#garyfan content

[gary-basement]

Local conspiracy theorist never expected THAT one become true.

[nilfflower]

Okay, something weird happened today: I hate Disco Elysium, I don't like Gary's character from there, BUT today I got banned for supporting Gary's character (or rather, the artists who draw art based on him).

Go on, girls, пусть блядей корëжит.

@gary-basement @arvoquixote @a-fan-of-gary-the-cryptofascist

[a-fan-of-gary-the-cryptofascist]

Gary and Self-perception

So, self-perception. It's interesting, if a bit complicated to estimate how someone sees themselves.

Obviously, with Gary, his self-perception will be quite interwoven with his fascism but I think it would be a bit too broad to leave it at that. Let's start with a simple question: What to we know Gary considers himself?

Well, he does consistently call himself a proper/good/decent man:

Now, from these examples, we can assume that by "good man", he means law abiding, polite, strong. Things like that. It also implies a sort of dichotomy between the good, proper men and the bad ones.

Interestingly enough, he seems to assume Harry is also a "good man", just because he's a part of the RCM. In that way, Gary sees himself as similar to him.

The question is - what does a bad man look like anyway? Well, a degenerate, obviously.

So, Gary considers himself a "good man", as distinct from the bad ones (degenerates).

That brings forward the question of - what is he afraid to be? What, in his mind, would turn him from a good man to a bad one?

Well, he does have an oddly consistent fear of weakness:

Obviously, this can be directly connected to his fascism. I'm not sure how to put this but there is definitely a connection between fascism and a disdain for weakness.

There's also the general ideal of the strong, good man. An Übermensch, if you will. You gotta be strong enough to fight in The War and all.

You could also connect this idea to Gary's interest in the Hjelmdall books.

The Man from Hjelmdall seems to be... pretty much a power fantasy. Strong guy going around defeating everyone.

It's worth saying that Gary even has a poster of him in his apartment, so these books must mean a lot to him. Now, liking muscled men with huge swords is not that odd, but it's interesting to note that this is the kind of protagonist he finds compelling.

Anyways, we now know that

Gary considers himself a decent man

He considers some people "degenerates"

He considers strength an important trait and is afraid of being weak

From this, we can assume that decency and strength are metrics he judges himself by and by extension, probably others too. We can probably add honour to that list too.

(This is unrelated but I find this line interesting. It shows us that Gary isn't sorry for being racist, but for being racist against one of the "good" races.)

You know, an interesting thing about the Clothes-in-the-trash and Cuirass quests is that in both of them, Gary fails to live up to these ideals.

Check this out:

Interesting, right? Even Kim notes that Gary saying he "disgraced" himself is a bit too much. Here's the definition of the word, just for reference.

Here we go again with the honour! And with the dichotomy, too.

Now, let's look at this is a line from the Armor quest:

What we can gleam from this is that Gary is the kind of person to be ashamed of comitting a crime. Which is not that unusual. But we could connect this to him failing to live up to the idea of the decent, law abiding man.

And that's interesting, right? He'll say all those things about being a good man while having stolen armor on him. He'll easily lie to the police, but then he'll feel ashamed about it.

And the game directly tells us - this shame is sincere!

And look at what he says when you fine him. He actually thinks he deserves to be punished for what he did.

I think this all suggest a sort of inner struggle. Gary does things he himself thinks are wrong and disgrace him, and then lies to cover it up. I wonder, would he have felt any shame about it if he never got caught?

I see this an an impulse control problem ("I don't know what got into me"). Gary logically and morally knows what he shouldn't be doing, but he does it anyway because he just can't stop himself. And then he has to deal with the consequences.

There is a disconnect between what he wants to be and what he actually is, is what I'm saying.

And you could connect that to the broader picture, too. You could say, that Gary is trying to connect himself to the glorious past, getting into conspiracy theories that make him feel like he knows something others don't, trying to elevate himself above the "bad" races, to deal with the fact that at the end of the day, he's a nobody.

Thinking about it, what does Gary have to be proud of, besides being a Revacholian? What else can he base his self image on?

He's working a job he doesn't like, living in a basement apartment. And on top of that, most people probably don't like him.

Evrart calls him a weasel, of course. Now, you have to be a bit wary when this guy says something but I think we can believe him when he says that Gary is not that influential of a person.

Mañana says that the janitor said that Gary is a bit of an asshole, so this implies that he's generally an unpleasant guy, not just to Harry and Kim. Safe to say, most people probably don't like Gary.

The only people we know like Gary are Lena and Morell. He's their friend! And they seem to have quite a positive opinion on him too.

To me, this implies that despite Gary being generally a bad person, there is some genuine, honest good to him.

But most people probably don't get to see that, since he pushes them away with his rhetoric before they even get the chance to get close to him.

And so, people dislike him, he copes with fascism, which makes people dislike him, and so on. Bit sad, isn't it?

So, in conclusion, Gary often thinks of himself as a good man, trying to reach a fascist standard, but his real self often doesn't live up to this. He seems to view his lapses more as exceptions, rather than the rule. There's some good in him, but it's under layers of fascist rhetoric.

I do think there's hope for him - he just has to be really, really honest with himself!

[dionelloveseverything]

Guys, I think his name is Gary—

[gary-basement]

So apparently someone in the Disco Elysium tag called me a racist. A serious accusation, don't you think? Especially when directed at a person of MIXED RACE.

In my life, I've encountered real racism — firsthand. I've dealt with school bullying, being denied housing because of my Asian name, and, oh yeah, someone once tried to… set me on fire. So I know a little bit about what actual racists are and why they're terrible. Unlike, obviously, the people who sling this label at me from the safety of their screens but are too cowardly to say it to my face.

Not only am I not a racist — I'm more of an anti-fascist than any of these people, because I'm not afraid to look the phenomenon of fascism in the eye and understand how it works. To understand the person who chooses that side, what makes their psyche tick, and then judge them. That's, in case anyone missed it, the whole point of Disco Elysium itself — a game that deconstructs ALL the major modern ideologies and explores how and why people arrive at them. I played the game and got that message. They clearly didn't.

Someone in the comments said we need to be "called out" for our art. So go on, call me out. I'm not afraid of you. You clearly haven't seen a tenth of the real racism I've personally faced. But you'll never actually do it. Because slinging mud from the shadows is one thing; openly debating a living, breathing person is another.

I was especially amused by the whole "dog whistle" concept. Have you all ever heard of the word "friend"? Many Gary fans know each other offline. And I will continue to support my friends.

And I'll also keep drawing and posting my fanart of Gary — the one supposedly committing "hate crimes" (which he's not) — in the main tag. Because he is a character from the game, just like all the others. And if that simple fact bothers you so much, then maybe you should go play a different game?

[gary-basement]

[a-fan-of-gary-the-cryptofascist]

What would you say would be The Cure to Gary's whole Deal?

Rigorous Self-Critique

A nicer, easier to cope with life

Having people around that would call out and not tolerate fascist behaviours

A healthy sense of self and an identity/interests outside of fascism

Consequences (jail time, ostracization, getting shoved into a locker and such)

Voting ended onNov 6, 2025

Yes, you are only allowed to pick one. Obviously, all of these would be great but - what would be The Cure, you know?

[gary-basement]

A child freezing on the corner is a threat to your Worldview. You urgently need to come up with something crypto-fascist as a reason why the world is so ugly. Blame the kojko... No, that's not it. Now, back in the Sovereign's time... No, better not. "Hard times create strong men"? Yes, that will do. For today, the Worldview is saved. The world is still fully explained. Sleep tight.