kim as essentially the "moral compass" character to be really annoying, turning into someone the player wants actively to disappoint for the fun of it.

But then the developers made him *like that*. He's so cool, he'd jump in front of a bullet for you without ever having spoken to you, he has a quick wit and dry humor that plays so well off your bumbling shenanigans. They made him incredibly likeable, making it harder for the player to do things they know would let him down. I think this is in stark contrast to Jean, who is exactly the sort of raging sarcastic asshole who at best would encourage the player to choose the "good" option by making them feel like a worthless piece of shit otherwise and at worst would fall into the "fun to disappoint" category. (I like Jean as a character but as Harry says during every one of my playthroughs, Kim is cooler.)

And like, as I said before, your actions have consequences, if you're mean it sort of turns the already cruel world around you crueler. BUT, you the player are not immune from the choices of characters in the game, and that *really* influences the way people play. Kim makes it clear that he is *choosing* to be by your side, and, when you're kind and when you're silly, he makes it clear that he is *happy* he made that choice. What effect could that have other than making you, the human player, want to be kinder in the video game?

The Kim v. Jean dynamic is then just so good from the perspective of communicating information in the game (Harry's past, how to get the "good" ending). But it's also, like, true to life. If you're around people who are patient with you despite your faults but won't tolerate you being an asshole, it makes you want to be less of an asshole. If you're around people who are constantly sarcastic and fed up with you no matter what you do, it's probably going to make it easier for you to be a bad person.

Anyway tl;dr: Kim Kitsuragi greatest character in viddy game history.

[yellow-yarrow]

Liz is such an underappreciated character, I'm starting a collection about the things we know about her since the wiki doesn't have much info.

She went to law school for 4 years, (so she is in her early 20s) Evrart paid for it. I find it a little contradictory that he calls her middle class, since she also grew up in Martinaise & needed financial help for school, but maybe she is a little bit wealthier than the avarage person in Martinaise. She's a legal counsellor for the Dockworkers' Union and she's a socialist.

Evrart Claire - "Oh, Liz is a bright one!" He grins broadly. "I paid for that law degree myself, thinking it'll probably turn her all fancy, but hell, Harry -- she came back a firebrand socialist! Sometimes she scares *me* with her zeal."

Evrart Claire -"She thinks of herself as a guerrilla fighter. These middle-class kids and the books they read are crazy, Harry. I think she would rather be an *insurgent* than a lawyer. I hope it's a phase."

Easy Leo - "Oh, Lizzy? She is a real sharp tool. Mr. Evrart put her through some fancy school and everything, east of the river. Four years she was gone and when she came back she was all fancy and *law-yerly*." Easy Leo - "But she's a real nice girl, grew up in this here neighbourhood, knows everybody and gets along with everyone, real pillar of the community one day, I'm sure."

You - "Thank you comrade. Property is theft." Elizabeth - "Vulgar idiot," she shakes her head. Conceptualization - Your understanding of the worker's struggle is about one century old, she's thinking.

Elizabeth - "Listen, you Moralintern lackeys. You're a mob, enforcing the unlawful privatization of Revachol. Twenty fat men in the Occident are stealing it all -- and you're their body guards."

She is very pretty, "could be a model" but doesn't think highly of models.

Glen - "You *could* be, Liz. You could be anything. You could even be a model." Elizabeth - "*Even* a mod..." Her face stiffens. "Glen, I went to *law school*. I am an attorney." Electrochemistry - He's right, with a face like that she could be on the cover of La Débutante International. Glen - "So fucking what? Lots of models are actually really smart people, fuckwad!" Elizabeth - "No, Glen -- they aren't." Her tone is cold and uninvolved.

Rhetoric - When she's angry, she emphasizes the *s*. It gives her voice a strangely hypnotic quality. Her lips barely move as she speaks. Inland Empire - Frankly it's a bit terrifying.

Likes and dislikes:

Elizabeth - "Anodic dance music, you wouldn't get it." Elizabeth - "No." It doesn't look like she's into popular adventure-fantasy.

You - "Do you listen to disco?" The Gardener - "Uh... I'm gonna say no." "Can't wait to change out of these rags."

She is good at lying, to some degree:

Drama - She feels interrogated now. It's hard to say if she's lying. Composure - She hides it well, but behind the sweat and dirt there is something... else. In her rigid posture. Drama - You get a strange feeling, looking at that smile. It spoils the moment. It is disingenuous. You - What's going on here? Drama - Surely it was nothing, sire. Just paranoia.

Liz obviously doesn't like Harry, she didn't want to cover for Klaasje. She is annoyed with the Hardie boys.

Elizabeth: "Babysitting imbeciles... what the heck, Liz?" Elizabeth - "Why are you so fucking FAT, Angus?!" Lizzie snaps at him. "Now it's all pointless, because of *you*. You wasted my time. I told you, Titus --" she turns to him. "I told you to just give her up."

Her thoughts on Cuno:

The Gardener - "The kid did this, right? The red-haired rat? Can't say a sentence without *f****t* or *kipt*... He's always giving me trouble." You - "I was talking to him, yes." The Gardener - "Maybe you shouldn't be. I mean... you do your job, but that kid is beyond help.

Easy Leo says she is very nice and gets on well with everyone. I think we have to take into consideration that when we meet her 1. we play as a cop 2. she is in very high stress situations. She has a huge responsibility by being the union's lawyer. So I can imagine that she is usually a bit more like what she acted like as "the gardener", and doesn't always snap at people.

That's all I found so far, if anyone wants to add to this, feel free to do so

[headgehug]

my disco elysium tier list / character opinions, below the cut, in no particular order, includes spoilers, very rambly lol.

Alice DeMettrie: lovely voice, as a phone girl i aspire to be like her

Judit (HFW) and Jean: um.. I guess I haven’t interacted with them enough to really enjoy their characters. I think Jean is hilarious and because of the fandom I feel bad for the poor guy.

Kim: couldn’t help but feel for Kim exactly how Harry feels for him, enough said?

Trant: made me mad that he wouldn’t let the kid learn about whatever he wanted to learn about

Gary, the Cryptofascist: dude has the coolest job in the world and isn’t even into it… come on.

Klaasje: girl… maybe it was having to go through a half-hour of loading screens to talk to her, or the way she was yanking my chain (and everyone else's), but I thought she was just sad. You have to wonder after a certain point why it is that trouble follows a person around so closely.

Garte: malewife material alert! I hope, by the end of the game, that he no longer thought of me as just his worst customer ever, but his worst customer ever who was also not too bad of a guy. The bit where he said he realized he didn’t care if he lived or died, the way he is so devoted to the Whirling even if it is truly doomed… damn.

Lena: on one hand, I’m annoyed with her husband for leaving her alone so much. On the other? The way he chases this cryptid just because he believes in her story? That’s sweet. But i think they should find a way for her to come along, because she obviously misses him, and it’s not about the discovery for her, it’s about the journey. Anyways, what a sweet woman. She should write children’s books, i think.

Annette & Plaisance: I thought Annette’s conversation was very bittersweet, but it didn’t necessarily get me too invested. Her mom was funny. idk.

Leo: Leo! Honestly, I talked to Leo every time I went to see the big guy in the box. Literally, the big man, physically, and big man, as in the man in charge. I talked to Leo every time I went to see him. What a great guy, honestly. That is, not necessarily Evrart, the guy in the box, even though he’s alright, for sure! But this time, I meant Leo. Leo is just a great guy, and I enjoyed talking to him. I was so sad asking him to keep it snappy, but I was thrilled when he did not let me being in a rush slow him down in the least. Truly, all in all, one of the greatest souls in Martinaise. Oh, that Leo. What a guy.

Frittte girl: i love her voice so much and i catch myself talking out loud like her just for fun… honestly what an icon! she doesn’t know and she doesn’t care.

Gaston & Rene: loved their voices so much! And their relationship, ugh. And the ending, ugh. 10/10 would play boulle with them again and let them bitch about me for years after. You ever compete for a girl when it’s secretly the other guy you’re in love with? And then hang out with him for decades, never sharing a kind word, and then sit and stare in silence after he literally works himself to death out of loyalty to a country that never loved him as much as he loved it? yeah…

Paledriver: i mean, if somebody bothered me when i was clearly lost in thought, i would probably also be as cryptic and snipey as possible.

Joyce: meant so much to me the way she went across the bay. I love all the subtle symbolism in the game, for sure. Hope she quits her job.

Tommy Le Homme: oh… poor guy, what a romantic doormat. He was disappointed in me and it made me disappointed in myself.

Call Me Mañana: very cool and chill dude. Enjoyed how much he didn’t get involved.

Evrart Claire: ugh.. You know a character is good when you really just hate his guts. Gross guy… does some good, when the good benefits him as well. That’s usually how it is.

Measurehead: i was like… what? And… huh? His voice was really good though.

Ruby, the Instigator: hmmm. I think for all of the build up around her, it was very nice to see her as a roughed up, scared woman. Honestly, I think she is a very interesting counterpoint to Klaasje: both of them are followed by trouble, but Ruby seems to handle it with actions while Klaasje handles it with words. Is there some kind of commentary to be had there about how Klaasje studied lit while Ruby drove a lorry, how Klaasje essentially let everything about her drown while Ruby kept it close in her diary? Yeah probably etc etc

Elizabeth Beaufort: beautiful voice as well. Would love to know more about her backstory, and the way she protects the boys while keeping them at arm's length, to protect herself and them.

Titus Hardie: poor guy. Good heart. Hope he comes into his own, after everything.

Cindy the SKULL: loved her voice so much. Really wanted to impress her with my art. Not sure that i’m cool enough to ever achieve that. If i was a streetrat ne’er do well i’d have a crush on her too.

Cleaning Lady: I wanted to ask if she was okay. Who takes care of her?

Cuno: fandom kind of encapsulates the way I feel about him. Pure of heart, dumb of ass? I love any kid that can give a grown man a run for his money.

Cunoesse: oh… i don’t know if i want to know her full story or not. Cuno is alright, but that poor kid… she needs some help. You can’t rehabilitate every feral cat.

Smoker on the Balcony: good mysterious throw away homo-sexual awakening character. Distracted by his shirt being open. What did he say?

Sunday Friend: unfortunately too distracted by a hot guy’s skimpy outfits laying around to really pay attention to what he was talking about.

Don't Call Abigail / The Pigs (my reaction was the same so i’m combining them): oh lord. That was sad.

Idiot Doom Spiral: #cringe. Awesome character. Wheedled me out of several bottles of algul.

Lilienne Carter: love of my life, what a lady. Does she know she casually carries the courage of kings?

Acele: I really love her conversation and her backstory once you go back and talk to Evrart about her. I was a little distracted by how much I loved Egg and Noid but i care about her and i am so, so ridiculously happy that i was able to give her a nice warm beanie <3 she deserves a happy family and I hope she finds it there.

Egg Head (& Dolores Dei): I’m probably not going to explain the way I feel about Egg properly but I haven’t really seen this take anywhere else yet so I’m going to try! Even from just his portrait, I get such a strong correlation between him and Dolores. The way she “appeared out of time” and he just appeared to the other speedfreaks on the road. Not to mention the way he literally has the glowing lungs, her symbol, on his belt buckle. Like Dolores, he’s socially isolated, despite being with a few close friends, in that he hardly says anything of real value. His role as party boy, master of ceremonies, hype man, is similar to the way Dolores Dei was a leader to her own following, if you think of being a Queen’s advisor as being her personal emcee, subtly guiding and sensing discreet changes in the political mood. Finally, and this is what makes me the most emotional, is the way he is on the small church stage/raised area, but still very much near where the crowd would be. Considering how boisterous I can imagine anodic dance raves could get, i’d assume the crowd would be right up and around him, or at least very close. He is amongst his people, unlike how the stained glass figure of Dolores towered above them, cold and distant, detached. He has a sort of innocence about him that many other characters don’t have, a wholehearted belief in the power of love to solve everything. Like with any religious pursuit, it takes patience and intuition to truly speak to him. That’s hardcore, man.

Noid: oh gosh, I could talk to that guy all day. Everything he said made me stop and think for a good while. So comfortable with himself, so sure of things, honestly in sync with the world around him.

Andre: You know, he’s got good friends and he’s a good leader for them. Didn’t particularly interest me otherwise.

Soona, the Programmer: she’s got a great heart and a lot of patience. I think the kids will grow on her.

Tiago: obsessed with this guy. Just… good for him.

Mega Rich Light-Bending Guy: mind = blown

Harry: well. There really isn’t much to say that wouldn’t take me a long time and that someone else hasn’t already said better. What a wonderful player character.

[venii-vidii-vicii]

I'm back for the third time. Sorry if I'm annoying you with all my questions, I just think you have a fun way of answering. Thank you for answering them. (Also who else can we talk to about the Hardie boys lol) I agree with a lot of your points about Titus! He's indeed charming. This time I wanna ask; I noticed you ship Titus/Glen, and not just ship it, but it's your favorite ship. Why? Also I saw your post about backstories, Do you have any HC backstories for the HBs?

Trust me I enjoy talking about DA BOYS so it's no bother at all 💜

Hmm guess I'll start with the backstory question cuz then it's easier to explain the ship lol

Long post and spoilers ahead, obviously.

Alain basically has the most "backstory". We know he spent his entire life in and out of prison, being a part of gangs and basically fighting the system cuz he's edgy. (I kid. I love u Alain.) I guess things got really bad for him so he fled to Martinaise where he eventually met Titus and became a part of the Hardie boys.

Theo seems to be a veteran of sort. He's good with guns, he was the original leader of the Hardie boys, and he doesn't hesitate to put a bullet through you. His personality to me says that he's been through some shit that made him a little cold and somewhat detached.

Angie is probably just a kid who wanted to fit in. He had skills that benefit the group, and benefit them he did. But seeing how he lacks self-esteem and confidence, and how he suffers from severe anxiety, I would say Angie lived a life of being picked on and made to feel worthless, which clearly the Hardie boys try to fight and reassure him that he is important and loved.

Shanky just sounds like a fuckin thug to me idk what he's doing here. He's an actual asshole.

Eugene... big mystery. I honestly think about his story a lot but we literally have little to nothing to go on except his guitar pick. And he does play cuz sometimes he'll say he wishes he had his guitar:

My first thought about him was that he's probably not from Martinaise, but maybe he was a travelling musician or something and just has no where else to go. But also the fact that he's a good detective makes me think there's more to him than meets the eye. He's introverted, quiet, and honestly he might as well be a spy. Who fuckin knows. I think that its kind of weird when you notice the plectrum you say "forget it it's not important" but the fact that it was mentioned made me think it's actually very important, maybe it is to him. Maybe there's a certain skill that tells you why. If someone knows something, please tell me 😔 I love Eugene and I wanna know more about him

Glen and Titus: I think they have history. At least I like to think so. I imagine them being childhood friends. Two kids with big dreams, wanting to be something greater than this broken life they had.

Glen: I think Glen grew up in an abusive and neglectful house hold. Probably alcoholic dad, The type who threatens to gut you if you're not their image of right. The type that drilled certain ideas into Glen's head, a certain image of being a man. So when Glen realized he's not THAT kind of man, it really fucked him up. Gay, in denial, in an abusive home. It festered a lot of anger in him which eventually led him to being the unhinged "crazy homo" we see now. The guy is made of self loathing, depression, repressed homosexuality, and anger.

Titus: I think Titus had a military figure father or something like that, someone who made him feel very responsible. So he had to be "the man of the house" pretty early in his life, and look after his little brother.

He seems to have really just done a lot in his life, and he has the scars to prove it. Very ambitious, maybe a bit too ambitious that he's reaching for the sun and now he got burned. But he's clearly a fighter!

All the boys probably met through mutual interests, or at the work site. Eventually Theo might have grown too old so the leadership moved to Titus. They've been doing this for 10 years after all.

Why did the group form in the first place? I think there was a threat to Martinaise that was big enough for the group to be made. Maybe there were just way too many gangs and there was so much chaos. If Martinaise is bad now, imagine how terrible it must have been before the Hardie boys. The way Eugene describes it, it was pretty shitty

With that said, why do I like Titus/Glen?

Well first I'm a sucker for best friends to lovers trope.

Second, all the Hardie boys are close enough to shoot you on sight if you bully any of them, but Titus and Glen are obviously even closer than that. Titus loved Glen a lot, despite how "crazy" and unhinged he was. Though we personally don't see Glen at his best, and we only get hints about his chaotic personality, Titus saw something special in him. Something other than him being batshit crazy. And I like to think that Titus was his anchor that kept him from going completely psycho.

Titus is also the one who knows about Glen being gay, whether it's cuz Glen told him or because Titus just knows him that well.

Do I think Glen is as crazy as they make him sound? No. I think he's just a sad repressed gay who was exposed to too much violence, whether it was inflected on him, or just around Martinaise in general, which in turn made him aggressive and violent too. But Titus saw that Glen could use that for good, and use it for good he did. Plus, Titus is able to calm Glen down fairly easily and we see that a few times. All he has to say is "It's okay, Glen" and this bitch's demons are fuckin tamed.

Not to mention Glen kinda goes off whenever you say that Titus likes Klaasje, because naturally he's jealous. I don't mean that cuz he likes Titus or anything, it's because when you're someone like Glen and you meet someone who loves you with all your fucked up flaws, you kind of become clingy. He doesn't want to lose Titus even as his friend. The thought of Titus being close to someone else just grinds his gears.

The two of them just seem to have a strong connection, and they're each other's comfort. Titus sees Glen for the man inside the hard shell, and loves him despite his flaws. And Glen loves Titus just as much, because how can he not? He is loyal to Titus, and maybe I can even say he's even a good friend cuz something about him made Titus choose him over everyone else.

I love these two both as a platonic ship and as a romantic ship. They're positive but in a tragic way. Their (b)romance and love is unconditional. To meet someone who loves you and wants you to be a part of their life despite how chaotic you can be, despite how messed up you can be, it's a miracle and something we all wish we could have.

There's just no denying that they were incredibly close whether platonically or more.

I just think that's very cute and it's a powerful bond.

It's a lot like how Kim brings out the best in Harry and how he's his safe harbor

Glen's death almost brought Titus to tears (if he hasn't cried when he was alone of course)

Well Titus is to Glen what Kim is to Harry basically, except he's been that for a lot longer. If you had someone who is willing to go to hell and back with you, and die for you... what more could you ever need from someone?

It's just that, pure unconditional love, and a strong foundation of friendship that could make potentially the best of lovers.

So yeah. C: thanks for your curiosity anon 💜 I don't actually get to talk about my boys often so I'm glad when someone is interested haha.

[miss-oranje-disco-dancer]

For the writers ask game I'd like to ask about these fruits I'm curious :3

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🍑

🍊

🍋

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🍎 Is there anything you straight-up won’t write?

yes! i have a whole list of this in my commissions post (shameless self promo), but i'm severely emetophobic so anything about vomit i usually can't even read even writing the word is difficult for me (sounds weird to be that freaked out by it but i am)

🍑 If you could make a connection between your favorite character and another work you care about (whether a crossover/fusion or a wonderfully “pretentious” literary reference) what would it be? How would it work?

okay i obv made some odyssey references in my last fic, but one thing that i'm sure everyone who's played these games has thought about is the idea of connor (detroit become human) and norman (heavy rain) meeting (since norman was apparently part of the inspiration for connor). ik i've never written dbh lol and i've only ever written heavy rain once (despite it being one of my favorite games ngl)

🍊 Who’s a character you don’t write for that often, but keep meaning to write for more? (They’re so interesting! But maybe you have trouble pinning them down, or keep getting distracted by another blorbo…)

obviously, klaasje. have tried 1000 times and she's so difficult to write (if you've played disco elysium you'll know why but i feel like it's spoiler-y to say anything). also, jill - love that woman and want to write more jill/ashley

🍋 What’s your favorite spicier trope to write?

.... ddlg (maybe idk.. i also had way too much fun writing that cop roleplay lol)

🍍 What kind of AUs do you like? Are there any AUs you hate or just generally have beef with?

i tend not to like AUs bc i'm someone who likes fics that are intertwined with the source material as much as possible (that's what makes this fanfic and not a completely separate story, right? like, if we wrote "no zombies" AU then the characters would be fundamentally different as people let alone the canon world). the only one that i might be into is "so-and-so lives"