#next world mural
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Thinking about that mural from DE
You know which one
TRUE LOVE IS POSSIBLE ONLY IN THE NEXT WORLD, FOR THE NEW PEOPLE. IT IS TOO LATE FOR US. WREAK HAVOC ON THE MIDDLE CLASS
The next world mural. In the game, you encounter this piece very early on if you interact with everything available, you probably see this mural before you've ever even heard of Dora or before you've started to get really serious about your commie tendencies, if that's how you choose to play. And the reaction is like, "wow, this is kinda profound actually". Or maybe it's like, "oh lol, this game really is commie af isn't it" (even though later on it turns out that the game is much more critical of communism than you'd think at first). And the story in the ledger provides some insight into Harry and Jean and how they work together too, so it feels like it makes sense, it fits in very well at that moment in the game and that's it.
But looking back at this mural after you've played through the entire game, knowing what you know of Harry's relationship with Dora...
It's Harry's own fucking love story in a way, isn't it?
Him and Dora came from very different backgrounds. He's genuinely poor, grew up checking the trash cans on the streets for tare and edible food, spent his teenage years running around with a bunch of kids who all OD'd or got themselves killed one way or another over the years. He had dreams of getting an education, getting a chance to use his creativity and curiosity and learn about all that that is worth exploring in this world (which is everything), but those dreams are long dead. She's solidly middle class, with access to all the education and art and music he's always dreamt of, with her family to always fall back on. She's everything Harry's ever dreamt of growing up. She might as well be living in another world.
They fall in love with each other and she moves to Jamrock to live with him. Jamrock, the biggest fucking ghetto in Revachol, full of tweakers and gangsters and just thousands upon thousands of poor people permanently down on their luck trying to get by, with no proper aid or government and a police station so understaffed and underfunded they never even stood a chance. And they can barely make ends meet even living in Jamrock, moving from shithole to shithole, never knowing when they'll have their electricity cut, when something will happen that gets them thrown out, desperately scrambling for a new place to stay. And Dora could never do that, not really - she never actually lived in Jamrock, she always had the possibility of leaving, of going to work across the river and visiting her parents whenever she felt like it or just escaping, packing her shit and getting on the tram and never going back. And as long as she knew she wasn't really, truly stuck in this miserable shithole forever, she wasn't ever really living in Jamrock. And it could never be enough for her.
And she wanted more - for herself, for Harry, for their family, who even knows. Maybe she saw Harry struggling trying and failing to make a difference as a gym teacher and thought he could do more good with the RCM. Maybe she was getting desperate, living in this fucking shithole, and thought they needed more money. Maybe it was something completely else - but what is certain is that Harry ended up joining the RCM, and the 41st, and everyone there is on speed, everyone is miserable and desperate and always running behind playing catch up with the case load, with the crimes, with the drug addicts and rapists and murderers, and Harry, who's always been like this close to a genuine mental breakdown, just fucking falls apart. He needs to help people, needs to make a difference, and working at the 41st, with the budget and case load and staffing situation and the pure fucking misery in the area. He goes out and meets a miserable person after a miserable person and he can't do anything else than be nice, make their day a little bit more manageable, do his best- but he knows that no matter what he does, his best won't be enough. He won't be able to make a dent in the pure fucking misery that is Jamrock. But he needs to, so he drinks, he smokes, he does drugs, he loses any semblance of control he ever had over the voices in his head, the dude telling him to hit shit and the dude telling him to forget everything and just get fucked up and Revachol herself screaming at him about her imminent death. And in the end Dora can't stand it anymore and she leaves (and, honestly, good for her. I'm happy for her. But this is about Harry, and Harry isn't, he isn't able to be happy for her at this point in time).
And like. I personally doubt that she'd have left just because of the money if everything else was good. I honestly even doubt that the money was that big of an issue for her to start with, it was all the other issues first and then the fact that they couldn't even rent a fucking VHS and play it at times became just one more thing on top of this already massive pile of shit that broke the proverbial camel's back. But in Harry's mind, he was never rich enough for her. She was always the middle class girl who settled for the poor fuck, and he was never gonna be good enough for her because he was just a broke dude from Jamrock. She was perfect and so so beautiful and at one point her love was the only thing keeping him going, and then she left because he couldn't even
And from what we can see in the game she was the only person he's ever really, truly loved.
But in his mind, they could never be together again. They could try as they might, but it was never gonna work out, because she was a rich girl and he was just a poor miserable fuck. He grew up looking for change on the streets, she took piano lessons in a fancy part of town. The difference was just too large to ever truly be bridged.
So for post-breakup Harry, prior to Martinaise and even during the events in Martinaise, true love was never actually possible. It is possible only for the new people, in the next world. It was too late for him - he had his chance, and it was an impossible thing, it could never have worked out and now he's wasted it. Because of the inherent differences between different social classes. It is too late for him. So yeah, fuck it, wreak havoc on the fucking middle class. Fuck those rich bastards who took Dora from him, and fuck Dora too.
On another note, this was also one of the most recent cases him and Jean worked on prior to Martinaise. I don't remember the date exactly, but it was in his last ledger, it must have been pretty recent. Do you think he saw the mural and thought about it the same way I did? Maybe this was the one that truly pushed him over the edge? The impossible love. It truly was too late for him. The only way to fix it is a new fucking start. And how do you get that?
After life - death. After death - life again.
#disco elysium#harry du bois#harrier du bois#dora ingerlund#DE#herr's personal tag#next world mural#when first playing the game I didn't even really stop to think about the middle class line#the love part of the mural honestly felt very powerful to me#and I opened the compartment and read the letter right afterwards#so i had a lot to think about in addition to just this#anyway#this is more of a “what if” rant than any actual metaanalysis#our story about Dora is extremely influenced by Harry's point of view#but at the same time#every design decision in this game is deliberate#or most of them anyway#is this something the game designers were actually thinking of when designing the mural?#was that an intentional decision on their side?#or is it just me reading too much into random shit while missing important details elsewhere again?#who knows#midnight rant
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disco elysium / alejandra pizarnik in tree of diana, trans. by me
#me reading poetry from the 60s woah nice disco elysium reference#disco elysium#next world mural#alejandra pizarnik
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Jean canonically "can draw". Thoughts?
There’s can draw and there’s can draw
#drawing his heart out on that one. expressing his artistic self#listen we are picking out THE ARTIST in 41. the bar is not high#clean swoops at the annual 41 office art exhibit#next world mural#disco elysium#de#jean vicquemare#harry du bois#ask#imma be brave and label this as an art post#art#joyce voice
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pieced together a short timeline now that ive replayed the game. followup to this
november 7 '50 - date of issue of harry's new badge
november '50 - klaasje arrives in martinaise
december '50 - the strike begins
january 29 '51 - harry is assigned the two drunks case
february 4 '51 - soona arrives at the church
february 12 '51, overnight - the next world mural appears
mid february '51 - joyce arrives in martinaise
krenel arrive in martinaise
around february 28 '51 - lely's birthday
sunday march 4 '51, 23:30-00:15 - lely is killed
thursday march 8 '51, past midnight - klaasje calls the rcm to report the body
friday march 9 '51 - harry arrives in martinaise
afternoon - ruby flees martinaise to the fishing village to hide from harry
night - harry tells people about the investigation and shows everyone his gun
saturday march 10 '51, night - harry crashes his coupris and parties all night with the union of moribund alcoholics
sunday march 11 '51, morning - harry leaves the alcoholics
night - harry listens to disco before trashing his room
monday march 12 '51, around 08:00 - ruby flees to the feld building
08:30 - harry wakes up without his memory [DAY 1]
#*the ledger gives the next world mural the date 12/02 but its alphanumeric code is 12/01. one of those must be a typo#**the strike is said to have been going on for two months but started in december. i suppose if it started at the very end#of december it would Scrape into being two months If you round down#***joyce arrived in martinaise three weeks ago in mid february. suppose its Late mid february eg the 19th#i actually didnt know lely's birthday had a date. still choosing to believe he and harry have the same one tho#all in all very pleased i started the run on the 12th i did it :-)#gemitus#disco elysium#Not fucking doing the whole timeline thatd be insane i cant wrap my head around the dolorian century ngl#this was the first run i made notes during and. Nineteen pages. brother
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KIM KITSURAGI — The lieutenant’s expression is difficult to place as he ponders the mural.
THE NEXT WORLD MURAL — “TRUE LOVE IS POSSIBLE ONLY IN THE NEXT WORLD— FOR NEW PEOPLE. IT IS TOO LATE FOR US. WREAK HAVOC ON THE MIDDLE CLASS.”
INLAND EMPIRE — Right on.
CONCEPTUALIZATION — What a slogan! So many layers in so few words. Perfectly crafted to grab one’s attention and keep hold of it for long after you’ve passed by. You wish you’d thought of it.
“Truer words were never spoken.”
“What a fuckin’ bummer, am I right?”
“Not bad, but I like the one we painted in Martinaise better.”
KIM KITSURAGI — “You mean, the one *you* painted,” he says pointedly. “I had nothing to do with that.”
ESPIRIT DE CORPS — He did like your mural. He’s just never gonna admit it. He’s too committed to the bit.
THE NEXT WORLD MURAL — The words seem to tower over you as you and your partner take them in. Once again, you can’t help but wonder how the Belles Lettres managed to paint this monstrously massive mural without being seen.
VISUAL CALCULUS — Surely there must have been scaffolding involved, or some kind of machinery.
LOGIC — They were seen. Just not by anyone who would disturb their work, or sell them out to the police. Which, if the results of the vote are anything to go by, would be most of the people of Jamrock.
“What do you think about the part about true love, Kim?”
“What do you think about the part about the middle class, Kim?”
“Did you know there was a vote on whether or not to remove the mural?”
KIM KITSURAGI — “We did hear about it back at 57,” he admits. “It’s rare for your district to organize a vote like that. Or any district, for that matter…”
He frowns slightly, peering up at the embracing couple. “I’ll admit, when I heard about it, I had no idea how *big* this thing was. I’m surprised that they voted to keep it. You must be able to see it for miles…”
CONCEPTUALIZATION — Eight stories loud, painted over the corpse of a failed real estate venture. A reminder, a call to action, and a threat, all rolled into one. Constant and inescapable. Oh, yeah. *This* is good stuff.
EMPATHY — It makes the lieutenant uncomfortable.
CONCEPTUALIZATION — That’s the point.
YOU — “How would you have voted?”
KIM KITSURAGI — “I wouldn’t have,” he says drily. “I didn’t live here.”
“All right, fair enough.” (Drop the subject)
“Cmon, Kim. If you *did* live here, which side would you be on?” (Press him)
KIM KITSURAGI — “I don’t know that it’s about taking sides…” His sentence trails as he considers the mural.
PERCEPTION (Sight) — He glances at you for the briefest of moments, and then away. Almost as if he hadn’t meant to do it.
ESPIRIT DE CORPS [Godly: Success] — You make him uncomfortable in much the same way that the mural does. Representative of truths that he doesn’t know what to make of.
There was a time when he dreamt of things like true love. And heroic deeds, and brilliant discoveries, and aerostatic pilots. A home that belonged to him. A table laden with food and crowded with people. The future and the past were polar opposites in his eyes— one a painful collage of loneliness and ostracization, the other a blank canvas, and all the more beautiful for it. It could be anything.
It did not take long for the present to beat it all out of him. And then he blinked, and he was forty-three and alone, having spent twenty years of his life on stubbornness and spite, trying to prove himself to people who didn’t and still don’t care, at the expense of the people that he should have cared for. And he realized it was too late for him.
YOU — Too late for what…?
EMPATHY — To do or be anything different.
KIM KITSURAGI — “…I don’t know,” he finally says. His voice is level, but quiet. “But I can understand why people wanted it to remain.”
He tears his gaze away from the mural at last and looks at you. “What about you? How did you vote?”
YOU — “I can’t remember.”
KIM KITSURAGI — He grimaces slightly. “Right. Sorry…”
“But I think I would have voted for it to go.”
“But I think I would have voted for it to stay.”
KIM KITSURAGI — “That doesn’t surprise me,” he sighs. “I’m sure the part about wreaking havoc on the middle class especially appealed to you.”
“You know it, comrade.”
“No, it was the part about true love being dead.”
“No, it was the part about new people.”
KIM KITSURAGI — He looks at you strangely. “…Oh? What do you make of it?”
“There’s no such thing as new people. We’re all the same, and we’ll always be the same, walking in the same old circles.”
“Fuck the new people and their new world that we’ll never get to see.”
“I think anyone can become a new person if they try. It’s a call to action.”
“Even if it’s too late for us to be new, I think we can still change. And we can still love each other.”
KIM KITSURAGI — He looks for a moment as if he’s going to say something… and then nothing. His lips purse slightly.
EMPATHY [Formidable: Failure] — It’s hard to say what he thinks of your little thesis. Matters of love are tough on him.
COMPOSURE [Legendary: Success] — But you get the feeling that *something* is happening within the lieutenant. There’s a crack in the dam that’s widening every day, and he knows it. He’s afraid to let it happen, but he’s equally powerless to stop it.
INLAND EMPIRE — You’re afraid, too. You’re both the same brand of coward.
VOLITION — You’re both a lot of things that you don’t have to be. It’s too late to have never been them. But it’s not too late to stop.
ESPIRIT DE CORPS — Stopping is precisely what he’s afraid of. He wonders what of himself will be left if he ceases to be *this.*
That’s selfish. We’re both so selfish.
It would be better if we ceased to be anything at all.
Whatever is left, I’ll still love him.
INLAND EMPIRE — How do you know he *wants* your love?
YOU — I don’t know. But he has it, anyway.
THE NEXT WORLD MURAL — A cold wind rushes past you, sending a chill deep into your bones. Unconsciously, you both step closer to each other. Seeking warmth.
#disco elysium#harry du bois#kim kitsuragi#harrykim#kimharry#man idk whatever their tag is#anyway. the next world mural huh.#btw for clarity the cracks in the dam that kim and harry are both afraid of are like.#the realization that they need to stop being cops LSJDHXGXJX#like yeah also the love. but mostly the cop thing. they’re not unrelated i feel#hence why the mural ends with ‘’wreak havoc on the middle class’’
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the next world mural
check tags
#disco elysium#the next world mural#need to fix up the text a little but we’re doin good#if any artists or writers want their stuff up beside it shoot me a dm and ill print it out and put it up!#ill be happy to
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what if we kissed in the ruins of Revachol
it turned out much deeper than I expected, but there is also a meme version (under read more)
#i added the mural kinda last minute but#“love truly is possible in the next world”#(woah finally drew people kissing)#(yes this is my ship for this au#sorry not sorry)#(ik ik a perfect opportunity to do harry/jean/kim)#(but harry/jean/kim or even jean/kim just don't click in my head what can i do)#(but you ship what you want i don't care honestly)#postapo disco inferno#disco elysium au#disco elysium#disco elysium fanart#jean vicquemare#harry du bois#harryjean#jeanharry#kim kitsuragi#dolores the dog#artists on tumblr#my art
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The Previous World Mural — a dreamscape transposition of The Next World Mural to somewhere, somewhen else.
The gif compressed the images but I will also post them as a clearer image set, to be linked in a reblog.
Excerpt of accompanying ficlet below. Decided to just post the segment of it I've finalised since I won't have the time to work on it for a very long while.
artblog @chromacandescent
kofi | inprnt 🪻🌷🌹
Excerpt:
You stand on an unfamiliar street, across a familiar mural. The pavement is dimly lit, blue warring with orange between the shadow and light. The streets are populated with faceless shadows. The sky, indistinguishably and eerily hazy, holds the morning moon and the dawning sun distantly together. The world is fading… smearing at its edges.
PERCEPTION — The mural is the only thing you recognise here, depicting featureless silhouettes: one in white paint, engulfed by one in black. They are lovers leaning together, heads meeting in a kiss. A circle of red paint forms a halo around their heads, enclosing that moment of tenderness.
CONCEPTUALIZATION — Despite being close enough to melt into one, the lovers remain distinct, separate, impossibly apart.
REACTION SPEED [Medium: Success] — Like The Next World Mural, from your ledger.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT — Wasn't that one about a man and a woman?
Is *this* Grand Couron?
Is this... the next world?
YOU — Is this... the next world?
INLAND EMPIRE — No. A previous world…
PREVIOUS WORLD MURAL — True love remains impossible. We are not new people.
PAIN THRESHOLD — There is no escape.
VOLITION — But you can, and you have started anew.
PERCEPTION — Either way, the silhouettes *are* too ambiguously rendered to belong to the Next World Mural, so…
YOU — "I've never seen you before… have I?"
PREVIOUS WORLD MURAL — Of course you haven't. Look around you... Where were you, and where are you now?
ENCYCLOPEDIA — You have no idea.
BLOCK ??? — Before you is a towering, utilitarian structure, built to shelve a massive population. This building is one of many, its sequential sign obscured by the mural.
There are 11– no, 12 floors in total, including the ground floor, which has been obscured behind sheet metal barriers.
PERCEPTION — The scent in the air is unfamiliar. Despite the fumes of traffic and paint, the distant cigarette smoke, the wet pavement, the damp grass…
INLAND EMPIRE [Formidable: Success] — There is nothing haunting in the air. No ghosts between the molecules — not for you. The wind is silent of her sighs.
(tbc)
#ignitedart#ignitedink#disco elysium#the next world mural#the previous world mural series#art#ficlet#digital art#digital illustration#photo manipulation#artists on tumblr#gif#wip
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I'm not much of an artist, but I had a lot of fun coloring this anyway. Page #88 from the Disco Elysium Fan Coloring Book, line art by The Beautiful Ugly.
Original Line-Art, ID, & Coloring Book Link:
[ID: Two officers in RCM jackets, JV and HDB, stare up at graffiti on the side of a building. The graffiti art is of a silhouette of two lovers embracing overlaid with the text "TRUE LOVE IS POSSIBLE ONLY IN THE NEXT WORLD - IT IS TOO LATE FOR US. WREAK HAVOK ON THE MIDDLE CLASS"] [First image is in color at sunset, second image is black and white line art only.]
#de#disco elysium#disco elysium fanart#harry du bois#jean vicquemare#espritdecouleur#THE NEXT WORLD MURAL
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#the urge to get this quote tattooed when I’m older#like it actually makes me insane I can’t even#screaming crying bleeding sweating throwing up not a day goes by where I don’t think of the next world mural#disco elysium#the next world mural
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I know I have disco on the brain but this song is really making me think of Harry...
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omg the next world mural pleaaaaase
Faithfully captured the essence of the mural if I do say so myself. Poured my heart and soul into it when I arted that one out I really did
#I don’t art often but when I put marker to paper#the world trembles in awe#watch out. Michelangelo#next world mural#ask#de#disco elysium#jean vicquemare
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once again thinking about trigun + DE quotes and how i could write full essays about how they apply and different angles to look at them from
#when im obsessed w something my favorite thing to do is smash it with Other Things that i like and compare/contrast them#and the thing about trigun and de is that they have a fun overlapping theme wrt The Human Experience#and how life continues to be worth living even under bleak conditions#yes im thinking about the next world mural again what of it
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playing disco elysium made my depression worse but it also made me better equipped to deal with my depression does that make sense
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the next world mural. discuss.
the mural and the collapsing tenement both fuck me up like damn. i already posted about the tenement but the mural... they had the people who did it. there were tons of complaints, it was a pain in the ass, everyone called it *the thing* and *that fucking thing* and *the bummer* and yet:
jean was the one who started the argument to keep it.
it was a whole ordeal, and the graffito crew was poised to get rid of it, but jean got the gears turning that ultimately allowed it to stay. apparently his given reason was "civic conservation" but what good is that, in a place that's liable to crumble to dust or get bombed to shit at any moment? why is this something he'd go to such lengths to preserve, when surely he was overtaxed to begin with?
we can never know how harry voted, but clearly jean would have voted to keep it. i'm sure harry did too- it seems like something he would've agreed with. what were they feeling, when they cast their votes? was harry thinking about dora? was jean thinking of harry, knowing harry wasn't thinking of him?
#and did jean know harry wouldn't be thinking of him when he first proposed the vote?#is that why he did it? to prove his own point?#MENTAL ILLNESS!#the murals alone in this game hold so much meaning. fuck#true love is possible only in the next world. something beautiful is going to happen#one day i will return to your side.#all of it.#kiwipost#hdb meta#jv meta#ask
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