michelek5290

john rides to beecher's hope, his prospective new home, to chase off a few vagrants. most see $10 and merrily agree to head on their way - but out the corner of his eye, john sees one look up. to see kieran duffy, the boot boy who stayed until the gang fell apart, alive is a deeply emotional experience.

john feels the smile tugging on his face, despite himself.

'o'driscoll' 'i ain't an o'driscoll!' 'how you been?' 'how's it look i been.' 'you?' 'Abigail left me' 'good for her' 'i'm buying this place for her' '…right'

What I thought would be interesting is a chain-of-events system, where doing one drastic action would lead to something different, and the missions that would change events being unlocked by having high or low honour. For example, high honour would unlock a mission to save Kieran after Jack’s party, and low honour would unlock a mission to save Strauss from Pinkertons around the same time.

i know exactly what you mean it would be so fun if rdr came out with a more interactive drama format and secret endings like until dawn but i also think it would lose some of its charm? so much of the narrative of rdr as a whole is built on the inevitability of the characters' fates. arthur says multiple times in chapter one he is going to die an outlaw, there's no escape for him, dutch warning john the agency will only be looking for another monster after he's dead, ultimately true when he meets his end, jack making the choice to seek revenge and becoming an outlaw despite everyone trying to give him the chance for a life better than that ect.

and of course part of the challenge of rdr2 is that it has to at least sort of match rdr1. bill, javier and dutch have to live and become evil. john, abigail, uncle and jack have to live and end up at beecher's hope together. i personally love the idea of if you save one character, another dies eg if you tackle sean quicktime event style having seen the sniper aiming at him, bill gets killed, but of course that wouldn't work.

it would be really fun though to have a chain of events system that changed some outcomes. the biggest gripe for me is that yes arthur has to die it's such a major part of the game and part of john's motivation to change but i really just want an ending where he doesn't die alone because that hurt me.

let me choose to send micah to the downes ranch. moss spends too much time on hypotheticals under the cut

thank you i just finished angelo bronte man of honor and know kieran isn't going to be there when i boot up the game next. i desperately need some copium

hosea, being a smart, hardened, lifelong outlaw, knows better than to just accept a story someone tells them. he always asks around about new outlaws joining the gang, just to confirm they are who they say they are. they definitely don't need to be dealing with another traitor.

kieran grew up occasionally being dragged to church by mammy, but pappy never went with them. pappy was - to put it bluntly - traumatized by his experiences working in mines in the homeland and had a crisis of faith.

being that he worked at the stables with pappy as a boy, kieran was raised with church more as an idea of community but religion was how he experienced his own faith very personally. he considers himself catholic, but he knows he is a very, very bad catholic

sean, in contrast, was a very good catholic. darragh may have been running from the law but every single sunday he would take sean to (a preferably irish) church. even in reform school, the one time the headmaster would ever report sean behaving was during mass. when he ran away from reform school, sean still dragged himself to church. he genuinely believed if he missed a single mass the archangel gabriel himself would descend to tell him he was condemned.

the first time sean ever missed church was simply because he, as a starving street urchin, was so hungry and exhausted he slept through it. he sprinted to the church the second he woke up to see people leaving, and wept on the stairs until he was told to move along. when he wasn't smited, and hell didn't open to swallow him, he just. didn't go back

BUT. one day, sean asked 'hey, o'driscoll, you catholic or a prod'. kieran immediately corrected not an odriscoll but also slightly offended sean had to ask 'of course i'm catholic'. and maybe sean had been drinking, or was just in his own head, or dealing with the trauma of the skelding torture but asked when the last time kieran went to mass was.

kieran laughed, thought about it, and said eh six months ago or so. colm would let us go to mass. cracked a joke sunday morning is probably the safest time to travel or move money in all west elizabeth: all o'driscoll's boys off praying for salvation. then kieran laughs and says don't much see the point losing daylight when we're all going to hell anyway for the life we live

sean does not laugh. looks confused, brain slowly turning it over. asks how kieran just. accepts that and copes with that. sean is absolutely terrified of hell. kieran just shrugs, says he doesn't see much point worrying about it

thus began kieran unofficially being sean's religious advisor. it's just a thing - sean goes to the odriscoll to talk about god and faith and when they were still in horseshoe overlook at least once they went to mass together and had a genuinely nice time. sean still gives bullies him in camp but also people notice sean seems so genuinely relaxed and comfortable is kieran's presence

obviously, no one believes one mr loser horseboy kieran duffy when he says he was in the army - let alone that he had any sort of rank. but. mary-beth just wants to see it. could a thing as elusive and cryptic as a polished, uniformed kieran actually exist?

hosea happens to have an old uniform laying around from a past con. mary-beth borrows it and, with the assistance of the girls in camp, tells kieran about this con they used to run, with the charming military man distracting rich women while the feather-fingered artists amongst them rob them blind

kieran immediately baulks because that is an infantry uniform and he was in cavalry. karen is shocked he actually knows the difference

kieran rolls his eyes, does what he can to wash up while not being allowed to leave camp, and swaggers back in with a dapper, pressed uniform and newfound confidence

mary-beth hopelessly can't stop herself applauding. he is more stunning than she could have dreamed

karen and tilly, equally disgusted by the sheer enamor radiating off mary-beth, argue that he can't just look the part, he has to act the part for the con. which means charming

the bet? get arthur 'damned o'driscoll' morgan to give him a cigarette. no sneaking it out of his pocket, no sleight of hand, arthur must offer him a cigarette

kieran agrees

now, to their credit, the ladies did forget that arthur morgan is a very, very pathetic man. but they eavesdropped as kieran strutted over in his uniform, flashed a smile, and asked for a cigarette so sweetly, with so much confidence and faux charisma arthur actually laughed

it wasn't enough. arthur held out the cigarette packet. kieran bowed his head and took the filter between his teeth

mary-beth had never felt more rage. arthur is turning a unique shade of pink

they agree that good ol' sergent kieran is plenty charming, and he lights up at the brief praise so much mary-beth things she might faint all together. they tell him to keep the uniform and they'll let him know when they need him. kieran is begrudgingly relieved for a change of clothes, at least

arthur later goes up to hosea and asks what that was about. hosea explains. arthur frowns. ''when did we do that con???'