paleblogger

[paleblogger]

The commute is a bonus. More more time in the Kineema, 50 minutes of uninterrupted, unjudged Speedfreaks FM.

precinct 41:

precinct 51:

these precincts are 46 miles apart. kim kitsuragi was so desperate for pussy he picked up a 50 minute commute

#disco elysium #kim kitsuragi

[paleblogger]

It might be so he has better access to his watch. 

He’s explicitly mentioned to wear one (since he looks at it or taps his foot when he’s impatient) and they’re typically worn on the wrist of your non-dominant hand. Keeping one glove rolled down seems like a habit that would be born out of constantly checking the time... passive aggressively telling your new partner to hurry up. 

I also suspect that they’re longer than driving/biker gloves because they’re actually pilot’s gloves, since Aces High reveals his entire outfit is similar to what aerostatic brigades wore. They tend to have an extra long cuff to better protect the forearm. 

It’s hard to saw how strict/important the glove details were to ZA/UM, since the art of him and Harry standing back to back that’s used in a lot of promotional materials gives him a more cropped pair with a wrist strap. I feel like this picture really inspired the driving/biker gloves trend (which I agree is very cool).  

However, the longer cuff does seem to appear in his concept art. I find it a little hard to tell if the cuff is rolled down in the sketch since it seems pretty far past his wrist and abooout where the the other arm’s seems to be, so the asymmetry may have been added later. Perhaps as his mannerisms were more fleshed out during writing? I’d love to know.

can we talk about kim's gloves for a second? why does he have one rolled up and one down? also, these are clearly not like the (very cool) biker gloves that kim's typically drawn with in fanart; these are longer.

#disco elysium #kim kitsuragi #theory

[paleblogger]

im starting a collection

#disco elysium #disco elysium memes #memes

[paleblogger]

I feel like it’s not a coincidence, because this would actually be the second time the game references that timeframe.

One of the Apocolype Cop lines you can say pretty early in the game is, “I walk the land telling whores and liars of the end to come. There are 9,855 days remaining.”

Which is exactly 27 years. 

I’ve also heard people say that it was the timeline for the end of the world in Sacred and Terrible Air, but since there still isn’t an English translation for me to double check the plot points with, take it with the appropriate grain of salt.

What I’d like to know is if this is a connection on a meta level, or if even someone as unaware (and dismissive) of the preternatural side of the world like Kim understands on some subconscious level that the inevitable is coming, and that living to see 80 isn’t an option. 

just something i find interesting:

so we know that the Pale will completely overtake the world of disco elysium, right? in about 27 years. we also know that the first nuke will launch in 22 years. 22 seems to be a reoccurring number in the dialogue, often with a negative connotation. but where’s the reference to 27? well…

#Disco Elysium

[paleblogger]

Happy Endings for Kim

I lost the original post that inspired this so if anyone recognizes the discussion, please do let me know so I can credit accordingly. But anyway...

Spoilers under the cut, because I know there’s people in the Disco Elysium tag that are on their first playthrough, and this mentions a few details from the endings of the game. 

I saw a text post the other day about how viscerally uncomfortable someone became every time Kim reaches for his gun or cuffs in Disco Elysium, because it’s those moments when we’re very abruptly reminded that he’s a cop, and one that’s canonically pretty twitchy and reactive on top of that. I didn’t want to add on to the original post since a lot of players who are in communities that are particularly vulnerable to police violence were having a discussion in the replies about their feelings on the game and how the RCM is presented. It felt wrong to derail that with character/plot musings, so I decided to write this spin off instead. 

Because that’s incredibly true. While I wasn’t as impacted by those moments as some players very fairly are, and Kim Kitsuragi is one of my favourite characters in anything ever, I would be so incredibly uncomfortable around him in real life given his job and how reactive the game shows he can be. I think the game has presented him as someone who’s both a steady and comforting presence in the life of someone who’s floundering through their rock bottom. It also establishing that he’s still pretty inherently dangerous to the people of Martinaise, who are in turn mistrustful and resentful of him and his organization... or else very cautious and respectful while addressing him and Harry with a word typically reserved for a military force that doubles as law enforcement. The RCM is established as being self-organized and dubiously legal, and we’re told outright that moments of police brutality have been largely overlooked because a case was solved (in the case of Harry’s broken ledger). 

The game’s text also establishes that there’s an in-universe equivalent to PTSD. Snippets of dialogue and his reactions to the plot make it, in my opinion, pretty clear that Kim is dealing with some form of it. It’s hinted that Eyes was killed on duty, very likely while trying to protect Kim in a situation that turned hostile. Kim resents RCM officers who take a lethal approach to their work, but he’s still killed twice as many people on the job as Harry has (before the events of the Tribunal). He pulls his gun on a bear shaped refrigerator. He is actively uncomfortable in open, exposed environments while on the job. 

One of the best endings this game will give you is recruiting him into a division that is explicitly stated to be overworked and prone to intense burnout in its officers. Where he will be investigating homicides. And this immediately follows an incredibly violent altercation with an unavoidable body count. One where his partner has gotten shot again, along with a number of innocent people, and where the best-case scenario for Kim is that he was concussed by a mercenary mid firefight. In other endings he might also have been shot and is instead returning to a precinct he doesn’t seem to have very positive feelings for or attachment to.

The RCM pay incredibly poorly and lacks resources to replace a car in a way that doesn’t come out of everyone’s salaries. They refuse to invest in protective gear that would save lives because it’s seen as an unnecessary expense. I think it’s safe to say that they’re not doing anything to support their officers emotionally or mentally, given what we’ve been shown of Kim’s trauma and Harry’s everything.

I cannot imagine a happy ending for Kim Kitsuragi where he remains a detective. While I think that Disco Elysium is an incredibly hopeful game for all its moments of dark or bleak storytelling, it’s my opinion that the happiest ending that its leads can hope for is one where they leave the RCM and try to put their lives back together. I wonder if the sequel we might have gotten before the current events with ZA/UM would explore that idea, even if they remained detectives during it.

#disco elysium #kim kitsuragi #discussion #spoilers

[paleblogger]

"what does kim even see in harry" Imagine you've spent 43 years on this earth becoming a jaded, bitter man who has come to the conclusion that good things just don't happen to people like you. you lock yourself into your own body and mind in order to just be able to get by and to get the slightest bit of respect from the people around you. you're completely resigned to your own fate as an unhappy, lonely little man. and then the weirdest guy you've ever seen, a complete disaster of a human being parachutes in from the moon and looks at you with absolute wonder in his eyes and tells you with complete sincerity that he thinks you're legitimately the coolest person alive, and he wants to know everything about you, and instead of being repulsed or thrown off by what he finds he's endlessly fascinated and just wants to know more. And also he has huge biceps. Would you not lose your mind a little

#disco elysium #discussion #I am absolutely feral over these middle aged cops #I love them and they are in love

[paleblogger]

In Disco Elysium 2: Disco Elysier, Harry can get a thought called "Trans-Sexual Underground," which unlocks a dialogue option to ask Kim why he's on T. Kim replies, "To go bald."

#disco elysium #memes #oh my god

[paleblogger]

I keep thinking about how much La Revacholiere loves Harry, and about how Esprit de Corps calls all the RCM officers that Harry meets his half-brothers, even before he fully understands who he is/was to them. 

Revachol is their shared mother is what I’m getting at. 

#disco elysium #discussion

[paleblogger]

We all like to talk about how kind and patient Kim is to Harry but imagine if your new coworker took you aside to critique your sense of style while wearing historical pilot cosplay every single day of the job. You know what he’s got on if you did Aces High. It’s a testament to how cool we and Harry agree that he is that we’re like no, absolutely, please read me to filth you sharply dressed man. 

#disco elysium #discussion

[paleblogger]

so yes he has a six year long total nervous breakdown over a divorce which does seem kind of unwarranted on the surface but the thing is that his breakdown wasn't just because of his fiance leaving him, it's because he's lived for four decades in this absolutely untenable state of being on the coattails of the revolution. the fact that dora even has the choice to pack up and fly away and leave behind the poverty and disability and addiction and misery and, as he imagines her saying, "leave him alone in hell forever" while he has no hope of ever leaving revachol or becoming anything more than what he is is what causes the breakdown just as much as her making that choice. and so that's why he sees her as dolores dei right, like yes it's because he deifies her but it's not just that, because dolores dei isn't just some ambiguous religious figure, she's specifically the innocence of moralism and the welfare state and interisolary travel. it's not dora that failed harry, it's the world that failed harry, and because dora was able to escape and moralism and the welfare state and interisolary travel were able to save her in a way they never saved him, he projects all the ways the world has failed him onto her. like harry has this breakdown because the woman he loved (rightfully) left him yes but also harry has this breakdown because he was born into poverty in a military hospital and he got polio as a child and never quite got better and all his childhood friends are dead of car accidents and drug overdoses and he's lived his entire life under a form of capitalism that allows for no self-determination, no political representation, no upward mobility. so when she leaves him it's not just a broken heart that does him in, it's the culmination of a lifetime of misery that he falsely blames her for because she was able to escape. you feel me. and that's why his breakdown is so insane and massive and disproportionate and that's why he sees her as god you feel me. like love did him in but capitalism killed him. right

#disco elysium #discussion

[paleblogger]

He liked it

#disco elysium #harry #harry du bois #kim #kim kitsuragi #comic #art

[paleblogger]

I feel like Kim thinks in first person. That is: I don't think he actually separates his skills in his brain. He still has them, but they don't talk to him like Harry's do, and they wouldn't have distinct appearances. So rather than skill portraits, I think if we were to ever get Kim's POV, his portrait would just change to show which base attribute is being used. Which part of his brain/body he's thinking with. So erm. Yeah. I impulsively did some edits/paint-overs lol.

#disco elysium #kim #kim kitsuragi #art #I am obsessed with this

[paleblogger]

#disco elysium #harry #harry du bois #kim #kim kitsuragi #animation #art

[paleblogger]

A failure can sometimes lead to unexpected success

#disco elysium #harry #harry du bois #kim #kim kitsuragi #art #comic

[paleblogger]

Adored

#disco elysium #harry #harry du bois #kim #kim kitsuragi #art