I just finished Sacred and Terrible Air and wow. I am at lost for words.
I did expect the sheer amount of lore references to the world.
But what I did not expect at all was such a convoluted story filled with despair. I was really invested in the three protagonists story and then things just started to get wider and crazier until the end.
Don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed the book and the writing (even through translation) is really good and poetic. But it has left me confused and a bit sad.
I think I would need to research deeper DE lore and even nihilism and communism to really appreciate what a great book it is.
"Real darkness has love for a face" is probably one of the hardest and most soul crushingly sad lines written in videogame history and I can't express enough how much it and many other lines from Disco Elysium shaped me to be the person I am now.
These are screams and pained cries by and for the survivors and descendants of a revolution that burned the roots of a world and never let the soil recover. Lines like "Should the stars also go out", "This is all you have. Streets and sodium lights" or "It's about failure" are bright and beautiful and thought provoking and so, so sad.
But they're hopeful. Oh so very hopeful.
These are MY cathedrals. Not economic growth or going to the moon or getting a new car or house or breaking the human limit or making women love me. Just a bunch of pixels and lines of code written by depressed alcoholics in the brink of bankruptcy because they want the world to be better, and only people can make it better.
A bunch of stupid lines that got me organizing and out of drinking and sure that even if we're already fucked and the world is done I can and WILL try to make it better.
There's this twitter post saying that hope is not pristine delicate and ephemeral but dirty and bloody and ready to get her ass up for the 20th time to lose another tooth.
Because we will do the little things and the kind acts to the ones we love and we will rise together to do the big things and the fierce acts.
reblogging with the first attempt and a try at a full body model
thoughts abt character writing in-game and a quest line below cut :]
when i started out trying to draw myself in the de style, i kind of started coming up with a vague sort of character arc related to finding meaning in life, or motivation to live-- something i struggle a lot with still (i'm okay, but i have my days. anyway)
basic facts and details:
occupation- can't decide if they would be a university student (it would be kind of fun to have them be a floating member of the communist book group) or unemployed maybe?
usual haunts- a regular at the bookstore, but just hides in a corner somewhere and reads without paying. plaisance is incredibly peeved but its not like the store gets many customers anyway so whats the point in chasing them out? theyre an insomniac, so they can only be found between the hours of roughly 1600-0200. when the bookstore is closed they move to the balcony where cindy usually is-- can't decide whether they hang out together, or maybe cindy's already settled in her room by the time they get back? shrugs.
quest line- Find the Meaning of Life
"you notice a regular at the book shop that always seems to have their face buried in a book at every opportunity. it's almost like they believe that if they just immerse themself enough into the fantasy worlds described within them, the world as we know it would finally disappear, and they could leave this reality. remind you of anyone?"
i imagine a sort of slow burn story over a couple of days (similar to Rene) where you can chip away at the facade (maybe they start off generally friendly and talkative before becoming more withdrawn and solemn with each day) until the culminating night where you find them on the balcony, and have to do your best to talk them down
i just think it would be really interesting to see how it would play out with Harry, having this guy who is NOTORIOUS in the area for being actively suicidal, making allusions to and *straight up* suicide threats and telling him: you have to convince this person that there IS a reason to keep living. can you give any advice that would be helpful?
there's something to be said for how Kim would react too, considering how he is in *general* when it comes to high tension/emotion situations, but idk how to explain it. its like a really, really challenging thought experiment to me, trying to think of how to motivate others to live their lives when you.... dont really want to yourself
aaaand maybe i want a pep talk from the detectives. okay? sue me
There is a lot of improvement and cohesion in the second attempt, though the first one is really good already.
I think they would make a good character too. Kinda like Ruby, but slower and less-noticiable. Probably would require high perception, empathy and conceptualization. Composure even?
So, Kim reaches for his gun often. Very often. sometimes for the most ridiculous reasons- opening the bear fridge, the experiment in the church, a note from Klaasje.
This one is just from being anxious going into the communist reading group.
Kim doesn't want to be the kind of cop who draws his gun constantly, who shoots instinctively, but he is, or at the very least it's very difficult for him to stop himself from becoming one.
Perhaps the most horrifying example is with The Pigs-
Even if he KNOWS the gun isn't loaded, even if he knows it's safe, the instinctual muscle twitch could have ended in an unnecessary death. Kim is very well aware of that fact, and it's horrifying to him.
@shufflerock-jam has this really good post about it, where they wonder how many of Kim's kills were unnecessary. "Something about a pair of traumatized cops, one fighting against shooting himself and one fighting against shooting everyone else".
At the end of The Pigs exchange, if Harry says she tried to kill him, Kim begins to interject, but stops himself and agree this situation could've been very bad. Then Empathy chimes in- 'He's trying not to think about how bad it could have been had the gun been loaded.'
Which is the heart of the issue, right? that leads us to Eyes-
This is such a fascinating background to give Kim as a character- not just losing his partner, which gives him the trauma and survivor's guilt that lead to this unhealthy relationship with his gun and frankly with death in general, but losing his Eyes, and having that not interfere with his shooting.
Kim doesn't need to see well to hit, he doesn't need to think. It's all in his hands, a reflex. A reflex that nearly took an innocent life. That might have taken one before.
His awareness of looming danger, to him and to his partner, is fueling his version of Hand/Eye Coordination to have him constantly on edge, his whole body is like a loaded spring, always prepared to make sure it doesn't happen again. Then it does-
In his nightmare scenario, leaning over his partner's bleeding body, Kim only needs one word to shoot without a second's hesitation. He's never not ready to take that shot. He doesn't need his Eyes.
Harry is distraught to discover he's killed before- his body remembers it. He wants a drink to soften the feeling. Kim however is impressed with how little he's killed- especially coming from the bloody murder unit. He wants to be 'one of the good ones' (Kim's adamant belief in the possibility of a Good Cop is a whole other can of worms) the kind of cop he would think highly of.
Kim is disgusted by cops who kill like it's a game. Espirit gives us a vision of a cop exactly like that, who kills so often it doesn't feel like anything anymore. In a way that is completely mechanical- no thought, no feelings, just a thing your body does. Not unlike the way Kim shoots- like a spring unloaded.
Kim has 6 confirmed kills before the tribunal, double the amount Harry has. He doesn't react the same way though-
It's doesn't bother Kim that he has killed, even if he declines to elaborate on it, and he seems to frown upon (or worry about) Harry's destructive coping mechanism.
If they're unable to save Ruby, he says "Control your emotions. We did our job. This won't be the worst thing that happens on this case… believe me. You can't let this break you."
When you wake up after the tribunal, he doesn't dwell on the lost lives on either side. Harry's skills call him a killer, a bloodstained killer, but when he tells Kim he also killed he simply nods. He's smoking though.
I'm not saying that Kim is heartless or careless, he's rattled by nearly blowing The Pigs' head off, very sorry for the lives lost during the case, and clearly hunted by death, having been surrounded by it for his entire life. But I do think death is a part of the job for him- not just possible civilian causalities, but his own potential death. He speaks plainly about how he might die in the lie of duty, and he narrowly avoided it more than once, with others dying in his place..
He walked into the line of fire with harry expecting for of them to die, and his quick fingers on the trigger made it so they lived another day. Even if more ghost joined the list that hunts him in his sleep, he is alive. He goes on. He can't afford to fix this habit, as much as he wants to.
So it's so horrible and so touching that when Dros asks "What have you done?" Kim says-
It's a tragedy, really. A wartime orphan who wanted to be a revolutionary pilot and played with Franconigerian knights, who grew up to be a cop, a job that slowly shapes his body into a killing machine. And when you ask what he does, what you both do, he says keep people alive.
most important thing you can do as a tumblrina is get into some media almost none of your followers know about or have engaged with in any form so you can make long untagged posts complaining about peoples bad takes to an audience of 3 total people. second most important thing you can do as a tumblrina is get obsessed with some ugly guy from said media and start posting about him with captions such as "so cuties forever 💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖" so your mutuals can give you a polite golf clap like while attempting to withhold their mildly scathing judgement
It is taking ALL. OF. MY. STRENGTH. not to be like that about Disco Elysium these days. I'm restraining myself, for you, for all of you, my Friends Of The Screen.
most important thing you can do as a tumblrina is get into some media almost none of your followers know about or have engaged with in any form so you can make long untagged posts complaining about peoples bad takes to an audience of 3 total people. second most important thing you can do as a tumblrina is get obsessed with some ugly guy from said media and start posting about him with captions such as "so cuties forever 💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖" so your mutuals can give you a polite golf clap like while attempting to withhold their mildly scathing judgement
It is taking ALL. OF. MY. STRENGTH. not to be like that about Disco Elysium these days. I'm restraining myself, for you, for all of you, my Friends Of The Screen.
My little hc is that Kim has one of his ears pierced, from his gay-punk rebel era. He doesn't wear any earrings now, as it would not be *appropiate* for a liutenant.
But he tries on a little black loop every few months, to keep the hole open. The possibility open.
idk if anybody really cares but ive been working on character playlists for a while now..... i think im gonna share them soon! well, at least harrys, i think i've pretty much added all i want to
idk if anybody really cares but ive been working on character playlists for a while now..... i think im gonna share them soon! well, at least harrys, i think i've pretty much added all i want to
they gonna go to the winter orbit to study The Pale, then go insane and disappear ✌️
also i thought of giving only one point to fys because i have kinda bad immune system, a lot of health problems and all, but idk were else to put this spare point so yeah
