For a couple months now, I've been thinking about Disco Elysium's skills, especially Volta do Mar. ... What's that? That's not a skill in the game? It actually is, it's just not a skill that your character has. By visiting the Disco Elysium's merch store, you can find out that Kim's iconic orange bomber jacket gives him a +1 bonus to Hand-Eye Coordination, as well as to... Volta do Mar. It turns out people don't have identical skills in the world of Disco Elysium. That makes sense if you think about it some more: only policemen would have Esprit de Corps (at least the way it is defined for Harry), and who knows if skills like Shivers and Inland Empire are not specific to Harry.
That being said, I've had this thought I pondered for a long time: what would my skills be, if I were in a disco-like game? After a lot of introspection, I grabbed a digital paintbrush and gave it my best shot. This article is about how I did this. I hope you'll enjoy my little bit of self-indulgence!
Categories
Through a lot of thinking, I narrowed the number of traits I'd consider iconic to myself down to 12, which is a good number to go with - divisible by 2, 3, 4, and 6, which make for nice rectangles. I chose to split them into 4 groups of 3 to make it as close to a square as I could (without using custom canvas sizes or something like that). The names are a little forced so that each one starts with an S, but I've gotten used to them by now.
- Smart (blue) skills are related to intelligence and memory.
- Sparked (green + magenta details) skills are all about creativity and making stuff up.
- Social (yellow) skills are about the relations with other people.
- Somatic (red + white details) skills are about the body.
Resolution
I give myself goals, lots of them at times. Just to illustrate what I've been going through this past week: I set up the articles for the Character March to be automatically published, I've worked on the game for the final day of Character March, I painted all of the portraits you see above, attended a local club meeting, made some new friends, and sorted out a bunch of hangouts where I'll be spending time with my friends towards the end of the March. Add on top of that keeping up daily drawings (ever since the start of this year), and keeping up my DuoLingo streak. I don't like to give myself goals I know I can't finish. But maxing out this skill means you'll be stubbornly doing things even if you don't enjoy them, risking burnout. Taking breaks is okay, I should probably consider that.
Portrait: A head with a subtle clock face chained to all the commitments it has. I like to think each chain is attached to some time.
Rationalization
Explaining things, deducing logical answers, and analyzing solutions to problems. This is the skill that needs answers to issues, and it also needs to express them clearly. But maxing it out leads to frequent thought loops, and getting distracted with interesting ideas.
Portrait: A head filled with a clockwork mechanism. I like to think that it's about constructing the "arguments" in the form of exclamation marks coming out of the mouth by delivering a ball and cutting off the line at the top.
Ereyesterday
Memories, nostalgia, the past. Those who do not learn from history are bound to keep repeating it. However, maxing this skill leads to overt romanticization of the past and dwelling on what was instead of focusing on what is and what will be.
Portrait: A skull getting filled like an hourglass.
Myth Engine
We all have stories to tell, including myself. Sharing stories comes naturally to us. I wanted to learn how to tell and write stories better for a while now, so I've seen patterns in them. Maxing this skill out leads to lengthy one-sided "conversations" (on which side depends on the mood), and possibly also the main character syndrome.
Portrait: A heart with some mechanical parts added to it. Fun fact, since I wanted to imply it's about stories without being too obvious, I started by drawing a circle in the background that gets thicker in a clockwise direction until the top point, representing the Hero's Journey. The heartbeat line is actually the boundary between the Known and the Unknown, repurposed to be a heartbeat because I depicted the Myth Engine as a heart.
Wandering Mind
There's a multitude of options and possibilities to explore during a brainstorming process. Some might be good, but some might not be that good. Maxing the skill leads to frequent daydreaming, possibly running a risk of creativity that an audience will have a hard time relating to.
Portrait: A neuron can look surprisingly similar to a mind map, doesn't it? In that picture, I literally let my mind wander to try to come up with as many doors as possible. I started with literal ones and ended up with metaphorical ones - an axe can open any door, a sword can open someone's doorway to the afterlife, and a contract signed can lead to a new opportunity. And each door needs its handle, which I tried to represent with a dash of magenta.
Overmorrow
The capacity to plan for the future, and to keep track of the plans. Maxing out the Overmorrow could lead to overplanning, leaving very little time for self-care.
Portrait: A hand with a dashed line that brings along the latest plan, depicted as a compass with a needle pointing somewhere. As for what that thing above is, I'll let you guess. Hint: You might need something beyond the image to figure it out. Thank my Overmorrow for that.
Two-Way Mirror
Some people lack a filter. I don't. The Two-Way Mirror is exactly that, a boundary between the public and the private persona. Maxing it out leads to overt suspicion of others, secretiveness, and two-facedness.
Portrait: I started with the idea of splitting the image into two halves, just the way a two-way mirror would work: one half has to be brightly lit, and the other must be as dark as possible. Those on the bright side won't see what's on the dark side. After doing this, I drew the silhouettes - the bright side has a silhouette that speaks, and the dark side has a silhouette that watches in silence. I especially like how the bright side's silhouette blends, literally merging, with the dark side. Probably one of my favorite skill paintings.
Extra Mile
Helping others takes effort, even if it is a little. This is one's capacity to be kind to others. But maxing it out leads to taking on too much burden for others.
Portrait: A figure walking on a road up a mountain. They carry a burden of everything others need help with. A nice detail, in my opinion at least, is the fact the route leads around the mountain instead of directly up to the goal, meaning the character is literally walking a longer distance than what is necessary.
Tuning Fork
Figuring out the vibe and emotions of others. It's named after a tuning fork because tuning forks will start to vibrate on their own in reaction to sound waves that correspond to the tone they are tuned with. Maxing it out leads to overanalyzing what others are feeling, and these emotions potentially have an influence too. Honestly, not too sure if this is right, but I'm gonna go with that for this article.
Portrait: This one started as a head with tuning forks for ears, but that looked kind of lame. I tried to turn the forks upwards, but it still didn't look quite right. It looked good only once I drew more and more tuning forks, to make it look like antlers. There are subtle soundwaves in the picture too.
Perseverance
The capability to keep going despite everything. Honestly, not sure what more to say here that isn't too personal. Maximizing it leads to stubbornness, I think? Not too sure.
Portrait: A body in a defensive posture, with bones highlighted to increase the feeling of endurance in the picture. The flame in the chest represents the will that keeps the body going. That flame might be the reason why I'm still here today to write this.
Kinesis
Sheer physical strength. Not really maxed out for me, but I figured I should include a strength of some kind in this skill list. I'm guessing maxing it out would lead one to violent solutions.
Portrait: A figure that punches the glass up above, while pulling on some ropes.
Vigilance
Carefulness and finesse, watchfulness, and attention to detail. Honestly, I'm not sure how good I am with this skill, just like Kinesis it was added because I felt like it was necessary. Maxing it out could lead to tunnel vision and overt carefulness.
Portrait: Seven eyes watching a pair of hands doing some kind of delicate task. I'm not sure why I went with seven, layout-wise it just worked out this way. One eye is on the lookout, one eye looks back at the viewer, one eye is closed because (insert more poetic reason than "I was too lazy to draw another eye), and the rest is looking at the hands. Each eye has a laser to represent laser focus, but also a kind of tunnel vision.
Final Words
Was this a cool way to spend some amount of my time this past week? Yes. Do I know what I want to use these skills for yet? No, but I might work that out in time. Could I do a better job if I spent way more time on this? Likely! For now, this is enough. Until then, I'll just get to enjoy the fact that I finished another Thing. Yes, I'm counting this as a Thing, those portraits are not commissioned by someone else or something like that. I've surprised myself with how these turned out, considering I didn't do art this seriously before.
Thank you for reading, and have a nice day!
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