Asakiyume mita

I had a good ol' time with another session of Disco Elysium--and have now hit a wall (died twice in quick succession) and realize I'm going to have to start doing Real Video Game Things^TM like reading advice on Reddit and jiggering my stats, and [whiny voice] .... whhhhyyyyyy... I was enjoying this so much as a choose-your-own-adventure where I couldn't do anything wrong but now I have to pay attention to stuff like [air quotes] "health" and "morale"? (Though I was quite pleased to have improved my morale by speaking consolingly to a postbox--SOMETHING I WOULD DO ANYWAY.)

Anyway, these moments cracked me up (first and third)/ gave me pause (second one)

Empathy


Nice takedown of the notion that because you're *feeling* empathetic, you actually *are* empathic. Not so! Not only could you just be wrong in your intuition about what's going on with the person (something that once happened to me IRL with a kind of sitcom hilarity), but, as here, you may be completely lacking in insight on how to address the situation.

Second Racist


The first racist you meet is a standard white European-style racist with a French accent. This guy, your second racist, seems, IDK, sort of Central Asian/Turkic in character. ... It was interesting to me to see a different flavor of racism from the one I'm most used to. Not that I didn't know other flavors existed--you don't spend years in Japan without knowing that other flavors of racism exist--but I don't see them much. Points for inclusivity, Disco Elysium! Of diverse racisms!

... But also, I had sympathy for "to serve is noble," and "petulant individualism" made me grin.

NOTE: The retort in white (number 1) isn't the one I chose; I picked one of the replies in red. Guess which.

Your character asks your partner what he thinks of all this, and the answer cracked me up:

Kim's Assessment


But I need to have a consult with the healing angel and her significant other if I am ever to reach the Third Racist.

Sometimes I drift to sleep, or drift toward waking, with the news on in the background, and the results are always strange.

The BBC was talking about the cold, and about the sea freezing from the top down (unusual, bad), and in my dream, Tokyo Bay was freezing--

--but this was manifested by men marching to shore, two by two, brandishing machetes of ice, which they banged against the ground, loud, ringing strikes, as they came.

Athena Andreadis very generously let me speak about Pen Pal on her blog; she asked about cultures and why I wrote the story (link here). Very grateful for that opportunity--thank you, Athena!

I'm a bit under the weather right now and not keeping up with things, or feeling very much myself, so please forgive slowness to respond, both to posts and to comments. I will pick up soon, no doubt.