show transcript
Boethiah posts:
[a screenshot of a comment by BrokenHomesSmal…]
“Just put this bread into the oven for the first time. What on earth does “satin-smooth” mean? I am not a painter or a communist, I cannot work in such flowery terms as this. The fascists at the NSA wouldn’t allow this - I hope when they read this comment they will immediately take down this wishy-washy recipe and replace it with a concrete scientific methodology that is more suited to the delicate and precise nature of baking.” [screenshot ends]
this reads like Disco Elysium dialogue
autismgod replies:
this is like something an NPC says to you at the bakery in the witch alps version of Disco Elysium
context:
“witch alps” refers to this tweet
well formatted transcript here
@moreelen tweets:
What I love about Disco Elysium:
💬 Vast possiblity space due to genius feat of design. 🖋️ Writing is incredible!
What Idon’t ike about Disco Elysium:
🙄 Do we really need another grimy detective story? 👨🦳 I’m playing as a generic middle aged white man again, urgh.
@moreelen continues:
I want a game that isco Elysium’s same insanely well crafted narrative system and wonderful writing…
but it’s about a young witch trying to solve the disappearance of her neighbour’s cat in a small village in the Alps.
i believe it was bait
I agree this post was likely bait, but I also feel the need to share my civil dissent against it nonetheless.
I’m a woman who is pretty damn sick of bland male protagonists, but “bland” is the key word here; for all the games ostensibly about men, there are few that explore masculinity like Disco Elysium does — it’s a huge part of who Harry is as a character. I can’t find it now, but there’s a Tumblr text post that I loved that basically said that they can imagine Harry winning a drag king competition, and then people being like “you do know that he’s not in drag, right?”, and the voters responding “yes, we know, but also are you going to look at this and tell me this man isn’t performing masculinity in the most drag-like manner ever?”. The actual post was worded far better than this, but you get the point.
Also, Disco Elysium may be a grimy detective story, but I found it was pretty ACAB in a really interesting way. But it also looked at some of the usual social functions that the police perform that ideally would still be performed by someone even if the police were mass abolished.
I don’t think she knows what “generic” means, or maybe everyone I know in real life is very unique…
Oh no, we mustn’t offend the middle aged white men’s sensibilities!
Eh? Didn’t seem like they were offended or worried about anyone being offended… Seems like they were just pointing out that the dude might be middle aged and white, but he’s not generic or boring. And I agree, the character is bonkers. There is nothing generic about him.
You don’t have to be an asshole, you know.
Why is it your default assumption that everyone who disagrees with you is a middle aged white man?
And why do you act as if calling someone that is an insult?
Wow. Let’s flip this around for a second. Why do you think middle aged white men have gotten such a bad reputation in the last ten years or so?
Let’s not. I’m not particularly interested in getting baited into a silly Internet argument.
I recommend you look up the definition of “discrimination” in a dictionary, tho.
Not beating the asshole allegations
So, I agree with the principle of your statement but the point that the discussion around the original post makes is that the writing is largely inextricable from the politicized plot of the middle-aged divorced alcoholic amnesiac cop.
Like, the whole reason you spend the better part of the game reconstructing your ideology around neoliberalism, fascism, communism, or centrism is because the world around you has failed you in such spectacular fashion, as it has literally everyone else in Martinaise, and while I’d agree that the expression of that sentiment shouldn’t just be restricted to a middle-aged cishet white guy, it would be a wasted effort in a game about finding your cat in a village in the alps which is, per the post’s complaints, ostensibly apolitical.
I think just erasing the politics from Disco Elysium to replace it with alps witch is a stupid idea, but there have just been so so so many games where you play as a depressed middle age man. A dude who, plot twist, is destructive to himself and others, and who we try (and sometimes fail) to help become less destructive over the course of the plot.
Off the top of my head in no particular order:
There’s nothing inherently wrong with that type of character or plot of course, there are some kickass games in that list, but I can understand wanting something else at this point.