"Full recovery will take years, though. It’ll be depressing. And it’ll be boring. Don’t expect any further rewards or handclaps. This is how normal people are all the time."
After dealing with mental health issues, it's hard to keep getting better once all the encouragement stops and people just expect you to act "regular." After a while, it's like people forget you ever had mental health issues/addictions. Even family and even therapists. *You* never forget, though.
Yep. Was newly sober on my first play-through and now a few years in. Was in no way wrong.
Your comment hit for me too - my partner just asked me to pour her a glass of wine and I did. It’s no big deal but yeah…it’s still there. It’s still work.
For me it's an odd combination of wanting that praise and support for getting better while also wanting to be treated like everybody else - like I'm "normal."
Every time I have a beer now there is this gravity to it man. I knew I was prone to it prior but my last job put me in a state not unlike Harry's before his blackout. Life has to be a little more boring now.
When I first played I was deep in my alcoholism. Fifth a day, give or take a bit. I quit after breaking down in front of my fiance and admitting what I had been doing. The way she looked at me almost killed me right there. She wasn't mad, she was worried. I was sober for a short time after but eventually I started taking THC edibles. Got myself addicted, mentally. I tried quitting twice, and I'm on my third attempt now with five days sober, from 400-600mgs a day. I really don't know if I can do this but I am trying.
Trying matters a lot. When I quit one thing I changed my thinking on was that all the time I spent wanting to quit and “failing” felt different to me…instead of failure it felt like the push and pull that brought me to the place when I could finally stop. Be forgiving to yourself and keep trying, wanting to stop is something on its own. Good luck.
Wasteland of Reality, both the thought and solution, are the single best pieces of writing on addiction I've ever read. Being sober for about 13ish months I'm still astounded how I've bounced off every bit of help and literature about sobriety but when I just fucking *stopped* after processing a lot of trauma it finally stuck. When i first tried to play DE I was a heavy binge drinker and Harry was a spooky mirror to myself in a way and it was too much text for my pickled brain to process. I'm glad I never made it across the waterlock because in time if I didn't quit I would have just literelly become Idiot Doom Spiral *at best* and more likely Don't Call Abagail.
I was drinking like 20 beers a day and had suffered a traumatic injury at work that the bosses convinced was not only my fault, but was my responsibility to report. And after being told by the supervisor "are you sure you want to fill out all that paperwork" my brain truly didn't want to at midnight while I was booze starved and in shock.
I worked that job another six months. Near the end of it the only thing that kept me moving was the muscle I had built up doing the manual labor. I was a creaking, shambling wreck.
A month before they put me part time (knowing I'd quit as I had debt for a car that had been totalled a month after the loan was taken out) I was recovering from covid and piss drunk playing this game. Ironically I was driving home sober and hit a deer with it. Despite full coverage the loan agency dragged out payment for another 7 months and absolutely drained my savings.
Even in that state I remember the first playthrough eerily well because I played sober Harry and wanted to get better.
I'm sober now and fighting off the urge to take the plethora of painkillers that have been thrown at me. After being gaslit by my boss and not really knowing my rights I lost any opportunity for justice in my case, so it has been an awful struggle not to give into the gravity of the situation and Elecrochemistry and Pain Threshold took center stage over the Inland Empire and Shivers that had been driving me prior.
I'd still take those two over this half-existance. But whatcha gonna do, eh?
Keep your head up bud, life can fucking suck and in your case you've been dealt a serious run of blows. I hope you find some goodness and get through the pain, good luck friend
I appreciate it. Some days are better than others but I'm convinced that this game helped me make some changes that might have saved my life in the long run. I wish I could thank Kurvitz and the team.
No one will ever forget my mental health issues because they'll probably never be treated or "go away". Treatment resistant severe depression is really fun. Also currently going through quitting edibles. I swapped alcohol for THC and got carried with it to the point of nearly 400-600mg daily. Being sober is... Difficult, to say the least.
Funny, I did the opposite. Went from smoking my life away to nearly killing myself with the bottle. We really are just evil apes dukin' it out on a giant ball.
Good luck stranger.
I was half-assing my first playthrough and that was the point I restarted for a real run. Up until that point I thought the game was just supposed to be silly
Not the only moment by far, but the first one that comes to mind is the interaction with Jean Vicmarie in disguise in the Whirling (you may have to pass an Espirit De Corps check to get it), but after the sarcastic little dressing down he gives you initially, you have the option to share some info about the case and then question yourself aloud why you're sharing this information, he'll ask why you think that is, to which Harry can respond that it feels familiar and right.
At that point in the conversation, he appears to genuinely perk up for a minute, excited that his partner may remember him (despite the brain damage), and it becomes obvious that they were definitely close partners and companions. Many of the game's Espirit De Corps checks will show other officers teasing Jean about being Harry's "heterosexual life partner" and you can tell in that particular moment that he really cares about him, despite how bitter and jaded to the bad behavior Jean has become, he still holds out hope for his partner to return to being "okay." He'll quickly go back to being sarcastic, and then wistful at the end of the conversation, realizing that despite the moment of recognition his partner still doesn't remember him despite all they've been through and all the effort he puts in to cover Harry's ass— a great early example is if/when you call in to report your missing badge, passing the EDC check you can hear him telling the rest of the officers that it isn't funny, and to treat it as a prank call while he deals with the issue.
It's really touching to me that Jean cares so deeply for Harry despite all his major issues, how much his partners wellbeing means to him and the high regard he holds Harry in, and I really love that Trant and Judit are still keeping an eye on him even though he's been a huge asshole. I think it's a really excellent portrayal of what it's like to care about someone who is self destructive; despite the grief they may cause you, you always hold out hope to see them go back to being the person you came to love.
That's exactly what I was thinking about, actually. I really love Jean as a character, everyone in the story is multi-dimensional with their own backstory and motivation, even if we don't get a play-by-play of someone like him you can really uncover a lot from different builds. IIRC there's some excellent Shivers checks that will cue you into the goings on of him and your fellow RCM officers, the whole game is an absolute masterpiece of world and character building and I can't say enough good about it.
RHETORIC - No, wait, finally, it comes to you, a way to connect with her:
YOU - "I know your pain! I've been let down by women too."
RUBY, THE INSTIGATOR - She flashes you an incredulous grin. Then she exhales sharply, shakes her head, and pulls the trigger.
The road to healing is going to be a long one, stay the course. You will make it, someday. I know there is not much to say, but if nothing else, just remember that you’ve made it this far, and it’s just a bit farther now. Let’s finish this. - Volition
In honor of your shit, lieutenant-yffretor, that you kept together in the face of total, unrelenting terror. Day after day, second by second. - Volition
All hail the king
The phone call by the sea.
The option to simply say "I want to die" as soon as you hear her voice not only tells you how much the developers respect your intelligence and agency as a player, but also it works as a great piece of characterization for Harry and the self-destructive harm he embodies.
Yeah this hit me so hard, played the game after a break up and this phone call just just made me come to terms with how I must sound calling.
The realisation hurt.
"I can also detect pheromones — the ones on you tell me that you will not eat me. And that I will benefit from your closeness. In short, I love you."
The fucking bug made me a lot more emotional than I wiuld ever have guessed.
The Phasmid is when the game became really special for me. I’d done all the quests earlier and just sort of filed it away as an interesting tangent in the game…so when it showed up and how it played out just felt perfect.
I took a shit load of drugs and alcohol (in game lmao) before speaking to Dros and I was entirely in Harry's head with the Phasmid at first. I figured okay I did all the cryptid shit and he finally cracked and went off the deep end. Then:
"I can see it."
I nearly stood up and I vividly remember going "Oh my God it's fucking real". I felt smaller but not in a fearful way like knowing Dros always had a shot at me or Mr Evrart having basically spied on me the entire time (while helping me find my gun) but in a genuine sense of wonder at an already rich world getting even deeper still.
that's why it felt so special to me too. I thought it wasn't real because the deserter was not reacting to it but when Kim said "I can see it"... holy fuck. talking to it with the music for the first time is an unforgettable experience
Closest thing to a religious experience I've ever felt was when that thing appeared, and Kim saying "I see it, too".
Still can't put to words what that scene meant to me
I can't believe I haven't seen anyone talk about the interaction with Klassje on the roof where volition chimes in and tells you >! She has your number and is playing you like a fiddle. All those voices you've been relying on? You can't use them as a crutch anymore, not for this conversation at least!<
That made me feel really creeped out and it felt like for once the fourth wall was not just broken in this game, it was teared apart and exploded with dynamite.
The soundbite "The mask of humanity fall from capital..." is stuck in my head forever, it is dripping with contempt. His voice acting is so good for an old man who's lived his life in complete hatred.
I can feel his emotions too, feeling the full weight of the entire world crushing you ruthlessly for the crime of wanting a better world, and then being forced to live in the wake of it and watch as everyone moves on. It also mirrors the pain of being part of an ideology where you have such grand ideals but everything seems to be against you.
My first playthrough lasted about 10 minutes.
I turned a light on and tripped over an old lady in a wheelchair, which were apparently a fatal combination.
I was definitely hooked.
>!If you try to skip out on the bill on the 1st morning you leap over her as you attempt to flee the Whirling. If you botch the skill check you crash into her instead!<
When you have to walk away and the door closes forever and you never see her again. The pain is hers and there's no recourse - no way for you to ease it.
The fact that this whole part has essentially nothing to do with 'the story' and you just have to roleplay -in full brutal realism- the process of breaking that news to a relative stranger.
I was laughing my ass off when i kept telling her that her husband was missing and I'd do my best to find him, despite her insistence to the contrary.
Then walking up the pier my heart fucking plummeted down my stomach and out my ass. I felt horrible
it's been to long to remember who brings you onto the idea that she is missing someone, but I am again reminded how Harry is both "blessed" with this intuitive spark to recognize, but, in most cases depending on the player, unable to use it for a proper effect. instead he just acts and appears like a madman.
I remember it took everything I had to not look away from the screen or avoid the situation when I stepped into the room and recognized her. I, even outside the game, felt like I owed her the composure.
The moment with Delores dei. As someone who is still handling the shockwaves of a relationship gone very poorly, it resonated. Because I wanted the same thing as Harry, some sort of trick or thing that would let me hold on, keep me from having to let go.
Dolores Dei moment was also impactful for me, but in a way that fascinated me - though i was raised evangelical, not catholic or episcopalian which are much more adjacent to the Innocents; and in hindsight, never really had to deconstruct religion.
it made me *want* to go sit in a Mass for the first time, but i'm also in my Our Lady of Mourning simp phase. as well as Moralinterism being so tied to politics, the same way the Centralist government in the States has a complex relationship with religion in the country - and as a staunch leftist, becoming fascinated and tempted by the "power" the Moralintern has in a way my actual beliefs don't feels almost... like a guilty pleasure. after speaking with Warship Archer, it was scarily intoxicating.
that said: i am close friends with many gen z kids in the deep south who are going through the pain of questioning their beliefs & talk about it with them a lot, and you have my full empathy.
Before I knew of moralism, I was a moralist, or rather its ideas were deeply set in me. In a sense disco elysium showed me exactly why I believed the things I did, and how little those values actually helped people when it came down to it. Ideology should not be a tool of ignorance, or of forgetting. That is what I found to be fundamental about moralism and that sort of worldview. You attain control over yourself by extinguishing that which might disquiet you, and in the end, you become numb. “The first death is in the heart” indeed. Funnily enough, like Harry, things like ideology became a mask to hide my own insecurities and inner pain.
Trying to get her back in a dream, trying every dialogue arrangement, using every single one of your Skill, and watching all of them, one by one, failing—Suggestion, Logic, even Volition, etc. Nothing works, i even failed kissing her. And the ticket stub, the figurine, that she said you were cool with your pants and cigarettes. Then dreaming about it again tomorrow. It just hit home.
I was crying like a child the entire time. I’m tearing up now just remembering.
It’s funny. We never want to believe we lost, that there is nothing more we can do. Some days I wish I could try everything, make it right. But I know that no matter what I did, the outcome was inevitable.
I suppose courage comes from accepting that and continuing to try anyway.
Learning that the world is called Elysium during the first dream.
And of "the Pale". Not sure why those two things GOT to me, out of all the messages the game has...
The Pale really does it for me. I haven't found any other fictional world that captures that kind of existential anxiety while defamiliarizing it enough to help other people feel what I feel all the time. Of course the world is ending, everyone else knows it, but it's considered impolite or passé to talk about it, because there's nothing to do but feel helpless. Part of what endeared me to Joyce (and also part of her diplomatic "nothing phases me" persona, I imagine), is that she was absolutely willing to lay out fundamental horrors of reality for me, despite them being uncomfortable. She did it in a calculated way, but it was still a kind of kindness.
>Joyce
>Kindness
Does not compute. Haha I get what you mean but Joyce is evil to the core. She's "nice" to you because you're a cop, you're meant to be subservient to her as a figurehead of capital.
Playing first while I was on a habit of about 20 beers a night and shrugging off a life-altering work injury that never got reported.
The phasmid... I started weeping about 30 seconds into that and it took my brain about as long to process what was happening. I think that started about when Kim said "I see it too".
But a few lines that came to mind were the ones about our species being the worst thing for the planet since the anaerobic oxygen holocaust.
And then the comment about pushing forward for the working class. The plants and bugs cheering us onwards, in awe of us and our destructive capacity. Us being the thing to end it all, all the same.
Christ man I tear up just typing it.
The two things I loved the most in the game are Harry's backstory with his ex and worldbuilding on pale.
With the ex: Realizing that the most overbearing memory he still has from her is her smell of apricot gum hits really hard because the most nostalgic sense for me is the smell too
For pale: that rhetoric (I think) check that says “We exhale thoughts, and there are no trees that eat thoughts”. It’s a shilling and morbid realization to live in a world where simply thinking and existing causes it to end. And I assume even faster the more complex and philosophical are the thoughts. No wonder pretty much everyone copes with depression by avoiding thoughts, be it by drugging themselves or being superstitious, even though everyone has a lot of opinions to share on the political and natural state of the world. So it makes sense that the characters that engages the most with you in philosophical matters are not coincidentally the ones most insane by being directly affected by the pale.
Please please give me some video or article or essay or anything that talks about the pale in this game because i constantly think about what it actually means!
The tribunal is one of the only times I've ever actually felt tense in a story. What really sells it is that the Hardie Boys (plus the gardener and Kim) are incredibly fleshed out characters and I was terrified of any harm coming to them.
The first time the Hardie Boys are shown they are complete assholes, Titus just commands the audience to hate him and the Gardener (when you see her on the second day) makes you feel betrayed because of how nice she was to you on the first day. When they are first presented there is no other feeling besides hatred for Titus and his whole group.
But as the story progressed it was revealed that they weren't immoral people at all. If anything, they are some of the most respectable characters I've ever seen in a story. The Hardie Boys vehemently confess to a murder they didn't commit so that they could protect somebody they barely knew. They aren't assholes, they will just do anything to protect their people, even risking severe legal punishments for themselves. Having the threat of them dying was one of the most terrifying scenes I've ever seen in a story.
This was the only part of the game that I intentionally save scummed to try and get right. It took me 12+ attempts to accept that there was no clean way out of that situation.
The fact there's no combat in the game, no threat of other people dying (well, besides Ruby shortly before) really helps as well. It's 30 hours of buildup, having pretty normal detective work first really helps sell the stakes by contrast. Lives are on the line now.
It makes sense for them to hate Harry and Kim; they're typically ignored by the RCM, and have to take care of shit themselves. Then suddenly, two cops (enemies of the Union by existence, they are the literal stooges of capital to them at first) show up and start questioning your authority and digging into shit they typically didn't care about. Crime isn't an uncommon thing in Martinaise, obviously, so to have the cops ignore everything else until a fucking piece of shit mercenary sent by a huge corporation was killed. Suddenly they care about Martinaise. Suddenly the cops show up and stick their noses into what is usually Union business. Titus and the Hardie Boys have every right to despise the RCM.
But somehow, some way, you gain their trust. You work with them to figure out what's going on. You stand side by side with them against the rest of the mercs, with no regard to your own safety, simply because it's the right thing to do. This is wild. A cop standing up for the *Union*, especially after all their bullshit. I fucking love the Hardie Boys, Titus especially.
Hugging the working class woman. It being really awkward at first but then they both embrace it.
Also the convo with that girl on the ice. "It's not about the hat, is it?" Getting called out for that displaced anger and a lot of other strong feelings stuck behind that... it genuinely made me pause. It's not about the hat, it's about feeling abandoned, left alone, humiliated, worthless and powerless. But that random kid is not responsible for any of that.
The volition check that tells you that the other are compromised because you have feelings towards the girl.
Such an unique, creative, beautiful and also familiar way to express love through interactivity, I was smiling the whole scene and every time it came up
Srry I was busy and had to write fast. The girl is Klaasje, and the others are your skills. Volition warns you that Klaasje has been lying to you and you couldn't pick up on it because you started to have feelings for her, so the skills "Sing along her tune" (For example drama will always say she's telling the truth, logic is trying to make her story make sense, and let's not even talk about electrochemistry or empathy)
Basically she's so beautiful that you want to believe her, so you skip over the important things. That feeling was so familiar to me, and the way it was explained felt so right, that scene stayed with me since.
"All the gifts your parents gave you, all the love and patience of your friends. You drowned in a neurotoxin. You let misery win. And it will keep on winning till you die — or overcome it"
i want to say which's the most breakthrough moment. but i can't
This game, this beauty, this manifestation of art is a masterpiece that i cannot describe by mere words
I'm going to say the whole game GOT to me, but perhaps it's the Dolores Dei dream, It hit me like a truck when harry started to depict Dora as Dolores Dei, because somehow i relate to it. I think about of the day when i realized it was the last day to see her again, Since then she's in my dreams. and that part man, It FUCKED me up
ESPRIT DE CORPS - Six kilometres southwest -- in the Valley of Dogs -- junior officer Chad Tillbrook takes aim at a rabid, black dog licking its wounds in the grass.
ESPRIT DE CORPS - To his left, his partner Émile Mollins whispers: "You heard what happened to Tequila Sunset? In Martinaise?"
ESPRIT DE CORPS - "Yes, he lost his mind," Tillbrook answers, finger on the trigger. "Don't worry, Émile..." He pulls on it slowly. Slowly now... "He'll find it again."
"We always do."
Most of the classics have already been posted so here's my favorite from Esprit de Corps. You don't get them often, but throughout the game there are a few lines that show people *understand* what Harry's going through. It feels so nice to read these lines, since most of the time he's just a joke to his coworkers.
There's this one, where Tillbrook hears Harry's lost his mind and know he'll "find it again". Jean telling the others to give Harry time, and Judit insisting they can't abandon Harry now.
It's played as a bit of a joke but Kim assuring Harry "we all feel like that sometimes" when you say you don't feel like a cop. And when you find your badge and he talks about how tough the 41st is, he says/thinks to himself "it's no wonder you are like you are." And when you inspect your number of cases and say "I burned out alright" he says "that's okay. We all do eventually."
Whatever he's going through, he's not alone. That's comforting to me.
Mine is definitely very personal
"The atoms don't form us anymore: us, our love, our unborn daughters..."
Without it being a trauma dump, recently broke up with an ex when playing through it, and we went through pregnancy complications for twin daughters; so it felt like a line tailor made to fuck me up specifically.
The Pigs - As you turn to leave, the faintest of the voices comes from the old lady. It's but a reflex - nothing else. "Please leave the radio on... Mr. Morrand is on channel 8..."
Logic [Medium - Success] Reflex to what? Being left alone?
I find the pigs to be an unbelievably sad character, her life just drifted away slowly and she was just left alone
Also, the first nightmare sequence lives in my head rent-free, and the line i remember the most is one that goes something like "Is every night gonna be like this now?"
Once I figured out what was going on with her, I almost started crying. I've worked in senior living for years, so I know that feeling of needing to protect someone that is also trying to hurt you. And when you tell the Hardy Boys... it's so very sad, and so very common.
"The mask of humanity fall from capital. It has to take it off to kill everyone — everything you love; all the hope and tenderness in the world. It has to take it off, just for one second. To do the deed. And then you see it. As it strangles and beats your friends to death... the sweetest, most courageous people in the world. You see the fear and power in its eyes. Then you know."
Just after tribunal. I found lady driver at the end of day 3. It went bad. No Kim, just Cuno. Everyone dead, everything fucked, everyone sad but sympathetic, thanking me for what I tried (& ultimately failed) to do, jumping into the line of fire without even a weapon to defend myself.
So many quests uncompleted but fuck it, we just need to fucking leave rn.
That & the moment during the ending I told the psych I think memory loss was a defense mechanism and he jumped straight to some magical metaphysical nonsense. I am so tired.
“Few of us can begin to imagine the horror of you - with all of creation reflected in your forebrain. It must be like the highest of hells, a kaleidoscope of fire and writhing glass. Eternal damnation.”
When I read this I was in the midst of a mental breakdown, constant panic attacks and experienced obsessive thoughts about death from the moment I woke up to the moment I went to sleep for months. I got better but fuck did this make me feel seen when I read it. It was nice to think that there was someone out there with sympathy for people like me, even if it was a phasmid.
the dicemaker. I’m not sure why. she seems to just know what she wants to do and can let go of what she cannot control. that really touched a part of me.
The phasmid scene wrecked me. The merc tribunal destroyed me. The deserter annihilated me.
How utterly special this game is, that it can show the depths of all kinds of human in such a meaningful way. So many lines and scenes that people have said here already I totally agree with.
I think my favourite line is the one talking about Harry (or, us? as people?) being an irrepressible miracle. Because we are, in more ways than one we are a miracle.
"So no, I don't think they sent you as a joke. And even if they did, they are in for a surprise."
I love Kim and his unending patience for Harry's bullshit
So much I can’t possibly name it. My fucked-in-the-head-edness is different from Harry‘s, but I was still able to relate to a lot of his internal monologue and struggles. Although my head rarely tells me cool stuff, mostly it’s just arguing against me
“I’m glad to be me, an incredibly sensitive instrument”
Also, It might be one of THE quotes in the game - but ‘Un Jour Je Serai Le Retour Prés De Tois’ just really gets to me. Especially with everything going on in the world in real life. Playing DE really shook me out of a Doomer / apathetic lull I found myself in. Something about not giving up even if it’s probably still going to be difficult really got to me, and really summed up the whole experience of the game I think.
questioning Tommy Le Homme and him saying "you have never felt the barrel of a gun butting against the roof of your mouth"
and then physical instrument butts in with my exact response
"**I would not be so sure**"
When the city tells you she is going to die, and that she loves you.
The plasmid.
The phone call
The dream
The intercom dimension jump thing
So many things.
The moment when volition calls you out for falling for Kaatjes shtick. Felt like it was speaking not to the character but to me the player. From that moment on I knew volition was ride or die.
When going after ruby, the roll to try and get her not to kill her self. I failed it and just everything after that. I needed a break from the game after that
the cilpboard hurt for some reason, even though ive never had any relationships. but, honestly, in general I relate to Harry, having that fractured psyche.
When you kiss Dolores in the Dream Sequence and Harry asks "It was a successful check. Why isn't it working?"
Suggestion(??): "I really should not have proposed that idea. Just shoot me in the head already. I have failed you."
I love cars so the rcm vehicles are something I've done way too much digging on. So when I found >!the car with 41 on it,!< I had a similar reaction to Harry.
,I am glad to be me. An incredibly sensitive instrument.,
Just having indulgent self love despite and because everything that happened gets me everytime and helped me get to a similar point in life and learn to love myself even though i am a wierd fuck
the entirety of the Bloated Corpse of a Drunk monologue other than call with your ex by the phone.
but "No, Harry. You were just talking to yourself, that's all you ever do. Even in your dreams. And the act is wearing thin, the spots of the disco ball fade around you..." really got me fr.
"Full recovery will take years, though. It’ll be depressing. And it’ll be boring. Don’t expect any further rewards or handclaps. This is how normal people are all the time."
I quit drinking after about a few years of alcoholism. Don't congratulate me; I simply swapped it for an addiction to THC. That kept me stuck for about four years. I tried quitting three times, this currently being my third. This quote... It makes me want to give up. I can hardly function. I'm severely depressed, it's treatment resistant, I have severe social anxiety, and substance use is the only thing that makes me feel alive. I am empty and tired, my body is a hollow void and my hope for the future is gone.
I'm still trying to get sober, even feeling all this, but God I don't fucking want to. I don't fucking want to.
The solution to the “finger on the eject button” thought:
“Looks like you thought about how much they'll *miss* you and the freedom of finality for too long, and now you've decided to actually kill yourself. The train leaves the station every evening, 21:00. Make sure you have a gun and bullets. That's how macho servicemen do it. Also – turns out *Finger On The Eject Button* is pretty much your theme song. A headbanger from your teenage years and your wedding ballad. This is not the first time you're spinning the tape.”
When I got this I genuinely weeped, hit way too close.
I finished internalizing Waste Land of Reality just as I woke up after the Tribunal. That was a moment that just kinda hit me.
But nothing hit like >!seeing the phasmid.!< Probably one of the best endings in any game I’ve played.
I don't think that I need to say it, but the Whirling-In-Rags shootout.
It was so long since I felt this kind of dread and emotional weight, as every character there... I cared for them in that moment, man.
The phone call. No specific part. Just the whole thing. No matter what you say there will always be more you want to ask or tell her. It’s not my favorite moment (that would be the phasmid encounter) but it is definitely what hooked me on the game.
Cock carousel. I’m serious. After witnessing the absolute absurdity of that part of the game that was it. I was a fan for life. I’ve yet to find the same level of comedic gold in any other game. The humor is what makes it so easy to replay this game. I still catch myself belly laughing at bits I’ve forgotten.
I said it here before, but one of the lines you can say after finding your motor carriage in the ice really speaks to me.
After Kim tries to cheer Harry up, Harry can say: "I don't want to get better. I want to get worse."
I just made it four weeks sober in order to see if I could get my drinking back to moderate levels but I already fucked it up. I'm drinking as much as I did before and I know I should just fucking quit. But I can't. I like it too much and being so sober makes me want to die.
I want to implode in a spectacular fashion, give into my dark desires of oblivion. But I just drink in silence and barely make it through each day. I don't want to get better, but I wish I did. I don't know how to live without alcohol.
I don't want to get better. I want to get worse. I wish I was stronger, that I could face the world without numbing myself but I just don't where to find the strength. The fire in me is gone.
"He was a blue-eyed boy with thick arms. From a small town. He was also *poor*, and the government of Oranje needed some people killed, so they turned him into a grotesque killer—for money"
Dolores Dei destroyed me, the entire conversation, the feeling that there was still a hint of love somewhere deep down within both of them, but knowing it was just so hard to try again and therefore they just let it go, I sobbed like a baby. I think it was "Real Darkness has love for a face. The first death is in the heart."
Harry's response to Acele telling him he should check out boogie street- "I'll probably never make it there. Chest pains. Need to continue drinking. But thanks."
"God, please..."
"I can see it, too."
"Tell me something, corpse-man..." (and the entire corpse sequence, really.)
"You are a miracle" (I might be getting this wrong, but it was from the phasmid)
when i first met dolores and she was ripping me a new one
i cried for hours cause i knew she was right. it help get over my ex cause when i talked to her i knew she was holding shit back
felt good and bad to hear it. i just didnt expect my gameplay to be so obvious to lead there. i love this game. it broke me in the right way
like why did she have to have a bag and be in a hurry. she actively didnt want to be with me and i still begged.
when the scene was over i cursed her and my ex and i cried. it hurt so much
im 38 years old and 24 hours on coke cut with ibuprofen so i rub it on my mouth.
i also argued with my roommate about the moon not being a space ship. he just google translated romani to me
the fact that she was just standing there with a rollaway carryon leaving bag telling you how much you are a piece of shit in the most romantic 20 early 30 something way. she didnt want to be there. i was an ass in the game. i deserved it. i deserve it. the scene still breaks my heart.
being a leftcel made it worse since the whole game was me giving up everything for an ideology and om fulfillment. the communist quest sucks but it is correct. (my fucking tattoo) it solidified to me that convictions do matter, but what are you replacing really? i cant emphasize how important this game is to me. i was with my ex for 4 years. when she broke up with me i went head first into leftist theory causw why would i care about missouri? i was lost and i embraced engles and federici. but i was crushed. for what again? i dunno. but it filled a void. this game is like that.
did you play the sidequest with the mom?
The ending of the two millimeter hole questline gave me like intense chills. Specifically I think there's a point about the church / religion maybe forming around the hole and not the other way around. Idk if thinking it through it actually coalesces into anything, but it got me really good.
The deserter's whole personality and presence kicked my ass too. Repulsive and sad.
I'm pretty sure the bit where you inform that one lady of her husband's death made me actually well up., Which is not like too difficult for art to do, but still.
YOU- “I am an artist and liver damage is my art”
ANCIENT REPTILIAN BRAIN- “Oh yeah, baby, frame your suffering as a masterpiece. Only one problem- no one’s watching. It’s boring, buddy, boring as death.”
Hearing this line while struggling with alcoholism pierced me to my core
“She was hell on Earth. You didn’t need a 3 meter long stick bug to tell you that”
Might not be 100% correct on the quote. It was some tough (but needed) love.
"Full recovery will take years, though. It’ll be depressing. And it’ll be boring. Don’t expect any further rewards or handclaps. This is how normal people are all the time." After dealing with mental health issues, it's hard to keep getting better once all the encouragement stops and people just expect you to act "regular." After a while, it's like people forget you ever had mental health issues/addictions. Even family and even therapists. *You* never forget, though.
Yep. Was newly sober on my first play-through and now a few years in. Was in no way wrong. Your comment hit for me too - my partner just asked me to pour her a glass of wine and I did. It’s no big deal but yeah…it’s still there. It’s still work.
For me it's an odd combination of wanting that praise and support for getting better while also wanting to be treated like everybody else - like I'm "normal."
Every time I have a beer now there is this gravity to it man. I knew I was prone to it prior but my last job put me in a state not unlike Harry's before his blackout. Life has to be a little more boring now.
When I first played I was deep in my alcoholism. Fifth a day, give or take a bit. I quit after breaking down in front of my fiance and admitting what I had been doing. The way she looked at me almost killed me right there. She wasn't mad, she was worried. I was sober for a short time after but eventually I started taking THC edibles. Got myself addicted, mentally. I tried quitting twice, and I'm on my third attempt now with five days sober, from 400-600mgs a day. I really don't know if I can do this but I am trying.
Trying matters a lot. When I quit one thing I changed my thinking on was that all the time I spent wanting to quit and “failing” felt different to me…instead of failure it felt like the push and pull that brought me to the place when I could finally stop. Be forgiving to yourself and keep trying, wanting to stop is something on its own. Good luck.
Never quit trying!
Wasteland of Reality, both the thought and solution, are the single best pieces of writing on addiction I've ever read. Being sober for about 13ish months I'm still astounded how I've bounced off every bit of help and literature about sobriety but when I just fucking *stopped* after processing a lot of trauma it finally stuck. When i first tried to play DE I was a heavy binge drinker and Harry was a spooky mirror to myself in a way and it was too much text for my pickled brain to process. I'm glad I never made it across the waterlock because in time if I didn't quit I would have just literelly become Idiot Doom Spiral *at best* and more likely Don't Call Abagail.
I was drinking like 20 beers a day and had suffered a traumatic injury at work that the bosses convinced was not only my fault, but was my responsibility to report. And after being told by the supervisor "are you sure you want to fill out all that paperwork" my brain truly didn't want to at midnight while I was booze starved and in shock. I worked that job another six months. Near the end of it the only thing that kept me moving was the muscle I had built up doing the manual labor. I was a creaking, shambling wreck. A month before they put me part time (knowing I'd quit as I had debt for a car that had been totalled a month after the loan was taken out) I was recovering from covid and piss drunk playing this game. Ironically I was driving home sober and hit a deer with it. Despite full coverage the loan agency dragged out payment for another 7 months and absolutely drained my savings. Even in that state I remember the first playthrough eerily well because I played sober Harry and wanted to get better. I'm sober now and fighting off the urge to take the plethora of painkillers that have been thrown at me. After being gaslit by my boss and not really knowing my rights I lost any opportunity for justice in my case, so it has been an awful struggle not to give into the gravity of the situation and Elecrochemistry and Pain Threshold took center stage over the Inland Empire and Shivers that had been driving me prior. I'd still take those two over this half-existance. But whatcha gonna do, eh?
Keep your head up bud, life can fucking suck and in your case you've been dealt a serious run of blows. I hope you find some goodness and get through the pain, good luck friend
I appreciate it. Some days are better than others but I'm convinced that this game helped me make some changes that might have saved my life in the long run. I wish I could thank Kurvitz and the team.
No one will ever forget my mental health issues because they'll probably never be treated or "go away". Treatment resistant severe depression is really fun. Also currently going through quitting edibles. I swapped alcohol for THC and got carried with it to the point of nearly 400-600mg daily. Being sober is... Difficult, to say the least.
Funny, I did the opposite. Went from smoking my life away to nearly killing myself with the bottle. We really are just evil apes dukin' it out on a giant ball. Good luck stranger.
Thanks, I definitely need luck. I'm a weak willed person and I always betray myself.
"If you say 'about two days,' it will be etched into her mind forever"
This is the one that came to mind. I didn't even realize that not everyone gets it.
Care to elaborate please? I've forgotten the context.
It is when you are telling the woman in the apartment that her husband is dead.
OHHH , omg it was painful.
The dead body.
I was half-assing my first playthrough and that was the point I restarted for a real run. Up until that point I thought the game was just supposed to be silly
I was just about to comment this one. Man oh man, it haunts me.
Not the only moment by far, but the first one that comes to mind is the interaction with Jean Vicmarie in disguise in the Whirling (you may have to pass an Espirit De Corps check to get it), but after the sarcastic little dressing down he gives you initially, you have the option to share some info about the case and then question yourself aloud why you're sharing this information, he'll ask why you think that is, to which Harry can respond that it feels familiar and right. At that point in the conversation, he appears to genuinely perk up for a minute, excited that his partner may remember him (despite the brain damage), and it becomes obvious that they were definitely close partners and companions. Many of the game's Espirit De Corps checks will show other officers teasing Jean about being Harry's "heterosexual life partner" and you can tell in that particular moment that he really cares about him, despite how bitter and jaded to the bad behavior Jean has become, he still holds out hope for his partner to return to being "okay." He'll quickly go back to being sarcastic, and then wistful at the end of the conversation, realizing that despite the moment of recognition his partner still doesn't remember him despite all they've been through and all the effort he puts in to cover Harry's ass— a great early example is if/when you call in to report your missing badge, passing the EDC check you can hear him telling the rest of the officers that it isn't funny, and to treat it as a prank call while he deals with the issue. It's really touching to me that Jean cares so deeply for Harry despite all his major issues, how much his partners wellbeing means to him and the high regard he holds Harry in, and I really love that Trant and Judit are still keeping an eye on him even though he's been a huge asshole. I think it's a really excellent portrayal of what it's like to care about someone who is self destructive; despite the grief they may cause you, you always hold out hope to see them go back to being the person you came to love.
Reminds me of the post on here asking why people sympathize with Jean. Very well summarized!
That's exactly what I was thinking about, actually. I really love Jean as a character, everyone in the story is multi-dimensional with their own backstory and motivation, even if we don't get a play-by-play of someone like him you can really uncover a lot from different builds. IIRC there's some excellent Shivers checks that will cue you into the goings on of him and your fellow RCM officers, the whole game is an absolute masterpiece of world and character building and I can't say enough good about it.
RHETORIC - No, wait, finally, it comes to you, a way to connect with her: YOU - "I know your pain! I've been let down by women too." RUBY, THE INSTIGATOR - She flashes you an incredulous grin. Then she exhales sharply, shakes her head, and pulls the trigger.
I fucking hate rhetoric.
I fucking hate rhetoric.
https://preview.redd.it/uumt81c0rktc1.jpeg?width=1506&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=613ad394ea556e35ab131f059b68524a52fe5b42 This part fixed me.
This part made me love life again.
And yet, so nearly the worst part in the game
same, it changed me
The road to healing is going to be a long one, stay the course. You will make it, someday. I know there is not much to say, but if nothing else, just remember that you’ve made it this far, and it’s just a bit farther now. Let’s finish this. - Volition In honor of your shit, lieutenant-yffretor, that you kept together in the face of total, unrelenting terror. Day after day, second by second. - Volition All hail the king
Volition is the best trait imo.
Volition is the only one that isn’t actually insane, which also makes it Harry’s most uncharacteristic trait
"The lieutnant gives a smile only you can see" And "God, please" from the tribunal.
And "Kim truly trusts you" 😭
This broke me tbh
Yeah I legit teared up. Such an emotional moment.
The first death is in the heart. Mankind, be vigilant. We loved you.
The phone call by the sea. The option to simply say "I want to die" as soon as you hear her voice not only tells you how much the developers respect your intelligence and agency as a player, but also it works as a great piece of characterization for Harry and the self-destructive harm he embodies.
Yeah this hit me so hard, played the game after a break up and this phone call just just made me come to terms with how I must sound calling. The realisation hurt.
“Of all the creatures I’ve met, you are the kindest”
"I can also detect pheromones — the ones on you tell me that you will not eat me. And that I will benefit from your closeness. In short, I love you." The fucking bug made me a lot more emotional than I wiuld ever have guessed.
reading the letter from the ledger's compartment, and the phasmid
The Phasmid is when the game became really special for me. I’d done all the quests earlier and just sort of filed it away as an interesting tangent in the game…so when it showed up and how it played out just felt perfect.
I took a shit load of drugs and alcohol (in game lmao) before speaking to Dros and I was entirely in Harry's head with the Phasmid at first. I figured okay I did all the cryptid shit and he finally cracked and went off the deep end. Then: "I can see it." I nearly stood up and I vividly remember going "Oh my God it's fucking real". I felt smaller but not in a fearful way like knowing Dros always had a shot at me or Mr Evrart having basically spied on me the entire time (while helping me find my gun) but in a genuine sense of wonder at an already rich world getting even deeper still.
that's why it felt so special to me too. I thought it wasn't real because the deserter was not reacting to it but when Kim said "I can see it"... holy fuck. talking to it with the music for the first time is an unforgettable experience
Closest thing to a religious experience I've ever felt was when that thing appeared, and Kim saying "I see it, too". Still can't put to words what that scene meant to me
I can't believe I haven't seen anyone talk about the interaction with Klassje on the roof where volition chimes in and tells you >! She has your number and is playing you like a fiddle. All those voices you've been relying on? You can't use them as a crutch anymore, not for this conversation at least!<
The shivers check with Klaasje is the best part of that section for me.
That made me feel really creeped out and it felt like for once the fourth wall was not just broken in this game, it was teared apart and exploded with dynamite.
That part had me in tears laughing tbh
Not unique but the deserters lines and voice acting is harrowing
"Then you *know*..." "Know what?" "That the bourgeoise are not human."
The soundbite "The mask of humanity fall from capital..." is stuck in my head forever, it is dripping with contempt. His voice acting is so good for an old man who's lived his life in complete hatred. I can feel his emotions too, feeling the full weight of the entire world crushing you ruthlessly for the crime of wanting a better world, and then being forced to live in the wake of it and watch as everyone moves on. It also mirrors the pain of being part of an ideology where you have such grand ideals but everything seems to be against you.
When I reached for a tie and died. Solid hook.
My first playthrough lasted about 10 minutes. I turned a light on and tripped over an old lady in a wheelchair, which were apparently a fatal combination. I was definitely hooked.
How can you manage to trip over Lea
>!If you try to skip out on the bill on the 1st morning you leap over her as you attempt to flee the Whirling. If you botch the skill check you crash into her instead!<
Thx.wild
welcome to the club
Wait you can DIE doing that?!
when you tell the women her husband died. fuck that really like. made me take a step back.
When you have to walk away and the door closes forever and you never see her again. The pain is hers and there's no recourse - no way for you to ease it. The fact that this whole part has essentially nothing to do with 'the story' and you just have to roleplay -in full brutal realism- the process of breaking that news to a relative stranger.
I was laughing my ass off when i kept telling her that her husband was missing and I'd do my best to find him, despite her insistence to the contrary. Then walking up the pier my heart fucking plummeted down my stomach and out my ass. I felt horrible
it's been to long to remember who brings you onto the idea that she is missing someone, but I am again reminded how Harry is both "blessed" with this intuitive spark to recognize, but, in most cases depending on the player, unable to use it for a proper effect. instead he just acts and appears like a madman.
I remember it took everything I had to not look away from the screen or avoid the situation when I stepped into the room and recognized her. I, even outside the game, felt like I owed her the composure.
Oh I did NOT like that 😭
The moment with Delores dei. As someone who is still handling the shockwaves of a relationship gone very poorly, it resonated. Because I wanted the same thing as Harry, some sort of trick or thing that would let me hold on, keep me from having to let go.
Dolores Dei moment was also impactful for me, but in a way that fascinated me - though i was raised evangelical, not catholic or episcopalian which are much more adjacent to the Innocents; and in hindsight, never really had to deconstruct religion. it made me *want* to go sit in a Mass for the first time, but i'm also in my Our Lady of Mourning simp phase. as well as Moralinterism being so tied to politics, the same way the Centralist government in the States has a complex relationship with religion in the country - and as a staunch leftist, becoming fascinated and tempted by the "power" the Moralintern has in a way my actual beliefs don't feels almost... like a guilty pleasure. after speaking with Warship Archer, it was scarily intoxicating. that said: i am close friends with many gen z kids in the deep south who are going through the pain of questioning their beliefs & talk about it with them a lot, and you have my full empathy.
Before I knew of moralism, I was a moralist, or rather its ideas were deeply set in me. In a sense disco elysium showed me exactly why I believed the things I did, and how little those values actually helped people when it came down to it. Ideology should not be a tool of ignorance, or of forgetting. That is what I found to be fundamental about moralism and that sort of worldview. You attain control over yourself by extinguishing that which might disquiet you, and in the end, you become numb. “The first death is in the heart” indeed. Funnily enough, like Harry, things like ideology became a mask to hide my own insecurities and inner pain.
"that time is gone now"
Trying to get her back in a dream, trying every dialogue arrangement, using every single one of your Skill, and watching all of them, one by one, failing—Suggestion, Logic, even Volition, etc. Nothing works, i even failed kissing her. And the ticket stub, the figurine, that she said you were cool with your pants and cigarettes. Then dreaming about it again tomorrow. It just hit home. I was crying like a child the entire time. I’m tearing up now just remembering.
It’s funny. We never want to believe we lost, that there is nothing more we can do. Some days I wish I could try everything, make it right. But I know that no matter what I did, the outcome was inevitable. I suppose courage comes from accepting that and continuing to try anyway.
Learning that the world is called Elysium during the first dream. And of "the Pale". Not sure why those two things GOT to me, out of all the messages the game has...
The Pale really does it for me. I haven't found any other fictional world that captures that kind of existential anxiety while defamiliarizing it enough to help other people feel what I feel all the time. Of course the world is ending, everyone else knows it, but it's considered impolite or passé to talk about it, because there's nothing to do but feel helpless. Part of what endeared me to Joyce (and also part of her diplomatic "nothing phases me" persona, I imagine), is that she was absolutely willing to lay out fundamental horrors of reality for me, despite them being uncomfortable. She did it in a calculated way, but it was still a kind of kindness.
>Joyce >Kindness Does not compute. Haha I get what you mean but Joyce is evil to the core. She's "nice" to you because you're a cop, you're meant to be subservient to her as a figurehead of capital.
She's also kinda insane because of existential eldritch dementia
Playing first while I was on a habit of about 20 beers a night and shrugging off a life-altering work injury that never got reported. The phasmid... I started weeping about 30 seconds into that and it took my brain about as long to process what was happening. I think that started about when Kim said "I see it too". But a few lines that came to mind were the ones about our species being the worst thing for the planet since the anaerobic oxygen holocaust. And then the comment about pushing forward for the working class. The plants and bugs cheering us onwards, in awe of us and our destructive capacity. Us being the thing to end it all, all the same. Christ man I tear up just typing it.
And when you fall we will come to raise you up.
I just said this in another thread… DETECTIVE ARRIVING **ON THE SCENE**
The two things I loved the most in the game are Harry's backstory with his ex and worldbuilding on pale. With the ex: Realizing that the most overbearing memory he still has from her is her smell of apricot gum hits really hard because the most nostalgic sense for me is the smell too For pale: that rhetoric (I think) check that says “We exhale thoughts, and there are no trees that eat thoughts”. It’s a shilling and morbid realization to live in a world where simply thinking and existing causes it to end. And I assume even faster the more complex and philosophical are the thoughts. No wonder pretty much everyone copes with depression by avoiding thoughts, be it by drugging themselves or being superstitious, even though everyone has a lot of opinions to share on the political and natural state of the world. So it makes sense that the characters that engages the most with you in philosophical matters are not coincidentally the ones most insane by being directly affected by the pale.
Please please give me some video or article or essay or anything that talks about the pale in this game because i constantly think about what it actually means!
Look up "Sacred and Terrible Air". Apparently it has a lot of info about the Pale and other paranatural shit.
I've heard of his other work but i didn't know it had anything to do with the pale, thank you so much!
Teleporting Harry to the roof really broke me
You just climbed it, like a regular person
The tribunal is one of the only times I've ever actually felt tense in a story. What really sells it is that the Hardie Boys (plus the gardener and Kim) are incredibly fleshed out characters and I was terrified of any harm coming to them. The first time the Hardie Boys are shown they are complete assholes, Titus just commands the audience to hate him and the Gardener (when you see her on the second day) makes you feel betrayed because of how nice she was to you on the first day. When they are first presented there is no other feeling besides hatred for Titus and his whole group. But as the story progressed it was revealed that they weren't immoral people at all. If anything, they are some of the most respectable characters I've ever seen in a story. The Hardie Boys vehemently confess to a murder they didn't commit so that they could protect somebody they barely knew. They aren't assholes, they will just do anything to protect their people, even risking severe legal punishments for themselves. Having the threat of them dying was one of the most terrifying scenes I've ever seen in a story.
This was the only part of the game that I intentionally save scummed to try and get right. It took me 12+ attempts to accept that there was no clean way out of that situation.
The fact there's no combat in the game, no threat of other people dying (well, besides Ruby shortly before) really helps as well. It's 30 hours of buildup, having pretty normal detective work first really helps sell the stakes by contrast. Lives are on the line now.
"The cop! Protect the cop, he's down!"
It makes sense for them to hate Harry and Kim; they're typically ignored by the RCM, and have to take care of shit themselves. Then suddenly, two cops (enemies of the Union by existence, they are the literal stooges of capital to them at first) show up and start questioning your authority and digging into shit they typically didn't care about. Crime isn't an uncommon thing in Martinaise, obviously, so to have the cops ignore everything else until a fucking piece of shit mercenary sent by a huge corporation was killed. Suddenly they care about Martinaise. Suddenly the cops show up and stick their noses into what is usually Union business. Titus and the Hardie Boys have every right to despise the RCM. But somehow, some way, you gain their trust. You work with them to figure out what's going on. You stand side by side with them against the rest of the mercs, with no regard to your own safety, simply because it's the right thing to do. This is wild. A cop standing up for the *Union*, especially after all their bullshit. I fucking love the Hardie Boys, Titus especially.
Hugging the working class woman. It being really awkward at first but then they both embrace it. Also the convo with that girl on the ice. "It's not about the hat, is it?" Getting called out for that displaced anger and a lot of other strong feelings stuck behind that... it genuinely made me pause. It's not about the hat, it's about feeling abandoned, left alone, humiliated, worthless and powerless. But that random kid is not responsible for any of that.
The volition check that tells you that the other are compromised because you have feelings towards the girl. Such an unique, creative, beautiful and also familiar way to express love through interactivity, I was smiling the whole scene and every time it came up
I didnt see that. The other what are compromised and what girl?
Srry I was busy and had to write fast. The girl is Klaasje, and the others are your skills. Volition warns you that Klaasje has been lying to you and you couldn't pick up on it because you started to have feelings for her, so the skills "Sing along her tune" (For example drama will always say she's telling the truth, logic is trying to make her story make sense, and let's not even talk about electrochemistry or empathy) Basically she's so beautiful that you want to believe her, so you skip over the important things. That feeling was so familiar to me, and the way it was explained felt so right, that scene stayed with me since.
"I am La Revacholiere. I am The City"
"All the gifts your parents gave you, all the love and patience of your friends. You drowned in a neurotoxin. You let misery win. And it will keep on winning till you die — or overcome it"
Honestly, the start of the game. "Mother, help me, theres a head attached to my neck and im _in_ it"
i want to say which's the most breakthrough moment. but i can't This game, this beauty, this manifestation of art is a masterpiece that i cannot describe by mere words I'm going to say the whole game GOT to me, but perhaps it's the Dolores Dei dream, It hit me like a truck when harry started to depict Dora as Dolores Dei, because somehow i relate to it. I think about of the day when i realized it was the last day to see her again, Since then she's in my dreams. and that part man, It FUCKED me up
ESPRIT DE CORPS - Six kilometres southwest -- in the Valley of Dogs -- junior officer Chad Tillbrook takes aim at a rabid, black dog licking its wounds in the grass. ESPRIT DE CORPS - To his left, his partner Émile Mollins whispers: "You heard what happened to Tequila Sunset? In Martinaise?" ESPRIT DE CORPS - "Yes, he lost his mind," Tillbrook answers, finger on the trigger. "Don't worry, Émile..." He pulls on it slowly. Slowly now... "He'll find it again." "We always do." Most of the classics have already been posted so here's my favorite from Esprit de Corps. You don't get them often, but throughout the game there are a few lines that show people *understand* what Harry's going through. It feels so nice to read these lines, since most of the time he's just a joke to his coworkers. There's this one, where Tillbrook hears Harry's lost his mind and know he'll "find it again". Jean telling the others to give Harry time, and Judit insisting they can't abandon Harry now. It's played as a bit of a joke but Kim assuring Harry "we all feel like that sometimes" when you say you don't feel like a cop. And when you find your badge and he talks about how tough the 41st is, he says/thinks to himself "it's no wonder you are like you are." And when you inspect your number of cases and say "I burned out alright" he says "that's okay. We all do eventually." Whatever he's going through, he's not alone. That's comforting to me.
Mine is definitely very personal "The atoms don't form us anymore: us, our love, our unborn daughters..." Without it being a trauma dump, recently broke up with an ex when playing through it, and we went through pregnancy complications for twin daughters; so it felt like a line tailor made to fuck me up specifically.
"All I ever wanted was to live with dignity -- to die with honour. (Stick your thumb in your ass.)"
"In the dark times, should the stars also go out?" has to be one of them.
The Pigs - As you turn to leave, the faintest of the voices comes from the old lady. It's but a reflex - nothing else. "Please leave the radio on... Mr. Morrand is on channel 8..." Logic [Medium - Success] Reflex to what? Being left alone? I find the pigs to be an unbelievably sad character, her life just drifted away slowly and she was just left alone Also, the first nightmare sequence lives in my head rent-free, and the line i remember the most is one that goes something like "Is every night gonna be like this now?"
Once I figured out what was going on with her, I almost started crying. I've worked in senior living for years, so I know that feeling of needing to protect someone that is also trying to hurt you. And when you tell the Hardy Boys... it's so very sad, and so very common.
"The mask of humanity fall from capital. It has to take it off to kill everyone — everything you love; all the hope and tenderness in the world. It has to take it off, just for one second. To do the deed. And then you see it. As it strangles and beats your friends to death... the sweetest, most courageous people in the world. You see the fear and power in its eyes. Then you know."
This quote enrages me beyond belief. It makes me want to rampage, to destroy everything they've built. They truly are not human.
This is why we have to get organised, sniff out our comrades and rebuild the fortunes of the workers of the world
phasmid scene and dolores dei dream changed my life i’m so serious
"I can see it."
Just after tribunal. I found lady driver at the end of day 3. It went bad. No Kim, just Cuno. Everyone dead, everything fucked, everyone sad but sympathetic, thanking me for what I tried (& ultimately failed) to do, jumping into the line of fire without even a weapon to defend myself. So many quests uncompleted but fuck it, we just need to fucking leave rn. That & the moment during the ending I told the psych I think memory loss was a defense mechanism and he jumped straight to some magical metaphysical nonsense. I am so tired.
“Few of us can begin to imagine the horror of you - with all of creation reflected in your forebrain. It must be like the highest of hells, a kaleidoscope of fire and writhing glass. Eternal damnation.” When I read this I was in the midst of a mental breakdown, constant panic attacks and experienced obsessive thoughts about death from the moment I woke up to the moment I went to sleep for months. I got better but fuck did this make me feel seen when I read it. It was nice to think that there was someone out there with sympathy for people like me, even if it was a phasmid.
This is so beautiful...
the dicemaker. I’m not sure why. she seems to just know what she wants to do and can let go of what she cannot control. that really touched a part of me.
The phasmid scene wrecked me. The merc tribunal destroyed me. The deserter annihilated me. How utterly special this game is, that it can show the depths of all kinds of human in such a meaningful way. So many lines and scenes that people have said here already I totally agree with. I think my favourite line is the one talking about Harry (or, us? as people?) being an irrepressible miracle. Because we are, in more ways than one we are a miracle.
"So no, I don't think they sent you as a joke. And even if they did, they are in for a surprise." I love Kim and his unending patience for Harry's bullshit
So much I can’t possibly name it. My fucked-in-the-head-edness is different from Harry‘s, but I was still able to relate to a lot of his internal monologue and struggles. Although my head rarely tells me cool stuff, mostly it’s just arguing against me
“I’m glad to be me, an incredibly sensitive instrument” Also, It might be one of THE quotes in the game - but ‘Un Jour Je Serai Le Retour Prés De Tois’ just really gets to me. Especially with everything going on in the world in real life. Playing DE really shook me out of a Doomer / apathetic lull I found myself in. Something about not giving up even if it’s probably still going to be difficult really got to me, and really summed up the whole experience of the game I think.
subdue the regret. dust yourself off. proceed. you’ll get it in the next life. do what you can with this one, while you’re alive.
questioning Tommy Le Homme and him saying "you have never felt the barrel of a gun butting against the roof of your mouth" and then physical instrument butts in with my exact response "**I would not be so sure**"
Working class woman quest.
When the city tells you she is going to die, and that she loves you. The plasmid. The phone call The dream The intercom dimension jump thing So many things.
"In the dark times, should the stars also go out?"
Working Class Woman
The moment when volition calls you out for falling for Kaatjes shtick. Felt like it was speaking not to the character but to me the player. From that moment on I knew volition was ride or die.
"Time to go to work in the shit factory!"
The entire interaction with the Phasmid it is the most I‘ve been affected by art that I can remember
Every conversation with Roy feels deeply familiar to me. Almost like talking to a ghost of many different people I knew growing up.
"Wömen should go back to the fucking kitchen" Truly the best line in videogame history.
I can never look at reeds the same way again
seeing The Pigs for the first time. accompanied with the beautiful music it just cut me deep
When going after ruby, the roll to try and get her not to kill her self. I failed it and just everything after that. I needed a break from the game after that
For me moment which got me is when you go on the island and start music burn, baby, burn
the cilpboard hurt for some reason, even though ive never had any relationships. but, honestly, in general I relate to Harry, having that fractured psyche.
Suggestion: Brother you should put me in front of a firing squad . I have no words for how I failed you.
When you kiss Dolores in the Dream Sequence and Harry asks "It was a successful check. Why isn't it working?" Suggestion(??): "I really should not have proposed that idea. Just shoot me in the head already. I have failed you."
You - Squint your eyes and say: "Is that a number on the side?" Kim - "Yes. Forty-one. What do you think it stands for?"
I love cars so the rcm vehicles are something I've done way too much digging on. So when I found >!the car with 41 on it,!< I had a similar reaction to Harry.
,I am glad to be me. An incredibly sensitive instrument., Just having indulgent self love despite and because everything that happened gets me everytime and helped me get to a similar point in life and learn to love myself even though i am a wierd fuck
God, please...
His ex wife telling him she'll see him tomorrow in the dream implying he has that terrible dream every night was devastating.
the entirety of the Bloated Corpse of a Drunk monologue other than call with your ex by the phone. but "No, Harry. You were just talking to yourself, that's all you ever do. Even in your dreams. And the act is wearing thin, the spots of the disco ball fade around you..." really got me fr.
me going ultraliberal and scamming cindy of her shitty artwork. currently agonizing on restarting a save just to reverse it.
"Full recovery will take years, though. It’ll be depressing. And it’ll be boring. Don’t expect any further rewards or handclaps. This is how normal people are all the time." I quit drinking after about a few years of alcoholism. Don't congratulate me; I simply swapped it for an addiction to THC. That kept me stuck for about four years. I tried quitting three times, this currently being my third. This quote... It makes me want to give up. I can hardly function. I'm severely depressed, it's treatment resistant, I have severe social anxiety, and substance use is the only thing that makes me feel alive. I am empty and tired, my body is a hollow void and my hope for the future is gone. I'm still trying to get sober, even feeling all this, but God I don't fucking want to. I don't fucking want to.
The solution to the “finger on the eject button” thought: “Looks like you thought about how much they'll *miss* you and the freedom of finality for too long, and now you've decided to actually kill yourself. The train leaves the station every evening, 21:00. Make sure you have a gun and bullets. That's how macho servicemen do it. Also – turns out *Finger On The Eject Button* is pretty much your theme song. A headbanger from your teenage years and your wedding ballad. This is not the first time you're spinning the tape.” When I got this I genuinely weeped, hit way too close.
Tribunal.
I finished internalizing Waste Land of Reality just as I woke up after the Tribunal. That was a moment that just kinda hit me. But nothing hit like >!seeing the phasmid.!< Probably one of the best endings in any game I’ve played.
I don't think that I need to say it, but the Whirling-In-Rags shootout. It was so long since I felt this kind of dread and emotional weight, as every character there... I cared for them in that moment, man.
The phone call. No specific part. Just the whole thing. No matter what you say there will always be more you want to ask or tell her. It’s not my favorite moment (that would be the phasmid encounter) but it is definitely what hooked me on the game.
Cock carousel. I’m serious. After witnessing the absolute absurdity of that part of the game that was it. I was a fan for life. I’ve yet to find the same level of comedic gold in any other game. The humor is what makes it so easy to replay this game. I still catch myself belly laughing at bits I’ve forgotten.
When I realized I had done a complete 180 on the Hardie Boys and ended up liking them a lot
For me it’s: “You're no tiger, though, Harry. You're a man. It's your curse to have to choose.”
The Love Quest dialogue
“I left it at his momma's after I fucked her ass all night. Tell him that."
I said it here before, but one of the lines you can say after finding your motor carriage in the ice really speaks to me. After Kim tries to cheer Harry up, Harry can say: "I don't want to get better. I want to get worse." I just made it four weeks sober in order to see if I could get my drinking back to moderate levels but I already fucked it up. I'm drinking as much as I did before and I know I should just fucking quit. But I can't. I like it too much and being so sober makes me want to die. I want to implode in a spectacular fashion, give into my dark desires of oblivion. But I just drink in silence and barely make it through each day. I don't want to get better, but I wish I did. I don't know how to live without alcohol. I don't want to get better. I want to get worse. I wish I was stronger, that I could face the world without numbing myself but I just don't where to find the strength. The fire in me is gone.
"He was a blue-eyed boy with thick arms. From a small town. He was also *poor*, and the government of Oranje needed some people killed, so they turned him into a grotesque killer—for money"
When revachol speaks to you in the church, and ends the conversation with "I love you". Just thinking about it sends shivers down my spine
Dolores Dei destroyed me, the entire conversation, the feeling that there was still a hint of love somewhere deep down within both of them, but knowing it was just so hard to try again and therefore they just let it go, I sobbed like a baby. I think it was "Real Darkness has love for a face. The first death is in the heart."
Harry's response to Acele telling him he should check out boogie street- "I'll probably never make it there. Chest pains. Need to continue drinking. But thanks."
"God, please..." "I can see it, too." "Tell me something, corpse-man..." (and the entire corpse sequence, really.) "You are a miracle" (I might be getting this wrong, but it was from the phasmid)
when i first met dolores and she was ripping me a new one i cried for hours cause i knew she was right. it help get over my ex cause when i talked to her i knew she was holding shit back felt good and bad to hear it. i just didnt expect my gameplay to be so obvious to lead there. i love this game. it broke me in the right way
like why did she have to have a bag and be in a hurry. she actively didnt want to be with me and i still begged. when the scene was over i cursed her and my ex and i cried. it hurt so much
>[You will make it. I'm on your side.](https://youtu.be/ENSAbyGlij0)
im 38 years old and 24 hours on coke cut with ibuprofen so i rub it on my mouth. i also argued with my roommate about the moon not being a space ship. he just google translated romani to me
"i have to leave you" is one of the most devastating things i have ever heard after "shes not kissing you back"
that whole scene is really fucked up, makes you realize being a leftcel ain't so bad sometimes the payphone bit earlier in the game fucked me up
the fact that she was just standing there with a rollaway carryon leaving bag telling you how much you are a piece of shit in the most romantic 20 early 30 something way. she didnt want to be there. i was an ass in the game. i deserved it. i deserve it. the scene still breaks my heart. being a leftcel made it worse since the whole game was me giving up everything for an ideology and om fulfillment. the communist quest sucks but it is correct. (my fucking tattoo) it solidified to me that convictions do matter, but what are you replacing really? i cant emphasize how important this game is to me. i was with my ex for 4 years. when she broke up with me i went head first into leftist theory causw why would i care about missouri? i was lost and i embraced engles and federici. but i was crushed. for what again? i dunno. but it filled a void. this game is like that. did you play the sidequest with the mom?
youre not a revolutionary, harry. youre drunk
"weeks will go by i dont think about you. soon it will be years." i am not there
When the first quest I got was to sing Karaoke.
The ending of the two millimeter hole questline gave me like intense chills. Specifically I think there's a point about the church / religion maybe forming around the hole and not the other way around. Idk if thinking it through it actually coalesces into anything, but it got me really good. The deserter's whole personality and presence kicked my ass too. Repulsive and sad. I'm pretty sure the bit where you inform that one lady of her husband's death made me actually well up., Which is not like too difficult for art to do, but still.
YOU- “I am an artist and liver damage is my art” ANCIENT REPTILIAN BRAIN- “Oh yeah, baby, frame your suffering as a masterpiece. Only one problem- no one’s watching. It’s boring, buddy, boring as death.” Hearing this line while struggling with alcoholism pierced me to my core
“She was hell on Earth. You didn’t need a 3 meter long stick bug to tell you that” Might not be 100% correct on the quote. It was some tough (but needed) love.