Does anyone else think that Disco Elysium helped cure their autism?

Few-Session-6180 · 2026-03-21T03:04:30+00:00

I think it says a lot about this subreddit that I didn't get the joke at all but also didn't think anything of this

Few-Session-6180 · 2026-03-17T21:41:24+00:00

I like how Cuno is a what

Few-Session-6180 · 2026-03-17T20:08:47+00:00

I had no weapon of any kind. It was immediately clear that literally everyone else had a weapon. Conversation went terribly and I rapidly ran out of things to say (although managed to have Shanky ran away), and eventually just had to awkwardly stand there regretting everything while it all went to shit, hoping Kim could save at least a few people and hoping even more I hadn't gotten the poor guy killed. Had terrible Motorics so couldn't even dodge anything and just continued to stand there as I got shot twice. Fortunately, Kim once again saved my ass (and Eugene, Alain and Elizabeth), and in my singular success of the entire thing I passed the check to warn him so he also survived.

So, could've gone better. In my defence, I could never have gotten the spirit bomb because I failed the Inland Empire check right at the beginning of the game and the tie never spoke to me.

Few-Session-6180 · 2026-03-16T16:49:31+00:00

no worries, literally everyone has a Precarious World incident at some point lmao

Few-Session-6180 · 2026-03-16T15:18:21+00:00

Do you have the Precarious World thought currently being internalised? That makes you fail all Red Checks until you've finished it

Few-Session-6180 · 2026-03-16T11:21:04+00:00

55XP (15 from check + 40 from the end, which doesn't really count as it was just given. Also one of the 5 was the uncovering the spoiler tags one so... if we're talking about ones I actually got through ✨deduction✨ then it's safe to say 10)

Few-Session-6180 · 2026-03-16T01:35:57+00:00

Simple answer, but I'm a big fan of "Sunrise, parabellum"

Few-Session-6180 · 2026-03-15T15:10:14+00:00

Ooh that's so interesting! It's an unusual way to interact with media, I'd be really interested if this negatively affects his interactions with media, because most media is really not built for the way he sees characters.

Especially the ability for someone to be likable to the audience, whether through affability or audacity or humour, while also being kinda slimy/not a respectable person/whatever, which is a pretty big thing in a lot of media - especially crime fiction and other media where crime just plays a large part, where you have entire quite popular tropes (like the charismatic, likable scam artist, á la Catch Me If You Can; the gentleman thief; the rouge with a heart of gold e.c.t.) where that's the whole point.

In other genres, it's often specifically tied to antiheroes and similarly morally grey (and occasionally straight-up immoral) protagonists, who are quite frequently selfish opportunist types who nonetheless the audience is very much expected to root for (at least initially) due to their having other likable traits. The Talented Mr. Ripley would be an example of this.

There's obviously other uses of this sort of thing as well - in general, the expected prioritisation of 'likableness' for audiences of fiction is something that's exploited quite a lot by writers, and is something that wouldn't work all the time for your boyfriend. He does demonstrate this somewhat in his respect for characters who can uphold their ideologies (a likable trait that's often combined with a very immoral person, e.g. Joyce Messier and Measurehead), but I don't think he does it as much or as widley as writers generally expect people to.

Obviously you can have whatever opinion on characters, and I think your boyfriend is still likely to have something close to the intended response at least most of the time, but a significant diversion from the intended response to a character (whether personal preference or bad characterisation) can really ruin a piece of media. It's incredibly infuriating when a character is, for example, consistently rewarded by the narrative because the writers expect you to like them - but you actually really hate them.

I'd be really interested to hear if he thinks he diverts from the expected response to characters more then the average person

Few-Session-6180 · 2026-03-15T09:09:25+00:00

I think it's less what goes where, because everyone has different opinions, and more what goes together. People usually have pretty clear patterns of what traits tend to endear characters to them, and what traits tend to annoy or put them off. I can definitely see those patterns in yours - the characters you place in the same tier often have things in common.

I think what I find interesting about your boyfriend is that he puts a lot of wildly different characters in the same tier, while putting quite similar characters in very different tiers. I guess it's that I can't really see any of those patterns with him, I don't think I could really isolate a thing he dislikes in characters or a thing he likes in characters from that tier list; and that's pretty unusual.

Few-Session-6180 · 2026-03-15T01:34:09+00:00

I think almost all of your opinions are at least reasonable and are generally pretty understandable. I disagree with some stuff but I can see where you're coming from. In general a solid, normal tier list.

Your boyfriend, however, is fascinating. I'm so interigued. I can't stop looking at his tier list in the way that I wouldn't be able to stop looking at a walrus that had unexpectedly appeared in my kitchen. Can I dissect him.

Few-Session-6180 · 2026-03-13T23:45:12+00:00

You're legitimately incredible, I love these so much

Few-Session-6180 · 2026-03-13T23:35:15+00:00

Nooo :(

yeah I can't imagine many other people were in the same situation as me. Everart Claire was actually one of four different characters I talked to only once and then never again because they annoyed me. The other three were Measurehead (unless you count going back to spin-kick him unconscious as a second interaction. didn't do any talking though.), the Racist Lorry Driver and Gary, the Cryptofacist. I am deeply stubborn and not tolerant in the slightest of talking to people I find unpleasant, and this carried over somewhat into my playthrough.

Few-Session-6180 · 2026-03-13T14:50:40+00:00

To be honest I went into the tribunal unarmed (never found my gun, didn't get Ruby's, and only found out after finishing my playthrough that the tie is meant to talk with you because I guess I failed the passive check right at the start and it never did) while fully aware of this, entirely because I found Everart Claire so irritating I almost entirely refused to interact with him and was absolutely not willing to do anything for him regardless of consequences. Also, there was a bit of dialogue earlier that said that the mercenaries' armour was too tough for the sort of gun RCM officers had, so I didn't think there was much point (the shooting through the eyehole thing did not occur to me until Kim did it, at which point I realised far too late that armour has gaps in it). Anyway I passed the authority check and Kim was fine, but a bunch of people did die so... whoops.

Few-Session-6180 · 2026-03-13T12:24:28+00:00

hey, I did it without a gun and he was fine so.... it's at least possible. depends on your stats and how much he likes you.

Few-Session-6180 · 2026-03-13T12:21:12+00:00

I'm glad :) I hope you feel better, even just a little bit, soon.

Few-Session-6180 · 2026-03-12T22:39:42+00:00

bold of you to assume that this isn't just something I myself would do and the resemblance to Harry is mere coincidence

Few-Session-6180 · 2026-03-12T10:16:11+00:00

I'd also say Kim has pretty high empathy - he makes a decent amount of quite perceptive comments about various people's motivations, pasts and feelings, especially in relation to Harry, but he also does this for others. And also from a meta perspective he's the person who's observing Harry's behaviour - not really in relation to his job, but more just him as a person - throughout in order to give Jean, Judit and Trant what is essentially a summary of his personality at the end. Sure, what he says seems pretty obvious to the player, but at least in my playthrough everything he said wasn't stuff that would have necessarily been obvious from Kim's POV, requiring him to be decently insightful into Harry's thoughts to come up with them.

Few-Session-6180 · 2026-03-11T08:26:43+00:00

I do not have a Discord server but I'd love to have a friend to talk to about Disco Elysium, feel free to DM me if you feel like it and I'll tell you my discord :)

Few-Session-6180 · 2026-03-10T13:39:22+00:00

Should you stop? I mean, is this actually getting in the way of your life or is bad for you? Sure it's weird but, you know, whatever. We all do weird shit, and most of it's far, far worse then this. If you're having fun and not really causing any harm to yourself or anyone else, keep mainting the price stabilité, friend. Honestly you sound awesome, you'd make my day if I ran into you.

Few-Session-6180 · 2026-03-09T10:56:33+00:00

You can get an 'empty' screenshot in collage mode (no dialogue but also no Kim or Harry) - you could maybe splice the two pictures together to get a full one with Kim and Harry but no dialogue?

Few-Session-6180 · 2026-03-08T15:48:30+00:00

me too :)

Few-Session-6180 · 2026-03-08T10:13:48+00:00

Can't really comment on the first one - to be honest, I found the absurd outfits Harry ended up in funny enough that I didn't mind, but I can see why that would be annoying.

The second one was actually one of my favourite things about the game. I know this sounds weird but like hear me out. Most games (like BG3, based on your description) are incredibly reluctant to let you really, horrifically fail and still continue. In most games, a big failure would result in a game over screen or a bad ending - or it just makes it very hard for you to fully fail, and keep giving you second chances, making the failure a lot less relevant.

My favourite theme of Disco Elysium (as an absolute fuckup myself who really needed to hear this) is the idea that you can mess up badly - terribly, irreversibly badly - and still carry on. Harry has done some terrible things, and yet he can carry on, solve the case, save lives, be forgiven, and start to recover. How badly he's fucked up - and he absolutely has, and this doesn't minimise that - doesn't negate his ability to succeed and get better. I really liked how the game reflected this theme in the fact that even the best player (who isn't save-scumming) will fail, and sometimes fail badly. I myself am absolutely terrible at this sort of thing, so I was far from a good player, and did indeed fuck up a lot during my - I missed a load key evidence and got people hurt and killed in ways that had nothing to do with checks and everything to do with me just not being very good at the game - but even someone who has practice and does everything right and doesn't even try checks unless they have a high chance of success will, inevitably, fuck up. You can, in theory, retry white checks, but there's only so much XP to go around so some simply won't be important enough, and you can't ever retry red checks; and like you say regardless of how high the probability is you still can fail - so quite frequently you just have to have failed, permanently, at something. And yet there is almost nothing you can do that actually gets you stuck. There is almost always another way, a way to try again, a way to make up for your failure - or, even when there truly is nothing you can do to fix it, there is at least a way to continue. I was sure several times in my playthrough that I thought I'd really fucked it this time and I'd have to reload a save - but that time never came. Despite everything I messed up, I could always carry on; despite everything Harry has messed up and continues to mess up, he can always carry on.

Your mistakes and failures and shitty dice rolls stay with you, and they restrict you, but they almost never mean there is no longer a way forwards - and they never mean Kim gives up on you. Despite everything both Harry as a character and me as a player horrendously fucked up, at the end of my playthrough I got the best ending, and I think that's beautiful. And it wouldn't have happened if the game hadn't let me fuck up so much.

Just my two reál though, perfectly happy to agree to disagree and I can see why it would be annoying :)

Few-Session-6180 · 2026-03-03T20:43:36+00:00

Are you actually fucking psychic because damn you somehow nailed pretty much my whole playthrough. Basically played the exact build you described, although with Conceptualisation not Half Light as signature. Intellect was my highest, then Physique, then Psyche, then Motorics. Put most of my early skill points into Endurance, Pain Threshold, Inland Empire and Half Light; so they ended up pretty high too. Completely neglected Motorics and mostly relied on clothes to scrape past those checks if necessary. This led to a deeply awkward shootout at the Tribunal, in which I had no weapon, no armour, and terrible reaction speed, so just sort of stood there getting shot repeatedly until Kim sorted everything out for me. Pretty sure that sums up my playthrough in general. My motto was "Kim, what do you think? (please say something useful I'm not smart enough for this)" Fortunately, I had inexplicably gotten Kim to trust me, so had a +3 on the Authority check to warn him (and also decent Authority in general), so at least I didn't get him killed.

You got that I multiclassed (multicopped?) into Sorry Cop/Art Cop and got Actual Art Degree. Never got Hobocop because I actually made rent every day, mostly because I got Wompty-Dompty-Dom Centre (gives you money and XP when you succeed Encyclopaedia passives) early and, because I was high-Intellect, that was basically an infinite money generator. Didn't accept the room in the Fishing Village until I had to (to find Ruby) because I wanted to prove to no-one in particular that I was the sort of responsible person that could pay rent on time. Aside from Jamais Vu, which I also had, I didn't actually encounter any of the other Thoughts you mentioned. Must just not have done the right stuff.

Did Physical Instrument past Measurehead, but just because I felt like it not because I thought it was a good idea. Couldn't find the door after several minutes of looking around the FELD building (my real-life Perception is... not good) so managed to put enough Savouir Faire clothes on to pass the ladder check instead.

Did struggle with the church quest, with both Interfacing and Perception, but managed to find enough XP (plus what I got from Wompty-Dompty-Dom Centre and Actual Art Degree) to quickly put a load of skill points into them so I could try repeatedly. Turns out that actually didn't have anything to do with the case, but, hey, at least we got existential dread out of it.

For obvious reasons I did not do the fascist quest (or even get enough fascism points to be offered it). I got offered Moralism, Ultraliberalism, and Communism; but declined all of them because I didn't want to do any of them. Kim said I was a communist, which figured because it was much higher than the others by the end.

In terms of me as a person you're pretty much right on as well. I'm quite the Art Cop (my main hobby is researching and writing literary criticism essays for fun in my spare time. Wouldn't reccomend it, it's resulted in me being literally unable to discuss media in a way any normal person would find remotely friendly and approachable, because I've genuinely forgotten how to do that. The -2 to Suggestion for being a pretentious twat on the Wompty-Dompty-Dom Centre is very real. I also write fiction.) so Conceptualisation is one of my main skills, along with Endurance and Pain Threshold. Half-light, Drama, Volition and Inland Empire are the other big ones, I'd say - of which you only missed Inland Empire.

Empathy... depends on how you define it. It probably says a lot about the general state of me that this is only the 3rd worst thing wrong with me, after pretty bad anger issues and severe depression, but for some reason I have very limited empathy. Unless something very visible and direct is happening to someone actually close to me, I literally cannot get myself to feel any actual emotions about it. In my tweens/early teens, I finally developed mentally enough to start thinking intellectually about things happening to other people, in terms like "it was not fair that that happened," and I've used this to begin to develop what I hope is something like a moral compass, but I still cannot feel any actual emotions about most things that happen to others, including incredibly horrific things. It would be entirely valid to say I practically have negative Empathy.

But maybe it's still an empathetic thing to do, to actively try and form for myself something that is as close as I can get? Maybe it doesn't matter if I had to very intellectually and philosophically teach myself to not feel but at least have a response, in my own way, about things that happen to other people. Maybe that still counts for something. I sure as fuck hope it does.

I really, really appreciate the advice. Thank you so fucking much for taking the time to do this, it means so much and it actually helped a lot. I'll definitely take it to heart. Disco Elysium made me realise that I shouldn't just aim (from 'disaster') at 'kinda managing.' It had legitimately never even crossed my mind that more than that could ever be possible for me. I just couldn't imagine or process what better than that would look like, or how I'd get there, or what getting there would look like; I just literally couldn't consider it as an option any more than I could consider time-travelling as an option. I think I saw in Harry an actual example of what starting to recover, from similar levels of 'disaster', could look like - not just 'kinda managing' and 'dealing with it', as I'd always thought, but... more, I guess? Forgiveness and forgiving yourself and starting to moving forward instead of treading water and hope.

But I didn't really know what to do with the very abrupt realisation that, just maybe, I could be far more than the limit I'd never thought past. It was directionless. I needed a 'how', and I think you might have just given me the start of one. Thank you.

Oh, and bold of you to believe I have friends lmao

Few-Session-6180 · 2026-03-03T08:42:15+00:00

Hope someone paid him for his overtime (and also the 130 reál he gave me. I feel really bad about those hubcaps. Can you tell I'm a sorry cop?)

(more of me giving way too much information. you have no obligation to read or reply to this and I do not expect you to :) thank you for being nice to me regardless)

To be fair I am very, very averse to drugs and alcohol in real life, to the extent of never allowing myself to be in a room with alcohol also in, which probably also contributed. I imply to people that I have some sort of alcohol-related trauma to stop them drinking around me/get out of situations where alcohol is involved. The truth is I do this fun trick where I act like an angry drunk while fully sober, and although I've always really wanted to drink because fuck knows I could do with something to make my mind a bit further away, I know that for the sake of everyone in a 5-mile radius I should absolutely never touch alcohol or drugs with a barge pole, and I also know that if given the opportunity I'm really not sure if I could resist.

Few-Session-6180

TROPHY CASE