Disco Elysium Superstar Mirror

MIRROR — Please stop, it's horrible! You're scaring yourself. VOLITION [Challenging: Success] — You couldn't stop if you wanted to. It's neurological. YOU — No, this is what superstars do. (Keep making the face.) MIRROR — You "can't", can you? It's like it's not even voluntary any more. You have worn that grin into your face and now it won't come off. What does it even "mean"? What is the emotion you're trying to convey? 1. — Superstardom. 2. — God, I don't know — it's indescribable. 3. — I think it's supposed to look “suggestive.” I'm afraid it's meant ‘for the ladies’. 4. — I'm insinuating that I'm vaguely sympathetic. I think I'm sort of pulling the old fart off in a sad has-been’ kind of way. There is some charm to it. 5. — It's an expression of pain.

A disheveled, mustached man makes an unnervingly wide grin while an in-game dialogue scene debates what emotion the expression conveys. The joke is the contrast between his delusional “superstar” confidence and the mirror’s judgment that the grin looks painful and impossible to stop. It is used as a reaction to awkward overconfidence, forced smiling, or trying too hard to appear charismatic.

• @itvbia / 25338 2022-08-03
• @deenya_md / 26683 2026-06-17