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Hmmmm, some of the things don't add up. And why would he just shoot someone so randomly? Sure he hates everything the merc represents but why wait until now to shoot somebody? Why only one? My guess is he is covering for somebody. Somebody who paid and/or threatened him to keep quiet and used a similar rifle as he has. Or borrowed his. Do we even know if it actually works?
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Nov 18, 2020 20:09
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The part that throws me off, is that everyone seems to smoke Astra Cigarettes. Why call attention to the Tioumoutiri Cigarettes now if it isn't important. That has me scrolling back through a lot of the previous posts to try and connect that back somewhere.
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Nov 18, 2020 20:49
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I am really hoping it is him if only because the only alternative I can think of at the moment is one of the kids playing with his rifle while he's napping or something, and that would be even worse of a reveal.
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Nov 18, 2020 23:45
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Felinoid posted:I am really hoping it is him if only because the only alternative I can think of at the moment is one of the kids playing with his rifle while he's napping or something, and that would be even worse of a reveal. Other alternatives: 1: Harry never finds out who did it. 2: Klaasje is the liariest of lying liers and was the culprit all along. I agree that those aren't very satisfying though.
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Nov 19, 2020 02:56
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EricFate posted:The part that throws me off, is that everyone seems to smoke Astra Cigarettes. Why call attention to the Tioumoutiri Cigarettes now if it isn't important. That has me scrolling back through a lot of the previous posts to try and connect that back somewhere. It's just one piece of the puzzle, an identifying habit. Tioumoutiri butts were found at Land's End, one of the other potential sniper points. I'm trying to remember if any were found in the pinball workshop.
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Nov 19, 2020 03:29
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I appreciate that our detective really, hauntingly regrets what happened to the Hardie Boys. I don't appreciate that this guy has no respect for our dear, departed friend, Horrific Necktie.
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Nov 19, 2020 08:15
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Arcvasti posted:Other alternatives: My prime suspect was the woman radio operator on the commando team - they never talked to her, they mentioned that she was holed up in a spot with a view of the dock area, she could be jealous of her associate's affair.
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Nov 21, 2020 20:04
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Chapter 56: 15:09-16:52: Nihilism, And What Comes After ARIST: [Medium: Success] Go on. Lay down that hot fresh evidence on this clown. Pin him to the crime.  THE DESERTER: "Petty-bourgeois law…” He snorts and spits. “This is all you care about right? The only thing in the world for you types…” PERCEPTION (SIGHT): [Medium: Success] A drop of blood in the saliva…  THE DESERTER: “drat may bells…” He looks at the blossoming field behind you. “The whole island is turning white with them…” EMPATHY: [Medium: Success] He seems tender suddenly, nostalgic even. A strange mood swing.  THE DESERTER: “They blossom on the islets before. We fertilized them with our blood.” He looks to the water. “Rèsurrection was snow white in May, before they ruined it.” SHIVERS: [Medium: Success] South, the Bay of Martinaise is dotted with little freckles of islets, turning green, with white flowers in white snow… THE DESERTER: “The coast too—before they piled their containers on top of it. Filled with broken, useless trash for fat fingered bourgeois children to play with…” KIM KITSURAGI: “You must get around a lot—to stay undetected all these years…” The lieutenant’s voice is soft, friendly. “Do you know any *secret* paths? Pinball workshops?”  THE DESERTER: “*Klaasje*…”   THE DESERTER: “With the *victim*…” He turns his sight from the whitening field of flowers and falls silent. Then the muscles in his jaw twitch, a spasm. COMPOSURE: [Medium: Success] There is a small tremble—looks like a smile. A crooked smile. Yet it isn’t quite voluntary. He’s about to burst…  ARIST: [Challenging: Success] It looks like you won’t even need the firing nest at this rate. But it’s nice to have that security, nevertheless. THE DESERTER: “Everything is brands with you individualists… Who cares what *brand* my shoes are? Sansa…” He looks at his running shoes, covered in mud. “Some poo poo.” KIM KITSURAGI: “Show me the soles please, Mr. Dros.” THE DESERTER: “loving imbecile…” The old man stretches out his leg. A black and white spiral pattern covered the sole of the worn out old running shows on his feet. PERCEPTION (SIGHT): [Challenging: Success] The maker is called Sansarique—and the size is 42-44. VISUAL CALCULUS: [Easy: Success] These are not the unusual, horizontal patterned soles you saw in the dust on the floor of the hidden room. They do, however, seem to be about the same size…    THE DESERTER: “Racking those brains, are you?” He squints at you, black pearls gleaming with hatred. “Desperate to report something back to your masters. They must really have loved that dead gently caress.” KIM KITSURAGI: The lieutenant gives you a quick sideways glance and nods to acknowledge… DRAMA: The prints were his, you can see it in those eyes, he can’t keep them from flickering, looking for something… THE DESERTER: The old man stares at his own prints in the ash around the fire. Silent suddenly, some strange process within him. A gush of wind. Seagulls in the distance.  THE DESERTER: “…beating us to the ground. Moaning with joy…” He breathes in with strange animation: You hounds get so thorough when a company-trained killer dies. I haven’t seen you on this coast for *forty years*. You know… maybe I should have killed one sooner? …Got your attention…” He looks you dead in the eye, pupils shaking. “*Now* you stop beating druggies and prostitutes in your basement. *Now* you come to investigate. Not when they die by the hundreds…” He breathes through flared nostrils…  THE DESERTER: “Oh the inhumanity… He closes his black eyes. “One paramilitary less in Revachol.” You can almost see him squeeze a tear out of his eye. His fists begin to tremble from the anger. KIM KITSURAGI: The lieutenant raises his right arm to hush you… ESPRIT DE CORPS: [Medium: Success] Hush, he does not need to be pushed any more. The ball is rolling…  THE DESERTER: “I *had* them in my sights, both of them—him and the whore. I was breathing with them, in phase, and I pulled the trigger and flew on the air until I landed in his mouth…” He begins to smile.  THE DESERTER: “Nothing. I went to sleep. Next morning there were may bells everywehre. The world was white—or what’s left of it anyway. My last spring here… I knew the fascists would come to avenge their own… And so they did.” KIM KITSURAGI: The lieutenant just looks at him for one, maybe two seconds, then breaks the silence: “Mr. Dros—are you aware you’re confessing to murder?”  KIM KITSURAGI: The lieutenant takes out his notebook slowly, very slowly. “And you were looks at them—the victim and a young woman—having sex? Through the scope of your rifle that night? Before you shot him?” THE DESERTER: The old man nods. KIM KITSURAGI: “Why?” THE DESERTER: “Because that’s what they were doing…” He shrugs, then smacks his lips. LOGIC: [Easy: Success] The motive! This is where the motive is going to come from… SUGGESTION: [Medium: Success] You can coax is out of him, the lieutenant’s preparing the ground.  THE DESERTER: “I’m always looking…” He cocks his head to the side—then turns his eyes to the city. Another tremor passes his right side, lower in intensity. KIM KITSURAGI: “Are you *always looking* through the scope of a rifle?” He explains: “I’m just trying to *understand*.” THE DESERTER: “A rifle’s scope has the best magnification.” KIM KITSURAGI: “And if you don’t like it…”  THE DESERTER: “Yes.” He looks you in the eye. “Think of it as a form of critique.”   THE DESERTER: “Jealousy is a reactionary concept. I didn’t *like* the reaver enjoying himself—drugged out, soothed in the arms of a young woman. I wanted him to die so he could not enjoy life anymore. And I wanted her to see his head explode,” he nods. “That too. She should know better than to hold a child murderer between her thighs. I knew he’d be there for one more second, *writhing*… That’s all it takes for the bullet to reach his head.” He squints. “Now that I think of it, I wasn’t aiming for his mouth. I wanted his brains to spill out on her… but…” he shrugs, “you can’t have everything.” SUGGESTION: [Medium: Success] He wants to see her covered in blood.  THE DESERTER: “She practically breastfed that man. You wouldn’t believe the things she let him do to her…” He shakes his head and stares at the ashes.    THE DESERTER: “Since she came to Martinaise. I saw her sneaking in the reeds early in the morning, behind the Feld building. It was dark, still winter. She didn’t have her skimpy outfit on then, just a spot in the night, moving…” KIM KITSURAGI: “Past the Feld building, on the coast? What was she doing there?”  THE DESERTER: “Her passport. And tickets to Villiers.” He coughs. “And from there to Casherbrume.”  THE DESERTER: He nods. “After she was gone.” KIM KITSURAGI: “Did you keep what was in it? When we found the submersible it was empty.” THE DESERTER: “No. Why would I do that? I didn’t need tickets to Villiers… I put them back. If I wanted to extort someone I’d do better.” RHETORIC: [Medium: Success] This implies that he’s thought about extorting her.  THE DESERTER: He looks to the reeds, confused. “Why would I need that trash? I’m not going to Villiers…”    THE DESERTER: “I did.” He almost smiles. “She had a face like an archipelago, with those birthmarks. And a body, hard and lean and bruised all over—black and yellow. I could see she’s taken a beating. I could see who she was, too,” he nods. “A spook. On the run. Revachol’s the cloaca of capital now. All the bagmen and arms dealers end up here. To do drugs and have sex like animals.” KIM KITSURAGI: “You could tell she was a *spook* from the documents?” THE DESERTER: “She had different colour hair on the photo, and glasses. *Forged*. Some sordid, bourgeois affair. I’ve heard about this kind of thing on the radio…” DRAMA: [Medium: Success] He’s setting it up for you…      THE DESERTER: “Oh yes,” he smacks his lips. “Cutting those drugs of hers into little lines with a knife, masturbating…” KIM KITSURAGI: “Did you make that hole?”   We put this new point into Empathy and continue the interrogation.    THE DESERTER: “Yes, that too.” He shakes his head, almost in awe. “The things they did in that little room. What she’d *do* to feel good…” He explains: “Funny, the way light works… You turn it on inside and it gets so dark out you can’t see a man looking in. I learned that in the Twenties when they were still hunting me. I’ve seen people do *some* poo poo, but…” He keeps shaking his head. RHETORIC: [Medium: Success] Those two took the cake. KIM KITSURAGI: You hear the familiar scribble of the lieutenant’s pen. A quick glance at you…  KIM KITSURAGI: …then at the man. “How did you get in there? The hidden pinball workshop?” THE DESERTER: “I can just walk in there now, after a good wash—I told you they think I’m an antisocial. Closing hour is a good time. The kitchen’s empty.” KIM KITSURAGI: “You had to open the steel door in the kitchen? How?” THE DESERTER: “I got that open a long time ago. Some bourgeois game-merchant lived there—I don’t know… fifteen years ago? He left spare keys all over and I took one. Then I saw her turn the light on one night in my scope…” He points toward the Whirling-in-Rags.  THE DESERTER: “There’s…” he sighs, “there’s nothing to hold on to, only this… It’s not enough.” PERCEPTION (SIGHT): [Medium: Success] The coals of his eyes glisten suddenly, like stones dripping with water. Is he crying?      THE DESERTER: “Yes,” he looks at the charred logs. “I don’t know why I do the things I do anymore.”  THE DESERTER: “What do you mean *put*?” He raises his eyes. They’re round and wide.  THE DESERTER: “Maybe…” He lowers his head and just stares at the logs. “I told you, I have holes in my brain now. I wouldn’t just sit here waiting for you… If you came ten years ago, I would have killed you.” He wipes his eye. KIM KITSURAGI: In the silence, the lieutenant draws a line in his notes. Then nods at you once more.  THE DESERTER: “Her…” He repeats, staring at the ashes—then the reeds. There’s a twitch in the corner of his eye.  ESPRIT DE CORPS: [Medium: Success] That’s it. Motive. We have it.  THE DESERTER: “Gone…” He looks to the city and nods: “I knew it. She kept staring into the scope this last week. At the island, like she knew…” He sighs. “She’d look—at night crying or smoking on the roof, staring right into me…” He adds, to no one in particular: “It doesn’t matter.”  SHIVERS: On the platform a young woman is withdrawing from amphetamines, barbiturates and alcohol. Yet still she smiles among the crowd, among the great ghost of the city she’s leaving—for another, far South. Smaller. Distant. Hidden. Not like the great chandelier she sees sparkle in the spring air below her. Streets and towers, tenements and water—and across it, a dark strip of ruins barely visible, if she didn’t squint her eyes… ESPRIT DE CORPS: [Medium: Success] There, on a dilapidated jetty in a nameless village, two police officers and one special consultant look across a narrow strip of sea. The ruins of a seafort stick out of the water, built by Filippe II, re-appropriated by the Commune, then lost in the Landing… “He’s there, doing… *what* exactly I don’t know,” Satellite-Officer Vicquemare points at the ruins. “Behind that anti-aircraft something. That’s why we can’t see him.” Special consultant Heidelstam is optimistic: “We’ll see the boat when he comes. Let’s go get a coffee until then. I know this interesting little place, where…” His voice trails off as the three walk down the jetty. As the men go, Patrol Officer Minot looks back over her shoulder—at the crumbling fortification, like a rotten tooth rising out of the water… EMPATHY: [Medium: Success] Good luck, Harry, she thinks. You need something *good* for this… KIM KITSURAGI: “We could get more… the lieutenant uses the opportunity to tell you—in a lowered voice. We’ve got him talking…” LOGIC: [Medium: Success] Who knows what he’s seen and done over the years?  THE DESERTER: “A tragicomedy…” He shakes to life. “Druggies, prostitutes and rentiers.”   THE DESERTER: “Because of the *racists*. Everyone is a racist in Martinaise, it’s their favourite thing to do in the whole world—listening to race themed radio shows. In the ruins, in their lorries.” He points inland.   THE DESERTER: “Not since the serfs of ancient Perikarnassis has History produced a more *inert* social class than the Martinaise proletariat. The rest of Revachol at least *pretends* to rebuild, these people still live in ruins…”  THE DESERTER: “The worst of them is the blood-drenched *soucriant* on her yacht, licking her lips. The old whore’s gone now, her gun toting porcelain men are dead—so, actually, no… The *worst* is that old cock parading around in his uniform, throwing balls all day. It’s not enough that the racists and liberals are dancing on our graves! The old loyalist ghouls still parade the ruins too.”   THE DESERTER: “We did good when we pushed him under the horse car. Until, in the Thirties, those disco whores…” He breathes in, his breath heavy with hatred, you cannot make out a single word. HALF LIGHT: The disco whores are too much; hatred shuts down his brain’s language centre, leaving only a nonsensical sputter.   THE DESERTER: “Another hideous disappointment…” He pokes at the ash: “Unions are the *real* enemy; the true enemy of the proletariat, placating the masses.”  THE DESERTER: “That deformed toad? I wouldn’t expect him to wipe his own rear end. I mean the *brains* of the operation. The smart one.”   THE DESERTER: “First against the wall with him…” He’s stopped poking at the ash now, just shakes his head. KIM KITSURAGI: “The Claires wouldn’t miss a man hidden in their own back yard—not all this time. Nothing happens in Martinaise without them knowing.” LOGIC: [Easy: Success] Of course. Maybe the Claires asked him to…  THE DESERTER: “I haven’t approached anyone! I’ve hid. It was Edgar who came to me.” KIM KITSURAGI: “How did he know you were here?” THE DESERTER: “He didn’t just stumble in like an oaf,” he nods to you. “He figured it out. Some kids told him about a monster on the island. I told you, he has brains.” He points to the path leading to the tower. “Stepped right off the boat and walked down where you came. I even kept the door open for him—thought he was a man of the left. Wouldn’t rat me out.”  THE DESERTER: “Twenty years ago. Neither of them could *walk* now, could they? They were less fat then.”  THE DESERTER: “Edgar did the talking. Paid his *respects*, like I were a fossil in a uniform. Offered platitudes about *the struggle*, flaunted his pink degree. Even quoted Mazov.”  THE DESERTER: “*Let* me be here?” He looks around. “The ZoC is an unlawful successor of the Commune of Revachol. We took this fortification from the loyalists. Even the Claires understand this…”  THE DESERTER: “You know why I killed that fucker, droite…” he shakes his head. “As to Edgar, I’m not doing anything for that swine again.” KIM KITSURAGI: “Again? What have you done for Edgar before?” THE DESERTER: “Tried teaching him some Mazovian socio-economics. They didn’t stick. We parted ways.” He coughs. RHETORIC: [Medium: Success] Okay, he didn’t do the hanged man for them. But he’s insinuating something.     THE DESERTER: “Heh…” A sputter from the old man.  THE DESERTER: “That bourgeois cow… Tiphaine Holly was her name.” He narrows his eyes. “Licked the rich man’s hand every time he came to town. Never seen a labour leader so hot on mutual cooperation…’   THE DESERTER: “Called in they say—on the eve of battle. Ran away. Vanished like a piss-stain…” He squints and smiles at the black logs. LOGIC: No. That’s not quite it, is it? KIM KITSURAGI: “Did she?” The lieutenant’s voice is calm. “They say her *daughter* called in, not her personally. But that wasn’t really her daughter, was it?”  THE DESERTER: “She couldn’t make the call herself.”  THE DESERTER: “Because she was dead.”  THE DESERTER: “The cow caught a bullet in her right lung, fell into the canal grasping her tit and drowned. Or bled—hard to say. It was a sloppy job. And a moving target. She was going home, waddling. Dressed in yellow. Drunk like she often was. The runs were black around her and she had a yellow leather bag under her arm. She tried to cross the canal.”  THE DESERTER: “Heh.” He does not fall for it. “It was someone. *Someone* shot her,” he shrugs. His eyes grow cold suddenly. “Or maybe she just fell. I get these violent ideations… My memory is filled with holes, especially the Thirties. All I know is… Nothing changed. Not in the *material base*, not in the *hegemony*, there was no uprising. Just words… The Union fizzled, sogged. Nothing came of it. Nothing.” KIM KITSURAGI: “Edgar didn’t keep his part of the deal.” THE DESERTER: “Heh…” A sputter again, nothing more. KIM KITSURAGI: “If you were to testify to this—give the RCM something on Edgar—you could walk,” the lieutenant says in a voice even calmer, as if it was nothing at all. “We would strike everything you’ve done and process you as a POW. You were in a war. You were on assignment. We could even extradite you to the Samaran People’s Republic.”  THE DESERTER: “I saw it happen and I liked it. That’s all I have to say. I didn’t live and fight for forty years to end up as a collaborationist. I’ve heard it on Channel 8, 40AM, Radio Revachol Late Night…”    One point into Esprit de Corps.   THE DESERTER: “Every *loving* morning, for thirty-four years…” He grinds his teeth in rage. “Throwing that ball. One ball against the other… I’ve always loathed that game. That is *not* a working class game. I don’t care what they say on Radio June.”  THE DESERTER: “I remember him…” He points to his black eye. “I remember him from *La Noce*—not him personally, his make and model. There were tens of thousands of them. I thought we took them all out before the liberals came to their rescue. We missed one…” With his shaky finger he points to the city, toward the crater near the plaza where a lonely pine tree stands. “*That* one.”   THE DESERTER: The smile lingers. “Not yet. I like to *look* at him strut around, place the cross-hair on his medals. Right on his face, and just… fiddle the trigger. *Think* about it. Let the bon-bon melt in my mouth…” KIM KITSURAGI: “Save the treat for later?” the lieutenant asks cheerfully. THE DESERTER: “He *is* a juicy bon-bon, that one. A real treat. For the black day—the blackest. When I put that gun in my own mouth. I think: no, don’t waste it. Put this lead in that cock René. For the boys he killed—and then I look at him throw those balls and I suddenly feel…” He lets out a wistful sigh. “Better. I even hid one bullet so I’d always have one. For him…” The lines on his face straighten as he looks inland. “Haven’t seen him around lately, strutting around… must be down with arthritis. I hope it hurts like hell. I hope he sweats blood.”  THE DESERTER: “Heh, yes, of course.” He seems to relax a bit. “I hope it hurts like hell, I hope he sweats blood. Must be torture—not to be throwing his balls for a *whole week*…” EMPATHY: [Easy: Success] He seems relieved. Could he have been worried for him? SUGGESTION: [Easy: Success] He reminds him of himself. The same hatred. The same… you try to think of another thing—but no, it’s just the hatred. ESPRIT DE CORPS: [Challenging: Success] They are veterans of the same war. Somewhere west, in Coal City his enemy is lying in a dark room, on a metal slider. In L’Ossuaire Municipal, like he will to. Soon. Half of the war between these men is over. With an agitated gait Satellite-Officer Jean-Heron Vicquemare paces the jetty, 22 kilometres East—in Martinaise: “What could he *possibly* be doing there for so long?” he says. “Policework?” Patrol Officer Judit Minot replies, with a tinge of hope in her voice. A tinge of warmth too, against the cold air rising from the water…      COMPOSURE: It’s a mystery. This animation comes at a cost too: erratic hand gestures, thought processes cut off like threads, as he just stares at the logs or the reeds. He also suffers mood swings, bubbling to the surface, unconstrained by his nervous system.   EMPATHY: Perhaps. But his seems more than that. The inner turmoil takes unexpected turns, as if forced upon him in a way…  THE DESERTER: He waves his hand, chasing something that’s not there. “No I’m not *okay*, I poo poo blood and I’m surrounded by insane people…”   THE DESERTER: “Yes, where is he?” he tenses up. “I hope he doesn’t have *debilitating* arthritis. Or kidney stones. He can still come out to play with balls and get shot in the head, right?”   THE DESERTER: The old communist looks at you, his blackberry eyes shaking—in disbelief. “I waited too long… I waited too long and now he’s dead.” KIM KITSURAGI: “I’m sorry, Mr. Dros,” the lieutenant says, softly. “I understand you knew him for a long time.” THE DESERTER: “They’re all dead now.” He just shakes his head. “gently caress it…”  THE DESERTER: A little flash of anger. “All human beings care about each other. I cared for… seeing his head explode. And now… god drat this world.”    THE DESERTER: “You think I haven’t seen people die? It’s all I’ve seen them do. gently caress and die—all the other plans we had. To love. To colonize the pale. It’s all hosed…”   ARIST: [Medium: Success] Enough of this dance. Let’s finish up here. THE DESERTER: “What?!” The old man’s eyes fill with sudden, unexpected terror at the words: “But you said I would be taken to the…” EMPATHY: [Medium: Success] This terror is the sum of all the uncontrollable movements and mood swings he’s been exhibiting. SHIVERS: [Medium: Success] The wind picks up. The silence on the water is broken all around you, little shivers of waves appear. The lieutenant continues, like an incanation… KIM KITSURAGI: “Your Wayfarer rights have been suspended. Information provided to the officers on the scene will be used against you by the prosecution. You will be given legal counsel within one week, and must face court in 44 days—do you understand?” THE DESERTER: “…” KIM KITSURAGI: “Do you understand?”  THE DESERTER: “No, I don’t want to! I have to stay here.” He looks at the reeds, eyes submerged in growing terror. PERCEPTION (SIGHT): [Medium: Success] He’s sweating. Beads are forming on his forehead.   Odds are… unfortunate. Let’s proceed and see if we can’t improve them.  KIM KITSURAGI: “Not really.” He shakes his head. “We could escort him to the pier, then either one of use can take him inland while the other stays here, but…”  KIM KITSURAGI: “You come back for me? How about I go and send a boat back for you?” THE DESERTER: “What is this… farce?” He looks around with strange desperation. “This is a loving farce, I can’t…” INLAND EMPIRE: [Legendary: Success] Something is happening. Stop.  KIM KITSURAGI: “This is no harmless old man.” The lieutenant shakes his head. THE DESERTER: “This loving world…” He stares at something—who knows what—in the dust. “This world… what is this?”     PERCEPTION (HEARING): Something completely different. It sounds like a bow, very slowly being drawn against the strings of a violin. A very small violin made of reeds and rushes.  KIM KITSURAGI: "What?" THE DESERTER: "What are you *talking* about? Is this..." The old man's voice drowns in a sudden gust of wind. "...really us..." SHIVERS: [Easy: Success] Your skin crawls.     ARIST: [Godly: Success] You can barely even see it through the reeds, but when it moves, suddenly it’s there before you. LOGIC: [Medium: Success] It’s unlike anything you’ve ever seen before. REACTION SPEED: [Challenging: Success] Even still… it feels familiar. No, not just familiar. You know exactly what this is… INLAND EMPIRE: It’s what you’ve been waiting for all this time. The spectre. Arist fucked around with this message at 00:06 on Nov 23, 2020 |
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Nov 21, 2020 22:03
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Lely was right. Love did him in. I really like Dros. Not as a person, but as what he represents. He's a mirror of Harry, someone who can't let go of the past. Like Harry, his love was lost a long time ago and he just exists, trying his best to deal with everything that brings the memory back to the surface. Oh, and there's a bigass bug, too.
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Nov 21, 2020 23:42
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I didn't expect it to be that big!
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Nov 21, 2020 23:58
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Arist posted:INLAND EMPIRE: It’s what you’ve been waiting for all this time. The spectre. Well done, game. That is not where I saw this narrative going at all.
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Nov 21, 2020 23:59
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Dros isn't even wrong about the only reason we pursued this case being that a mercenary was killed. Not why Harry pursued it specifically, or because mercenary lives are the only lives worth protecting, but because the Moralintern doesn't give two shits about Revachol and if some mercenaries go on a killing spree, oh well. From the RCM's perspective, finding the killer could stop a second invasion. Isn't it wonderful, here in the Kingdom of Conscience?
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Nov 22, 2020 00:23
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This sequence is one of my favorite things about this game. It really is weirdly cathartic.
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Nov 22, 2020 00:27
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this is the most beautiful part of any computer game i've ever played
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Nov 22, 2020 00:42
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Of course the closest thing Dros had to a friend was a fellow remnant of a long dead regime.
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Nov 22, 2020 02:17
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And at at the end of the day, our killer is some rando incel
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Nov 22, 2020 03:30
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Did this game just go "get stick-bugged lol."
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Nov 22, 2020 06:11
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Dareon posted:I really like Dros. Not as a person, but as what he represents. He's a mirror of Harry, someone who can't let go of the past. Like Harry, his love was lost a long time ago and he just exists, trying his best to deal with everything that brings the memory back to the surface. I've also kind of been getting the feeling that maybe Dros has his own cabinet of weird voices, too. If there's one person in Revachol who's as insane as Harry, it's this guy.
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Nov 22, 2020 06:58
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Arist posted:All the bagman
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Nov 22, 2020 08:51
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Arcvasti posted:I've also kind of been getting the feeling that maybe Dros has his own cabinet of weird voices, too. If there's one person in Revachol who's as insane as Harry, it's this guy. This game's finale is fantastic and beautiful.
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Nov 22, 2020 09:23
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anilEhilated posted:Yeah, that's what I thought when I played - but really, don't we all have them? nope. my brain is a ghost town, to the point where it's wild to me that some people say this game accurately translates how they think. when you ask kim if he has spontaneous mind interjections and arguments, he says no, and you get the idea that he thinks via writing in his notebook instead. that's more my speed.
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Nov 22, 2020 10:09
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In a way, I see Dros as a critique of the standard videogame protagonist. The outsider, who sees everything through the crosshairs of a gun, who believes on the basis of his shallow understanding that they alone are the ones seeing everything clearly, who is able to judge who lives and who dies, who can fit everything into a simplistic black and white ideology but is incapable of understanding their own biases and irrational impulses.. Kill the bad man, bam, +50 XP.
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Nov 22, 2020 15:24
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I thought of him as the representative of the game's critique of communism. Not communism as a concept (game is left as hell, obviously), communism as a 'cling to the exact Marxist-Leninist or (especially) Soviet ideas and don't examine if anything needs to change or there's any need of anything new going forward' sort of thing. And in the end he didn't even do the murder over the 'ideology' that he mostly uses to look down on everyone and grumble about how the world is doomed and the working class failed (and will always fail, as 'the material condition has passed') and everyone above them was never even human and thus has no agency, just monstrosity. He did it because he's jealous. He's an old man clinging to the past who can't even be honest about himself or why he acts. And of course he has weird political ideas; he was seventeen! A seventeen year old kid told he's a hero-commissar, a 'knight-philosopher', a future man, and put into a lovely situation where he ended up running away. Of course he's got weird ideas about all of this. Which then gets you to the other part of DE, its supreme empathy as writing. This is a man wedded to an ideology that has warped and shifted over the long years of hopelessness and loneliness, and instead of hating him or lecturing him (even though his actions killed plenty of people) you mostly get to see him as a sad, miserable guy who got hosed over by a deeply traumatic experience as a young man and a very hard life. And it's like that for everyone, especially if you have a high Empathy. DE is full of people who act like people, who have their own internal lives, and their own rough time of it in Revachol. Which at the same time also contrasts with how he talks about everyone else: He doesn't see that, even though the game has made it abundantly clear, and that's the saddest thing about Dros.
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Nov 22, 2020 15:36
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I think the only person I ever outright hated was the Sunday Friend.
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Nov 22, 2020 21:23
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Ugh - I think I had a pretty good take on parallels (Lely, Harry, Dross and Rene) but I can't seem to find it at the moment. Possibly in response to some youtube video. Harry parallels Lely and Dross, but not Rene. Dross parallels Harry and Rene, but not Llely. Xander77 fucked around with this message at 12:38 on Nov 23, 2020 |
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Nov 22, 2020 23:37
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Josef bugman posted:I think the only person I ever outright hated was the Sunday Friend. Sunday friend is despicable, because everyone else in the game is made vulnerable by their situation, their weaknesses and flaws a product of the harshness that is life. The Sunday Friend has been insulated from all of that and the ability to be any kind of a worthwhile person has been actively rejected, the space filled by platitudes and money.
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Nov 23, 2020 05:00
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Not racist truck driver and the cryptofascist?
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Nov 23, 2020 11:27
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Fangz posted:Not racist truck driver and the cryptofascist? Racist Truck driver is just an rear end in a top hat. He has nothing too him and is a paper thin moron. He's easy to dismiss and easy to hate, but it's all surface level, like the man himself. Same with the cryptofacist. He's unremarkable in his terribleness and his attitude is one of casual unthinking brutality because he has no structure to support him. He's just another pathetic arse you can readily dismiss. Hate them both, sure, because they are stupid and foul racists, but they are also worth mocking because they are such obvious failures as both men and people, society does not reward them for being shitheads. The Sunday Friend though? The Sunday Friend has chosen evil. Not because it was something that gave his life meaning, or that allowed his miserable life the ability to look down on other people, but because it made him rich and powerful. He chose to slowly choke the earth because he considers it a good thing. Someone who looks around the world, sees that it is dying and that people are suffering and that life is generally not all that great and then decides "No. Things like this are Right and Just" When Dros speaks of "Capital taking off its face" I always think of the Sunday Friend. The Sunday Friend is the face of Capital, and he would happily kill you dead if he thought it would make him money/ interrupt his fun.
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Nov 23, 2020 15:06
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At the same time I think Dros saying 'they're not human' is one of the marks of how deeply damaged he is, considering how much of the rest of the game is about the fundamental humanity of everyone you deal with. That is his fundamental damage, after all; that he's sitting here talking about how everyone is evil, nothing can be done, there is no way forward, capital's minions are inhuman monsters to the core and nothing could have gone differently because the working class are weak and failed and 'distracted by disco whores'. Much like Evrart talking about Joyce, when it's clear he misread her completely (remember he never actually spoke to her in person, even if he had her boat bugged) and kind of got lucky that things went how they went because she chose not to take the option that pointlessly kills a shitton of people, he can't see. Everything was supposed to go differently and it didn't, and now he's here looking for the reasons why it never could have and never can.
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Nov 23, 2020 15:17
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The weird fixation on sexual "degeneracy" and mentioning Rene as a "race traitor" makes me wonder what the gently caress the Commune was teaching the commissars.
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Nov 23, 2020 16:21
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Night10194 posted:At the same time I think Dros saying 'they're not human' is one of the marks of how deeply damaged he is, considering how much of the rest of the game is about the fundamental humanity of everyone you deal with. That is his fundamental damage, after all; that he's sitting here talking about how everyone is evil, nothing can be done, there is no way forward, capital's minions are inhuman monsters to the core and nothing could have gone differently because the working class are weak and failed and 'distracted by disco whores'. Much like Evrart talking about Joyce, when it's clear he misread her completely (remember he never actually spoke to her in person, even if he had her boat bugged) and kind of got lucky that things went how they went because she chose not to take the option that pointlessly kills a shitton of people, he can't see. That's a fair point, though I would personally disagree that the game says the Sunday Friend is framed as "fundamentally human". Funky Valentine posted:The weird fixation on sexual "degeneracy" and mentioning Rene as a "race traitor" makes me wonder what the gently caress the Commune was teaching the commissars. I get the feeling that a lot of the latter is from the radio. He's so convinced that he is a "future man" that clearly he couldn't be taken in by bourgeoisie propaganda.
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Nov 23, 2020 16:30
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Funky Valentine posted:The weird fixation on sexual "degeneracy" and mentioning Rene as a "race traitor" makes me wonder what the gently caress the Commune was teaching the commissars. One comment he makes implies the opposite, something about how the Party was wrong to decriminalize pedophilia, and from context it's clear he's talking actually about homosexuality. So I think it's the case where some of the Commune's social reforms were rejected or unpopular even among its officials.
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Nov 23, 2020 19:40
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Josef bugman posted:That's a fair point, though I would personally disagree that the game says the Sunday Friend is framed as "fundamentally human". Humanity contains evil as well as good, does it not? He's a man making the choices he's making, with agency as a person but deeply shaped by his situation and his position. And as you say, he's choosing to make choices that will hurt people and drown them in sorrow so he can stay where he is. But he's also throwing up a smokescreen about why it's all okay; it isn't like the man ever admits what he's doing, and likely wouldn't admit it to himself, either. This is why a philosopher willing to write nonsense like Ayn Rand or a think-tank functionary will rarely go hungry; men like Sunday Friend need justification, and they'll pay a lot for someone to give them the words to say to translate to 'it's amazing that I have everything and I don't care if you have nothing, and all of it is right and good and moral'.
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Nov 23, 2020 19:53
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Funky Valentine posted:The weird fixation on sexual "degeneracy" and mentioning Rene as a "race traitor" makes me wonder what the gently caress the Commune was teaching the commissars. The race traitor bit surprised me, but the fixation on sexual degeneracy, not so much. And I'm not surprised by his racism so much as his choice of words. Old prejudices regularly get dressed up in new clothing to fit with new ideologies, and cranky old men will always bitch about Kids These Days no matter what beliefs they subscribed to. The USSR certainly kept up the great Russian tradition of anti-Semitism, and the situation in Xinjiang can be described as "ethnic cleansing" at best. And I'm fairly certain that the old men who ran the USSR under Brezhnev were just as suspicious of blue jeans and rock as their counterparts in the US. It's pretty ironic when you think about it...turning something as working-class as jeans into a fashion staple seems Communist as hell to me. Then again, I suspect Dros's ideas have less to do with what he was taught and more to do with his deeply damaged psyche. Beyond his legitimate trauma, his Communism seems like a thin excuse for his grudge against the world that has moved on.
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Nov 23, 2020 20:00
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Night10194 posted:Humanity contains evil as well as good, does it not? He's a man making the choices he's making, with agency as a person but deeply shaped by his situation and his position. And as you say, he's choosing to make choices that will hurt people and drown them in sorrow so he can stay where he is. But he's also throwing up a smokescreen about why it's all okay; it isn't like the man ever admits what he's doing, and likely wouldn't admit it to himself, either. But he is emblematic of success, which is why I don't think he is portrayed as fully human. Everyone else in the game is portrayed as having dealt with, or be dealing with, loss and failure and change. The SF stands against those things. He stands for refusing to deal with things because to do so would harm his material position. Though I understand that is probably more my take on the subject and I could be very wrong. That's also fair. Viola the Mad posted:Then again, I suspect Dros's ideas have less to do with what he was taught and more to do with his deeply damaged psyche. Beyond his legitimate trauma, his Communism seems like a thin excuse for his grudge against the world that has moved on. Yeah, the bit where he is fundamentally angry about people continuing to live their lives is... it's very personal. Like you look out and all of your friends are dead and the world has been marked and marred by the passing of everything you thought you loved and now, your just expected to go on? To forget and to live with it? I can understand the urge to go "No and gently caress you for even asking me to".
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Nov 23, 2020 20:38
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Funky Valentine posted:The weird fixation on sexual "degeneracy" and mentioning Rene as a "race traitor" makes me wonder what the gently caress the Commune was teaching the commissars. Rene is a black man in service to what's almost-definitely a primarily white state, so the race traitor part seems straightforward enough to me. The world of Disco Elysium may be very different from ours, but the racism against people of color is still fairly analogous to reality. In this case, he considers Rene the race traitor deplorable because he's of the oppressed yet serving the oppressor. As for sexual degeneracy, I'd guess it stems from a rejection of the sex-sells attitude of consumerist culture, which contrasts with the productive baby-making desired by communist states. But this speculation is based less on a direct reading of the text, and more on the real-world analogues I think are being referenced.
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Nov 23, 2020 20:44
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Josef bugman posted:Yeah, the bit where he is fundamentally angry about people continuing to live their lives is... it's very personal. Like you look out and all of your friends are dead and the world has been marked and marred by the passing of everything you thought you loved and now, your just expected to go on? To forget and to live with it? Yeah that was powerful stuff. Even as the game makes you really not want to identify with this bitter old man full of hatred for everything, those bits where Empathy chimes in about him hit me hard. He's a perfect foil for Harry, who's been stewing in his own regrets for six years and is still struggling to let go of Dora, even after nearly destroying all his memory. That comparison then makes Dros even more sympathetic, since we've been there with Harry and seen how hard it is to stop obsessing and move on, and all that's just over one woman who used to love him. How much worse must it be to see literal war and death right in front of your eyes?
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Nov 23, 2020 21:39
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Bifauxnen posted:Yeah that was powerful stuff. Even as the game makes you really not want to identify with this bitter old man full of hatred for everything, those bits where Empathy chimes in about him hit me hard. It's the bit where he talks about the people who died when he ran that got me. He's never forgiven himself for that lapse, he doesn't know how to live with himself and he hates himself for keeping on living. He just hates everyone else even more. It's so profoundly loving sad. Josef bugman fucked around with this message at 22:16 on Nov 23, 2020 |
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Nov 23, 2020 22:12
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Josef bugman posted:It's the bit where he talks about the people who died when he ran that got me. He's never forgiven himself for that lapse, he doesn't know how to live with himself and he hates himself for keeping on living. He just hates everyone else even more. It's so profoundly loving sad. Even though him staying would have obviously done exactly jack and poo poo! But augh yeah, the survivor's guilt would have to be huge. His voice acting is really great too, one of my favourite lines is asking what he's been using the gun for and he just says "for killing people" with a heavily unsaid "you stupid gently caress".
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Nov 23, 2020 22:20
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| # ? May 17, 2024 07:58 |
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Was talking to that cryptid researcher earlier mandatory, or could you skip it and be all "HOLY poo poo WTF!?!?" right now?
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Nov 24, 2020 01:02
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