He’s just grabbing onto these ideologies in the absence of his own identity. At one point he’s even called out on this when he starts into a political tirade, and Acele is like, “Are you sure you’re not just hung up on some chick?”
And that’s why Disco is so brilliant.
I’ve also not done a fascist run, but I get the sense that it would probably just mostly be Harry continuing to spiral into being a sad broken man. All of the political ideologies are kind of shallow because Harry doesn’t actually know anything about the world.
This is a dance-off. If you see this, repost a dance.
I also look at the games trying to mimic Disco with some mixed feelings. Because on the one hand, I desperately want more games like this. But on the other hand, Disco does so many things that probably *shouldn't* work but somehow do because it's just that good.
One of my favorite lines in the game is towards the end when Harry is talking to Kim about how bad things might get, and Logic says, "If you can't predict it, there's nothing you could have done."
And that's just kind of life. Sometimes we have to act before we feel ready.
I think what Disco does right is that our choices are still meaningful. But we're frequently forced to make a choice before we have all of the information. Or maybe a character has a motivation that we didn't know about beforehand.
Often when we make a choice and something unexpected happens, it can be very frustrating. Because it either feels like the choice wasn't clear about what it was we were choosing, or the consequence feels completely disconnected from the thing that we chose. And the result is a feeling of unfairness.
Thinking yet again about how amazing of a game Disco Elysium is. I think it very deftly engages with ambiguity in a way that's very hard for these kinds of choice-drive games to get right.
Hey @fetterman.senate.gov that’s you! But I guess we already knew how much you love genocide.
The best way to visit Harpers Ferry is while listening to the Behind the Bastards episode where @iwriteok.bsky.social and @whysophiewhy.bsky.social talk about John Brown. They should just have a QR code to the episode at the visitor center. Think about it, Harpers Ferry National Historical Park!
Obelisk marking the site of John Brown’s fort at Harpers Ferry
So after DC, I stopped at Harpers Ferry because while I absolutely refuse to take part in any celebrations of America’s 250th anniversary, I have no problem recognizing America’s coolest traitor and problematic fave, John Brown.
And yet at the same time, those cherry trees are not native to DC. They were a gift from Japan marking friendly relations with the United States. But that is also a relationship that includes a history of American expansionism and the massacre of civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
On the one hand, there is something vaguely defiant in the fact that here in the heart of empire, on the eve of its semiquincentennial, the most captivating sight is not any of its national monuments but rather the fleeting beauty of the cherry blossoms.
Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial
But then consider one like this. Who in American life is more deserving of a monument than MLK? But what is this telling us? It’s part of the mythologizing of King that says the civil rights struggle is a thing that happened in the past. Literally set in stone. No need to do anything else.
Which did make me think about what is the value of monuments? A lot of these have just been around forever, so we kind of accept that they must be good. I think that’s part of why people often have an immediate negative reaction to taking down even terrible monuments like Confederate statues.
This was maybe the first place I’ve revisited as an adult that I haven’t been back to since I was a kid that didn’t make me think, “This place seemed a lot bigger when I was a kid.” The National Mall is still pretty big. DC is a place deliberately built to feel imposing.
Japanese cherry tree near the Tidal Basin in Washington, DC
I missed the full cherry tree blossom when I was in DC this weekend, but this one cherry tree still had some blossoms. They waited for me because they’re a real one. This tree and @repsummerlee.bsky.social are the only people in this city I trust.
Even with Les Mis, it has some great bangers, but I would say that there's also a good bit of filler. Which is no shade on Les Mis because that's just what most musicals do. But with JC Superstar, it's almost every track that effing slaps.
Is there a single other musical with as high a ratio of absolute bangers as Jesus Christ Superstar?
🔍🪧🔠📮
Tolkien: Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart… the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.
Space colonization advocates: Challenge accepted!
It’s like you haven’t even considered the possibility of just living out of a big barrel like Diogenes of Sinope.
But then, Life is Strange is seemingly still popular enough to get an Amazon Prime TV show. So I don't know what the heck is going on with this series anymore. Was this all just a big set up for the next Life is Strange game starring Diamond as the protagonist?
The fact that stuff from the end of Double Exposure got abruptly hand waved away, like Max revealing her powers to her friends and whatever Safi and Diamond were up to, does make me wonder if there was originally more planned with the Caledon crew that got dropped after negative reaction to DE.
Before the Storm had a whole sequence that was just Chloe playing D&D, and it ruled. I think those more down to earth character moments are a big part of what has always made Life is Strange more compelling than just a standard supernatural mystery game.
Which is disappointing because solving the mystery is most of the game. Boat scene aside, this one seems to have less hanging out with the characters time than previous LiS games. I get that the premise sets up a ticking clock, but as a finale of sorts, you'd think they'd want more character stuff.
It's relying far too heavily on coincidence even for the non-supernatural elements, and Max's culprit is someone who came completely out of left field. I wouldn't have thought they were even a red herring because there was just nothing pointing to them as a suspect whatsoever.
While I think that Life is Strange: Reunion is mostly pretty good, I can't help feeling like the solution to the mystery of "who started the fire?" is kind of just nonsense. Even having had it explained to me, my reaction is still, "Why is *that* what happened?"
What years of gaming has taught me is that conversations are much easier when they’re multiple choice.
I think that in real-life conversations, when someone asks a question, they should give you 3-5 dialogue options to choose from.
And then after you choose, they just go, “I will remember that.”
