#but specifically death that’s not ?? fresh

[meanbossart]

Couldn't find if this has been asked about already, so I apologize if it has, but I was wondering what DU Drow's thoughts on Alfira were? If he had any specific thoughts upon meeting her and/or after having killed her, and if/more so, did she personally have an effect on DU Drow after her death, or did the act itself (less so the person) have the biggest effect?

I didn't find Alfira at the grove in DU drow's original playthrough, so his first time meeting her was when she popped into camp asking to join our band of scoundrels. This makes her come off as far more naive since she has no idea who the hell you are besides for "the guys who killed some goblins outside the gate". Since this was my first playthrough, I also had no clue that Alfira had an entire quest of her own, and so the character didn't stick very much in my mind despite how gory her fate was.

And so, DU drow's impression of her would have been similarly indifferent. Thing is, fresh off the nautiloid pod, DU drow feels a pretty profound disconnect with the people and world around him, his "good deeds" just amounting to what is practical and common-sense. His empathy had to kind of claw its way out of him throughout the course of the campaign.

Alfira's, Lae'zel's, and potentially-Halsin's deaths are a blimp in his memory by the time he starts to conceptualize of others as fully fleshed-out beings with thoughts and feelings. Alfira is a foolish young girl he remembers about every once in a while (at least for the first couple of years), but her face is a red blur and her place in the world was never of any consequence. If anything, he may occasionally lament that he had no presence of mind while they were "together"; she was kind of his last hurrah, after all. Had he known that, he would have seized the moment more thoroughly.

He's never said this to anyone, of course. He realizes this is an insane thought to have.

I know that the game implies that Alfira's death has left a lasting impact on The Dark Urge in their redemptive ending, but to be perfectly honest her death did not leave much of a mark on him at all in comparison to others. I'd say Karlach's and Yenna's had a far, far bigger impact - though that might go without saying, since he traveled with Karlach for so long and Yenna was a child who just so happened to show up when he was further along in his journey and hence, slightly less of a bastard.

Again, the whole "having difficulty with recognizing that other people are fully realized beings" thing plays a big part in this. He had no time to do that with Alfira.

[cosmerelists]

Nomad Rates Cosmere Planets

As requested by @endervexer :)

Nomad is always on the move--but if he had time to stop and rate Cosmere planets as if they were hotels (you know, rating how clean they are, what the accommodations are like, etc), what would those ratings look like?

1. Canticle (The Sunlit Man)

Place was pretty clean, as the ever-present burning of the sun constantly purified the land.

Food was mediocre. Needed spice.

Accommodations were pretty old and worn down, but clean.

People were polite but not overly friendly, which I count as a positive. Some of them tried to kill me, which I count as a negative.

Entertainment consisted of gladiatorial fights and/or public executions. You can also hear stories. The stories are about ghosts.

BTW, place is haunted.

Overall, 2/5.

2. First of the Sun (Sixth of the Dusk)

Note: I only had time to visit part of this planet. Specifically, the island jungle part.

I would not call it "clean." It is a jungle. It is full of death.

If you like your food fresh-caught and cooked over a fire, you will like the food here. I did not try much of the food, because I was mostly fleeing death.

Accommodations were sparse, unpleasant, and--you guessed it!--not very safe from death.

The people tended to be distrustful and prickly. I did not hold this against them. I was only there briefly, and I was prickly too.

Entertainment was mostly hunting and camping. Although I would not class it as "entertainment" as much as "necessary survival."

NOT an island vacation. 1/5 stars (one star because the chickens there were pretty)

3. Lumar (Tress of the Emerald Sea)

For a place in which water brings death, it was actually pretty clean. Not sparking, but clean enough.

I did not like the food much. Bland. Their sea chickens do not taste as good as land chickens, IMO.

Since most of planet seems to be oceans (NOT water-based), you will find yourself staying on ships if you stay on this planet. What do you want me to say? It's a ship. Even if you have a private cabin, it will be small. It was fine.

People were on the whole friendly but seemed unused to visitors. I don't think this spot is very popular.

Interesting place to sightsee. The oceans are all different colors. The lunagrees (moon aether waterfalls) are worth seeing.

Overall, 3/5

4. Nalthis (Warbreaker)

Planet was generally well kept up--dirty in the way that populated cities or vast snowy landscapes full of woods can be dirty, but nothing major.

Great if you like seafood. Worth seeking out ethnic neighborhoods within the big cities for better food.

Some parts of the planet have better accommodations than others. If you want to stay in a cabin and feel cold and depressed all the time, try Idris. If you want to be a warmer place and like seafood and way too much color, try Hallandren.

If you want culture & stuff to do, try Hallandren. We're talking sports, art, music, creepy statues, pretty much anything you can think of. I cannot emphasize enough that it too colorful though.

This place will take your breath away (just a little Nalthian humor).

4/5 I had to soak my eyes after.

5. Scadrial (Mistborn)

Saw lots of reviewers saying that planet is the dirtiest place they've ever been, what with the constant rain of deadly ash.

Not my experience. Place was admittedly dusty in a "we love our cowboy aesthetic" kind of way, but they've clearly cleaned up since some of those earlier reviews.

Food was okay, but this seems to be more a place you go to drink. If you like whiskey, you will like Scadrial. Yeah I saw the review saying people drink perfume. Can't verify. Didn't see that.

Lots of places to stay, many of which are pleasant enough. If you happen to be speeding through the planet in fear of your life and the life of everyone you've ever cared about, then you'll be happy to hear that your options are many: horses, cars, trains, magic.

(I will ding them for their idiotic train system. Sometimes people don't WANT to go through the center on every trip.)

Entertainment options I saw: ride trains, see giraffes, drink, visit fast-food places, drink, visit the Field of Rebirth, shoot guns, drink.

4/5 I'm just not that into cowboys

6. Sel (Elantris)

Cleanliness varied from "sparkling silver city of the gods" to "battlefield awash in the blood of innocents." Definitely not the dirtiest place I've ever stayed.

Food was a highlight. You can get good spice here. Sweet things are also available for women/ardents.

On the whole, accommodations are solid. Good infrastructure, no weather actively trying to kill you, some places on planet not currently at war.

People can be aggressively religious, but if you avoid people in red armor, it's fine.

For entertainment, I can recommend sightseeing--go see the city of Elantris. It's worth it. Note: reviews complaining about zombies and sludge are old. Always check the date on reviews.

Overall 4/5

7. Taldain (White Sand)

The place has too much sand to be clean. I'm sorry but it has to be said.

The place has too much sand to have good food. I feel like it was always slightly...crunchy.

The accommodations are fine if you like sand.

The people always seem to be subtly wanting to prove that they're better than you. Sometimes it is not subtle. I guess this is what happens when Autonomy is in charge.

If you want entertainment, try the Darkside.

Overall, 2/5 just not my favorite place.

8. Threnody (Shadows for Silence)

Place is quite clean.

Food is bland again. You cannot trust Threnodites to have good food.

Oh, also the place is full of ghosts who will murder you.

0/5

9. Komashi (Yumi and the Nightmare Painter)

Can verify that place is no longer infested by deadly nightmares seeking your death. Travelers no longer need to seek out the few pockets of warmth and light in the sea of encroaching darkness. It's a pretty normal planet now.

Food is pretty good. Ramen place in Kilahito (Noodle Princess) is a highlight.

Good accommodations, tech-wise. Heating, lighting, hion-viewers. If you need that stuff to feel comfortable, not a bad place to visit.

If you're not actively on the run, there is plenty to do, from watching your shows to attending local festivals or art installations, to star gazing.

Pleasant place, these days. 5/5

10. Roshar

Note: I'm from here so my review may be biased.

Can't say planet is very clean. It's always at war, and the rain is full of crem.

Food varies. Soulcast food is not very good. Non-soulcast homemade food is great! (Most food is soulcast.)

Accommodations matter--try to stay in a building that is sturdy on both the east & the west side because the storms here do want to kill you. That is not entirely a metaphor. Are the accommodations nice? I mean, they're fine.

There is a lot to do here if you like war. There is a lot of war.

5/5 This place sucks and I miss it a lot.

[eris-snow]

10. 𝐏𝐫𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐲 𝐏𝐢𝐜𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞𝐬

Tags: bakugoux fem!reader, juxtaposition, angst,fluff

A lead after lead, questions that lead to more questions. See the unseen, find what has been lost. If you search for memories, what must you then see?

28 February

“Kacchan, you’re unfocused.” Izuku frowns, One For All crackling with energy. The green-haired’s face is scrunched up with concern, and Katsuki has to physically tell himself to remain still at that.

How do you tell someone what the issue is when they’re just going to forget it anyway?

See the unseen, find what has been lost.

Yeah, no freaking duh, thanks a lot, Saito, that explains a crap ton.

That evening home with you was one of the quietest he’s seen you. So quiet, he has to focus to remember you’re side.

When he concentrates, however, there’s the faint yellow skein he found winding across the library that started this all.

It coils around you and leads the both of you back to U.A, nothing more specific, nothing less.

Some help it was, he thinks bitterly.

If everybody forgets, nobody remembers.

You’d said yourself, and you were right. Nobody remembers you, he’s the only one who notices you, and you have less than a year left to go.

He’s all you got.

“Kacchan?” Izuku’s voice breaks him out of his trance, and Katsuki straightens his body and winds up his arm again, sweat pooling in his palms.

“I’m fine, nerd. Don’t worry about it.”

1 March

See the unseen, find what has been lost.

It takes Katsuki little time to find out what the latter part means.

“My memories” He pointed out. “They’re still gone.”

Saito got his immediately after his dead best friend told him the truth, while Katsuki still didn’t have a clue about how you met from his own perspective.

“Any idea on the former?” You ask, swinging your legs back and forth with your hands perched on the piano seat at your sides. It’s as if you’re completely unbothered by being on death’s door, when Katsuki knows it’s the complete opposite. He snorts.

“You should know better about this than me. You’re the one with memories.”

You’re the one under this curse.

Katsuki watches you think pensively for a few moments, before you shake your head. “Can’t think of any. Unless you mean our professor’s words of ‘reading between the lines’ for all our scores.”

“Professor?”

“We went for piano lessons together, remember? We were under the same teacher. He’s the one who got us to start dueting our pieces.”

Yeah, this phenomenon seems pretty clear about its attachment to just the Target and the Saviour, Katsuki thinks dismissively. The both of you will have to figure it out in due time.

He looks at your face, and realises you have that expression again. The one you have every time you’re swimming with happy memories encapsulating your perfect past, before the phenomenon, before 14. It makes part of his heart ache (no it doesn’t, you shut up), because it means that somewhere in there, he’s supposed to be there, too.

He’s supposed to know.

He’s supposed to remember.

But he doesn’t.

“Tell me about your childhood,” He blurts impulsively. You give him an amused look, as if he’d just shitted sprinkles.

“I mean, us.” He corrects with caution. “You think about it all the time, but you never tell me about it.”

You give him a wry smile, and your voice is a breath of fresh air as you heed his words.

“It’s silly because it’s all so mundane. Those assignments we used to group up on, the bentos you shared with me and the songs we played, all of it. It was a lightning in a bottle window of my life that I didn’t appreciate until it was all gone.”

You don’t stop. He doesn’t ask you to stop. In fact, the more he listens, the better picture he gets of the two of you.

Pieces in his mind are reshuffling, reforming, breaking down and building up every time he interacts with you because there’s always so much he doesn’t know.

You and him, skipping stones and seeing who could get it to go the furthest, because unlike stupid Deku at that time, you were a worthy opponent. You would wind your hand up and throw, trade techniques with each other like it was forbidden blueprints. Always aiming for something better, always trying to outplay each other.

You and him, sitting on the rickety piano outside a mall in its prime. Smiles and laughs but also brows knit in concentration because both of you were dead set on playing the pieces perfectly. Every note, every timing, every beat.

You and him, sitting on the rooftops and him sharing half his bento to you, because you know he’d always have a portion for you. Under the sunshine, just as warm and bright as your smile.

Now that the photograph has been taken, albeit over years back, he must admit.

It is a pretty picture.

—

7th March

Maybe it’s the phenomenon, but if Katsuki was being brutally honest, you’re one of the dullest people he’s ever met.

The things you talk about are mundane, simple, as if the war never happened, as if villains were the least of your concerns.

They probably were. A question you couldn’t solve, your considerations for new cacti (he needs to make a mental note to give you the one he got awhile back.), if he looks at you, squints at you, you’d be his definition of an extra.

However, now he finds that it’s not necessarily a bad thing.

“You’re terrible at making small talk,” He tells you midway through his essay, not even pausing to look up.

You grow quiet, and almost shrink into yourself. Well, fuck him too, honestly, if he didn’t want you to talk then you won’t—

“Why’d you stop?” Katsuki glances up, eyes meeting yours.

You shoot him a glare, and he shrugs. “I didn’t say it was bad, idiot. Continue.”

“You probably have bigger problems than my stupid—”

“You were talking about shitstain that forgot your order at Mc Donalds the other day. I’m listening, L/n.” He scoffs, turning back to his paper. “And yeah, you have every right to be angry. I’d be too.”

Sometimes, you wonder why you even liked him in the first place.

And it’s times like this that make you question why you wonder that at all.

—

17th March

Katsuki squints at the yellow skein, flicking it as he watches it coil around the corner of his class door and wind to outside of the hallway

“Oh, and one more thing. That yellow thread you mentioned? It’s a guide, so follow it.”

“Mine was blue, but that isn’t the point. It led me too.”

Yeah, some advice that was. All it did was lead them back into the hall, where you always were. “I get it,” He growls, coiling the string around his finger and tugging. “It involves Y/n to break the phenomenon she’s under. Brilliant insight, just brilliant.”

The string, obviously but infuriatingly, does not respond.

A jacket, a cherry blossom tree, and pianos.

Those were his hallucinations, and those were their best leads.

See the unseen, find what has been lost.

Find his memories, and see…something. Could it get any more cliche?

The bell rings, and he stands up quickly and escapes from the back door before anybody can intercept him. He’d managed to snag the keys to the storage unit the old hag keeps all his old things. Not sentimental his ass, that woman can deny it all she wants, but she’s a hoarder when it comes to clothes.

Especially Katsuki’s.

You’re already waiting by the gate when he arrives, and you flash him a smile and a wave.

He smirks back, already striding out of the gate. He dangles the keys from between his fingers, watching your expression shift to determination with a touch of hopefulness. “Ready?”

You take a deep breath and reply. “I am.”

“Let’s find that jacket.”

244 Days Until Death.

-----

Taglist:

@genderfluid-anime-goth

[kittenchannumberonefan]

//This is an RP account dedicated to one Ren Hana from Boyfriend to Death 2: Fresh Blood, written by @shocked-collar. (24 yrs old.) Absolutely 18+ ONLY, all minors to be blocked immediately upon discovery.

//Despite written and portrayed like an actual page, like an actual person, this is just a character I'm playing and nothing said or done concerns real events or situations.

//Anything relating to pedophilia, incest, bestiality, scat, or vore will be ignored. Mun is not always the most active. I am not ignoring you, my battery is just low. DM's absolutely need to be specific. Use an indicator to speak to me, otherwise Ren will respond.

//Screamo's eyes are very bad and can not handle excessive color or

text like this

so please refrain from fancy-typing with me.

//Ren is absolutely fucking disgusting and I (Screamo) do not agree with or condone any of his beliefs or behaviors. Take this as your content warning before following. Specific list;

violence, sex, rape, human and animal cruelty and death, necrophilia, childhood trauma and family trauma, extreme self-harm, severe stockholm syndrome, abuse and abuser romanticization, sexual, verbal, and physical harassment and assault, stalking, suicide idealization, objectification, and your basic blood and gore and swearing. Safest to just assume there is more to be seen and this blog is not safe.

[bacchuschucklefuck]

dreaming abt sophomore year class swap bard!riz

[daydreamerdrew]

Captain America (1968) #110 and Captain America: Reborn (2009) #4

[iniziare]

Inquisitor: The Evanuris were elven mages? How did they come to be remembered as gods? Solas: Slowly. It started with a war. War breeds fear. Fear breeds a desire for simplicity. Good and evil. Right and wrong. Chains of command. After the war ended, generals became respected elders, then kings, and finally gods. The Evanuris. Inquisitor: You said that the elven gods went too far. What did they do that made you move against them? Solas: They killed Mythal. (Chuckles.) A crime for which an eternity of torment is the only fitting punishment. Inquisitor: I thought Mythal was one of the Evanuris? Solas: She was the best of them. She cared for her people. She protected them. She was a voice of reason. And in their lust for power, they killed her.

You know, sometimes I wonder about him in regards to Mythal. Not only over how intensely he struck down those who slayed her (and the severe repercussions thereof, even if he didn't realize they'd occur as they did), but the sheer conviction he holds in regards to the future. He banished the Evanuris, and in doing so, single-handedly brought devastation to his people, and Mythal's, leaving their descendants scarred and 'weak', shadows of their former selves. But it's the 'and Mythal's' that gets me. He 'avenged' her and in turn, became the 'undoing' of the elven civilization she'd loved and protected above all?

Inquisitor: That's the past. What about the future? Solas: (...) My people fell for what I did to strike the Evanuris down, but still some hope remains for restoration. I will save the Elven people, even if it means this world must die.

[nexility-sims]

🌷

[caterjunes]

we're gonna put our rats up for adoption at the animal rescue. things are. bad. we can't keep their cage clean. grayson gets exhausted taking them out to play and i rarely join bc i just feel empty or disgusted or i start sobbing or wind up in pain or exhausted myself. so they don't get the amount of human interaction they deserve/need.

i feel awful about it. i feel sick. i don't know the last time i've felt like such an abject failure. not just as a person responsible for small lives but as a partner. grayson gets such joy from these boys, and they are so sweet to us too. i just. i can't even take care of myself. it isn't fair. it's not fair.

[tortoisesshells]

Dark Shadows: 58, 112, 67, 126 & Moby-Dick Ch. 7 "The Chapel"

[longagoitwastuesday]

*reading a thesis about the evolution of the concept of infinity in China with a large amount of tabs open with diverse articles or word combinations to further look for information, all the while seething, blood boiling* I wish Satoru Gojo would fucking cease to exist

[nattousan]

have you smashed something to bits with a rock today?

for your health?

[pumpkinrootbeer]

sometimes I think about how the game that completely changed how the general public viewed pixel rpgs, has a breathtaking soundtrack that has completely escaped it's original circle, has lines like "It's you!" "Despite everything it's still you", changed so many people's mind about empathy in video games, was damn near revolutionary in how it used game mechanics as part of the story and literally fucked with the code of your computer, uses the game code as a means of storytelling, has secrets people still are trying to unravel to this day, and has a boss fight so mind-blowing people still talk about it and for so many people it's ongoing legacy is Kanye West likes...., selfcest, and that time it killed the queen of England. And I love that. good job team

[agnesmontague]

#we need more education in critical thinking

without meaning to single out this tag poster (i don't think you're wrong, necessarily!), i did want to highlight a common frustration that i've seen stated a lot around here but that i believe bears repeating: it's not so much that i think people are unable to think critically or lack critical thinking skills (and the term itself has deteriorated into a sort of shorthand for "capability to reach the same conclusions as me"), because a lot of the time these people ARE thinking critically when they look at a piece of media and recognize what they believe to be signs of the author's biases or shortcomings. the problem is what they then decide to do about it

personally i'm not fully of the opinion that the internet itself has meaningfully changed our behavior as a species, because the concept of angry letters to the author (and worse) has been around for as long as there have been authors and letters to send them, but it can't be denied that the wombo combo of easier access to authors' mailboxes via social media and the constant push to self-market on the part of the creators has made for an unprecedented era of interactions and a great deal of it--dare i say most of it!--has Not been Good; and even apart from all value judgment this has certainly shifted the paradigm of The Audience as a concept. so, like, i would say the problem runs more deeply than people simply not having the requisite critical thinking skills but rather concerns more what an audience member decides to do with their agency, and that is definitely something that could be addressed in classes/opportunities to teach critical thinking

it's not that left-leaning Online folk have suddenly or even gradually regressed to an era of victorian sensibilities where they fully believe that bad things in fiction = bad things irl, i've rarely seen even the most uncultured of take-havers argue for monkey see monkey do (except that one blogger who thought anyone who enjoys horror is a damaged freak—special shoutout to you forever!); it's more that people have gotten hubristically confident in their ability to "clock" bad faith or dress a portrait of the author/creator/artist beneath their work when such assumptions can be false or even dangerous. yes, sometimes a person's work will put their biases and prejudice on display. sometimes people will be chronically unable to write women, to make characters of color sound human, etc, but somehow that (still fairly surface) level of engaging with a work has become the excuse we all use to tear down the veil between author and audience and drag people through extremely damaging interrogations of intent

even worse, everyone professing critical ability online has been able to find at least a niche clutch of others who got "bad vibes" from something and end up cruising through this vibes-based economy fueled by their echo chamber of angry fault-finders, resulting in critique that has no real literary or sociological value but sounds just well-dressed enough in critical language that it becomes someone else's metric for evaluation and even creation, which is how we get swathes of grown adults rallying against benign children's media or 200 "queer fiction" podcasts that all sound like they got mashed through a therapist's office to avoid precisely this type of senseless audience violence

[rozanallidawi]

Hello guys

I am Rozan Ayman Fathi, 24 years old

I ask you to read these lines and help me so that I can save my family

Consisting of 7 individuals

I live with my beloved family in the Gaza Strip, specifically in Gaza City. When the war began, we were displaced from our dear home and dearest to my heart to tents in the city of Rafah (we do not know whether it is still standing or whether it was demolished by bombings and shelling). We were always moving from one shelter to another seeking shelter. For protection, and when Rafah was invaded, we were displaced and moved again to tents in Mawasi Khan Yunis. We were very tired, especially my mother, as she is sick with diabetes and gallstones.

Life in a tent is torment, pain, and oppression, a life without the minimum necessities of life, where there is no bedding, no flooring, sand surrounds you from all sides, no sanitary facilities, no water, whether for bathing or cleaning, and no drinking water. There are no detergents. Canned food is scarce and of poor quality

We miss fresh food,

Very high temperatures inside and outside the tent

The spread of dangerous infectious diseases, insects, toxic organisms, and other difficult matters of life, in addition to the danger of bombing and death that lurks around us every minute..

[imsobadatnicknames2]

ok but i need the evrart claire essay

Okay just be warned that this is gonna be less of an "essay" and more of a loose collection of thoughts, and I don't know how fresh or novel any of these ideas are going to be when it pertains to popular Disco Elysium fan discourse because I don't really do fandom, you know?

Anyway, I think the most obvious factet of Evrart's character is how he very intentionally calls to mind a caricature of corrupt union leaders, the image of a sleazy mobster who only cares about his own personal gain but pays lip service to leftist politics and pretends to care about the interests of workers as a way to obtain and maintain his power. And I think a lot of people straightforwardly read him as such, because that's the way he carries himself and the type of character the game is riffing on. There's also the question of how much of Evrart's manipulative, duplicitous attitude is just how he normally acts and how much of it is him specifically acting that way towards Harry and Kim specifically, it's important to have in mind that your main character is a cop and that would definitely play a role in making Evrart go out of his way to be a bit more of a bastard and toy with you a bit before he decides to actually do anything helpful.

However, once you dig a little deeper into his characterization, it becomes clear that he's pulling a very interesting double bluff, because it becomes apparent that the shady mobster who only cares about his personal gain is an act he's putting on. He's very self-aware about the fact that he's playing the villain, he seems to actively revel in it, but ultimately, it seems like he does it because playing the villain is the way he gets shit done.

This is not to say he's not actually corrupt, or that he's not ALSO involved in all sorts of shady stuff and taking advantage of his position of power, but the game does make it apparent that on some level he DOES have the interests of the people of Martinaise at heart.

For example, it is textually stated that the harbor doesn't need a night watchman, and Evrart created the position specifically to provide a source of income for René. He knows the pension Rene gets is not enough for him to live on, but he's also aware that René is the sort of right-wing guy who would rather starve to death than take a handout (especially from those dirty union commies), so Evrart created a job position which pretty much involves doing nothing for a few hours every night so he could help him with his economic troubles in a way he wouldn't refuse out of principle. René hates his guts, ideologically stands against everything his organization represents, and is generally an unlikeable asshole and a fascist prick, but he's also a disadvantaged member of the community and that seems to matter more.

Even when he asks you to get the signatures to build the community center, which is definitely one of the most morally questionable things he does during the events of the game (as it will improve the community, but at the same time displace the people from the fishing village), his intentions seem to be ultimately good. Due to the very nature of his character and the act he puts on, it's purposefully hard to tell when he's being sincere and when he's being manipulative. However, if Harry's drama and empathy skills are high enough when he's confronted about it, you'll be able to tell that he's not lying about his motives for wanting to build a community center or about the fact that he intends to provide better housing for the people displaced by the project, and that he feels genuine rage about their current living conditions. It can still be said that he's ignoring their self-determination and essentially forcing these people out of their current homes, but he does seem to have good intentions and think he's doing a good thing for them in the long run, even if his methods are morally questionable at best.

In that way, the Union is an extension of him in this regard too. They're pretty unapologetic about the fact that they're openly operating as a crime syndicate, but the game doesn't give you any reasons to believe they're lying when they say they're doing it as a way to muslce out all the more dangerous gangs and crime organizations out of Martinaise, or that their involvement in the drug trade is at least partially motivated by a desire to make sure it's not controlled by more dangerous and violent crime organizations. Again, they're playing the villain as a way to fill that power vacuum and make sure more dangerous people don't fill that role (but of course, that doesn't erase the fact that, noble as their intentions may be, they're still involved in all these shady activities and turning a pretty substantial profit from them too)

Of course, on the other hand, just because the game seems to hint at the fact that Evrart and the Union are, deep down, a force for good, doesn't erase the fact that he's done plenty of bad shit to further his interests, and the game doesn't shy away from this. He's still extremely corrupt, his long-term plan to wrestle control of the harbor away from the company and turn it into a worker-owned operation (which *would* massively improve the material conditions of the dockworkers if succesful) involves endangering the lives of a lot of his own workers, he and his brother Edgar pass the position of union foreman back and forth between each other to circumvent the term limit and keep themselves in power indefinitely, and if you explore all dialogue options with the Deserter it's all but explicitly stated that they rose to power by getting him to assassinate the previous Union forewoman.

These are things that Evrart himself would probably rationalize as sacrifices that need to be made for the greater good. After all, it is implied that the previous union forewoman was also corrupt, except in favor of the company's interests, and might have even been a company plant. However, this doesn't make those things morally right. Good intentions nonwithstanding, it's clear that the Claire brothers are very "the ends justify the means" kind of people, they probably see getting the previous Union leader killed or endangering the lives of the dockworkers to overthrow the company that exploits them as "pulling the lever" in the trolley problem, which is extremely callous at best.

Here's where we get a little more into "disjointed thoughts" territory, but Evrart can also be seen as a critique of the limits of trade unionism and social democrat politics. Something that I completely missed in my first playthrough but was able to catch on during my second is that the people of the fishing village refuse to unionize, and as a result they don't get the same level of support and protection that the union provides to the people of the more urban section of Martinaise. This is apparently widely known enough for characters other than Evrart to comment on (I forget what character I learned this from, but it was definitely not Evrart). So it's clear that Evrart and the Union put their interests of the members of their own organization over those of other working class people, which is one criticism that can be leveraged against the way a lot of leftists seem to treat unions as the ultimate tool for worker class liberation.

Similarly, when Evrart tells you his long-term plans, it's clear that his ultimate goals don't involve complete worker liberation. As far as the game shows, he's a socdem who's still looking to work within the confines of capitalism. There are more radically left wing characters in Disco Elysium, but Evrart is the only one with any actual power to affect change, which kinda speaks to the lack of presence of more hardline leftist positions in mainstream politics. As someone living in Latin America, I kinda ended up seeing a bit of a lot of our currrent socdem politicians in him in that respect, I guess, but i'd need more time to articulate this thought properly, I guess.

Ultimately, I think Evrart is an amazingly crafted character. He evokes a well-known archetype of a shady, corrupt, power-hungry union leader, but he adds a lot of depth, self-awareness, and nuance to it and subverts that characterization in several ways. I think he atually serves an important role of ideologically challenging players who share the developers' and writers' political leanings. I think it would have been very self-congratulatory and autocomplacent to make the most influential leftist character in the game an unambiguously good paragon of workers' rights and working class liberation. By instead giving us someone who's an absolute callous bastard who definitely has a bit of blood on his hands, who's a socdem at best and a self-serving mob boss at worst, but can ultimately be interpreted as a force for good, and asking the players to decide what they think of him I think it brings interesting questions to the table of our commitment to material gains, what sorts of people we're willing to work with, and the sort of acts we're willing to tolerate, and makes the game a lot more thematically rich.

I also think a good analysis of Evrart is incomplete without an analysis of the ways in which he serves a a charater foil for Joyce, but I don't feel like getting into that rn.